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Pedestrians vs Bikes

August 19th, 2011

Ever since I started biking in Central Park, I’ve been formulating my opinion of pedestrians.

For one–I’m just going to get this off my chest–I am increasingly frustrated by pedestrians who think they are entitled to just cross the street and bikers will slow down for them. I think it has to do with the sense of entitlement mostly because of the mixture of stubbornness and madness displayed on their faces; but also–let’s face it–surely they wouldn’t have done the same for a large ass truck heading their way.

In general, I found myself being less and less patient with pedestrians (I do, however, try to differentiate between those who just don’t pay attention and those who jaywalk to spite me). I used to slow down, later just swerve to avoid them. Now I’m pushing it more and more, engaging in this terrible game of chicken. I think, deeply, nobody wants to be run over by a cyclist (while the cyclist would definitely be injured and the bike damaged, the damage to the pedestrian is greater by simple laws of physics and the pedestrians must–let’s hope–understand that intuitively).

Crosswalks are interesting in Central Park. While they are accompanied by traffic lights, both pedestrians and cyclists seem to ignore them by and large. My take on this is very simple: a crosswalk gives the cyclists the obligation to be more careful (it’s like a flashing amber light for regular traffic). A crosswalk with the walk signal for pedestrians gives the pedestrians right of way, by which I mean a pedestrian should feel to be in control of his or her pace in crossing the intersection in order to cross safely. In other words, a pedestrian should not have to hurry half way through the intersection because otherwise a racing cyclist hits him or her; a pedestrian should be allowed to slow down or speed up. The pedestrian is in control. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the cyclist needs to stop at the crosswalk. So long as the cyclist ensures he or she is not on a collision course (with adequate buffer to account for a reasonable change in the pedestrian’s behavior), he or she can cycle through the intersection even when the pedestrian has a walk signal.

This rule is symmetric, of course. A cross with the don’t walk signal for pedestrians gives cyclists the right of way. A cyclist should not have to swerve or slow down in order to avoid hitting a pedestrian, but a pedestrian is welcome to cross if he or she is careful not to get in the way of a cyclist, taking into account a reasonable change in the cyclist’s behavior.

I like this rule because it’s unambiguous and efficient (it’s impractical for all cyclists and pedestrians alike to stop at all such crosswalks). Similarly, it does give the pedestrian a slight edge (cyclists must be careful around crosswalks) which seems fair given the prevalent opinion about relative rights of pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicle operators.

Now, if only I got everyone to listen to me and actually behave accordingly…

Posted in The Daily Badness, human nature, reductions, things everyone should do | 1 Comment »

A Different Way to Teach Exact Sciences

July 19th, 2011

…Inexactly.

When I was at school, there was this time period when I found physics incredibly fun and interesting, and a time period when I found it painful and dull. Of course, the moments with experiments were by far more engaging than the moments with mathematics and equations, but I’m actually just thinking at the latter part — there were times when the formulas were beautifully simple and the results satisfying, and times when the calculations felt like drudgery, there were a plethora of formulae which I couldn’t intuit, and even the result didn’t “click” with me intuitively.

I attribute a large part of this lack of excitement over physics to excessive focus on algebra and symbolic manipulations. I consider myself fairly good at algebra, but I feel that even I would have benefited more from my physics tuition if I had thought of it less as an exercise pure math and more as a systemization of the physical world. I am not advocating for making physics less conceptual — quite the opposite — I want kids to understand that all things are connected, and that there are really very few rules that govern the world; that there is a kind of beauty to physics. I just don’t want to conflate this with a college dose of pure mathematics.

What is it precisely that I am advocating for?

What if we change the way we teach physics (and, while we’re at it, all exact sciences) to focus not on forcing kids to memorize all the formulas, which end up being derivatives of one another (but we don’t have the tools or the sophistication to know it), but on having them answer questions about the physical world by teaching them the few simple rules and equipping them with the tools to compute the answer, sacrificing the symbols along the way? In other words, I want to teach kids as few formulas as possible, instead showing them how they can transform these formulas numerically and compute the answer.

What I am proposing is no small matter. It means teaching the kids the concept of calculus (but without the heavy algebra behind it), and having them apply it in problems. Yes, they would be able to (numerically) integrate before they learned about exact solutions to quadratic equations, but why is this necessarily something to avoid?

I believe this would work for a number of reasons. First, while in the absence of sophisticated tools, checking the algebra was really the only fair way to evaluate students, these days we can follow the kids’ thought process even without any symbols. It is also satisfying to arrive at a tangible answer as both an apt metaphor for physics as a way to answer questions about the world, and something one can have an intuitive reaction to (“5″ is a much better answer to have an intuitive reaction to than “x^2+1, at 2″). It also decouples physics as an experimental science where theories are put in place and tested, from the mathematics behind the theories that can be daunting and distracting from the main point. And while I believe that symbolic manipulation is a great skill that drastically improves ones cognitive abilities, we still have mathematics that will teach it to the kids. And imagine the “aha” moment that kids will have once they realize that what they have been doing in math, transforming all these expressions, coming up with closed form solutions and exact answers, can enrich everything they have been doing in physics — using numerical calculus in application of a few very simple rules to arrive at the answers to problems.

By the way — it would be a sin to not recommend what I believe to be by far the most engaging, satisfying, and challenging physics textbook I have ever read: Motion Mountain. I wish I had had read it much earlier than I did (at 25). Motion Mountain is epic, in all the possible meanings of this word. Instead of focusing on hard math, it does its best to show me what physics is all about — the side of it that I was never shown in class. Its problems make me think (never recall), and, while you need to have a degree to take full advantage of it, I believe you can reach for it at an early age. In fact, it’s these “layers” that make the book so fascinating.

Go and read it now.

Posted in art, funny, things everyone should do | No Comments »

To See the Future

July 19th, 2011

If you could see the future, how would such an ability manifest itself? How would you describe “seeing” the future, especially given that the future is much less one image as a superposition of an infinite number of probable images? How do we take into account the “observer” effect — where the future of some events drastically depends on what the one seeing it decides to do in the next few seconds?

I imagine that seeing the future would be just like seeing in a classical sense, with a few exceptions. First, you could focus on some time in the future (just like you focus on a particular element in your field of vision) and that would reveal the state of reality in that point in the future. It would be pinpoint-, but not distance-accurate (just like focusing is): you can focus on a particular existing element well and almost instantaneously, no matter how close or far it is, but you couldn’t focus on an element at a particular distance. Similarly, when seeing the future, you would be able to focus on a particular event, but not necessarily on a particular point in time (and you would only know by and large what time this event is going to happen).

Moreover–and more importantly–possibilities in the future would manifest themselves as blurry spots. If something was a certainty, you would see it as sharp and distinct. If something was a possibility, it would blur with the other possible outcomes. For example, the sun rising tomorrow is a certainty so as you focus on the event of the run rising tomorrow you would see it sharp and distinct. But, say, your dog might be hit by a car in a week so it would appear in your visions of the subsequent future as blurry. The further out you “focus”, the more blurry it will be.

This model comes to a beautiful conclusion in the case of the above mentioned “observer” effect. As you focus on the future event that depends heavily on a decision you make, the details in the event will shift from blurry to more defined as you think more or less heavily of making one decision relative to the other. In a way, you will be able to “focus” your vision of the future by committing to certain decisions.

Posted in comparisons, feeling, puzzle, whatis | No Comments »

Pardon my reach

July 19th, 2011

When a waiter interrupts you drinking water to pour you more water.

I almost didn’t notice the ridiculousness of this situation.

Posted in The Daily Badness, funny | No Comments »

On Invisibility

June 2nd, 2011

So much in our society relies on some very fundamental (and seemingly sure) assumptions about the world and the rules that govern it. What if some of them ended up not being true?

For instance, we assume we can perceive the world as it is, on a macro scale. Let’s consider a simple thought experiment and suppose that a small group of people throughout the world had the ability to become invisible (and, say, affect the visibility of a small set of objects in their reach). What would the implications be? It is famously said that invisibility is never used for good, so with that in mind presumably what would be affected are societal standards, controls and guardrails; the sticks that ensure that our civilization doesn’t collapse in chaos.

We would have to seriously rethink security and the way we govern access. If I were invisible, I could board a plane very easily (staying out of the way of others would prove somewhat tricky, but I’m going to consider this a merely logistic problem rather than a fundamental one). I could walk past most security gates, likely only expect for those that use non-visual controls or ensure only one individual could pass the gate at once. Security would not only need to change; it would likely also have to be implemented in places where there normally isn’t any, as now the barrier for a breach is much higher. The world with invisibility would be a paranoid one.

What about other similar assumptions? How would the world change if we could suddenly teleport cheaply, safely and instantly to any place in the world? What if we could fly (have we built fences similar to what we build around turkeys)?

Posted in for reflection | No Comments »

Technology in Overdrive

May 18th, 2011

It’s easy to get blasé about it, but if you stop to think about it, technology truly is in overdrive.

If you subscribe to technology blogs, you’ll know what I mean — the sense of being bombarded by new technologies, tools, gadgets, advances, and ideas. If you don’t and you buy technology magazines, you’re out of the loop already because these magazines are obsolete the day they come out.

It seems that new generations of computers and phones come out every year (this is certainly true with Apple products). In fact, technology products are now designed to last a very short time — battery that you can’t replace, OS updates that cripple old hardware — as opposed to the years or even decades that old casette players or even first CD players (my dad is a proud owner of one of those) used to serve their owners.

New standards coming out and adopting the philosophy of more rapid change — HTML 5, for example, is now a rolling standard. This will very likely push software and hardware makers to iterate more on their products.

Technology is creating a world where you have to sprint all the time because if you don’t, you’ll get left behind. This is true for the product makers, but also for the customers.

But what has changed, really? Magazines were out of date before, too, but somehow nobody cared. Vendors had their release schedules that were mostly unaffected by the higher level products’ release schedules. It seems that we want to have the information available to us sooner, in some strange kind of arms race, almost like the high frequency trading companies or news corporations.

More rapid iterations may seem to be accelerating progress, which is a good thing, but they may also introduce much more noise to the system. We’ll be so consumed with consuming the latest that we’ll lose sight of where we’re going.

Posted in changes/cyclical, for reflection, retrospective, technology | No Comments »

Being Young

May 17th, 2011

Many people who are older than me gave me this piece of advice:

Take advantage of being young, especially a year or so after college. You have very few obligations and commitments, and you can devote large chunks of time on whatever moves you, whatever you are passionate about. Take risks, do things you’ve never done because the next good opportunity for that will be a few decades later and even then, you won’t want to take as many risks and you will not be in as good a physical and intellectual shape.

Posted in for reflection, pointers, things everyone should do | No Comments »

Elevator music (Part II)

May 16th, 2011

I think there are lots of ideas that seem good at a time (and perhaps are boosted by plenty of research) that become overimplement and thus abused, causing a reverse reaction. Two examples I was recently reminded of…

Elevator music. What was probably initially intended as a great measure to let the awkward time that total strangere spend in a claustrophobically small elevator pass more quickly, has become something I have a cynical reaction to (or one of disgust, more often). Worse, now not only elevators, but airplanes use it to, I guess, let the time pass better as I await take-off. While there may have been a study that shows that forgettable, mild music with no sharp tones, beats, minor chords or off-key notes is calming, its abuse defeats the purpose because it now becomes part of our collective subconsciousness.

Another example is the “no signal” screen that most projectors use is a pure blue screen. I heard somewhere that blue was chosen because it was relatively calming (curiously, the Windows crash screen is also a blue screen).

Of course, the blue projector screen may have been used for purposes different than psychological ones. Perhaps it was because blue is the primary color with the lowest luminance (a particular intensity of blue is three times less luminous than red, and six times less luminous than green) to ensure the bulb doesn’t burn out too easily. Of course, then my theory wouldn’t work — the abuse of blue screen doesn’t make it any more luminous — but if that was the only reason, I can think of a number of better screen-saving measures (for example, a less intense blue or a checkerboard pattern that would be impossible to mistake for blackness or an actual signal). So in a way, I hope I am right…

By the way — at first I didn’t even remember I already wrote about elevator music. I guess it truly is subconscious, after all.

Posted in The Daily Badness, human nature, products, technology | No Comments »

Which Number are You?

May 16th, 2011

Go down the list and stop once your answer is “no”.

  1. I would want to do something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
  2. I would want to devote a month of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
  3. I would want to devote a year of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
  4. I would want to devote twenty years of my life completely to something that would then save mankind from total destruction.
  5. I would want to do something that save mankind from total destruction but as I save mankind, I would need to die.
  6. I would want to die saving mankind even if people didn’t find out I did it until a hundred years later.
  7. I would want to die saving mankind even if there was a 50% chance that nobody would ever know I did it.
  8. I would want to die saving mankind even if nobody ever found out I did it.
  9. I would want to die saving mankind even if nobody ever knew mankind was in peril.
  10. I would want to die saving mankind even if everybody was convinced that a person Y did it.
  11. I would want to die saving mankind even if everybody was convinced that instead of saving mankind, I was the one that put it in peril.
  12. I would want to die saving mankind in all circumstances.

Posted in for reflection, human nature, lists, purpose, reductions | 2 Comments »

Comparisons vs Absolutes

May 15th, 2011

I make this mistake all the time. Instead of thinking of myself on an absolute scale, having standards that depend solely on what I think is right and wrong, acceptable and not acceptable, good and inadequate, I constantly compare myself to other people.

I guess it’s human nature, to see what’s around us and compare. After all, a comparison is a much easier operation to carry out than an absolute assessment — the latter requires a good mapping from reality to something more abstract while the former is simple pattern matching. But there are many problems with comparing myself to others: I may end up spending a lot of energy on something that is irrelevant to what matters to me; I don’t utilize people I compare myself to to help provide me leverage (just like they should use me to get leverage) and instead end up doing things inefficiently–double-doing either explicitly or implicitly through lack of information; I may also think I’m done (if the comparison tells me so) while in fact be far from achieving whatever goal I need to achieve.

I wish I thought of absolutes rather than in terms of comparisons.

Posted in comparisons, for reflection, human nature, things everyone should do | No Comments »

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