Random Thought of the Day

Quote: Pacomartin

I love the 50's copter. There's about enough room
under the blades for a lawn mower engine, thats
it.

Roadable Airplane makes debut at EAA' s Oshkosh Convention and Air Show.

Terrafugia's Transition flying car made its first public flights at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. There, the Terrafugia team conducted two 20-minute flight demonstrations and also showed off the capability for the Transition's wings to be folded up so it can be driven about like a car.

Gizmag

Quote: Fleastiff

Terrafugia's Transition flying car...

The Transition is not very exciting to me. For $300K you have to drive it to the airport to take off and land. It's only real advantage is storage. You don't have to pay to keep it in a hangar at the airport, and if you tow a Cessna home you have to use a trailer and have a large barn (whereas the Transition fits in a standard garage).

If I was going to spend $300K I would still purchase a Cessna as there are more mechanics trained on them and a greater market for resale.

The TF-X™ promises VTOL and the ability to use a large field for take off. Now that would be a true value added investment.

Face it: we'll never have flying cars. Nor swimming bycicles, nor flying submarines, nor submarine airplanes, nor any number of other vehicles which can fulfill contradictory functions.

A submarine spaceship, though, is another matter ;)

August 19th 2013. The idea behind Windows 8 was to combine the desktop PC mouse/keyboard environment with the tablet touch environemnt, making no compromises between them. The idea was to appeal to both desktop/laptop PC users and tablet users. But by incorporating a desktop interface, which cannot be sued well through touch, and a touch interface, which cannot be used effectively with a mouse and keyboard, Microsoft succeeded in alienating both types of users.

Of course it's not as simple as that. Desktop/laptop users are alienated by being given a crippled desktop. It's not just the lack of a start menu, though that's important, but by being given a desktop with nothing but two pinned taskbar icons, a start button that takes you to the touch interface, and a trashcan desktop icon. Touch tablet users are alienated by a lack of "apps," msotly. I'm not really sure about the latter, though. I do know Office, if you install it, only runs on the desktop.

But if the PC doesn't die after Windows 8, ti will be thanks only to the myriad third-party companies making start menu replacements.

Living in Vegas for more than a decade I hardly blinked at local news reports of whatever the latest crime was that day. I'm living in a much smaller city now.

Tonight the news was reporting on a homicide, and said to notify police if you saw someone with blood all over their clothes on the night of the murder.

Okay, 'cause, you know, someone out covered in blood otherwise wouldn't make you suspicious?! So, I've noted I saw no one covered in blood recently.

Particularly since people who've just killed someone don't stop to wash up but instead take brightly lit ways home including well lit sidewalks and public transportation. Stopping off in a store on some personal errand is also a good idea since the cameras will record the blood stains.

Be quiet, be very very quiet

September 4th, 2013. Touch works on tablets.

That's it.

Computer 1948