Slashdot Mirror
Sci-Fi Tech We Could Have Right Now (For a Price)
PlainBlack writes "Possibility isn't limited by technology. And it's certainly not limited by human imagination. What makes something impossible is the lack of cold, hard, cash. Wired blog takes a look at 10 science fiction technologies we could build, if they weren't so expensive. 'New York-L.A. Maglev Express - Cost: $70bn (Based on established construction costs). At $70bn, it's tantalizingly affordable by the standards of this roundup: a train that could beat airliners from one side of the country to the other. Many agree that Maglev has enormous potential. Bite-sized examples are in operation all over the world. Birmingham, England, had the first in the 1980s, though the promise of airliner-like speeds on land is still unrealized. The British system sped along at a pathetic 26MPH and was designed to get air travelers to the planes, not to outrun them.'"
for a sci-fi device which installed in Richard Stallman a sense of shame.
OMG my eyes, teh goggles do NOTHING!!
I'm Canadian... Eh?
a train that could beat airliners from one side of the country to the other
You'd still have to arrive at the train station three hours early and take your shoes off for the TSA goons.
Only $1.2 billion for a space hotel? Heck, Microsoft should take that $44.6 billion and invest it into a Death Star! I'm sure Ballmer would like his new Vader costume. :)
Honestly.. why would you want a million distracted soccer moms and stressed out sales reps take to the skies?
We like to imagine the flying car scenario like in the fifth element, but in reality it would look more like a WW2 bombing campaign.
I'm totally on board for the mech, it's time to make these military conflicts entertaining enough for pay per view to help off set the costs of war.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Perhaps with little pink hearts printed on each face of the cube?
* A wife?
* Two chicks at the same time.
Consider, we could have built seven of those NY to LA maglev trains for what Bush has spent so far blowing stuff up in Iraq. Put another way, we could have built a national long-haul maglev infrastructure and had enough left over to roll out fibre to the curb nationwide.
The war in Iraq is pricey, but look at all the dough we waste on social security and medicare. That's almost a trillion dollars a year and would allow us to have a couple of Iraqs, a moonbase, and maglev trains, but oh no, we have to have entitlements going up at twice the rate of economic growth now for decades on end.
Time to cut the old people off and start spending that money on cool stuff. I'd say, cut medicare spending in half, cap the rate of growth, and let people take a ticket and wait.
This is my sig.
Well that's a start. Then they'll need a test wardrobe, and a test kitchen, and a test bathroom. But yes, a test bed is a start.
Osama lives in a cave and despite the billions being spent by Bush and co, they haven't managed to blow him up. Guess living in a cave really is a safe place to be.