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Showing posts from May, 2009

Independent review of SEPTA performance

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Here is a website I wrote that provides an independent analysis of SEPTA's regional rail performance. You can specify the period to consider. Also, the site provides a recommended new schedule in order to avoid systematic latenesses which have been identified. The site is at: http://hosting2.phor.net/~phor/septa/view.php Enjoy, and please leave comments here or at: blogger AT phor DOT net. -------- additional notes 6/1/2009 ----------- All of this data was collected from SEPTA trainview . I created a script to query that page every minute, running since October 2008. The recommended schedule changes are the new train schedules for each line which I think will cause the minimum inconvenience to passengers and the current scheduling engineers:  * The schedule is moved to match the actual arrival times of trains  * Passengers know when to actually expect the train to arrive There's a little more math than that, actually. You can contact me for details.

You've got something on your face

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Somebody walks up to you and tells you that you have something on your face. They make a gesture on their left cheek to show you where the thing is on your face. Do you have something on: a) Your left cheek b) Your right cheek ----------------------------- Wrong answer (a) Correct answer (b) Chinese/Taiwanese people American people Swedish people Indian people ... ... Please help me demonstrate that the "correct" answer is B by performing this experiment on your friends from various countries of origin! Also, Chris notes that while B is the socially accepted answer and that it is the most effective way of communicating with other people and that it is difficult and unintuitive to persuade others to change, Americans are stupid and we should learn to tell our lefts from our rights. However, Chris's decisions can be safely ignored, as he uses the underhand toilet paper method . ( Updated 2009-11-08 )