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Affordable as a Bus, Comfortable as a Taxi: A Promising Type of Public Transport for Large and Medium-Sized Cities.Part3

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 32 min
Views 330
Algorithms *Mathematics *Transport The future is here Urbanism
Opinion
Translation


Translation provided by ChatGPT, link to the original article in Russian

Link to Part 1: «Preliminary Analysis» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 2: «Experiments on a Torus» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 3: «Practically Significant Solutions» (ру / eng )
Link to «Summary» (ру / eng )

1 Playing Diplomacy


1.1 What this work is about


You're reading the third and final article in a series dedicated to minibus route schemes that would allow you to travel reasonably quickly, inexpensively, and most importantly, without any transfers, from any intersection to any other within a large city. You'll see many graphs, formulas, and figures below, but before we get to the technical part, I'd like to discuss the challenge of implementing this idea and invite you to participate in solving it.

1.2 A puzzle for the talented and brave (Eccentrics are welcome: 🎶)


I propose an adventure,
I propose a game,
I propose that you become part of a positive change in the lifestyle of almost a billion people around the planet,
I can't do this alone.
To start, I need your help with the following:
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Total votes 4: ↑3 and ↓1 +2
Comments 4

The Growing Field of Fraud Prevention: Insights and Career Opportunities

Reading time 4 min
Views 110
Payment systems *IT career Finance in IT
Opinion

Hi Everyone,

I would like to draw your attention to some key insights from two comprehensive reports, shedding light on the importance of fraud prevention as a burgeoning field with substantial job prospects. The original reports can be accessed through the link provided at the end of this message.

Firstly, let's consider a couple of significant events from the previous year that remain highly relevant. Retail e-commerce sales surged to a staggering $5 trillion, with projections indicating a further increase to $8 trillion by 2026. Furthermore, the percentage of shoppers making cross-border purchases rose from 69% in 2019 to an impressive 76%.

These statistics affirm that online shopping is not a passing trend, as consumers are willing to make purchases from international vendors, even if it means enduring longer delivery times in exchange for lower prices. From a fraud prevention perspective, this highlights the escalating number of non-domestic payments and the rise in the use of lost or stolen cards for purchasing goods that can be resold in the future. Notably, refund fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, many businesses have adapted their protocols to accommodate these emerging challenges. One such positive development is the gradual disappearance of restrictions on using payment methods that do not match the account country.

As cross-border purchases continue to proliferate, alternative payment methods are also on the rise. Current global statistics indicate that an average of four payment options are now available on merchant platforms. Additionally, open banking payment transactions are projected to surpass $330 billion globally by 2027, leading to a greater diversity of alternative payment methods. As companies embrace these methods, they are also becoming more aware of the associated risks. For instance, direct banking payment methods present unique challenges as they lack refund capabilities, while Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) options introduce their own set of risks.

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Affordable as a Bus, Comfortable as a Taxi: A Promising Type of Public Transport for Large and Medium-Sized Cities.Part2

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 56 min
Views 325
Algorithms *Mathematics *Transport The future is here Urbanism
Opinion
Translation

(Jean-Claude Mézières)

Translation provided by ChatGPT, link to the original article in Russian

Link to Part 1: «Preliminary Analysis» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 2: «Experiments on a Torus» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 3: «Practically Significant Solutions» (ру / eng )
Link to «Summary» (ру / eng )

Experiments on the Torus


This is the second part of a study dedicated to exploring new public transportation movement schemes. In the first part, we examined the simplest non-stop scheme and a single-transfer scheme based on it, which can be implemented in a grid city on a plane. In this part, our city model will be a grid city on a «flat» torus. Unlike a rectangle, a torus has no edge, and the positions of all points on it are absolutely equivalent. Due to the absence of an edge and (transitive) symmetry, calculations for a toroidal city are simpler, and numerical results are nearly identical to those for a rectangular city on a plane. These two conditions make a toroidal grid city an ideal testing ground for new passenger transportation movement schemes. In this article, we will explore two such schemes on the torus, and in the next one, we will return to the plane and adapt the results obtained here for use under the realistic conditions of a rectangular city.

The content of this study is not standalone and presupposes familiarity with the first part of the article. To understand Chapter 2, you will need a level of mathematics that corresponds roughly to the first two years of university; for everything else, high school level should suffice. It can be helpful to have a pencil and a piece of paper at hand while reading. If your browser displays formulas incorrectly, try refreshing the page a few times.
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Total votes 3: ↑3 and ↓0 +3
Comments 0

Uniform gravity, can it exist?

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 3 min
Views 130
Popular science Physics
Analytics

Uniform gravity, can it exist?

1. The motion of a free particle-like cat

V. Komen, I. Tikhonenkov

Good morning! You've woke up. Having prepared coffee and toasts of bread you are drifting from a kitchen to a table before a large wall TV. The left hand keeps a small plate with toasts and the right one controls coffee level within your beloved mug. The life is plotted out for ten seconds to come. But Ervin is already worried that you, as usual, made conspiracy and decided not to share your breakfast with him. So the damned cat thrusts himself across you pass, hits your legs. By the next moment the plate, toasts and the mug are falling. And – yes! All those precious things reached a floor level by the same time. Physics...It's how it shows up, unexpected. And we used to identify ourselves as physicists. The unexpected thing is that we still do. It's whence our motivation originates. We cannot pass by any falling objects quietly.

15
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Affordable as a Bus, Comfortable as a Taxi: A Promising Type of Public Transport for Large and Medium-Sized Cities.Part1

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 40 min
Views 909
Algorithms *Mathematics *Transport The future is here Urbanism
Opinion
Translation

(Jean-Claude Mézières)

Translation provided by ChatGPT, link to the original article in Russian

Link to Part 1: «Preliminary Analysis» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 2: «Experiments on a Torus» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 3: «Practically Significant Solutions» (ру / eng )
Link to «Summary» (ру / eng )

1. About this series of articles


1.1 Central result


If I haven't made a critical mistake, I have discovered an astonishing passenger transportation scheme with unique characteristics. Imagine this scenario: you are in a big city and need to get from point A to point B. All you need to do is walk to the nearest intersection and indicate the destination on your smartphone or a special terminal installed there. In a few minutes, a small but spacious bus will arrive for you. The bus is designed for easy entry without bending, and you can bring a stroller, bicycle, or even a cello inside. It provides comfortable seating where you can stretch your legs. This bus will take you to the nearest intersection to point B, and you will reach your destination without any transfers. The entire journey, including waiting at the stop, will take only 25-50% more time than if you were traveling by private car. Based on my estimation, in modern metropolises, this type of transportation will be widely adopted, and the cost of a trip on such buses will be similar to the fare of a regular city bus.

Surprisingly, the reasoning behind these findings is based on relatively simple mathematics, and perhaps even a talented high school student, under fortunate circumstances, could have guessed them on their own. The practical significance of the topic and the modest level of mathematical requirements prompted me to make an effort to write the article in such a way that the reader could follow the path of discoveries, learn some research techniques, and gain a successful example to explain to their children the purpose of mathematics and how it can be applied in everyday life.
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Total votes 9: ↑7 and ↓2 +5
Comments 6

«Promising Public Transportation for Large and Medium-Sized Cities» — the main idea in a brief summary

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 9 min
Views 477
Algorithms *Mathematics *Transport The future is here Urbanism
Opinion
Translation

(source)

Translation provided by ChatGPT, link to the original article.

I recently published a series of articles titled 'As Cheap as a Bus, as Convenient as a Taxi...':

Link to Part 1: «Preliminary Analysis» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 2: «Experiments on a Torus» (ру / eng )
Link to Part 3: «Practically Significant Solutions» (ру / eng )

dedicated to making public transportation in large cities completely seamless, without the need for transfers. In the last article of the series, I extensively described a microbus movement scheme that allows them to operate almost like taxis while accommodating 5-10 passengers at once. Such a transportation system would enable city residents to travel from any intersection to another without any transfers, comparable in time to a personal car journey, and at a cost similar to a regular city bus ticket. However, the feedback from readers indicated that I chose an extremely ineffective way to convey the information, resulting in a failure to effectively communicate the essence of the matter.

I must admit that the previous three articles were written in a way that allowed readers to apply the acquired knowledge in practice or continue the research I started on their own. Unfortunately, my desire to 'teach' resulted in nearly 100 pages of complex mathematical text, which is clearly excessive for readers who simply wanted to familiarize themselves with the idea. Here, I will attempt to rectify this mistake and briefly, yet simply, explain the bus taxi technology.
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Total votes 6: ↑6 and ↓0 +6
Comments 0

Push notifications: why we need them, how to do them. How to write push notifications that won't piss you off

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 11 min
Views 466
Internet marketing *Display advertising *Mobile App Analytics *Gadgets

Push notifications are similar to promoters. You're peacefully walking down the street, and suddenly promoters approach you, urging you to take their flyers. You take them, but you don't read them and throw them into the nearest trash can.

The same goes for push notifications. You're reading an article, and suddenly a notification pops up with a promo code for free delivery of products. Then another one arrives, informing you about a giveaway. And then another one, offering a discount on all fruits. Notifications can appear on your screen at any time. If there are too many of them, your reaction is either to ignore them or disable them.

In this article, we will talk about how to write push notifications that people will click on and show you how to build a push notification strategy. At the end, we will provide a template for a push notification strategy.

Push Notifications - What is it?

A push notification is a pop-up message on a smartphone screen. To send one, you need to use a delivery service. You can send a notification instantly, schedule it for a specific time, or set up a trigger-based delivery - a chain of notifications that will be triggered by specific user actions.

Triggered push notifications are sent after a specific action is taken. For example, if a person starts adding items to their cart but doesn't complete the purchase, you can send them a notification urging them to complete the transaction after a certain period of time.

Notifications are sent to users who fall into specific segments for targeting. Segments are formed based on specific events. For example, the event "6 hours ago, a product was added to the cart but no purchase was made" will divide users into two segments: those who made a purchase and those who didn't.

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Total votes 4: ↑4 and ↓0 +4
Comments 1

Concept Art in Game Design: An Introduction to its Significance and Fundamental Principles

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 6 min
Views 315
Game design *Games and game consoles

Let's talk about concept art, one of the main pillars in the digital art world. Concept art is the foundational and fundamental stage of any media industry project, where bold design choices are made and the best one is selected, shaping the overall style of the product. "Concept" refers to abstract ideas and fresh designs, while "art" entails the intentional use of imagination to create objects for immediate contemplation, which can be assessed for their aesthetic appeal in terms of appearance, sound, or even words. The exact origin of the term is not entirely clear, but some attribute its first mention to Walt Disney Feature Animation during the creation of characters for the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in the 1930s. It was during this time that an entirely new profession, later known as "concept artist," began to take form and became highly sought after in the media industry.

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Total votes 1: ↑0 and ↓1 -1
Comments 0

Setting Up an Experiment Environment for Data-Driven Product Development

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 8 min
Views 612
Project management *Start-up development Product Management *Software Systems engineering *
Sandbox

As a product owner, it is common to face the question of whether to proceed with option A or option B. Or, which version of the screen should be implemented to achieve better results? Making such decisions can be challenging, especially when you are under tight deadlines with limited resources. Furthermore, such decisions are made based on personal judgment or copying the approach of a competitor, which can lead to suboptimal results.

The good news is that one can avoid such pitfalls by setting up a simple experiment environment that requires relatively low effort. In this article, we will describe how you can achieve this.

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An introduction to the world of AI for designers

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 5 min
Views 893
Design Artificial Intelligence
Sandbox

Every day a new neural network appears and every day more opportunities are opened to designers to simplify their workflow. Someone fundamentally refuses to use them, because “there is no life in machinex and technologies”, and someone is only happy to find a way to reduce the amount of work. Personally, I belong to the second type and want to share the most detailed gait on neurons I have acquired lately. 

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Total votes 1: ↑1 and ↓0 +1
Comments 0

Langton's ant: a mystery cellular automaton

Reading time 4 min
Views 1.5K
Programming *Algorithms *Mathematics *Reading room Popular science

The life of Langton's Ant seems sad and lonely, but, as we'll soon discover, he is not ready to put up with such an outrageous situation and is trying his best to escape. American scientist Christopher Langton invented his ant back in 1986. Since then, no one has been able to explain the strange behavior of this mysterious model...

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Total votes 8: ↑8 and ↓0 +8
Comments 3

The Collatz conjecture is the greatest math trick of all time

Reading time 4 min
Views 1.8K
Entertaining tasks Python *Mathematics *Popular science

On the Internet and in non-fiction literature you can often find various mathematical tricks. The Collatz conjecture leaves all such tricks behind. At first glance, it may seem like some kind of a trick with a catch. However, there is no catch. You think of a number and repeat one of two arithmetic operations for it several times. Surprisingly, the result of these actions will always be the same. Or, may be not always?

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Total votes 7: ↑7 and ↓0 +7
Comments 2

Tutorial. Onchain Analysis basics

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 16 min
Views 817
Cryptocurrencies
Tutorial

Last week, I introduced you to the world of onchain analysis and explored some of the ways it can be used to gain insights into the cryptocurrency market.

Today, we're taking things up a notch with a tutorial that will guide you through running your own onchain analysis. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have the skills and knowledge you need to start analyzing blockchain data and making informed decisions about your cryptocurrency investments. So let's dive right in and see what insights we can uncover!

This tutorial is built around the Bitcoin blockchain, but many of the techniques are applicable to any other blockchains as long as they have wallets, balances, and transactions.

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Total votes 2: ↑2 and ↓0 +2
Comments 0

Journey to find a headset with a good side talk cancellation mic for calls in an open office

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 6 min
Views 1.3K
Wireless technologies *Conferences Gadgets Computer hardware Lifehacks for geeks
Review

TL;DR: All AI-based noise cancellations suck, only the physical cancellation technique works! And physical cancellation is implemented well only in Jabra devices yet, but other features suck them! All Bluetooth headsets suck too! So, no solution yet, just complaints!

The environment: I work in a pretty talky office room, where sit around 10 people, and all of them have many online conferences every day, including me. So, silence in the room is a rare situation.

The problem: The main problem is that most of the microphones pick up all side talk pretty loud, which makes it very unpleasant for other people to listen to my voice in meetings!

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Total votes 1: ↑1 and ↓0 +1
Comments 12

What is Information Technologies? Hard to gets in? Choosing a direction/profession and your first programming language

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 8 min
Views 1.1K
IT Infrastructure *Data visualization *IT Terminology IT career Presentations
Digest
Recovery mode
Translation

People-professionals are working in IT, not robots

In fact the average competition for one workplace in IT is about 500 people – the market lacks specialists! You can find and read more. It's not hard to find on the internet

Need specialists who know their business!
For this reason, I wrote about how to become one and what you should pay attention to at the beginning of your journey. Even have my presentation with IT-directions! Also I understand something in Game Development..

Flew!🐌

Would you like to know more?
Total votes 8: ↑4 and ↓4 0
Comments 0

Listicles — a simple technique for benchmarking your value proposition against alternatives

Level of difficulty Medium
Reading time 5 min
Views 501
Research and forecasts in IT *Agile *Product Management *Software
Sandbox

I believe listicles have a huge potential for testing demand hypotheses. Have you tried using listicles for your demand validation? If so - let us know in the comments how this worked for you.

Do you know these "Top N something something" kind of articles? Like:
- 5 best GPS vehicle trackers
- The 14 hair growth products that actually work
- Top 10 Best CRM Software Tools in 2023
They are often referred to as "listicles" - articles presented in the form of a list.

I love them - they make picking a new phone, a movie to watch, an app to install much easier. I also use them at work all the time while looking for solutions to everyday challenges.

So what if we use one of them to benchmark our product against the best available alternatives?

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Total votes 4: ↑4 and ↓0 +4
Comments 1

SwiftUI & ChatGPT. The world is changing. Again

Level of difficulty Easy
Reading time 4 min
Views 2.2K
Development for iOS *Development of mobile applications *Swift *Prototyping *Artificial Intelligence
Tutorial

Everything that follows from this point forward input prompts, followed by ChatCGP’s responses, complete with sample code in Swift.

> Hey ChatGPT, can you make a SwiftUI registration form with name, address and city fields?

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Total votes 5: ↑4 and ↓1 +3
Comments 1

PyGMTSAR is Next Generation Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) Software for Everyone

Reading time 6 min
Views 1.6K
Open source *Geoinformation services *Big Data *Open data *Popular science

Do you need to produce satellite interferometry results for your work or study? Or should you find the way to process terabytes of radar data on your common laptop? Maybe you aren't confident about the installation and usage of the required software. Fortunately, there is the next generation of satellite interferometry products available for you. Beginners can build the results easily and advanced users might work on huge datasets. Open Source software PyGMTSAR is available on GitHub for developers and on DockerHub for advanced users and on Google Colab for everyone. This is the cloud-ready product, and it works the same as do you run it locally on your old laptop as on powerful cloud servers.


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Total votes 1: ↑1 and ↓0 +1
Comments 0