
The optimal road trip across the U.S. according to machine learning - ashish01
http://rhiever.github.io/optimal-roadtrip-usa/major-landmarks.html
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pyk
Careful -- this is only locally optimal! You can do better :). [1] is the
proven globally optimal solution of a very similar problem from one of the
foremost experts in the TSP, Bill Cook at U of Waterloo. It is solvable in
less than a second on your iPhone [2] -- yes your iPhone can solve a TSP to
"true" optimality.

[1]
[http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/tsp/usa50/road.html](http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/tsp/usa50/road.html)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/wjcook/status/575762813345480705](https://twitter.com/wjcook/status/575762813345480705)

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rtkwe
Also the route is just wrong at some points like the Delaware stop being 1+
hour south from where it's supposed to be due to Google Maps spitting out a
weird result for New Castle Historic District.

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Sanddancer
Very curious about the decision metric for "major landmark" here. The San
Benito County mark, for example, leads you to a dirt road in the middle of
nowhere, and the major point for Delaware is just Delaware. Neither of those
seem to fit a reasonable metric for a major landmark.

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coddingtonbear
Seconded; I mean: I can understand why somebody who was into nuclear tourism
might want to swing past the Hanford Site in Washington, but I'd bet that the
majority of Americans might rather steer clear.

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cdcarter
Hanford Site beating out the Space Needle for tourism is very interesting.

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WalterGR
If you're wondering why the route has some 'strange' segments (why get off
I-10 to head down Orlando way if you're going to drive to Jacksonville
later?):

The link goes to the "Major U.S. landmarks" road trip.

Other trips (including across Canada, South America, and Europe) are listed
here: [http://rhiever.github.io/optimal-roadtrip-
usa/](http://rhiever.github.io/optimal-roadtrip-usa/)

~~~
dalke
When it came out a few weeks back, I noticed that it went to the South Rim of
the Grand Canyon, which is the popular one. Going to the North Rim would save
over 100 miles of driving. To be sure, the South Rim has the better view.

It also can't be done in winter, as its route through Yellowstone isn't open
then.

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panic
What does "machine learning" mean here? How does the algorithm guarantee the
trip is optimal?

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JASchilz
In general, "machine learning" means that an algorithm did it, and that the
algorithm engages in some analysis of the problem space or the solution space.
Usually that analysis involves an iterative or repetitive element: making
several tries and modeling what makes a try good or bad, making a try and then
changing the solution tiny bits to find a try that's slightly better, etc. And
"good" or "bad" is determined according to a human-provided rubric (eg: +1000
points for every sight seen, -1 point for every mile driven, -10 points for
every day taken, etc.)

Unless the problem is very constrained, there usually is no guarantee of
optimality; here there is probably no guarantee of optimality. It might be
"locally" optimal, in that there might be no better trip that differs from
this one by only a tiny bit.

And, no, "machine learning" here doesn't mean the enterprise and establishment
of "Machine Learning", just some algorithm that the author used.

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idlewords
This is clearly not the optimal road trip, since it passes through Nebraska.

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vgabios
Also Indiana, for its eateries may now legally refuse to serve customers that
use machine learning for religous reasons.

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jpatokal
This is presumably not the intended parsing of that sentence, but "machine
learning for religious reasons" sounds like a great premise for a sci-fi
novel.

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vgabios
Expect 2015-2017 to have a number of AI/ML-themed movies as screenplays are
likely now making the rounds.

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stox
WTF! Skips Chicago? Made a huge detour for the Wright Bros.

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acconrad
And LA, San Diego, Seattle, Miami...basically every major city outside of the
north east (shy of Portland and San Francisco). Very strange indeed.

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andrenatal
Ok. Following this "algorithm", California coast it is not interesting.

I pass it.

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narrator
Yeah, and the Hanford Site in Washington is a tourist destination.

Pass!

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mceoin
The cable car museum? Ok, that makes sense for SF.
[http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/info.html](http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/info.html)

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j2kun
I'm being pedantic, but the problem being solved here is not a learning
problem, but a combinatorial optimization problem.

~~~
bengali3
agreed, but you're too early. The current buzzword your looking for to put in
your marketing material is 'Machine Learning'. Revisit 'Combinatorial
Optimization', possibly combined with 'Cloud' again in a few years.

Edit: hey great post of yours btw. [http://jeremykun.com/2014/09/29/hybrid-
images/](http://jeremykun.com/2014/09/29/hybrid-images/)

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jjp
Not clear to me is whether the machine learning is for the destinations, the
sequencing or am I routed on scenic roads?

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nthcolumn
Skips LA - clever girl.

