Your first e-vehicle could be an e-bike, I was thinking this very thought watching some guy in full gold wing touring togs whining along on his bright metallic red red scooter. The monocoque bodied eBike with 0-60 times as good as a good sedan and space for modest shopping would be an ideal 2nd / 3rd vehicle, useful 80 to 90% of the time.
Gyro stabilization makes the vehicle practical, if reliable enough.
The J-2X engine before installation at the Stennis Space Center. Credit: NASA/SSC
Cool tech at NASA cutting manufacturing time from 9 months to 9 days. This is for the STS Senatorial(pork) Transportation System that I’ve no love for but proving tech like this is one of the ways that government R&D tax dollars provide broad value since success is not squirreled away as a trade secret.
Wired, Danger Room piece on after the aircraft carrier.
The Montford Point landing platform is essentially a cut down supertanker ( the predecessors of today’s Ultra Large Crude-oil Carriers, ULCC) which can ballast down and ‘lean’ so hovercraft can come aboard in open sea. One option is to similarly use this type of craft or similarly modified commercial hulls as cheap almost disposable carriers as needed. A sub divided double hull tanker is very hard to sink and the hull plates are sufficient to keep out small arms and splinters. Plus armoring and fire fighting kits are available and cheap today. The ‘fighting’ bit’ would essentially be a mod kit (a skin) that can be updated, moved around, even stored ready for war, the hull could be almost any commercial large bulk carrier. Heck large container ships are very fast today as are some RoRos, so you don’t even lose much strategic deployment speed.
Magazine ad, America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Companies
Why Silicon Valley Is Winning the Robocar Race
By Virginia Postrel Mar 17, 2013 6:30 PM ET
Good short piece, I think it’s pretty obvious but needed saying. Articles out of ‘Detroit’ talk about decades, about lawyers killing it, about the joy of driving, no the joy of striving. In fact this is another area where differential change is required, relative change, change suited to the specific here and now of the individual or local group, not society writ totalitarian.
Good article on close in work on and using 3D Printing in Macine Design, a favorite of mine since the ’70s (my dad’s read at home magazine.)
Went to the Midwest ReRap Faire in Elkhart today, cool gear, lots of info, lots of enthusiasts.
Some photos:
SAE tech article, interesting, 30 minutes of competitive performance! What’s that doodling back and forth to work?
Article in wired but others as well ultra cool use the knowledge, vision, wisdom of those who come to do.
Typically thoughtful and thought provoking Via Meadia article on ‘the filibuster’ and it’s affects.
Small business, individualist, small govm’nt folks need a voice to….
This seems to say it all and Tragically this looks like an I told you so from a huge number of angles, and perhaps it need not have been so.
This World and Others 