The Physics of a Good Store Location 72
Roland Piquepaille writes, "In 'Atomic Physics Predicts Successful Store Location,' LiveScience reports that a French physicist has applied methods used to study atomic interactions for another task: to 'help business owners find the best places to locate their stores.' Pablo Jensen has used his method for the city of Lyon and is now developing software with the local Chamber of Commerce to help future business owners. Read more for additional references and maps of the city of Lyon showing for example the best locations to open a bakery, according to atomic physics." Jensen says that more research is needed to know if this method would work in other cities.
Roland Piquepaille Junk Science #2 (Score:5, Informative)
ONCE AGAIN, he is linking to the same zdnet blog that he has the last 4 times. Are you editors all dumb? Can you not figure out it's a ad-trap? I guess since we can't filter him, we have to make posts like this to bitch. Did I mention this is more junk science to ad rape us with? K...
So yea offtopic me all you want Roland (with your many accounts here), but since (as usual) this is a submission for ad clicks, I just want to say thanks for wasting my eyeballs again. Let's hope people realize this is crap before they post and click for him. Not that his links have anything to do with real science...which makes this whole submission offtopic.
Re:Roland Piquepaille Junk Science #2 (Score:5, Informative)
See http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=PLEEE8&V
Re:Roland Piquepaille Junk Science #2 (Score:4, Informative)
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I refer to the practice of linking to a blog or some other site instead of linking directly to TFA itself.
Right? Anyone volunteer to go dig up the CmdrTaco comments from those Slashdot Navel-Gazing threads we had? I'm sure someone remembers it exactly, or has it bookmarked.
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Am I the only one who thinks economy and sociology are physics subjects?
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And here I'd let my subscription lapse. :-P
In Roland's defense, I would never have heard of this, but it's cool nonetheless to hear about it. If he can find links to Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter physics, power to him. That do
Re:Roland Piquepaille Junk Science #2 (Score:4, Funny)
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Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Even on the same street, stores on one side may be "live" while stores on the other side may be "dead".
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I know people (usually the business types [google.com]) who can go to an empty store location, look around for 3 minutes and tell you whether the location is good or not.
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Look, if it's a bakery, and makes donuts, cakes, fudge bars, (the kind with walnuts inside, and sugar on the bottom), then there is absolutely no need to use "physics" to determine where to put the store!
Put it anywhere there is a road! Make sure the sign outside says "Bakery".
It's going to be a huge success from the very first day!
Don't even need to sell coffee there. Had that already. Just provide friendly staff to stuff our ba
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If you really want to be like a bakery in France, you want to be on a side street with no good parking, have an unmarked door and perhaps no sign outside, and you want to be open only three or four hours a day. If customers can't find you, of if the bread is all sold out, that's their loss.
But honestly, most neighborhoods in France already have at least one bakery. They're about as common as convenien
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There are plenty of quality bakeries in the US. While they may not in general be as good as the ones in France, they are far superior to supermarkets.
Economics? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't remember who, but some guy got some press for an article he wrote discussing how a lot more progress would be made if we threw researchers from disparate fields together to work on a problem.
By bringing their differing talents/viewpoints/knowledge to a problem, you end up with new and 'better' solutions.
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tag: pigpile (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's an oxymoron you moron!!
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(tagging beta) (Score:1)
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And I honestly don't see what is so wrong with his articles. Sure, he adds a link to his own blog, but that's her perogative as a submitter, and often times the articles he submits are interesting, and not nearly bad science as that "Scottish Firm Developes Free Energy" was, or so many other articles (not by Roland) have been.
Not to say he's amazing or anything, I just don't get what everyone has against him...
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feng shui is way better than this (Score:1)
Finally, a practical use for physics. (Score:4, Funny)
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Come on folks. It's not like you had to pay for the paint. I haven't seen anything this bad short of MySpace...
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It is nothing but common sense with math.
Yes, that's what physics is: A well-organized, well-documented common sense with math.
How To Block Roland Piquepaille (Score:5, Informative)
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/5738 [userscripts.org]
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Let's get physical... (Score:2)
Sounds like another consultanting scheme to separate business owners from their money. I guess having a good business plan, a generous handout from the city and feng shui just doesn't cut it anymore.
Economic Geography (Score:1)
Interesting - but not a general solution. (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, there are many small town or villages in wine regions in the midwest U.S. where there are multiple wineries/shops/bakeries that are right next door to each other and do quite well. According to this model, many of those bakeries should fail. In fact, it is the shops farther away from the "main street" that have the fewest customers. The same in historical/heritage communities. In the Amana Colonies in Iowa - same thing - multiple bakeries beside each other with similar merchandise but all full of customers.
What is missing in this model is how different cultures view the shopping experience. In the U.S., we seem to prefer going to a single area and having a large number of similar shops. If we want to buy a car, we prefer to hit an area where there are numerous dealers so we can find a good deal. We would rather drive past a local bakery to hit WalMart so we can save a few dollars. Since most american families own a car, how the distance and time affect things is different than in Europe. We don't shop locally by default, which is why WalMart can kill small businesses for miles around.
Now, I'm not saying that this model is bad, but the locality, culture an demographics needs to be taken into account, so this isn't a generic model that can be applied everywhere, but a technique that other localities can use to create their own model.
It would also be interesting to see how large changes such as extended construction on a major road, or the construction of a new mall/housing complex/office building would affect the model.
Re:Interesting - but not a general solution. (Score:4, Informative)
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This is the usual thing in most Asian cities I've been in. A whole street of sports shoe shops, another street of wedding card printers, etc, etc. I imagine it reduces the risk of starting a new business. You're bound to get some walk in sales as basically everyone who passes by has come to the area specifically to
Yeah according to Quantum Physics (Score:4, Funny)
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Emergence (Score:4, Informative)
There's an intriguing discussion of geographic distribution of commerce in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software [simonsays.com] by Stephen Johnson.
It's a great read, and it gave me all kinds of nonlinear insights into How The World Works that I hadn't really thought about before. It also definitely made me want to bust out Sim City again.
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Physics and geography meet again, eh? (Score:1)
Lakshmanen-Hansen: some names to conjure with.
This science really is bogus (Score:2, Insightful)
good science, revealing article (Score:2, Insightful)
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Roland Piquepaille has a Wikipedia page. (Score:1)
I'm gonna go ahead and nominate that for speedy deletion, as Wikipedia says - be bold
Teehee... (Score:1)
A small triumph, but I want to relish in it. That was me!
Maybe a new idea, but is it better? (Score:2, Interesting)
Newsflash! (Score:2)
But we already know how to do that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, we already know how to find the optimal location for a store. You look for where there's a McDonald's, and you locate the store right next to it. Couldn't be simpler. _How_ McD's always manages to find exactly the perfect spot, I'm not sure, but I've yet to see one suboptimally located, so plopping down next to them should be a pretty reliable way to find a really good spot.
Quack Quack! (Score:1)
Who let the dogs in? (Score:2)
Not Roland the Plogger again? He just posted a crap story yesterday. This has to stop.
What a minute? Feng Shui is real? (Score:2)
Wait, I know - maybe it works on the sub-atomic level, yeah, that's it, all kinds of non-intuitive stuff happens there...
Stop this Roland crap, slashdot. (Score:2)