[ExI] self driving cars

Mike Dougherty msd001 at gmail.com
Sat May 19 02:27:38 UTC 2012


On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 3:45 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>>... Mass transit is an equally poor name:  Are we hauling the masses as
> figurative terminology for what spike calls proles...
>
> I didn't make up the name, credit the brilliant George Orwell.

Yeah right, but he's not contributing daily to the list.  Also, nobody
else I know has the nerve to call 'em "proles" - so it makes me laugh
when I imagine you using the term with simultaneous respect and
disdain.  (as a most-important majority and an equally unfortunate
majority)

>>...I assume you are familiar with the coffee house argument for why England
> became an industrial superpower...
>
> Don't know it.  Why?

I heard it was French Revolution via coffee house.  Whatever.  The
underlying argument is that hyped up on caffeine and rabble-rousing
the organizers of change are more energized to overcome the inertia of
the status quo and actually DO something.

> Reasoning: most fuel is burned pushing air out of the way.  In that regard,
> air resistance is proportional to frontal area, whereas length is almost
> free, and even that is an understatement: a longer vehicle can have a lower

Hmm... pneumatic tubes?  At least then we'd be saying, "If this ride
could suck any harder I'd be there by now"




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