Amazing. The New York Times reported that more than a quarter of the smog in Los Angeles is generated in China, and it may soon increase to a third or more. This reminds me of two things, the death of the German forests due to acid rain and the supposed fall-out down-wind (e.g. the jetstream flows from Asia into the US) from nuclear warfare. Looking out the plane window last evening I couldn’t help but notice a thick brown layer hovering over LA. For some reason that reminded me of noisy drunk Bulgarians smoking profusely as we shared cabins on a train out of Denmark. If I hunched over far enough (waist-height) I found I could keep my head just below the dense hovering smoke, but it was uncomfortable and still smelled bad.

The mish-mash of developments also stood out as vastly different than the old science fiction predictions of gleaming lights and shiny buildings all competing for your attention in a dark pitch. Instead I found myself gazing across a bland grey-brown mish-mash; unremarkable features crammed together to form a meaningless and seemingly infinite series of criss-cross homes, warehouses, and roads. The future may not be so much about confidentiality as simple integrity. An overwhelming amount of data can create a kind of secrecy, but the ability to find meaning in the mess is likely to be seriously threatened.

And that brings me to driving in LA. The new GPS navigation tools are far superior to their predecessors. I was able to punch in my destination and then sit back as a soothing european-accented cyber-female voice kept me on track, “left, then right, then left, then right again”. An impossible maze with some of the worst drivers in the world, yet my navigator was able to present meaningful data with only two minor mistakes. The locals fervently try to wash their vehicles into a gleaming and shiny spot of pride, but in reality nothing really stands out other than the ongoing sea of brake-lights and street lamps. A vehicle itself fails to give anything lasting or meaningful (aside from the hidden engineering), especially when compared to a clean park with a fountain, or the ability to actually see clouds and stars. But don’t try to tell that to Jay Leno…

The danger from this awful crisis of data and over-vehicularization seems to have compelled the LA police to consider firing sticky-GPS units at fleeing motorists. The LA Times reports that this is expected to end high-speed car chases. I would expect that countermeasures might be fairly easy to develop, like driving away, jumping out and tossing the locator onto another vehicle, and then continuing to drive.

A small number of patrol cars will be equipped with the compressed air launchers, which fire the miniature GPS receiver in a sticky compound resembling a golf ball, for four to six months as a trial.

Maybe the thing has some fancy hooks or a harpoon-like barb to prevent removal…if not, than I don’t expect a revolution from this technology, especially if a motorcyclist is fleeing. It may help in a few cases initially, but the idea of disabling the electronics on a getaway car seems far more effective to me (particularly since it halts the vehicle and therefore lessens the threat to innocent bystanders down the road). I can see where they are headed, and it begs the question of whether they are trying to fix the symptom rather than address the root causes. Several times last night I was over-taken by squads of squad cars on their way to something urgent and it brought to mind that it is often better to fix the leaky roof than to innovate with mop technology.