7 ms·

On the contrary, the future isn't arriving anywhere nearly fast enough. I'm old too – but when I was a teenager, I expected that by now there would be a moonbas

by MaysonL 11y ago

On the contrary, the future isn't arriving anywhere nearly fast enough. I'm old too – but when I was a teenager, I expected that by now there would be a moonbase or three, not to mention thriving orbital colonies, Mars expeditions, self-driving cars for sale, solar power satellites, and maybe even brain-to-computer direct interfaces or augmented reality a la Rainbows End. The future ain't what it used to be, dammit!

Filthy_casual 11y ago
And flying cars. Jetsons lied.
- berntb 11y ago
  That should finally be close? Just add drones and self driving cars together. Soon we will have drones to deliver larger stuff than a small package from Amazon, so all the basic parts will be there. Take a drone which can carry two people's weight and put a transparent box with a door on it. Add small wheels and some minimal parking capacity. Add a parachute for emergencies. (Note that there won't be a long educations for pilots. You just choose an address in Google Maps. If the drone can land vertically you might have to select a flat area at the destination, but it should be negotiated (along with parking fee) before going there.) Instead of flying cars I'd rather have the cheap launch capacity of the Shuttle, which must have set some record when it was ~ two orders of a magnitude more expensive per pound than promised. :-( With so low launch costs we would finally get real giant space telescopes and an industrial infrastructure outside the atmosphere.
  - kaybe 11y ago
    You're describing a small autonomous helicopter. (We have lots of experience with the helicopter part at least.)
    - berntb 11y ago
      That was my explicit point in the first two sentences. The parts are here. Add a transparent box to a soon existing drone, add self-driving and you have a flying car. Military drones fly themselves already. There will be routing systems for drones when e.g. Amazon starts to deliver packets to the home. And so on. (But not necessarily helicopter. Note the "If the drone can land vertically". You could do this with a drone air plane. If the transparent box (passenger compartment) is moved automatically to/from an automated taxi to a drone, you have a point-to-point taxi service anywhere.) Edit: The next logical step is a trailer home with solar energy -- move it anywhere with a taxi large helicopter airlift. Drones deliver groceries, while you enjoy the view from your mountain top, far from any roads.
- rangibaby 11y ago
  Flying cars are one of those things that make sense until you think about them carefully and with the benefit of hindsight. I wonder what our "flying car" is now in 2016.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    What doesn't make sense? The Transition looks fairly OK, though it probably only suits flying to places that are small and don't have rental cars. Flying car now is a better idea, if they're automated. More complicated flight systems are no problem for software. And safety will be far better than humans. Though if we get fully automated roads/cars, the speed improvement might not be so big. (Automated roads might be able to go at what, 200Kph? More on highways?)
    - jedrek 11y ago
      Flying cars are a horrible idea. Flying requires a 20x higher energy output than driving. It's extremely weather sensitive. It requires space for landing, unless you go VLTO, then your energy usage skyrockets even more. There are huge privacy concerns, last mile and noise issues. Not to mention it would be a further move from mass transit to (much less efficient) private transportation.
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        I just see it as a personal plane that doesn't require a taxi or rental car. If they were more common, then the limited amount of space needed for a light-car runway would be easier to pop in. Also note that Jetsons, to use a fictional example, had no qualms about building up, in comparison to apparently everyone in the West.
      - tremon 11y ago
        I'm not sure that's always the case. Take a look at the PAL-V, which is in production right now (there was a short item on it on Dutch TV, they're currently looking for investors to boost international sales). According to their specifications [1], it can do 6 km/l when flying, and 12 km/l on land. The specs they give aren't directly comparable sadly, so I had to do a short calculation to get the flying mileage (180 km/28 l), but it suggests that your 20x figure is one order of magnitude too high. The vehicle's range also suggests a 3x difference, not 20x. [1] http://pal-v.com/the-pal-v-one/specifications/ http://pal-v.com/the-pal-v-one/specifications/
- wolfgke 11y ago
  Flying cars exist - they are called "helicopters": http://xkcd.com/1623/ http://xkcd.com/1623/
  - tim333 11y ago
    Or Terrafugias http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/flying-cars-get-faa-approval-for-testing/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/flying-cars-get-faa-approv... As someone who did a pilot's license, real flying is pretty complicated at the moment by the time you've checked 20 things, radioed air traffic control etc. To get a movie flying car like experience I think you'd need self driving car type AI to deal with that stuff. Which could happen before long.
    - wolfgke 11y ago
      But here the problems are clearly in the laws. Don't complain to the engineers where the flying cars are, but complain to your representative for deregulation in the laws.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        And then complain about evil government not doing enough about half-ton metal bricks falling out of the sky and killing people. Humans are too dumb to be able to drive cars safely, as evidenced by over a million people dying in traffic accidents each year. That the air travel industry has so little accidents is a miracle, and in big part owed to all those pesky and annoying regulations that can coordinate thousands of people on the same task and make them do their jobs right.
        wolfgke 11y ago
        > And then complain about evil government not doing enough about half-ton metal bricks falling out of the sky and killing people. I believe that the class of people who complains in this case is rather disjoint from the class that wants less regulation.
SolarNet 11y ago
Augmented reality is coming along nicely actually, you may get your Rainbows End augmented reality sooner than you think. Between the virtual reality solutions already being sold, the recent advancements made to get there, and the experiments with things like google glass and meta, it may be a reality sooner rather than later (see hololens).
- rimantas 11y ago
  It is funny thoguh, how those who want augmented reality the most pay the least attention to the reality around.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Augmented reality != virtual reality. Also, the real reality sucks. ;).
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
When I was a little kid in the fourth grade, I remember doing a book report about nuclear power, and how fusion research meant that we'd be done with fossil fuels forever any decade now. Still waiting for any serious attempt to get off fossil fuels. Oh well, there goes the planet.
- tim333 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440708 yesterday was quite upbeat on the off fossil thing.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Wind and solar are nice, but it'll be The Future when we finally get power that's "too cheap to meter".
    - msandford 11y ago
      The future is never, then, because you'll still have to pay for how much copper (and everything else) is tied up in the delivery of power from the free power plant to your house. Which isn't free.
      - lloyd-christmas 11y ago
        They never said "free" they said "too cheap to meter". The costs you mention are typically infrastructure related taxes, and aren't done on a per-usage basis.
        msandford 11y ago
        So we're going to buy power based on our theoretical peak consumption? Like if I want 100 amps of 220V single-phase service to my house that's $X and if I want 200 amps of 3 phase 220V that's $2X? Or however it works? I'm not necessarily opposed to something like that, but then we'll be getting back into the "you sold me unlimited internet but it's not really unlimited because even if I use it at 100% capacity I can't consume infinite bandwidth, so there is in fact a real limit"
kev009 11y ago
The article has nothing to do with the "actual" future of things like energy. He's being cheeky that, due to general silliness on several levels of media companies, he cannot get content he wants as easily as he used to despite streaming being "the future" where every content ever should be instantly available for purchase and view, and all parties should be happy about that.

by MaysonL 11y ago

Filthy_casual 11y ago

And flying cars. Jetsons lied.

berntb 11y ago
That should finally be close? Just add drones and self driving cars together. Soon we will have drones to deliver larger stuff than a small package from Amazon, so all the basic parts will be there. Take a drone which can carry two people's weight and put a transparent box with a door on it. Add small wheels and some minimal parking capacity. Add a parachute for emergencies. (Note that there won't be a long educations for pilots. You just choose an address in Google Maps. If the drone can land vertically you might have to select a flat area at the destination, but it should be negotiated (along with parking fee) before going there.) Instead of flying cars I'd rather have the cheap launch capacity of the Shuttle, which must have set some record when it was ~ two orders of a magnitude more expensive per pound than promised. :-( With so low launch costs we would finally get real giant space telescopes and an industrial infrastructure outside the atmosphere.
- kaybe 11y ago
  You're describing a small autonomous helicopter. (We have lots of experience with the helicopter part at least.)
  - berntb 11y ago
    That was my explicit point in the first two sentences. The parts are here. Add a transparent box to a soon existing drone, add self-driving and you have a flying car. Military drones fly themselves already. There will be routing systems for drones when e.g. Amazon starts to deliver packets to the home. And so on. (But not necessarily helicopter. Note the "If the drone can land vertically". You could do this with a drone air plane. If the transparent box (passenger compartment) is moved automatically to/from an automated taxi to a drone, you have a point-to-point taxi service anywhere.) Edit: The next logical step is a trailer home with solar energy -- move it anywhere with a taxi large helicopter airlift. Drones deliver groceries, while you enjoy the view from your mountain top, far from any roads.
rangibaby 11y ago
Flying cars are one of those things that make sense until you think about them carefully and with the benefit of hindsight. I wonder what our "flying car" is now in 2016.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  What doesn't make sense? The Transition looks fairly OK, though it probably only suits flying to places that are small and don't have rental cars. Flying car now is a better idea, if they're automated. More complicated flight systems are no problem for software. And safety will be far better than humans. Though if we get fully automated roads/cars, the speed improvement might not be so big. (Automated roads might be able to go at what, 200Kph? More on highways?)
  - jedrek 11y ago
    Flying cars are a horrible idea. Flying requires a 20x higher energy output than driving. It's extremely weather sensitive. It requires space for landing, unless you go VLTO, then your energy usage skyrockets even more. There are huge privacy concerns, last mile and noise issues. Not to mention it would be a further move from mass transit to (much less efficient) private transportation.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      I just see it as a personal plane that doesn't require a taxi or rental car. If they were more common, then the limited amount of space needed for a light-car runway would be easier to pop in. Also note that Jetsons, to use a fictional example, had no qualms about building up, in comparison to apparently everyone in the West.
    - tremon 11y ago
      I'm not sure that's always the case. Take a look at the PAL-V, which is in production right now (there was a short item on it on Dutch TV, they're currently looking for investors to boost international sales). According to their specifications [1], it can do 6 km/l when flying, and 12 km/l on land. The specs they give aren't directly comparable sadly, so I had to do a short calculation to get the flying mileage (180 km/28 l), but it suggests that your 20x figure is one order of magnitude too high. The vehicle's range also suggests a 3x difference, not 20x. [1] http://pal-v.com/the-pal-v-one/specifications/ http://pal-v.com/the-pal-v-one/specifications/
wolfgke 11y ago
Flying cars exist - they are called "helicopters": http://xkcd.com/1623/ http://xkcd.com/1623/
- tim333 11y ago
  Or Terrafugias http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/flying-cars-get-faa-approval-for-testing/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/flying-cars-get-faa-approv... As someone who did a pilot's license, real flying is pretty complicated at the moment by the time you've checked 20 things, radioed air traffic control etc. To get a movie flying car like experience I think you'd need self driving car type AI to deal with that stuff. Which could happen before long.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    But here the problems are clearly in the laws. Don't complain to the engineers where the flying cars are, but complain to your representative for deregulation in the laws.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      And then complain about evil government not doing enough about half-ton metal bricks falling out of the sky and killing people. Humans are too dumb to be able to drive cars safely, as evidenced by over a million people dying in traffic accidents each year. That the air travel industry has so little accidents is a miracle, and in big part owed to all those pesky and annoying regulations that can coordinate thousands of people on the same task and make them do their jobs right.
      - wolfgke 11y ago
        > And then complain about evil government not doing enough about half-ton metal bricks falling out of the sky and killing people. I believe that the class of people who complains in this case is rather disjoint from the class that wants less regulation.

SolarNet 11y ago

Augmented reality is coming along nicely actually, you may get your Rainbows End augmented reality sooner than you think. Between the virtual reality solutions already being sold, the recent advancements made to get there, and the experiments with things like google glass and meta, it may be a reality sooner rather than later (see hololens).

rimantas 11y ago
It is funny thoguh, how those who want augmented reality the most pay the least attention to the reality around.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Augmented reality != virtual reality. Also, the real reality sucks. ;).

eli_gottlieb 11y ago

When I was a little kid in the fourth grade, I remember doing a book report about nuclear power, and how fusion research meant that we'd be done with fossil fuels forever any decade now. Still waiting for any serious attempt to get off fossil fuels. Oh well, there goes the planet.

tim333 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11440708 yesterday was quite upbeat on the off fossil thing.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Wind and solar are nice, but it'll be The Future when we finally get power that's "too cheap to meter".
  - msandford 11y ago
    The future is never, then, because you'll still have to pay for how much copper (and everything else) is tied up in the delivery of power from the free power plant to your house. Which isn't free.
    - lloyd-christmas 11y ago
      They never said "free" they said "too cheap to meter". The costs you mention are typically infrastructure related taxes, and aren't done on a per-usage basis.
      - msandford 11y ago
        So we're going to buy power based on our theoretical peak consumption? Like if I want 100 amps of 220V single-phase service to my house that's $X and if I want 200 amps of 3 phase 220V that's $2X? Or however it works? I'm not necessarily opposed to something like that, but then we'll be getting back into the "you sold me unlimited internet but it's not really unlimited because even if I use it at 100% capacity I can't consume infinite bandwidth, so there is in fact a real limit"

kev009 11y ago

The article has nothing to do with the "actual" future of things like energy. He's being cheeky that, due to general silliness on several levels of media companies, he cannot get content he wants as easily as he used to despite streaming being "the future" where every content ever should be instantly available for purchase and view, and all parties should be happy about that.