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How Will We Get Around Near-Future Earth?
Slob Nerd points to this BBC article on future transport possibilities. It begins "The prospect of a revolution in air travel has been raised by Nasa's successful test of a 5,000mph plane. But are we likely to see similar advances in other forms of transport? Dusting off the crystal ball, what changes might come in the way we get around? What big ideas are out there, and do they have any chance of seeing the light of day?"
it'll be safe to say it isn't the segway... :P
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Crudely Drawn Games
you insensitive clod...
All the worlds indeed a
Star Trek style Transporters. The government has them in secret underground bases, but the aliens dont want us to know about them, so they force the government to keep them hidden.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
One thing is clear; in America no one will walk. It will be too dangerous - if you aren't run over by an SUV, suffocated by smog, you'll collapse from a heart attack because you weigh 300 pounds and you're body can't take the exertion.
a hoverboard a la Back to the Future II.
One hopes that this idea might "get off the ground." I for one would love to finally have the flying cars we were all promised we'd be riding in by the 1990s' Although I doubt this thing would be able to get past FAA regs, much less be cleared to allow people to have one in their garage, to take out in the morning, and zoom off to work, vacation, or whatever...
Jason A.
Do you see the FNORDS? I refuse to post anonymously, as I am fireproof!
I can bench press a lot, me and my near-future self will bench press each other. Then we'll get around the near-future earth.
Of course, we would then have to get around Bizarro Earth. Personally, I'm assuming my Bizarro self is a terrific dancer and extremely wealthy, so I plan on crashing on his couch.
I dont go outside now, why should the future be any different?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The government has a water fueled car... but man, they won't tell us, because then we'd use all the water, and only have beer left to drink. And man, beer sets your mind free!
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
How are they going to add the time travel feature if they don't make new models?!?! I WAS PROMISED A TIME TELEPORTING CAR.
http://www.delorean.com/
Real men travel via |
Pipeline Monorail anyone?
[1] My apologies to Bill Cosby's Shelby Cobra routine.
They require completely new airports - out of the question in most large cities, where the cities grew around the airport and there is no possibility of expansion.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
"Nasa scientists say their experimental X-43A jet has the potential to make the world a much smaller place."
Somehow I find it difficult to believe that NASA scientists said their experimental jet will alter the size of thw world.
No, no, the title is correct. In the original draft, the author speculated about the effects that time-travel would have on the travel industry, and the possibility of accidentally sending the entire planet earth back in time. If that happens then before it happens we'll see an earth from the future appear in our orbit. We'll of course our earth gravitationally attracted to the earth from the future, thus "How Will We Get Around Near-Future Earth". Later editing made the submitter's title seem oddly un-proofread. Uh... I'm assuming.
The enemies of Democracy are
Arcology
Actually, they put a lot of work into it, but the Visigoths screwed it up.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
This goes against everything Civ ever taught me.
with all this genetic engineering go on, I want my flying monkey.
I don't care if it's a european or african flying monkey. As long as it can hold the weight and get me to work.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Now, I'm looking into alternate methods to power my g#4gFW43[NO CARRIER]
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
"How Will We Get Around Near-Future Earth?" Why? Is it in the way of something?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Alternatives abound, consider a ground-based catapult launch system to get the plane up to a reasonable velocity
Wait a minute. I've heard of this. It's called Elbonian airlines. But where would we find enough mud to make the landings soft?
Although we often speak of increased efficiency in the means of propulsion and in the production of fuel, we too rarely consider the gains promised by more radical approaches.
One might, for example, achieve high-velocity subjective travel merely through a distributed effort to rearrange human definitions of location. By exchanging Surrey and Essex in the general social awareness, humans could potentially travel instantaneously between the two. With digital technology such a measure is no pipe dream; its only complication lies in the difficulty of cooperatively scheduling each individual's location at a specifically desired time.
Another approach which may alleviate the inefficiencies of travel altogether is to restrict each human corporeally to one narrow venue, preferably bounded by chain or wire mesh, within which that human may live free of geography's inconvenience. Such innovative measures are already being developed globally, and it is a simple question of how quickly all humans can be accused of terrorist sympathies before we can consider ourselves to have discovered the future of transportation.
The era of flying cars started in Britain about 2010. The Smart car company was the progenitor, essentially by adding a pair of wings to its lightweight vehicle. The introduction was timely, in that the minority coalition of Conservative and New Labour parties, under their "Privatise everything" policy were introducing tolls on all roads. The flying car avoided this by not using roads at all.
The concept quickly spread to Europe, causing the Channel Tunnel company to become bankrupt.
The idea was imported to America but was a distinct failure. Although the country would have seemed ideal for such an invention the inability of American companies to make a "Flying Humvee" that would do more than half a mile on full fuel load meant that it never caught on.
...and residents of Texas are Texicans, or is that reserved for employees of the Texaco corporation?
Stick Men
Due to the terrorism threat, travel for all non-corporate purposes using vehicles powered by flamable substances has been prohibited. Instead, we expect you to watch your television like a good lemming -er- citizen.
Please call the Ministry of Love if you have any questions.
-- $G
All mass transit will be high speed conveyer belts!
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
SUVs the size of oil tankers. We have to continue the "arms race" of who has the biggest SUV.
vincent black-shadow
It's funny when people who insist that the PC is great because it puts the power to control one's computing destiny into one's own hands, instead of the old model of centralized computing, also insist on mass transportation, instead of owning private cars that put one's travel destiny into one's own hands.