There's no benefit to smaller trains; same energy per passenger required, and more rail switching nightmares (keeping trains far enough away from each other on a line that there won't be collisions or conflicts).
Smaller trains require more energy per-passenger -- aerodynamic losses are the significant factor at high speeds. There's drag from the whole train of course, but long thin shapes make it better.
Basically you want to make trains as long as possible, while keeping them reasonably full when run with reasonable frequency (and they have to fit on the platforms, of course!). This becomes more important the faster the train goes.
Note the extremely long nose shape of JR's "L0 maglev" (which will be the first real HSR maglev system) -- if they were to use individual cars, not only would it be less efficient due to greater aerodynamic losses, but the number of passengers per single-car train would be miniscule, would would vastly reduce its energy and cost efficiency compared to a long multiple-car train.
Also, of course, you're right about the switching/signalling/management/safety issues -- fewer trains are simpler to manage. This is especially true with very high frequencies as on the shinkansen, and high speeds. Highly-utilitized systems like the shinkansen are already often running near track capacity, and shorter trains couldn't be run any more frequently in many cases.
Of course is single bomb can be devastating enough to make an entire train route useless
... for the day or two it takes to repair. And for the effort, the terrorists get terror-inspiring headlines like "train delayed; businessmen must reschedule meeting!"
Unthinking worship of change-for-change's-sake -- "It's modern therefore it must be good! Destroy all that old stuff!" -- can be as destructive and harmful to society as unthinking conservatism and resistance to change.
An excellent summary, which deserves to be modded up!
[but unfortunately moderation on Slashdot is like 99% timing -- a good comment added soon after a story is posted is vastly more likely to get moderated up than a great comment posted five hours later...]
Smaller browser providers like Opera should be pretty happy about this policy actually, because it's really a move to increase reliance on standards, and drop all the grody hacked-up support for crazy old browsers.
As long as Opera maintains a good HTML5 implementation, they should be in a pretty good position.
Heh, I agree with you on that point -- advanced CAD tech seems to be one of the worst things that ever happened to car design from an aesthetic point of view.
Designers now have crazy power to make almost shape practical, but it's pretty clear their design sense has not kept up with their tools....
So what do you think about the criticisms expressed in the comments? Is this place really going to be the monotonous cookie-cutter suburban wasteland it looks like in the pic? Will there be mixed development (shops and businesses integrated amongst the homes)? Will there be higher-density housing? What is the plan for transportation (hopefully not cars, if you're looking for energy efficiency!)?
The extent to which Japan seems to be increasingly emulating some of the more idiotic trends of the U.S. is pretty depressing, and it would be a shame if the "green" label is being used to promulgate such harmful practices.
What seems ever-so-slightly silly is that with the maglev, travelling between Tokyo and Nagoya will actually be faster than travelling from one side of Tokyo to the other (albeit a lot more expensive)...
Actually the route they chose was influenced as much by politics and NIMBYism as much as practicalities and directness.
Various cities along the route were keen to be served by the route because a high speed rail link brings huge economic benefits. ...
Note that they actually chose a fairly direct route, over several others under consideration which detoured to hit intermediate cities in Nagano prefecture (despite much pressure from the latter)...
As you say, there are advantages to avoiding intermediate cities -- aerodynamic noise is a major issue with the existing Tokaido shinkansen, although curve radius is also a big factor limiting its speeds (newer shinkansen routes have much larger curve radii) -- but those actually tend to reinforce the concept of the chuo shinkansen as a system focused on being a fairly direct long distance "mega express" (the other term used to refer to this line is the "Tokaido bypass"...).
Maglev track isn't cheap, but I don't think it's a significant part of the total cost... as you say, boring the track through several mountain ranges is likely the biggest component, along with, perhaps, land-acquisition (especially in the cities). A short path length not only reduces land and construction costs, it reduces journey times on the final system, which is very important for them.
Moreover, initial track cost is less of an issue than long-term maintenance cost.
In any case, JR has been developing their maglev tech for a long time, and have a lot of experience with it, and it meets their criteria pretty well (e.g., the large gap size makes the system more robust against things like earthquakes). They're not very likely to suddenly switch to something new unless the benefits -- both initial and long-term -- are absolutely incredible, and obvious. While inductrac sounds interesting,it doesn't sound like it really meets that threshold.
Why single out academics? That problem is hardly unique - look at all the businesspeople and celebrities that think they know shit about, well, anything other than what it is they do for a living.
I suppose because when e.g. a businessman does that sort of thing, people usually don't take him seriously... "oh yeah bob, he dabbles... haha" -- but add the letters "PhD" and suddenly people seem to start paying attention...
Also note that the Japanese maglev uses fairly different technology than the Chinese maglev did -- repulsive levitation instead of attractive (allowing a much greater gap size), super-conducting magnets rather than conventional ones (less power, less weight), and propulsion that's an integral part of the levitation system (avoiding the need for a separate propulsion mechanism) -- so they can't be compared directly as easily as it might seem.
It's interesting that the Japanese are pursuing MagLev technology in light of its shortcomings.
I'm no expert, but maglev of course has advantages and disadvantages. It is much more expensive to build the line, but because there's basically no wear (there's no physical contact, either with the rails, or with overhead catenary), it's much cheaper to maintain (maintenance on a heavily used conventional HSR line is quite demanding, as there's a lot of wear, and the line must be kept within strict tolerances). When using super-conducting magnets, the train can also be lighter (much of the motor mechanism is part of the track, not the train), and it's simpler to reach very high speeds and very high acceleration.
Anyway, JR has more experience running conventional HSR lines than anybody else, so their judgement is not to be sneezed at -- and they're paying for the line themselves, so clearly they're putting their money where their mouth is...
Indeed. I put it down to basic fear. Some people (like Penrose, apparently, and Searle, etc) want there to be something special about human sapience, and find the concept that it's "mere" computation repulsive and scary. It's their gut speaking, really, not their mind.
Combine that fear with the conceit that "because I'm a world-renowned expert in my field, I must have amazing insight into every field I care to dabble in!" (which is depressingly common in academia) and you get cringe-inducing (but lengthy!) pap like "The Emperor's New Mind."
Hmm, nice to see that JPEG XR actually supports some decent HDR pixel formats (OpenEXR 16-bit float RGB, and the Radiance shared-exported format) -- IIRC, its progenitors at MS were notably inferior in this area.
Now if they can only get the patent situation sorted to everybody's satisfaction, and some good free libraries get written, it might actually be a contender!
Hm, ok, well, zero out the sales taxes and replace them with a single, easy-to-administer, "Bezos Tax". Problem solved!
p.s. if there's still a shortfall, an Ellison Tax and a Jobs Tax should round things out nicely. [A few years ago I would have included a Gates/Ballmer tax too, but these days, well...]
It seems like they could address problems like texting with a "technical fix" though, e.g. special cell/wifi access points that only allow calls to 911 or registered parent phone numbers, etc. That way they'd avoid all the political problems (parents would probably even be in favor of it).
OTOH, then they'd have to spend some money (and would probably end up being cheated by shady vendors)...
Eh? Heavy Rain had great intentions, but the actual game was a huge mess -- hard to control, frustrating. If anything it shows how difficult it is to really do this sort of thing well...
I actually have some hope that RockStar will do a better job, though, as they've got a lot of experience with sandbox games, and so will probably not screw up so many of the boring but critical details that Heavy Rain did...
Games like Red Dead Redemption do essentially fit in quite a bit of narrative and direction while still allowing the player a lot of freedom and control; L.A. Noire sounds like it will simply ratchet up the narrative side a bit, but won't really be fundamentally different from their other games.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no benefit to smaller trains; same energy per passenger required, and more rail switching nightmares (keeping trains far enough away from each other on a line that there won't be collisions or conflicts).
Smaller trains require more energy per-passenger -- aerodynamic losses are the significant factor at high speeds. There's drag from the whole train of course, but long thin shapes make it better.
Basically you want to make trains as long as possible, while keeping them reasonably full when run with reasonable frequency (and they have to fit on the platforms, of course!). This becomes more important the faster the train goes.
Note the extremely long nose shape of JR's "L0 maglev" (which will be the first real HSR maglev system) -- if they were to use individual cars, not only would it be less efficient due to greater aerodynamic losses, but the number of passengers per single-car train would be miniscule, would would vastly reduce its energy and cost efficiency compared to a long multiple-car train.
Also, of course, you're right about the switching/signalling/management/safety issues -- fewer trains are simpler to manage. This is especially true with very high frequencies as on the shinkansen, and high speeds. Highly-utilitized systems like the shinkansen are already often running near track capacity, and shorter trains couldn't be run any more frequently in many cases.
Of course is single bomb can be devastating enough to make an entire train route useless
... for the day or two it takes to repair. And for the effort, the terrorists get terror-inspiring headlines like "train delayed; businessmen must reschedule meeting!"
Horrors.
An excellent, insightful, comment.
Unthinking worship of change-for-change's-sake -- "It's modern therefore it must be good! Destroy all that old stuff!" -- can be as destructive and harmful to society as unthinking conservatism and resistance to change.
http://www.anzioironworks.com/20MM-TAKE-DOWN-RIFLE.htm
Gahhhh... who on earth is buying these things with a pickup-truck mount?! What are they planning to shoot at??
[Ok, ok, I know -- road rage, texas style...]
"I can handle it man, it was only a few drinks, no prob, I'm a great driver, I haven't killed anyone yet haha."
If Mono only exists at the pleasure of Microsoft, that makes it essentially irrelevant.
I'd never consider coding in a language where only "approved" implementations are allowed (even if one them is "free").
An excellent summary, which deserves to be modded up!
[but unfortunately moderation on Slashdot is like 99% timing -- a good comment added soon after a story is posted is vastly more likely to get moderated up than a great comment posted five hours later...]
... and remember, Li Peng's still alive. There's still time for a trial in the Hague...
Oh, haha, I forgot, he has power and influence.
Smaller browser providers like Opera should be pretty happy about this policy actually, because it's really a move to increase reliance on standards, and drop all the grody hacked-up support for crazy old browsers.
As long as Opera maintains a good HTML5 implementation, they should be in a pretty good position.
Heh, I agree with you on that point -- advanced CAD tech seems to be one of the worst things that ever happened to car design from an aesthetic point of view.
Designers now have crazy power to make almost shape practical, but it's pretty clear their design sense has not kept up with their tools....
So what do you think about the criticisms expressed in the comments? Is this place really going to be the monotonous cookie-cutter suburban wasteland it looks like in the pic? Will there be mixed development (shops and businesses integrated amongst the homes)? Will there be higher-density housing? What is the plan for transportation (hopefully not cars, if you're looking for energy efficiency!)?
The extent to which Japan seems to be increasingly emulating some of the more idiotic trends of the U.S. is pretty depressing, and it would be a shame if the "green" label is being used to promulgate such harmful practices.
Yup... and as a result it will probably be less energy efficient than existing Japanese towns.
In reality this looks more like a way to sell Panasonic "green" products...
What seems ever-so-slightly silly is that with the maglev, travelling between Tokyo and Nagoya will actually be faster than travelling from one side of Tokyo to the other (albeit a lot more expensive)...
Actually the route they chose was influenced as much by politics and NIMBYism as much as practicalities and directness.
Various cities along the route were keen to be served by the route because a high speed rail link brings huge economic benefits.
...
Note that they actually chose a fairly direct route, over several others under consideration which detoured to hit intermediate cities in Nagano prefecture (despite much pressure from the latter)...
As you say, there are advantages to avoiding intermediate cities -- aerodynamic noise is a major issue with the existing Tokaido shinkansen, although curve radius is also a big factor limiting its speeds (newer shinkansen routes have much larger curve radii) -- but those actually tend to reinforce the concept of the chuo shinkansen as a system focused on being a fairly direct long distance "mega express" (the other term used to refer to this line is the "Tokaido bypass"...).
Maglev track isn't cheap, but I don't think it's a significant part of the total cost... as you say, boring the track through several mountain ranges is likely the biggest component, along with, perhaps, land-acquisition (especially in the cities). A short path length not only reduces land and construction costs, it reduces journey times on the final system, which is very important for them.
Moreover, initial track cost is less of an issue than long-term maintenance cost.
In any case, JR has been developing their maglev tech for a long time, and have a lot of experience with it, and it meets their criteria pretty well (e.g., the large gap size makes the system more robust against things like earthquakes). They're not very likely to suddenly switch to something new unless the benefits -- both initial and long-term -- are absolutely incredible, and obvious. While inductrac sounds interesting,it doesn't sound like it really meets that threshold.
Why single out academics? That problem is hardly unique - look at all the businesspeople and celebrities that think they know shit about, well, anything other than what it is they do for a living.
I suppose because when e.g. a businessman does that sort of thing, people usually don't take him seriously ... "oh yeah bob, he dabbles... haha" -- but add the letters "PhD" and suddenly people seem to start paying attention...
Also note that the Japanese maglev uses fairly different technology than the Chinese maglev did -- repulsive levitation instead of attractive (allowing a much greater gap size), super-conducting magnets rather than conventional ones (less power, less weight), and propulsion that's an integral part of the levitation system (avoiding the need for a separate propulsion mechanism) -- so they can't be compared directly as easily as it might seem.
It's interesting that the Japanese are pursuing MagLev technology in light of its shortcomings.
I'm no expert, but maglev of course has advantages and disadvantages. It is much more expensive to build the line, but because there's basically no wear (there's no physical contact, either with the rails, or with overhead catenary), it's much cheaper to maintain (maintenance on a heavily used conventional HSR line is quite demanding, as there's a lot of wear, and the line must be kept within strict tolerances). When using super-conducting magnets, the train can also be lighter (much of the motor mechanism is part of the track, not the train), and it's simpler to reach very high speeds and very high acceleration.
Anyway, JR has more experience running conventional HSR lines than anybody else, so their judgement is not to be sneezed at -- and they're paying for the line themselves, so clearly they're putting their money where their mouth is...
My guess is they haven't figured out how to include ads into the translation services. It may have led to some interesting translations if they did.
A whole new perspective on the world!
Indeed. I put it down to basic fear. Some people (like Penrose, apparently, and Searle, etc) want there to be something special about human sapience, and find the concept that it's "mere" computation repulsive and scary. It's their gut speaking, really, not their mind.
Combine that fear with the conceit that "because I'm a world-renowned expert in my field, I must have amazing insight into every field I care to dabble in!" (which is depressingly common in academia) and you get cringe-inducing (but lengthy!) pap like "The Emperor's New Mind."
Hmm, nice to see that JPEG XR actually supports some decent HDR pixel formats (OpenEXR 16-bit float RGB, and the Radiance shared-exported format) -- IIRC, its progenitors at MS were notably inferior in this area.
Now if they can only get the patent situation sorted to everybody's satisfaction, and some good free libraries get written, it might actually be a contender!
Hm, ok, well, zero out the sales taxes and replace them with a single, easy-to-administer, "Bezos Tax". Problem solved!
p.s. if there's still a shortfall, an Ellison Tax and a Jobs Tax should round things out nicely. [A few years ago I would have included a Gates/Ballmer tax too, but these days, well...]
It seems like they could address problems like texting with a "technical fix" though, e.g. special cell/wifi access points that only allow calls to 911 or registered parent phone numbers, etc. That way they'd avoid all the political problems (parents would probably even be in favor of it).
OTOH, then they'd have to spend some money (and would probably end up being cheated by shady vendors)...
Eh? Heavy Rain had great intentions, but the actual game was a huge mess -- hard to control, frustrating. If anything it shows how difficult it is to really do this sort of thing well...
I actually have some hope that RockStar will do a better job, though, as they've got a lot of experience with sandbox games, and so will probably not screw up so many of the boring but critical details that Heavy Rain did...
Games like Red Dead Redemption do essentially fit in quite a bit of narrative and direction while still allowing the player a lot of freedom and control; L.A. Noire sounds like it will simply ratchet up the narrative side a bit, but won't really be fundamentally different from their other games.
Tornado party?