Comments on: Planes vs. Cars

By: Plato

Plato — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:33:37 +0000

Rivero,

That’s all.

By: Alejandro Rivero

Alejandro Rivero — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 17:51:37 +0000

indrax, good point!!!

(Plato, could you ellaborate, here or in your weblog, about Netherlands “meeting hall” concept? I went lost somewhere your discourse path)

By: indrax

indrax — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 16:48:12 +0000

Alejandro Rivero:
If the travel took anywhere near 150 years, and it was a group tavelling (as on a plane) it would also have a birth rate. This should also be accounted for in the equations.

I don’t think very many babies are born in airplanes. Although perhaps it would be more fair to count conceptions.

By: Plato

Plato — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 11:12:26 +0000

In a humbler perspective, during a speech on free software someone pointed out to me that modern lathes, millers, shapers and general drill tools are automatised and that they use pretty standard formats to describe the pieces. But companies keep closed the information on tolerances in order to fight third-party production of parts. "Industrial designs" are still held in context of copyright or trade marks, yet I think the advancement of anything becoming "quite common" has it's reproductive value eventually found in the cheapest production wise somewhere. Hate to be undercut in original design? I have seen these computerized lathes before, just not with microprocessing abilites. Very interesting. The 'meeting hall" is a interesting version of native design? The Netherlands seems to have more then just Gerard t' Hooft to consider in their contributions to societies.:)

By: Alejandro Rivero

Alejandro Rivero — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 06:47:34 +0000

Hello Plato. The "molecular feeder", or "personal fabricator" generalising the "personal computer" is perhaps the ultimate goal behind the Center For Bits and Atoms and their Fab Labs. In a humbler perspective, during a speech on free software someone pointed out to me that modern lathes, millers, shapers and general drill tools are automatised and that they use pretty standard formats to describe the pieces. But companies keep closed the information on tolerances in order to fight third-party production of parts.

By: Plato

Plato — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 00:08:42 +0000

For instance, I would expect that the Open/Free Software movement should easily extend into programmable manufacturing machines. Free Wheels anf gears, downloadable from internet

Ah, yes I see. I once dreamed of a molecular feeder. Using your idea then, we could manufacture?:)

By: Alejandro Rivero

Alejandro Rivero — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:31:53 +0000

Hi Plato! My nostalgia of the “ole way” is not about the old technologies by themselves, but about an old motivational way we have lost. It is probably happening now for some time, because I remember about a chemistry playset manufactured by a company unrelated to toy industry (they are providers od plastic for General Motors); my guess is that they made the playset as a sort of compensation… as a way of resistance.

Also, it is not exactly that the workshops have dissapeared, it is that they concentrated and moved out the city. A modern solution could be to install university AND secondary school in the same areas that factories and workshops, so al least students would interact natutally with real producers during rest time at the pub. For instance, I would expect that the Open/Free Software movement should easily extend into programmable manufacturing machines. Free Wheels anf gears, downloadable from internet.

By: Plato

Plato — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:42:06 +0000

When I was younger workshops were in the center of the cities. We kids wandered around doors into the local coffee roaster, got to peer into chemist backoffice, keep looking the sparks from the soldering tool or ckecking how a gear wheel was fitted into its place in a printing mechanism. No wonder why now we need to sell science as if we were, er, car resellers.

This is what happens with technolgoical advancements.

Trying to keep pace, and seeing in new ways with modern controls, the hands on, takes us away from the intuitive developement that came from doing things the “ole way”:)

While the nostalgia is strong in the heart of our memories, resistance to such changes takes us away from the reality of change?

While these things might now sit in the archives, we need the “older folk” to remind us sometimes of the way it used to be, to realize, that there are always natural processes to be considered even while we are dismayed with such advances.:)

By: AndyS

AndyS — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:22:05 +0000

If you are sitting in coach on a transatlantic flight (especially from the west coast of the US to, say, Paris) I would claim you are a much higher risk for suicide — add crying babies and the risk is for homocide.

By: macho

macho — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 16:00:59 +0000

I don’t have the numbers with me but several years ago I also got tired of hearing that cars were much more dangerous than planes with nothing to back up this claim. I looked at this in some detail, digging through the statisics on automobile fatalities, and found that since I am not a male between the ages of 18 and 25, driving late at night while drunk (or riding with a drunk driver) my odds of being killed in a car crash plummetted drastically. (I allowed for the possibility of being hit by a drunk driver in the other car.) The trick was in comparing miles or time of travel in a car with either miles or time in flight. A miles comparison gave me roughly even odds, but I don’t think this is the best way to calculate the relative safety since most plane crashes occur within a short window of time around take-off and landing, so that your odds of dying on a long vs short plane flight do not differ significantly. (I also did not include any planes other than commercial airlines).