I bought the first Transformer (TF101) with the keyboard when I did a long term field assignment. I use the keyboard to charge my phone since it has a USB port. It'll power my phone for days. Plus, the TF brick can be used to charge the phone as well, so you can cut back on the plugs, in a way. Still, your point is a good one.
Regarding SD cards, the TF has an uSD slot, where I put all my work manuals (saving me dozens of pounds of paper and suitcase space), but I got the keyboard mostly to get the full sized SD card slot for photo viewing. The extra battery and touch/feel keyboard was an afterthought back then, but I love them now.
Dave
Exactly right. What is wrong with fostering critical thinking?
The replies to this news remind me strongly of Ben Stein's movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Questioning the scientific validity of Darwinism as the explanation of how life began is not allowed, even though Darwinism is laughable in this regard. Clearly, many have replaced God with Darwin, and are emotionally upset when their beliefs are challenged.
I have a Treo 680 and now have had numerous sync issues. Now I have another: no USB sync support for the 680 when using Windows XP x64. I have to use bluetooth--ugh! So much for upgrading to a more powerful computer... but that's another story.
In comparison, my wife has a new G1 and it syncs directly to Google stuff. That seems comparable to the WebOS, as far as I can tell. In fact, there is no syncing step because everything is always sync'd automagically.
I love the Palm OS-ness of my 680, but it fails too often to do a core phone function like placing a call or letting me answer it. Time will tell how adept the Pre is at being a phone.
I've been involved with evaluating PRT systems using simulation for about 10 years now. I am always surprised that it is considered new and exciting, but the stuff you do every day rarely seems exciting, right?
The Morgantown WV system has been cited here several times. At the time, it was called a PRT system, but now most insiders think of it as a GRT ("Group Rapid Transit") system. Think of a PRT as a taxi that takes you and your friends from place to place, and you can see that a GRT (which hauls 10-30 people) is not quite as personal. Thus, we call it GRT to distinguish it.
Someone here mentioned the Denver baggage system, and they are right that PRT operates very similarly. The difference is that the cars can rear-end each other because they hold things, not people. When you carry people, you have lifesafety issues to contend with which makes it far more difficult to achieve PRT's promise.
Here's a couple weaknesses, because people always seem to emphasize the positives:
The "brick wall" test. In short, for proper lifesafety you need to ensure that the vehicles don't follow each other too closely. To do that, you make sure that there is space between you and the vehicle you are following, such that if it instantaneously stops (hits a brick wall) you can come to a safe stop without hitting the vehicle. The faster you go, the larger the gap. Generally speaking, we use a 5 second "headway" between vehicles like we were taught in driver's ed.
Significantly, vehicle designers claim that there will never be a brick wall stop, and so they claim they only have to decelerate as fast the vehicle in front of them. Imagine this as tailgating. Also imagine the car in front of you hits the brakes, so you hit yours a little harder, and the driver behind you stands on his brakes, and pretty soon you have that "shock wave" that everyone experiences on the freeway in rush hour. In practical terms, insurance companies will not allow such a system and governing bodies won't either. For now, the brick wall test is the standard.
And, the brick wall test eats up a lot of capacity: designers claim 1/2 second headways instead of 5 second headways. That's a big difference.
Merging logic. Where two tracks come together, there is a big conflict that must be managed safely. Turns out, this merging is something we as humans can do pretty well on the highway, but train control systems have a hard time doing it. Its not that it is impossible, but it is hard to make it optimal. Because capacity is such an issue with PRT systems, getting close to optimal is important.
Empty Vehicle Management. When you arrive at a station, you want a vehicle to be waiting for you. That's pretty easy if there are the same number of people who arrive at the station from somewhere else as those who want to depart the station. But what if the station has more people leaving than arriving? Pretty soon, you are out of empties. Likewise, some other station has an excess of empty vehicles. You can send them from one station to another, but this eats up the capacity of the guideway. This management of empties is perhaps the hardest thing to overcome, and it the solution is specific to each system. What works in Gotenberg Sweden will not work in Houston, TX. Empty vehicle management was a huge issue for the Denver baggage system.
These issues alone have stopped PRTs, but the most important one is there is no existing PRT installation anywhere in the world. Sorry, Morgantown does not count because it is GRT. Nobody wants to buy a prototype. City officials don't read Slashdot.:)
If you are really interested in PRT, come to the Transportation Research Board (http://trb.org/) annual meeting in DC in January. There is going to be several presentations on the state of the practise in PRT at the meeting.
PRT has a lot promise, but unfortunately there have been too many broken promises and its credibility is tarnished. A pity, really.
Slashdot Mirror
I bought the first Transformer (TF101) with the keyboard when I did a long term field assignment. I use the keyboard to charge my phone since it has a USB port. It'll power my phone for days. Plus, the TF brick can be used to charge the phone as well, so you can cut back on the plugs, in a way. Still, your point is a good one.
Regarding SD cards, the TF has an uSD slot, where I put all my work manuals (saving me dozens of pounds of paper and suitcase space), but I got the keyboard mostly to get the full sized SD card slot for photo viewing. The extra battery and touch/feel keyboard was an afterthought back then, but I love them now. Dave
Exactly right. What is wrong with fostering critical thinking?
The replies to this news remind me strongly of Ben Stein's movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Questioning the scientific validity of Darwinism as the explanation of how life began is not allowed, even though Darwinism is laughable in this regard. Clearly, many have replaced God with Darwin, and are emotionally upset when their beliefs are challenged.
I have a Treo 680 and now have had numerous sync issues. Now I have another: no USB sync support for the 680 when using Windows XP x64. I have to use bluetooth--ugh! So much for upgrading to a more powerful computer... but that's another story. In comparison, my wife has a new G1 and it syncs directly to Google stuff. That seems comparable to the WebOS, as far as I can tell. In fact, there is no syncing step because everything is always sync'd automagically. I love the Palm OS-ness of my 680, but it fails too often to do a core phone function like placing a call or letting me answer it. Time will tell how adept the Pre is at being a phone.
I think you confuse the Washington Post with the Washington Times. The Post is a liberal rag whereas the Times is a conservative rag.
The Morgantown WV system has been cited here several times. At the time, it was called a PRT system, but now most insiders think of it as a GRT ("Group Rapid Transit") system. Think of a PRT as a taxi that takes you and your friends from place to place, and you can see that a GRT (which hauls 10-30 people) is not quite as personal. Thus, we call it GRT to distinguish it.
Someone here mentioned the Denver baggage system, and they are right that PRT operates very similarly. The difference is that the cars can rear-end each other because they hold things, not people. When you carry people, you have lifesafety issues to contend with which makes it far more difficult to achieve PRT's promise.
Here's a couple weaknesses, because people always seem to emphasize the positives:
- The "brick wall" test. In short, for proper lifesafety you need to ensure that the vehicles don't follow each other too closely. To do that, you make sure that there is space between you and the vehicle you are following, such that if it instantaneously stops (hits a brick wall) you can come to a safe stop without hitting the vehicle. The faster you go, the larger the gap. Generally speaking, we use a 5 second "headway" between vehicles like we were taught in driver's ed.
- Merging logic. Where two tracks come together, there is a big conflict that must be managed safely. Turns out, this merging is something we as humans can do pretty well on the highway, but train control systems have a hard time doing it. Its not that it is impossible, but it is hard to make it optimal. Because capacity is such an issue with PRT systems, getting close to optimal is important.
- Empty Vehicle Management. When you arrive at a station, you want a vehicle to be waiting for you. That's pretty easy if there are the same number of people who arrive at the station from somewhere else as those who want to depart the station. But what if the station has more people leaving than arriving? Pretty soon, you are out of empties. Likewise, some other station has an excess of empty vehicles. You can send them from one station to another, but this eats up the capacity of the guideway. This management of empties is perhaps the hardest thing to overcome, and it the solution is specific to each system. What works in Gotenberg Sweden will not work in Houston, TX. Empty vehicle management was a huge issue for the Denver baggage system.
These issues alone have stopped PRTs, but the most important one is there is no existing PRT installation anywhere in the world. Sorry, Morgantown does not count because it is GRT. Nobody wants to buy a prototype. City officials don't read Slashdot.Significantly, vehicle designers claim that there will never be a brick wall stop, and so they claim they only have to decelerate as fast the vehicle in front of them. Imagine this as tailgating. Also imagine the car in front of you hits the brakes, so you hit yours a little harder, and the driver behind you stands on his brakes, and pretty soon you have that "shock wave" that everyone experiences on the freeway in rush hour. In practical terms, insurance companies will not allow such a system and governing bodies won't either. For now, the brick wall test is the standard.
And, the brick wall test eats up a lot of capacity: designers claim 1/2 second headways instead of 5 second headways. That's a big difference.
If you are really interested in PRT, come to the Transportation Research Board (http://trb.org/) annual meeting in DC in January. There is going to be several presentations on the state of the practise in PRT at the meeting.
PRT has a lot promise, but unfortunately there have been too many broken promises and its credibility is tarnished. A pity, really.