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[wierd]

*suddenly reminded of one of the old planet of the apes movies... looks for the scene..*

Here we go!

[Max™]

But their own face would be hidden, so for that time, they are you. Wearing someone else's face could in fact be liberating, since you could do things and go places you normally wouldn't have the confidence for. There would be enough takers, if there was pay involved, but the problem would be the initial costs of the unit.

Just remember you're always exactly where you're supposed to be, it works great for literally everything, even stuff you wouldn't expect to be able to do.

[Reelya]

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2018/02/02/uber-and-lyft-want-you-banned-from-using-your-own-self-driving-car-in-a-big-city/

The rabble can’t be trusted with self-driving cars, and only companies operating fleets of them should be able to use them in dense urban areas.

So say Uber and Lyft, as signatories to a new list of transportation goals developed by a group of international non-governmental organizations and titled “Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities.”
...

In the list of 10 shared-mobility principles, bland generalities predominate — “stakeholder engagement” for example, is considered important — but the groups responsible clearly saved the best for last: According to Principle No. 10, the signatories — which also include other companies involved in transportation as a service — agree that autonomous vehicles in “dense urban areas” should only be operated in fleets.

e.g.companies like Uber and Lyft believe that only companies like Uber and Lyft should be allowed to have self-driving cars roaming around, at least for 99.9% of normal road usage. Why does this feel like the Net Neutrality debate all over again?

[Egan_BW]

"We believe that, philosophically, everyone should be forced to use our service and give us money in order to do anything."

[Tack]

I mean, depending on how 'dense' that is, I could almost agree. Congestion is a huge issue and it can be solved so easily simply with better public transport.
So naturally I'd agree as long as fleet vehicles have governmentally fixed rates in those areas- they'd agree to that right?

[wierd]

It's just another round of:

"Hey government people, we are totally the people who should be gatekeepers of this dangerous technology! Imagine if many vendors all had incompatible navigation systems-- why, there would be preventable accidents all over! We can totally solve this problem by being the only people allowed to make and use them! Please give us what we want so we can totally dominate and control this new market! THANKS! BAI!!" (Oh, and disregard those programmers, engineers, and other nay-sayers that assert [totally wrongly of course!] that all that really needs to happen is that there be enforced industry standards for navigation, communication, and data format specifications, similar to standards for crash test ratings, and other standardized testing and design requirements. They are evil people who want to cause horrible accidents. HORRIBLE ACCIDENTS!  WITH CHILDREN!! and and.... and pregnant women, and minorities!! They are totally bad people and you should not listen to them, ever-- Also, we will give you lots of money and perks if you give us what we want. Thanks. Bai.)

[Egan_BW]

Yeah, definitely not going to trust those two somewhat-shady companies with the very future of urban transportation.

[Bumber]

I was watching a show on the science channel about Tesla's death ray and wireless power. They make it out to be some big deal that could have revolutionized the world (if he weren't stopped by financial troubles, and possibly the nefarious scheming of Edison.) I'll set aside their misuse of the term "weapon of mass destruction" to describe the death ray, which they go on to describe as an anti-air defense system, and focus on the wireless power aspect. They mention two possible ways that Tesla envisioned the power transfer: Through the earth's crust and through the atmosphere.

With the crustal method, they mention how the people near Tesla's lab reported sparks coming from their plumbing, and even from horseshoes on horses. They don't bring up the potential disastrous consequences this implies. First of all there's the cost of insulating everything versus just building power lines. More importantly, you're pouring lots of energy into the ground. That energy can become heat, or disturb important organisms living in the soil. Not sure if AC can electrolyze water, but maybe there's an effect similar to microwaving. You could end up boiling off ground water and lakes, messing with water supplies and climate.

With the second method, you're supercharging the atmosphere. This could increase the difficulty of modern communication. Power lines disrupt cellphone signals when you're under them. Now imagine that's the entire world. Tesla invented radios and radio controlled vehicles, so it's possible he considered a way to deliver signals along with the energy. But what of communications beyond the atmosphere? How do satellites and space exploration occur in a world where Tesla succeeds? What is the effect on aircraft? What about birds that migrate based on magnetic fields?

What are your opinions? Are these fears unfounded?

[Reelya]

Yeah, it's completely bonkers.

I can't really fathom "green" new-age types who somehow can't see that pumping electricity directly into the earth or air wouldn't be absolutely awful. I've actually met someone who I had this argument with, once: e.g. the electricity would be "free" because it's not metered. I tried to point out the obvious flaws, e.g. pumping electricity through the ground would be wasteful (electrical resistance => heat, loss as electromagnetic waves), that someone would need to pay to run the generators (e.g. massive tax bills), and that it would have devastating effects on the natural environment, but she wasn't having any of that.

So, the needed amount of generation would be much greater with the Tesla "free" electricity, meaning more coal needs to be burned, while the effects of pumping AC power through the ground would be an environmental catastrophe. Also, people like bitcoin miners and other electricity-wasters would be rewarded, while people who care about conservation would be penalized (since the electricity taxes won't discriminate). Additionally, if there's a finite amount of electricty generated, then some people would inevitably come up with ways to maximize their share of the electricity that's been gobbled up - e.g. you'd have a "tragedy of the commons" situation.

Imperviousness to the obvious flaws with a centralized plan to electrify the very Earth should be a clear warning sign that you're dealing with an insane person whom you should disengage from conversation at the first opportunity.

[Egan_BW]

Yeah, probably saner to use wires than to pump tons of energy into everything.

[Jopax]

The west seems to have this unhealthy obsession with the crazier (and I'm not even sure how many of these batshit ideas are just attributed to him by pop culture compared to which ones are his own) ideas Tesla had. Dude was a brilliant engineer that revolutionized the modern world trough electricity, can't you just leave it at that? Why does he have to be a mad scientist/alien that could've saved the world or something if only that scheming bastard Edison hadn't messed with him.

Also the problems you brought up aren't problems because to even get close to what's needed to have wireless/ground power everywhere would require some impossibly sized things. Like say the antenna for transmitting the wireless power would need to be on the thousands of kilometers scale of lenght to be able to get anything out of it on a global scale. Ignoring the impossibility of such a large construction the electrical properties of such a thing would be impossible to achieve by todays tech in anything but simulations.

[wierd]

IIRC, Tesla wanted to achieve his global wireless energy transmission idea by using the entire planet (earth's mantle + ionosophere) as a giant resonant tank circuit, by treating it as a giant dielectric.

He even successfully computed what the resonant frequency needed was (this was the major finding of the infamous colorado springs experiment, which was a test of concept) and had calculated how many, and where to place his giant tesla coils to achieve it.

Basically, the electrical wave would be "kicked" by each coil in a phased array type pattern, creating a "rolling" wave that bounces around inside the planet, and into the atmosphere, and back again.  He might have had difficulty keeping his towers properly synchronized with the technology available at the time, but today it should be perfectly feasible with NTP and computer control.

Now, the consequences of totally saturating the planet and atmosphere with a resonant energy wave (and the degree of power generation required to pull it off with) make the prospect a very large non-starter.  Take for instance, the increased risks of birth defects from livestock near high voltage transfer lines. Little datapoints like that strongly point toward it being very undesirable. It would also make certain forms of radio communication extremely difficult, if not impossible, because of the permanently excited status of the ionosphere.

Would his idea work? Sure-- pump enough energy into the planet at its resonant frequency, and the whole thing will light up like a christmas tree.  Is it a good idea to do that? Uhhhhh... No. No it isnt. 

[Max™]

I mean, incidentally, fuck Edison and while we're at it fuck Columbus too, Tesla was insane for sure but he wasn't a greedy hateful shitbag like those two garbagesacks were.

[Teneb]

I mean, incidentally, fuck Edison and while we're at it fuck Columbus too, Tesla was insane for sure but he wasn't a greedy hateful shitbag like those two garbagesacks were.

Columbus was just desperate once he realised he fuck up hard. Y'see, he made contract with the Castillian-Aragonese crown: he'd discover a new route to the Indies and he'd become its Viceroy in return. Once he figured out that the land he found was not Asia, he panicked. He insisted on calling the natives "Indians", the region "the Indies", and so on. It ended up with him in jail for treason, so you can fill in that particular blank.

[Reelya]

Oh, this is going to end poorly. Some young crypto-billionaires are trying to built a libertarian-sounding crypto-city, where you can only buy things with crypto-currencies. The location is in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, where they've scored some land for cheap, and they wanted to call it "Puertopia" except someone told them that means "eternal boy playground" in Latin, so they changed it. Also, Puerto Ricans don't pay federal income tax, so there's that motivation.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/central-america/puertopia-the-new-crypto-utopia-for-billionaires/news-story/49d1e6e1ad2df05a6cbf07dbbf466127

“I’m worried people are going to misinterpret our actions,” Mr. Pierce said. “That we’re just coming to Puerto Rico to dodge taxes.”

He said he was aiming to create a charitable token called ONE with $1 billion of his own money. “If you take the MY out of money, you’re left with ONE,” Mr. Pierce said.

“He’s tuned in to a higher calling,” said Kai Nygard, scion of the Canadian clothing company Nygard and a crypto investor. “He’s beyond money.”

That's about a guy who got his start mining gold in World of Warcraft, then bought into Bitcoin early on. They're acting like he's some sort of guru with wisdom of the ages, because he doesn't really value the money he's made.