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Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

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Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#131

Post by askmike »

Rainymood wrote: post #88
Animats wrote: post #63

Someone needs to develop a public toilet that's self-cleaning but doesn't cost more than some houses. The problem is making it homeless and drug dealer proof. SF has had major problems with their self-cleaning toilets.[1] Portland succeeded, but theirs is armored to contain a velociraptor and provides limited privacy.[2] [1] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/occupied-san-francisco-... [2] http://www.citylab.com/de…

Amsterdam has these: http://www.street-art.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1-1.jpg and https://pinkylightsaber.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/public-t... while useful, they usually are quite smelly though.

The second ones are not permanent toilets, on that same spot we do have permanent ones now that stay in the ground for most of the day and come out at night (in a nightlife area):

http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/urilift-public-pop-up-toi...

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#132

Post by aggie »

alexnking wrote: post #87
Animats wrote: post #63

Someone needs to develop a public toilet that's self-cleaning but doesn't cost more than some houses. The problem is making it homeless and drug dealer proof. SF has had major problems with their self-cleaning toilets.[1] Portland succeeded, but theirs is armored to contain a velociraptor and provides limited privacy.[2] [1] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/occupied-san-francisco-... [2] http://www.citylab.com/de…

Homeless proof - I'm really hoping the problems that Sidewalk Labs is working on don't include making sure homeless people don't have access to public bathrooms. I'm honestly not thinking of a lot of reasons for public bathrooms to exist aside from making sure people without houses have someplace they can use (whether that be as a bathroom, washing laundry, shaving, etc.)

If you read the linked article you will find that he means it is resistant to non-bathroom activities such as using it for washing clothes. I'm not sure why that would be a big problem, but the design isn't intended to prevent the homeless from using it as a bathroom.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#133

Post by stephenr »

paganel wrote: post #128
stephenr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did living outside a city become "living life like a hermit"?

Can I ride a bus/affordable taxi back home at 11PM after having a couple of beers in a pub located downtown? If you're living outside a city the answer to this is in most cases a "no".

That depends entirely on the situation, and "affordable" is a relative term. Also, the term "downtown" seems to indicate you're still thinking in terms of a reasonable size city.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#134

Post by EarthLaunch »

vowelless wrote: post #35

Sorry for OT but why is google plus not responsive?!? Sometimes I have to increase the size of the page to ease my reading. This is what I get: http://puu.sh/iklL3/08aa3d3563.png And I can't even scroll to the right! Is there something wrong with my chrome configuration (maybe a plugin not playing nice)? Or can someone else repro this on their mac?

Funny, the fact it was on Plus made me subconsciously averse to clicking it. Turns out there was a good reason for that feeling.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#136

Post by WalterGR »

vlasev wrote: post #108
mootothemax wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have so many homeless people, maybe you should solve that problem first? Solving homelessness isn't an on/off switch; people are still going to need a toilet while homelessness is being "fixed". (It's a problem with saying why not solve X instead ? You end up with neither fixed, and everybody loses. I mean, why solve homelessness when there are hungry kids that need feeding ? And so the cycle continues.) As an…

I don't have sources at hand but it can actually be cheaper in the end to give homeless people homes than to keep them homeless. It's apparently mostly due to emergency police/hospital response which costs a ton.

    ...it can actually be cheaper in the end to give homeless
    people homes than to keep them homeless.
Here's a source:

"The surprisingly simple way Utah solved chronic homelessness and saved millions" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/...

That's not necessarily the best source - it just happened to be towards the top of the following SERP, which finds quite a few articles: https://www.google.com/search?q=give+homeless+homes

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#137

Post by 72deluxe »

estel wrote: post #130
72deluxe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think should happen instead?

The standard behaviour for a while has been to open the action overflow (the "hidden" menu with three dots on the right hand side of the action bar) menu. This menu affordance was supposed to appear on devices that didn't have a hardware menu button.

Ah ok thanks. In that case, it does nothing for some apps! eg. if I am in the Google+ Android app and press the hardware menu button, it does nothing. Calendar does nothing. Hangouts does nothing.

If I am in Gmail, it pops up the menu (but at the bottom, and not where the hamburger is). Chrome pops the menu up. Maps opens the side bar. YouTube pops the menu up. Drive opens the menu.

So it works for some but not for others. Perhaps you could enforce consistency or follow your own guidelines etc.? Go crack the whip.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#138

Post by commentereleven »

abalone wrote: post #90
burkaman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't really mean the post was insignificant, just that it was as low impact as can be for such a giant company. And I don't agree, one of the company's stated purposes is "incubating urban technologies". They aren't actively asking for any idea out there, but they clearly intend to interact with other startups and inventors at some point, and the only way to make that happen is to get your name out there. And aga…

A downside: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

Vaporware is when you promise a product and fail to deliver on it.

They have not announced a product yet, only a research area.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#139

Post by commentereleven »

estel wrote: post #130
72deluxe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think should happen instead?

The standard behaviour for a while has been to open the action overflow (the "hidden" menu with three dots on the right hand side of the action bar) menu. This menu affordance was supposed to appear on devices that didn't have a hardware menu button.

The main devices that Google devs use - Nexus devices - do not have a menu button.

And I guess they think that the three dot menu is ugly or something.

Re: Google Launches Sidewalk Labs

#140

Post by ersii »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #103
w-m wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paris has over 400 of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette They're free to use, not drug dealer proof, and close at night. I'd say they work well, but they're rather ugly.

The biggest culture shock of visiting the UK was paying to use toilets. Do you want people pissing against walls? Because that's how you get people pissing against walls.

That applies to Sweden and the major cities as well (Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Uppsala). All cities that used to have public toilets, regrettably no more though.
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