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San Francisco, 10:40 AM
Tue Dec 22
27 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality

    A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers

    I, Robot Gallery

    Meet The Young, Frisky Susan Calvin, In "I, Robot" Prequel Trilogy

    Flesh Blob Robot Makes Its Crawly Debut

    Science Fiction's Greatest Legal Minds - Revealed!

    The Only Good Scene In "I, Robot"

    How Isaac Asimov's Non-Deadly Robots Got Lethal

    The Scariest Killer Robots Look Like Dead People

    Roombas Explore Their Creative Side
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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    Maglev cars that drive themselves would be great, thanks. But no talking.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was starred Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. was unstarred
    Image of matthewabel matthewabel
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    I wish the highways system had a car rail function so you could drive onto the rails or connect to an over head wire and the system would take over until your exit. It would be pretty sweet for travelling cross country. When you got to your exit, you'd have to take manual control, but it would be pretty cool.
     Reply
    Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment matthewabel was starred matthewabel was unstarred
    Image of beercheck beercheck
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    The fiction: SecureFoam
     Reply
    beercheck was starred beercheck was unstarred
    Image of beercheck beercheck
    12/10/09

    The Reality: Air Bags
     Reply
    beercheck was starred beercheck was unstarred
    Image of Matthew Anderson Matthew Anderson
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    I forgot how cheesy-looking the early live-action Batmobiles were.

    I think we can all agree that Batman: The Animated Series had the best Batmobile. The new tumbler/batmobile gets points for not being a block long and still looking cool.
     Reply
    Janglesatwest promoted this comment Matthew Anderson was starred Matthew Anderson was unstarred
    Image of hardcache hardcache
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    Oh, how I wish I could own a Tumbler!
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards promoted this comment hardcache was starred hardcache was unstarred
    Image of Pessimippöpötåmus Pessimippöpötåmus
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    When do we get these then?
     Reply
    Pessimippöpötåmus was starred Pessimippöpötåmus was unstarred
    Image of Bill-Lee Bill-Lee
    12/10/09

    @Pessimippopotamus: When the Singularity happens. Any day now...honest. Ray Kurzweil says so. He's a futurist. And futurists would never lie to us.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee was starred Bill-Lee was unstarred
    Image of RandomArt RandomArt
    12/10/09

    @Bill-Lee: They may not lie. But half the time they aren't right. Just look at 1984 and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's been 8 years since I found that obelisk and I'm still not a space fetus.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee promoted this comment RandomArt was starred RandomArt was unstarred
    Image of Valkyrie Ice Valkyrie Ice
    12/11/09

    @Bill-Lee: Untrue. Kurzweil's prediction is actually a conservative estimate of 2045 to 2060.
     Reply
    Bill-Lee promoted this comment Valkyrie Ice was starred Valkyrie Ice was unstarred
    Image of Bill-Lee Bill-Lee
    12/11/09

    @Valkyrie Ice: Uh, yeah...I was making a joke. My comment was a play on words since one of his books is called "The Singularity is Near". And really, when you think about it, 2045 is pretty near...well within the lifetime of most of this blog's readers.
     Reply
    Edited by Bill-Lee at 12/11/09 1:11 AM Bill-Lee was starred Bill-Lee was unstarred
    Image of GarnetLynne GarnetLynne
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    Hey I don't see the antigrav cars from Blade Runner here. I thought they did a great design on them and the ones that were retro-fitted were cool too.
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards promoted this comment GarnetLynne was starred GarnetLynne was unstarred
    Image of LittleDragon LittleDragon
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    I love Top Gear. Those boys are a riot.
     Reply
    LittleDragon was starred LittleDragon was unstarred
    Image of Mary Ratliff Mary Ratliff
    12/10/09

    @LittleDragon: I have to admit it's probably my favorite show on television right now. Whenever I'm in a bad mood or not feeling well I start looking up clips on YouTube.
     Reply
    Mary Ratliff was starred Mary Ratliff was unstarred
    Image of Corvus-Corax Corvus-Corax
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    When are we going to have flying cars?
     Reply
    MonkeyT promoted this comment Corvus-Corax was starred Corvus-Corax was unstarred
    Image of MonkeyT MonkeyT
    12/10/09

    @Corvus-Corax: When they can break down without sudden and inevitable death.
     Reply
    MonkeyT was starred MonkeyT was unstarred
    Image of Vexxarr Vexxarr
    12/10/09

    @MonkeyT: Inevitable death may be a bit extreme but you do correctly point out the major obstacle to overcome. Ballistic parachutes are obviously required equipment. Automated flight control is obviously mandatory. And the flying cars will have to talk to each other so in the event of a computer malfunction, the other functioning units will avoid the errant vehicle of their own accord.

    I will say that based on American drivers, flying cars could not be far more deadly than the current ground crawling variety. In fact, they'd have to be packed with high explosives to be far more dangerous than the cars I dodge on a daily basis.

    When will I trust a computer to handle all of our driving? Yesterday! I have a TI-35 calculator I trust over most of my fellow motorists. It's not as if the 100 year human as driver experiment has exactly been a success, has it? DARPA would actually have to spend money to invent a computer WORSE than the human driver.

    Not that I'm bitter...
     Reply
    Mary Ratliff promoted this comment Edited by Vexxarr at 12/10/09 12:20 PM Vexxarr was starred Vexxarr was unstarred
    Image of Mary Ratliff Mary Ratliff
    12/10/09

    @Vexxarr: Yeah, I really feel that computers driving would be safer, overall. I drive in D.C. all the time ; )

    Though I do think that in general, minor fender benders and accidents would drop drastically but when an accident DID happen, it would be due to a large failure of the system and probably be more deadly or involve more people.

    But I think it would all add up to be safer.
     Reply
    Mary Ratliff was starred Mary Ratliff was unstarred
    Image of MonkeyT MonkeyT
    12/10/09

    In reply to Your Future Automotive Awesomeness: Fiction vs. Reality
    When it comes to mag-lev train safety, I know of only one accident in the history of mag-lev, and that was caused by a conventional truck hitting the underside of a German elevated track. But it was ugly.
     Reply
    Edited by MonkeyT at 12/10/09 10:46 AM MonkeyT was starred MonkeyT was unstarred
    Image of Vexxarr Vexxarr
    12/10/09

    @MonkeyT: Actually, there are hundreds of mag-lev accidents every year but the extreme Gauss fields erase the survivor's memories and destroy any electronic media of the incident...in fact...what was I saying again?
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards promoted this comment Vexxarr was starred Vexxarr was unstarred
    Image of Dirk Anger Dirk Anger
    11/18/09

    In reply to A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers
    De Elektrische Nachtmerrie? And here I thought title translations to Spanish were lame
     Reply
    Dirk Anger was starred Dirk Anger was unstarred
    Image of Bigdamnhero Bigdamnhero
    11/17/09

    In reply to A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers
    Thank you. That was a wonderful waste of an hour.

    I got a kick out of the Dick covers. You can just hear the designers thinking, "I gotta stick some damn sheep on the cover somewhere? Christ. How the hell am I gonna do that?"
     Reply
    Edited by Bigdamnhero at 11/17/09 9:14 PM Bigdamnhero was starred Bigdamnhero was unstarred
    Image of SJ_Edwards SJ_Edwards
    11/17/09

    @Bigdamnhero:
    I bet the answer came to them in their sleep. #bookcovers
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards was starred SJ_Edwards was unstarred
    Image of gods-n-clods gods-n-clods
    11/17/09

    In reply to A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers
    Water from the well, this is. Must preserve them for future generations. #bookcovers
     Reply
    gods-n-clods was starred gods-n-clods was unstarred
    Image of SJ_Edwards SJ_Edwards
    11/17/09

    In reply to A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers

      #bookcovers [www.chrisfossart.com]
     Reply
    Edited by SJ_Edwards at 11/17/09 7:37 PM SJ_Edwards was starred SJ_Edwards was unstarred
    Image of RizzRustbolt RizzRustbolt
    11/18/09

    @SJ_Edwards: Oooo... I love Chris Foss's work.
     Reply
    SJ_Edwards promoted this comment RizzRustbolt was starred RizzRustbolt was unstarred
    Image of SJ_Edwards SJ_Edwards
    11/17/09

    In reply to A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers
    Awesome!
    For me, it's the polychrome space derelicts of Chris Foss's covers, that will forever populate the endless Oort cloud of my mind........
    [en.wikipedia.org] .
     Reply
    Edited by SJ_Edwards at 11/17/09 7:29 PM SJ_Edwards was starred SJ_Edwards was unstarred
    Image of Chip Skylark of Space Chip Skylark of Space
    11/18/09

    @SJ_Edwards: Berkey did some really nice giant space ship covers. I keep coming back to THE SKY IS FILLED WITH SHIPS. Great cover, great title, just above average novel. The same author (Richard C. Meredith) did another long titled book- WE ALL DIED AT BREAKAWAY STATION. That one had another Berkey cover, but it was much muddier. Then Meredith died incredibly young (41?).
     Reply
    Chip Skylark of Space was starred Chip Skylark of Space was unstarred
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