Foot In Mouth, But In A Good Way
Irradiated by Stingray
So yesterday over at Tam’s, I noted that it’s a pretty two-bit future when there are wombs to let (though for a fair bit more than fifty cents) but I don’t have a neural-interface rifle scope, or a flying car. Well, this morning courtesy of Theo Spark (nsfw), it turns out the future we’re living in is brighter than I thought. To whit, flying cars are just about here! Granted, given the air currents from all the canyons and mountains around here, operating one would probably be like trying to tap dance on a razor blade while juggling angry wombats and I would in short order become a Stingray Paté, I still feel more than a little tickled at this news. No one is allowed to burst my bubble on this by pointing out the FAA or highway folks or FCC would ban or license the shit out of these in a heartbeat for the next 24 hours.
All right, Leupold. I’ve got half of my future just about here, let’s chop chop on that model VX-2nd Cranial Nerve. Hell, once the trademark gold ring goes in, we can nickname it the Goldeneye and maybe include a date with Famke Jensen in the package?
January 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
You might get some electronic aiming devices which do all the ballistics calculation and aiming for you. It’d probably take all the fun out of shooting something, though.
You could always buy one of these.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:21 pm
The good news: Those concepts (like Moller’s) also have a “car-like” interface that will decide what you need to do, so the actual flight mechanics will be taken care of for you.
The bad news: That’s been the Airbus plan. We can see how well that’s been working. (Their head of Engineering said once “If we could get rid of those two morons up front, we could make a airplane that would never crash.”)
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Ain’t going to happen.
A big chunk of pilot training is dealing with other pilots, airspace around airports, and airspace restrictions.
And then there is weather.
Herding the plane around is only a part of the puzzle.
Most pilots aren’t all that interested in aircraft they don’t have full control over. If you want something that is as easy to fly as driving a car, well … the Ercoupe has been around for decades.
Moller turned out to be a fraud ( as I predicted years ago ). They ran out of suckers willing to buy places in the “production line”, so they folded up shop.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I’m surprised there aren’t any cargo drones in use by the military. It seems like something they’d experiment with.