Deliver a Fix for Traffic Jams | 10 Ideas That Make A Difference. The next time you’re stuck in traffic, blame all that stuff you buy online. E-commerce sales jumped 15% last year, to $186 billion in the U.S., and the daily volume of shipments for FedEx and UPS has grown every year since 2009. Moreover, to keep pace with demand for faster deliveries, many of the rigs dispatched by Amazon, eBay and Fresh Direct leave before they’re fully stocked.
In other words, there are now more trucks, and more traffic, than ever. That increase helps explain why urban commuters waste at least 52 hours each year in stop-and-go jams, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. (MORE: The 10 Worst U.S. There are a number of ways to address this problem, including a push for off-peak delivery (see sidebar). The most inventive option, however, comes from Brussels. Although bikes can’t fix delivery backups by themselves — they struggle with larger shipments — Hani Mahmassani, of Northwestern University’s Transportation Center, sees their potential. Horse "Passports" Proposed in Europe as Meat Scandal Gallops On. As the horsemeat-dressed-as-beef scandal continues to rock Europe's food industry, a number of organizations are calling on stricter European regulation, including an EU-wide horse passport register.
The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) said creating a centralised record of horse passports would prevent the issuance of duplicate passports, thereby curbing the risk that horses banned from slaughter enter the food chain. There is no evidence that eating horsemeat in itself poses any health risk, but veterinarians give horses drugs which are banned from human consumption. "A main reason for deciding to exclude a horse from being consumed as food is that this allows the animal to be treated with a wider range of veterinary products", the group said in a statement. Following tests, the UK's Food Standards Agency found traces of the drug phenylbutanzone, or bute, in eight dead horses, three of which may have entered the food chain in France.
Horses in their stalls via Shutterstock. Volvo: 'Car trains will happen' Road trains will be a feature on Europe’s roads by the end of the decade, according to Volvo’s senior safety engineer. Thomas Broberg said closed-road trials had already successfully got two cars attached to a road train and revealed that Volvo will be conducting field trials in Sweden by the end of the year. Road trains feature a lead vehicle setting a pace on motorways that other cars can communicate with and connect to, leaving the speed and steering to the lead vehicle. Small fees are likely to be paid to the lead vehicle, said Broberg. “Road trains allow a driver to use their time better, drive safer, reduce congestion and improve the environment,” he said.
“You’re always following another car, so why not let the driving be done by someone else?” Read more on road train technology Broberg believes road trains are a step towards fully autonomous cars, technology that Volvo is also researching. Geely’s purchase of Volvo could also have big implications for crash safety. Mark Tisshaw. Boom for London butchers after horse meat scandal - London.
China to push compulsory insurance for polluting industries. Global Warming Will Open Arctic Shipping Routes | CleanTechies Blog. Is Inequality Holding Back Economic Recovery? Is Inequality Holding Back Economic Recovery? Left-leaning economist Joseph Stiglitz has an opinion piece in the New York Times: Inequality Is Holding Back the Recovery. You might scoff at this argument.
But it just dawned on me: He's right at a very high level. What holds us back? An unfair inequality of ability. We have a small number of people who have very high IQs and a very large number of people with much lower IQs. This inequality of ability is holding back recovery. So I have a complaint for Barack Obama: Why haven't you closed the IQ gap by boosting everyone up to 140 IQ? He's probably right in a strictly numerical sense, too. Talented People Leave Great Britain. 2013 January 27 Sunday Talented People Leave Great Britain Brain drain from Britain. Office for National Statistics figures obtained by Mr de Bois show that in the ten years to 2011, a total of 3,599,000 people permanently left the UK. A small percentage were retirees. Most were between 25 and 44 years old. I bet they are more educated than the average Brit who stayed. The Labour Party's leader apologizes for being too easy on immigrants. Ed Miliband has suggested he could limit foreigners’ rights to benefits in the UK as he apologised for Labour’s failures on immigration.
It is very reasonable and entirely moral to want to regulate who gets to immigrate into a country. America's immigration policy is unlikely to improve. Return to your ancestors country of origins and defend it against liberalism/leftism. The US is sure to follow. Switzerland isn't as good as it used to be. @Horspool - Sorry to hear about Switzerland. "What we need: A country where only talented people can go. " Or boring. Rumour research can douse digital wildfires. The metaphor ‘digital wildfire’ — one of numerous threats to society identified this week by the World Economic Forum in its Global Risks report — is well chosen. The image highlights the risks of the rapid spread of uncontrollable and destructive information — risks that are made possible by an ever-growing worldwide web of communication channels. Many digital wildfires start as rumours, and social psychologists have long studied how rumours spread.
The results of this research can therefore help in the prevention of and response to digital wildfires. Why is this important? A digital wildfire ignited by a humorous complaint about United Airlines posted on YouTube by musician Dave Carroll saw the company’s stock drop by 10%. A false Internet rumour that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been killed caused oil prices to rise. Research on rumour has come up with four concepts that may be applicable to digital wildfires: motivation, situation, narrative context and trust. Organizational Alignment: The Power of Cross-Organizational Networks.
Should people be off on Fridays? 1 February 2013Last updated at 01:13 GMT By Vanessa Barford BBC News Magazine The Gambia has shortened the work week, making Friday a day of rest. Is this the perfect pattern for a working week? In the tiny African nation of The Gambia, public sector workers will now clock in at 8am and clock out at 6pm, Monday to Thursday. They'll still do a 40-hour week but have the luxury of Friday off. President Jammeh wants the extra rest day to "allow Gambians to devote more time to prayers, social activities and agriculture". In the dark days of the 19th Century, many workers in industrialised nations considered themselves lucky if they got Sunday off.
The achievement of a 40-hour week with Saturday and Sunday off for many was a major landmark for the labour movement. But some have tried to go further. In 2008, about 17,000 government officials in the US state of Utah started working four 10-hour days in a bid to cut costs. Other US states have also toyed with the idea. Continue reading the main story. Airbnb and the Unstoppable Rise of the Share Economy (Forbes) Airbnb And The Unstoppable Rise Of The Share Economy. Peer-to-peer rental: The rise of the sharing economy. LAST night 40,000 people rented accommodation from a service that offers 250,000 rooms in 30,000 cities in 192 countries. They chose their rooms and paid for everything online.
But their beds were provided by private individuals, rather than a hotel chain. Hosts and guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco. Since its launch in 2008 more than 4m people have used it—2.5m of them in 2012 alone. You might think this is no different from running a bed-and-breakfast, owning a timeshare or participating in a car pool. What’s mine is yours, for a fee Just as peer-to-peer businesses like eBay allow anyone to become a retailer, sharing sites let individuals act as an ad hoc taxi service, car-hire firm or boutique hotel as and when it suits them. Rachel Botsman, the author of a book on the subject, says the consumer peer-to-peer rental market alone is worth $26 billion. Such “collaborative consumption” is a good thing for several reasons.
Peering into the future. China and the U.S., Capitalism’s Odd Couple. To hear some geostrategists and economists tell it, the future of the global economy is suspended between two very different models of the balance between the market and the state. Call this debate on capitalisms the Washington Consensus versus the Beijing Consensus. In democracies such as the U.S., market-led capitalism draws its legitimacy from the belief that everyone has an equal chance of getting rich, even if outcomes turn out to be unequal. In authoritarian regimes such as China, state-led capitalism is legitimized because it is assumed to provide more equitable outcomes as well as opportunities, although the reality may be quite different. Both the U.S. and Chinese versions of capitalism have produced impressive results and fallen short in specific aspects.
The U.S. brand of capitalism has generated exceptional innovation, but it accords a primacy to individual rights that has kept the country from collectively meeting longer-term needs. Shared Challenges 1. 2. Regulatory Weakness.