hyperloop

My point is being misunderstood here (I'll take the blame for that). Let me rephrase it differently: I feel this project is interesting from an engineering/technology standpoint, it seems to offer a good service as far as travel time and travel price are concerned (even if there are many question marks when it comes to the total price tag of the project and the volume of passengers it can sustain), but, and this is a big but, I feel it is pants on head retarded as far as user experience is concerned (also my verdict on VR displays for the '90s to Occulus Rift btw).

The trip between SF and LA is proposed to be 30 minutes. No different than a 30 minute trip on a subway.

Azeth_sl said:

personal sized, grounded vehicles seem impossible to replace.

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Your best hope for car innovation is self-driving cars. Flying cars are sci-fi mental masturbation that will never happen, or at least not in our lifetime.

If cars were self-driving (especially on highways and other high-traffic roads), traffic could be coordinated with some elegance and you could utilize roads more efficiently. A lot of traffic issues stem from people driving like douchebags, which they are incentivized to do; if you cut lines, you get where you are going faster with no consequence to yourself, but major consequences to traffic flow. Self-driving cars prevent this issue, along with other human-decision problems (road rage, tailgating, speeding, reckless driving, drunk driving, etc).

People are also pretty awful at driving in general and haven't gotten better with the multitude of distractions available in today's cars. Accidents should be nearly eliminated with self-driving cars, rubbernecking would also be eliminated, and you are free to do as you please while the car gets you to your destination.

Some estimates put self-driving cars as little as 10-20 years out. Though planning & coordinating the transition from human-drive to self-drive may be harder than developing the self-drive tech itself.

Self driving cars have to happen before flying cars anyways since average joe can't navigate in 3D without crashing.

who's liable for the inevitable self driving car crash mishap? Car on pedestrian maybe.

Self driving cars sound great and I hope it happens in my lifetime. I always think of Minority Report when I'm thinking of self driving cars...

Azeth_sl said:

who's liable for the inevitable self driving car crash mishap? Car on pedestrian maybe.

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I'll kick that one over to the interweb law professors.

I keep thinking about the eventual utilization of augmented reality. One aspect of having all kinds of information spliced into your POV though is the potential distraction it can cause. People with cellphones are bad enough, people with google glass must be fucking zombies at times.

Self driving cars will permit people to be totally engrossed in whatever useless digital bullshit they happen to be focusing on while scooting to work. If a person should want to take manual control of the vehicle, then their porn browser app and stock ticker should be automatically forced to turn off and only data pertinent to driving should pop up. (Posted speed limit, road condition, potential hazards and people getting highlighted.)

If we do get to the point where we can basically do all of our work and browsing through these augmented interfaces, maybe, just maybe, the segway will actually have found a purpose if it can automatically navigate people through buildings.

The future will be millions of people being so completely oblivious to their surroundings and totally enraptured by the stream of crap the network feeds them that they will rely entirely on automated navigation systems to get anywhere. This will destroy people's ability to "self navigate" and should the system ever break down, it will leave people completely confused and useless.

I will hopefully be an old crazy mountain man by this point, living in a shack in the woods and sustaining myself with a diet of squirrel soup and berries. So maybe I wont have to deal with any of it.

So basically the humans from Wall-E

Szlia_sl said:

My point is being misunderstood here (I'll take the blame for that). Let me rephrase it differently: I feel this project is interesting from an engineering/technology standpoint, it seems to offer a good service as far as travel time and travel price are concerned (even if there are many question marks when it comes to the total price tag of the project and the volume of passengers it can sustain), but, and this is a big but, I feel it is pants on head retarded as far as user experience is concerned (also my verdict on VR displays for the '90s to Occulus Rift btw).

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How is the "user experience" any different than a subway?

Neph_sl said:

So basically the humans from Wall-E

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Probably. Looking directly at someone without augmented sight is going to be a rare thing, so actual appearance probably wont be as big of a focus. Having all sorts of graphics and filters and effects associated with your profile, that will then be applied to your image for anyone else looking at you, will be something people spend time and money on.

I mean no one will care what non augmented people think so why bother worrying about what you look like to them. People will still buy exclusive clothes, but they will probably all be essentially identical except for the designer tags embedded in the clothing that lets everyone know you bought the $250 t-shirt endorsed by some shitty musician that can't sing without having their voice processed and remixed, and not the $5 disposable t-shirt from All-mart. Also, having an account with your favorite vendor/ designer will allow you to customize your look and you'll purchase skins that will change the way your shirt or shoes appear. But people will only want something if it is exclusive or hard to obtain, so hand crafted Italian leather shoes and such will still probably be status symbols. Except everything worth having will have an associated tag and page that people can quickly reference to see just how rare and amazing something is.

Not sure if people are going to get fatter or skinnier. Being fat is associated with what is easy (Eat cheap food and don't move...) and thus looked down upon. Being skinny or fit is difficult since no one does manual labor. So people will still chase what is hard to obtain. If becoming fit and healthy becomes really easy through advances in medicine and diet, then the super trendy will wish to be something else. Fat and super healthy or something else that is really weird. Maybe extreme body mods will become more mainstream like tattoos did.

Eh maybe advances in prosthetic and powered limbs will become so advanced that people with money to burn will actually opt to have them installed even if they don't need them. That way you can have legs that can auto walk you to your next destination, or programmable hands that can do extremely deft activities in 1000th's of a second.

Anyways this thread was about some new public transit system. Although for movement of goods... I keep thinking that automated, solar powered, high altitude dirigibles will take over mass shipping of goods. You could build those suckers friggin HUGE, they would avoid adverse weather, never need to sleep and be energy efficient since they are operating above cloud cover 98% of the time. Who knows...

Eomer_sl said:

How is the "user experience" any different than a subway?

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Ability to move around, to stand or sit. Ability to leave at any moment within five minutes. Aka: not feeling trapped in a coffin for 30 minutes?

I also like the fact that anyone with limited mobility is unable to enter or leave the vehicle by himself or that the 4 people spots have been designed by a peeping-tom fan of upskirt...

You don't. But usually when you need to leave the place you are to go somewhere else quickly, that involves toilets. I believe they have those on planes (though they probably charge you for their usage on low-cost airlines now).

On a side note, remember the question is not "WouldIride the hyperloop?" but "Wouldpeopleride the hyperloop?". My assertion is that too many people would not (or cannot) for it to be viable.

How about you pee at the station before launch? jesus christ even my 5 week old baby can hold it for 30 minutes.

The train I take to the airport takes 31 minutes. I sit in one seat and read or play phone games for those 31 minutes. I could get to LA in the same amount of time. And I think many other people in the LA and SF areas would be supportive of this.

Szlia_sl said:

On a side note, remember the question is not "WouldIride the hyperloop?" but "Wouldpeopleride the hyperloop?". My assertion is thattoo many people would not (or cannot) for it to be viable.

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IFthis becomes an economically viable form of travel then initially people will be hesitant but as time goes on convenience will overtake the vast majority of travelers. That takes care of the "would not's" of society. The "cannot's" get left behind just like they do now in planes, trains, and automobiles.

Szlia_sl said:

My point is being misunderstood here (I'll take the blame for that). Let me rephrase it differently: I feel this project is interesting from an engineering/technology standpoint, it seems to offer a good service as far as travel time and travel price are concerned (even if there are many question marks when it comes to the total price tag of the project and the volume of passengers it can sustain), but, and this is a big but, I feel it is pants on head retarded as far as user experience is concerned (also my verdict on VR displays for the '90s to Occulus Rift btw).

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I thought the same thing the last time I got into an elevator.