NYC's subway may be much older, but I find it much more effective. Something Beijing lacks are express lines. If you need to travel the length of Manhattan in the middle of a workday, you can easily jump on 2,3,A, or D and get there quite quick. It is not the same in Beijing. Traffic gets terrible and trains are no faster because there are no express lines. traveling to different parts of the city during the day is a major undertaking no matter who you are.
Where Jing-Jin-Ji really excels (and the New York Area really struggles) is in regional train travel. The regional high speed rail connecting Beijing to Tianjin; Shanghai to Hangzhou, or Suzhou is affordable, frequent, and quick.
Affordable: last time I was there a one way ride was about $6
Frequent: they run at least every hour, typically every 1/2 hour.
Quick: Trips between Cities like Beijing and Tianjin or Shanghai and Suzhou are about 30-40 minutes, and more important use stations in downtown locations.
I don't know if there are any economic impact studies done on this, but the effect to me seems pretty profound. Not long ago, It would be a full day trip to visit Beijing from Tianjin if you are fortunate enough to have a car, and almost impossible to do in a day otherwise. Now it is almost thoughtless to go between the two.
The express lines are a known problem and Beijing is starting to build them (the first two will be line 17 and 19). The difference is in NYC the express lines and the regular lines run side by side, while the future express lines in Beijing will be individually build and won't necessarily run parallel to any existing lines.
The reason of the difference I think is the method of building tunnels. The NYC subway system is build long time ago, when cut and cover is acceptable. The width of the tunnel thus can be very wide, especially considering cost. Make the tunnel twice as wide may only cost less than 50% more (I'm guessing the number). Modern tunnels are mostly built using TBM, in which case the cost of making the tunnel twice wider may cost more than 100% because of the affects of multiple TBM working side by side may be hard to predict and hard to coordinate. So in this case it may be better to just build a regular line first, and than build a express line in a different route.
I'm not a civil engineer, so my reasoning may be completely wrong.
Honestly, if I had to come up with just one innovation that has shaped NYC the most, it has to be the 4-track subway. It not only gets you around faster but makes the system enormously more resilient to outages and anomalies. The fact that the subways are 4-track has shaped Manhattan and the outer boroughs in amazing ways.
All the more disappointing all the new construction will be traditional 2-track :(
I think it's also what the article wants to say in the end. Speed overcomes distance, and reasonably structured public transport solves most connection problems. I'd agree, also having the experience of how connected Hangzhou and Shanghai are thanks to the fast trains (and busses, if the train is full)
Boston is almost 3 times as far from NY as Beijing is from Tianjin. Trenton, on the other hand, can be gotten to in under an hour and for $40. I just did a quick search and found that the Beijing-Tianjin fare is actually about $15, not $6.
So it does seem on paper that China has Amtrak beat by an economic factor of 2-3x, but this is also before you factor in local purchasing parity and so on.
it is an interesting effect, but I don't see how it will ever add anything to the experience for either the writer or the reader. I guess you are supposed to imagine yourself watching some captivating writer craft a brilliant post and feel some inspiration as you peer into the surroundings that inspired such vivid thought. But who would ever want to watch someone else write? Especially when 'watching' them is just seeing some set of fuzzy colors drawn from their forehead and walls. The only time I can imagine this becoming interesting is when they can convince some upper shelf write like <insert contemporary novelist here> to participate, and at that point you are basically just turning them into a zoo animal.
I like Kevin Rose, but I wish he - and most of the other great minds that have already hit it big once or twice - would learn to think a bit out beyond pictures, blogs, and aggregating news sites. There is still so much that can be improved through creative thinkers pushing the boundaries of how we use the internet; blogs, picture sharing, etc... though are quickly approaching the limit of how immersive they can currently be.
The one possible exception to the rule outlined in this piece is probably Xiaomi. They have successfully cornered a really meaningful market, specifically middle class Chinese that is responsible for a big push in revenue. I believe their phones currently run on Android, but with a very strong revenue stream and probably government support where they need it, in time I wouldn't be surprised if they round out their own platform.
I got to Scroogled.com and thought it was some anti-google site cobbled together by a cranky blogger out looking for some corporate interest representing 'the man' to pick on. I can't believe it was assembled by the marketing department of one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
I think the actual ad is at least a bit clever, but this 'scroogled!' catchword and in particular this absurd website they came up with just makes the whole thing nauseating.
> I got to Scroogled.com and thought it was some anti-google site cobbled together by a cranky blogger out looking for some corporate interest representing 'the man' to pick on.
Funny you should say that ... There used to be a site called scroogle.org which was kind of like that, allowing "anonymous" searches by scraping Google while advertising gold and libertarianism on the side.
Computers are now part of basic literacy and ensuring all students have consistent access to them should be an absolute top priority for all school districts. If we can get students coding at a young age, even better!
I love everything about this proposal is relatively low-cost and will utilize technology in a way that will transform the relationship of the two communities and solve a real growth issue: nasty conjestion on an relatively new stretch of highway.
I completely agree. I'd love to see some major public transportation like this around Colorado. Just last weekend my girlfriend and I took a day-trip to Boulder from Fort Collins (through Longmont), and the congestion through Longmont main streets is outrageous on the weekends. It would be ideal to just drive to Longmont (about a 15-20 min drive from Fort Collins) and catch a tram such as this to the Boulder/Denver area. Once you are in the city of Boulder, most things are within decent walking distance. It would also be great for daily commuters as I know some who commute from Longmont to Boulder/Denver and visa versa.
I don't understand your logic, or what democracy has to do with the matter.
I am no expert on India, but I spent enough time there to observe a clear and disturbing trend in male behavior and I have spent enough time in other - developed and developing - countries to have appropriate context for comparison.
An easy place to start would be China, which exhibits some similar demographic issues, but you really never come across this type of behavior there.
As a brazilian that have lived in India for some time, I could tell you that the form democracy present in both countries today has a lot to do with incidents such as the reported on the post.
The historic distance between poverty and middle-class just grows as the public institutions can't provide basic (or with the minimium required quality) services to the poor: education, healthcare, housing, etc.
I don't agree with the _poor people have a different moral_ argument presented by 'gnufied, but there is an intense feeling of social tension on a daily basis on both countries, which is clearly related to the income gap and the almost tribal mindsets developed by those completely different realities.
Besides the economic factor, India also displays consequences from gender issues liked to its patriarcal society and sexual repression. Unsurprisingly, the lower part of the social pyramid is also the one that suffers more from a conflict between the exarcerbated sexuality pushed by media and the to be said moral values of society. The education system wouldn't reach that part of the population with the same quality as rich or middle-class people, which, as said on other comments, also suffers from that on a lesser degree.
I completely agree with you on China. I've had encounters which were completely harmless there, but could have taken a sour turn in Germany. Even the homeless are remarkably civil. There are certain areas you should stay out of as a tourist, but everywhere else seems almost laughably safe.
It is really amazing. Collectively, I have spent over two years in China, and have never been particularly cautious about what sort of situations I work my way into. Never once have I felt threatened or unsafe. It is what I admire most about the country.
I'm going to assume that you are male. I can assure you China is pretty damn dangerous for women who go drinking and rape is also common. There is a lot of sexual harassment in the workplace which is typified by power imbalances (you need a job and your boss is a sleazebag). Just because you haven't personally seen it doesn't mean it isn't there.
It certainly can be dangerous, as can any country, and I consider myself lucky to not have had any problems, but I can't think of another country I have been in that felt safer to me. And more time there only verified that feeling. There is a certainly a strong chance I would feel otherwise if I was a woman.
Have you visited Japan? It has great civility and safety, applied to people of either gender and even to foreigners. At least to white ones like me. Japanese say the old order is breaking down in the cities, so I can only imagine how it once was. Yet it remains the most civil place I have seen.
But aren't there seperate gender subway wagons precisely because there were widespread problems with sexual harassment?
I'd find it intresting to get the view of someone who grew up in asia and is ethnically asian, because their view will proably be markedly different from ours. I mean I'm half chinese, but I have the benefit of being male and being a hunxuee'r which most likely changes how chinese people treat me.
Yes, there are such wagons for the reasons you state - though limited to rush hour (about 90 minutes per day) and one per train of fourteen wagons or so and, in Tokyo, only used on some lines.
It does seem better here, but I am both male and European so not fully equipped to adjudge.
1. Crime against women is specially high. Why is it high? Because - wheels of justice turn really slowly here and perpetrator has a good chance of escaping without punishment. From what I hear, Justice (or sometimes lack of it) is swift in China. That itself is a great deterrent.
2.If you go through all the recent rape cases reported in media, perpetrators are almost always - mostly uneducated and poor. For some it was just entertainment(The Delhi case) and in others just an idea that they can get away with it. There is also sad fact that for many Indian males - women are objects [of pleasure]. An stereotype often reinforced by B and C grade movies (guess who watches those movies).
What you forget are the rape cases that are not reported in the media or do not get the same attention in the international press - The rape of poor dalit(lower caste) women by upper caste men. In some cases its used as a tool for handing out punishment to the unfortunate girl's husband, brother or father.
India's middle class or upper class cannot be so easily exonerated. There are equally horrific stories of women being exploited by well connected and well educated individuals. Please look at [1] and [2]
A slight detour and some anecdotal evidence. I was once at a party in the Film Institute of India, Pune. Pune is one of the more metropolitan cities in India and the environment and the outlook inside FTII is more progressive than the rest of India or so you would think. A guy kept coming to my female Caucasian friends and offered them drugs. We ignored him for a while and now hurt by this he started calling all white women as whores who destroy the sanctity of the college and the nation. The worst part was the group of people around him who supported him.
The problem is at a much deeper level and its present in all stratas of our society.
Everything you mention in problem 2 is likely true, but these are generally true in most countries around the world, regardless of phase of development: in any country most crime results from the poor or uneducated because they have an impetus for wanting to do it, and ultimately believing they can get away with it.
Regarding problem 1 this might make sense if crime (violent, in particular) was notably higher in India than in other countries with similar income levels, but I do not think that is the case - in fact I would guess it is on the whole on the lower end. Yet women do seem to be heavily objectified ( as pleasure). This is what I found so surprising and upsetting while I was in India.
having recently traveled in India for three weeks, I heard remarkably similar accounts all too frequently from groups of women travelers.
Even as a man, I was approached for sex several times while out running. It was gross.
Having traveled a fair amount, I have never personally experienced behavior consistently this revolting in other countries. The behavior of Indian men was easily the most dissappointing part of my time there.
Indian gay men will often ask foreigners for sex - it happened to me a number of times. I wasn't particularly disturbed when it happened, but I was curious why it happened so much to me.
I asked a couple of the guys who approached me and I got two answers. One is that I'm about a foot taller and more muscular than the vast majority of indian men, i.e. I'm pretty hot. The other is that if they approach an Indian, he might know people in their community which would result in their family finding out they are gay.
Nothing terribly unusual or that I haven't encountered in the US, but the frequency with which it happened was really alarming.
Twice a guy drove up next to me on more quiet roads and starting asking questions about how to get around or something other general that I can't remember (in English, btw). I always tried to keep running and they just rode along next to me. The topic would quickly change to sex and then I would get angry and sprint back to a busy street and go away. A couple other times guys drive past me in cars and were more direct. It was never violent or particularly scary.
A long time ago, I read the classifieds section of an Indian tabloid that has 1 million readers. These are examples of what I saw:
> Male Gorgeous: Male to Male only. Head to Toe complete relaxation body massage, Hygienic North, South India masseurs anytime.
> Body Massage: Male to Male (Hotels/Doorstep). Complete Relaxation. Good Looking Guys. High Profile. Only Male Service.
Now, I'm not one to judge, but the fact that it's important how good-looking the masseurs are indicates to me that people aren't just getting massages.
mostly people riding after me on motorcycles, and pretending to ask a question and then turning the conversation elsewhere. It only happened a few times, but I also only went running a few times.
Given the success of well run hacker schools like Dev Bootcamp and Flatiron Schools, I am surprised no one has yet tried to apply that model to training data scientists. It seems like a sector similarly deprived of properly trained talent and also with a similar initial learning curve to develop the basic skill set.
From what I understand from skimming the site, Dev Bootcamp teaches people RoR and a few other web technologies in 9 weeks. All that tells me is that you know one programming language, it doesn't tell me whether you are a programmer, whether you understand concurrency problems, race conditions, algorithms etc. Sure, this is alright for a lot of programming positions because there are a lot of positions out there that don't need those.
The problem with data science is that it is incredibly hard to teach anyone Linear Algebra, Probability, statistics in 9 weeks. Sure, I can hand wave all that and then teach you a bunch of machine learning algorithms. All you get at the end of it is people who claim they understand it intuitively and don't need the math. Except that mathematical intuition builds up accumulatively.
It is easy to see this in interviews; you can see folks who are really good at drawing pretty pictures to explain say PCA. They have no clue when not to use such a thing. It makes no intuitive sense to them why PCA breaks down when there are outliers. If they can't draw a picture of it, it is difficult for them to comprehend.
thanks for the detailed response. I know very little about the actual application of data science, so it nice to hear the thoughts on the feasibility of this from someone who does. Either way, someone seems to think they can teach it in a bootcamp format, so I am curious to see how they manage.
There's also http://insightdatascience.com/ . This is a little bit different; it's a program aimed at training postdocs in various fields to be data scientists.
Where Jing-Jin-Ji really excels (and the New York Area really struggles) is in regional train travel. The regional high speed rail connecting Beijing to Tianjin; Shanghai to Hangzhou, or Suzhou is affordable, frequent, and quick. Affordable: last time I was there a one way ride was about $6 Frequent: they run at least every hour, typically every 1/2 hour. Quick: Trips between Cities like Beijing and Tianjin or Shanghai and Suzhou are about 30-40 minutes, and more important use stations in downtown locations.
I don't know if there are any economic impact studies done on this, but the effect to me seems pretty profound. Not long ago, It would be a full day trip to visit Beijing from Tianjin if you are fortunate enough to have a car, and almost impossible to do in a day otherwise. Now it is almost thoughtless to go between the two.