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Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

meetinglocationcalculator.com

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Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#21

Post by Kwpolska »

jameshart wrote: post #20
wolrah wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it better to meet in a place where one of the people is already located? Then one less person has to fly, and they can use their saved time to work and offset the CO2 spent by the additional time traveled by the others. I'm not sure if the tool specifically accounts for that or if the math just ends up working out, but I was testing with various combinations of my family and it always ended up at someone's ho…

It's certainly not always the case. In planar Euclidean geometry, for any three points, if the triangle formed by those three points has all its angles less than 120 degrees, then the sum of the distances from the three points to certain points inside the triangle will be smaller than the sum of the shortest two sides. Only if one of the angles exceeds 120 degrees will one of the three points always have the shortest…

Does this still hold if you count the flown distance twice, because the meeting participants would probably like to get back home after it ends?

Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#22

Post by dheera »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #6

Isn't it better to meet in a place where one of the people is already located? Then one less person has to fly, and they can use their saved time to work and offset the CO2 spent by the additional time traveled by the others.

I guess if you're optimizing on the other metrics, yes, but if you're optimizing for CO2 only the best solution may not necessarily be where someone is already located.

However, I did try putting in e.g. 10 x Boston, 1 x London, 1 x Paris, and it did in fact suggest Boston as the meeting point.

Realistically, it is often also the case that the announced location of a meeting influences who attends it, as compared to travelling for a conference (flights + lodging + meals), the costs are much, much lower for people who already live in that city, who need to only buy the entry ticket.

So if you announce a conference in Paris instead of Boston you might expect a bunch of people who already live in Paris to suddenly want to attend. This effect is hard to account for.

Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#24

Post by kortilla »

capableweb wrote: post #15
wolrah wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it better to meet in a place where one of the people is already located? Then one less person has to fly, and they can use their saved time to work and offset the CO2 spent by the additional time traveled by the others. I'm not sure if the tool specifically accounts for that or if the math just ends up working out, but I was testing with various combinations of my family and it always ended up at someone's ho…

> I'm not sure if the tool specifically accounts for that or if the math just ends up working out, but I was testing with various combinations of my family and it always ended up at someone's home airport. Not sure. But if you put the two locations of Caracas, VE and San Francisco, US, they suggest meeting in Houston, US. Does it make sense? Is it more environmental friendly for two people to meet in the middle rathe…

Better for one to travel. A disproportionate amount of a flight’s fuel is in takeoff and climb. Meeting in Houston is far worse because you’ve doubled the required takeoff rolls.

Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#26

Post by tbabej »

Europe has quite a few high-quality, high-speed rail connections. If I may suggest a feature, in order for the tool is to be faithful to its mission, alternative mods of transport could be supported as well.

Personally, I am more than happy to take an overnight train than a short-flight, given the additional overhead of travelling to/from the airport. An overnight train can take you pretty far within continental Europe.

Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#27

Post by winnit »

Kwpolska wrote: post #21
jameshart wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly not always the case. In planar Euclidean geometry, for any three points, if the triangle formed by those three points has all its angles less than 120 degrees, then the sum of the distances from the three points to certain points inside the triangle will be smaller than the sum of the shortest two sides. Only if one of the angles exceeds 120 degrees will one of the three points always have the shortest…

Does this still hold if you count the flown distance twice, because the meeting participants would probably like to get back home after it ends?

Of course, the lengths are just doubled. If someone travels twice as far to get to someone’s home they also have to travel twice as far back. If the two met in the middle instead there would be four journeys but each would be half as long (2+2=1+1+1+1).

Re: Show HN: Find the most climate friendly meeting location

#30

Post by bagels »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #6

Isn't it better to meet in a place where one of the people is already located? Then one less person has to fly, and they can use their saved time to work and offset the CO2 spent by the additional time traveled by the others.

If you enter two locations, it picks one of the two as the meeting place.
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