Blue Yonder

Is this it? Have we arrived?

from the Daily Mail:

It's been cleared to take to the skies for more than a year - but that's not much use when you're supposed to be able to drive it, too.

But now the flying car has at least been declared officially road legal. It means the Terrafugia Transition could be in U.S. garages as early as next autumn, after two years of delays.

It may not be the world's first flying car, but its makers say it is the first to have wings that fold up automatically at the push of a button.

For more, check here.

As much as I've been hoping for the eventuality of personal automobile/aircraft hybrids purchasable by the general public, I have reservations about this thing. I'm not certain our society is prepared to handle the responsibility of flight-for-all. I mean, we can't even get through a week of morning and afternoon commutes to work without having accidents all over the place. What makes us think we're ready for mass quantities of flying cars?

On top of this the Transition has a sticker price of $200,000, more or less the same as a Ferrari 430. Which means that only people with enormous amounts of money will even be able to consider buying one. And even with the limited number of Transitions that would be in service at that price, there will still be those that 'hooliganize' their usage. I can see it now; some fool that's had one too many trying to use I-95 as a runway.

Nevertheless, if I had the money I'd have one of these in a HEARTBEAT. Sign me up!

peace.

New Wave

Yup. Your mind is now blown. Bravo, Google.





peace.

The Future of Lazy

I wonder how long it's going to take before someone figures out how to put some chrome on this thing.

Only a species as lazy as we could invent such brilliance to accommodate our lethargy. The first image that came to mind when I saw this video was a particular scene in the movie Wall-e. We see how the human survivors on the Axiom star ship have evolved into boneless masses of gelatinous flesh, cruising around on floating easy chairs and luxuriating in their technology-driven indifference. In the 700 years the humans spent on board, they have abandoned any real human interaction for the sake of electronic stimulation.

Last year when I was training as a voice and speech teacher in York University, one of our main areas of conversation involved this very concept. Our technological ability is growing exponentially in these modern times, and our interaction relies on our technology more than it ever has. What we witnessed was that an alarming number of our incoming students lacked many of the foundational elements of human interaction, handicapping their awareness and involvement in the class. As the technology gets better, our growing dependency dulls our experience of the world.

Honda has to be careful when they whip out stuff like this. I worked for a Honda motorcycle dealership for two years, and they are a very good company. Their processes and procedures are well managed and executed. But, they are an arrogant company. To them, their way is the only way, and no one can persuade them otherwise. They probably view this thing as the savior of personal transportation; any side effects will be offset by the undeniable increase in productivity and efficiency. But, if they are going to experiment with technology like this, they must be responsible. After all, they wouldn't want their customers to get so fat with laziness they can't even fit on the thing.

Until tomorrow...

peace