Science & Technology News

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

. . . BTW, I've got no issue with raising speed limits to 110 or 120. But the notion that the posted limit is a suggestion is untrue and untenable.

As I said, the research I've seen says speed is not the main cause of most accidents. It is erratic and aggressive driving. It's the zigzaggers, the tailgaters, the right-lane passers, and yes, the ones who don't believe the laws apply to them. These are the ones who cause most of the accidents.

To support what you're saying -- I lived in Germany in the 80's, when I was young and still loved cars, and when the autobahns were still 90% without speed limits (now it's down to about 40%). And I got around in those days in a 1980 Porsche 911SC Targa. I'm here to say that you don't actually need any speed limits at all, for safe traffic. Screaming down the autobahn at 230 km/h concentrates the mind -- no erratic or aggressive driving whatsoever can take place. People really drove well there, and I think that the seriousness which flows inevitably from very high speed driving contributes to the high quality of driving.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

So, your view is that people should be allowed to break the law?

Some people speed because they can. When others see people getting away with something, they follow suit.

I'm not making a judgement, I'm telling you what IS. And this is the status quo that self-driving cars may be inserted into, in S. Ontario anyway. Unless you predict that they will suddenly actually enforce the 100 on 400 series highways. Because they currently don't. That's all.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

People really drove well there, and I think that the seriousness which flows inevitably from very high speed driving contributes to the high quality of driving.

I think it might have been Jeremy Clarkson that said that all that`s needed to improve road safety, is to remove all the airbags and seatbelts and put a 12-inch steel spike jutting out from the steering wheel of every car.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Asked family that are in the business and they are reliable . And that's good enough for me.
Similar to what is used to deice aircraft.

That may be fine for you but we have no way of judging their experience to make such a claim nor whether they are credible sources of info with no conflicts of interest. And really what are the odds that you have close family that you regularly talk to where this would come up?

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Thanks. It's just nuts that anyone would seize on the occasional need to de-ice the blades as some sort of death-blow against wind generation. You could make the blades from stiffened narwhals and de-ice them weekly, and they're still more planet-friendly than fossil fuel.

Of course its just nuts that there are people against any sort of renewables period.

It's not that they are against renewables, it's that they are against changing the way they do things, or they are against anything that threatens their personal interests or both.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

With regard to heated windmill blades, I'd never heard of such a thing despite having some familiarity with cold-weather windmills. So I went searching...

I found numerous references to the various approaches being tried, or in use. ONE of them involves using heated air. The others include the use of electrical wire heating, or coatings or special materials on the blades. Then there's the control techniques to quickly alter speed to shake ice free.

My research did not turn up any direct explanation as to how the air is heated in the air-heated option. It could be fossil fuel, or it could be electrical.

Just a couple of references:

https://www.windpowerengineering.com...urbine-blades/

https://www.reutersevents.com/renewa...turbine-blades

Given that the blades are on a windmill generator, it's a safe bet that the power source is electrical. Might be fossil fuel for involved reasons but that would be so ironic.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You think that proponents of self-driving cars don't conceive the whole system? Of course they do. City planners have been working on private car-free cities for a few years by now. The advantages are irresistable -- private-car free and self-driving public car served cities are so fantastic that I think the whole world will flip over very quickly once the last bits of technology are perfected.
....

The primary proponents of self-driving cars are folks with skin in the game who want to make money down the road selling the cars or some system that is involved. They are only remotely interested in how it fits into the whole urban living system.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Adelie

The primary proponents of self-driving cars are folks with skin in the game who want to make money down the road selling the cars or some system that is involved. They are only remotely interested in how it fits into the whole urban living system.

I beg to differ. The primary proponents are city planners with a vision of a completely different kind of city. I've been involved with this process for a few years already and have yet to even meet someone selling the cars.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

....
Self-driving cars increase the throughput of a road by 10x or more, for different reasons. One reason is that instead of driving with large gaps between cars, and individual, uncoordinated drivers braking and acclerating, and interfering with each other, self-driving cars form "trains" with little or no gap between them, and can go much faster more safely -- say 150km/h through a city with no gap between the cars, compare to 50km/h (so long as there is no traffic jam) with a couple of car lengths between them -- get it?
.....

Self-driving cars will not increase the thru-put of roads by 10x, and certainly not by more.

They might increase it by 3x but even that would be pushing it and then only on highways.

There are 3 types of roads in a city:
Highway, arterial, minor/residential.

On a highway self-driving cars will be able decrease spacing somewhat to increase thru-put, but they aren't going to tighten up much more than 1 sec spacing. Speeds may go up slightly but energy saving requirements and insurance requirements will keep them from going a lot higher. To go "train" then the cars need to start talking to each other, and all the cars in the train need to trust the lead car to have acceptably maintained sensors and reaction times. What happens when the lead car panic brakes, even if they tell all the other cars to panic brake, there will still be collisions. All the cars are maintained to different levels, are carrying different loads, weigh different amounts, have tires of different conditions, some of them are going to hit each other. Who's insurance covers this?

On an arterial road there is significant traffic entering and exiting the road so speeds really can't go up and trains are that much harder to form. Also more potential interference from pedestrians.

On residential roads, nobody will accept any increase in speeds around their kids playing outside.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Motorcycles would become much safer if we get all human driven cars off the road.


But I agree with you. Unlike with the human brain, there is no limit to how smart AI drivers can be, and besides that, they can pool their consciousness with peer to peer communication. Self driven cars are already safer than human driven ones; they will only continue to leave us in the dust, so to speak, at an increasing rate. That's why they can do stuff like hook themselves up into pelotons and fly through cities at 150km (or faster) in perfect safety. And it will only get better and better.

That means not allowing humans to drive motorcycles either.
Self-driving motorcycles.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Given that the blades are on a windmill generator, it's a safe bet that the power source is electrical. Might be fossil fuel for involved reasons but that would be so ironic.

Some must be. There are air-warmed ones which might be some sort of fossil fuel. I researched it because the claim that windmills use fossil fuel took me by surprise.



My conclusion, so far, is that if it happens, it's a pretty small proportion.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Adelie

That means not allowing humans to drive motorcycles either.
Self-driving motorcycles.

No! Say it isn't so!

[Adelie]

It isn’t so.





















But really is.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I beg to differ. The primary proponents are city planners with a vision of a completely different kind of city. I've been involved with this process for a few years already and have yet to even meet someone selling the cars.

In the link to the NYT that I previously posted, there's mention of the sort of money that many big players, including most major auto makers, are betting on self-driving cars. They wouldn't mislead us, would they?

As I mentioned, I haven't yet seen what seems to be a cohesive plan from a city for the adoption of self-driving cars. or discussion of same. I have seen some past articles and comments from early zealots who had the idea that self-driving cars would solve all their urban transportation and gridlock issues without requiring much in the way of mods and infrastructure changes. A city budget office's wet dream.

I'd truly be grateful if you'd link some examples of the urban planning that you're aware of, that will realize the promise of self-driving cars that you are confident about.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Adelie

That may be fine for you but we have no way of judging their experience to make such a claim nor whether they are credible sources of info with no conflicts of interest. And really what are the odds that you have close family that you regularly talk to where this would come up?

With my family it's more often than you would think .
One of my cousins is an author you likely know Larry Mcmurtry he writes westerns his most well known is likely the lonesome dove series.