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Notes

posted Feb 19, 2010, 6:27 AM by Quoc-Anh Vuong   [ updated Feb 19, 2010, 7:39 AM ]
I've been busy lately thus haven't write for weeks; so, what had changed today? Few things:
  • A while back, I had a Google Voice [ (319) 438-2585 or (319) GET-2-LV5 ] number but haven't really making full use of it yet. Today, Google just released a set of video campaign showing people how great it is. Even if I don't have time to watch these video clips, I still want to keep the bookmark of these videos.

  • This morning, while listening to the NPR, there is news about a research on the predictability of people behavior. Using cell phone data, which show where a person be at certain time, the researcher finds that all have predictable daily behavior.

    The results showed that during the six months of the study most people traveled very short distances most of the time, while some traveled great distances. Ninety-four percent of the people traveled less than 100 kilometers, while only 0.2 percent traveled more than 500 kilometers. Short trips, naturally, were more frequent than long ones. The study also found that all users, despite the number of trips or distance traveled, visited a couple of places frequently—probably their home and their workplace.

    What was more surprising was that each individual’s data fit into the same mathematical model—a type of power law—that predicts the probability of finding a person in a certain location. That probability distribution is dependent on an individual’s average travel distance and decreases the further he or she roams. A power law distribution allows for real probabilities for very large values. (A distribution of human height, by contrast, is not a power law distribution because human heights fall within a relatively limited range.)

    ”Human mobility and how we travel is so amazingly complex,” says Max Planck’s Brockmann. ”What is very strange is that despite this complexity, all the traveling behavior can be accounted for by very simple mathematical laws.”

    Now, only if we can have similar finding for people behavior at home.

  • Sun Gazette called and gave me a photo assignment this Saturday, Feb 20th.
    The assignment is to shoot Boy Scouts of America's Klondike Derby at Upton Hill Regional Park. Here is the link to news release

    Upton Hill Regional Park


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