Month: November 2007

So there is an X-Prize with more down-to-earth goals

The Automotive X PRIZE will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.

…I’d like to see it broadened to include something more than just personal transportation, so it includes vehicles and technologies that move goods and large groups of people safely and economically.

I thought it was all about spaceships.

People love their cars. They are vital links to our jobs, our community, ourselves. For everything we love about them, cars are chained to the most severe global crises of our time: oil dependence and climate change. We aim to break this deadlock through the most radical approach to innovation yet – the X PRIZE. The Automotive X PRIZE will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy. This will be a race for the ages, with major publicity and a big sack of cash waiting for the champion, and perhaps our future hanging in the balance. [From Automotive X PRIZE]

I’d like to see it broadened to include something more than just personal transportation, so it includes vehicles and technologies that move goods and large groups of people safely and economically. Some of the technology is there as are some of the needed markets, but a good catalyst to connect the two might be some kind of challenge or competition.

why not make an X-prize for this kind of thing?

French TGV world speed record of 3rd April 2007 (574.8 kilometres per hour / 357 miles per hour)

…They had to decelerate before they had found the top-end of the train’s capability.

French TGV world speed record of 3rd April 2007 (574.8 kilometres per hour / 357 miles per hour)

The most amazing part of this? They ran out of track before they ran out of speed. They had to decelerate before they had found the top-end of the train’s capability.

the Bell Curve, simplified

Now you, as intelligent but busy blogreader could follow the back and forth of arguments to decide whether this really is science or closet racism masked as science, but you just don’t have the time.

…The claims made about a group’s intelligence are consistent with racist stereotypes about this group?

from the using-poor-science-to-justify-your-unenlightened-beliefs department:


Now you, as intelligent but busy blogreader could follow the back and forth of arguments to decide whether this really is science or closet racism masked as science, but you just don’t have the time. So here’s how to tell in a few easy steps:

  1. The claims made about a group’s intelligence are consistent with racist stereotypes about this group?
  2. It’s closet racism
  3. Erm.
  4. That’s it

[From Progressive Gold » Blog Archive » Real science or closet racism? How to tell in one easy step.]

musings on transportation

For something we enjoy for maybe an hour (if you’re lucky) or perhaps 3-4, per day, if things are not so good, we spend a lot of time choosing and researching, and then paying for what we decide on. When you consider how many people drive, for their commutes or errands, in congested areas and often with only one person in the car, the performance we pay for, that the ads tell us we have to have, will never be used.

…In this region, given the constrictions created by increasingly crowded bridges over waterways, I wish all cars were controlled by a central management system from the approaches at each end, to avoid the ricks as people try to cut in line and as drive operate their vehicles at different speeds while on the bridges.

Who needs more than this?

t500_01.jpgThe T500 used the same engine as the famous S500 roadster, cranking out a whopping 38HP and 31 lb-ft of torque, yet that was still enough to get it to highway speeds (barely) with a fuel economy of around 50MPG. There is nothing about this truck I don’t love. I really wish vehicles like this were the default choice for today’s driver. Sure, it could only haul around 880 pounds of stuff, but how often does the average person need to move around more than that? [From Vintage Brochure for 1964 Honda T500 Truck – Boing Boing Gadgets ]

Had occasion to hit my local IKEA today, and noted that it is more than 50 miles round trip — 2 gallons of gas @ US$3.29, so almost $7.00. And it struck me that for some things, it might make more sense to order them and have them shipped that it will make to go get them yourself. So many places offer free shipping, if you can wait/afford to let them maximize the logistical benefits.

The car, as we know it, all luxurious, with its elegant appointments, hot-and-cold running mp3 player, four-speed windshield wipers, and full-race floormats, might be pricing itself out of our lives.

Look at the little Honda truck, ca. 1964. How does it differ, functionally, from the SMART car of today? 2 seats, limited carrying capacity, extremely tight design/space usage, and exceptional economic value. I suspect few people who take the plunge on a SMART or something similar suddenly wish they had a bigger car with more stuff.

The amount of money people allocate to cars has always baffled me. Where with most things people buy, the argument seems to be to buy the smallest that makes sense, in housing or appliances, etc. but in cars, it always seem to be, buy the most you can afford. For something we enjoy for maybe an hour (if you’re lucky) or perhaps 3-4, per day, if things are not so good, we spend a lot of time choosing and researching, and then paying for what we decide on.

When you consider how many people drive, for their commutes or errands, in congested areas and often with only one person in the car, the performance we pay for, that the ads tell us we have to have, will never be used. Hundreds of horsepower, idling, inaccessible and unused in one traffic jam after another.

Continue reading “musings on transportation”

links for 2007-11-21

Kindle: will it catch fire?

When I learned that the device has a web browser/renderer built-in, it would make it a lot more appealing if the books arrived as web content — as html markup with CSS that mimics or at least attempts to capture the original design.

…If the media powerhouses were subsidizing the device — discounts for current subscribers or as a premium for new ones (consider the cost of printing and mailing that they might save if these took off), perhaps the price could be made more appealing.

Sorry about the headline: couldn’t resist.

After chewing it over all day, I’ve concluded that Amazon’s Kindle is going to flop. Or at least I hope it does. [From ★ DUM]

I don’t have any high hopes one way or the other on it. I agree with Rafe that it’s ugly with a capital UG. I think it’s far too expensive for wide-spread adoption ($400 is a lot of books or music or movies, especially if you already have a device that plays the latter two).

I think the idea of a portable library, if you heard Neil Gaiman’s pitch, is interesting, but unlike a library of books with multiple styles, designs, type faces, illustrations and pictures, you get all your books with one font in variable sizes. Part of the joy for bibliomanes is the physical artifact, the design of it, the materials, the form factor, the paper weight and color, the typography, etc. What we’re getting with the Kindle v1 is current books, stripped of the appealing physical aspects, a la Project Gutenberg.

When I learned that the device has a web browser/renderer built-in, it would make it a lot more appealing if the books arrived as web content — as html markup with CSS that mimics or at least attempts to capture the original design. I wish the Gutenberg books came tagged so that enterprising types could roll out CSS files that worked with any book (so long as they adopted consistent style names) or even specific ones for works they felt needed it.

What I think I am looking for is a device like this, with a high-quality display and an on-board renderer that will take any ASCII text file or perhaps PDF and allow me to read and navigate it. I don’t want a lot of features, no editing or annotation, nothing more complex than ☜, ☞, ☝,☟, and search.

Wireless acquisition of books is all very well, but if the thing holds a lot of books, surely you can plan ahead and have a virtual stack of them. Syncing up with whatever you use to buy the books — airport and mall kiosks, perhaps? — via a wired or BlueTooth connection would be fine, I think.

For the newspaper/magazine end of things, you need the wireless component, but what if you didn’t want it? You can’t buy it without that. Has online reading replaced the dead tree edition to that extent? If the media powerhouses were subsidizing the device — discounts for current subscribers or as a premium for new ones (consider the cost of printing and mailing that they might save if these took off), perhaps the price could be made more appealing.

I wonder if Trudeau will be find this as laughable as he found the Newton.

Yes, I know Jeff Bezos is way smarter than me.

quote of the day

No matter how you try to find a responsible conservative, you’ll keep finding middle school deviants. [From HaloScan.com – Comments ] Epic comments thread, over 1100 and counting.


No matter how you try to find a responsible conservative, you’ll keep finding middle school deviants. [From HaloScan.com – Comments]

Epic comments thread, over 1100 and counting. This comment sums it up pretty well.