To do anything like stability for the Avrocar it would have required several tons worth of compute power to even have a hope of stabilizing the thing when tilted.
Nowadays, gyros and servos are pretty darned cheap and in fact required to fly many model helicopters. Not to mention compute power.
Nevertheless, hovercraft, if you ignore the whole twirly-whirly aspect of this gizmo are generally powered by a lift fan and a direction fan. So you vent the duct a little bit, make the direction fan swivel in 2 dimensions, with a little cooperation from the existing flaps to ensure stability, voila.
Hell with the military ramifications, this would be a great frickin' toy and compared to electric helicopters, pretty foolproof and simple. Put a little netting over the ducted fan and fingers will be spared.
I hold in my hands my cherished HP-16C that soldiered through many an assembly language and C implementation, not to mention device drivers. I would think that to a computer type, this might have more meaning.
And it is also 25 years old, according to the calculator museum site.
This has been a fascinating string. Thanks for all the interesting, and not so interesting responses.
I like this fellow's attitude. It's too bad he had to waste time fiddling around with this. I woulda hooked him up.
I've set up corporate networks for the allegedly clueful (software engineers) and the notoriously clueless (social agencies.) Both did great work. Both had different needs.
In terms of the software folks, the technology of the day (and with VLANs and all the other stuff out there, easier now) made us simply set up a "red" network and a "blue" network. The "red" network was engineering's - period. We assigned a senior tech to it to keep working and fed it hardware. The senior tech ended up being a pretty good engineer. It was all good. His work got boring after a few weeks. New career.
It turned out the software execs did not mind a bit spending extra $$$ for a separate T1 line, network gear and an extra workstation or two for EACH engineer because time to market is expensive and failure to market, extraordinarily expensive. Cheap stuff.
But we had to ask the question and be aware of the business. The curmudgeons who refused to understand the business and operated out of personal pique and IT-think got the door - to a person. It turned out to be a cheap solution to an embedded organizational problem.
My habit these days, for folks who want personal and business access is to invoke virtualization. Build a personal environment, as segregated as can be made from the business and let clients do their worst within it stating that "we're not responsible for whatever you do inside this sandbox". If it ends up getting trashed, we just re-image it.
If the person is irresponsible, breaks this membrane and acts in a stupid and selfish fashion (morality cannot be legislated), well that's just grist for HR action against the goals of the organization. And probably another cheap lesson.
According to the surveys I'm seeing, IT is hauling its sorry ass out of the financial hole it dug itself into for Y2K, dealing with SOX and other mandates and now ready for a little innovation and fun. It's about time.
In any case, I recommend the embattled policy-enforcers get out of nimnod-land and into a place where you have some business cluefulness and stop calling the executives names. Maybe buy them a beer. Buy your clients a beer.
If you have any kind of self-confidence you might find them interesting and mutually helpful. It's been known to happen.
Otherwise, you will be treated like folks who believe wood weighs less than the witch. And that's a self-inflicted problem I see in business over and over and over again.
I think it's Microsoft looking at the Hula code and going to Novell and saying "well, we kinda looked at this and did you notice this copyright infringement here and trademark infringement here, not to mention likely patent problems..." (dull thud of Exchange-related patents hits table.)...and oh by the way, to work nicely together we need to show you our extended roadmap for Exchange and.NET (dull thud of NDAs hits table) and particularly your engineers to ensure we work well together. Did we mention we have free soft drinks on our campus?
At least, this will serve as a case study, as does SCO. Too bad it has to be Novell. I still uncover Novell Netware networks chundering away, no backups, nobody left who remembers anything about it. It's The Server and accorded near-holy status. One, last year, still hooked up with coax. They'd violated every ethernet topology rule and it was still working.
From my experience in going to school and dealing with graduates, the one thing I've seen over and over is that the professors have no actual professional development experience. And this lack of practical experience shows. The professor is very good at their stovepipe of experience but not much beyond that.
If I were a student looking at colleges, I'd look at the CVs of the professors with a very hairy eyeball and be very suspicious of any CS program that's staffed with academics.
The other thing to consider is forgoing the trade school (which so many engineering schools actually are, not colleges) and concentrating on the a more traditional education, rounded with humanities, history, and philosophy, whilst keeping up with the math and other core requirements. _then_ go to grad school and round out your education with a trade. Yes, it'll take longer but you'll end up being a more rounded individual for it and, I would observe, far better armed with perspective, critical thinking and social skills.
The latter will do you better stead in dealing with people and situations than a head full of algorithms and programming languages. And, given what I'm seeing with the latest generation of Web-ness (can anyone define "Web 2.0" for me) skills understanding the Greek and not the Geek are going to matter more and more.
A famous example of this is (or used to be) the Census Bureau of the US. They'd go for PhD philosophers, knowing they understood logic and critical thinking, could be provided a much better paying job than they otherwise might, and world-class lunchroom conversations:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Diplomacy is saying "nice doggie" until you find a rock.
-- Hentry Kissinger
I think that applies in this case. Make all nice on stage, savage each other
otherwise.
To do anything like stability for the Avrocar it would have required several tons worth of compute power to even have a hope of stabilizing the thing when tilted.
Nowadays, gyros and servos are pretty darned cheap and in fact required to fly many model helicopters. Not to mention compute power.
Nevertheless, hovercraft, if you ignore the whole twirly-whirly aspect of this gizmo are generally powered by a lift fan and a direction fan. So you vent the duct a little bit, make the direction fan swivel in 2 dimensions, with a little cooperation from the existing flaps to ensure stability, voila.
Hell with the military ramifications, this would be a great frickin' toy and compared to electric helicopters, pretty foolproof and simple. Put a little netting over the ducted fan and fingers will be spared.
I hold in my hands my cherished HP-16C that soldiered through many an assembly language and C implementation, not to mention device drivers. I would think that to a computer type, this might have more meaning.
And it is also 25 years old, according to the calculator museum site.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp16.htm
I agree. It would make a great portable network diagnosis tool and also a good walkabout, semi-stateless notebook for everyday use.
"The Skycar remains perfectly positioned for the expected invention of antigravity."
She is a stupid person. Bring us back to first principles about the Web and connecting information. Please.
This has been a fascinating string. Thanks for all the interesting, and not so interesting responses. I like this fellow's attitude. It's too bad he had to waste time fiddling around with this. I woulda hooked him up. I've set up corporate networks for the allegedly clueful (software engineers) and the notoriously clueless (social agencies.) Both did great work. Both had different needs. In terms of the software folks, the technology of the day (and with VLANs and all the other stuff out there, easier now) made us simply set up a "red" network and a "blue" network. The "red" network was engineering's - period. We assigned a senior tech to it to keep working and fed it hardware. The senior tech ended up being a pretty good engineer. It was all good. His work got boring after a few weeks. New career. It turned out the software execs did not mind a bit spending extra $$$ for a separate T1 line, network gear and an extra workstation or two for EACH engineer because time to market is expensive and failure to market, extraordinarily expensive. Cheap stuff. But we had to ask the question and be aware of the business. The curmudgeons who refused to understand the business and operated out of personal pique and IT-think got the door - to a person. It turned out to be a cheap solution to an embedded organizational problem. My habit these days, for folks who want personal and business access is to invoke virtualization. Build a personal environment, as segregated as can be made from the business and let clients do their worst within it stating that "we're not responsible for whatever you do inside this sandbox". If it ends up getting trashed, we just re-image it. If the person is irresponsible, breaks this membrane and acts in a stupid and selfish fashion (morality cannot be legislated), well that's just grist for HR action against the goals of the organization. And probably another cheap lesson. According to the surveys I'm seeing, IT is hauling its sorry ass out of the financial hole it dug itself into for Y2K, dealing with SOX and other mandates and now ready for a little innovation and fun. It's about time. In any case, I recommend the embattled policy-enforcers get out of nimnod-land and into a place where you have some business cluefulness and stop calling the executives names. Maybe buy them a beer. Buy your clients a beer. If you have any kind of self-confidence you might find them interesting and mutually helpful. It's been known to happen. Otherwise, you will be treated like folks who believe wood weighs less than the witch. And that's a self-inflicted problem I see in business over and over and over again.
I think it's Microsoft looking at the Hula code and going to Novell and saying "well, we kinda looked at this and did you notice this copyright infringement here and trademark infringement here, not to mention likely patent problems..." (dull thud of Exchange-related patents hits table.) ...and oh by the way, to work nicely together we need to show you our extended roadmap for Exchange and .NET (dull thud of NDAs hits table) and particularly your engineers to ensure we work well together. Did we mention we have free soft drinks on our campus?
At least, this will serve as a case study, as does SCO. Too bad it has to be Novell. I still uncover Novell Netware networks chundering away, no backups, nobody left who remembers anything about it. It's The Server and accorded near-holy status. One, last year, still hooked up with coax. They'd violated every ethernet topology rule and it was still working.If I were a student looking at colleges, I'd look at the CVs of the professors with a very hairy eyeball and be very suspicious of any CS program that's staffed with academics.
The other thing to consider is forgoing the trade school (which so many engineering schools actually are, not colleges) and concentrating on the a more traditional education, rounded with humanities, history, and philosophy, whilst keeping up with the math and other core requirements. _then_ go to grad school and round out your education with a trade. Yes, it'll take longer but you'll end up being a more rounded individual for it and, I would observe, far better armed with perspective, critical thinking and social skills.
The latter will do you better stead in dealing with people and situations than a head full of algorithms and programming languages. And, given what I'm seeing with the latest generation of Web-ness (can anyone define "Web 2.0" for me) skills understanding the Greek and not the Geek are going to matter more and more.
A famous example of this is (or used to be) the Census Bureau of the US. They'd go for PhD philosophers, knowing they understood logic and critical thinking, could be provided a much better paying job than they otherwise might, and world-class lunchroom conversations :-)