How To Be A Robo-Dork
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 2, 2009 by admin in Technology
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009It seems the Segway was just a segue into even dorkier means of personal transport
This probably wouldn’t look so cool if it weren’t shot in Paris with a Daft Punk soundtrack. |
I rely a lot on a rather sophisticated means of bipedal transport. It’s called WALKING. I have some issues with those clunky combustion-engine monstrosities that many of you drive, so I’m always intrigued with unique new methods for personal transport. The Segway
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Solves Peak Oil Problem
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 7, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009It’s nice to know that while Detroit automakers go bankrupt, there’s still a market for $2.1 million cars
Let’s see. Buy a house? Or buy a car? If you happen to have $2.1 million laying around, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 might actually make this a difficult decision. I generally think of combustion engine vehicles as rather Luddite, but the inevitability of peak oil makes me feel like just funneling all the remaining petrol in the world into the 1001HP, 16-cylinder engine of this thing and burning it all up. With a 7-speed transmission and 4 turbochargers to get enough fuel and air into its monstrous 8.0 liter power-plant to keep it happy, the Veyron 16.4 has a top end of 253mph. But don’t get too excited about the idea that you can travel 253 miles away in an hour, because at its rate of fuel consumption at top speed, you’d theoretically have to refuel every 12 minutes. At least you’d look cool doing it though, partly because the car lowers to just 3.5 inches above the ground and automatically extends a rear spoiler, and partly because, well, c’mon. This thing is simply amazing to look at. In fact, I’d say more, but I keep drooling all over my keyboard. Check out this Wired.com piece for more photos and a description of what it’s like to drive the new Veyron; Bugatti didn’t offer us a test drive or a press tour for some reason. You can also configure your own with Bugatti’s configurator page. I was kind of partial to violet; the green option just didn’t look right somehow.
The Future Already Looks Retro
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on June 30, 2009 by admin in Technology
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009When you’re from the 23rd century like me, the 20th and 21st centuries look a lot alike. And we’re sorry to say that Mama’s taking your Kodachrome away.
 The 1974 JVC Video Capsule and the 2002 iMac |
This little review of the Sony Walkman by a 13-year-old iPod owner reminded me that for most of my life, I’ve felt like I’m living in some sort of time warp, or am genuinely displaced in time. As a kid in the sixties, I would watch Star Trek, and the technology and philosophy of the show seemed perfectly natural to me: no war, money was obsolete, computers had flawless voice recognition, and if you were captain of a starship, you could be white and kiss hot black (or even green) chicks and no-one would bat a lash. Then I’d go out to play, and my reality would be crushed; the first thing I’d see in the driveway was my brother’s rusted out ’62 Ford Galaxie, which, in spite of the space-age name, certainly didn’t have warp drive, and definitely ran on filthy petrol-matter, not anti-matter. Ironically, in spite of the fact that I lived through the era of 8-Track tapes, then cassettes, then the still-cumbersome CD, I am at this point genuinely disappointed, for instance, at the crappy sound quality of mp3 files and the utter lack of compact, single-source holographic audio and video. As a result of feeling like the present is antiquated, I have a perverse fascination with the even more antiquated technology of decades past, which is why I just lost about two hours of my life over at RetroThing.com, where I not only spent hours reminiscing about once-incredible technologies like the Magnavox Astro-Sonic Stereo Console and this incredible pocket-sized computer, but I also learned about tragedies like the impending demise of Kodachrome. Damn. And I was just shopping for a Pentax Spotmatic the other day. Know of any other cool retro sites?
Top Ten Disappointing Technologies, Part I
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on June 18, 2009 by admin in Technology
Thursday, June 18th, 2009Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’m not feeling the magic.
| Anti Gravity |
 Stephen Hawking Understands The Gravity of the Situation |
This, for some reason, remains my single greatest disappointment regarding technology. Usually, when scientists develop detailed mathematical descriptions of natural phenomena, they’re able to – in at least some small way – demonstrate the truth of them. Although I once had to explain to an otherwise intelligent friend that the Vomit Comet was not in fact an example of anti-gravity, most of us know that anti-gravity remains a technological chimera. The closest science comes to demonstrating an understanding of anti gravity is to describe its opposite, by saying things like “See that thing that’s falling? I have some amazing math that will tell you how fast it will do so”.
Better Living Through Blender Defenders?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 20, 2008 by admin in Technology
Monday, October 20th, 2008Confession: I just wanted to post the funny cat video.
I was just saying to a friend the other day that if all the technologically creative minds in the world focused specifically on ideas that really mattered – like cleantech or election monitoring* – we could probably wipe out some of the world’s biggest basic problems. Sure, we might suffer slightly in personal ways if we had to go without radio-controlled golf balls
* Ironically, that International Election monitoring link excludes North America