
Forget the Shortest Route Across a City – New Algorithm Finds the Most Beautiful - ot
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528836/forget-the-shortest-route-across-a-city-new-algorithm-finds-the-most-beautiful/?utm_campaign=socialsync&utm_medium=social-post&utm_source=twitter
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jobu
Can someone please make a "low-stress routing algorithm"!? Most days I
honestly wouldn't care if a route took me 50-100% longer to travel if avoided
traffic backups and stop lights. Call it "sane route" or "road rage free
routing", but as long as I'm moving in traffic I have a much lower level of
stress when I arrive at my destination.

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superuser2
There is no "feature" more infuriating or inappropriately named than "traffic
calming" by means of timing the lights so that you have to stop every single
block. It almost makes me want to drive as dangerously as possible just to
spite the policy people who thought that was a good idea.

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thejteam
So is this the politically correct version of the "avoid ghetto" function that
people joke about?

In all seriousness though, it is pretty cool use of data mining and
crowdsourcing.

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GigabyteCoin
I could have used a feature like that when my GPS told me to cut through the
Chicago suburbs to avoid highway traffic on my trip across the U.S. last
summer.

I was nearly scared to death.

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scrapcode
My first trip to California I flew into John Wayne and stayed in LA for a
couple of months. On the way back to John Wayne in OC I attempted to avoid
traffic. The app took me straight through a pretty bad part of Compton. That
was a fun experience.

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percentcer
Compton's the new Brooklyn, haven't you heard

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ryanthejuggler
This is pretty neat; I'd definitely use an app that did this. Not really a
"new algorithm" as they say, though; when you boil it down it's really just A*
and MTurk. However, it's a really cool application, and what use is science
without its applications?

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kelnos
Yeah, I had a similar reaction. The only novel thing I can think of here is
the idea of using publicly-available photos on Flickr etc. to try to
automatically rank the beauty of parts of the city, to avoid having to crowd
source the data.

Otherwise, yeah, it's just assigning weights to different street/path segments
based on perceived beauty rather than some other metric (like amount of
traffic).

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iopq
It always takes you through the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone no matter where
you start and end.

"What? You said MOST beautiful, not shortest!"

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dredmorbius
Reminds me of a cross-country (US) trip I made some years back. Having just
passed through Mt. Rushmore (home of the National Memorial Parking Scam), I
asked for suggestions on routes further east. I was immediately guided to the
most direct route.

I interrupted, pointing out that I'd started in southern California, was
headed to Virginia, and was more interested in the scenic route. I then got
pointed on some amazingly beautiful roads through the Black Hills and skirting
the Pine Ridge reservation, with an Indian pow-wow on the radio, and, after
sunset, a lightning storm playing out on the horizon in my rear view mirror.
Spectacular.

I've been known to take the scenic route through town (or between towns) as
well, particularly to avoid both traffic and ugliness.

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Perceval
Seeing that route map gave me a pang of nostalgia, since it was the route I
walked every day for a year when I was studying at the LSE—back and forth from
the Southwark dorm (across the street from the Tate Modern) across the
Millennium Bridge or Blackfriar's Bridge, either down Fleet Street or
Inner/Middle Temple, and then to the Aldwych. Really beautiful views of the
Thames every day—Houses of Parliament and the Eye of London in one direction,
Tower Bridge in the other direction.

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eyeareque
Very cool idea!

Couldn't you do the same thing without crowdsourcing the opinions of what the
most beautiful route by simply using exif data on troves of say, flickr
images? I assume that you could tell which routes are more beautiful or
interesting by the sheer number of images that are taken at specific
locations.

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iamdanfox
I imagine they introduced sentiment analysis/crowdsourced beauty opinions to
filter out 'negative' photos, e.g. some highly-photographed traffic accident,
or a frequently photographed homeless spot

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PeterWhittaker
Very cool. Unless I am in a terrible rush from Ottawa's west end to points
downtown or east, I will often take the river route. It's a bit longer, but
ever so much nicer.

And if I am anywhere near Colonel By and it makes sense, I'll take it.
Beautiful drives soothe the nerves.

