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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: As usual, sitting across from me is the lovely smiling

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Speaker 1: face of senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Do go on now,

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Speaker 1: I think I should stop nice hammer time. All right?

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Speaker 1: This uh, this episode is brought to us courtesy of

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Speaker 1: a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from Nate.

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Speaker 1: He says, Hi, I'm a teenage listener from Colorado and

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Speaker 1: just received my learners permit. I'm often frustrated by stoplights

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Speaker 1: that are too long or short for the intersection. That

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Speaker 1: got me wondering about how these things actually work. So

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Speaker 1: I'm hope thing that you can do a podcast on

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Speaker 1: how stop lights work. Thanks from your best listener in Colorado, Nate. Alright, Nate,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about some some traffic lights. Yes, and

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Speaker 1: uh do you like traffic lights? I like traffic lights

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Speaker 1: only when they're green. Apparently Nate does. Alright, so um, well,

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Speaker 1: let's you know we all know what traffic lights are.

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Speaker 1: I don't think we need to do the breakdown that

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Speaker 1: we usually do. Yes, Uh, It's it's funny because when

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Speaker 1: this email came in, I started thinking, Um, you know

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Speaker 1: how very simple this idea is. You know, you've got

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Speaker 1: a box and it's got some lights in it, and

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Speaker 1: they have very red light or yellow light and green

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Speaker 1: light at least here in America, and they switched from

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Speaker 1: one another. Well that's pretty simple. Then I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, there really is a lot more to it

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Speaker 1: than that, because it's not just the lights, it's also

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Speaker 1: the controller in the whole system that goes behind it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: especially when you look at it from a macro level

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Speaker 1: like a city, a city size level, it becomes unbelievably

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Speaker 1: complex because you're not just talking about one intersection. You're

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Speaker 1: talking about traffic patterns that go across an entire city. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you can use uh, if you've got the system

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Speaker 1: that can handle it, you can use uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: a whole computer network of traffic lights to uh to

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Speaker 1: arrange the way traffic would flow. That is, assuming everybody

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Speaker 1: is obeying the law right. Well, and and that's important

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Speaker 1: to remember because you know, in the old days, making

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Speaker 1: adjustments to traffic lights was pretty difficult, I mean, or

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Speaker 1: at least it was more involved than what it is today. Today.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are fully automated systems where you can

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Speaker 1: walk into a room and see the redoubts and kind

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Speaker 1: of get a real life, real time picture of what's

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Speaker 1: going on. And if traffic is really bad in one

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Speaker 1: part of town for one reason or another, you can

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Speaker 1: actually make adjustments on the fly in many systems and

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Speaker 1: and alleviate some of that traffic snarl. And and that's

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Speaker 1: and it's crazy the sort of things that cause traffic jams.

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Speaker 1: I've written about how traffic works for the site article.

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Speaker 1: It's and it's really things that you would never expect

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Speaker 1: to cause traffic jams can in fact cause them. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's just poorly timed intersections. You know, you could

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Speaker 1: have two intersections that are even a mile and a

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Speaker 1: half apart, but because of the way they're timed, traffic

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Speaker 1: starts to back up. So we're gonna talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about what goes into making these lights work. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to to step back a little bit and talk

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Speaker 1: about the the older systems because some some towns in

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Speaker 1: in the United states still use these. Before the solid

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Speaker 1: state electronics controllers for traffic lights became really the thing,

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Speaker 1: we had mechanical controllers. Now, the lights themselves are electrical,

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Speaker 1: and they're also modular in most cases, so that you

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Speaker 1: can build a larger set of lights using the same

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Speaker 1: basic units, so that lets you do things like create

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Speaker 1: the you know, the turn signal lights versus the straight

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Speaker 1: up and down you know, red yellow green lights that

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Speaker 1: we we know and love. Um Now, the old lights

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Speaker 1: were halogen lamp lights, but usually between fifty watts and

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Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty wats, depending on the size of

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Speaker 1: the light. I would I would have thought that they

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Speaker 1: would be incandescent, did you I would have you would

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Speaker 1: have Apparently I would be wrong. Well, the current ones

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Speaker 1: are LEDs. Yes, they're much more efficient, and you can

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Speaker 1: tell those apart two because it looks like they're a

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Speaker 1: batch of little tiny lights in the circle where an

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Speaker 1: older one of the older lights would be with the

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Speaker 1: giant limbs. Right, So these older very cool that they're

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Speaker 1: doing that because there's so much more energy efficient. No, yes,

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Speaker 1: they're energy efficient, and you don't have to replace them

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Speaker 1: nearly as often the old ones. You would actually have

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Speaker 1: to replace almost on a monthly basis, which of course

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Speaker 1: could cause even more problems with traffic because it means

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Speaker 1: that someone has to guts to go out there. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: so these older MCCA Nicole controllers, they actually if you

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Speaker 1: were to open up one of these boxes, here's where

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Speaker 1: we have our standard, do not open a traffic control box.

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Speaker 1: It's a bad idea, but probably against the law if

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Speaker 1: you're not exactly Oh well, if you're authorized to do it,

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Speaker 1: then yes, by all these please yes. But inside these

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Speaker 1: mechanical controllers, you would find a series of switches, uh.

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Speaker 1: And at the base of each switch would be a

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Speaker 1: little wheel. Now the wheel would have uh, twelve sections.

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Speaker 1: Think of it like pi. So it's got essentially a

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Speaker 1: twelve twelve areas sliced and one slice has been removed.

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Speaker 1: When that slice comes round towards the switch, the switch

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Speaker 1: is actually able to move out and the the switch

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Speaker 1: uh completes a circuit. All right, So there's a circuit

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Speaker 1: for every single light at the intersection, for the red light,

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Speaker 1: for the yellow light, green light, for each of the

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Speaker 1: directions that are involved. Okay, this is a four wast yes,

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Speaker 1: so four away stop. You know you've gotta you've gotta

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Speaker 1: switch for every single light. Uh So these these the

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Speaker 1: series of wheels are on a rod and they turn

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Speaker 1: um in time with a solenoid. The solenoid activates, it

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Speaker 1: turns the wheels and then that's what actually completes the

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Speaker 1: circuits and make the different lights switch from red to

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Speaker 1: green to yellow. Makes sense. Um, these solenoids on a ratchet,

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Speaker 1: so it can move down, but it can't move back

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Speaker 1: up right, So it's not it doesn't justn't go from say,

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Speaker 1: yellow to green. It has to go from green to

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Speaker 1: yellow exactly. And you also don't have to worry about

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Speaker 1: it switching from green to red and then back to

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Speaker 1: green immediately, because that would happen if if if it

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Speaker 1: didn't have the ratchet, if it didn't have that breake

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Speaker 1: stop there. Um, a light could change and then change

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Speaker 1: right back, and then you've got traffic accidents all over

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Speaker 1: the place. Uh So we got enough of those with

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Speaker 1: it work properly. Right. So, the solenoid is connected to

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Speaker 1: a motorized timer, and the timer is this little round drum.

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Speaker 1: It's got a hundred grooves carved into the side of

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Speaker 1: this drum. Right within those grooves, you can place these

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Speaker 1: little metal tabs, and the metal tabs also hit a

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Speaker 1: little switch. When the tabs hit the switch, that's what

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Speaker 1: activates the solenoid. Okay, so the drum is attached to

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Speaker 1: a gear. The gear turns at a certain frequency, certain

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Speaker 1: number of revolutions per minted. That's what dictates how fast

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Speaker 1: the drum turns. That's what dictates how how often the

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Speaker 1: solenoid is activated, which in turn dictates how the little

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Speaker 1: wheels connected to the circuits turn. That is the timing

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Speaker 1: mechanism on the old UH traffic lights. And if you

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Speaker 1: were actually standing next to a controller box and you

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Speaker 1: were listening, you could probably hear the clicks as those

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Speaker 1: wheels turned into place. Um and UH. You could even

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Speaker 1: install multiple drms within a single control box, so you

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Speaker 1: could have it switch at different times of the day.

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Speaker 1: So let's say during rush hour traffic you need one

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Speaker 1: section of the road to be green more often than not.

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Speaker 1: But then in the middle of the day the traffic

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Speaker 1: patterns change, so you would want the light behavior to

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Speaker 1: change as well, and then maybe overnight it changes again. Um.

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Speaker 1: You could actually do that by having multiple gears in

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Speaker 1: there and have it switch automatically from one to the

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Speaker 1: other based upon the time of day. Today, all of

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Speaker 1: that is kind of it's it's antiquated. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: don't find that in most systems today because now we

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Speaker 1: have solid state electronics. Everything's on circuit boards. We don't

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Speaker 1: have to worry about all those uh those actual mechanical

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Speaker 1: switches right right, But some of them are still on timers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. That's true. You know when you describe things

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Speaker 1: that run on gears like that, I'm trying to picture

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Speaker 1: exactly how this hardware goes together. I can't help singing

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Speaker 1: Powerhouse in my head when I imagine the gears turning right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That okay, so and and Marshall actually wrote a blog

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Speaker 1: post about this where he links to a video where

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Speaker 1: you can see. If you want to go to the

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Speaker 1: to the blogs how Stuff Works and search marshall brains

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Speaker 1: blog posts, you can find a post that links back

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Speaker 1: to a video that shows these elements, these mechanical elements. Yep, yep,

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Speaker 1: I remember that one. Actually I saw that as I

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Speaker 1: was doing some some research. Um. Now, of course, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know there are timers, and there are the uh,

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Speaker 1: the lights that work on a sensor system as well.

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Speaker 1: Um and the timers seem like they're fairly self explanatory. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a state timer instead of mechanical same same

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Speaker 1: philosophy as the mechanical ones. But yeah, different different methodology,

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Speaker 1: but same effect. And that, Um, what happens. You've got

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Speaker 1: some civil engineers who who observed the traffic patterns, who

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Speaker 1: come up with the the pattern that should be used

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Speaker 1: for any particular intersection, the amount of time that each

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Speaker 1: lane of traffic should have to be able to pass

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Speaker 1: through that intersection. And um, you know, normally they will

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Speaker 1: visit an intersection multiple times throughout different days to really

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Speaker 1: get a good idea of what the traffic patterns are, because,

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Speaker 1: like I said, they changed throughout the day, right, So

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Speaker 1: in the evening it may be that, you know, one

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Speaker 1: particular road is hardly a used all while another one

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Speaker 1: is is really heavily used. You would want, of course,

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Speaker 1: the traffic light to favor the heavy use one. Um.

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Speaker 1: And again this is it sounds kind of simple, except

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Speaker 1: that when you take into account that you need to

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Speaker 1: also look at the intersections that are essentially directly adjacent

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Speaker 1: to that first intersection, like go in in every direction

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Speaker 1: of that intersection to the next light and see what

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Speaker 1: that timing is, because that's gonna affect the traffic as well. Well.

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Speaker 1: Then you have to go one further out from those,

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Speaker 1: and before long you're looking at a huge net that

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Speaker 1: incorporates the entire area, which is why it gets so complicated. Um,

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Speaker 1: but not all of them are timers. Some of them

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Speaker 1: use sensors, and these are the ones that I find fascinating.

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Speaker 1: You can you can tell whether or not they have

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Speaker 1: a sensor generally by looking at the uh not up

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Speaker 1: where the traffic lights are, but down on the road. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: there are different kinds of sensors. There are some intersections

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Speaker 1: they'll use light based sensors like lasers or well, but

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Speaker 1: but most, in fact, I would I would go so

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Speaker 1: far as to say the majority of all sensor sensors

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Speaker 1: used in traffic lights are inductive loop sensors. Yes, that's

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Speaker 1: the ones that you see, uh, the little grooves in

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Speaker 1: the pavement directly underneath, like the white stripe where you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to stop your car generally or or immediately before

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Speaker 1: in some cases immediately after, which I think is kind

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Speaker 1: of dangerous if that's the sensor that you're supposed to

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Speaker 1: be on to trigger the light. But that has to

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Speaker 1: do with the civil engineers, or perhaps they were painted

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Speaker 1: by uncivil engineers. Could be UM, but we wonder why

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Speaker 1: is the Civil War even called that because they were

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Speaker 1: not UM. So the sensors that are implanted underneath the

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Speaker 1: roadway act very much like an electromagnet. Yeah, that's essentially

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Speaker 1: what they are. They You've got a coil of wire

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Speaker 1: that is underneath the pavement and m and what it's

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Speaker 1: it's generating a magnetic field and when something really large

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Speaker 1: and metal passes over it, it acts as an inductor.

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Speaker 1: And when the system uh can detect that that increase

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Speaker 1: in the magnetic field. Because once you have the inductor there,

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Speaker 1: that really boosts the magnetic field. Wants the system detects that,

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Speaker 1: it's the indicator to say, hey, there's a car waiting

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Speaker 1: at this intersection, so at the earliest opportunity we should

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Speaker 1: look at switching the light so that the car can move. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's some problems with this system though, Yes. The big

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Speaker 1: this problem being that if you are not in a

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Speaker 1: fairly you know, like a medium to too larger sized vehicle,

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Speaker 1: you may not have enough of metal in the mass

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Speaker 1: of whatever vehicle you're in to to activate the inductor loop.

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Speaker 1: So what you're saying is, if you were in our writing,

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Speaker 1: say a motor scooter, motor scooter, bicycle, motorcycle, even even

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Speaker 1: a small car like a smart car. Smart cars are

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Speaker 1: tiny and may not even be enough of a mass

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Speaker 1: in order to get the inductor loop to activate. It

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Speaker 1: may not generate enough of a magnetic field for the

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Speaker 1: sensor to be tripped, which means you're sitting at a

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Speaker 1: traffic light forever waiting for that thing to change, and

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Speaker 1: it may take until another car or other vehicle pulls

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Speaker 1: up behind you and perhaps if they're close enough, complete

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Speaker 1: that that inductor loop so that you can actually trigger

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Speaker 1: that light. UM and another or of Marshall's brains posts

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Speaker 1: that that I saw when I was looking at UM

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Speaker 1: looking at some information for this podcast. UM. Some cities

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Speaker 1: do have special infrared controllers too for emergency vehicles like

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Speaker 1: fire engines and police cars, UM, that will allow them

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Speaker 1: to trip the signals before they get there. It's it's

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Speaker 1: essentially a remote control of sorts that allow them to

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Speaker 1: UH to affect the signals and that that keeps them

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Speaker 1: from having to of course, they're going to go to

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Speaker 1: the light anyway if they feel like it's safe. But

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Speaker 1: if they can go ahead and change the traffic lights

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Speaker 1: rather than having to go through the intersection without affecting

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Speaker 1: those at all, that that helps them control the flow

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Speaker 1: of traffic too to some extent. I have a hint

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Speaker 1: for people who do drive motorcycle, scooters, bicycles, that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, if they want to activate those loops. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is not the same thing that Chris was just

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Speaker 1: talking about. Chris was talking about actually changing the light

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Speaker 1: signals in an official way. Just activating yeah, to let

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Speaker 1: to let essentially to let the system know, Hey, I'm

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Speaker 1: here and I would very much like it if I

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Speaker 1: could get across the street please. Um. What you can

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Speaker 1: do is you can install a couple of magnets on

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Speaker 1: the bottom of your vehicle. Uh. And by installed it

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Speaker 1: just means stick because that's the one thing about magnets.

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Speaker 1: They stick to metal. Uh some metal, so, yes, well

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Speaker 1: the metal that you typically find in vehicles. Yes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So you get a couple of powerful magnets and you

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Speaker 1: attach them to the base of the vehicle, and then

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Speaker 1: when you when you drive over the loop, the magnets

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Speaker 1: in there, they usually generate a strong enough magnetic field

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Speaker 1: that that will be enough to trip the sensor and

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Speaker 1: let it know, hey, there's a vehicle here. So even

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Speaker 1: if you're just writing in a little scooter that normally

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Speaker 1: wouldn't activate it, you'll get a signal. Now, these systems

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Speaker 1: are connected, as we said earlier, to a master control system,

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Speaker 1: and the master control system's job is to maintain an

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Speaker 1: on everything that's going on across the the whole uh well,

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Speaker 1: whatever the area is that it that they oversee, whether

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Speaker 1: it's a local like thing or a citywide thing, um,

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Speaker 1: but it usually it monitors traffic twenty four hours a day.

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Speaker 1: Often these systems can be manipulated remotely so that, let's

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Speaker 1: say that that the the operator knows there's a fire

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Speaker 1: uh a fire alarm that's gone off in a building downtown,

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Speaker 1: and they know where the the fire engine is going

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Speaker 1: to come from. They can actually proactively uh uh set

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Speaker 1: up the system so that it stops traffic so that

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Speaker 1: the fire engine can get through without any dangers of

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Speaker 1: or reducing danger of collision. I can't ever say without

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Speaker 1: any because there's always gonna be some something that falls

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Speaker 1: outside the extremes, right um. And they can also just

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Speaker 1: keep an eye on how signals are behaving and if

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Speaker 1: they if there's a signal oiled edge or anything like that,

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Speaker 1: they can arrange for an electrician in or or you know,

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Speaker 1: repair unit to go out there and take a look

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Speaker 1: at it. Um. And they have to consider a lot

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Speaker 1: of things when they're putting light. As we said, when

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Speaker 1: they're putting these traffic lights in, it's everything from the

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Speaker 1: spacing between the traffic signals along the street. Um. They

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Speaker 1: have to look at the different timing aspects of each

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Speaker 1: of those. They have to look at just the traffic volume.

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Speaker 1: How many lanes of traffic are there. Is it going

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Speaker 1: to to handle the traffic volume well enough so that

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Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about fiddling with the timer

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Speaker 1: so much? Um, even the driver behavior on that street.

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Speaker 1: Because of course, Chris and I know from living in Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: there are different parts of Atlanta where people drive in

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Speaker 1: incredibly different ways. Let's say, like to eight five. If

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Speaker 1: you're not going to eighty miles per hour, you've just

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Speaker 1: been run over. Now, granted to also does not have

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Speaker 1: any traffic lights on it, but um, yeah, there's surface streets,

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Speaker 1: Like there's certain areas of Atlanta where you know, people

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Speaker 1: drive nice and leisurely and and everyone's kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: laid back and relax in other parts of Atlanta where

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Speaker 1: you feel that, you know, you've just entered the road

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Speaker 1: warrior and two men will enter and one man will leave,

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Speaker 1: and you know, Mel Gibson's right behind you and burying

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Speaker 1: it down. And Okay, I've had some really really weird

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Speaker 1: dreams lately. As all I'm trying to say, I understand

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Speaker 1: which so yeah, the driver behavior actually does play a

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Speaker 1: part in how traffic managers look at at setting out

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Speaker 1: traffic lights and timing them out properly. Um. And it

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Speaker 1: seems to me that that, um, if you've got lasers

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Speaker 1: or inductive loops or uh you know, even those rubber

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Speaker 1: air filled rubbered hoses I guess they're pneumatic hoses of

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Speaker 1: some kind that uh tell the box that their cars waiting,

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Speaker 1: it seems like including those would sort of wreck the

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Speaker 1: plan of trying to manage traffic I mean other than

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Speaker 1: I mean and by by a master control program. M.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I'm beginning to understand everything and of line. Um,

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Speaker 1: but no, yeah, having a master computerized program, uh, it

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Speaker 1: seems like it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be compatible with

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Speaker 1: having sensors at individual intersections that allowed cars to trip

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Speaker 1: the lights as soon as they arrived and we're sitting

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Speaker 1: there at the stoplight. It seems like it would be

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Speaker 1: more it's more sort of a if you will, lazy

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Speaker 1: fair version of traffic. I think they'll make the lights work.

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Speaker 1: I think part of it. I think part of this

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Speaker 1: that when that detects that there's a car there, um,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily say okay, well we need to change

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Speaker 1: the lights now. It's it's saying, okay, we need to

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Speaker 1: change the lights at some point when it's safe to

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Speaker 1: do so. Keep in mind that if they're steady traffic

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Speaker 1: going over an intersection, that and that inductor loop, actually

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Speaker 1: it's picking it up because of course you're still having

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Speaker 1: cars going through. So these systems are are fairly intelligence

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Speaker 1: probably the wrong word to use, but they're they're able

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Speaker 1: to detect traffic at uh if it's if everything's working properly,

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Speaker 1: they're able to detect traffic and a fairly rely I

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Speaker 1: will rate. So it's still it's not as planned out

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Speaker 1: as maybe the timed ones are in the sense of

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Speaker 1: it doesn't take as much human intervention. But there's still

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Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of it is kind of adjusting

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Speaker 1: traffic on the fly. But as I should point out that,

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Speaker 1: I realized that as soon as you pull up, it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily trigger the sensor and automatically turn the light,

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Speaker 1: because if the box can tell that there are there's

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Speaker 1: a steady flow of traffic going over the inductors in

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Speaker 1: the other lanes perpendicular to the ones that you're in, um,

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Speaker 1: obviously it's not gonna go, oh, well, hey, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and stop them. This one

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Speaker 1: guy really needs to go, so we're gonna stop everybody else.

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Speaker 1: I sort of always figured that it was a situation

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Speaker 1: where they go, okay, well it's been ten seconds since

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Speaker 1: the last car, it's been fifteen seconds since last car.

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Speaker 1: Traffic is slowing down, there's less of it there. It's

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Speaker 1: safe to go ahead and give them a yellow light

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Speaker 1: to prepare them for a red light. And some of

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Speaker 1: them work on a on a combination of the timer

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Speaker 1: and the sensor, so some of them have like even

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Speaker 1: in some cases you'll you'll come up to traffic lights

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Speaker 1: that you know have the sensors in them, and yet

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Speaker 1: the traffic lights occasionally change on their own because that

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Speaker 1: they do ultimately rely on a timer system. Um. And

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Speaker 1: the anat thing about those timer systems you can actually

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Speaker 1: program them so that they behave differently on different days

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Speaker 1: of the year. So if you know, for example, that

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Speaker 1: say on fourth of July, that a particular stretch of

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Speaker 1: road is going to be really heavily used, you can

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Speaker 1: program the system ahead of time to compensate for that

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Speaker 1: before you know, like you know, back in June you

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Speaker 1: could you could program it in and then fourth of

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Speaker 1: July comes around and the system behaves just as you

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Speaker 1: told it to, so that everything's working properly. Um. Cool, Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm trafficked out. Well, I think it's a it's one

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Speaker 1: of those things that we sort of take take for granted.

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Speaker 1: But the the systems that they've put in to make

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Speaker 1: this work, um, and try to be sort of intell

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Speaker 1: gin about the way you manage traffic flow. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's obvious anytime there's been a bad storm and the

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Speaker 1: and the lights are out, how much work actually goes

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Speaker 1: into planning out the traffic patterns of a city. And uh,

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Speaker 1: the effect that having those sensors tripping the lights and

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Speaker 1: and letting the boxes, the controller boxes know what's going

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Speaker 1: on in an intersection. It's it's obvious how much difference

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Speaker 1: that makes having that technology available to us, particularly in Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: where people seem to forget that if the traffic light

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Speaker 1: is out, you treat it as a four way stop. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: Or when they're flashing yellow on one side and you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to proceed with caution versus flashing red, which means

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to come to a complete stop, right and

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Speaker 1: everybody stops regardless, or if it's flashing yellow, people don't

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Speaker 1: slow down at all. They're just like that means go,

401
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,919
Speaker 1: that means actually go really fast. Yeah, if you're if

402
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Speaker 1: you're a starman. Yeah, okay, I've got nothing for that.

403
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,439
Speaker 1: If you got that reference right in at tech stuff

404
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:57,639
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or if you have

405
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Speaker 1: any other questions for that matter. But speaking of other questions,

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Speaker 1: I actually have another listener mail. This listener mail comes

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Speaker 1: from Trevor, and Trevor says, Hey, Chris and Jonathan, I

408
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Speaker 1: just finished listening to your podcast about cyborgs and cybernetics,

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Speaker 1: and it made me think about a recent book i've read,

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Speaker 1: Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds is an excellent example of

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Speaker 1: advanced cybernetics. UH, pertinent throughout the book. I just thought

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Speaker 1: I would write and give you that book. Keep up

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Speaker 1: the good work, Trevor. PS. I know you constantly talk

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Speaker 1: about virtual environments, but how come I've never heard anything

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Speaker 1: from you about Second Life. I'm an avid member and

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Speaker 1: I'm curious why you avoid it. Well, Trevor, it's not

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Speaker 1: that we're actively avoiding Second Life, at least not more

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Speaker 1: than anyone else's. UM. Second Life is a virtual environment.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of think of it like a massively multiplayer

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Speaker 1: online role playing game without the game. Yes, I mean

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Speaker 1: you can create games within Second Life, but there's no

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Speaker 1: game element directly involved. There's no object of winning, there's

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Speaker 1: nothing like that. It's not you know, but you do

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Speaker 1: create an avatar and you can wander around a virtual

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Speaker 1: world and own virtual property and interact with other people

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Speaker 1: who are also in this world. UM. When it first premiered,

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Speaker 1: it actually made a big splash. You remember that, like

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Speaker 1: all the companies that were getting into it. Yes, there

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00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: were a lot of companies getting into it. There were

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00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: a lot of other organizations trying to uh, trying to

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00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: find ways that they could offer their services in the space. Uh.

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00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: You know, and I know for a fact that some

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00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: libraries were opening virtual reference desks in second life so

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00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:34,919
Speaker 1: that they could, you know, have people come in and

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00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: ask them questions. There were bands that would have virtual

436
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: concerts and second life. Um. Yeah, you would find things

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00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of news agencies built like

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00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: news desks in second life where you could you could

439
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 1: wander into this virtual environment and kind of see what

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00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: was going on in the real world. Uh. It was

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00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: an idea of like places where people could have virtual meetings,

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00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: where you could have maybe a conference online and have

443
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: people show up in second life to attend the conference,

444
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:04,919
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't have to leave your home, right. A

445
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: lot of interesting ideas. It just never really took off

446
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 1: to the It never lived up to the potential it had. Um,

447
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: people still use it, but it's lots and lots and

448
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: lots of people still use right, but nowhere near the

449
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 1: number of people that everyone thought was going to use it.

450
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the companies that went in and

451
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: spent money developing this stuff have since long since abandoned

452
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 1: those those stations within second life, just because they weren't

453
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't make sense to keep supporting something

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00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: that was getting so little traffic. So that's really the

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00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: reason why we don't talk about Second Life. It's not

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00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 1: that we have anything personally against it. In fact, I've

457
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: written an article about how Second Life works, but it's

458
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: just that it really didn't. It doesn't have the impact

459
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: that uh, that it potentially could have, and so it

460
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: just we just don't end up talking about it. But

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00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: if you have any other questions, like I said, tech

462
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff rex dot com. And remember we

463
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: have an official text stuff Twitter feed now yep, tech

464
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: Stuff h s W. Yep, it's all together. So just

465
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: go to Twitter and look up tech Stuff h s W.

466
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:17,919
Speaker 1: You'll be able to see our latest tweets, and you

467
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: can join our Facebook fan page yep, yep. And again

468
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,200
Speaker 1: tex Stuff hs W. You can find us there under

469
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: that handle um and uh interact with us a little bit,

470
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: you know. When we uh we published some some articles

471
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: and things, you can give us some feedback there as well, right, yeah,

472
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: and we really do like the audience interaction. It's it's

473
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly more important to us. So please if you

474
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: have different ideas, you want to suggest something for the podcast.

475
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 1: Uh you think that maybe, for example, we're talking about

476
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: the possibility now, this is a possibility of looking at

477
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 1: h at some point interviewing other people on the podcast

478
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: every now and then. If you have ideas of who

479
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:04,159
Speaker 1: we should talk to, give us a shout. Let us know.

480
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: Remember we're pretty low on the grand scheme of things.

481
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: So if you're saying Steve Jobs, keep dreaming, I want

482
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: to interview Benjamin Franklin. Yeah, I had a lot to

483
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: do with tech. I'm sending Adele Lovelace. Oh, should be

484
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: another good person interview. Yeah, all right, Well that wraps

485
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 1: this discussion up. I hope you enjoyed it, and Chris

486
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again really soon. If

487
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: you're a tech stuff and be sure to check us

488
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: out on Twitter Tech Stuff hs wsr handle and you

489
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com

490
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff h s W for more on this

491
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

492
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: dot com And be sure to check out the new

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00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 1: tech Stuff blog now on the House Stuff Works homepage.

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00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand and twelve Camry.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you