{"id":11958,"date":"2017-02-09T13:03:15","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=11958"},"modified":"2017-02-09T13:03:15","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T13:03:15","slug":"blogathon-0917-not-working-not-being-smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=11958","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 09\/17: Not working. Not being smart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These days everyone in the UK (and wider afield) has access to smart technology.<\/p>\n<p>I was out with a friend for dinner, a few weeks ago when, during a lull in the conversation, he pulled out his mobile phone and switched the radio on in his kitchen at home.<\/p>\n<p>For a joke.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure his wife was very amused.<\/p>\n<p>But that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n<p>I can remotely access a huge range of technology, and I\u2019m sure you can too.<\/p>\n<p>Switch things off, switch things on, move (data\/application) things around.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not rocket surgery.<\/p>\n<p>On the way to\/from work, a significant stretch of the dual-carriageway A-road is having the central barrier renewed.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know when the workmen are onsite doing stuff, because when I come through in the mornings, they haven\u2019t started yet.<\/p>\n<p>And when I go back through in the evenings, they\u2019ve finished, packed up, and gone.<\/p>\n<p>Not a trace of life, at either end of the day.<\/p>\n<p>And yet the speed limit for the whole stretch of dual-carriageway has been reduced from 70mph to 40mph.<\/p>\n<p>The signs are far from automatic, they are those standard, unchanging, stand by the roadside things.<\/p>\n<p>A bit like this:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11959\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11959\" style=\"width: 196px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11959\" src=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"temporary road sign\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign-768x1177.jpg 768w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign-668x1024.jpg 668w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign-98x150.jpg 98w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/temporary-road-sign.jpg 907w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11959\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">temporary road sign<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So let\u2019s assume that the workers are actually onsite doing their job from 08.30 to 16.30.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s 8 hours<\/p>\n<p>And 8 hours times 5 days (because they don\u2019t work weekends at any time) = 40 hours.<\/p>\n<p>There are 168 hours in the week.<\/p>\n<p>This means that an unnecessary speed limit is in force for 128 hours a week.<\/p>\n<p>Or the equivalent of almost 5-1\/2 days.<\/p>\n<p>Almost 5-1\/2 days of needless speed restrictions on a busy stretch of dual carriageway.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t unusual.<\/p>\n<p>Why are road contractors so lazy about investing in smart speed limit signs?<\/p>\n<p>Are they afraid of the technology?<\/p>\n<p>Or are they afraid their staff are too stupid to operate them?<\/p>\n<p>And how is this over-imposed speed limit acceptable?<\/p>\n<p>Answers, please, on a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These days everyone in the UK (and wider afield) has access to smart technology. I was out with a friend for dinner, a few weeks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}