Commanding Chaos for Coworking, Open Source and Creative Communities

battideas

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

Thu, 01/23/2014 - 07:43 -- rprice

dubbed Zipf's law, the rank vs. frequency rule also works if you apply it to the sizes of cities. The city with the largest population in any country is generally twice as large as the next-biggest, and so on. Incredibly, Zipf's law for cities has held true for every country in the world, for the past century.

battideas
rethinkingthecity
math

A mysterious law that predicts the size of the world's biggest cities

Thu, 01/23/2014 - 07:43 -- rprice

dubbed Zipf's law, the rank vs. frequency rule also works if you apply it to the sizes of cities. The city with the largest population in any country is generally twice as large as the next-biggest, and so on. Incredibly, Zipf's law for cities has held true for every country in the world, for the past century.

battideas
rethinkingthecity
math

Technology Fuels New Police Cruiser - WSJ.com

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 12:00 -- rprice

The smart car prototype has been on the road for about a year and is based out of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn Heights. The idea came about as the NYPD looked for ways to connect intelligence gathered in the field with the department's new system that compiles raw data, video feeds and other information, then alerts officials to potential incidents and maps where crimes occur. The system is already at police headquarters, and will soon be in each precinct and command around the city.

battideas
technology

Technology Fuels New Police Cruiser - WSJ.com

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 12:00 -- rprice

The smart car prototype has been on the road for about a year and is based out of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn Heights. The idea came about as the NYPD looked for ways to connect intelligence gathered in the field with the department's new system that compiles raw data, video feeds and other information, then alerts officials to potential incidents and maps where crimes occur. The system is already at police headquarters, and will soon be in each precinct and command around the city.

battideas
technology

The Secret Second Lives of Pizza Huts - Sarah Goodyear - The Atlantic Cities

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:56 -- rprice

For Pittsburgh resident Mike Neilson, proprietor of Used to Be a Pizza Hut, the iconic hump-roofed structure brings back happy memories of growing up the 1980s in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Back then, Pizza Hut pizza was "the de facto standard," he says, to be eaten while playing tabletop Pac Man games. A few years ago, Neilson moved to Pittsburgh, where he works at a company that develops mobile apps. He immediately noticed that when people in his new home gave directions, they often used bygone landmarks to guide the way.

history
rethinkingthecity
battideas
cities
real_estate

The Secret Second Lives of Pizza Huts - Sarah Goodyear - The Atlantic Cities

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:56 -- rprice

For Pittsburgh resident Mike Neilson, proprietor of Used to Be a Pizza Hut, the iconic hump-roofed structure brings back happy memories of growing up the 1980s in the suburbs of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Back then, Pizza Hut pizza was "the de facto standard," he says, to be eaten while playing tabletop Pac Man games. A few years ago, Neilson moved to Pittsburgh, where he works at a company that develops mobile apps. He immediately noticed that when people in his new home gave directions, they often used bygone landmarks to guide the way.

history
rethinkingthecity
battideas
cities
real_estate

The Daily Dot - This is an actual academic paper about tracking time travelers online

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:27 -- rprice

In addition to looking for evidence of time travelers online, the researchers also reached out to any potential time travelers directly by writing a post on an online message board asking people from the future to tweet using one of two pre-specified hashtags before a certain date that had already occurred. The hashtags (#ICanChangeThePast2 and #ICannotChangeThePast2) were aimed at letting time travelers tell the researchers about the nature of time travel and whether actions taken while traveling in the past can change events in the future.

battideas
social_media
analytics
data_science

The Daily Dot - This is an actual academic paper about tracking time travelers online

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:27 -- rprice

In addition to looking for evidence of time travelers online, the researchers also reached out to any potential time travelers directly by writing a post on an online message board asking people from the future to tweet using one of two pre-specified hashtags before a certain date that had already occurred. The hashtags (#ICanChangeThePast2 and #ICannotChangeThePast2) were aimed at letting time travelers tell the researchers about the nature of time travel and whether actions taken while traveling in the past can change events in the future.

battideas
social_media
analytics
data_science

Why Audio Never Goes Viral

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:08 -- rprice

“Audio never goes viral,” writes radio and podcast producer Nate DiMeo. “If you posted the most incredible story — literally, the most incredible story that has ever been told since people have had the ability to tell stories, it will never, ever get as many hits as a video of a cat with a moustache.” It’s hardly a fair fight, audio vs. cat video, but it’s the one that’s fought on Facebook every day. DiMeo’s glum conclusion is an exaggeration of what Giaever reads as the moral of her own story: “People will watch a bad video more than [they will listen to] good audio,” she says.

audio
Radio
podcasting
battideas

Why Audio Never Goes Viral

Wed, 01/22/2014 - 11:08 -- rprice

“Audio never goes viral,” writes radio and podcast producer Nate DiMeo. “If you posted the most incredible story — literally, the most incredible story that has ever been told since people have had the ability to tell stories, it will never, ever get as many hits as a video of a cat with a moustache.” It’s hardly a fair fight, audio vs. cat video, but it’s the one that’s fought on Facebook every day. DiMeo’s glum conclusion is an exaggeration of what Giaever reads as the moral of her own story: “People will watch a bad video more than [they will listen to] good audio,” she says.

audio
Radio
podcasting
battideas

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - battideas