Slashdot Mirror
Underground Freight Networks
morphovar writes "The German Ruhr University of Bochum is conducting experiments with a large-scale model for an automated subterranean transport system. It would use unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel in a network through pipelines with a diameter of 1.6 meters, up to distances of 150 kilometers. Sending cargo goods through underground pipelines is anything but new — see this scan of a 1929 magazine article about Chicago's underground freight tunnel network (more details). Translating this concept to the 21st century would be something like introducing email for things: you could order something on the Internet and pick it up through a trapdoor in your cellar the next morning."
Many large cities in the US had a Pneumatic Telegraph at one time. Basically one of those pneumatic tube package delivery systems, but spanning the whole city. This was back in the 1800's. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Denver International Airport tried something along that line.
Things went so badly that when they sent camera equipped luggage to trouble shoot the system, they lost their camera equipped baggage. Forever.
United finally abandoned the system a few years ago, though they're still paying for it.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Let's not get panicky. Many cities already have labyrinths of sub-basements under their downtown areas (the aforementioned one in Chicago, where I live, and many others). Moreover, think about the maze of tunnels running under Washington, D.C.?
The point is to be sensible about securing it, not to not have it. We still fly planes, don't we? We still allow rental of U-Haul trucks, right? Just because it CAN be used for bad behavior doesn't mean a) it will be, or b) it can't be secured with a reasonable amount of caution. Hell, if we felt THAT way about things, guns would have been outlawed a long time ago. (AND they would still exist anyway, AND people would still use them for bad stuff.)
All that said, though, of course subterranean tunnels make a tasty target for destructive behavior. The point is that a tunnel system under a metropolitan area should be carefully monitored. And if it can be quickly flooded (or all oxygen can be quickly removed) in the event of fire or "evildoers," all the better.
In effect, the tunnels under Chicago DID cause widespread damage a few years ago. A construction crew drove a piling down into the Chicago river and punched through the tunnel wall underneath, flooding the entire downtown area's basements with river water. So it can be dangerous to have the tunnels, but better provisions for evildoers and morons (probably more the latter) would have minimized the problem. That's an old tunnel system, but a new one could be built with the ability to quickly isolate one problem section.
I guess I'm reacting to the terror terror, you know? We must be wise and sensible, but if a tunnel system under the city is the only appropriate and complete solution to a given problem, we can't let fear of something rare (in fact, so rare as to be historically significant when it happens) take it off the table.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Recycled from trash, etc.
Actually, I think that fabbing is going to run into the same "intellectual property" felgercarb that music and video is running into. As far as I know, the only physical objects with copyright hinderances on them are buildings (not sure about china patterns, and silverware).
Right now, there are patents. Are there fair use clauses for patents? If I download a fabbing pattern from a foreign source, am I breaking patent law, or breaking import law? If I scan an object and distribute a fabbing pattern, have I broken patent law? What if I fab something I saw in a TV show, is that a copyright violation, a trademark infringement, or a patent violation? If a beautiful young female made off with one of my silverware fabbing patterns can I say that the dish ran away with the spoon?
I think we may look back on the halcyon days of yore when we only had the RIAA to deal with.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"