@jon This tiltrotor is about to open with smaller wingspan, way more range, and room for nine passengers rather than one. So why is Wissing so intent on pushing this tech? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_AW609
@jon the point is a whole generation of people with money that grew up reading SciFi and now want to make it real because they didn’t understand the era it was all written.
"Whatever happened to the world of tomorrow", Brian Fies
This graphic novel explores the relationship between a young boy and his father, spanning from the 1939 New York World's Fair to the last Apollo space mission in 1975. It reflects on the optimistic and ambitious era of the mid-20th century, contrasted with the evolution into today's technology-focused society.
The imagined future of pre-war USA was dominated by large machines …
imagined by an essentially rural society. The realized future is dominated by invisible technology networks and smart appliances, which means that flying cars and jetpacks are fundamentally wrong and not applicable. The graphic novel is a melancholic realization of this divergent real future from imagined future, and invites reflect on how yesterdays scifi has influenced the tech of today and how it didn't.
@jon I think that is the wrong question to ask. Much more important, to my mind, is: Should we tolerate the development of modes of transport pretty much exclusively for wealthy people that severely degrade the living conditions (and health) of everyone living in a city.
I’m honestly baffled that barely anyone talks about the noise pollution of these things.
@partim@jon Silicon Valley and the VC-class lives of reinventing the wheel. This thing (considering its wing span and noise) is just a really shitty helicopter with less range and less passengers. The “taxi” part is just deflection, if money is no object for somebody, they can already charter a helicopter, does the helicopter become a “taxi” suddenly?
@shinjiikarus@jon Currently helicopters are impractical as a day-to-day personal transportation: they need expensive and scarce pilots and are severely limited in where they are allowed to land. Flying taxis are aiming to fix both these issues.
This is also why I am violently opposed to them: The result of these fixes mean that we will transition from a few helicopters doing a few flights a day to a dozen or so taxis over the city at any given time.
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