This just reinforces what a waste of time and money the current space program is. Yeah, it is somewhat inspirational to have humans up there at all. But terribly impractical.
In the 20th century, humans were the most compact computers & manipulators for these missions. But that is no longer the case.
It's ironic that we send people up for near-earth-orbit missions (which could be controlled from the ground with sub-second latency), while we send robots on the long missions (which would benefit most from a short-latency human controller in the vehicle).
We should put our resources into manned long missions (asteroid or mars) instead of the ISS boondoggle. And give those astronauts practical round straws, not funky knife-edged cups, for their drinks.
TFV shows the cup being filled. Looks pretty easy.
But it's no real achievement. He replaced sucking liquid from a comfortable round straw, with sucking liquid from a knife-edged container. The straw is much more practical and usable.
This article just reinforces the fact that today's human astronauts are a terrible waste of time and money.
We never have the ~really~ smart guys up there, because the smart ones run the numbers and don't like a 1% chance of dying on a rocket ride (actually the space shuttle had an even worse fatality rate). So the guys we send right now are highly programmed robots. Let's just send mechanical robots, until we can make it safer and cheaper.
As a result I now have a highly comprehensive knowledge of what a handful of people have guessed about various events in history
FTFY.
Never confuse reading a few books about a historical event, with first-hand knowledge of that event.
If you want to learn about a historical event more than 80 years ago, you have to read at least four historians: two at opposite extremes, and two in the middle. And even then, you're just reading some educated guesses.
If you care to learn about a historical event in the last 80 years, try to find several people who actually participated in that event, and talk to them in person. The people who really know what happened, pretty much never write about it. But many of them would be very happy to talk to someone about it.
Antenna? No issue whatsoever with my iphone 4. None of my friends and family had problems with their iphones, either.
Some folks have suggested that the "issue" raised after each iphone release, is in fact raised by Apple.
With the iphone 4, the "issue" was the antenna.
With the iphone 4s, the "issue" is battery life.
It sounds crazy on the surface, but when you think about it, problems with the antenna and battery on a product selling TENS OF MILLIONS of units would be even crazier.
Planting a fake "issue" allows Apple to tweak customer demand to better match their supply, during the first few weeks/months of a new release. And then - surprise! - the issue disappears entirely, never to be heard of again except from a handful of folks who read some article, but never bought the product, and never experienced the issue that they complain about.
The heart of downtown Edmonton might just barely qualify as part of the "urbanized western world".
One hour outside Edmonton, you are clearly and definitely in extreme-climate rural territory.
Your comments on the Edmonton plowing are interesting. I understand why eg NYC has this problem. Manhattan rarely gets a large snow fall, so they don't maintain the equipment and staff for massive snow removal.
But I would have thought that a high-latitude city would have the sense to design their streets with snow-clearing in mind.
Anyway...to reiterate...Aptera was selling their initial vehicle to only to California residents who never have snow or ice on their commutes. Never. Not even 1mm. So snow and ice were irrelevant.
He lives in a place where, if a power line is balanced at the top of a tall pole and falls off, they bury the damn thing and it never happens again.
Too bad that's not the U.S....
This post makes very little sense.
1) Were you drunk when you posted this? 2) Where do you live? 3) Do you have any clue about the costs of aboveground vs underground lines in rural vs urban, wet vs dry, warm vs freezing, etc, environments?
I'm guessing the answers are:
1) Yes. 2) In a nameless US suburb where you are completely uninvolved with the infrastructure development. 3) No.
I do own an iPhone, and several iPods, and an iPad.
I have also used dozens of handheld computers, music players, and smartphones over the years. See my other posts on this thread regarding handhelds and mp3 players. As for smartphones, in the last 8 years I have used the leading models from Nokia, Treo, Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola...running Maemo, PalmOS/WebOS, and Android. No Blackberries, sorry, so I might have missed something there.
The iPhone has its share of problems, but based on my experience, it is the closest to perfect at meeting the current technical and market constraints.
There is no such thing as "perfect" in the real world, but there is such a thing as "maximally optimized for current real world constraints".
If you re-read it, my post was simply about the success of these ego-driven perfectionist products, over other products that are "good enough" for the mainstream. A very large counterexample to the GP's post.
This is just my opinion, based on more than 3 decades of using various small computing devices. If you have more experience, I'd love to hear about it.
I admit that I preferred Macs over PCs from about 1989-1998. And I preferred PowerBooks over most other laptops from about 1993-1998. But I have always run a mix of hardware and operating systems at the same time.
Currently most of my machines are IBM/Lenovo and Dell, running Windows or Kubuntu. One MacBook running OSX for Final Cut. But give me an X-series ThinkPad over any MacBook, no contest.
I've also burned through a huge number of handheld computers over the years...Sharp Wizard, Apple Newton, Palm Pilot, Handspring, Dell Axim PocketPC, etc. And music players...iRock, Archos, iRiver, iPod. And several tablet PCs.
Based on that experience, personally, I think that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are as close to perfect as any device in their categories has ever come. Do they have problems? Yes. Like Apple's draconian control of their app market to prevent platform encroachment and leapfrogging. But I haven't seen anything better out there.
Frankly I was responding to the ego-driven-design part of your post, with which I agreed. If you think that makes me a fanboy, then please, share your credentials and perspective.
I'm going to guess right now that you're too lazy and/or stupid to do so.
Maybe a couple of pie charts aren't enough, but the problem is, those people who are in charge don't WANT us to understand. A goodly percentage of the world's wealth is transferred between corporations, and between friends and friends of friends, and the common man isn't meant to understand any of it.
One way of looking at this, is that the financial system functions as a gigantic intelligence test.
Are you smart enough to recognize that you are being raped? If so, you really should do something about it. If not, it will continue.
In theory, this design could serve a useful role in human social evolution.
In practice, the current implementation elevates the rapist to the highest position in society.
There are many people who understand the system, and are much smarter than the rapists, but who have moral and ethical frameworks that prevent them from becoming rapists. So they might protect themselves, but they can only watch (or ignore) as the masses of humanity are raped.
We could fix this problem with modern IT, by automating much of the financial system, and having the "stupidity penalties" paid out to the masses (employees, taxpayers, customers, voters), instead of sending these gains to the sharks (bankers, politicians, and their ilk).
Hopefully in the next 20 years, the "system" will break badly enough that more people will turn on their brains, and consider constitutional amendments to fully automate banking, perform government budgeting based on democratic vote, and otherwise disenfranchise the rapists. Hopefully. But extremely unlikely IMO.
Note that in common dialogue today, ending the tax break that the extremely wealthy currently enjoy translates into "higher taxes" on the wealthy.
On a similar note, Medicare and Social Security, which the boomers paid for over many years, are now labeled as "entitlement programs". LOL. Ironically, the "entitled" slavemasters are the ones who say that the average shmoe is acting "entitled" by expecting what was already paid for. Ridonkulous.:)
And that happens what, once every three years? Boo hoo for you.
Stay home for a day until your rickety public works apparatus figures out what to do, or until the snow simply melts.
The average English "car" is much more similar to this lightweight Aptera thingy, than it is to the average American vehicle. So frankly, you would see the least difference if a concept car like this went global.
But again, this super-efficient car was not being sold to a global market. They took preorders in California ONLY.
It quite simply does not snow in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego. In Sacramento, every five years or so, they get a dusting. But nothing that would seriously impact traffic.
Aptera did not fail because their design was wrong. They went bust because the suits who replaced the founders totally failed to execute with those designs. Another mockery to the title "executive".
snowgirl, I truly respect any other rider. I'm only offering advice because, thru the fog of the Internet, you seem to be a newish rider who is just reciting some recently taught doctrine.
My sincere apologies if I've misinterpreted our relative levels of experience.
The "drive like everyone is out to kill you" has nothing to do with the actual motivations of ANY driver.
That is the exactly the problem with this mindset. The way you should react to a driver who does not see you (common) is very different from the way you should react to an aggressive/malicious driver who doesn't like you (rare). If you assume the rare case, you may be setting yourself up for an accident in what is actually the common case.
According to Wikipedia, the only state that really seems to allow lane-splitting (and indeed, is the universal example of a state that allows lane-splitting in the USA) is California. In general, lane-splitting in the US is illegal, while it seems that it is generally widely legal in Europe.
Actually, that wiki article states that lane splitting is illegal in "many states", but it gives no reference, and the only states they specifically mention are Colorado and Nebraska.
I know a few guys in law enforcement. I suspect that if you polled the Colorado and Nebraska highway cops on their actual enforcement of these state laws, they would tell you exactly what I will tell you: It's all about SAFETY.
If you split lanes at 100mph in a 55mph zone....you're clearly breaking the law, and should be ticketed for speeding plus anything else that will stick.
If you split lanes at 55mph in a 55mph zone, when traffic is stopped...you're an idiot. The cops will never catch you, but a lane changer might, and then...game over.
If you split lanes at 20mph when traffic is stopped, or at 55mph when traffic is moving 35mph, it depends on your experience. Personally I've learned to look 10-20 cars ahead and anticipate gaps and lane-changers, so I'm comfortable with a 20-25mph differential. A new rider, or an aging rider, may want to take it more slowly.
In any case, I will argue that splitting lanes in slow traffic is generally safer than getting boxed in. The wiki article that you linked mentions that David Hough, one of the leading authorities on motorcycle safety, shares this view.
Based on my experience, you should PASS a dangerous driver as quickly as possible, with as wide a berth as possible, and increase the margin. If you hang out behind them, you get boxed into a worse situation with other cars.
Perfect sense, except that often times they're going a reasonable speed compared to the speed limit (either at, or 5 miles over), and so in order to give yourself a wide berth, you're looking at speeding.
Again, it's all about SAFETY. If I can safely "speed" past an erratic driver, and get even further ahead, I will do it in a heartbeat rather than run the risk of getting boxed in with someone who could swerve or brake and cause an accident that dents a few cars, while killing me. Speed limits are supposed to protect us, but sometimes they do the opposite. Use your head.
If I could give just one piece of advice to any new rider or aspiring rider, it would be this:
Take a MSF-certified riding course before you try to ride on your own. Get trained & tested by deeply experienced teachers. Just because you love your friend, or spouse, or family member, doesn't mean that they are qualified to teach motorcycle safety.
Lived most of my life in rural New England, where a 1-foot snowstorm was common, a 2-foot storm was not unusual, and a 3-foot storm happened every few years.
During a big storm, the plows ran pretty much around the clock to keep the roads clear. They would taper off somewhat at night. But I can only remember two big ice-storms where folks were "snowed in", and that was mostly because the ice snapped so many power lines.
And where is this magical place where the roads are cleared within a few hours
You have cowardly-ignored the most salient points of my reply:
1) The initial Aptera vehicles were marketed ONLY in California, where a small single-digit percent of residents have snow & ice; and
2) There is really no difference between one of these concept vehicles, and a lightweight sportscar, from the perspective of snow & ice driving.
I'll answer on your question anyway, and ask you to do the same.
Me, I grew up in rural New England, dairy farming country, about 2 hours outside of Boston.
During a heavy snowstorm, before and during the commute hours, the state roads were plowed and sanded roughly every hour. The town roads were plowed (and some sanded) every 1-6 hours, depending on the road, the level of snowfall, and the timing relative to commute hours.
We knew our plow driver by name. As a kid, I loved hearing the sound of the plow in the wee hours, because the schools were super-cautious about running buses during a storm, even if the roads were considered "safe" for car drivers. A 4:00AM snowplow often meant a school delay, or even cancellation.
That was in a rural area. My experience in various urban areas of the northern US (Boston, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Madison, etc) is that they are cleared even more efficiently.
Yeah, you may hear about it in the news when an unexpected blizzard hits DC or NY, which both have horribly disfunctional public-works operations within their tiny city limits.
But if you get into the country, or farther north, the road crews are very efficient at clearing a blizzard. Think about it. When is the last time you heard of a blizzard shutting down a city in Canada?
Your turn now.
Where is the "magical" place that you live or have lived, in the urbanized western world, where snow is NOT cleared within a matter of hours?
The major problem with these 'concept' cars, not just this one, is that they are only drivable in places that never have winter. Which of course rules out most of the industrialized western world.
It's worth pointing out that Aptera's initial market was limited to California. They took preorders only from CA residents only.
And in fact, 95+% of CA residents do not get any ice or snow where they live.
That said, in the parts of the urbanized western world where we do get snow every year, we usually remove it from the road within a few hours. Snowplows with salt spreaders run around the clock when necessary, so folks can make their morning commute on time.
wrt winter conditions, this concept car looked just like a small sports car/roadster. You either put snow tires on it, and drive carefully when the conditions are awful, or you drive a heavier, higher, perhaps AWD, vehicle when conditions are awful.
The basic advice that you've been given, was terrible.
In 2 decades of riding, on 4 different continents, the only time I have experienced drivers [i]actively[/i] try to kill a motorcyclist is in the USA, in heavy traffic. They see you, they don't want you to pass them, and they try to squeeze/block you.
Presumably they feel "entitled" to higher speed with a larger or more expensive vehicle. I'm guessing this because the worst offenders (attempted murders) in my experience drive Mercedes, or the SUV models of Porsche, Lexus, Infiniti, or the big beemers (5 and 7 series). Small porsches and beemers and infinitii are generally OK, but Mercedes drivers appear to be universally idiots/assholes. YMMV.
Assholes aside, 95% of the time the problem is a car/truck driver simply doesn't see you. They are paying attention to other things, like a phone call, argument, kids, etc, and their unconscious/peripheral vision is trained to register cars & trucks, not bikes. So you are invisible.
Based on my experience, you should PASS a dangerous driver as quickly as possible, with as wide a berth as possible, and increase the margin. If you hang out behind them, you get boxed into a worse situation with other cars.
I don't know what the lane-splitting rules are by state. I've ridden through most of the states in the US, and have always worn a helmet/boots/jacket and always split lanes in traffic. One of the reasons for allowing lane splitting is safety for the rider. Another historical reason was that many motorcycles are/were air-cooled, so they ran a serious risk of rider burns or engine damage in stop & go traffic.
As a motorcyclist, I take this same approach. Fuck you tailgaters, I don't want to die, because you want to following me so close. If you're going to decrease your reaction time to me stopping, then I'm going to reduce the chance that I'm going to have to stop. And don't flip me the bird when you drive by... it's my fucking LIFE on the line... worst you have to deal with is the insurance totalling your car...
As a fellow motorcyclist with over 100,000 miles under my butt, I agree with you...if I am driving a car or truck.
When driving a car or truck, I ~always~ give a motorcycle plenty of room ahead of me, or to my side if they are splitting lanes. This is their right, perfectly legal. It amazes me how many people are so incredibly stupid that they will illegally and immorally risk the life of a motorcycle rider by attempting to block the space between lanes, simply because they don't think anyone else should be able to drive faster than them in traffic. Lives have been lost to such idiots.
When I am on my bike, the rules are different. One of the cardinal rules of motorcycle riding is that you are invisible to the average car driver. So perhaps the best way to guarantee your safety is to ride faster than any car, and to pass any car ahead of you before it has a chance to hit you.
On the freeway, anyway. On surface streets with intersections, different rules apply. Beware that left-turn soccer mom.
Maybe it's different in the US, but virtually every HDTV sold over here already has at least one USB port. This thing would turn those TVs into a usable computer.
No, they do not; and no, it would not.
This "thing" (which is unlikely to ever exist as a real product), plus a cable, and a keyboard, and a mouse, and a 5V power adapter (sorry, but fewer than 10% of installed HDTVs worldwide have a USB port)...that collection of components would effectively make your TV a computer monitor. Connected to a very slow, limited, non-standard computer.
In your own home or office, you can simply plug a laptop into your TV. A laptop is smaller, cheaper, lighter, faster, more standardized, and more flexible. You can run full-fledged Linux, Windows, OSX. There is no reason to use a pocketable gizmo that requires a backpack full of other parts to work.
In other folks' homes or offices, you can just plug in your smartphone. Heck, if they have an AppleTV and you have a recent iphone, you don't even need to plug it in. You can video-mirror wirelessly.
This USB-stick android computer is almost as dumb as your replies.;)
> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.
Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff.
Yep.
And...these views are compatible. You can think about what different people might want, and put that on their key.
Me, I would start by putting relevant family & friend photos/videos on everyone's USB stick. Even better, I'd make the effort to organize them into slideshow/video presentations, with a soundtrack and transitions. And configure them up to auto-play on the machines of the less-clueful recipients who have not disabled auto-play.:)
Mom will like that for sure. Then maybe Dad would appreciate some good apps/installers (Firefox, VLC, Abiword, etc)...and Bro would appreciate a collection of freeware/shareware/abandonware games (thinking Humble Bundle, other indies, MAME, etc)...and Sis would appreciate a few favorite DVDs, ripped and transcoded to copy straight to her iPad (gifting the DVDs as well, but doing the work for her).
Frankly it sounds like a great idea, if you think about what your family/friends would appreciate besides just another USB stick.
Whoosh. You completely missed the point of my post.
A USB adapter is not sufficient when the device is plugged into the HDMI port of an HDTV.
You still need a USB power adapter, pluys a cable to that adapter, and then the entire package is both larger and more complicated than a "smartphone" android/ios device. And it has less capability.
So why not just use the device that is already in your pocket?
I mean what is the point of firing up an entire computer only to run ANOTHER full computer in a USB form factor?
I'm beginning to understand why you seem to be trolling all the time. It might help if you slowed down a little and read TFA
First - I think that most smart folks here realize that this thing is vaporware, unlikely to ever be produced.
That said, I assume the GP was reacting to these parts of TFA's:
When you plug the Cotton Candy into a Mac or PC, the Windows or OS X operating system recognizes it as a USB drive. You can then launch the software and run the Cotton Candy’s Android environment in a secure window while you use your desktop OS outside the window.
Next, they unplugged Cotton Candy from the TV and connected it via USB to a Windows and then a Mac laptop to play Angry Birds on the Android OS.
It is quite clear that they are talking about "firing up" another computer to run this stick in these cases.
Also worth considering for the HDTV use case: How many consumers have a female USB cable, to power a device with a male USB jack. Yeah, OK, they could include the power cable and AC-DC power adapter with this hypothetical gadget. But then it is larger than a smartphone, and you have to ask, why would I use this gadget instead of my smartphone? Answer: You wouldn't.
Then you are ignoring the alternators (generators) and all of the other electricity generators that are part of the power generators you're so stuck up on...
Please explain.
If you're talking about automotive alternators, which are the only "generator" that the average consumer runs on a daily basis, you're barking up the wrong tree. Let's pretend that you're a suburban wage-slave who drives a car 2 hours/day, 365 days/year. A typical car alternator puts out around 250 watts in normal usage. So, you would generate 0.5 kWh/day, or 183kWh/year. Less than 1% of your energy consumption from petrol.
$200 seems a little steep since a real tablet can be purchased for that price range
Similarly, $1/GB seems steep for a USB flash drive, since hard-drive space can be purchased for less than $0.05/GB. Size and convenience do, in fact, matter. However, it's a moot point since the gizmo in TFA is vaporware, unlikey to be produced in any mass-marketable quantity.
How long is it going to take for someone to come out with a screenless / keypadless phone that is pure voice recognition (built into a headset like a BT headset??)? Same thing for GPS units (rather than being distracted by a map you just have to listen to the directions, much like having a person reading you directions "like in the old days"). That would extend battery life, reduce costs, although would also reduce it to the basic functionality (sorry no angry birds).
I doubt you'll ever see this device.
Voice recognition & response are horribly inefficient compared to visual input & output. We've had the ability to do it in consumer products for about 15 years, but it hasn't caught on for this very reason.
Voice support is extremely helpful when your eyes are busy doing something more important. For most folks, that means driving.
But for most purposes, a smartphone with tactile input and visual output (e.g. a touchscreen) is much more useful, so you carry it anyway. If you want to go voice-only to save battery life, you can just turn off the screen. So...why would you carry a smartphone with a display (for most usage) AND a voice-only device (for a subset of the stuff that the smartphone can already do).
The only answer I can think of is: for ultra-minimal carrying. Same as carrying a tiny money-clip, instead of your larger wallet, when you go out on the town. But the economics still aren't there. This voice-only device would have to cost less than $50 (and work with the same account as your everyday smartphone) before it would make sense for many people.
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This just reinforces what a waste of time and money the current space program is. Yeah, it is somewhat inspirational to have humans up there at all. But terribly impractical.
In the 20th century, humans were the most compact computers & manipulators for these missions. But that is no longer the case.
It's ironic that we send people up for near-earth-orbit missions (which could be controlled from the ground with sub-second latency), while we send robots on the long missions (which would benefit most from a short-latency human controller in the vehicle).
We should put our resources into manned long missions (asteroid or mars) instead of the ISS boondoggle. And give those astronauts practical round straws, not funky knife-edged cups, for their drinks.
TFV shows the cup being filled. Looks pretty easy.
But it's no real achievement. He replaced sucking liquid from a comfortable round straw, with sucking liquid from a knife-edged container. The straw is much more practical and usable.
This article just reinforces the fact that today's human astronauts are a terrible waste of time and money.
We never have the ~really~ smart guys up there, because the smart ones run the numbers and don't like a 1% chance of dying on a rocket ride (actually the space shuttle had an even worse fatality rate). So the guys we send right now are highly programmed robots. Let's just send mechanical robots, until we can make it safer and cheaper.
As a result I now have a highly comprehensive knowledge of what a handful of people have guessed about various events in history
FTFY.
Never confuse reading a few books about a historical event, with first-hand knowledge of that event.
If you want to learn about a historical event more than 80 years ago, you have to read at least four historians: two at opposite extremes, and two in the middle. And even then, you're just reading some educated guesses.
If you care to learn about a historical event in the last 80 years, try to find several people who actually participated in that event, and talk to them in person. The people who really know what happened, pretty much never write about it. But many of them would be very happy to talk to someone about it.
Antenna? No issue whatsoever with my iphone 4. None of my friends and family had problems with their iphones, either.
Some folks have suggested that the "issue" raised after each iphone release, is in fact raised by Apple.
With the iphone 4, the "issue" was the antenna.
With the iphone 4s, the "issue" is battery life.
It sounds crazy on the surface, but when you think about it, problems with the antenna and battery on a product selling TENS OF MILLIONS of units would be even crazier.
Planting a fake "issue" allows Apple to tweak customer demand to better match their supply, during the first few weeks/months of a new release. And then - surprise! - the issue disappears entirely, never to be heard of again except from a handful of folks who read some article, but never bought the product, and never experienced the issue that they complain about.
Oh wait. You're that person? Sorry.
Many people have a larger email store than you.
It is not a sign of status.
More likely, it is a sign of your incompetence to filter and save relevant data.
Congratulations.
Now back to the OP, who perhaps is smarter than you, since he has has just 500MB of email to back up.
The heart of downtown Edmonton might just barely qualify as part of the "urbanized western world".
One hour outside Edmonton, you are clearly and definitely in extreme-climate rural territory.
Your comments on the Edmonton plowing are interesting. I understand why eg NYC has this problem. Manhattan rarely gets a large snow fall, so they don't maintain the equipment and staff for massive snow removal.
But I would have thought that a high-latitude city would have the sense to design their streets with snow-clearing in mind.
Anyway...to reiterate...Aptera was selling their initial vehicle to only to California residents who never have snow or ice on their commutes. Never. Not even 1mm. So snow and ice were irrelevant.
He lives in a place where, if a power line is balanced at the top of a tall pole and falls off, they bury the damn thing and it never happens again.
Too bad that's not the U.S....
This post makes very little sense.
1) Were you drunk when you posted this?
2) Where do you live?
3) Do you have any clue about the costs of aboveground vs underground lines in rural vs urban, wet vs dry, warm vs freezing, etc, environments?
I'm guessing the answers are:
1) Yes.
2) In a nameless US suburb where you are completely uninvolved with the infrastructure development.
3) No.
Feel free to correct me.
I do own an iPhone, and several iPods, and an iPad.
I have also used dozens of handheld computers, music players, and smartphones over the years. See my other posts on this thread regarding handhelds and mp3 players. As for smartphones, in the last 8 years I have used the leading models from Nokia, Treo, Samsung, LG, HTC, and Motorola...running Maemo, PalmOS/WebOS, and Android. No Blackberries, sorry, so I might have missed something there.
The iPhone has its share of problems, but based on my experience, it is the closest to perfect at meeting the current technical and market constraints.
There is no such thing as "perfect" in the real world, but there is such a thing as "maximally optimized for current real world constraints".
If you re-read it, my post was simply about the success of these ego-driven perfectionist products, over other products that are "good enough" for the mainstream. A very large counterexample to the GP's post.
This is just my opinion, based on more than 3 decades of using various small computing devices. If you have more experience, I'd love to hear about it.
Fan boy?
No.
I admit that I preferred Macs over PCs from about 1989-1998. And I preferred PowerBooks over most other laptops from about 1993-1998. But I have always run a mix of hardware and operating systems at the same time.
Currently most of my machines are IBM/Lenovo and Dell, running Windows or Kubuntu. One MacBook running OSX for Final Cut. But give me an X-series ThinkPad over any MacBook, no contest.
I've also burned through a huge number of handheld computers over the years...Sharp Wizard, Apple Newton, Palm Pilot, Handspring, Dell Axim PocketPC, etc. And music players...iRock, Archos, iRiver, iPod. And several tablet PCs.
Based on that experience, personally, I think that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are as close to perfect as any device in their categories has ever come. Do they have problems? Yes. Like Apple's draconian control of their app market to prevent platform encroachment and leapfrogging. But I haven't seen anything better out there.
Frankly I was responding to the ego-driven-design part of your post, with which I agreed. If you think that makes me a fanboy, then please, share your credentials and perspective.
I'm going to guess right now that you're too lazy and/or stupid to do so.
Prove me wrong.
If I had mod points, I would mod you up.
Maybe a couple of pie charts aren't enough, but the problem is, those people who are in charge don't WANT us to understand. A goodly percentage of the world's wealth is transferred between corporations, and between friends and friends of friends, and the common man isn't meant to understand any of it.
One way of looking at this, is that the financial system functions as a gigantic intelligence test.
Are you smart enough to recognize that you are being raped? If so, you really should do something about it. If not, it will continue.
In theory, this design could serve a useful role in human social evolution.
In practice, the current implementation elevates the rapist to the highest position in society.
There are many people who understand the system, and are much smarter than the rapists, but who have moral and ethical frameworks that prevent them from becoming rapists. So they might protect themselves, but they can only watch (or ignore) as the masses of humanity are raped.
We could fix this problem with modern IT, by automating much of the financial system, and having the "stupidity penalties" paid out to the masses (employees, taxpayers, customers, voters), instead of sending these gains to the sharks (bankers, politicians, and their ilk).
Hopefully in the next 20 years, the "system" will break badly enough that more people will turn on their brains, and consider constitutional amendments to fully automate banking, perform government budgeting based on democratic vote, and otherwise disenfranchise the rapists. Hopefully. But extremely unlikely IMO.
Note that in common dialogue today, ending the tax break that the extremely wealthy currently enjoy translates into "higher taxes" on the wealthy.
On a similar note, Medicare and Social Security, which the boomers paid for over many years, are now labeled as "entitlement programs". LOL. Ironically, the "entitled" slavemasters are the ones who say that the average shmoe is acting "entitled" by expecting what was already paid for. Ridonkulous. :)
And that happens what, once every three years? Boo hoo for you.
Stay home for a day until your rickety public works apparatus figures out what to do, or until the snow simply melts.
The average English "car" is much more similar to this lightweight Aptera thingy, than it is to the average American vehicle. So frankly, you would see the least difference if a concept car like this went global.
But again, this super-efficient car was not being sold to a global market. They took preorders in California ONLY.
It quite simply does not snow in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego. In Sacramento, every five years or so, they get a dusting. But nothing that would seriously impact traffic.
Aptera did not fail because their design was wrong. They went bust because the suits who replaced the founders totally failed to execute with those designs. Another mockery to the title "executive".
snowgirl, I truly respect any other rider. I'm only offering advice because, thru the fog of the Internet, you seem to be a newish rider who is just reciting some recently taught doctrine.
My sincere apologies if I've misinterpreted our relative levels of experience.
The "drive like everyone is out to kill you" has nothing to do with the actual motivations of ANY driver.
That is the exactly the problem with this mindset. The way you should react to a driver who does not see you (common) is very different from the way you should react to an aggressive/malicious driver who doesn't like you (rare). If you assume the rare case, you may be setting yourself up for an accident in what is actually the common case.
According to Wikipedia, the only state that really seems to allow lane-splitting (and indeed, is the universal example of a state that allows lane-splitting in the USA) is California. In general, lane-splitting in the US is illegal, while it seems that it is generally widely legal in Europe.
Actually, that wiki article states that lane splitting is illegal in "many states", but it gives no reference, and the only states they specifically mention are Colorado and Nebraska.
I know a few guys in law enforcement. I suspect that if you polled the Colorado and Nebraska highway cops on their actual enforcement of these state laws, they would tell you exactly what I will tell you: It's all about SAFETY.
If you split lanes at 100mph in a 55mph zone....you're clearly breaking the law, and should be ticketed for speeding plus anything else that will stick.
If you split lanes at 55mph in a 55mph zone, when traffic is stopped...you're an idiot. The cops will never catch you, but a lane changer might, and then...game over.
If you split lanes at 20mph when traffic is stopped, or at 55mph when traffic is moving 35mph, it depends on your experience. Personally I've learned to look 10-20 cars ahead and anticipate gaps and lane-changers, so I'm comfortable with a 20-25mph differential. A new rider, or an aging rider, may want to take it more slowly.
In any case, I will argue that splitting lanes in slow traffic is generally safer than getting boxed in. The wiki article that you linked mentions that David Hough, one of the leading authorities on motorcycle safety, shares this view.
Based on my experience, you should PASS a dangerous driver as quickly as possible, with as wide a berth as possible, and increase the margin. If you hang out behind them, you get boxed into a worse situation with other cars.
Perfect sense, except that often times they're going a reasonable speed compared to the speed limit (either at, or 5 miles over), and so in order to give yourself a wide berth, you're looking at speeding.
Again, it's all about SAFETY. If I can safely "speed" past an erratic driver, and get even further ahead, I will do it in a heartbeat rather than run the risk of getting boxed in with someone who could swerve or brake and cause an accident that dents a few cars, while killing me. Speed limits are supposed to protect us, but sometimes they do the opposite. Use your head.
If I could give just one piece of advice to any new rider or aspiring rider, it would be this:
Take a MSF-certified riding course before you try to ride on your own. Get trained & tested by deeply experienced teachers. Just because you love your friend, or spouse, or family member, doesn't mean that they are qualified to teach motorcycle safety.
YMMV.
Keep it upright, and enjoy the ride.
Nope.
Lived most of my life in rural New England, where a 1-foot snowstorm was common, a 2-foot storm was not unusual, and a 3-foot storm happened every few years.
During a big storm, the plows ran pretty much around the clock to keep the roads clear. They would taper off somewhat at night. But I can only remember two big ice-storms where folks were "snowed in", and that was mostly because the ice snapped so many power lines.
How about you?
And where is this magical place where the roads are cleared within a few hours
You have cowardly-ignored the most salient points of my reply:
1) The initial Aptera vehicles were marketed ONLY in California, where a small single-digit percent of residents have snow & ice; and
2) There is really no difference between one of these concept vehicles, and a lightweight sportscar, from the perspective of snow & ice driving.
I'll answer on your question anyway, and ask you to do the same.
Me, I grew up in rural New England, dairy farming country, about 2 hours outside of Boston.
During a heavy snowstorm, before and during the commute hours, the state roads were plowed and sanded roughly every hour. The town roads were plowed (and some sanded) every 1-6 hours, depending on the road, the level of snowfall, and the timing relative to commute hours.
We knew our plow driver by name. As a kid, I loved hearing the sound of the plow in the wee hours, because the schools were super-cautious about running buses during a storm, even if the roads were considered "safe" for car drivers. A 4:00AM snowplow often meant a school delay, or even cancellation.
That was in a rural area. My experience in various urban areas of the northern US (Boston, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Madison, etc) is that they are cleared even more efficiently.
Yeah, you may hear about it in the news when an unexpected blizzard hits DC or NY, which both have horribly disfunctional public-works operations within their tiny city limits.
But if you get into the country, or farther north, the road crews are very efficient at clearing a blizzard. Think about it. When is the last time you heard of a blizzard shutting down a city in Canada?
Your turn now.
Where is the "magical" place that you live or have lived, in the urbanized western world, where snow is NOT cleared within a matter of hours?
So...how shall we explain that the ego-designed iPod, iPhone, and iPad won over the "good enough" alternatives?
The major problem with these 'concept' cars, not just this one, is that they are only drivable in places that never have winter. Which of course rules out most of the industrialized western world.
It's worth pointing out that Aptera's initial market was limited to California. They took preorders only from CA residents only.
And in fact, 95+% of CA residents do not get any ice or snow where they live.
That said, in the parts of the urbanized western world where we do get snow every year, we usually remove it from the road within a few hours. Snowplows with salt spreaders run around the clock when necessary, so folks can make their morning commute on time.
wrt winter conditions, this concept car looked just like a small sports car/roadster. You either put snow tires on it, and drive carefully when the conditions are awful, or you drive a heavier, higher, perhaps AWD, vehicle when conditions are awful.
This quote takes front & center of the company profile page on aptera.com:
The best fuel for encouraging innovation is saying "It can't be done".
Oooops. In other words, their company motto was "we will fail".
That same page has this American-embarrassing quote:
Aptera is a perfect example that Americans still know how to build stuff.
Ouch. I hope they were wrong about this.
Anyway, you can be sure the Aptera executives walked away with $ millions in their bank accounts, because Americans still know how to print money!
The basic advice that you've been given, was terrible.
In 2 decades of riding, on 4 different continents, the only time I have experienced drivers [i]actively[/i] try to kill a motorcyclist is in the USA, in heavy traffic. They see you, they don't want you to pass them, and they try to squeeze/block you.
Presumably they feel "entitled" to higher speed with a larger or more expensive vehicle. I'm guessing this because the worst offenders (attempted murders) in my experience drive Mercedes, or the SUV models of Porsche, Lexus, Infiniti, or the big beemers (5 and 7 series). Small porsches and beemers and infinitii are generally OK, but Mercedes drivers appear to be universally idiots/assholes. YMMV.
Assholes aside, 95% of the time the problem is a car/truck driver simply doesn't see you. They are paying attention to other things, like a phone call, argument, kids, etc, and their unconscious/peripheral vision is trained to register cars & trucks, not bikes. So you are invisible.
Based on my experience, you should PASS a dangerous driver as quickly as possible, with as wide a berth as possible, and increase the margin. If you hang out behind them, you get boxed into a worse situation with other cars.
I don't know what the lane-splitting rules are by state. I've ridden through most of the states in the US, and have always worn a helmet/boots/jacket and always split lanes in traffic. One of the reasons for allowing lane splitting is safety for the rider. Another historical reason was that many motorcycles are/were air-cooled, so they ran a serious risk of rider burns or engine damage in stop & go traffic.
Keep it upright. :)
As a motorcyclist, I take this same approach. Fuck you tailgaters, I don't want to die, because you want to following me so close. If you're going to decrease your reaction time to me stopping, then I'm going to reduce the chance that I'm going to have to stop. And don't flip me the bird when you drive by... it's my fucking LIFE on the line... worst you have to deal with is the insurance totalling your car...
As a fellow motorcyclist with over 100,000 miles under my butt, I agree with you...if I am driving a car or truck.
When driving a car or truck, I ~always~ give a motorcycle plenty of room ahead of me, or to my side if they are splitting lanes. This is their right, perfectly legal. It amazes me how many people are so incredibly stupid that they will illegally and immorally risk the life of a motorcycle rider by attempting to block the space between lanes, simply because they don't think anyone else should be able to drive faster than them in traffic. Lives have been lost to such idiots.
When I am on my bike, the rules are different. One of the cardinal rules of motorcycle riding is that you are invisible to the average car driver. So perhaps the best way to guarantee your safety is to ride faster than any car, and to pass any car ahead of you before it has a chance to hit you.
On the freeway, anyway. On surface streets with intersections, different rules apply. Beware that left-turn soccer mom.
Maybe it's different in the US, but virtually every HDTV sold over here already has at least one USB port. This thing would turn those TVs into a usable computer.
No, they do not; and no, it would not.
This "thing" (which is unlikely to ever exist as a real product), plus a cable, and a keyboard, and a mouse, and a 5V power adapter (sorry, but fewer than 10% of installed HDTVs worldwide have a USB port)...that collection of components would effectively make your TV a computer monitor. Connected to a very slow, limited, non-standard computer.
In your own home or office, you can simply plug a laptop into your TV. A laptop is smaller, cheaper, lighter, faster, more standardized, and more flexible. You can run full-fledged Linux, Windows, OSX. There is no reason to use a pocketable gizmo that requires a backpack full of other parts to work.
In other folks' homes or offices, you can just plug in your smartphone. Heck, if they have an AppleTV and you have a recent iphone, you don't even need to plug it in. You can video-mirror wirelessly.
This USB-stick android computer is almost as dumb as your replies. ;)
> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.
Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff.
Yep.
And...these views are compatible. You can think about what different people might want, and put that on their key.
Me, I would start by putting relevant family & friend photos/videos on everyone's USB stick. Even better, I'd make the effort to organize them into slideshow/video presentations, with a soundtrack and transitions. And configure them up to auto-play on the machines of the less-clueful recipients who have not disabled auto-play. :)
Mom will like that for sure. Then maybe Dad would appreciate some good apps/installers (Firefox, VLC, Abiword, etc)...and Bro would appreciate a collection of freeware/shareware/abandonware games (thinking Humble Bundle, other indies, MAME, etc)...and Sis would appreciate a few favorite DVDs, ripped and transcoded to copy straight to her iPad (gifting the DVDs as well, but doing the work for her).
Frankly it sounds like a great idea, if you think about what your family/friends would appreciate besides just another USB stick.
Whoosh. You completely missed the point of my post.
A USB adapter is not sufficient when the device is plugged into the HDMI port of an HDTV.
You still need a USB power adapter, pluys a cable to that adapter, and then the entire package is both larger and more complicated than a "smartphone" android/ios device. And it has less capability.
So why not just use the device that is already in your pocket?
I mean what is the point of firing up an entire computer only to run ANOTHER full computer in a USB form factor?
I'm beginning to understand why you seem to be trolling all the time. It might help if you slowed down a little and read TFA
First - I think that most smart folks here realize that this thing is vaporware, unlikely to ever be produced.
That said, I assume the GP was reacting to these parts of TFA's:
When you plug the Cotton Candy into a Mac or PC, the Windows or OS X operating system recognizes it as a USB drive. You can then launch the software and run the Cotton Candy’s Android environment in a secure window while you use your desktop OS outside the window.
Next, they unplugged Cotton Candy from the TV and connected it via USB to a Windows and then a Mac laptop to play Angry Birds on the Android OS.
It is quite clear that they are talking about "firing up" another computer to run this stick in these cases.
Also worth considering for the HDTV use case: How many consumers have a female USB cable, to power a device with a male USB jack. Yeah, OK, they could include the power cable and AC-DC power adapter with this hypothetical gadget. But then it is larger than a smartphone, and you have to ask, why would I use this gadget instead of my smartphone? Answer: You wouldn't.
Then you are ignoring the alternators (generators) and all of the other electricity generators that are part of the power generators you're so stuck up on...
Please explain.
If you're talking about automotive alternators, which are the only "generator" that the average consumer runs on a daily basis, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Let's pretend that you're a suburban wage-slave who drives a car 2 hours/day, 365 days/year.
A typical car alternator puts out around 250 watts in normal usage.
So, you would generate 0.5 kWh/day, or 183kWh/year. Less than 1% of your energy consumption from petrol.
Or did you have other generators in mind?
$200 seems a little steep since a real tablet can be purchased for that price range
Similarly, $1/GB seems steep for a USB flash drive, since hard-drive space can be purchased for less than $0.05/GB.
Size and convenience do, in fact, matter.
However, it's a moot point since the gizmo in TFA is vaporware, unlikey to be produced in any mass-marketable quantity.
How long is it going to take for someone to come out with a screenless / keypadless phone that is pure voice recognition (built into a headset like a BT headset??)? Same thing for GPS units (rather than being distracted by a map you just have to listen to the directions, much like having a person reading you directions "like in the old days"). That would extend battery life, reduce costs, although would also reduce it to the basic functionality (sorry no angry birds).
I doubt you'll ever see this device.
Voice recognition & response are horribly inefficient compared to visual input & output. We've had the ability to do it in consumer products for about 15 years, but it hasn't caught on for this very reason.
Voice support is extremely helpful when your eyes are busy doing something more important. For most folks, that means driving.
But for most purposes, a smartphone with tactile input and visual output (e.g. a touchscreen) is much more useful, so you carry it anyway. If you want to go voice-only to save battery life, you can just turn off the screen. So...why would you carry a smartphone with a display (for most usage) AND a voice-only device (for a subset of the stuff that the smartphone can already do).
The only answer I can think of is: for ultra-minimal carrying. Same as carrying a tiny money-clip, instead of your larger wallet, when you go out on the town. But the economics still aren't there. This voice-only device would have to cost less than $50 (and work with the same account as your everyday smartphone) before it would make sense for many people.