There’s the Pipistrel Velis Electro. It costs about $200 000. It’s a regular plane. Been around for some years.
What I’d like to see is more of is stuff like the Ehang 216 eVTOL drones. I don’t know if they’re actually commercially available yet or what kind of places they’re allowed.
But seriously though, in hindsight, the invention of asphalt roads was a mistake. The oil industry doesn’t just own the production of fuels. They also own the production of materials for roads and tires.
If we were to reinvent the car using contemporary knowledge, materials and technology, we would have to use something else for both cars, tires and roads.
Or we can wait 50 years and let our grandchildren deal with it when the oil has been depleted.
Going into fiction, if we were to settle on another planet covered with plants and natural resources, I seriously doubt we would be able to justify what we did to the Earth when we paved the roads. We only use roads because we upgraded the existing dirt and rock trails used by horse carriages. If those hadn’t existed already, it would have made much more sense to redesign the vehicles to actually work without a paved surface. Like the horse carriages and early cars, which had really large hard wheels and softer suspension. It really is the invention of asphalt roads that caused modern cars to be such whiny rubber glove bitches.
Perhaps the whole flying car science fiction isn’t that stupid after all, because it eliminates the need for roads and tires and all the shit that comes from it. Small electric personal planes already exist. Roll out the solid state batteries and autopilot and we’re almost good to go.
This is what billionaires ought to spend their money on instead of drilling holes in the desert.
Yes, the kids will be alright.
Mine are that age, so I see a lot of them through their school and activities. They’re not that different from what we were at that age.
Absolutely, but it isn’t up to their employers to punish them.
Resignation is often used in these kinds of cases, because there’s really no framework to fire them, since they didn’t actually violate any of the terms on which they’re hired. They should be tried for the crimes they’ve committed under the jurisdiction of the place where the crime was committed. Not in some random board meeting in a different country.
What happens is that the board says “even if you didn’t violate our terms or any local laws, we don’t see our organization being able to work with someone like you, so we urge you to do what is best for both parts, which is that you resign voluntarily.”
If they don’t, then the board can say “the existence of potential criminal cases against you can harm the reputation of our organization, so now you’re fired.” The outcome is almost the same, but this could create a lot more negative attention to what the company knew about.
I think the point could be stated more clearly by only using the bottom picture.
The snow that is scraped from the road is dirty, while the snow from the pavement is … less dirty. It might be dirt or exhaust or whatever. Roads and pavements are just filthy.
More interestingly, if you live in a place where the piles don’t thaw quickly, you can watch the road side of the snow getting progressively more dirty from the ongoing exhaust even if the road is not scraped afterwards. At the end of the season, the roadside snow piles will look charcoal black. It’s most noticable at crossings where cars run the engines at red light. Had it all been just dirt, it would look the same everywhere along the road, but it doesn’t.
“AI first company”? What does it even mean?
Why can’t they just be a gay dating app that makes use of AI?
The word “first” implies that AI is going to the primary focus.
So, they want to change their core business from being a gay dating app to being an AI company?
With explanations like “AI is not a specific feature”, I have to wonder what makes them think their company is able to do anything competitive in the already saturated AI market.
The internet is like that, yes.
At least there are no advertising here.
All the movies by Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill.
It doesn’t matter which one, because the plot is always the same.
Just like many other good distros, Friends ended when the larger one ate the smaller ones.
Pulled Winnie the Pooh.
It’s honey marinated and fat.
That song was written in 1963 in New York.
Photo retouching as a physical trade. Colour photography and instant development killed the art of retouching black and white photos almost from one day to the next, because nobody could retouch colour photos and nobody wanted to pay for retouching black and white photos anymore, when Polaroids were easy to reshoot. My grandparents did it, but had to close the shop in the 1980s. I still have a few of their pens, but most of it ended up in a museum.
50 years ago was in the 1970s. I actually think more skills were lost just in the 20 years prior to that than after. This is due to mass production and plastic, which created the consumer products since the 1960s. Prior to that, you’d actually consider all products (except food) to be a purchase for life.
London is the most congested city in the entire world.
I play all the rock instruments and then some. I never got along with fretless strings or horns, because they require much more practice.
My main interests are in theory, composing and synthesizers, so I like instruments that are playable from a logic approach rather than muscle memory.
I’m still pretty technically decent with guitars and the djembe. Maybe blues harp too.
If I were to join a band, it’d probably be on bass though.
Also, the Smurfs
History is a circle.
First we had bicycles. These then got helper motors. Then we got motorcycles and the two stroke engines had helper pedals to start. Then the pedals were removed.
Now we still have bicycles. These then got electric helper motors. Then we got electric bikes, that still have pedals, but people hack them to run entirely on the motor.
Make up your minds already. Everyone of these changes upsets the elderly.