On a trip to southern Germany, I go to great lengths to get a digital ticket for my train and bus journey to my destination. For the train part, nobody cares to check my ticket. For the bus part, the driver wonders what the heck that is. Next time, I just bought a paper ticket from the machine or tte driver.
The DB Navigator app is pretty good for that. If you check in to your reserved seat then the inspector just passes you by.
The thing that gave us a surprise last year though was that at least some regional trains are request stop. I only noticed as we went through the station we were meant to get off at!
Last time I was in Greece, one taxi driver had two mobiles - one hands-free with Google Maps directions and the other in his hand receiving messages and calls - all going on while driving on narrow roads! The thought of getting in any kind of flying taxi driven by a person trying to juggle all that is more than a little terrifying. I'll wait for robotic TITS thanks.
Croatia. Dubrovnik. B-Road with two lanes (fairly typical, you head one way; the other lane heads in the reverse direction). Watching the driver suddenly start a hand-held mobile phone call then texting whilst staring down a 1,000 for drop just about the width of a car to your left…
I reconsidered my failure to learn to swim as a child, and wondered who would mourn me if I met a watery end…
On the bus from the airport into Oslo..... the driver was on his phone and was spotted by the police and ordered to pull in at the next services..... which he overshot but then reversed up the motorway 'on' slip-road..... It was stupendously dangerous.
I take the train now. And I'm sure I will when flying taxis become the norm.
I was surprised that one of the digressions in the article wasn't about A-TITS.
But would you trust an AI to deliver you safely? Hell I've played a lot of games which try and do path-finding, and had my lovely ship totalled running into a station at silly speeds ;)
And… minimum landing distance from the nearest building (in London, Paris, or Rome, etc.) without landing in a public park about a mile from your destination forcing you to walk in the rain/thunderstorm/baking hot sun to your destination?
Still, would be nice to drive up to a set of traffic lights and soar into the sky to bypass the articulated lorry that’s taking up two lanes on the uphill slope of the road whilst waiting to enter a roundabout that’s going to need a clear space.of about 60 seconds for him to actually get the lorry onto the roundabout in the first place before he forces traffic to halt on the roundabout.
The most I see of the outside world is when walking the dog (not a euphemism). The rest of the time it’s to the local Aldi/Lidl complex for such luxuries as toilet roll, bread, cheese, meats, vegetables.
Just thinking though, would put me out of a job as ‘designated driver’. BRING ‘EM ON! I can still be sober, and not in charge of driving multiple people all over town at the end of the evening!
That’ll be fun clambering down with your weekly shop from Tesco, or maybe we’ll use robot delivery bots for that job, and save the dangerous activities for the return from the pub!
Sep 29, 2023·edited Sep 29, 2023Liked by Alistair Dabbs
Then there's the whole idea of what happens when it breaks down? Bad enough that land-based breakdowns clog up a lane, but walking around having to watch out for plummeting TITS could get one into a lot of trouble.
Yeah, you wouldn't want to try and cram yourself into a small one, at least it would need to be a large one. And with a group of friends only a massive jobby would do!
I remember one time a bunch of us went to a demonstration of emergency vehicles, and the air ambulance was flying in to the far end of the parking lot, so we went rushing over there to see it land. I found out first-hand that when a helicopter visits someplace, all of the sharp little stones that used to be there had gone flying away at unusually high velocity…
Helicopters are bad enough, but the loudest I have seen close to was at an airshow years ago when a Harrier vertical landed it was about 100’ in front of me, the engines on that really kick the dust up and that was on reasonably clean tarmac. If they want this to work they need a reactionless power plant…..
Ah yes. Out with the guys in Green, my transport arrives and turns out to be a Chinook. I’m told to lie on my bag face down while it lands. I then stand up, and promptly fall over backwards in the down draft!
The landscape maintenance team do this during their weekly visit to our estate, using their rocket-powered pointless noise generators, otherwise known as 'leaf-blowers'. So far, they have managed to shatter three car windows with small stones blown from the kerb. Mine was one of these cars.
The leaf blower - a device for moving tiny objects from a neat pile to spread over a mile radius whilst making enough noise to shatter windows, a brush and shovel does a much better job….
I can see Koenig trying to unlock a door remotely but the CommLock tells him it's still installing an update, then he has to sign back into the device, but is required to change his password first, then untick 900 non-functionality cookies one by one, etc etc...
Flying Taxis, yellow, and piloted by Bruce Willis in an orange vest.
One of my favourite films.
Harry Chapin, “Taxi.”
https://youtu.be/4qYU9b5OF8M
On a trip to southern Germany, I go to great lengths to get a digital ticket for my train and bus journey to my destination. For the train part, nobody cares to check my ticket. For the bus part, the driver wonders what the heck that is. Next time, I just bought a paper ticket from the machine or tte driver.
The DB Navigator app is pretty good for that. If you check in to your reserved seat then the inspector just passes you by.
The thing that gave us a surprise last year though was that at least some regional trains are request stop. I only noticed as we went through the station we were meant to get off at!
Last time I was in Greece, one taxi driver had two mobiles - one hands-free with Google Maps directions and the other in his hand receiving messages and calls - all going on while driving on narrow roads! The thought of getting in any kind of flying taxi driven by a person trying to juggle all that is more than a little terrifying. I'll wait for robotic TITS thanks.
Croatia. Dubrovnik. B-Road with two lanes (fairly typical, you head one way; the other lane heads in the reverse direction). Watching the driver suddenly start a hand-held mobile phone call then texting whilst staring down a 1,000 for drop just about the width of a car to your left…
I reconsidered my failure to learn to swim as a child, and wondered who would mourn me if I met a watery end…
Would be interesting in the subsequent law suit as they claimed it was your fault that you died, if only you'd got that bronze swimming certificate!
On the bus from the airport into Oslo..... the driver was on his phone and was spotted by the police and ordered to pull in at the next services..... which he overshot but then reversed up the motorway 'on' slip-road..... It was stupendously dangerous.
I take the train now. And I'm sure I will when flying taxis become the norm.
I was surprised that one of the digressions in the article wasn't about A-TITS.
But would you trust an AI to deliver you safely? Hell I've played a lot of games which try and do path-finding, and had my lovely ship totalled running into a station at silly speeds ;)
And… what about landing rights in private roads?
And… minimum landing distance from the nearest building (in London, Paris, or Rome, etc.) without landing in a public park about a mile from your destination forcing you to walk in the rain/thunderstorm/baking hot sun to your destination?
Still, would be nice to drive up to a set of traffic lights and soar into the sky to bypass the articulated lorry that’s taking up two lanes on the uphill slope of the road whilst waiting to enter a roundabout that’s going to need a clear space.of about 60 seconds for him to actually get the lorry onto the roundabout in the first place before he forces traffic to halt on the roundabout.
The most I see of the outside world is when walking the dog (not a euphemism). The rest of the time it’s to the local Aldi/Lidl complex for such luxuries as toilet roll, bread, cheese, meats, vegetables.
Just thinking though, would put me out of a job as ‘designated driver’. BRING ‘EM ON! I can still be sober, and not in charge of driving multiple people all over town at the end of the evening!
They wouldn’t need to land just chuck a rope ladder out for you to climb up or down as appropriate
That’ll be fun clambering down with your weekly shop from Tesco, or maybe we’ll use robot delivery bots for that job, and save the dangerous activities for the return from the pub!
Then there's the whole idea of what happens when it breaks down? Bad enough that land-based breakdowns clog up a lane, but walking around having to watch out for plummeting TITS could get one into a lot of trouble.
Whoever named their company Joby (no doubt much whale song and many joss sticks were involved) has clearly never visited Scotland.
Maybe they were thinking of this. https://youtu.be/n3_ZNcBVHvg?si=LanzuRmQKuozDEMe
Yeah, you wouldn't want to try and cram yourself into a small one, at least it would need to be a large one. And with a group of friends only a massive jobby would do!
It feels like we’ve been discussing the futility of flying cars for my entire life:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar
I remember one time a bunch of us went to a demonstration of emergency vehicles, and the air ambulance was flying in to the far end of the parking lot, so we went rushing over there to see it land. I found out first-hand that when a helicopter visits someplace, all of the sharp little stones that used to be there had gone flying away at unusually high velocity…
Helicopters are bad enough, but the loudest I have seen close to was at an airshow years ago when a Harrier vertical landed it was about 100’ in front of me, the engines on that really kick the dust up and that was on reasonably clean tarmac. If they want this to work they need a reactionless power plant…..
Ah yes. Out with the guys in Green, my transport arrives and turns out to be a Chinook. I’m told to lie on my bag face down while it lands. I then stand up, and promptly fall over backwards in the down draft!
The landscape maintenance team do this during their weekly visit to our estate, using their rocket-powered pointless noise generators, otherwise known as 'leaf-blowers'. So far, they have managed to shatter three car windows with small stones blown from the kerb. Mine was one of these cars.
The leaf blower - a device for moving tiny objects from a neat pile to spread over a mile radius whilst making enough noise to shatter windows, a brush and shovel does a much better job….
I always wanted a CommLock, as featured in Space 1999.
A small handheld device that could be used for video communication and to control door locks etc.
Ah. Errr ..
I can see Koenig trying to unlock a door remotely but the CommLock tells him it's still installing an update, then he has to sign back into the device, but is required to change his password first, then untick 900 non-functionality cookies one by one, etc etc...