Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is definitely a lesser known marketing avenue than it's bigger, more popular cousins, social media marketing and digital marketing.

But that's not to say that successful content marketing is some kind of miracle cure. It takes a lot of time, effort and dedication to get it working the way you want it to, but it's sure as hell one of the best things you'll ever do for your business. So now let's take a look at why you need a content marketing strategy and how to build one that will take your company to the next level.

Hey, guys, it's Liv from Neighbourhood, where we help friends find cell and keep their people.

So first things first. Why content marketing? Well, people love content. Ask anyone for their favourite YouTube channel, podcast, Instagram account or blog, and you'll undoubtedly get a different answer every time. According to Ofcom, the average adult spends over three hours a day online with nearly two and a half hours on social media.

Internet users are constantly hunting for content to occupy that time, which is why content marketing is such a powerful tool. Not only that, the Internet is such a powerful front of knowledge because of content marketing. Think about it. If you've got a question, then your instinct is to, of course, head over to Google.

Let's say you're curious about what you should be feeding your new puppy.

You immediately get a snippet of the top result that gives you a quick answer.

But what many users don't always consider is that these top results are from companies that are trying to sell a product or service. For example, with this search, the RSPCA may be trying to sell pet insurance. So part of their marketing strategy is to create useful, authoritative content that gets their website in front of users to demonstrate their expertise. OK, so you decide to click on the first result from the RSPCA and it's got a ton of helpful information that helps you understand puppies nutritional needs.

Then one of two things happens. You close the tab and don't think about that website again.

But when it's time to insure your puppy and you begin comparing prices, RSPCA pet insurance stands out because it's a familiar name. Chances are you're more likely to choose it as a product because it's familiar or you see that this same website has advice on why it's important to clean your dog's teeth and what to do if your dog has a barking problem. You click on these links and carry on reading.

Before you know it, you've gone down an RSPCA sponsored rabbit hole that has taught you everything you need to know about your new puppy and probably the benefits of their pet insurance, too. So now you're more likely to buy their pet insurance product.

And that's why content marketing is so important. Sure, it's kind of a slow burn deal when you compare it to other marketing strategies like PPC, but it's definitely effective as a means to grow organic traffic and prove perceived quality and attention on search engines. But you can't really just go into content marketing with a wing it and see attitude.

While it's true that any content marketing is better than none within limits, just like everything in marketing, you need to have a plan and an overarching business goal.

Now let's look at types of content. There are a bunch of different content marketing strategies, most of which revolve around a different form of content. But if you're looking to learn content marketing fundamentals, then it's easy to get lost, wondering which type will work best for you. So let's look at the first one.

Audio - podcasts and audio books are great content marketing tools, if your buyer persona, doesn't typically have time to watch or read content, or if you don't have the capacity to execute on a written content creation process, whether that's because your audience spend a lot of time on the road, have an extremely busy schedule, or just don't like videos, audio content is a very efficient way to deliver content. Next up, video. YouTube, twitch, webinars and narrated slide decks, garner both traffic and engagement as a means to answer questions in a dynamic, visual way. Video content can range anywhere from a few minutes long to a few hours, depending on the subject. YouTube videos are typically under an hour long and webinars two hours or more.

Now let's talk visual content. Infographics, slideshows, checklists, social media graphics. The list really does go on with visual content. Graphic content like this isn't always considered a solo thing, particularly as things like swipeable graphic files can be considered lead magnets in their own right. But it's a great way to represent things like facts and statistics, in an easy to digest way.

And lastly, written. As far as examples of content go, it pays to get your author on! Blog posts, emails, quizzes, white papers, social media posts, captions and more; written content is the most easily recognisable in content marketing and it garners massive organic traffic for a reason. From in-depth guides to quick explainers, this format of content strategy is as old as the Internet itself, but it is worth mentioning that it's best suited to users who regularly have the time to read. As you might expect, if you're enjoying this video, be sure to subscribe and leave a like.

And if you want to make sure you hit that bell so you can stay up to date on all of our latest videos delivered every single week to your inbox.

OK, so now that you've got a rundown of the different content types, let's take a look at how to build a content marketing strategy that knocks your marketing goals out of the park and puts you on track for success. Step one, who's buying? Yep! Just like with your other marketing strategies, you need to know who your potential buyers are, who's going to be buying what you're selling.

 

But what content marketing tips often forget to tell you is that buyer personas aren't exactly the be all and end all of content marketing tactics. While there are going to be people reading your content because they're curious about what you do and what your product is, if you're only focussing on the people you know about, that's a huge chunk of your audience you're potentially missing out on addressing.

Step two, think about your goals. You can't start a journey without knowing where you're going. I mean, you can, but it's not ideal, is it?

So once you've figured out how your potential customers are and who's going to be reading or watching or listening to your content, you need to figure out what you want them to do. Of course, that's going to be buying your super awesome product or service.

But there are a few steps you need to take before you get to that point. You need to know why you're creating content far beyond just wanting money. Do you want to improve your lead generation so you email marketing and social media content starts to generate more revenue?

Do you want to increase organic traffic with optimised content marketing campaigns? Do you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and drive more profitable customer action? Do you want to advertise your products without feeling weird and spammy about buying advertising? No matter what your goals are, you need to get to grips with them now before you get started.

Step three - know where you're at.

Now you've got your goals and customers in mind, you need to know what you've got to work with. If you've already got a website set up for your business, then you need to run a content audit to see how the content you've already got is performing and how it stacks up to others in your industry. If you're planning on publishing content through social media, then it's also worth looking at all of your previous posts to see how well they've performed. Content audits might sound a bit scary, but they're surprisingly simple once you know what you're doing. The problem is that they're lengthy and they do result in a ton of data that you need to know how to action.

Step four - the format.

We're now starting to get a clearer picture of your content strategy, but there's still one major thing you need to decide on, and that's what format your content is going to take. Like I mentioned earlier, different formats have different benefits, and the one you choose needs to be tied in to what your audience wants. So if you run a business teaching newbie investors on how to build their stock portfolio, then chances are that a podcast would be the best option for your content marketing strategy.

Step five, the calendar.

OK, so now we've got a plan coming together. But you know what they say it's not official until it's in the calendar. It's OK that if right now you've not got any solid idea about what you want to talk about in your content, but you should at least get it plugged into a framework or a content calendar so, you know, when it's going to be published. You should also carve out some time to create your content in your schedule. I know this can be tricky when you're busy running a business.

So even if you're planning on outsourcing your content, make sure you've got enough time during the week to put together briefs and review the content that's coming back in. Step six - it's time to get writing. As a rule of thumb, we like to suggest that businesses have two to three months of high quality content ready to go before they publish for the first time. If 2020 showed us anything, it's that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

And if you're the only person in charge of your content marketing strategy, you need to have backups and resources in place in case you can't get your content on time or something goes wrong.

Step seven, it's time to distribute. Once you publish your content, then it's time to start linking it through your social media channels and your email marketing lists using your all important content calendar. Just like with the format of content you chose earlier, you should be distributing your content through the channels your audiences already use, whether that's Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Make sure you tell as many people as possible about your new content. And lastly, step 8 - time to check.

After a few months, make sure to check your content metrics to see how well it's performing.

This is the best chance you've got to evaluate your efforts and make sure you can get things better next time. And that's it. You're now well and truly ready to drive quality traffic, lead generation and a world class experience for each stage of the customer journey with the content marketing solution that will meet both your budget requirements and your objectives. So if you found this video helpful, feel free to share it with someone that you know that needs a hand with their content marketing strategies.

You could also subscribe to our blog, where you'll find a bunch more tools, tips and templates to Help you Find Sell & Keep your people, just like Neighbourhood does. And that's it for me. Happy marketing..

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Capacity Factor

Capacity Factor(Full Lecture)

Good day and welcome to BigBadTech. I'm your instructor Jim Pytel and today's topic of discussion is, Capacity Factor. Our objective is to introduce a common performance measurement known as, Capacity Factor. We'll learn how to calculate capacity factor and discuss how capacity factor influences energy production. This lecture operates under the presumption the viewers have watched both the energy and power and efficiency lectures, both available at the BigBadTech channel.

If you haven't watched these lectures yet or didn't recall their contents, please take the time to do so now. Let's start this lecture on capacity factor with a brief discussion about how awesome I'm. When I say that I'm awesome, I mean I'm totally awesome. I do awesome things all the time and I do them smoothly, confidently with style i.e.

Awesomely. My dirty little secret though is, there have been periods in my past that have not gone so awesomely. Not only have I crushed and burned, I have crushed and burned upside down, backwards and sideways, both personally and professionally in manners unimaginably embarrassing. The point is, not everybody can be awesome all the time, even me. If you were to measure performances as a single snapshot on one particular day, you might get an artificial inflated or deflated sense of how things are truly going.

I'd like to think my history of awesomeness, outweighs my brief but intense periods of non-awesomeness though. When taken together, places me squarely on the awesome half of the dividing line. This holistic measurement of performance taken over time is known as Capacity Factor. Capacity factor measurements aren't single instantaneous snapshots but rather, they are indicated with performance over time. Capacity factor is a measure of how often power generation facilities like wind turbines, hydroelectric dams and coal fired power plants run at full capacity.

To calculate capacity factor, one determines the time the facility actually does run at full capacity and divide it by the time the facility could have been running at full capacity.

Theoretically, all facilities could operate 60 seconds of every minute, 60 minutes of every hour, 24 hours of everyday and 365 days of every i.e. All the time. Obviously, this is way to much to ask of the real world where things can and do go wrong and capacity factor is the measure of how close the generation facility reaches this ideal standard.

Capacity factor is typically expressed using a percentage although in practice I tend to ditch the percentage and think in terms of a ratio of Did over Could. If the answer needs to be expressed in percent format, you're smart enough to shift the decimal point as needed.

Point 8, 5 is 85%, 35% is point 3, 5 and so on. Express graphically, we can visualize this as a triangular relationship of capacity factor Did and Could with Did at the apex and capacity factor and Could side by side at the base. To solve for capacity factor, take the time the facility did run at full capacity and divide it by the time the facility could have been running at full capacity.

Solve for the time the facility did run at full capacity. Take capacity factor and multiply it by the time the facility could have been running at full capacity.

If the facility really does run at full capacity for 24 hours a day, it runs at full capacity or 100%. If however the facility typically runs at full capacity for only one hour a day, the capacity factor is one over 24. Which expressed as a percentage, is roughly 4.2%. Capacity factor is a critical performance measurement for generation facilities because capacity factor affects the amount of time the facility is available to generate power. If energy is power times time, capacity factor affects the time variable in this equation. A generation facility operating more often, will generate more energy than one that runs only occasionally. Let's try a couple of illustrated examples of simple capacity factor calculations.

Consider an industrial wind turbine. So you're no doubt aware, some days it's windy and some days it isn't. Let's say this is a two megawatt wind turbine that typically operates at full capacity for only six hours a day. The capacity factor of this wind turbine is Did over Could or six over 24 or 25%. If energy is power times time, on a typical day this turbine would be expected to produce two megawatts times six hours or 12 megawatt hours or 12,000 kilowatt hours of energy.

Considering however if this same turbine was installed in a slightly windier area with an increased capacity factor of 35%. An algebraic rearrangement of the capacity factor formula suggests this turbine is typically at full production for 35% of 24 hours or 8.4 hours. Again, if energy is power times time, this turbine with a higher capacity factor, typically produces two megawatts times 8.4 hours or 16.8 megawatt hours or 16,800 kilowatt hours of energy.

Compare and contrast the energy output of the two similarly related turbines operating and reads with different capacity factors. The higher capacity turbine can be expected to produce 4,800 more kilowatt hours everyday a little than the last windy area. If the owners were selling the output of this turbine at wholesale price of let's say four cents per kilowatt hour, the turbine with the increased capacity factor would generate 4,800 times four cents or 192 dollars more each day than the one with the smaller capacity factor. If this pattern repeats itself for 365 days or a whole year, this turbine with a higher capacity factor, would have generated 365 times 192 or 70,080 additional dollars.

This is the example that's intended to illustrate capacity factor has a profound impact on the economics of energy production. It is for this reason that the wind resources of a proposed wind farm must be thoroughly investigated before development. Windier regions result to wind farms with higher capacity factor and more profitable results. Let's try a slightly more sophisticated example of capacity factor calculation. So you're no doubt aware, wind speeds can vary from gentle breezes to full-force scales.

The nominal or nameplate power of our a wind turbine is experienced only at a particular related speed typically around 12 meters per second. In the previous example, we assume the two megawatt wind turbine in a higher capacity factor area, experience exactly 12 meters per second for exactly 8.4 hours. In reality, it might be startlingly different. Wind turbines operate using something called a power curve typically defined by three points.

The cut-in speed, the rated speed and the cut-out speed.

The cut-in speed typically at four meters per second, is when the turbine actually starts producing power. Between the cut-in speed and the rated speed, power output increases. At the rated speed typically around 12 meters per second, the turbine generates it's nominal or nameplate value, in this example, two megawatts. Between the rated speed and the cut-out speed, power flat lines at the nominal value and finally at the cut-out speed typically around 25 meters per second, the turbine shuts down and prevents damage.

Let's say 10 meters per second, this turbine is up and it's only 1.2 megawatts.

Let's now take a look at wind's speed as a function of time for a particular day. To keep this problem manageable, let's say this turbine typically experiences wind speeds of 10 meters per second for two hours. Then six hours of 12 meters per second at greater land and then the wind throttles back to 10 meters per second for another two hours.

If we're asked to calculate the capacity factor of this particular turbine, we quickly run into a complication because although the turbine is operating for 10 hours of everyday, so it's has been running at full capacity for six of these 10 hours.

How can we calculate capacity factor or for a resource with variable output?

Simple, think not in terms of time but rather energy. How much energy could this turbine have produced verses how much it did actually produce.

Theoretically, two megawatt turbine running at full capacity for 24 hours a day will produce two megawatts times 24 hours or 48 megawatt hours of energy.

In actuality, this turbine produces less. For the first two hour period of 10 meters per second wind, the turbine produces 1.2 megawatts times two hours or 2.4 megawatt hours of energy. For the middle six hour period of 12 meters per second of greater wind, the turbine produces two megawatts times six hours or 12 megawatt hours of energy.

Finally for the last two hour period of 10 meters per second wind, the turbine produces 1.2 megawatts times two hours or 2.4 megawatt hours of energy. In summation, the turbine produces 2.4 megawatt hours plus 12 megawatt hours plus 2.

 

4 megawatt hours or 16.8 megawatt hours on energy in total. What's the capacity factor of this turbine if it could produce 48 megawatt hours of energy a day but in reality it only produces 16.8 megawatt hours of energy? 16.8 megawatt hours over 48 megawatt hours is the capacity factor of 35% as previously.

This is to imply that although the turbine experiences periods of variable output for a variable length of time, in this case two hours at 1.2 megawatts, six hours at two megawatts followed by another two hours at 1.2 megawatts ultimately appears as if it was operating at full capacity for 35% of 24 hours or 8.4 hours at two megawatts.

Either scenario, the real variable output or the simplified version results in the production of 16.8 megawatt hours of energy which is 35% of what the turbine could theoretically produce. What's nice about capacity factor is that, it's a super convenient way of estimating energy output for a particular facility without getting bogged down in excessive details like the availability and variability of a generation resource, maintenance schedules, unplanned outages or regulatory curtailment. Consider a massive hydroelectric dam consisting of 16, 50 megawatt turbine operating in a 50% capacity factor. This most assuredly does not mean that for 12 hours of everyday, the river is quite as a pod and the next 12 hours turn into a raging maelstrom of white water and so all the 16 turbines open up to full capacity.

It doesn't even mean that eight of the 16 available turbines run at full capacity all day. It does however imply that the dam over the course of its history typically produces enough energy as if it was running at half capacity all the time.

In reality, we might expect the dam output to fluctuate daily and seasonally throughout the year. For example, water might be intentionally spilled to aid in fish passage, navigation or flood control. Certain turbines might be periodically inoperable as they undergo maintenance repair or upgrade and certain turbines may run at reduced capacity for longer periods.

Ultimately, capacity factor takes into account all this occasions which the dam does not run at full capacity such that it automatically produces half the energy it theoretically could produce. Given this capacity factor and name-plate power rating, it's a very simple matter of determining the typical daily energy output of this dam. If all 16, 50 megawatt turbines were operating at full capacity, this dam would produce 16 times 50 or 800 megawatts of power.

If it did this for 24 hours a day, it would produce 800 megawatts times 24 hours or 19,200 megawatt hours of energy or more appropriately, 19.2 gigawatt hours of energy each day.

It doesn't. The capacity factor figure of 50% tells us the dam typically only produces half of that per day. Half of 19.2 is 9.6 gigawatt hours of energy.

All of this without having to worry about reservoir levels, seasonal fluctuations of flow rate, maintenance schedules or bagged traffic.

Capacity factor is a quick means of estimating how much energy a facility can regularly produce. Again, energy is power times time. Massive power plants with large capacity factors produce massive amounts of energy. A nuclear power plant might fit this description.

Smaller power plants with low capacity factors produce small amounts of energy. The small residential photovoltaic array, might fit this description. Speaking of photovoltaic arrays, consider a small three kilowatt residential scale PV system installed in a house in a relatively sunny area of the country known to produce 5,037 kilowatt hours of energy annually.

What's the capacity factor of this PV array? Obviously a solar resource will have a capacity factor of less than 50%.

This is sun only shines for roughly half the day and during those times it is above the horizon, it will shine with varying intensity and experience varying cloud cover. Theoretically, this plant could operate 24 hours a day. Three kilowatts times 24 hours yields 72 kilowatt hours of energy each day. If it did this for 365 days or a whole year, it could theoretically produce 26,280 kilowatt hours of energy each year. Capacity factor is Did over Could.

5,037 kilowatt hours for 26,280 kilowatt hours, it's a capacity factor of roughly 19.2%. This implies that the solar array produces enough energy as if it did run at full capacity for 19.2% of a day, or roughly 4.6 hours.

This most assuredly does not mean that the sun immediately rises and shines at full intensity for roughly 4.6 hours and then immediately sets but rather the sun shines with varying intensity for varying periods with varying cloud cover such that it ultimately produces an equivalent amount of energy as if it did shine at full intensity for only 4.6 hours a day.

For solar resource measurement, this span of time is what is commonly referred to as peak-sun hours but if you think about it, it's just another method of expressing capacity factor. 4.6 hours is 19.2% of 24 hours expressed using the time format, peak-sun hours just makes it easy to quickly estimate the average output of the solar array of a given size.

Those of you with a calculus background will realize the energy output of the array, each day is the area under the power curve. Three kilowatts times 4.6 hours yields the daily block of energy with an area 13.8 kilowatt hours. If you squint your eyes just right, both scenarios, the real varying output in brown and the mathematical equivalent in light orange, yield the same energy output I.e. Area under the power curve. I'll be at calculations employing the peak-sun hours simplification is much much easier.

All things being equal, this three kilowatt array ultimately produces 13.8 kilowatt hours of energy each day or 5,037 kilowatt hours per year whether the sun shines with varying intensity for varying periods of time or if immediately pops over the horizon and shines at it's full intensity for 4.6 hours and pops below the hills, plain in to the world into total darkness.

We'll examine PV systems in peak-sun hours in greater detail in later lectures. For now, you should simply appreciate that peak-sun hours and capacity factor both influence the amount of time a facility is able to generate.

There is simply different methods of expressing the same quantity. Before we bring this lecture to a close, let me remind you as I hope this examples I've illustrated, facilities with high capacity factors generate a lot of energy and as a result, they are more economically successful. If you're in the energy business, even a small increase in capacity factor reaps tremendous financial rewards. It is for this reason the intelligence scheduling of routine maintenance and timely repair of critical systems during periods of high resources availability are so important.

Alright, that's about it for today.

In conclusion, this lecture present a capacity factor calculations. Well, capacity factor is a performance measurement of how much energy was generated verses how much could have been generated. Remember to review these concepts as often as you need to really drive it home. Imagine how well lab will go if you know what you're doing. Thank you very much for your attention and interest.

Let's see you again during the next lecture of our series. Remember to tell your lazy lab partner about this resource and be sure to check out the BigBadTech channel for additional resources and updates.

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How Traffic Works in Cities Skylines AI and Games

How Traffic Works in Cities Skylines  AI and Games

Quite often artificial intelligence is in control of so many elements of our favorite video games but we seldom take notice and take it for granted an ai tool or system can be running in plain sight providing a critical element.

Of the game that players are largely unaware of until it starts to go wrong i'm tommy thompson and in this episode of ai and games we're going to look at a fantastic example of this found in the popular city building simulator cities skylines let's take a look at the traffic and navigation systems that run in every city how citizens go about their day-to-day routine.

And how developers colossal order sought to address the traffic jams that can quite easily emerge released in 2015 published by paradox interactive cities skylines is an open-ended city building simulator where players are responsible for many aspects of modern urban planning this includes establishing city zoning utilities such as water and electricity establishing zones for residential commercial and industrial growth public services.

Such as schools fire services and law enforcement all the taxation that is required to pay for it all and critically for this episode road placement.

And establishing transportation services within the region colossal order having achieved success with the cities in motion series had sought to expand into a full city building title a sentiment that at that time paradox interactive did not share however 2013 saw a gap emerging the market courtesy of the latest entry in the beloved sim city franchise from electronic arts the game came under intense criticism at release with players posting screenshots and videos.

Of cities not behaving as expected and while the issues raised were numerous there are two critical points we are exploring in this episode first the traffic simulation in simcity was highly problematic traffic would often bottleneck creating massive jams that seemingly never resolved themselves meanwhile should the player attempt to rework junctions to enable better traffic flow or add public transportation this often proved to be more of a hindrance than a help secondly.

The citizens in sim city did not behave as expected while it was anticipated that the sims would live their predetermined lives working jobs and living happily in their homes in reality they lacked any individuality sims would leave the house in the morning find the nearest job available in the city and then after the working day they didn't necessarily go back to the house they had previously left instead they simply go to the nearest vacant property while this is undesirable it seems slightly innocuous until you realize how big an impact this would have on the already troubled traffic systems.

As well as the actual behavior and economy of the cities themselves while simcity sought to address this through numerous patches it never really collapsed at a solution that players were happy with however city skylines when released satisfied many of the features that players sought from its competitor and as we'll see in a moment it not only tracks the passage of every vehicle through your city's road system but your citizens.

Will go about their daily business as one would expect that said it still suffers from traffic congestion and a few other issues now before.

We get into the intricacies of this problem and how it is tackled in city skylines it's important to acknowledge that this isn't just an issue that plagues video games but the real world too traffic management systems in the real world are highly complex and incredibly expensive to research and develop these systems have to manage signaling traffic flow and congestion tracking and responding to accidents and other incidents on the road such as spillages damage to the road or faults emerging in signaling systems and cctv cameras.

That are used to provide oversight there are efforts to employ artificial intelligence to handle the complexities of real-world traffic management but it is far from a solved problem at this time hence it's understandable that as a city building simulation game seeks to become more and more realistic the challenges that developers face will rise accordingly first let's talk about the citizens.

How do they work and what impact are they going to have on the traffic network each citizen and city skylines has information that is used as part of the city simulation this includes their name what level of education they have their residential address their place of employment or education if they have one their overall level of happiness a reference to their current activity including any destinations that they're currently heading towards if they're traveling around the map their health their wealth and lastly it maintains references to familial relationships.

And what other citizens are related to them each of these features impacts the game in different ways levels of education influence what type of jobs they take on the performance of these businesses and the value of residential areas meanwhile happiness is shown to the player and gives a barometer for how well you're performing given there may be services these citizens require such as healthcare or utilities that they feel is lacking or the job opportunities in the region aren't up to scratch but perhaps what's most influential on citizens behavior.

As they move around the map is their age while a citizen does have a numeric age this isn't exposed to players by default but the key part is that they live their lives in five stages children where they start going to nearby schools if there is capacity teens who go to high schools if there is space young adults who either attend university or get a job if they can adults.

Who not only move out of their current home and into a new one if they can but will also settle down and start their own families and lastly seniors where citizens retire and no longer go to work but still use city services and commercial businesses this has a huge impact on the transportation network given kids are going to school adults are either at university or in a job and pensioners are running amok picking up newspapers cans of tenants super and jelly suites some of these citizens.

Will be in their own car while others use public transport and this is a very difficult balancing act given not only will your city grow if you're doing your job right but citizens age at an incredibly fast rate with the average life expectancy being around six in-game years oh man the first aion games video was in 2014 that means i just wasted my entire city skyline's life trying to sound smart on the internet oh what a waste of time so many things i've ever got to do like an episode on shadow of mordor or looking.

At the ai of dark souls or that bloody forza video i threaten on the welcome video why am i only thinking about the videos there's so much more to life than youtube and oh man my wife's gonna kill me  so given we have so many citizens moving around how does the road system work before i can get into the movement of traffic let's look.

At how roads are built given this influences how the search process takes place afterwards under the hood roads are modeled as a collection of nodes two nodes connected to one another is a segment providing both start and end points your average road in city skylines is actually multiple segments glued together given a segment has a maximum size each node in a segment is known as a control point this provides start and end positions for roads.

As well as the intersection with other roads creating junctions each segment of the road stores information about itself including what type of road it is how many lanes it has and what types of lanes these are this all becomes useful when a citizen wants to travel between locations now this information extends to sidewalks too which operate on a slightly different system given they can be elevated or tunneled to go over or under traffic and crosswalks are established when building them alongside roads to enable pedestrians.

To cross all of this information comes into play when a citizen makes the decision to travel to a destination having citizens move around in city skylines is by the developer's own admission the single greatest challenge faced during development resonating with the issues that plagued simcity given it is arguably the one system that any player who spends more than 10 minutes.

In the game will come to interact with hence ensuring a basic level of functionality and avoiding some.

Of the more gnarly edge cases was paramount to that end not only did colossal order rework this system several times over but as we'll see in a moment some elements that players might want to see were actually removed because.

It only made the problem worse when a citizen decides they want to travel.

They use all of the available information about the city's transport infrastructure including the roads sidewalks crossings public transportation routes.

And available vehicles and will find the fastest possible route to their destination hence the node system within the roads and sidewalks is searched through to find a valid path this actually factors in numerous elements based on the citizen involved and the local geography if a citizen owns a car they will attempt to drive it if they don't have a car they'll not only check for a valid path on sidewalks but also factor in whether there is any public transportation that can speed up that process in some cases there are strict rules on how this can operate pacific buildings such as hospitals and fire departments.

Will enforce the use of ambulances and fire trucks respectively rather than a firefighter taking a bus with a bucket of water as your home turns to ash meanwhile pedestrians cannot walk on highways and hence if they don't have public transportation options and sufficient sidewalks to get them to their destinations they'll resign themselves to defeat colossal order have never outright stated what the such algorithm is however given the rich data laced throughout the road network.

I would not be surprised to find a modified version of a-star or dijkstra's that achieves the desired effect the resulting system is actually quite remarkable since a character can make this level of nuanced decision-making at this scale given a pedestrian can easily walk and take multiple forms of transportation in order to get to their destination the destination they want to visit can vary and while they will prioritize going to the primary destination for their life stage such as school college or work they will.

Also go to commercial units such as shops and restaurants as well as clinics and hospitals when a citizen takes a car it utilizes not just the road network topology but the additional constraints of the road types themselves against the vehicle this includes the dedicated cycling or bus lanes as well as the speed limits the number of lanes and the current congestion level provided the system can generate a path through the road network.

Then the vehicle will begin to drive it it can also still use the public transportation system hence it is possible for a citizen to drive to a metro station and then use the train for the remainder of the journey in essence that's how city skylines.

Works but there are several edge cases revolving around traffic the number of citizens in the city and more and we're going to get into that now but before i do there are two really important caveats i want to cover first things first not all citizens are rendered in the city at any point in time there is a hard limit on how many citizens and vehicles can be simulated on the streets of your city at any given moment now you might think this is just a rendering issue and that the game is still simulating all citizens under the hood and you just don't see it no no no no city skylines outright caps.

How many citizens can be traveling within the city at any given time there is a separate system that monitors whether there are available slots for travelling citizens and then allows them to travel once there is space while the movement of citizens is important for maintaining the economy and their own personal health and education you the player are not penalized for a citizen being unable to travel due to the simulation cap the system that oversees this ensures that players are not punished because a citizen is due to compute limitations unable to travel to their desired destination.

The second caveat is that the traffic you see on the streets is a separate simulation from the citizen management when you watch traffic it's a collection of thousands of small physics objects that read information from the road network to simulate how the citizen is moving through it so for the remainder of this episode let's look at two things first how the traffic simulation systems work and secondly.

What happens when traffic jams start to occur in the game world traffic is handled in a separate simulation system that is actively calculating how to follow the chosen path the velocity that the vehicle should be going at and also preventing collisions while traffic looks like this smooth and constantly updating process it's only rendered that way the traffic simulation is actually only updated four times a second and the rendering system takes two of these simulation updates to derive the movement of the objects currently on screen when traffic is simulated a vehicle knows the path that it's been told to go on and they know where on a given road they can drive hence they won't drive the wrong way down a runway paths through the roads are calculated on a spline using the nodes of each road segment this allows for tight corners and intersections to be handled as gracefully as possible these simulation.

Steps allow for vehicles to calculate whether collisions are going to occur at intersections or from traffic slowing down vehicles do recognize traffic lights and will slow down and stop if the lights dictate they can't travel into the intersection meanwhile to minimize crashes vehicles check ahead of themselves during the simulation for whether a collision between two vehicles is imminent this annotates a segment of the road as liable to cause a crash at which point.

The distance to the segment is used to decide which vehicle should go first and they move through it on a first come first serve basis each adapting speed accordingly but of course despite all of this effort there are still.

Issues with traffic jams in part this is to be expected if the player does not build the network sufficiently but there are other issues that impact the system so let's wrap up by talking about what the simulation does and does not do in order to keep it manageable first of all unless something happens that causes a given path to no longer be valid or has been extensively modified a citizen or vehicle will not change their pre-calculated routes.

You may think there would be some opportunistic behavior going on here where a character may re-evaluate their options on the fly but nope only in the event something happens that negates the original path plus you'll note that while in some larger segments of road with multiple lanes that could spread the traffic out you'll notice they don't change lane again after moving into the one they originally decided upon even if that would make sense to do so having vehicles change lanes midway through a segment of road was actually something that colossal order experimented.

With only to later remove because during internal testing it actually made everything worse when traffic builds up you may see cars sitting idle at junctions and not moving forward despite having room to do so and that's.

Often because their simulation has determined further issues up ahead and as a result they opt to simply stand idle rather than continue forward on their pre-chosen path last but not least city skylines has a fallback option for when traffic jams are overwhelming if a vehicle has found itself in gridlock and unable to move it will actually teleport back to its origin and the previously mentioned worker system may well stop that citizen from trying to travel again and avoid punishing.

The player any further this was a decision made by colossal order in order to make the transportation challenge more manageable given even some relatively small cities can begin to be impacted by this issue this decision has actually proven to be contentious among some players who prefer the challenge it presents and use mods to actively remove the teleport feature building a city simulation game.

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The World's Most Impressive Megaprojects

The World's Most Impressive Megaprojects

With the global population continuing to expand and with our world facing immense challenges from housing to transportation and our use of natural resources supersized construction projects have begun to proliferate.

With eye-watering budgets extreme complexity staggering scale and far-reaching impacts these are some of the world's most impressive mega projects  as the demand for air travel continues to grow and with the united states preparing to host both the 2026 fifa world cup and the 2028 olympic games airports across the country from laguardia to lax are undergoing multi-billion dollar overhauls the 8.5 billion us dollar upgrade to chicago's o'hare international.

Will mark the first comprehensive redevelopment and expansion of the terminal core in the airport's history the master plan will see terminal 5 expanded while terminal 2 will be completely rebuilt becoming a global transfer hub with two satellite concourses adding 280 000 square meters of space and 50 additional gates to the airport to minimize disruption the new concourses will be built first allowing them to take over operations from terminal 2 when the existing building.

Is demolished work on terminal 5 is scheduled to complete by 2022 and subsequent phases will open in stages up to 2028 a joint project between 35 nations the iter formerly known as the international thermonuclear experimental reactor is currently under construction in france once completed the 20 billion us dollar center will allow scientists to recreate the fusion reactions that take place inside the sun potentially revolutionizing energy production consisting of three main buildings.

The product is centered around the tokamak a magnetic chamber that will contain the plasma created when particles are heated over 150 million degrees celsius and collided to produce fusion energy construction of the vast building that houses the reactor began in 2013 requiring the development of 10 different types of concrete to shield workers from radiation with more than 60 percent of the reactor complex already complete work is now underway on the tokamak inside its 337 000 tonne housing chamber.

The entire complex is due to come online in 2025  ethiopia's grand renaissance dam sits alongside nigeria's echo atlantic and egypt's 58 billion new capital as one of africa's most impressive mega projects with work first starting back in 2011 the dam will become the continent's largest hydroelectric plant generating some 6.45 gigawatts of power when it completes in 2022 standing 155 meters tall.

And extending almost 1 800 meters across the blue nile the main structure is being formed with over 10 million tons of concrete holding back 74 cubic kilometers of water when the reservoir is full while the dam will transform ethiopia's energy production the project has been marred in controversy since inception 20 000 people were relocated to enable the construction works and many have raised concerns over the project's 4.8 billion us dollar price tag which represents roughly six percent of ethiopia's entire gdp and saw funding diverted away from other much-needed energy projects.

The dam has also reignited an ongoing dispute between ethiopia and the downstream nations of sudan and egypt who see the project as an attempt by the ethiopian government to gain regional influence since its first bullet train shot onto the world stage in 1964 japan has pioneered the development.

Of high-speed rail  while competition from europe and china has seen the title of world's fastest trains move west in recent years the new chao shinkansen with its maglev carriages able to reach speeds of 500 kilometers per hour will see japan reclaim the title despite tokyo.

And nagoa sitting 284 kilometers apart the new line will bring the two cities within 40 minutes of each other set to become one of the shortest routes on the shinkansen network 90 of the trackway will run underground and beneath the japanese alps reducing the travel distance by over 50 kilometers and saving 4.9 billion us dollars over alternative options the new line set to open in 2027 plans are already underway for an extension to link nagowa with the saka a 30.

 

5 billion us dollar meca project in itself rising 271 metres above sydney's emerging barangaroo district the 75-storey one barangaroo also known as crown sydney will become the city's tallest building  designed by wilkinson air the tower's structural form is based around three twisting petals.

And will contain a casino australia's first six star hotel and 82 luxury apartments overlooking the famous harbour with its form ensuring that no two rooms are the same the tower is clad in over seven thousand unique triangle shaped panels giving it a crystalline appearance as it rises the complex will offer extreme luxury.

With a spa gym open-air tennis court two rooftop infinity pools and a michelin star restaurant topping out in november 2019 and due to open in 2021 one barangaroo is already making its mark on the city's skyline if you enjoyed this video.

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