Re: tlug: 3 questions

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Sat, 21 Nov 1998, Ulrike Schmidt wrote:

> I was looking through the web for pages about how one could help people
> in the countries devastated by hurricane Mitch, and I was not quite
> satisfied whith what I found, so I thought of constructing a better
> information system, that can have wider application.
> 
> I thought of one database, in which people can enter
> - what they need in materials, services and know-how,
> - and where it should be delivered (in real space or in cyberspace).

Uli, you really keep biting off bigger and bigger chunks all the time :-)
This is your largest project idea yet :-)  Then again, the natural language
syntax parsing one would be awfully big too :-)

> Now there are three technical questions:
> 
> - How does this tracing of goods work, which software is neccessary, who
> enters the information, is it public to see for anybody or does one need
> special permissions or a contract to get it?

This is the first Big Part.  Packages are tracked by having a unique item
number on each and every package. Let's use Federal Express as an example.
When you send a FedEx package, it is picked up by a courier or you take it to
a FedEx office, and they do a couple of things. They enter the package data
into their database, so who it's from and where it's going are in the
computer.  It's probably also assigned a best route to get there by the
software, I suspect.  At that point, a bar code label is generated and the
package is checked into the system by scanning the bar code, then sent on its
way.  At every transfer point during its journey, the bar code is yet again
scanned, so they know when it passed each waypoint.  Their tracking database
also knows which FedEx truck, airplane, etc., the package is on, when it left
a point along the route and when it is expected to arrive at the next one.  If
they want to (and maybe they do this, I don't know), they could also use the
GPS system to continously monitor where each vehicle was and they could tell
exactly where in the world a package was if they needed to.  Even how fast
it's going :-)

> - Where could I get the software needed for the graphical displays and
> statistics? What are the usual economic calculations and categories?

Don't know.  You might have to write it.

> - How can I let other people mirror the site and keep the mirrors
> synchronized in real time?

Mirroring is not a problem, but real-time synchronization of it is something
you might as well regard as impossible.  With a lot of bandwidth and mirror
sites that were constantly polling the master site to see if it had any
updates, you could come close enough to this that few people would know the
difference.

I hate to rain on your parade, but by the time you built a system like you've
envisioned, there would no longer be much of a need for it, and the amount of
money it would cost would be better off donated to the victims, maybe :-)
Really, this would be an incredibly expensive project that needed lots of
people working on it.

The idea of such a system is good, though.  It could prevent incidents like
one I read about not long ago where a bunch of rice that Japan had donated to
Papua New Guinea after the tidal wave had all gone bad because some agency
down there put in a warehouse and everyone forgot it was even there :-(

Maybe a more modest approach to the problem is needed, but something like this
could be of use.  It would need a lot of resources, though.

Good luck!

Jonathan


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