[REBOL] Re: Serial Communications - GPS Sings!
From: webmaster:windsweptfarm at: 5-Mar-2002 23:06
Dear Steve,
Yes it's Jim.
I am in Canada, just west of Toronto.
Somewhere near N43 39.015 W79 53.247 according to My Garmin
Not exactly your neighbourhood, but close enough in global terms.
I have a Garmin II+ by the way. Super reliable machine even after it
drops off your car roof at 60mph.
I basically have this interest in putting this technology to some higher
use beyond the single user concept that an un-networked gps traps us in.
Essentially, I would like to see the evolution of a "resource discovery"
mechanism tied to location.
In real terms I would expect people to take their antiquated phone
directories and maps to the recycling depot and forget they existed. In
their place we would have a location aware system that could be
interrogated for specific resources based upon user input. The emphasis
is on the individual controlling his "view" based upon his needs and or
preferences.
Imagine that we have thematic data layers that have a geographic
location component. Without limiting my description you could have all
manner of things whether they are stores, restaurants, gas stations,
recreation areas, etc. Beyond that you would have other elements that
have a limited temporal existence. These could be seasonal sports
venues, parks, garage sales, virtual car lots, auctions, specific movies
and theatrical presentations, etc. You get the idea? "Data" would have
a lifespan and a geographical sphere of influence. In this context
data
would become invisible beyond the temporal as well as geographic
extent of these elements. The data would be distributed based upon
geography. Servers would have an index of active themes so that they
could resolve requests with a nul response or the results of a search.
So we would have these imaginary users either stationary or mobile
creating these geographic "clouds" around themselves that contain their
needs and or requests. A fixed location user may have an interst in
antique cars and anti-globalization rallies within 100 miles of his
defined location (home perhaps). So he creates his cloud and populates
it with his preferences and fowards it to the server which then decides
that this is a low frequency request and processes it accordingly. On
the other hand we have Billy Bob who knows that Valentines Day is coming
and his wife who is a large lady likes bon bons and lingerie. So Billy
Bob turns on his gps enabled wireles PDA and builds his cloud and makes
it active for the period while he is driving home. The server sees that
Billy Bob is moving and processes his request based upon his ground
speed and direction in real time to build a reciprocal response that
lists confectioners and lingerie stores for big girls along his path.
Naturally there are many ways to organize the data. I was leaning
towards the concept of interleaving the longitude and lattitude and
storing the elements in that order. The data would have a nested raster
layout that could be examined by traversing the data along the boundries
of the cells formed by lat/long pairs at various resolutions. Where no
date exists there is no expense in storage as well as the data being
self organizing. I am familiar with other methods of structuring the
data, including Voronoi indexes and whatnot but this seems to be a quick
and dirty solution, not to mention the fact that "Terra Server" uses
this method.
Well that is a crude and general view of what interests me and why I am
hovering around Rebol as a solution. On a phylisophical level I would
like to see a more rational use of the resources that exit in the "wild"
and encourage the public at large to drive less to find what it is that
they really need. Searching for things on a scale of 1:1 with a car in
traffic is not my idea of a progressive future. By giving people a birds
eye view of the world with 20:20 vision would in my estimation turn the
whole concept of premium road front property on its' ear and with luck
make billboards and vulgar displays of road signage obsolete. I keep
wishing...
Sincerely,
Jim
