Some friends have mentioned that when they traveled to Malaysia some traffic light intersections already have "countdown timers". A quick search netted the following which Singaporeans were obviously discussing the implementation in their land:
Quoting one response...:
"...Over a period of one year, we found that the effect of the countdown timer was only felt during the initial four months of the trial, that is, there was a reduction in the number of vehicles beating the red light.[emphasis added] Following that, we found that motorists' behaviour had reverted to when the countdown timer was not installed."
Food for thought nonetheless, it would be nice to see this put in place in the 1st world. Let's bring traffic signaling into the 21st century. I can imagine countdown timers in conjunction with cameras would definitely cut down on red-light-runners.
While we might think that TV has the potential to show 6 times as much information, it begs the question "Has television content gotten 6 times better in the last 15 years?"
The Sexagesimal system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral (base-60) for time is common the world over, it is a standard whether you're in downtown New York or at a waterhole in Timbuktu. The fact is the common unit of time is a standard, and is all based on the SI unit for time, the second.
The argument for metric is not that it is sorely based on base-10 arithmetic, but that it is based on a standard that would enable inter-operability of the different units. Metric paper is not based on decimals, but on ratios. So your point about "handy" doesn't hold when you take into consideration the lack of consistency when you talk of the different fractions of units for length, mass, or volume.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.onemotoring.com.sg/publish/onemotoring/ en/lta_information_guidelines/faqs/other_faqs/traf fic_management.html#MainPar_0009
Quoting one response...:
"...Over a period of one year, we found that the effect of the countdown timer was only felt during the initial four months of the trial, that is, there was a reduction in the number of vehicles beating the red light.[emphasis added] Following that, we found that motorists' behaviour had reverted to when the countdown timer was not installed."
Another good (albeit a few years old now) discussion can be found here...s g?msg_id=0000O7&topic_id=1
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-m
Food for thought nonetheless, it would be nice to see this put in place in the 1st world. Let's bring traffic signaling into the 21st century. I can imagine countdown timers in conjunction with cameras would definitely cut down on red-light-runners.
Or when he can pronounce (let alone, spell) "Denmark".
While we might think that TV has the potential to show 6 times as much information, it begs the question "Has television content gotten 6 times better in the last 15 years?"
The Sexagesimal system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral (base-60) for time is common the world over, it is a standard whether you're in downtown New York or at a waterhole in Timbuktu. The fact is the common unit of time is a standard, and is all based on the SI unit for time, the second.
The argument for metric is not that it is sorely based on base-10 arithmetic, but that it is based on a standard that would enable inter-operability of the different units. Metric paper is not based on decimals, but on ratios. So your point about "handy" doesn't hold when you take into consideration the lack of consistency when you talk of the different fractions of units for length, mass, or volume.
Surveyors would disagree :)
i.e.
Survey Inch = 25.40000508 mm
http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch