As It Stands: Transportation Futurism- cars in the sky & flying saucers for all!

     Good Day World!

I’m not sure why, but every time I get on the topic of futuristic transportation I think of The Jetsons! Those flying cars impressed me more than I thought I suppose.

I remember going to Disneyland, Walt Disney's metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, when it opened on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California.

Autotopia was one of the many attractions on that opening day, and I got my first glimpse of futuristic cars! I was wowed! I fell in love with cars on the spot. As the years went by I went from futuristic cars, funny cars, race cars, and back to futuristic cars.

Some nostalgia for today:

Here’ some transportation-related illustrations and concepts from popular science and science fiction magazines - most of them rarely seen examples from unlikely sources, such as vintage Communist Youth magazine illustrations, or fantastic covers from international book editions.

How are we going to get to the future like this? Well, according to The March of Progress published in 1952 issue of Popular Mechanics, it's going to happen.... gradually.

("Science on the March", Popular Mechanics, January 1952 - illustrated by A. Leydenfrost, via)

"The Roads That Glow" seems to be a special safety feature (above), conceived by Art Radebaugh for RCA Transistors Run Electronic Car of Tomorrow (1964)

Or, imagine riding in a highway Family Cruiser concoction like the ones shown below on a Mechanix Illustrated Cover

(image via)

The car above may look like a modified shampoo bottle, but it also projects the ideas of the 1960s optimism and great expectations for future transportation in general.

Flying Saucers for Everybody! Via 1954 – all captions text & photos via Dark Roasted Blend 

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Shmeat isn’t going to replace my meat soon!

           Good Day World!

 So here’s the deal…

There’s been countless studies done that show the way farming is currently done will be simply unsustainable by 2050. Countries like China and Brazil have a growing hunger for meat and Americans aren’t forsaking it for veggie burgers.

There’s groups of people who believe plant-based protein substitutes could be the answer to meet the increasing demand. So far, that isn’t happening.

Enter, Lab Grown Meat Products! Eeeuuuuuu… that’s right. One of those groups in the Netherlands have worked out a system to take stem cells from a living cow, put them into a nutrient solution, and grow them into small strands of muscle tissue. About 20,000 such strands are needed to make one five-ounce burger!

Without being a mathematician, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how much this procedure would cost. In the following story you’ll get a ballpark estimate of what one burger would cost using the current method. Needless to say, I don’t see this catching on soon in the USA: 

It's (not) alive! Franken-meat lurches from the lab to the frying pan

“A hamburger that looks like one you'd get at any fast-food restaurant comes with a price tag of $330,000 — and it isn't even made out of natural meat. When volunteers taste it today, in front of rows of VIPs and TV cameras, they'll be eating the first publicly available burger that comes from a laboratory instead of a dead animal.

Lab-grown meat, also known as in-vitro meat or "shmeat" (sheet meat), is just one of the more recent twists in a decades-long effort to develop alternatives to the kind of meat humans have been eating for millennia.” (Story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Let’s face it, common sense is not a common thing

                       
 By Dave Stancliff/For The Times-Standard

 I’m not sure when common sense became a rare commodity in this country. There are always a certain number of people without common sense in any era.

I tend to trace the current epidemic to the infamous hot coffee case against McDonald’s when a woman sued (and won) because she was burned when she spilled a cup of the fast-food restaurant’s coffee on her lap.

This spawned an age where even the most obvious things need to be explained in simple language. “Don’t slide your finger along this new knife,” or “Don’t put your fingers in the toaster” suddenly had to be spelled out for adults.

I don’t know what happened prior to that, but since it became necessary we live without objecting to the simplistic statements that accompany nearly everything we purchase.

I’m just warming up. One thing that really disturbs me is people who don’t use common sense in the heat. Especially this extreme summer. So far this year there have been at least 21 deaths of children left unattended in vehicles, according to a study from the Department of Geosciences at San Francisco University.

 
Why would you leave a baby unattended in a car regardless of the temperature outside? Where’s the common sense in that? What are people thinking? I’ve read a lot of theories on the dumbing down of America, but when it comes right down to it many people were already lacking common sense.

Nothing too complicated about that. The people who do have common sense are rapidly becoming a minority. Look at Congress. If there are two senators who have common sense, I’d like to know their names! The ideology driven goons currently taking up space in both houses have forsaken common sense long ago.

Common sense is a personality trait that allows a person to discern the obvious from what they see or do. Unfortunately, too many people lack this basic personality trait to make stupid decisions which they pathetically try to justify.

 Common sense should tell people-even children-that TV shows such as "Power Rangers" are not reality. Two eleven-year-old boys, however, tried to re-enact a scene from the above-mentioned show by burying an eight-year-old boy alive in the ground, thinking he would grow back out.

 Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" (in this view) equates to the knowledge and experience which most people have, or which the person using the term believes they do.

  “Common sense is not so common.” according to Voltaire. The problem has been around for a long time and I probably shouldn’t waste my time worrying about the lack of it in our society. Why should I care if people don’t have enough sense to stop texting while walking and end up falling off a pier in broad daylight?

 I’ll tell you why I care; every now and then I have to deal with people who have no common sense. It’s difficult not to say something when someone tugs on a door to a restaurant or store with a sign on it that says “Push.”

 You know what I’m talking about.

In “I Robot“ Isaac Asimov writes “It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?”

 There’s an old Proverb that says “A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.” I’ve found that to be true during my career when I’ve dealt with people who have a masters degree, yet can’t seem to understand how the real world works.

 Robert Green Ingersoll wrote, “It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.”

 I’ve met people who believe common sense is an impediment to their lifestyle and go out of their way to do stupid things to prove they’re the salt of the earth. They treat common sense like a drone invading their world of make believe.

I grew up believing common sense was a virtue. I still do. I admit I don’t know why so many people who lack it run our government. Perhaps because of voters lacking common sense, who vote for pretty faces adept at rhetoric. It’s a thought.

As It Stands, my favorite artist Leonardo da Vinci - a man of uncommon good sense -said, “Common sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.”

GOP leaders show concern for struggling Americans by proposing to slash food stamp program by $40 billion!

       Good Day World!

What world do the Republican leaders in Congress live in? Once again, they’re preparing to bow to their ivory tower ideology and forsake the real-world needs of millions of struggling Americans by taking away food from them.

Bravo! That’s the way to balance a budget…show you don’t give a shit about struggling Americans!

If the GOP leadership isn’t attacking the poor, they’re busy attacking women and people of color. They want to appeal to Hispanics and Blacks, yet they go out of their way to make life miserable for them.

But make no mistake, there’s plenty of Whites getting food stamp assistance too. Some Wall Street economists seem to think things are getting better, but that’s because they’re no where near ground level. They don’t see the hungry eyes of malnourished children, and the haunted looks of once middle-class Americans standing in food lines.

It’s a mark of insensitivity to cut food assistance programs (which don’t have lobbies)instead of some other part of the national budget.  That attitude seems pandemic among the majority of Republicans and conservatives. The wealthy have always held positions of power, and people’s lives have always depended upon their whims and ideology. Our government is no different than any other in this world in that respect.

Here’s the latest example of what I’m talking about:

“House Republican leaders are to present a bill that would cut the food stamps program by $40 billion over 10 years, a move opposed by Democrats. Republicans say the program, whose enrollment soared after the 2008-09 recession, is unbearably expensive at $78 billion a year.

Democrats such as Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts say food stamps mitigate hunger in a still-weak economy. One in seven Americans received food stamps -- the largest U.S. anti-hunger program – at the latest count, Reuters said.

Collin Peterson, D-Minn., ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said there would be “no Democratic votes” for the food stamp bill.

He said it was “very disappointing,” adding that the cuts might even be too tough for some Republicans to support.

“I don’t know what the hell they’re trying to do other than placate the Wall Street Journal and the Club for Growth and the Heritage, I don't know what they're doing,” Peterson said.” (Full story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands blog: Bad News for Star Trek fans; Teleportation Not Happening!

 

           Good Day World!

 Going where no man has gone before, the intrepid star travelers are going to have to stick to the good ship Enterprise when it comes to traveling.

 Our scientists say that teleportation is not even within reach yet. As far as they’re concerned it never will be a viable mode of travel for humans.

  It looks like Scotty is going to have to come up with another crazy space teleporter that defies what the experts think in order to keep Star Trek fans engaged. 

Meanwhile, our military isn’t going to let the idea go, and are still monkeying around with hopes of beaming up Generals and tanks. What ever happened to ripping the veils of time apart and traveling that way? Hmmmmm….

The trouble with teleportation: It could take quadrillions of years

“Bad news, "Star Trek" fans: Even if you found a way to teleport a human being, sending the required data would take longer than the age of the universe. At least that's what fourth-year physics students from the University of Leicester concluded in the latest of a series of studies on way-out topics.

Teleportation transmission rates get the technical treatment in the Journal of Physics Special Topics, an online publication created by the British university to answer burning questions on the fringes of science, such as: Could Batman really use a cape to fly? What would Han Solo see when he made the jump to hyperspace?” Read the rest of the story here.

More about 'Star Trek' tech:

• 'Beam me up, General': Air Force finances teleport study
• Distance record set for quantum teleportation
• Warp speed, Scotty? It may actually be possible
• Gallery: Reality check for 'Star Trek' tech

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands blog: 2016 Pres Race Shaping Up To Be Battle of Bums!

   Good Day World!

I’m looking forward to covering the 2016 Presidential race for Learnist. I covered the last election for the social learning website between Obama and Romney, and had fun doing it. There’s nothing like watching politicians making asses of themselves on a national stage.

I’ll predict right now, 2016 is going to be an even (wait for it…) nastier presidential campaign than the last one! No, really! When you look at the politicians/players lining up, it’s easy to see this new crop of wannabes are going to outdo each other when it comes to low blows and lies.

As far as the Dems go it’s shaping up to be Vice President Biden versus Hillary Clinton. I’m reasonably sure oddsmakers would favor Hillary for numerous reasons. And, can you imagine Bill as the (wait for it…) first Husband?? Too juicy.

Personally, I think Kentucky Sen.Rand Paul is a lunatic. If it does come down to him and Gov.Chris Christie for the Republican nomination…I say go with Christie! He’s shown flashes of humanity, a rare display for most politicians these days. He also may be the only Republican (I know, I’m assuming Christie will run, but go with it okay?) who could cross the aisle and actually negotiate with the Democrats and get something done as president.

Here’s some recent news on the subject:

“Voters got a tantalizing preview of a possibly contentious battle for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul kicked off a recent public spat, trading personal insults and harsh words in the media.

The battle started last week when Christie, the pugnacious governor regarded as a top contender for the GOP nod in 2016, called the Republican libertarianism represented by Paul a “very dangerous” trend for the GOP.

"These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation," Christie said at the Aspen Institute forum on Thursday, referring to the surviving families of 9/11 victims. "And they won't, because that's a much tougher conversation to have."

From then, the fight was on. Paul responded Monday on Fox News by accusing Christie of shrouding himself in a “cloak of 9/11 victims,” and went on in the week to chide the New Jersey governor for a “gimme, gimme, gimme” attitude in seeking federal funds to assist with Hurricane Sandy.

And when Christie fired back by noting how much money Paul’s home state of Kentucky received from the government compared to the tax revenue it receives, Paul went on the radio to label Christie a “liberal Republican.”

“This is the king of bacon talking about bacon,” Paul added during an appearance on CNN.

The sparring could well foretell a major showdown in the 2016 Republican primary, should both Christie and Paul seek the Republican Party’s nomination. Each are titans of very different corners of the GOP, and a fight would not just test personalities against each other, but possibly emerging factions of the conservative movement, as well.”(Read the rest of the story here)

Time for me to walk on down the road…