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Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

arstechnica.com

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Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#111
post #56

Reminds me of the time someone blocked a road on Google maps by bringing a bunch of phones and staying still (or something along these lines).

https://youtu.be/k5eL_al_m7Q He put 99 smart phones in a wagon with all of them running Google maps in drive mode. Google interpreted this as a traffic jam, and made other cars avoid the area.

Discussed at the time:

Google Maps Hacks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22216821 - Feb 2020 (382 comments)

Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a unicorn in there somehow.

There's a unicorn in there somehow. Absolutely. Rich enclaves paying you to drive a bucket of cell phones around the neighborhood slowly in an electric golf cart. Or simpler: The rich enclaves pay you to supply their existing private security cars/carts with buckets of charged phones to drive slowly around their existing routes.

I feel like there's a great movie plot point you could write where the bank robbers use this trick to clear traffic out of their way during the escape.

Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#113
post #83
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in the US there is a law that protects charities from being sued for providing spoiled food. The Good Samaritain Food Donation Act.

That's not true. The law only applies to wholesale supply chain, not providing food to consumers. https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-ac...

The act also provides limited liability protection, both civil and criminal, for those who distribute food and groceries, such as food banks.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1791

Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#114
post #5

Did they automatically detect that it became very popular as it had many people visiting it regularly?

Yeah probably a lot of wifi clients there. Isn't that how Google maps measure activity? By monitoring the wifi traffic of android phones?

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#115
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the solar eclipse of 2017, I drove to a small town in eastern Nebraska. The town had a 10k race that day. There were about 3 cars, including mine, on this stretch of road. Stop-and-going inbetween the runners. While my wife drove, I watched Google Maps. It accurately put a short red line on our part of the road. Amused me though that it only took 3 cars to accomplish that.

Hah! I have a 2017 eclipse story related to this, too! A few days after the eclipse, we were driving through Custer State Park in South Dakota. There were relatively few cars on the road but Google Maps would inexplicably show these very short red traffic jams. We quickly realized that we could anticipate upcoming bison sightings as people slowed down to take pictures of them walking (or sleeping) on the side of the…

That's kinda awesome. I love the idea of bison jams. And using it as a predictor of bison sightings.

Re: Microsoft AI suggests Ottawa food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot

#116
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a unicorn in there somehow. Absolutely. Rich enclaves paying you to drive a bucket of cell phones around the neighborhood slowly in an electric golf cart. Or simpler: The rich enclaves pay you to supply their existing private security cars/carts with buckets of charged phones to drive slowly around their existing routes.

I feel like there's a great movie plot point you could write where the bank robbers use this trick to clear traffic out of their way during the escape.

I wonder what percentage of cars use google maps to navigate at any one point though
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