Interesting Links for 19-10-2013

[andrewducker]

• Reversing walking corpse syndrome: Cotard's Syndrome trigger found
  (tags: death psychology science )
• This Ingenious Way to Build Bridges Will Fix Our Crumbling Infrastructure
  (tags: bridge usa construction )
• Physics: What We Do and Don’t Know by
  (tags: physics )
• Canada and European Union agree free-trade deal
  (tags: europe canada trade business )

Comments

[andrewducker]

I had a discussion on Twitter I came to the conclusion that the answer to canteen rushes is to sell tickets for time-slots. If you want to buy lunch between 12:00 and 12:15 then you either need to get in quickly and reserve one, or find someone to sell you their ticket. The canteen can work out in advance how many people they can serve in fifteen minutes, and prevent large backlogs.

Alternatively, we could allow people to schedule in their lunches whenever makes sense to them, and let them use the long queues as a signalling method. It's not like people _like_ queuing after all...

[simont]

Time-slot lunch tickets: this would also have the advantage of adding a psychological barrier against managers casually scheduling meetings over your lunch hour on the assumption that it will be a trivial matter for you to just have lunch at some other time (never mind that the rest of your day was already busy). If a great many people's lunches occur on a schedule they can't change at a moment's notice, there'll be enough complaints that people might start leaving the bloody lunch hour alone.

[drdoug]

And/or you could add more temporary lunch serving staff. You can get two checkout operators working 12-2 for not much more than one working from 11-3. You get coordination benefits from most people eating lunch at the same time (in most workplaces - hence core hours for flexitime

[andrewducker]

Extra staff is sometimes an option. Although then you also need more tills, and places to put them.

I'm curious as to what the economics are like of hiring staff for two hours. Presumably some people are happy to bring in a little extra cash by working two hours in the middle of the day.

[bart_calendar]

Meanwhile the homosexuals want to see their briefs.

And countersues arguing that heterosexuality by creating more people all of whom will need social security and many of them who will need foodstamps is draining the economy.

Their countersuit is also a much better looking suit than the Tea Party's.

[bart_calendar]

Also who is going to show up as the defendant. They'll have to figure out who is the CEO of Homosexuality.

Cher? Celine Dion? Streisand?

[bart_calendar]

Maybe they could accomplish the same goals just by suing Scientology. "Mr. Cruise there's a man here with a subpena!"

[bart_calendar]

Also, seriously if the courts start allowing us to sue abstract concepts I'm filing class action suits against algebra, racism and people who like Nickelback.

Bridge Shenanigans.

[vereybowring]

That method is what they're using to replace the rail bridge over to Riverside in Stirling.
Alas not quite so quick since they have live train lines underneath and are installing the electrical systems for the express trains at the same time
.
This method has been around for quite a while, indeed I know people that work at an engineering firm that build a lot of the precision made metal frames used for the pre assembled sections (and been stuck in traffic when they send one of the huge steel structures off to build sites).

Re: Bridge Shenanigans.

[andrewducker]

Ooh, when will the electrified lines be in place for the Stirling line?

Re: Bridge Shenanigans.

[vereybowring]

I don't know, not really been paying attention.
I do know the tunnel section outside Edinburgh is a huge upcoming works which will cause many replacement buses to around for months.

As you can imagine traffic in Stirling is under diversion for months while they replace that bridge and it must be a bit of a bugger for anyone living in Riverside to divert round. Although pedestrians can still cross on the bridge.

Currently trains run normally during the week but replacements buses run at the weekends.

[nancylebov]

I reposted your errors in science link:
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/ith/open_thread_october_13_19_2013/9x5u

[andrewducker]

Cheers. Let me know if it gets any interesting discussion!

[ipslore]

The bit where people have their food ready but are waiting until 1:30 to get the discount seems rather counter-effective, efficiency-wise.