Singapore Branches Out Onto Internet of Trees 35
Singapore is obsessed with trees. The island nation, population 5.45 million people, is home to around seven million trees -- and manages many of them with an enormous Internet of Things monitoring scheme. From a report: Which is a very Singaporean thing to do, because another local obsession is tracking everything. The city-state's goal of becoming a Smart Nation includes an increasingly comprehensive masterplan that uses tech to manage, link and track as many aspects of life as possible. Singapore's National Parks Board (NParks) therefore tracks trees -- around six million of them -- once they reach a certain size, so that arborists can manage them with an app. NParks CEO Tan Chong Lee told The Register the agency's team visits every one of the urban trees to check their stability on a regular basis, but the remote tree system -- combined with other digital assessments -- allows many other tree management tasks to be done from the comfort of an air conditioned office.
Trees are good (Score:2)
But I have read Ayn Rand so I understand why some find then offensive.
We call it progress (Score:1)
Hey, instead of having to go out in nature, you can manage nature from the comfort of your personal living space, where you are safe and have plenty of access to streaming media and climate control. Would you like to watch a series about a rapist? or a killer? how about both?
Yeah, why use actual data? or X-Rays for injuries? (Score:3)
Hey, instead of having to go out in nature, you can manage nature from the comfort of your personal living space, where you are safe and have plenty of access to streaming media and climate control. Would you like to watch a series about a rapist? or a killer? how about both?
Yup...what's with all these lazy doctors X-Raying the patient? or giving them diagnostic scans?...when back in the good old days, they just felt around the body and drained their humors? These sensors are more about gathering data that's quite difficult to gather. It's not because Singaporeans don't want to be in nature. I think most people who are arborists love being in nature. Smart sensors give you more data than you can ever measure by hand even with 10x the number of people.
Very cool and very underserved emerging market (Score:3)
I think the market for smart lawn/plant care could be significant. There are many people who spend tons of money maintaining yards, ornamental gardens, etc. They'd happily buy a few $50-100 devices if it means their plants are protected from droughts while they're on vacation or can spot issues early.
I'm surprised people aren't trying harder to sell me smart tree monitoring now. In my neighborhood, removal of a normal-sized dead tree is $2,000 USD (urban area...so you have to remove them or else you get fined and sued.).
I'd say half the homeowners I know would happily spend a small amount of money ( $200) and spend a weekend setting up a system if it drastically reduced the amount of time and attention it takes to maintain a garden, flower-bed, and especially lawn.
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I'm surprised people aren't trying harder to sell me smart tree monitoring now. In my neighborhood, removal of a normal-sized dead tree is $2,000 USD (urban area...so you have to remove them or else you get fined and sued.).
That's wild. Up here when you want a tree gone people pay you for the opportunity to cut it down, split it, take it away and have near-free firewood for themselves for six weeks of the winter.
no safe place for tree to fall in a city (Score:2)
I'm surprised people aren't trying harder to sell me smart tree monitoring now. In my neighborhood, removal of a normal-sized dead tree is $2,000 USD (urban area...so you have to remove them or else you get fined and sued.).
That's wild. Up here when you want a tree gone people pay you for the opportunity to cut it down, split it, take it away and have near-free firewood for themselves for six weeks of the winter.
I wish! I'd love to know the tree was safely removed and its wood was used for lumber or warmth. I had a nice maple tree I had to have removed because it was threatening our foundation (the old owner was an idiot). It was mulched, unfortunately....could have gotten some nice boards out of it.
Obviously, our issue is that it's impossible for a tree to fall safely when the next house is 6-8' away from yours. If it falls in any direction, it's damaging someone's property. Thus, the stakes are higher in
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I'm surprised people aren't trying harder to sell me smart tree monitoring now. In my neighborhood, removal of a normal-sized dead tree is $2,000 USD (urban area...so you have to remove them or else you get fined and sued.).
I don't understand your point. Removing a tree, dead or alive, would be a big job anyway. How does monitoring help? Can't you tell whether a tree is dead or not?
Wouldn't you want to catch it as it's dying? (Score:2)
I'm surprised people aren't trying harder to sell me smart tree monitoring now. In my neighborhood, removal of a normal-sized dead tree is $2,000 USD (urban area...so you have to remove them or else you get fined and sued.).
I don't understand your point. Removing a tree, dead or alive, would be a big job anyway. How does monitoring help? Can't you tell whether a tree is dead or not?
Theoretically, you'd want to monitor its health before it died in case you could rescue it. Most homeowners would gladly call an arborist to rescue a giant tree...especially in crowded areas where they're expensive and require precise planning to plant. Most homeowners also don't know how to examine a tree's health.
However, no, it's not obvious unless you're in the tropics. In the northeast trees start losing leaves in early summer so...is that barren branch dead?...or just not in optimal health and
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That is NOT an internet of trees. (Score:1)
Lighten up Francis (Score:2)
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it was an intreenet
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AFAICT:
1. It was not funny
2. It was not "the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound"
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Puns are supposed to be funny?
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Self-reported.
Surveillance (Score:1)
Suure, they are for surveilling the trees. You believe that? I pass through Singapore fairly often and have noticed it has worsened over the years. It is true they have extremely few homicides a year (only about 20 per year, which is a per-capita rate 50x less than the US -- and basically a 100% solve rate) because of their culture, but also because of the high level of surveillance. Singapore used to have 10 times more violent crime 30 years ago, but then they significantly increased surveillance, so they
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See my comment below. [slashdot.org] Totally agree with you, it's not *just* for monitoring trees.
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...they can get a 10x reduction in homicide rates. That's come with the price of reduced fun ability. ...
You get your fun from homicides?
Also Denver (Score:4, Informative)
While not Internet-connected, Denver has been maintaining a database of its street trees (the ones between the street and the sidewalk) for many years now: https://data.colorado.gov/Environment/Tree-Inventory-of-Denver-Map/hzmx-2dfk [colorado.gov].
It's because trees do not grow naturally in the semi-arid climate. If it were not for human activity, all of Denver would resemble the airport: sweeping plains of rough grasses. If a tree dies, then it's not like a new one is going to grow in its place unless someone actively plants and waters it. So the Denver government keeps track of these things and offers free/low-cost street tree plantings.
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The city of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada also maintains a database of city planted trees.
The trees are visible on the city map [waterloo.ca], with the tree type shown when you click on it. That would be either the genus name followed by 'var', or the full species name.
And they update the data quickly. The tree in front of my neighbour's house was ash, and infested with t
Caning in Singapore (Score:5, Interesting)
This is going to be offtopic, feel free to moderate that way if this post offends you.
Lately I feel like there's a lot of activity on social media that tries to highlight the good of regimist countries like Singapore, China, etc. Like on my facebook feed, I get about 20 video's a day showing some attractive Chinese woman out in the sticks cooking something. Here today on Slash, I get this article, "Look at how wonderful Singapore is! They're doing IOT for trees!"
Singapore does have low crime, and clean streets, but at a cost. People are beaten with Bamboo, Sugarcane, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This came to light for us Americans around 1994, when a couple of students were caned for vandalism. If you never saw the pictures of what they did, they probably deserved it. An entire street of cars with smashed windows. Yet there are plenty of people getting caned for less.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
I don't paint myself as a SJW, I'm pretty conservative, but I sort of believe in a baseline of rights for all people. Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment is one of them. We shouldn't really be praising Singapore for anything until they pull their heads out of the medieval dark ages. I wouldn't even cane a dog, that's how fucked up these people are.
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Caning is far less cruel and barbaric than the US prison system.
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Far less barbaric you say? I had to google it cause I was genuinely curious if you were just pulling farts out of the wind.
https://www.prison-insider.com... [prison-insider.com]
Oh nice! They don't have to worry about those pesky UV rays I suppose. Let's see what else it says.
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Allow me to rephrase: Caning is far less cruel and barbaric than many prison systems, the US's and Singapore's included.
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The USA has 639 prisoners per 100,000 people. Singapore has 205 prisoners per 100,000 people. Less than a third as many people are suffering. One could try to argue that caning as an alternative to jailing for some crimes is a reason why.
Personally, I certainly don't want caning where I live but I'm reasonable enough to not pretend I understand the full history of why Singapore does it and can judge what's best for them better than they can.
Caning critics: ignorant of jailtime consequences (Score:2)
But being in prison is not the stigma (Score:2)
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Yay, off topic.
I'm a big fan of Singapore and while it has some serious issues I don't think caning rates particularly high up the problematic list.
Singapore has a single party political system, while they have regular free elections only the PAP party has ever formed government, the PAP party currently has 89% of the seats. This has been achieved through a mixture of deformation lawsuits, arrests including indefinite detention, and threatening to withhold funds to seats that vote for the opposition. This
Can We Store Everything? (Score:1)
Common now in municipal GIS systems (Score:4, Informative)
When I left GIS at the City of Calgary, in 2015, we had 500,000 trees individually entered into the GIS map. (1768 Japanese Lilacs, 11,060 Crabapple species, 7400 Burr Oaks....and 500,000 more)
These are assets like any other, like hydrants and manhole covers. They need maintenance - preferably scheduled.
Spanning Tree Algorithm (Score:2)