Comment Re:Captain Trips? (Score 1) 236
How much do you think it would take to get Kareem to march around as the harbinger again with the bell?
LOL...
How much do you think it would take to get Kareem to march around as the harbinger again with the bell?
LOL...
Ok. But I prefer an more dispersed solution at an ultimate goal. Living on Mars might be a useful intermediate step, though.
That said, we really need to disperse well beyond the solar system to be approximately safe (for a reasonably long time). And planets are not the right place to hold an industrial civilization. (But we probably need controlled fusion to do it properly. Fission is too hard to refuel.) I think a dispersal rate of about 0.1C, or possibly a bit slower, is optimal...which means the habitats need to be durable and maintainable, and able to survive on stuff harvested in passing. So we've a ways to go before that becomes possible. And Mars might be a good intermediate step. (OTOH, if FTL is possible, all bets are off. But I don't expect that, or we'd have believable visitors.)
All well and good, but you have to master crawling before you can walk, and master walking before you have any chance of becoming an Olympic sprinter.
Science makes no distinction between every living human dying, and nobody dying.
If you want some reason for action on that, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Or, just go with what you've already socially assimilated, theism, as you attack yourself.
Survival is not mandatory. - Edwards Deming
Perhaps it's time to get that airline ticket to Madagascar before they shut down everything.
If the great oracle, Mr. King, is accurate, we might need a little more distance than Madagascar.
And Elon Musk is right, too: "[which do we want,] Lipstick or a colony on Mars?"
This virus is bad, but it's not Captain Trips. This is a wake-up call to remind us that extinction-level events remain possible and arguably become more likely as our technology reduces our individual isolation.
ATM0.
Turns off the speaker. First thing you do on any modem. Thereafter you only hear the clicks as the line is picked up and dropped. You're welcome.
Spoken like a true greybeard firing up the modem at 2AM to download porn. Wouldn't want to wake the wife up.
LOL... At 300 baud, it took basically all night to download one GIF. When JPEGs and 1200 baud modems appeared, I was in heaven.
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It's a unibody design so it needs the sail pillars to mitigate torsion on the frame when pulling a load.
The load when towing is a definite issue for the design of unibody trucks. The Cybertruck will be a light-duty pickup truck, but I believe it will be a very respectable truck for most pickup buyers.
Sure but you can't access the truck bed from the sides; that's pretty important for many "truck things".
I've owned many pickup trucks. Most of them can't be accessed from the sides; they have a cargo box. Rarely do they get removed.
The limitation of the Cybertruck's unibody structure will be that it cannot be sold as a chassis cab setup; in other words, a driveable frame with a cab where the buyer attaches the necessary equipment (from an RV body to a salt spreader, etc) to the bare frame.
The vast majority of pickup trucks sell with an attached box, and the vast majority of worn-out pickup trucks at the junkyard still have their boxes. So, for most people who buy pickup trucks, the design should be fine.
Aftermarket truck caps will appear for the Cybertruck, if it is a success in the market. I'm sure lots of cap companies already have sketches on the drawing board.
I doubt Tesla is targeting the serious truck market with this vehicle. Based on the specs, it is a very viable pickup truck for most pickup truck buyers - but it's not something where you can bolt on a snow plow blade and a salt spreader and use it to clear the parking lot of your local Wal*Mart. It needs to make the compromise of fuel efficiency (ie. battery range) of a real frame for those tasks.
I applaud Tesla for the design and the styling. It looks angry and aggressive, which does sell trucks. I like the unibody design, because it's inherently better for *most* vehicles. I love the stainless steel body, but that just might be the former Delorean owner in me, and stainless is ideal for a truck carrying gravel or other abrasives in its box. It's not a vehicle for towing (there'd be no side clearance for a 5th wheel hitch) or other heavy-duty use. But as a general-purpose pickup truck, it's impressive.
Nope. I include a SASE and have them ship my electricity to a PO box listed by the name Mr. Pilkington.
Water is tougher, but you just send a large jar and cardboard box.
Still trying to figure out the sewage problem though.
I sure hope it's the return of Rambus!
How would their electrical distribution system hold up if these people were to actually use them - you know, all arriving home in the evening at about peak residential usage time, and plugging their cars in?
Oh, man. It's the same problem *everywhere* where electric cars are being pushed. Where is the electricity coming from in the first place? How will the grid handle it - especially at peak demand hours? Where is the cobalt and the lithium in the batteries coming from? So yeah, no tailpipe emissions, out of sight and out of mind.
Okay, so, if 90% of those charging stations never get used, what's the environmental impact of making - and hard-wiring the copper! - for all those boxes?
This is a bold strategy on the UK's part. I am a car guy - look at my username - and I studied Electrical Engineering in University because I love electricity even more than food and sex, but I am not sure that net environmental benefits are there yet.
And then, there's the Prince of Darkness. Don't let the magic smoke out. You can make fun of the American car industry all you want, but all the Chevy Vegas and Ford Pintos in the world don't make up for this: British cars are renowned for really reprehensibly bad electrical systems. I'd never set foot in a British car with a Lithium-Ion battery. So let's hope they're just charging imports.
That always irritates me. It's not that visual thinkers don't exist, it's that people who describe themselves that way are usually just too lazy to do much thinking at all. They like pictures because they can glance at them and jump to conclusions.
Wait? What? You mean this road sign isn't for a place where I can go to have something heavy dropped on my vehicle?
How about The Willies?
It's like the cast and crew of the TV show Growing Pains got together to make a campy B-movie. One of my favorite scenes involves the classic dog in a microwave. Just listen to that great music.
"What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight
