Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnJamesRambo | Hacker News Reader

I keep seeing people say this. Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense? Wheels work really well when your engine dies. Have you seen people drive in 2d space? You want to add a z axis? What’s the efficiency of a small plane? Surely not better than a Prius.

Edit: I looked it up and a Cessna gets ~15 mpg.

View on HN

The average person does virtually no regular maintenance / checking of their car, even basics like tyre pressures and oil levels not being checked regularly, happy to leave as much as they possibly can for an annual check at the garage. There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing.

Imagine that scenario with tons of metal that could fall out of the sky when something fails.

> There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing.

...or can't afford the basic maintenance

In other words, can't afford to own/operate a car.

Note, that's not a put down on said people. I think it's a shame such situations exist. But, if you can't afford to pay for insurance/gas/maintenance, then you can't afford the vehicle.

But, regarding flying cars: I absolutely do not want more people operating airborne spinny death machines capable of destroying considering we've already established many people don't/can't perform basic maintenance on a much simpler and safer mode of transportation. It wouldn't go well.

> In other words, can't afford to own/operate a car.

Or they know it isn’t worth fixing.

I had an engine light on for about 20000km, and sold the vehicle like that, because it wasn’t worth fixing. One competent mechanic talked me into trying to fix it before I tried to sell it, and that wasted $1000.

Another friend had an engine light on, and the workshop said that happened with that model sometimes and it wasn’t worth fixing.

Both of us could afford to fix the vehicles. That said, if an oil light comes on I stop the vehicle immediately.

That’s a dangerous mindset unless you’re actively pulling the check engine codes daily or more frequently. That one light represents many possible codes, and in all cars I’ve seen it’s on or off instead of, say, on and brighter.

The check engine light is a UI problem. LCDs are cheap now, it should be able to display the real problem. At least with a numeric code on the panel that you can look up in the owner's manual.

Where exactly do you live? In the US it's not common to have more than an aesthetic checkover of a car during inspection. There's not necessarily any reason to clear those lights, and in general you can avoid fixing relatively expensive things that do not prevent the car from running outright.

Contrast to my understanding of Germany's system, where your car must be aesthetically pleasing to the inspector.

Im confused. Most US states if not all require emissions testing at each inspection. Break lights or engine lights are automatic fails. Suffucient tire tred, working wipers etc.

I've never heard of an engine light being a fail, even with emissions test. You could still pass despite whatever the dash says.

But, what some people have been talking about makes sense now. If you get a bad manufacturer who lights up the dash for everything then they're forcing you to spend money.

Except for lots of people cars are also necessary

The number of people who need cars to survive is far greater than the number of people who can afford to fix every nuisance fault. So long as it can keep rolling and comply with whatever minimum safety requirements actually get enforced, people will run it.

> Imagine that scenario with tons of metal that could fall out of the sky when something fails.

Hmm, this has different meaning with last weekends context of an engine cover hitting a yard.

Very soon, cars won't really let you do anything without ID/phone number/paired phone/key serial number, gps lock, a full working complement of vehicle sensors, and a network connection to report all of the above in realtime to people you don't know (who are of course obligated to provide all of that data to military intelligence at any time, without a warrant or probable cause).

There isn't really an issue with that sort of lack-of-maintenance stuff where we're headed. It won't be long until cars either totally refuse to operate in extreme circumstances (due to manufacturer liability), or fall back to some impossible-to-ignore state like Tesla's "limp mode". Tire pressure/oil life being good examples of easily-detectable liability issues that no sane manufacturer would let slide.

The current state of affairs is simply because remote monitoring was expensive/infeasible. Most vehicles today ship with an always-on cellular modem in them.

Even my little 4K pocket gimbal camera won't operate without phoning home to "activate", same for all the drones sold by the same company. Flying cars would be sending telemetry from all local sensor measurements to HQ at pretty much all times.

crushingly depressing, tbh

I would look at flying cars are a metaphor, not as a literal thing people are opining over.

Indeed. In a conversation about being insufficiently thoughtful in deciding what you really want to build, flying cars are an excellent metaphor.

> Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense?

I think it's just a placeholder metaphor to represent <hypothetical futuristic "thing" that increases our quality of life as a society>

But also, the fact that it was impractical is itself a metaphor -- it turns out many of the things they thought would be cool and futuristic were actually impractical when you get to the details.

Sure, but that's besides the point. It's sort of like that meme about "The World If <my pet policy was implemented>" (example: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/394/070/7f2...). It features over the top flying cars and infrastructure because it's trying to make a point.

When one says "we could have had flying cars, but instead we got X", that's the underlying concept. Whether or not the flying car is "practical" is kind of besides the point. Either that, or we need to find some other generally agreed upon term to represent an actually practical but futuristic invention that represents human progress (or the lack thereof).

>"The World If <my pet policy was implemented>">"The World If <my pet policy was implemented>"

http://eduard-heindl.de/energy-storage/energy-storage-system...

Well, we would get cheap energy storage and cheap energy. No promises of a superior future, just a cheaper future.

I suggest "we could have had an all-nuclear grid."

The maths are about right for MPG. Time is what you (might) save. I'll get around that at cruise - 135kts or 155mph @ ~ 10gal/hour. Better fuel usage if you slow down a bit. Tempted to say if you slowed down to max Prius speeds on the autoban, the C182 might be more fuel efficient. I'm sure it gets 50mpg at 75mph, but doubt it gets that at 109mph.

While I generally agree I do not think they meant it literally in this case.

You ever fly over a mountain? It saves a lot of time.

Developed countries tend to build tunnels for lengthy mountain routes for which there is serious demand, so there is less a case for flying cars here.

Here in Norway we have a lot of fjords with small communities all over. The roads are narrow, twisty and often at high risk of falling rocks[1].

Due to the many roads and relatively few people using a lot of these high-risk roads, maybe flying cars would be a more cost-effective option here... would possibly also reduce the need for expensive ferries[2].

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/ras-i-roldal-isolerer-ti-fastboe...

[2]: https://www.nrk.no/nordland/bjornar-skjaeran-i-arbeiderparti...

I can drive from Como to Lugano in Switzerland in 30 minutes.

I guess the Alps are not a big issue.

Top Gear did a race from Italy to the UK. Clarkson driving a Bugatti Veyron, Hammond and May flying in a Cessna 182. They couldn't fly over the mountains, and May wasn't qualified to fly at night. It didn't save a lot of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoK4QYwixDc

Not sure which bits you could cut with a flying car - the safety checks, air traffic control involvement, runways, refuelling stop, qualifications/licenses, but it would have to be a lot to make a large difference.

The reason you don't get flying cars, is the very same, you cant make a lot of other technology. People will want to invent the flying car parking house. And they kind of did - on the 11 of September 2001. You can not hand technology over a certain level to a infantile (nicer sound then retarded) species. Its that simple.

Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space. Tesla and Amazon are one freight flight to space, filled with tungsten rods, away from becoming there own nation - with non-nuclear deterrence. That somebody - whoever it is, out there is getting humankinds tech progress to a grinding halt, is a blessing in disguise. We actually do not even get a honest discussion about the risks on this path.

Problem is though, we always scienced our way out of our problems with our volatile nature. Tap some energy here, create some fertilizer there, oversupply solves the problems we do not want to solve. Exponential supply for exponential unchecked demand.

Enter social tech- in theory we could limit ourselves, could curb our demands, could become starving monks in the desert, hypnotized by coloured lights playing across enchanted stones. This seems to be the road we need to take, for the other road to be traverse-able.

Ok, you head on out to the desert, we'll be right behind you... promise.

I do not get it- why is exponential powerful tech, such a serious matter if somebody wants a nuke (Iran, North-Korea) or even just proliferate per-existing ones, considered a serious issue. But once a entity with clear interests in venturing outside the sphere of law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup) and the monetary/organizational power to acquire such tech, ventures towards something similar classifiable, such a threat is a joking matter?

Also if you stream a movie tonight, like millions others, who just have a roof, food and a flickering screen that sand in the dessert might be very fine integrated - and already have gotten everywhere. So nobody is asking you or me, might as well discuss the scenarios.

OK, SpaceX applies to launch an orbital bombardment cannon and launch approval is denied. That was a good day, next.

OK, SpaceX ignores the denial and launches anyway. Elon Musk threatens to destroy Washington DC to gain independence for ... some territory somewhere. Unclear where, or why he'd want that since he already has enormous wealth and influence and doesn't need to run his own military to keep it. The United States arrests Elon Musk and seizes all of SpaceX with overwhelming military might. The end.

Is that really as threatening as North Korea developing nuclear weapons?

I think you meant to say “tungsten rods”, rather than titanium. the composition of the drop weapons doesn’t change the gist though.

Titanium is used in airframes for its strength to weight ratio (it’s not very dense). Tungsten is used in weapons for its high hardness and density.

I stand corrected.

> Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space.

> filled with tungsten rods, away from becoming there own nation - with non-nuclear deterrence.

In WW1, they tried dropping flechettes onto troops. Didn't work.

As for becoming a nation, that's hardly going to work without the launch/recovery site being part of that nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

I doubt the ability to lift enough of them into orbit to make a difference.

>"...This seems to be the road we need to take..."

We who? You are more than welcome to starve in a desert. Just do not count on any companionship.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com