Gongol.com Archives: January 2020
January 30, 2020
Light rail, streetcars, subways, and more
Wacky idea: Urban rail systems should primarily be designed around sets of interlocking circles, like Olympic rings. Linear transportation systems tend to encourage higher density close to the central city alone, with lower densities farther afield. If raising density overall is considered to be a "good" for metropolitan design, then interlocking circular paths would seem to be a better way of discouraging light density at the "end of the line". If you don't want sprawl, then you should program anti-sprawl into the design.
Coronavirus "will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America", says Sec. Wilbur Ross
This is the equivalent of saying "The hurricane is going to give a real boost to construction spending". It's not helpful to sound like you're trying to put a positive spin on something that remains a disaster.
"Dramatic footage as Australian firefighters escape seconds before wildfire engulfs area"
(Video) Somehow, the sensational headline isn't even quite sensational enough to capture what happens in the video. The first-hand look at a firestorm is utterly heart-stopping.
BBC Radio 4 claims an 11% audience share in the UK
Interesting: It's virtually all programming based on people talking ("speech programming"), but it's nothing much like "talk radio" in the same sense as we have in America. And yet it's #2 in the UK's ratings.
The pink (magenta?) color emanating from a T-Mobile store at night makes it look like the store is doused in radiation...and all passersby, too.
Fly-by-wire meets takeoff-by-AI
Airbus says they tested an autonomous jet takeoff in December. Human pilots sat in the seats, but the computers did all the work.
