Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

...from the safety of your PC.

The UK Highways Agency is now offering real time traffic reports for most UK motorways, as part of a trial for a Traffic Control Centre system. The site offers real time maps of various areas of the UK motorway and trunk road system. It's nowhere near finished yet, but it's a fascinating look at the types of information that will be available to us in the next year or so...

Don't expect something as polished as the Trafficnet site, but what you will get is a tool that lets you see incidents and delays as well as the settings on motorway signs, even see the settings of the M25's variable speed limits...

A more complicated pilot application will even show traffic densities at key junctions on the M25 (broken down by vehicle type).

This really needs to be a mobile application.

I actually got a headline all the way through the production process and into print in this week's Guardian...

Then you'll understand this comic!

(from the excellent Real Life)

An interesting discussion on why English-language haiku don't need to strictly follow a 5/7/5 rule, and suggesting that shorter, freeform haiku are more true to the original intention of the form...