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Where Are the Flying Cars?
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Complaints of the non-existence of flying cars as expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to measure up to the glory of past predictions have long been a staple of popular culture but all that is about to change when Terrafugia introduces their $148,000 "Transition," a 19-foot, two-seater that the company describes as a roadable light-sport aircraft. The problem is that the U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure in place to make landing in front of your house a viable alternative yet and a sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could also be a problem. The idea is to take advantage of the 6,000 public airports in the U.S. so a pilot can fly into a small airport (video) and instead of getting a rental car, just fold up the wings on the aircraft and drive away. Terrafugia expects the first production model to be ready in 2009 and says they've already received advanced orders for 30 to 50 Transitions."
Why aren't there flying cars? Why are we growing new body parts? Why no Repet? It's the government's fault.
Many views into our future on the silver screen and no Sci-Fi back when they played science fiction had things that are possible today but politics and ignorance (same thing) get in the way. In some cases, I'm glad government hasn't really allowed for flying cars yet. Too many people already can't drive worth a damn, though I'd expect a license for one of these - perhaps "Class F" - to be much harder to get than a driver's license, where apparently in the US not being able to speak or even read English (like "STOP") lands you one of those.
But look at all the block the Bush Administration has put on various technologies around cloning. I'm not for cloning entire people, but cloning body parts - which reduces the rate of rejection to practically nil - is a wonderful idea. I needed a bone graft once and it didn't take from some other donor. It would've been nice if that could've been cloned from me.
Science and the government don't mix. It's like nerds and jocks in school. When we have revenge of the nerds, then we'll see progress.
If you are an American you are almost certainly about to learn in a very painful way about some of the pitfalls of letting the private sector operate totally without interference from the government. Specifically, you are going to find out why it might have been a good idea to have the government have a voice in the selection of real estate appraisers and why it is not a good idea to let lenders pick appraisers who will come up with the numbers they want to see. Try this link. http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/. You want the article entitled What's Wrong With Approved Appraiser Lists. If you have time, be sure and follow the links to www.prudentbear.com where serious questions that might even be valid are raised about the near-term solvency of much of the US financial system. (The criticism of the government here incidentally is not that it screwed things up but that it didn't do enough to stop this nonsense before it got so serious).
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey