Curing lane-merge traffic jams

It amazes me what a waste the channel 10 traffic helicopter is. It gives detailed traffic reports to people who are in front of a TV… which doesn’t help any of the cars actually stuck in traffic. This isn’t news at all… what they should do is show us how to speed things up and luckily we have a computer modelled solution for you:

A computer geek works out a great way to solve those stopped or slow lanes in rush hour traffic. He stumbled upon this by accident when he was driving into a city in rush hour and found that leaving a large gap in front of himself actually helped traffic speed up behind him and clear the congestion in front. Read more on this fascinating subject that affects us all at amasci.com but below is a neat animation and some great tips:

MERGING-LANE TRAFFIC JAMS…

A SIMPLE CURE

ON THE LEFT: normal drivers who close up the gaps whenever the traffic slows down or comes to a stop. Nobody can merge except at the end of the jam… traffic travels very slowly

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ON THE RIGHT:Drivers behaving unusually… they encourage others to merge ahead of them and they leave large spaces ahead of themselves EVEN if traffis slows to a crawl. merging is easier and they travel much faster.

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Traffic jams on highways are often triggered where two lanes must merge into one. Lanes of cars cannot merge if there are no large gaps between cars. Therefore, drivers who create large gaps between cars will ease this type
of traffic jam.

To CURE this type of jam:

• Maintain a large space ahead of your car.
• Encourage one, two even three cars to merge ahead of you.
• If traffic slows to a complete stop, KEEP TWO CAR-LENGTHS OF SPACE OPEN AHEAD OF YOU.
• Never “punish” merging drivers by closing your gap.
• Other suggestions

Amazingly enough, it is not necessary that EVERYONE do this. If only a
few drivers will maintain large gaps during heavy traffic, then merging
traffic is not forbidden, and the situation in the left-hand diagram can
be prevented.

the bear who loved vodka

One of the cutest cartoons I’ve seen in a while. Based on a true story about a bear that was abandoned by his rich owner when he went to jail and was raised to be an alcoholic by a drunken servant.

for the small video which loads pretty quick go to potapych – the bear who loved vodka

How much caffeine is in your drinks

Ive you’ve ever wondered how much caffeine was in popular drinks then Nutrition Action Healthletter will shock the pants off you. I’m not sure what the lethal dose of caffeine might be but Starbuck’s Cafe Grande is either going to kill you or keep you awake for a year.

Our very own superwoman

Katrina, our cooking school chef, was recently interviewed by Superwoman.com.au to talk about Seachange lifestyles. Few people know that Katrina and her Husband, Mark, were successful restrateurs themselves back in Sydney. Katrina has been personal chef to Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and worked with Neil Perry at Rockpool… to find out how and why she gave all this up, read her interview:No going back – Superwoman

microlending causes a stir

I received quite a few comments about my previous post regarding microlending and today I see that the founder of Ebay has just given $100 million to Tuft university on the condition that the school invests in organisations that make small loans to poor people in developing countries.

Pierre ( the ebay founder) realised that nearly 700,000 ebay users support themselves part time or full time selling through ebay and sees that this economic empowerment can flow to developing countries if it has a chance.

Kiva certainly isn’t the first bank to offer these loans. Grameen was probably the first bank to make microlending successfull and now boasts 3.7million borrowers in 46,000 villages doing loans as small as $40.

Read more about ebay’s gift to Tufst

Microlending… you can lend a poor african farmer money… and get paid back

Seth Godin just blogged this great site called Kiva which allows you to lend an African farmer $25 to buy seed or start a small store selling soap or other necessary commodities and you get paid back. It’s these small amounts that make a real difference.

We have experienced this first hand as we have helped friends and relatives in Indonesia and Thailand get ahead with seemingly trivial amounts of money. The problem for these people is they just can’t access spare cash and the money they need is too small for a bank to touch… we have set up water delivery businesses, sewing businesses, export businesses with loans/donations ranging from $100 to a few thousand. This is why we love Kiva so much… we know that some flour, sugar, eggs is enough for a village lady to make some small cakes that she can sell in a market and the profit allows her to not only pay back the loan but support her family.

The best part about Kiva is that your money goes direct to the person needing the money. So unlike many other charities out there, your money is not wasted on admin expenses or expensive houses for the aid workers overseas.

So if you want to help out, visit Kiva to learn more.

Land mines or Life Straws?

The situation in New Orleans has us thinking. People are suffering because they don’t have water to drink. Yet they are surrounded by water and for $2 an ingenious invention called the ‘lifestraw’ could be given to the people thus eliminating dehydration and water born diseas. This incredible device filters and purifies water as you suck water through the straw.. it removes all sorts of bacteria and waterborn pathogens etc. What’s more it can filter around 700 litres of water… which is enough water for someone to live on for a year! The lifestraw was invented in Denmark to help the millions of poor people who die of water born diseases each year. What amazes me is that a landmine costs around a few dollars (the USA is the largest produces of land mines) and there seems to be no problem distributing those to the poor countries/people of the world. I just wish you could buy lifestraws in the hundreds and donate them to communities… find out more from the Life Straw website

Post Secrets

This has nothing to do with food but it is so compelling I just have to share it with you. PostSecret is a community were people mail-in their deepest secrets on home-made postcards. You can see how therapeutic it is for people to get these things off their chest and the artwork and emotions in some of these cards is just incredible… the best of these postcards have been compiled into two books. So grab a coffee and spend some time at PostSecret quite an emotional experience.

The Death Clock – When Am I Going To Die?

Here’s a sobering reminder of your mortality… find out when you’re going to die. When Peter (the owner of the Spirit House) entered his details it turns out he only has a few more years left. We’re now trying to prevent him from spending our inheritance.The Death Clock – When Am I Going To Die?