Tuesday Euromadness

Follow-on to Slow Joe’s AI comments on Monday – several weather-forecasting groups in France are striking, because forecasting algorithm’s predictions are  considered so accurate that no human vetting or intervention is needed.

Unions have blamed staff cuts for the debacle. Mr Lartisant told Libération that previously, “seven people assessed supercomputer bulletins, one for each major region, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. With the new organisation, there is now just one person in charge of this”.

Unlike traditional models which rely on running current conditions through physics equations and computer algorithms, the new programme uses a neural network to learn how the atmosphere evolves over time.

(All the following  temperatures have been converted from C to F:)

The software that has led to the strike has predicted that the eastern city of Strasbourg will hit a baking 82.4F on Dec 9 despite it currently experiencing freezing temperatures.

He added: “This data includes absurd mistakes, forecasts of temperatures of 82.4 degrees in Brittany in November, forecasts of snow when temperatures are at 50 degrees – a whole load of failings that our organisation isn’t able to correct.”

Telegraph

Strasbourg is considered in the Rhine Valley – if you know anywhere in Germany that hits 80 degrees in December, please let me know? They do have an unusually warm few days coming up next weekend – maybe 60 degrees – but the highest average temperatures in the summer are below 80. And Brittany is on the west coast…at roughly the same latitude as the US-Canadian border. See many places in the 80’s this month there?

And in the formerly sane country of Wales, in an effort to curb traffic deaths and reduce pollution, the national speed limit in built-up areas has been dropped to 20mph.

… speed camera-controlled 20mph zones, all previously 30mph, that have been rolled out in a “blanket” policy that has caused crippling delays and could cost the Welsh economy £4.5bn, according to the Welsh government’s own analysis.  Telegraph

A government’s own estimate – bet that 4.6 billion is under by at least 4 billion? 2 signs at the beginning of a speed change, two at the end – 4000 pounds per zone just in signage. Yeah, that second 4 billion may be low…

Not surprisingly, situations like the following have arisen:

One road in Wales now has eight speed limit changes in less than two miles following the switch to 20mph.

One 30mph limit stretch in a Vale of Glamorgan village is 520ft (160m) and each new road sign costs £1,000 to fit.

The road just outside Cowbridge was created after Wales’ default speed limit dropped from 30mph to 20mph in September and now also includes stretches of 40mph and 60mph in the space of 1.8 miles (2.9km) .  BBC

We have places that do that here in Texas – they are usually in small towns whose civic income is 90+% derived from speeding tickets.

A public health study estimated that the 20mph default speed limit in Wales could result – every year – in:

• 40% fewer collisions
• 6 to 10 lives saved
• 1200 to 2000 people avoiding injury   Wales.gov

But the law of unintended consequences says that due to slower limits, places that do crucial deliveries, like pharmacies, take more time to deliver and can’t service some of their customers promptly. People complain that they have to downshift going up and down hills to hit the lower speeds, increasing  RPMs and pollution. 20? That’s a high idle. The Welsh government says it only adds one minute to drive times… even at only five miles per trip, 30 to 20 adds 5 minutes per trip. Their estimate is based on a theoretical billion trips annually and a billion extra minutes.

Not a shock that a petition to roll back the change to 30mph gathered 431,598 signatures by September. Car.UK   from a total population of just over 3.1 million.

 

 

 

Category: Dumbass Bullshit