Oh wow, the Lamp on HN? And Peter Hitchens no less. I don't even know how I found myself reading this the other day, but my take away then was it felt like ramblings of an old man wishing the world had technologized "better." Though because Hitchens is a pretty skilled writer, the better part is subtle and it mostly ends up couched as "different". But all in all I was left unimpressed.
Though I did learn about slip coaches, which sounded neat, though pretty clearly fundamentally flawed.