Space Zippers?

[Joseph Nebus]

An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
because it deserved to sell poorly, really.

Are there stories that look into technological advances which
would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
are maybe a step backwards? Asimov's _Nemesis_ features as part of the
background the early, primitive days of superluminal hyperjumps, when
they couldn't actually get you moving faster than light (on average) and
produced a considerable chance of blowing up your spaceship. And one
of Clarke's favorite themes is how the developmental or early finished
states of an invention are desperately flawed (``Superiority'', of course,
but even early bits like ``Travel By Wire!'' are about this), but, who's
writing such stories now, and who writes them well?


--
http://nebusresearch.wordpress.com/ Joseph Nebus
Latest: Odd Proofs http://wp.me/p1RYhY-sj
--------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

[J. Clarke]

In article <kodeok$ilr$2...@reader1.panix.com>, nebusj-@-rpi-.edu says...

>
> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
> for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
> worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
> competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
> they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
> holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
> because it deserved to sell poorly, really.

They still have certain shortcomings. A mouse ate a few teeth off of
the zipper in my briefcase a while back and now the zipper will not stay
closed.

[Robert Carnegie]

As far as I recall, Asimov's "The Dead Past" is about
someone who discovers a way to make a much cheaper
past-time-viewer than the government laboratory model.

But, what about people who use a new, fashionable,
but practically inferior product because it's fashionable?
Look here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_Shades>

In sci-fi that would probably be satire. It is a while
since I read _Brave New World_, in which novel consumption
is your patriotic duty.

In _1984_, the government is deliberately impairing
the language.

There are not-quite-satisfactory human-mind-upload-into-computer
portrayals in _Beyond the Blue Event Horizon_ (does someone
want to fix the plot summary in its Wikipedia page),
in _Accelerando_ (they quickly get better than the
real thing), in a few other places...

And of course almost anything invented by "Wallace and Gromit".

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>
> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
> advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
> are maybe a step backwards?

I recall an old Analog story about the first cyborg -- a human brain
in a robot body. Mechanical muscles that could bench-press about
twenty pounds, fuzzy visual sense, lousy audio resolution, no sense of
smell or taste... etc.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[lal_truckee]

On 6/1/13 11:32 AM, Joseph Nebus wrote:

> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
> advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
> are maybe a step backwards?

Possibly a reference to WWII German science and military engineering is
in order.

[Taki Kogoma]

On 2013-06-01, lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:

Which leads quite nicely to Clarke's "Superiority"...

--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk (Known to some as Taki Kogoma) quirk @ swcp.com
Just an article detector on the Information Supercollider.

[Robert Bannister]

On 2/06/13 2:32 AM, Joseph Nebus wrote:
> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
> for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
> worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
> competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
> they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
> holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
> because it deserved to sell poorly, really.

And early plastic zips were even worse than the metal ones they replaced.
--
Robert Bannister

[Greg Goss]

nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
>for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
>worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
>competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
>they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
>holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
>because it deserved to sell poorly, really.
>
> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
>advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
>are maybe a step backwards?

Evolution is full of "traps" that you can't evolve past because any
move towards the solution is worse than the current state. Our eye's
wiring is on the front, in the way of the image. It makes more sense
to do it from the back, like the octopus eye. Human children are born
dramatically prematurely, just to get the skull through the pelvis.
For our size, gestation should be 15 months. It would make a lot of
sense to run the birth canal in front of the pelvis rather than
through it, but you can't get there from here.

Back in technology, apparently Mark Twain threw away several
typewriters in disgust because they were almost unusable, then would
accept another one from the manufacturer because they weren't quite
unusable. The manufacturer liked a famous "name" using their product.

But these aren't "stories" like you asked for.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Greg Goss]

Taki Kogoma <qu...@tenma.swcp.com> wrote:

>On 2013-06-01, lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com>
>allegedly proclaimed to rec.arts.sf.written:
>> On 6/1/13 11:32 AM, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>>
>>> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>>> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
>>> advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
>>> are maybe a step backwards?
>>
>> Possibly a reference to WWII German science and military engineering is
>> in order.
>
>Which leads quite nicely to Clarke's "Superiority"...

Wasn't Clarke heavily involved in Britain's radar development? He was
likely writing about the British version.

[ncw...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, June 1, 2013 9:39:43 PM UTC+2, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> It is a while since I read _Brave New World_, in which novel consumption
> is your patriotic duty.
>

_Brave New World_ also made a lot out of having clothing being held together with zippers. Presumably because it was modern at the time (it seems to have taken a while after it's invention for zippers to become widely used in clothing).

Cheers,
Nigel.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Sat, 2013-06-01, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>
> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
> for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
> worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
> competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
> they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
> holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
> because it deserved to sell poorly, really.

Seems to have become a fashion statement in the 1930s or 1940s; see e.g.
this quote, attributed to my uncle:

"Gissa-kissa va jag ble kylder för? -- Blixtlåsatröjan va bar,
å dä drog!"

where a small boy indirectly boasts about his sweater having a zipper,
by blaming the zipper for him catching a cold.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .

[Brian M. Scott]

On 5 Jun 2013 21:39:25 GMT, Jorgen Grahn
<grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote in
<news:slrnkqvc0b.3...@frailea.sa.invalid> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

A zipper is a 'lightning-lock'? Neat!

I can get the question; I take it that <va> and <ble> there
are standard <vad> and <blev>, respectively, and that
<gissa-kissa> is a humorous or childish extension of <gissa>
– more or less 'guessy-wessy'. 'Guess why ['what for'] I
caught a cold.'

And I think that the next clause is 'The zipper-sweater was
open', with <va> for standard <var>. The last clause,
though, is too much for me: it offers too many possibilities
for my poor knowledge of Swedish and almost non-existent
knowledge of Swedish dialects.

Brian

[Greg Goss]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:

>On Sat, 2013-06-01, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>>
>> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
>> for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
>> worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
>> competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
>> they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
>> holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
>> because it deserved to sell poorly, really.
>
>Seems to have become a fashion statement in the 1930s or 1940s; see e.g.
>this quote, attributed to my uncle:
>

> "Gissa-kissa va jag ble kylder f�r? -- Blixtl�satr�jan va bar,
> � d� drog!"

>
>where a small boy indirectly boasts about his sweater having a zipper,
>by blaming the zipper for him catching a cold.

The zipper is also a metal pathway through the cloth. Buttons use
overlapping fabric layers. Zippers provide metal from the outside to
the inside. Unless there's a proper flap over the zipper, which I
think came later.

I first saw plastic-coil zippers in the early seventies. I'm not sure
if I saw plastic-teeth zippers in jackets before that.

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; On Thursday, in article
<r6pgfu6ug20q.1bdu05ssgz6wu$.d...@40tude.net>
b.s...@csuohio.edu "Brian M. Scott" enthused:

>Jorgen Grahn<grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote in

>>Joseph Nebus wrote:
>>> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is
>>> that for the first several decades after its invention,
>>> it was a considerably worse solution for the problem it
>>> solved than the technological competition was (mostly
>>> buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before they got
>>> that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good
>>> at holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to
>>> jam. It sold poorly because it deserved to sell poorly,
>>> really.
>> Seems to have become a fashion statement in the 1930s or 1940s; see e.g.
>> this quote, attributed to my uncle:
>> "Gissa-kissa va jag ble kylder för? -- Blixtlåsatröjan va bar,
>> å dä drog!"
>> where a small boy indirectly boasts about his sweater
>> having a zipper, by blaming the zipper for him catching a cold.
>
>A zipper is a 'lightning-lock'? Neat!

- for the first N years i can recall, zips had the word,
"lightning" cast into both sides of the tag by which one
pulls the zipper up or down, opening or closing the zip
(or, if the two halves of the zip are not engaged properly
at one end, merely runs the zipper up and down one side of
the zip track). when eventually, after many years, i met
a zip with a different word cast into its pull-tag (rather
than none at all), i presumed that the different zip-manu-
facturing companies all gave their zips different names -
possibly the names of the particular zip-manufacturing com-
pany - for some reason (i wasn't too aware of marketing or
the concerns of advertisers in the fifties & the sixties).

>I can get the question; I take it that <va> and <ble> there
>are standard <vad> and <blev>, respectively, and that
><gissa-kissa> is a humorous or childish extension of <gissa>

>- more or less 'guessy-wessy'. 'Guess why ['what for'] I

>caught a cold.'
>
>And I think that the next clause is 'The zipper-sweater was
>open', with <va> for standard <var>. The last clause,
>though, is too much for me: it offers too many possibilities
>for my poor knowledge of Swedish and almost non-existent
>knowledge of Swedish dialects.
>
>Brian
>

- love, a ppint. as recalls some zips being called "eclairs"
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"The people all paint themselves red, and eat monkeys,
whereof there is an inexhaustible supply in the hills."
- Histories, Book Four - Herodotus

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, 6 June 2013 08:27:31 UTC+1, Greg Goss wrote:
> The zipper is also a metal pathway through the cloth.
> Buttons use overlapping fabric layers. Zippers provide
> metal from the outside to the inside.

And little gaps for a draught to get though!

> Unless there's a proper flap over the zipper, which I
> think came later.

But then people can't see that you have a zipper!

Then again, I've seen garments with a cloth flap that hides
those shameful, un-modern buttons - well, hides the button-holes,
but, you get the idea.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Thu, 2013-06-06, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> On 5 Jun 2013 21:39:25 GMT, Jorgen Grahn
> <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote in
> <news:slrnkqvc0b.3...@frailea.sa.invalid> in
> rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> On Sat, 2013-06-01, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>
>>> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is
>>> that for the first several decades after its invention,
>>> it was a considerably worse solution for the problem it
>>> solved than the technological competition was (mostly
>>> buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before they got
>>> that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good
>>> at holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to
>>> jam. It sold poorly because it deserved to sell poorly,
>>> really.
>
>> Seems to have become a fashion statement in the 1930s or 1940s; see e.g.
>> this quote, attributed to my uncle:
>
>> "Gissa-kissa va jag ble kylder för? -- Blixtlåsatröjan va bar,
>> å dä drog!"
>
>> where a small boy indirectly boasts about his sweater
>> having a zipper, by blaming the zipper for him catching a
>> cold.
>
> A zipper is a 'lightning-lock'? Neat!

Yes.

> I can get the question; I take it that <va> and <ble> there
> are standard <vad> and <blev>, respectively, and that
> <gissa-kissa> is a humorous or childish extension of <gissa>

> ??? more or less 'guessy-wessy'. 'Guess why ['what for'] I
> caught a cold.'

Yes.

> And I think that the next clause is 'The zipper-sweater was
> open', with <va> for standard <var>.

More "bare" than "open". The sweater (and by extension the zipper)
was not covered.

> The last clause,
> though, is too much for me: it offers too many possibilities
> for my poor knowledge of Swedish and almost non-existent
> knowledge of Swedish dialects.

"... och det drog."
"... and there was a draft".

I get the impression (comfirmed by what someone wrote elsewhere in
this thread) that early zipper designs were inferior to buttons in
this way too.

Very good translation work. Even most swedes would have some trouble
with the phrase -- not so much because dialects vary a lot, but
because you're not used to seeing them spelled out.

[J. Clarke]

In article <slrnkr1g0m.3...@frailea.sa.invalid>,
grahn...@snipabacken.se says...

FWIW, my old Harley-Davidson leather motorcycle jacket has a wide flap
behind the zipper. My new BMW jacket has a snap-closure flap over the
zipper. Both have worked adequately at highway speeds in subfreezing
weather.

[Rod Speed]

"Greg Goss" <go...@gossg.org> wrote in message
news:b1aruv...@mid.individual.net...

> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 2013-06-01, Joseph Nebus wrote:
>>>
>>> An interesting (to me, anyway) point about the zipper is that
>>> for the first several decades after its invention, it was a considerably
>>> worse solution for the problem it solved than the technological
>>> competition was (mostly buttons and hooks): the early zippers (before
>>> they got that flashy name) just weren't very strong, weren't good at
>>> holding up under flexing, and were far too prone to jam. It sold poorly
>>> because it deserved to sell poorly, really.
>>
>>Seems to have become a fashion statement in the 1930s or 1940s; see e.g.
>>this quote, attributed to my uncle:
>>
>> "Gissa-kissa va jag ble kylder f�r? -- Blixtl�satr�jan va bar,
>> � d� drog!"
>>
>>where a small boy indirectly boasts about his sweater having a zipper,
>>by blaming the zipper for him catching a cold.
>
> The zipper is also a metal pathway through the cloth. Buttons use
> overlapping fabric layers. Zippers provide metal from the outside to
> the inside. Unless there's a proper flap over the zipper, which I
> think came later.

Nope not when used for flys.

[JRStern]

On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 18:32:52 +0000 (UTC), nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph
Nebus) wrote:

> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
>advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
>are maybe a step backwards?

Air bags in cars.

Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers. A horse
would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't, nor break your arm
when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you through the chest
when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.

For that matter, those stone wheels were heavy and fragile, compared
to just walking where you were going.


J.

[JRStern]

Maybe some, but maybe even some later-day metal zippers were below
average too, in fact (working the numbers), I'm pretty sure of it.

J.

[147]

JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
> Joseph Nebus wrote

>> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be
>> a great advance on which went before, but which in the current
>> state of the art are maybe a step backwards?

> Air bags in cars.

No, they do work better than seatbelts alone.

> Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers.

That's silly.

> A horse would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't,

Yes, but they did some other stuff much better than a horse did too.

> nor break your arm when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you
> through
> the chest when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.

But they did throw plenty of people who ended
up a lot worse off than if the car just stopped etc.

> For that matter, those stone wheels were heavy and
> fragile, compared to just walking where you were going.

But could be a dramatic improvement on
trying to carry a multi ton block of rock etc.

[J. Clarke]

In article <18s2r8hibve1ghr62...@4ax.com>,
JRS...@foobar.invalid says...

>
> On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 18:32:52 +0000 (UTC), nebusj-@-rpi-.edu (Joseph
> Nebus) wrote:
>
> > Are there stories that look into technological advances which
> >would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be a great
> >advance on which went before, but which in the current state of the art
> >are maybe a step backwards?
>
> Air bags in cars.
>
> Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers. A horse
> would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't, nor break your arm
> when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you through the chest
> when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.

Yeah, horses were so benign. Tell that to Christopher Reeve.

[Brian M. Scott]

On 6 Jun 2013 17:00:08 GMT, Jorgen Grahn
<grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote in
<news:slrnkr1g0m.3...@frailea.sa.invalid> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On Thu, 2013-06-06, Brian M. Scott wrote:

[...]

>> The last clause, though, is too much for me: it offers
>> too many possibilities for my poor knowledge of Swedish
>> and almost non-existent knowledge of Swedish dialects.

> "... och det drog."
> "... and there was a draft".

Oh, good: I thought that <�> might be <och>.

Tack! (Or in the language that I actually do study a bit
these days, ��kk fyrir!)

[...]

Brian

[Robert Bannister]

On 7/06/13 1:48 PM, 147 wrote:
> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>> Joseph Nebus wrote
>
>>> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>>> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be
>>> a great advance on which went before, but which in the current
>>> state of the art are maybe a step backwards?
>
>> Air bags in cars.
>
> No, they do work better than seatbelts alone.
>
>> Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers.
>
> That's silly.

Quite right. You would want an early car on your trousers.

>
>> A horse would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't,
>
> Yes, but they did some other stuff much better than a horse did too.

But you can't put car emissions on your rhubarb.

>
>> nor break your arm when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you
>> through
>> the chest when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.
>
> But they did throw plenty of people who ended
> up a lot worse off than if the car just stopped etc.

And, while you're attempting to get the horse started it is quite likely
to break your leg with a well-aimed kick or bite your arm.


--
Robert Bannister

[JRStern]

On Sat, 08 Jun 2013 10:23:41 +0800, Robert Bannister
<rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:

>On 7/06/13 1:48 PM, 147 wrote:
>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>>> Joseph Nebus wrote
>>
>>>> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>>>> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be
>>>> a great advance on which went before, but which in the current
>>>> state of the art are maybe a step backwards?
>>
>>> Air bags in cars.
>>
>> No, they do work better than seatbelts alone.
>>
>>> Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers.
>>
>> That's silly.
>
>Quite right. You would want an early car on your trousers.

Actually, it's not clear to me that the idea behind air bags qualifies
as good, it's pretty much an Acme Industries / Maxwell's Demon
solution to a problem that doesn't even exist if you wear a seatbelt.

>>> A horse would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't,
>>
>> Yes, but they did some other stuff much better than a horse did too.
>
>But you can't put car emissions on your rhubarb.
>
>>
>>> nor break your arm when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you
>>> through
>>> the chest when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.
>>
>> But they did throw plenty of people who ended
>> up a lot worse off than if the car just stopped etc.
>
>And, while you're attempting to get the horse started it is quite likely
>to break your leg with a well-aimed kick or bite your arm.

Your replies being appropriate as the question was not really relative
to the horse but missing functionality or hazardous use of its own -
that has since been remedied or will be soon. In the last forty to
eighty years they fixed the starter and the steering column, and forty
years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home, too.

J.

[J. Clarke]

In article <65c5r8doiop00iau0...@4ax.com>,
JRS...@foobar.invalid says...

Actually the car can drive you home right now if you are a test driver
for Google. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car>

[Simon Brown]

"JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message
news:65c5r8doiop00iau0...@4ax.com...

> On Sat, 08 Jun 2013 10:23:41 +0800, Robert Bannister
> <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
>
>>On 7/06/13 1:48 PM, 147 wrote:
>>> JRStern <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote
>>>> Joseph Nebus wrote
>>>
>>>>> Are there stories that look into technological advances which
>>>>> would, yes, if they worked the way they were supposed to, be
>>>>> a great advance on which went before, but which in the current
>>>>> state of the art are maybe a step backwards?
>>>
>>>> Air bags in cars.
>>>
>>> No, they do work better than seatbelts alone.
>>>
>>>> Actually, early cars weren't much better than early zippers.
>>>
>>> That's silly.
>>
>>Quite right. You would want an early car on your trousers.
>
> Actually, it's not clear to me that the idea behind air bags qualifies
> as good, it's pretty much an Acme Industries / Maxwell's Demon
> solution to a problem that doesn't even exist if you wear a seatbelt.

That last is just plain wrong. They are mandated now even in europe
where seatbelt usage is much higher than in north america.

>>>> A horse would get you home drunk or asleep, a car wouldn't,
>>>
>>> Yes, but they did some other stuff much better than a horse did too.
>>
>>But you can't put car emissions on your rhubarb.
>>
>>>
>>>> nor break your arm when the starter crank bashed you, nor spear you
>>>> through
>>>> the chest when the steering column was forced backwards in an accident.
>>>
>>> But they did throw plenty of people who ended
>>> up a lot worse off than if the car just stopped etc.
>>
>>And, while you're attempting to get the horse started it is quite likely
>>to break your leg with a well-aimed kick or bite your arm.

> Your replies being appropriate as the question was not really relative
> to the horse but missing functionality or hazardous use of its own -
> that has since been remedied or will be soon. In the last forty to
> eighty years they fixed the starter and the steering column,

And never did with the horse.

> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
> too.

Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
flying cars.

[JRStern]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:

>> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
>> too.
>
>Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>flying cars.

Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it, but only
because it will likely involve infrastructure changes, posting speed
limits electronically, maybe requiring all vehicles even driven by
humans to include transponders, etc.

In forty years it will cost a lot of extra money to get a car that
even CAN be driven manually, and it will triple your insurance if you
do.

J.

[J. Clarke]

In article <qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com>,
JRS...@foobar.invalid says...

>
> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>
> >> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
> >> too.
> >
> >Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
> >flying cars.
>
> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it, but only
> because it will likely involve infrastructure changes, posting speed
> limits electronically, maybe requiring all vehicles even driven by
> humans to include transponders, etc.

Google doesn't seem to need all that.

The major obstacle at the moment seems to be legislative--only three
states allow autonomous cars.

[JRStern]

On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 21:14:09 -0400, "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net>
wrote:

>In article <qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com>,
>JRS...@foobar.invalid says...
>>
>> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
>> >> too.
>> >
>> >Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>> >flying cars.
>>
>> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it, but only
>> because it will likely involve infrastructure changes, posting speed
>> limits electronically, maybe requiring all vehicles even driven by
>> humans to include transponders, etc.
>
>Google doesn't seem to need all that.
>
>The major obstacle at the moment seems to be legislative--only three
>states allow autonomous cars.

I'm not aware that Google has described just exactly what they have at
the moment, in capabilities or cost.

A lot of the problem of "productizing" something like that regards the
failure modes that may only occur once in a million trips, which means
they might occur a hundred times a day if widely used. And the legal
implications when they do.

J.

[Simon Brown]

"JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message

news:qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com...

> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>
>>> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
>>> too.
>>
>>Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>>flying cars.

> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it,

That's what they said about us all zooming around in flying cars too.

> but only because it will likely involve infrastructure changes,

No.

> posting speed limits electronically,

They are there now.

> maybe requiring all vehicles even driven
> by humans to include transponders, etc.

Any self driving car would have to allow for those somehow.

> In forty years it will cost a lot of extra money to get a car that even
> CAN be driven manually, and it will triple your insurance if you do.

Pure fantasy. Very impure fantasy, actually.

[David Johnston]

On 6/8/2013 10:50 PM, Simon Brown wrote:
>
>
> "JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message
> news:qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you
>>>> home,
>>>> too.
>>>
>>> Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>>> flying cars.
>
>> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it,
>
> That's what they said about us all zooming around in flying cars too.

I'm not sure who "they" are in that sentence. But flying cars are
fundamentally impractical in way self-driving cars aren't.

[Simon Brown]

"David Johnston" <davidjo...@block.com> wrote in message
news:kp12rq$fap$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 6/8/2013 10:50 PM, Simon Brown wrote:
>>
>>
>> "JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com...
>>> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you
>>>>> home,
>>>>> too.
>>>>
>>>> Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>>>> flying cars.
>>
>>> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it,
>>
>> That's what they said about us all zooming around in flying cars too.

> I'm not sure who "they" are in that sentence.

Those who claimed we would be all zooming around in our flying cars.

> But flying cars are fundamentally impractical in way self-driving cars
> aren't.

That's what they said about flying cars too.

[David Johnston]

Citation needed.

[Simon Brown]

"David Johnston" <davidjo...@block.com> wrote in message

news:kp1b49$bka$1...@dont-email.me...

It's too long ago for that to be easy to do.

[J. Clarke]

In article <0528r8pv5iskvkrbu...@4ax.com>,

JRS...@foobar.invalid says...
>
> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 21:14:09 -0400, "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com>,
> >JRS...@foobar.invalid says...
> >>
> >> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you home,
> >> >> too.
> >> >
> >> >Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
> >> >flying cars.
> >>
> >> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it, but only
> >> because it will likely involve infrastructure changes, posting speed
> >> limits electronically, maybe requiring all vehicles even driven by
> >> humans to include transponders, etc.
> >
> >Google doesn't seem to need all that.
> >
> >The major obstacle at the moment seems to be legislative--only three
> >states allow autonomous cars.
>
> I'm not aware that Google has described just exactly what they have at
> the moment, in capabilities or cost.

This <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE> is what they had more
than a year ago. Note that the person behind the wheel is legally
blind.

They have run more than 300,000 miles with no accidents relating to the
automation technology (one car got rearended while stopped, a second had
a collision while being operated in manual mode). They are operated
regularly on public roads and have made trips up to 350 miles.

I think they have gotten over the hump and reached a point where less
needs to be done to have a commercially viable product than has already
been done getting to the point that they have reached.

The current cost doesn't matter--what they have now are hand-made
engineering prototypes. What matters is the commercial cost in mass
production and that should not be huge--it's mostly electronics and
software.

> A lot of the problem of "productizing" something like that regards the
> failure modes that may only occur once in a million trips, which means
> they might occur a hundred times a day if widely used. And the legal
> implications when they do.

So let's see, the current system fails 10 million times a year, 35,000
of them with fatal consequences, and using your number this would be
reduced to 36,500 failures overall. Doesn't sound like a bad tradeoff
to me.

In the current litigatory climate though you're right that when it does
fail it will be a nightmare.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kp12rq$fap$1...@dont-email.me>, davidjo...@block.com
says...

They aren't necessarily "fundamentally impractical"--the thing that will
make them practical is self-flying, which is the part that Urban
Aeronautics is working on. Viable hardware for a "flying car" was built
in the '50s but flying it was a huge workload for an expert pilot.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <MPG.2c1e4c6ad...@news.newsguy.com>,

Unless we get anti-grav tech, I don't see how fixed-wing (or copter) cars
will ever be practical within urban areas, but yeah, self-fying cars would be
good for inter-city travel with managed interstate sections for takeoff and
landing. (Of course you need self-driving ground cars efore you could share
a roadbed with flying cars..)
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[David Johnston]

On 6/9/2013 9:50 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
> In article <kp12rq$fap$1...@dont-email.me>, davidjo...@block.com
> says...
>>
>> On 6/8/2013 10:50 PM, Simon Brown wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> "JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message
>>> news:qhn6r89eqnsm41r2b...@4ax.com...
>>>> On Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:16:41 +1000, "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> and forty years from now the car finally will be able to drive you
>>>>>> home,
>>>>>> too.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bet that's as silly as the claim that we will all be zooming around in
>>>>> flying cars.
>>>
>>>> Forty years is easy, forty months would be pushing it,
>>>
>>> That's what they said about us all zooming around in flying cars too.
>>
>> I'm not sure who "they" are in that sentence. But flying cars are
>> fundamentally impractical in way self-driving cars aren't.
>
> They aren't necessarily "fundamentally impractical"--the thing that will
> make them practical is self-flying,

No, the thing that will make them practical is a perpetual motion
engine. Otherwise by their nature they are so insanely profligate of
fuel that they could never occupy the niche that cars occupy.

[Greg Goss]

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

>They have run more than 300,000 miles with no accidents relating to the
>automation technology (one car got rearended while stopped, a second had
>a collision while being operated in manual mode). They are operated
>regularly on public roads and have made trips up to 350 miles.
>
>I think they have gotten over the hump and reached a point where less
>needs to be done to have a commercially viable product than has already
>been done getting to the point that they have reached.
>
>The current cost doesn't matter--what they have now are hand-made
>engineering prototypes. What matters is the commercial cost in mass
>production and that should not be huge--it's mostly electronics and
>software.

I wonder how long until HOV lanes get turned into "net-linked
"auto"mobiles only" lanes with cars zipping by with a foot or two
spacing between each?
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[James Silverton]

I must say the idea is attractive for a person who no longer regards
driving as a sport or recreation :-) However, I will not be a first
adopter given the way even the DC Metro trains can break down.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1js2r...@mid.individual.net>, t...@loft.tnolan.com
says...

The Israelis are planning on using the first ones for fire/rescue and
battlefield evacuation of casualties. They can get in and out past
traffic jams and the like, get into places that are dangerous for a
helicopter, and provide direct access to upper floors. And they are
neither fixed-wing nor copter, they're ducted fan similar in layout to
the Piasecki Flying Jeep that the Army tested in the '50s--the prototype
currently in testing is about the size of a large SUV.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kp2gec$d5v$1...@dont-email.me>, Da...@block.net says...

The notion that light airplanes are "insanely profligate of fuel" can be
possessed only by a non-pilot. Planes designed in the '30s can get
better than 20 miles per gallon. Modern designs should do much better.

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1jv23...@mid.individual.net>, go...@gossg.org says...

That's a good question. Be nice if they could use those lanes for
_something_. Personally I wouldn't use them regardless--I ride a
motorcycle which lets me use them legally one-up and when I have I've
usually found myself behind a line of creeping buses, with no way to
pass and no legal way to escape to the regular traffic lanes.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Sunday, 9 June 2013 20:55:10 UTC+1, J. Clarke wrote:
> The notion that light airplanes are "insanely profligate
> of fuel" can be possessed only by a non-pilot. Planes
> designed in the '30s can get better than 20 miles
> per gallon. Modern designs should do much better.

I was about to mention SUVs, but on the other hand,
this very discussion is insanely profligate - of
something; I'm not sure what. Internet, I suppose.
For that matter, I'm not quite sure that it's "of",
but I don't offer anything better.

[P. Taine]

Boy, that's going to be a magnet for the vandals who drop rocks from overpasses
for the fun of it. One chunk of concrete and how many of those vehicles with a
foot or two spacing will be turned into accordions?

Or will the highways be in sealed tubes so no tree limbs, rocks, etc. intrude
due to wind, rain or earthquakes?

[Kurt Busiek]

The roads must roll.

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[lal_truckee]

On 6/9/13 11:15 AM, Greg Goss wrote:
> I wonder how long until HOV lanes get turned into "net-linked
> "auto"mobiles only" lanes with cars zipping by with a foot or two
> spacing between each?

Well, first we need to figure out a way to keep manual autos from
entering the "autoauto" lane. This is be a major obstacle for which I've
seen no proffered solution.

As it is, there are all to many current examples of "lanes with cars
zipping by with a foot or two spacing between each" with little
intelligence in charge, and regularly stringing together serial crashes.
Let me be realistic: these minimalist intelligences usually maintain at
least a car length at 75mph, which they believe is sufficient given
their self-identified vastly superior reactions, each and every one.

Wishing aside, I don't think I'll live long enough for auto autos to be
readily available.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <kp374i$3mt$1...@dont-email.me>,

lal_truckee <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> As it is, there are all to many current examples of "lanes with cars
> zipping by with a foot or two spacing between each" with little
> intelligence in charge, and regularly stringing together serial crashes.
> Let me be realistic: these minimalist intelligences usually maintain at
> least a car length at 75mph, which they believe is sufficient given
> their self-identified vastly superior reactions, each and every one.

If you allow more than a car link someone will move into the space,
just the normal thing you deal with during rush hour.

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[Greg Goss]

You don't need a windproof sealed tube to protect against dropped
rocks. My local rail transit has overhead netting about ten feet from
each side of every overpass. Can anything heavy enough to kill a car
get through such netting?

Besides, a rock through the windshield is probably MORE dangerous on a
human-piloted car. The net-linked cars would all stop at the same
speed, so the close spacing wouldn't be an issue for a "virtual train"

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1krr3...@mid.individual.net>, go...@gossg.org says...

If they even stop at all. The damaged car can pull out of the train at
the first opportunity. Remember, it's a robot. It doesn't need to have
a clear windshield. In fact if it's networked to the other cars it may
not even need to have its own sensors working at all as long as it has a
working comm.

Now, once the robots start developing some cussedness, the rock-dropper
is going to be very upset when, while attempting to go home, his own
robocar delivers him to the police station and won't unlock until a cop
is present.

[JRStern]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2013 15:53:19 -0400, "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net>
wrote:

>> >> I'm not sure who "they" are in that sentence. But flying cars are
>> >> fundamentally impractical in way self-driving cars aren't.
>> >
>> >They aren't necessarily "fundamentally impractical"--the thing that will
>> >make them practical is self-flying, which is the part that Urban
>> >Aeronautics is working on. Viable hardware for a "flying car" was built
>> >in the '50s but flying it was a huge workload for an expert pilot.
>> >
>>
>> Unless we get anti-grav tech, I don't see how fixed-wing (or copter) cars
>> will ever be practical within urban areas, but yeah, self-fying cars would be
>> good for inter-city travel with managed interstate sections for takeoff and
>> landing. (Of course you need self-driving ground cars efore you could share
>> a roadbed with flying cars..)
>
>The Israelis are planning on using the first ones for fire/rescue and
>battlefield evacuation of casualties. They can get in and out past
>traffic jams and the like, get into places that are dangerous for a
>helicopter, and provide direct access to upper floors. And they are
>neither fixed-wing nor copter, they're ducted fan similar in layout to
>the Piasecki Flying Jeep that the Army tested in the '50s--the prototype
>currently in testing is about the size of a large SUV.
>

With computer-control for stability, and self-driving type control for
avoiding local collisions, flying cars may indeed follow soon after
self-driving cars. The aeronautics are tractable.

Now, any flying device that does fail, may fall inconveniently on some
innocents whether located near a road or not, and that's a problem
that won't go away anytime soon. Cars can maintain position at a red
light using minimal fuel, and that will never be true of flying cars
(unless they are dirigibles with huge hydrogen/helium balloons!).

But for the cost of a Bentley, Ferrari, or even top of the line BMW or
Mercedes, I suppose a reasonable self-flying ducted-fan (and maybe
even additionally road-legal) vehicle could be built, and would
probabl get about the same mileage in the air that they get around
town! Internal combustion engines are far more efficient now than
fifty years ago, and computer design makes the aeronautics more
efficient too.

I doubt they'd ever be very common, though.

J.

[JRStern]

I expect to see them about the time I need to give up my drivers
license because of old age. Whether I'll have the cash or the need or
desire to buy one, are additional questions.

J.

[Robert Carnegie]

Let's see now. I think the vehicles still have video
cameras, and, in the U.S., some of the passenger-drivers
are armed. I think the chances of the vandals -
or terrorists, as they probably are - are not good.

Elsewhere, where there isn't an armed population,
overpasses will have higher walls.

[J. Clarke]

In article <5lfar816fu0q9fvdv...@4ax.com>,
JRS...@foobar.invalid says...

I suspect that for a while they'll be used for emergency services of one
kind or another and only the very rich will have them for personal
transportation, but eventually economies of scale will develop.
>
> J.

[J. Clarke]

In article <e7f66f4f-d5f9-46f1...@googlegroups.com>,
rja.ca...@excite.com says...

FWIW, in Jacksonville, Florida a while back some twit was throwing rocks
off of overpasses. One day he threw a rock at a van. To his surprise
and dismay, the van stopped and a squad of Marines poured out of it, and
the other one that had been following it that stopped on the other side
of the overpass.

Don't try to get away with that kind of crap in a Navy town.

[P. Taine]

On Sun, 9 Jun 2013 22:47:17 -0400, "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

>In article <b1krr3...@mid.individual.net>, go...@gossg.org says...
>>
>> P. Taine <us...@domaine.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:15:31 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>> >>I wonder how long until HOV lanes get turned into "net-linked
>> >>"auto"mobiles only" lanes with cars zipping by with a foot or two
>> >>spacing between each?
>> >
>> >Boy, that's going to be a magnet for the vandals who drop rocks from overpasses
>> >for the fun of it. One chunk of concrete and how many of those vehicles with a
>> >foot or two spacing will be turned into accordions?
>> >
>> >Or will the highways be in sealed tubes so no tree limbs, rocks, etc. intrude
>> >due to wind, rain or earthquakes?
>>
>> You don't need a windproof sealed tube to protect against dropped
>> rocks. My local rail transit has overhead netting about ten feet from
>> each side of every overpass. Can anything heavy enough to kill a car
>> get through such netting?
>>
>> Besides, a rock through the windshield is probably MORE dangerous on a
>> human-piloted car. The net-linked cars would all stop at the same
>> speed, so the close spacing wouldn't be an issue for a "virtual train"
>
>If they even stop at all. The damaged car can pull out of the train at
>the first opportunity. Remember, it's a robot. It doesn't need to have
>a clear windshield. In fact if it's networked to the other cars it may
>not even need to have its own sensors working at all as long as it has a
>working comm.

I wasn't considering a broken windshield (windscreen), but something that the
vehicle "trips over". Slowing it faster than braking would, or skewing it so
that it strikes another vehicle. No amount of intercommunication will allow for
a sudden (effective) brick wall appearing in front of one of the 100 mph (or
what ever) vehicles.

[Simon Brown]

"JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message

news:5lfar816fu0q9fvdv...@4ax.com...

The problem isnt with the aeronautics, it's doing that at the
sort of traffic densities that it needs to happen at to see all
of the current volume moving at once at peak traffic times.

It's a lot easier to do with self driving cars than with self driving flying
cars.

> Now, any flying device that does fail, may fall inconveniently on some
> innocents whether located near a road or not, and that's a problem
> that won't go away anytime soon. Cars can maintain position at a red
> light using minimal fuel, and that will never be true of flying cars
> (unless they are dirigibles with huge hydrogen/helium balloons!).

> But for the cost of a Bentley, Ferrari, or even top of the line BMW or
> Mercedes, I suppose a reasonable self-flying ducted-fan (and maybe
> even additionally road-legal) vehicle could be built, and would
> probabl get about the same mileage in the air that they get around
> town!

Can't see that last. Flying vehicles always do much worse mileage wise
than a vehicle that has wheels on the ground for the same weight of
vehicle and load.

> Internal combustion engines are far more efficient now than fifty years
> ago, and computer design makes the aeronautics more efficient too.

But can't do anything about the intrinsic inefficiency of all but dirigibles
etc.

> I doubt they'd ever be very common, though.

I doubt self driving cars will be very common either myself.

Not so much because of any particular engineering difficulty,
more because I can't see the voters allowing it any time soon.
Mainly because of the difficulty of allowing for pedestrians,
bike riders, little kids, dogs etc etc.

[Rod Speed]

"Robert Carnegie" <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:e7f66f4f-d5f9-46f1...@googlegroups.com...

> On Monday, 10 June 2013 01:18:52 UTC+1, P. Taine wrote:
>> On Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:15:31 -0600, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>> >I wonder how long until HOV lanes get turned into "net-linked
>> >"auto"mobiles only" lanes with cars zipping by with a foot or two
>> >spacing between each?
>>
>> Boy, that's going to be a magnet for the vandals who drop

> ť> rocks from overpasses for the fun of it. One chunk of

>> concrete and how many of those vehicles with a
>> foot or two spacing will be turned into accordions?

> Let's see now. I think the vehicles still have video cameras,

Won't be much use if the individual tossing the chunk of
concrete over the side of the overpass ensures that it can't
be seen by any camera in any of the cars passing underneath.

> and, in the U.S., some of the passenger-drivers are armed.

Fat lot of good that will do them when the self driving car
keeps going fine because it doesn't need a windscreen
and the perp isnt even visible from the car.

> I think the chances of the vandals - or terrorists,
> as they probably are - are not good.

They wouldn't be terrorists, because the self
driving cars would just keep going regardless.

> Elsewhere, where there isn't an armed population,
> overpasses will have higher walls.

Or give up on windscreens in cars once the driver
no longer needs to see where car is going and the
lump of concrete will at most dent the car and
cause the occupants to fill their underwear etc.

The self driving cars can just have solenoid valve
hoses that wash down the car inside when the
shit has hit the interior of the car.

[147]

"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.2c1f0afca...@news.newsguy.com...

I don't see why they would be particularly expensive, particularly
if done by GPS and communication between cars.

> but eventually economies of scale will develop.

I expect that would happen very quickly indeed.

It doesn't add much to the cost of the car.

[147]

"P. Taine" <us...@domaine.invalid> wrote in message
news:msiar89jb8f5folrh...@4ax.com...

It isnt that hard to design overpasses so that sort of thing can't thrown
off them.

[JRStern]

On Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:07:38 +1000, "147" <e...@fcdrs.com> wrote:

>>> I doubt they'd ever be very common, though.
>
>> I suspect that for a while they'll be used for emergency services of one
>> kind or another and only the very rich will have them for personal
>> transportation,
>
>I don't see why they would be particularly expensive, particularly
>if done by GPS and communication between cars.
>
>> but eventually economies of scale will develop.
>
>I expect that would happen very quickly indeed.
>
>It doesn't add much to the cost of the car.

Cost of small airplanes got to 50% being insurance liability for the
manufacturer, I assume that's still the case.

Flying stuff is going to be held to higher standards.

I doubt the ducted stuff will ever be as efficient as current
helicopters, just easier to drive into a garage.

But it can be efficient in flight, if it doesn't have to stop and
start a hundred times like a car on the road. Old Cessna 150s could
get something over 20mpg, IIRC, and I presume a more modern engine
could improve that significantly. No so good at VTOL, though.

J.

[Greg Goss]

P. Taine <us...@domaine.invalid> wrote:

>On Sun, 9 Jun 2013 22:47:17 -0400, "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:

>>> >Boy, that's going to be a magnet for the vandals who drop rocks from overpasses
>>> >for the fun of it. One chunk of concrete and how many of those vehicles with a
>>> >foot or two spacing will be turned into accordions?

>I wasn't considering a broken windshield (windscreen), but something that the
>vehicle "trips over". Slowing it faster than braking would, or skewing it so
>that it strikes another vehicle. No amount of intercommunication will allow for
>a sudden (effective) brick wall appearing in front of one of the 100 mph (or
>what ever) vehicles.

Anything that a pair of kids can lift over a railing isn't a "brick
wall".

[Greg Goss]

"Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:

>> But for the cost of a Bentley, Ferrari, or even top of the line BMW or
>> Mercedes, I suppose a reasonable self-flying ducted-fan (and maybe
>> even additionally road-legal) vehicle could be built, and would
>> probabl get about the same mileage in the air that they get around
>> town!
>
>Can't see that last. Flying vehicles always do much worse mileage wise
>than a vehicle that has wheels on the ground for the same weight of
>vehicle and load.

Why would that be? The tire flexes with every revolution. Lots of
moving parts have to slip past each other.

Remember that butterflies can migrate for thousands of miles.

The big energy expense is getting off the ground. From there,
friction is pretty low.

My Google fu is pretty weak, but can someone call up how much fuel
four 40 passenger Greyhounds consume on a thousand mile trip versus a
250 passenger jet?

[Don Bruder]

In article <b1l3av...@mid.individual.net>,

I think that's the point he's making - It doesn't need to BE a "brick
wall" - it just needs to FUNCTION as one to the sensors and brain-box
controlling one of these virtual trains. I suspect a "hailstorm" of
metal chaff, while doing practically nothing physically, could make the
sensors report some seriously weird conditions that could in turn result
in a sudden speed or direction change that the rest of the train may not
be able to respond to in time.

--
If the door is baroque don't be Haydn. Come around Bach and jiggle the Handel.

[Simon Brown]

"Greg Goss" <go...@gossg.org> wrote in message
news:b1l3jl...@mid.individual.net...

> "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>
>>> But for the cost of a Bentley, Ferrari, or even top of the line BMW or
>>> Mercedes, I suppose a reasonable self-flying ducted-fan (and maybe
>>> even additionally road-legal) vehicle could be built, and would
>>> probabl get about the same mileage in the air that they get around
>>> town!
>>
>>Can't see that last. Flying vehicles always do much worse mileage wise
>>than a vehicle that has wheels on the ground for the same weight of
>>vehicle and load.

> Why would that be?

Essentially because moving the vehicle by moving air past it
with the propeller is a lot less efficient than driving the wheels.

> The tire flexes with every revolution.

Sure, but that's a minor part of the energy used.

> Lots of moving parts have to slip past each other.

Not much actually most obviously with the car is out of gear.

> Remember that butterflies can migrate for thousands of miles.

And an ant is much more efficient at moving around.

Not so true of something that glides, but flying cars don't.

> The big energy expense is getting off the ground.
> From there, friction is pretty low.

Yes, the friction is only a bit higher than with body
on wheels at the same speed, but you don't have
that considerable wing with the car on wheels and
you don't need to produce the lift to keep it in the
air either.

And the other problem is that the prop is a lot less
efficient at moving the same mass of vehicle and load
than driving wheels that are in contact with the ground.

> My Google fu is pretty weak, but can someone call up
> how much fuel four 40 passenger Greyhounds consume
> on a thousand mile trip versus a 250 passenger jet?

Its much worse on the fuel tanks alone. That isnt hard to google.

And its better to compare say a Cessna 150 and a small
2 passenger car too when talking about a flying car.

Or a 172 and a normal 4 passenger
compact car like say a diesel Golf.

[147]

"Don Bruder" <D...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:kp3lkk$erq$2...@dont-email.me...

A properly programmed system would just see the entire train of cars
slow down as fast as they could based on the braking capacity available
and drive thru that metal chaff and be no more than a minor nuisance.

Sure, kids might well have fun chucking down lots of chaff to get that
result, but it would be no more than a nuisance and presumably if much
of that chaff chucking happening, the self driving cars would have chaff
detectors added and it would just be ignored completely and the kids
would quickly give up chucking chaff when it had no effect at all.

[147]

"JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message

news:nvkar81lacr9muqrp...@4ax.com...

> On Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:07:38 +1000, "147" <e...@fcdrs.com> wrote:
>
>>>> I doubt they'd ever be very common, though.
>>
>>> I suspect that for a while they'll be used for emergency services of one
>>> kind or another and only the very rich will have them for personal
>>> transportation,
>>
>>I don't see why they would be particularly expensive, particularly
>>if done by GPS and communication between cars.
>>
>>> but eventually economies of scale will develop.
>>
>>I expect that would happen very quickly indeed.
>>
>>It doesn't add much to the cost of the car.

> Cost of small airplanes got to 50% being insurance
> liability for the manufacturer, I assume that's still the case.

> Flying stuff is going to be held to higher standards.

That bit was about self driving cars, not flying cars.

> I doubt the ducted stuff will ever be as efficient as
> current helicopters, just easier to drive into a garage.

True. And a lot safer as far as hitting stuff like trees too.

> But it can be efficient in flight, if it doesn't have to stop and
> start a hundred times like a car on the road. Old Cessna 150s
> could get something over 20mpg, IIRC, and I presume a more
> modern engine could improve that significantly.

But still always going to be worse than the same
weight of vehicle and load on wheels tho.

> No so good at VTOL, though.

Yeah, that just makes the efficiency problem much worse.

There will always been energy wasted moving that air.

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1l1p8...@mid.individual.net>, e...@fcdrs.com says...

Because they are powered by gas turbine engines whose price has in more
than half a century of production shown no sign of declining to
consumer-product levels?

> > but eventually economies of scale will develop.
>
> I expect that would happen very quickly indeed.
>
> It doesn't add much to the cost of the car.

What doesnt?

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1l6pi...@mid.individual.net>, e...@fcdrs.com says...

>
> "JRStern" <JRS...@foobar.invalid> wrote in message
> news:nvkar81lacr9muqrp...@4ax.com...
> > On Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:07:38 +1000, "147" <e...@fcdrs.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>> I doubt they'd ever be very common, though.
> >>
> >>> I suspect that for a while they'll be used for emergency services of one
> >>> kind or another and only the very rich will have them for personal
> >>> transportation,
> >>
> >>I don't see why they would be particularly expensive, particularly
> >>if done by GPS and communication between cars.
> >>
> >>> but eventually economies of scale will develop.
> >>
> >>I expect that would happen very quickly indeed.
> >>
> >>It doesn't add much to the cost of the car.
>
> > Cost of small airplanes got to 50% being insurance
> > liability for the manufacturer, I assume that's still the case.
>
> > Flying stuff is going to be held to higher standards.
>
> That bit was about self driving cars, not flying cars.

Loon, do us all a favor and take a reading comprehension course.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <b1l16i...@mid.individual.net>,

"Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:

> Not so much because of any particular engineering difficulty,
> more because I can't see the voters allowing it any time soon.
> Mainly because of the difficulty of allowing for pedestrians,
> bike riders, little kids, dogs etc etc.

We allow *people* to drive cars through environments having those.
Generally unreliable and we haven't stopped people from driving drunk,
much less overtired, stressed out, with squabbling kids, generally mad
at the world, or any other disabling condition.

[David Johnston]

On 6/9/2013 10:39 PM, Greg Goss wrote:
> "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>
>>> But for the cost of a Bentley, Ferrari, or even top of the line BMW or
>>> Mercedes, I suppose a reasonable self-flying ducted-fan (and maybe
>>> even additionally road-legal) vehicle could be built, and would
>>> probabl get about the same mileage in the air that they get around
>>> town!
>>
>> Can't see that last. Flying vehicles always do much worse mileage wise
>> than a vehicle that has wheels on the ground for the same weight of
>> vehicle and load.
>
> Why would that be? The tire flexes with every revolution. Lots of
> moving parts have to slip past each other.
>
> Remember that butterflies can migrate for thousands of miles.

By stopping and resting all the time. Also a huge proportion of their
tiny body mass is wing.

>
> The big energy expense is getting off the ground. From there,
> friction is pretty low.

Friction is not the issue. Staying aloft is. A flying car is not a
plane. It's a helicopter. One with small rotor span because if it's
wide, then you can't park it and it's not a car.

[J. Clarke]

In article <proto-7F0D60....@news.panix.com>, pr...@panix.com
says...

>
> In article <b1l16i...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Simon Brown" <s...@kigfr.com> wrote:
>
> > Not so much because of any particular engineering difficulty,
> > more because I can't see the voters allowing it any time soon.
> > Mainly because of the difficulty of allowing for pedestrians,
> > bike riders, little kids, dogs etc etc.
>
> We allow *people* to drive cars through environments having those.
> Generally unreliable and we haven't stopped people from driving drunk,
> much less overtired, stressed out, with squabbling kids, generally mad
> at the world, or any other disabling condition.

The "voters" in three states _have_ decided to "allow it". Now the
NHTSA is trying to put in its two cents worth--no doubt it is going to
become the usual pimple on the ass of progress.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kp4sfb$r5j$1...@dont-email.me>, Da...@block.net says...

At low speed it works like a helicopter. At high speed there's no
reason it can't work like a lifting body.

[david.sh...@ymail.com]

On Jun 10, 12:39 am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

> My Google fu is pretty weak, but can someone call up how much fuel
> four 40 passenger Greyhounds consume on a thousand mile trip versus a
> 250 passenger jet?

Not quite the numbers you are asking for, but Greyhound
claims 170 passenger miles per gallon

http://www.greyhound.com/en/about/factsandfigures.aspx

while Boeing claims, at best, 99 passenger miles per gallon

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423261677748380.html

The same article claims that 64 passenger miles per gallon is
typical for airlines.

Airplanes typically travel much faster than buses, and so
incur a lot more parasitic drag. And if they slow down,
the drag induced by the necessary generation of lift becomes
significant.

Rotor craft of various sorts (helicopters, autogyros, etc)
may operate under different rules.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

At that size, it'd have to move DAMN fast for the lift to matter. In
most types of travel, it would spend the majority of its time in the
rotorcraft-equivalent mode, and in that case it is expending ~70% of its
energy just to stay in the air.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

The winners in efficiency are of course trains and ships.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <kp51u9$r8h$2...@dont-email.me>,

Presumably the absolute winners would be sailboats, which makes me
think that comparing the numbers is kind of bogus in the first place.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Walter Bushell]

In article <kp51nc$r8h$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

> At that size, it'd have to move DAMN fast for the lift to matter. In
> most types of travel, it would spend the majority of its time in the
> rotorcraft-equivalent mode, and in that case it is expending ~70% of its
> energy just to stay in the air.

Extend wings once in the air. But then you need to be sure to be able
to retract wings.

Other problems with that many planes in the air the air traffic
control problem will be huge. Even with fixed wing traffic at the
level it is we had a plane running into a building due to running out
of gas or engine failure in the past week around here. Imagine
everyman taking to the air, reliability of small craft will be huge.

[J. Clarke]

In article <proto-F0BCD4....@news.panix.com>, pr...@panix.com
says...

>
> In article <kp51nc$r8h$1...@dont-email.me>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
> > At that size, it'd have to move DAMN fast for the lift to matter. In
> > most types of travel, it would spend the majority of its time in the
> > rotorcraft-equivalent mode, and in that case it is expending ~70% of its
> > energy just to stay in the air.
>
> Extend wings once in the air. But then you need to be sure to be able
> to retract wings.

It's a robot--it shouldn't have any more trouble with that than a bird
does.

> Other problems with that many planes in the air the air traffic
> control problem will be huge. Even with fixed wing traffic at the
> level it is we had a plane running into a building due to running out
> of gas or engine failure in the past week around here. Imagine
> everyman taking to the air, reliability of small craft will be huge.

Remember, we're talking about robots here.

Instead of calling it "self-driving car" or a "self-flying plane" or
whatever, call it what it is, a robot.

We're going to have thousands of robot planes flying over the country in
the next decade or so if law enforcement gets its way--some of them
carrying passengers is going to be incidental.

[James Silverton]

Another aspect of efficiency is time needed. A high speed (European
style) train (300 kph) might do Washington, DC to San Francisco in 13
hours. A plane takes about 7 hours unless it is a direct flight when 5
hours might suffice but you have to add about 3 hours for check-in and
getting checked baggage, so a day would be pretty well shot in both
cases, especially if you are staying in a hotel when another 1.5 hours
might be needed for local transportation to and from airports.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kp51u9$r8h$2...@dont-email.me>, sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com
says...

For cargo, yes, for passengers not necessarily. The QE2 has about the
same fuel consumption per passenger-mile as a fully loaded Concorde. A
full 747 does about half an order of magnitude better.

[P. Taine]

I apologize for being somewhat elliptical, not to mention metaphorical.

Consider a sudden windstorm that drops a tree across the road. The autonomous
vehicles won't see it until it is just about down, and either lands in a gap in
the parade, or on one of the vehicles. In either case one or more cars are
going to behave in ways that no braking system will be able to cope with at the
suggested inter-vehicle spacing.

Compare with a one or two ton boulder released from the side of a cut by
earthquake or heavy rain. Or a sudden bridge collapse.

So, short of a half-mile of clear-cutting and/or excavation on either side of
the road, or a extremely strong cover over it, you are going to get chain
crashes. Yes, there won't be as many as with non-autonomous vehicles, but I
can't believe there will be none. In fact, given bumper-to-bumper traffic and
highway speeds the closeness may offset the faster reaction times.

P. Taine

Murphy's Law will always get you.

[Greg Goss]

david.sh...@ymail.com wrote:

>On Jun 10, 12:39 am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
>> My Google fu is pretty weak, but can someone call up how much fuel
>> four 40 passenger Greyhounds consume on a thousand mile trip versus a
>> 250 passenger jet?
>
>Not quite the numbers you are asking for, but Greyhound
>claims 170 passenger miles per gallon
>
>http://www.greyhound.com/en/about/factsandfigures.aspx
>
>while Boeing claims, at best, 99 passenger miles per gallon
>
>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423261677748380.html
>
>The same article claims that 64 passenger miles per gallon is
>typical for airlines.

I think that those are exactly the numbers I was asking for. They
come down on the wrong side of my argument, but facts is facts.

[explanation of "why" deleted here]

[J. Clarke]

In article <b1mht1...@mid.individual.net>, t...@loft.tnolan.com
says...

Not necessarily. If high speed sail can be scaled to a reasonable size
it may make a comeback. It's not widely known that a sailing vessel
has beaten the Queen Mary's best transatlantic time. 32 knots average
speed across the Atlantic, under sail. Bloody amazing. And that's not
approaching the limits--50 knots has been achieved by sailing vessel
capable of crossing oceans--that one's going for the transpacific record
sometime in the next few weeks.

[J. Clarke]

In article <kp548p$cll$1...@dont-email.me>, not.jim....@verizon.net
says...

That's assuming that it's going to get enough traffic to pay for the
track. The existing track is not designed for that kind of speed and
improving it isn't going to be cheap when it has to increase the turn
radius going across at least three different mountain ranges.

Further, either it's going to have to be dedicated track or the
government is going to have to renegotiate the contract that lets Amtrak
run on the track owned by the freight lines. Since that contract was a
big part of the deal that allowed Amtrak to happen at all it's going to
be a tough sell.

[Wayne Throop]

::: The winners in efficiency are of course trains and ships.

:: Presumably the absolute winners would be sailboats, which makes me
:: think that comparing the numbers is kind of bogus in the first place.

It's not bogus if that's what's being compared, ie, if you're trying
to decide which form of transport saves you the most fuel per unit-mile
(passenger/standard-cargo-container/whatnot), and by how much. Mind you,
that's not the only thing to be compared in deciding what you do,
but discovering that flying a commercial airliner is actually more
ecofriendly carbon-footprint-wise and fuel-cost-wise than driving your
prius cross-country.

If the question is, are you better off flying somewhere or taking the
bus, fuel expenditures wise, that's exactly what you need. Or on a more
personal level if aircars ever come out, if you want/need to compare
how much more fuel you'd burn if you were airborn,then again, that's
exactly what you need.

Hm. I wonder if what you could do is, park your prius in a standard
cargo container (or more likely, share it, or a custom one to reduce
wasted space, and ride along with it by rail cross-country. You
get your car at the other end, and saved a bunch of fuel. Xref,
the Walberg/Theron version of "The Italian Job".

: "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net>
: If high speed sail can be scaled to a reasonable size it may make a

: comeback. It's not widely known that a sailing vessel has beaten the
: Queen Mary's best transatlantic time. 32 knots average speed across
: the Atlantic, under sail. Bloody amazing. And that's not approaching
: the limits--50 knots has been achieved by sailing vessel capable of
: crossing oceans--that one's going for the transpacific record sometime
: in the next few weeks.

On the more mundane side, see for example

http://www.google.com/images?q=cargo+ship+sail
http://www.google.com/images?q=cargo+ship+wind+kite

and in amongst theoretical designs, there are a couple that
are actually prototyped. (Meh, those are from 2008, so maybe it
fizzled, but hey, 20% fuel savings in the half-sized prototype,
doubling the linear size as they claimed... oh, wait, here's one
from 2011, just bying production models, so it's still a go).

Hm. I'm kinda disappointed that more wasn't readily googlable at
my level of google-fu. But there it is; near as I can tell, it's
an off-the-shelf technology. Saves thousands of dollars a day
on fuel costs.

I wonder if you could power submarines with kites...
sure, you'd have to give up a *little* stealth, but shirley it's worth it?


On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from new york to paris
--- IGY, Steely Dan

[Greg Goss]

P. Taine <us...@domaine.invalid> wrote:

>Yes, there won't be as many as with non-autonomous vehicles, but I
>can't believe there will be none. In fact, given bumper-to-bumper traffic and
>highway speeds the closeness may offset the faster reaction times.

OK, so we're not arguing. My point is that we've already accepted the
current rate of chain crashes. So if the scrunched-together traffic
brings the statistic down to the current level, that's a level we've
already shown we can live with.

[Greg Goss]

thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>If the question is, are you better off flying somewhere or taking the
>bus, fuel expenditures wise, that's exactly what you need. Or on a more
>personal level if aircars ever come out, if you want/need to compare
>how much more fuel you'd burn if you were airborn,then again, that's
>exactly what you need.

A guy who respects my opinion was asking about taking his ten year old
son (where DOES the time go???) on a cross-country trip to visit his
grandparents. He was wondering about the difference in fares between
Greyhound and air travel.

I pointed out that restaurant meals are much more expensive than
granny-cooked, and that the kid isn't going to like sleeping on the
bus, so there might be motel stops along the way.

Of course, if he goes Greyhound, he might run into Lonestar's ex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcxA4w3KKLE

(she drives off in the song, but the video puts her on a beater bus)

>Hm. I wonder if what you could do is, park your prius in a standard
>cargo container (or more likely, share it, or a custom one to reduce
>wasted space, and ride along with it by rail cross-country. You
>get your car at the other end, and saved a bunch of fuel. Xref,
>the Walberg/Theron version of "The Italian Job".

One of the regulars on the AFCA newsgroup in the old days would keep
returning to his theme that urban commuter trains should be designed
to accept "unit cars" that could be driven onto the train and clamped
into place quickly. This might make more sense for the long-distance
electric car transfer you're describing.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <j37cr8hueg5kokni8...@4ax.com>,

You postulate that robot can't handle those situations as well as
humans. They will obviously have to scan approaches front and rear and
the sides as well to get onto the highways, unless you are thinking of
limited access only. In fact the robot could be aware of all
directions at once vice the human who can only look in one direction,
and will not engage in wildly belligerent behavior unlike humans.
Human reaction time to falling rocks is not great and neither is a
car's abilitiy to stop.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

You require a lot more time for your check-in and baggage than I do.

[William December Starr]

In article <MPG.2c1fc592c...@news.newsguy.com>,
"J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net> said:

> Da...@block.net says...

>
>> Friction is not the issue. Staying aloft is. A flying car is
>> not a plane. It's a helicopter. One with small rotor span
>> because if it's wide, then you can't park it and it's not a car.
>
> At low speed it works like a helicopter. At high speed there's no
> reason it can't work like a lifting body.

Hey, that worked for Airwolf.

Now we just have to get past that pesky fiction/fact barrier.

-- wds

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

No. You're comparing legacy stuff we've accepted because, well, that's
the way it is, with new stuff being introduced that will be perceived
differently.

If I tried to introduce a new drug for OTC use that had the same
effects as alcohol - and the same health threats -- I'd be shut down
HARD. We won't even TALK about what would happen if I wanted to
introduce a new recreational activity with the risks and annoyances
involved in smoking. Yet smoking, though embattled, is still around, and
there is a general acceptance that we'll NEVER get rid of booze.

Introducing automated cars or planes -- things uncontrolled by humans
-- will be held to a **VASTLY** higher standard of performance than
equivalent human performance, and if they fail, they'll be shut down
HARD and wait another decade or three for another chance.

[Wayne Throop]

:: James Silverton
:: Another aspect of efficiency is time needed. A high speed (European

:: style) train (300 kph) might do Washington, DC to San Francisco in 13
:: hours. A plane takes about 7 hours unless it is a direct flight when
:: 5 hours might suffice but you have to add about 3 hours for check-in
:: and getting checked baggage, so a day would be pretty well shot in
:: both cases,

: "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com>
: You require a lot more time for your check-in and baggage than I do.

Well, I try to budget an hour to get from
returning-rental/parking-car/exiting-shuttle (whatever the case may be)
to stepping out of the security line into the secured area leading to the
gates... and sometimes more than that, depending on how the shuttles to
the parking are going and local traffic and so on and so forth, and how
much safety margin I budget. And then the reverse, maybe 45 minutes,
what with random waits in multiple lines and such in addition to the
baggage proper. And I tend to cut things a little tight, time-wise.

Now that there comes frighteningly close to 3 hours. I've got like,
maybe two and a half hours, if I put my safety margins at more reasonable
levels.

Mind you, I just added a bunch more items onto just "check in" and
"get checked baggage". Those are, indeed, well under a half-hour.

[Scott Lurndal]

It is also incorrect to think that such a train would make the run from DC
to SF without any intervening stops. Assume a dozen stops along the way,
perhaps 30 minutes each, and you've added another 6 hours to the journey.

I'd also argue with the 3 hours for checkin/checked bags, my extensive
business travel experience has been closer to 1 to 1.5 hours inclusive (domestic)
(the extra half hour if baggage is to be claimed). This will obviously
depend on which airports are being used (e.g burbank vs. lax, or sjc vs. sfo) with
the smaller regional airports wait times being generally shorter during most
heavy travel periods (holidays).

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <13708...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>::: The winners in efficiency are of course trains and ships.
>
>:: Presumably the absolute winners would be sailboats, which makes me
>:: think that comparing the numbers is kind of bogus in the first place.
>
>It's not bogus if that's what's being compared, ie, if you're trying
>to decide which form of transport saves you the most fuel per unit-mile
>(passenger/standard-cargo-container/whatnot), and by how much. Mind you,
>that's not the only thing to be compared in deciding what you do,
>but discovering that flying a commercial airliner is actually more
>ecofriendly carbon-footprint-wise and fuel-cost-wise than driving your
>prius cross-country.
>
>If the question is, are you better off flying somewhere or taking the
>bus, fuel expenditures wise, that's exactly what you need. Or on a more
>personal level if aircars ever come out, if you want/need to compare
>how much more fuel you'd burn if you were airborn,then again, that's
>exactly what you need.
>
>Hm. I wonder if what you could do is, park your prius in a standard
>cargo container (or more likely, share it, or a custom one to reduce
>wasted space, and ride along with it by rail cross-country. You
>get your car at the other end, and saved a bunch of fuel. Xref,
>the Walberg/Theron version of "The Italian Job".

In fact Amtrack offers such a service from the Northeast to Florida.
I suspect it is not economical or it would be offered beteen more
than just the sites the well-to-do, politicaly savvy, elderly want
to travel to and from.

[Wayne Throop]

: sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
: It is also incorrect to think that such a train would make the run

: from DC to SF without any intervening stops. Assume a dozen stops
: along the way, perhaps 30 minutes each, and you've added another 6
: hours to the journey.

Oh heavens no. Incoming and offloading passengers are just
snagged in specially designed bungee apparatussesses, (snagged by /
fixed to) the train for oncoming passengers, and snagged/fixed
wrt the station for exiting passengers.

Add a few concession stands in the embark/disembark car, some
blinkenlights and video games or pinball, a we'll-fry-anything booth,
and you can charge extra for the privelege.

"They made me... cook things. H-h-h-horrible things."

--- Agent K, reliving the trauma
of her carnie days...

[P. Taine]

Actually, that isn't my point (am I missing the wrong point?).

I am postulating that human driven cars would be spaced a lot further apart.
Yes, for a given spacing the robot will do better, but with a very tight spacing
the robot may not do better, or may do worse, than a human at the spacing that
implies. And, yes, some idiots tailgate, but I'm not convinced (which doesn't
mean I think I'm infallible) that the tight packed robots will do much if any
better than the spaced out (no, not that way) humans.

P. Taine

[P. Taine]

On Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:52:09 GMT, thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>::: The winners in efficiency are of course trains and ships.
>
>:: Presumably the absolute winners would be sailboats, which makes me
>:: think that comparing the numbers is kind of bogus in the first place.
>
>It's not bogus if that's what's being compared, ie, if you're trying
>to decide which form of transport saves you the most fuel per unit-mile
>(passenger/standard-cargo-container/whatnot), and by how much. Mind you,
>that's not the only thing to be compared in deciding what you do,
>but discovering that flying a commercial airliner is actually more
>ecofriendly carbon-footprint-wise and fuel-cost-wise than driving your
>prius cross-country.
>
>If the question is, are you better off flying somewhere or taking the
>bus, fuel expenditures wise, that's exactly what you need. Or on a more
>personal level if aircars ever come out, if you want/need to compare
>how much more fuel you'd burn if you were airborn,then again, that's
>exactly what you need.
>
>Hm. I wonder if what you could do is, park your prius in a standard
>cargo container (or more likely, share it, or a custom one to reduce
>wasted space, and ride along with it by rail cross-country. You
>get your car at the other end, and saved a bunch of fuel. Xref,
>the Walberg/Theron version of "The Italian Job".

You can already do that, sans the special container, from Lawton Virginia to
Stanford Florida on the Autotrain, and from Port Augusta (sp?) and Perth in
Australia. There may well be other such, but I don't know of them.

(Place names of the top of my head, any corrections gracefully accepted.)

[J. Clarke]

In article <13708...@sheol.org>, thr...@sheol.org says...

>
> ::: The winners in efficiency are of course trains and ships.
>
> :: Presumably the absolute winners would be sailboats, which makes me
> :: think that comparing the numbers is kind of bogus in the first place.
>
> It's not bogus if that's what's being compared, ie, if you're trying
> to decide which form of transport saves you the most fuel per unit-mile
> (passenger/standard-cargo-container/whatnot), and by how much. Mind you,
> that's not the only thing to be compared in deciding what you do,
> but discovering that flying a commercial airliner is actually more
> ecofriendly carbon-footprint-wise and fuel-cost-wise than driving your
> prius cross-country.
>
> If the question is, are you better off flying somewhere or taking the
> bus, fuel expenditures wise, that's exactly what you need. Or on a more
> personal level if aircars ever come out, if you want/need to compare
> how much more fuel you'd burn if you were airborn,then again, that's
> exactly what you need.
>
> Hm. I wonder if what you could do is, park your prius in a standard
> cargo container (or more likely, share it, or a custom one to reduce
> wasted space, and ride along with it by rail cross-country. You
> get your car at the other end, and saved a bunch of fuel. Xref,
> the Walberg/Theron version of "The Italian Job".

<http://www.amtrak.com/auto-train>

The Chunnel works something similar.

>
> : "J. Clarke" <jclark...@cox.net>
> : If high speed sail can be scaled to a reasonable size it may make a
> : comeback. It's not widely known that a sailing vessel has beaten the
> : Queen Mary's best transatlantic time. 32 knots average speed across
> : the Atlantic, under sail. Bloody amazing. And that's not approaching
> : the limits--50 knots has been achieved by sailing vessel capable of
> : crossing oceans--that one's going for the transpacific record sometime
> : in the next few weeks.
>
> On the more mundane side, see for example
>
> http://www.google.com/images?q=cargo+ship+sail
> http://www.google.com/images?q=cargo+ship+wind+kite
>
> and in amongst theoretical designs, there are a couple that
> are actually prototyped. (Meh, those are from 2008, so maybe it
> fizzled, but hey, 20% fuel savings in the half-sized prototype,
> doubling the linear size as they claimed... oh, wait, here's one
> from 2011, just bying production models, so it's still a go).
>
> Hm. I'm kinda disappointed that more wasn't readily googlable at
> my level of google-fu. But there it is; near as I can tell, it's
> an off-the-shelf technology. Saves thousands of dollars a day
> on fuel costs.

This is a high tech interpretation of the conventional full-rigged ship.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Maltese_Falcon_(yacht)>

Two separate cruise lines have constructed large modern sailing vessels.
<http://www.windstarcruises.com/windsurf-yacht.aspx>
<http://www.starclipperscruises.com/index.cfm>