Paul Raven @ 07-07-2008
I don’t know first-hand, as I don’t drive, but it doesn’t take superhuman empathy to imagine how hard the spiralling cost of diesel and petroleum is hitting a lot of people right now.
Time Magazine obviously came to the same conclusion, and decided to make an attempt at cheering everyone up by listing 10 things you can like about $4 gas. These range from the prospect of globalized jobs returning to their original locations to the more prosaic and obvious like less pollution and fewer traffic deaths.
If those aren’t enough for you, perhaps a piece at the New York Times will sell you on the idea. I mean, come on - who here doesn’t think an air-ship renaissance would be extremely awesome? [via BoingBoing; image by Torley Linden]
Related posts
Tomas Martin @ 31-01-2008
Michael Marshall Smith’s excellent novel ‘Spares’ had a large section of its story set in a crashed flying mall, which previously had flown around the country for people to come up to and shop, eat and live. With airships beginning to come back into favour, the French aerospace research body ONERA has developed the design for a flying hotel called Manned Cloud.
The whale-shaped dirigible would potentially house 40 guests and 15 crew with a range of 5000km. Although airships are less stable in high winds than planes, they also use a fraction of the fuel. Manned Cloud was designed by French designer Jean-Marie Massaud. This kind of sky cruise could be an important part of mid-21st Century travel and using airships for freight would also be very efficient.
[via Lou Anders, image from StumbleUponDemo]
Related posts
Tomas Martin @ 20-11-2007
Bertrand Piccard was the first person to fly around the world in a balloon, the longest flight ever. His new endeavour, the Solar Impulse, is even more ambitious. To highlight the need for sustainability, the project has a lofty goal:
“In a world depending on fossil energies, the Solar Impulse project is a paradox, almost a provocation: it aims to have an airplane take off and fly autonomously, day and night, propelled uniquely by solar energy, right round the world without fuel or pollution. An unachievable goal without pushing back the current technological limits in all fields…”
If we’re to make the targets that Gordon Brown set yesterday, we’ll be looking to projects like this for inspiration.
[via European Tribune, image by Bertrand Piccard]
Related posts
Jeremy Lyon @ 14-07-2007
O’Reilly Radar reminds me of FlightAware, a resource that combines great pragmatic utility and pure geeky fun. FlightAware shows you exactly where just about any commercial flight is at this moment. With airport Wi-Fi and a laptop, you can know more about when your delayed flight will arrive than the gate crew.
Related posts
