I await the influx of conspiracy theorists

Good day my good friend.

Not much to report on today, if i am being honest. So less for you to read. Lucky you! Here are today’s links just for you.

James

5G is going to down planes, without the conspiracy theories

An argument in the US that is now coming to a head. The deployment of 5G communications towers in the US close to several major airports could lead to the cancellation of many flights, as airlines are seriously worried about whether or not the new services will interfere with the equipment on many newer aircraft. Its complicated and there is a lot of blame being put about on the side of airlines and communications companies, and frankly neither side comes out well from it.

A core part of this is risk appetite and mitigation. The airline industry is extremely risk averse, and for good reason too. So the possibility of something maybe interfering with equipment on approach to land rightly worries them. But it seems that rather than talk about it and its mitigation, an evidenced discussion about the risk is lacking in this case.

Check your biases when reporting on road traffic collisions

The subject of media bias, especially in relation to road traffic collision, is subject to our own bias of how we see objectivity. I have lost count of the number of times people from all across the political spectrum have complained about how the BBC is biased against their own political viewpoint. But we need evidence to see whether or not bias is real, particularly when it comes to reporting road traffic collisions.

I admire the work done in this research on the reporting of road traffic collusions and comparison between motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. Appearing to confirm that the media ‘erases driver agency’ in such collisions. But the sample size is small (17 articles), and just from a single newspaper (The Evening Standard). Its an interesting method that should be applied more widely, but I’m not sure how this research confirms anything.

Random things

These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope they do just that.

• Now You Can Rent a Robot Worker—for Less Than Paying a Human (Wired)

• How to be a god: we might one day create virtual worlds with characters as intelligent as ourselves (The Conversation)

• Tonga takes to radio, satellite, motorboat comms to restore communications after massive volcano blast and tsunami (The Register)

• Pandemic Highlights the Need for Farmworker Internet Access (The Daily Yonder)

• Managing the Development of Digital Marketplaces in Asia (Asian Development Bank)

Something interesting

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this World Bank blog on better co-ordination of transport data.