European test are indeed stretched. The makers have had too long to figure out how to "cheat" on the tests. (Optimize for test conditions based on imaginary 70s traffic.) Hopefully the new testing cycle soon to be introduced will give better results.
As an example, a couple of years ago I drove my moms "super efficient" VW Polo 3 cylider Diesel on a 5000km around Europe. According to the manual that car can achieve 78mpg. The best the trip computer ever told me was 67mpg, while I was doing 50mph for 15 minutes on a perfectly flat road in Denmark. (I reset it for testing.) On rural roads in Norway I got 60mpg for 3 hours. Blasting an average of 88mph for half an hour in Germany (meaning I really was bouncing between 70 and 110mph due to traffic) it told me 33mpg. Trip average was 50mpg, but besides those 15 minutes in Denmark I wasn't really trying to drive economical at all.
And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.
Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.
I would love a car capable on cruising along pre-approved rural interstates, but handing over control to me for city driving. Set your destination to a city 7 hours away, and watch a movie, read a book, or maybe even take a nap, while the car keep a more vigilante "eye" on driving than a human possibly can for any extended period of time.
Of course it should be 100% capable of driving itself when in charge, and not suddenly hand over to a human. When it needs refueling, or if the weather deteriorates it needs to notify the human well in advance, and be capable of safely pulling over and stopping if the driver fails to take over in time.
Plane: 90+60+30+70 min flight time = 4h 10 min hour. Train: 20+10+5.20 train time = 5h 50 min. You have a 3 hour 20 minute difference in travel time for a return trip.
On the other hand, pretty much all of those 4h10m are spend being unproductive if flying. Barely any time to do any work in between moving to the next stage, standing in line, and waiting for a few minutes here and there. However in the train scenario only half an hour really prevents work from being done, leaving a solid 5 hour work block to be utilized.
Flying might get you there faster, but you'll get more done on the train. Depends on your priorities and needs.
The big-planes, infrequently model doesn't really work with the hub-and-spokes model popular in the USA
Also, apparently American airlines typically use revenue management software optimized for smaller aircrafts, compared to that used by European carriers. http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
I find myself empathizing with the kids on this one, who I'm sure arn't seeing this as an investment in their future but rather yet more time spent in the dungeon.
The question is what they'll do with that extra time. And how it affects homework. IIRC in Finland (or maybe Sweden?) Primary/Middle school takes up a fairly large chunk of the afternoon, but there is virtually no homework until the kids reach High school.
Of course doing something like that would require a rather drastic reform, so the Boston kids in question are probably just stuck in the dungeon longer, and get home loaded with even more homework...
In contrast imagine being able to run trucks nonstop using robot drivers that don't need sleep, [...] Maybe every Xth truck on the route has a human (who doesn't drive) just in case a truck encounters a problem that needs a human around.
Sounds like you're trying to reinvent trains.
Which of course would be a step back in the right direction as far as long haul cargo does.
They could probably make some kind of door/lid that only opens once the car is in place. (This might add a few seconds to the pit stop, so maybe some other solution could be found?) If the dug-out isn't a mere dug-out but more like a basement underneath the entire pit area there would be other escape routes for people below in case of a fire.
DVB supports encryption for all it's varieties, including OTA (DVB-T). Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Netherlands all have a mix of unencrypted channels and encrypted premium channels. It's run like a cable company really.
Or if they "need" a name-change for whatever reason, why not XMBC (eXtendable Media Based Center)?.
I've found myself accidentally calling it that already because it is easier to say, and no messing around with meaningless "shiny" names like pointed out elsewhere.
Why can't the terminal simply spit out my baggage sticker for myself to put on?
It may be about putting the sticker on correctly. [...] allows for a human check to ensure things like: the bag is within dimensional limits, the bag isn't already damaged, [...]
Most (if not all) airports in Norway have had the machines print out luggage tags for you to put on yourself for years now. Some have self-service bag-drops where you scan the luggage tag (and iirc fingerprint) and be on your way. I'm sure the machine would refuse overweight luggage, and there is usually a person nearby keeping an eye on everything.
Of course, if traveling to the US (and probably a number of other destinations as well), you're required to interact with a manned counter at some point.
If you don't mind living close to an airport (or at least a suiteable airstrip), an old aircraft might be a cool idea.
At Stockholm Airport in sweden a 747 has been converted to a hotel. http://www.jumbostay.com/ And I've read about a pilot wanting to do the same for a home. A 747 might be a bit large, and limit your location more than something a bit smaller of course. But the pilot reconned it wouldn't actually cost all that much. Once the plane is in place a lots of the equipent, like engines and hydraulics can be sold off. He estimated paying around $50.000 for the stripped down fuselage. And given that they spend a lot of time in -50C air, aircrafts are pretty well insulated. (But as pointed out elsewhere, local building codes and be problematic.)
Train tubes or aircraft fuselages were not intended to live in. They will be energy pigs: little insulation,
Read recently about an airline pilot wanting to convert a 747 into a house. Remember that aircrafts fly in -50C, so there is plenty of insulation in those thin walls. (There is also a 747 converted to a hotel in Sweden. Construction-wise a hotel shouldn't be too different from a home.) Getting a reasonably sized fuselage to anywere but next to sufficiently large airstrip will of course be a problem.
1. Margin of turn-radius for that hairpin turn. Or was that set up to be exceedingly narrow, or even impossible just to make sure the result wouldn't "work" ?
2. The angle of the camera seemed a bit low? Been a while since I played much racing games, but it seemed to me that there was a somewhat larger than usual blind zone in front of their truck.
3. As pointed out in the article, how about steering with a game-controller instead of a steering wheel? I know that when I got a wheel-controller for gaming, I actually had to change the POV to inside in games. Even in games the 3rd person view was annoying when using a steering wheel and pedals!
best I know are that copper mines are pretty nasty. I doubt that the chinese are, or can be, a lot worse than your favorite raw material western capitalist.
I don't know how nasty copper mines are in comparison to other mines, so I can't comment on that. But given the disregard of the safety of their own workers at home in China, I can't imagine them treating African works *better* than a western capitalist would. Of course, that would mostly be due to the western capitalists having significantly different safety standards depending on country of operation more than the Chines lack of such.
But I really like the claims of surplus electrical power and training the locals to run things.
Certainly there are benefits. Not saying there aren't any. After all it creates jobs as well.
As far as roses in africa, I believe you and I suspect it is stupid even from the get-go, but if I were to look closely I would ask how desperate the local government was for hard currency and why.
I don't think roses would necessarily be more stupid than any other crops for export just because you can't eat them. But using land that could be used to feed the locals obviously raises some questions, and dumping chemicals into the local environment clearly sends it over the top.
Another thing I was told in Ethiopia was that what had happened (simplified) was that after centuries of European rule, and decades of guilt based (and ineffective) aid from the West, locals saw the Chinese as an interesting alternative for building their nations. However, after about a decade of massive Chinese involvement, they realized that the Chinese were actually worse than the Europeans in taking the actual resources for themselves, while leaving minimal positive impact. (Also, by now better and more sustainable ways of improving standards of living has been figured out, though they of course are not without problems of their own...)
There has never been any country that became rich based on large mineral resources
Norway would probably disagree. Before oil was discovered it was at best average for Europe. (In fact, a hundred years ago it was one of the poorest. Not entirely sure how things in the last decades without oil.) But as others have pointed out, already having a stable government by the time of discovery seems critical. Having a smallish populations also certainly seems to help.
Best I can tell the people actually doing the nation building in afghanistan are the Chinese.
Of course, I can only imagine the Chinese is doing the same thing in afghanistan as they are doing in Africa when "building countries"... Half a year ago I was back in Etiopia. Like several other African countries they had let China invest money. Sure, some of it went to building roads (using Chinese equipment and leadership.) But other "projects" included wast greenhouse areas for growing flowers. What they didn't care about was the chemicals used in the greenhouses leaking out into the rivers that local farmers used to water they crops. Inevitable the results were poor/failed crops. But Europeans get the fuzzy feeling of "supporting development" by buying roses "grown in Africa"... (Indian businessmen was starting to do the same for growing spice to be sold in India.)
Of course they are monitored, so freedom of interaction with them will be severely limited. But unless they meet someone from the outside they are even more likely to believe the government propaganda that the rest of the world is even worse off than their great country is. Question is if the few drops that might hit the regular worker makes up for throwing a bucket at their bosses...
At the top of my mind I can see 3 ways to end the current political situation. Military invasion, leadership collapse, and major uprising from the inside. Yes, heavily restricted commercial dealings is highly unlikely to be a major contribution to the 3rd option, but it might at least prepare some people for what awaits when once either of them has happened. (PS: Not saying doing business with them is right, but cornering a wild animal even further usually isn't wise either...)
Letting more N. Koreans meet/interact with foreigners (even if limited) and realize for themselves that the government propaganda is wrong about how evil westerners are can be a good thing in the long run. Just a shame money has to be fed to the wrong people to do so. Same double-edged sword that applies to tourism essentially.
Might have to do with consumer rights seeming to be in general weaker in the US that Europe?
Don't think they would make an exception just because it would be unusually expensive for them. Also, Ryanair tried to get out of it, by claiming it was "ridiculous" to pay hundreds of euro or more in compensation to people who pay less than 10 for their tickets. (And Ryanair seems to have as an official policy "be the biggest jerks around"...)
As for people sleeping in airports... I guess factors include: Too many people to process for a limited staff. Not enough hotel capacity in the area. Nobody knowing how long it would last, so official closure was only a day at the time usually. Also, if it's their first flight, the airline is likely not responsible yet, as was my experience one time 10 years ago.
Going back to college after xmas I had a 2 flights. My connection (late evening) was canceled without any reason given. As I (as some friends) had flown to that airport, the airline had to up us up in a hotel for the night, while some others that were only flying the last leg were on their own, despite having traveled a couple of hours by bus and/or boat to get to the airport and couldn't get back home that evening. The key apparently was that we "had started our journey with the airline".
Of course you can't change to another airline just because that would be convenient for you. They'll have their own planes (or at least an alliance partner) flying your destination sooner or later, and will eventually be able to put you on one of those... This January I missed my connection in Frankfurt, party due to the heavy snow. Lufthansa didn't care if I was waiting until late evening to fly their plane directly home, or if I took flights (via a 3rd airport) with their Star Alliance parter S.A.S. earlier in the afternoon.
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European test are indeed stretched. The makers have had too long to figure out how to "cheat" on the tests. (Optimize for test conditions based on imaginary 70s traffic.) Hopefully the new testing cycle soon to be introduced will give better results.
As an example, a couple of years ago I drove my moms "super efficient" VW Polo 3 cylider Diesel on a 5000km around Europe. According to the manual that car can achieve 78mpg. The best the trip computer ever told me was 67mpg, while I was doing 50mph for 15 minutes on a perfectly flat road in Denmark. (I reset it for testing.) On rural roads in Norway I got 60mpg for 3 hours. Blasting an average of 88mph for half an hour in Germany (meaning I really was bouncing between 70 and 110mph due to traffic) it told me 33mpg. Trip average was 50mpg, but besides those 15 minutes in Denmark I wasn't really trying to drive economical at all.
Low cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle stated some hours ago that they are implementing it "from this moment".
Source: http://www.nrk.no/norge/endrer... (Norwegian text)
Give Uber a dictionary, and highlight the definition of the word "taxi".
And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.
Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.
I would love a car capable on cruising along pre-approved rural interstates, but handing over control to me for city driving. Set your destination to a city 7 hours away, and watch a movie, read a book, or maybe even take a nap, while the car keep a more vigilante "eye" on driving than a human possibly can for any extended period of time.
Of course it should be 100% capable of driving itself when in charge, and not suddenly hand over to a human. When it needs refueling, or if the weather deteriorates it needs to notify the human well in advance, and be capable of safely pulling over and stopping if the driver fails to take over in time.
Plane: 90+60+30+70 min flight time = 4h 10 min hour. Train: 20+10+5.20 train time = 5h 50 min. You have a 3 hour 20 minute difference in travel time for a return trip.
On the other hand, pretty much all of those 4h10m are spend being unproductive if flying. Barely any time to do any work in between moving to the next stage, standing in line, and waiting for a few minutes here and there. However in the train scenario only half an hour really prevents work from being done, leaving a solid 5 hour work block to be utilized.
Flying might get you there faster, but you'll get more done on the train. Depends on your priorities and needs.
The big-planes, infrequently model doesn't really work with the hub-and-spokes model popular in the USA
Also, apparently American airlines typically use revenue management software optimized for smaller aircrafts, compared to that used by European carriers. http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
I find myself empathizing with the kids on this one, who I'm sure arn't seeing this as an investment in their future but rather yet more time spent in the dungeon.
The question is what they'll do with that extra time. And how it affects homework. IIRC in Finland (or maybe Sweden?) Primary/Middle school takes up a fairly large chunk of the afternoon, but there is virtually no homework until the kids reach High school.
Of course doing something like that would require a rather drastic reform, so the Boston kids in question are probably just stuck in the dungeon longer, and get home loaded with even more homework...
In contrast imagine being able to run trucks nonstop using robot drivers that don't need sleep, [...] Maybe every Xth truck on the route has a human (who doesn't drive) just in case a truck encounters a problem that needs a human around.
Sounds like you're trying to reinvent trains.
Which of course would be a step back in the right direction as far as long haul cargo does.
They could probably make some kind of door/lid that only opens once the car is in place. (This might add a few seconds to the pit stop, so maybe some other solution could be found?) If the dug-out isn't a mere dug-out but more like a basement underneath the entire pit area there would be other escape routes for people below in case of a fire.
DVB supports encryption for all it's varieties, including OTA (DVB-T). Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Netherlands all have a mix of unencrypted channels and encrypted premium channels. It's run like a cable company really.
Or if they "need" a name-change for whatever reason, why not XMBC (eXtendable Media Based Center)?.
I've found myself accidentally calling it that already because it is easier to say, and no messing around with meaningless "shiny" names like pointed out elsewhere.
Why can't the terminal simply spit out my baggage sticker for myself to put on?
It may be about putting the sticker on correctly. [...] allows for a human check to ensure things like: the bag is within dimensional limits, the bag isn't already damaged, [...]
Most (if not all) airports in Norway have had the machines print out luggage tags for you to put on yourself for years now. Some have self-service bag-drops where you scan the luggage tag (and iirc fingerprint) and be on your way. I'm sure the machine would refuse overweight luggage, and there is usually a person nearby keeping an eye on everything.
Of course, if traveling to the US (and probably a number of other destinations as well), you're required to interact with a manned counter at some point.
So... May it be fair to say piracy might stop when hollywood accounting does?
If you don't mind living close to an airport (or at least a suiteable airstrip), an old aircraft might be a cool idea. At Stockholm Airport in sweden a 747 has been converted to a hotel. http://www.jumbostay.com/ And I've read about a pilot wanting to do the same for a home. A 747 might be a bit large, and limit your location more than something a bit smaller of course. But the pilot reconned it wouldn't actually cost all that much. Once the plane is in place a lots of the equipent, like engines and hydraulics can be sold off. He estimated paying around $50.000 for the stripped down fuselage. And given that they spend a lot of time in -50C air, aircrafts are pretty well insulated. (But as pointed out elsewhere, local building codes and be problematic.)
Train tubes or aircraft fuselages were not intended to live in. They will be energy pigs: little insulation,
Read recently about an airline pilot wanting to convert a 747 into a house. Remember that aircrafts fly in -50C, so there is plenty of insulation in those thin walls. (There is also a 747 converted to a hotel in Sweden. Construction-wise a hotel shouldn't be too different from a home.) Getting a reasonably sized fuselage to anywere but next to sufficiently large airstrip will of course be a problem.
Three comments on that video...
1. Margin of turn-radius for that hairpin turn. Or was that set up to be exceedingly narrow, or even impossible just to make sure the result wouldn't "work" ?
2. The angle of the camera seemed a bit low? Been a while since I played much racing games, but it seemed to me that there was a somewhat larger than usual blind zone in front of their truck.
3. As pointed out in the article, how about steering with a game-controller instead of a steering wheel? I know that when I got a wheel-controller for gaming, I actually had to change the POV to inside in games. Even in games the 3rd person view was annoying when using a steering wheel and pedals!
best I know are that copper mines are pretty nasty. I doubt that the chinese are, or can be, a lot worse than your favorite raw material western capitalist.
I don't know how nasty copper mines are in comparison to other mines, so I can't comment on that. But given the disregard of the safety of their own workers at home in China, I can't imagine them treating African works *better* than a western capitalist would. Of course, that would mostly be due to the western capitalists having significantly different safety standards depending on country of operation more than the Chines lack of such.
But I really like the claims of surplus electrical power and training the locals to run things.
Certainly there are benefits. Not saying there aren't any. After all it creates jobs as well.
As far as roses in africa, I believe you and I suspect it is stupid even from the get-go, but if I were to look closely I would ask how desperate the local government was for hard currency and why.
I don't think roses would necessarily be more stupid than any other crops for export just because you can't eat them. But using land that could be used to feed the locals obviously raises some questions, and dumping chemicals into the local environment clearly sends it over the top.
Another thing I was told in Ethiopia was that what had happened (simplified) was that after centuries of European rule, and decades of guilt based (and ineffective) aid from the West, locals saw the Chinese as an interesting alternative for building their nations. However, after about a decade of massive Chinese involvement, they realized that the Chinese were actually worse than the Europeans in taking the actual resources for themselves, while leaving minimal positive impact. (Also, by now better and more sustainable ways of improving standards of living has been figured out, though they of course are not without problems of their own...)
There has never been any country that became rich based on large mineral resources
Norway would probably disagree. Before oil was discovered it was at best average for Europe. (In fact, a hundred years ago it was one of the poorest. Not entirely sure how things in the last decades without oil.) But as others have pointed out, already having a stable government by the time of discovery seems critical. Having a smallish populations also certainly seems to help.
The Afghanis should get rich, but the wealth extraction requires expertise they don't have (killing each other has been more fun down the centuries).
Someone else posted this article in another story recently. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full Seems like it's mostly in the last few decades killing has surpassed development...
Best I can tell the people actually doing the nation building in afghanistan are the Chinese.
Of course, I can only imagine the Chinese is doing the same thing in afghanistan as they are doing in Africa when "building countries"... Half a year ago I was back in Etiopia. Like several other African countries they had let China invest money. Sure, some of it went to building roads (using Chinese equipment and leadership.) But other "projects" included wast greenhouse areas for growing flowers. What they didn't care about was the chemicals used in the greenhouses leaking out into the rivers that local farmers used to water they crops. Inevitable the results were poor/failed crops. But Europeans get the fuzzy feeling of "supporting development" by buying roses "grown in Africa"... (Indian businessmen was starting to do the same for growing spice to be sold in India.)
Of course they are monitored, so freedom of interaction with them will be severely limited. But unless they meet someone from the outside they are even more likely to believe the government propaganda that the rest of the world is even worse off than their great country is. Question is if the few drops that might hit the regular worker makes up for throwing a bucket at their bosses...
At the top of my mind I can see 3 ways to end the current political situation. Military invasion, leadership collapse, and major uprising from the inside. Yes, heavily restricted commercial dealings is highly unlikely to be a major contribution to the 3rd option, but it might at least prepare some people for what awaits when once either of them has happened. (PS: Not saying doing business with them is right, but cornering a wild animal even further usually isn't wise either...)
Letting more N. Koreans meet/interact with foreigners (even if limited) and realize for themselves that the government propaganda is wrong about how evil westerners are can be a good thing in the long run. Just a shame money has to be fed to the wrong people to do so. Same double-edged sword that applies to tourism essentially.
Might have to do with consumer rights seeming to be in general weaker in the US that Europe?
Don't think they would make an exception just because it would be unusually expensive for them. Also, Ryanair tried to get out of it, by claiming it was "ridiculous" to pay hundreds of euro or more in compensation to people who pay less than 10 for their tickets. (And Ryanair seems to have as an official policy "be the biggest jerks around"...)
As for people sleeping in airports... I guess factors include: Too many people to process for a limited staff. Not enough hotel capacity in the area. Nobody knowing how long it would last, so official closure was only a day at the time usually. Also, if it's their first flight, the airline is likely not responsible yet, as was my experience one time 10 years ago.
Going back to college after xmas I had a 2 flights. My connection (late evening) was canceled without any reason given. As I (as some friends) had flown to that airport, the airline had to up us up in a hotel for the night, while some others that were only flying the last leg were on their own, despite having traveled a couple of hours by bus and/or boat to get to the airport and couldn't get back home that evening. The key apparently was that we "had started our journey with the airline".
Of course you can't change to another airline just because that would be convenient for you. They'll have their own planes (or at least an alliance partner) flying your destination sooner or later, and will eventually be able to put you on one of those... This January I missed my connection in Frankfurt, party due to the heavy snow. Lufthansa didn't care if I was waiting until late evening to fly their plane directly home, or if I took flights (via a 3rd airport) with their Star Alliance parter S.A.S. earlier in the afternoon.
Nobody seemed to tell the airlines that when the ash hit Europe recently...
But do you want them to block the escape routes for the rest of us?