591–600 of 603 posts
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The same new cars that need the entire transmission replaced if any one thing goes wrong in it? Compared to those poorly built old cars where you could blow a gasket and just put a new one in?
Yes, exactly those. I would recommend reasoning backwards from the longevity statistics to the potential reasons for the changes to the designs of individual parts and systems.
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Never going to the gas station? The fact that the per-mile cost is much lower? Isn't that pretty much the definition of productivity?
> Never going to the gas station? Not a big deal. And on long trips with an electric car, don't you have to plan around relatively extended stops at (currently) relatively rare charging stations?
Took a quick look at the map of the superchargers exactly once before the trip, just to doubly make sure there are any at all on the way, and that was it. The car navigation system automatically added the needed one to the path and showed exactly the calculated amount of charge i should have left by the time i get to the charger and/or destination. There were at least 6 supercharger stations on the path to my destination (didnt even look at the regular chargers).
I didnt charge my car prior to the trip, it had about 40% charge before I headed out. A bit past halfway through to the destination, i stopped at a supercharger (that the car notified me about and added as a stop on the navigation as soon as i started the trip, because it calculated i won't have enough charge to make it to the destination). Charged the car to 90% in about 40 mins tops (was one of the older v2 145kW superchargers, the v3 ones that I've seen before are much faster), went to mcdonalds and stretched my legs in the meantime.
There was a tradeoff of stops vs charge time: i waited to 90% to avoid additional supercharger stops, but if i was ok with those, my stop time would have been even shorter, because the charge speed is faster the less charge you have, it is like a logarithmic curve. I.e., about 10 mins of wait for 100 miles of range on the lower end of the charge, but 40 mins if i want to reach the 90% (with the total range being about 330 miles total).
I went into a lot of detail to explain things here, but during that trip (around 400 miles total), at no point have i even thought of or planned for charging specifically, the navigation system handled it for me just fine with pretty much no detours. And i wasn't driving through dense city areas either. Once i got out of Seattle and nearby areas (about 30 mins into the trip), it was all rural areas through and through, but somehow they still had about 7 supercharger stations conveniently placed on the way.
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> Never going to the gas station? Not a big deal. And on long trips with an electric car, don't you have to plan around relatively extended stops at (currently) relatively rare charging stations?
Not really, no. Took a drive from Seattle to Oregon a bit ago (200 miles one way), never once have i planned around charging stations or even thought of them. Took a quick look at the map of the superchargers exactly once before the trip, just to doubly make sure there are any at all on the way, and that was it. The car navigation system automatically added the needed one to the path and showed exactly the calculated…
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There are two separate questions under consideration here. One is the capabilities of commercial general aviation air travel in terms of total elapsed travel time. The second is the general commercial utilisation of air travel. In the case of the first, advances in aircraft speed have been all but entirely offset by increased frictions in other parts of the air transport system. 2014 travel between NYC and Chicago is…
> 2014 travel between NYC and Chicago is only barely faster than it was over 80 years ago. Your issue is twofold: you are focusing solely on one metric to measure efficiency, arguably the worst one (speed), and you then further narrow the scope by saying efficiency gains must come from one dimension of the business ("aeronautical" advances). There are obvious reasons for speed to not increase further, namely the spee…
I get the strong impression you don't like that point, and would prefer to use different measures. That's fine.
But it doesn't invalidate the measure or point made.
There are obvious reasons for speed to not increase further, namely the speed of sound as you already mentioned, so this is a non-starter.
You see my point. You admit it. You state it freely yourself. And yet you reject it.
SST would be useful, and is used in specific domains (satellite launches, military). On a costs/benefit commercial basis, given externalities and legal frameworks, however, technology has hit if not a dead end, then a remarkably robust barrier to further progress.
The areas in which air travel has expanded, and the mechanisms by which it's done so, are notable because they are largely not related to aeronautical engineering: flight controls or power plants.
There's some exception to the latter, jet engines have increase in efficiency both in terms of fuel consumption and power-to-weight ratios. But that's limited incremental improvement. (I'm pretty sure Vaclav Smil addresses this in Energy and Civilisation, as one of his power-plant efficiency curves. These tend to approach asymptotic limits with time.)
Most of the efficiencies though come from smaller aircraft, economies of scale, increased load factors, some materials advances leading to lightweighting, and removal of both price and amenities lower-bounds which have made available lower-cost, but also far-less comfortable, air travel. There's also been a significant, though largely incremental over time increase in overall safety. No major breakthroughs, but chipping away at major risks with time.
Some of those risks are reversing. The number of commercial aircraft downed by missile attack seems to be increasing in recent decades, at least on an absolute basis. It's still likely falling relative to total passenger miles. Still sucks to be you if you're on the wrong end of that ratio.
But aeronautical engineering has hit a hard stop.
Seeing and understanding that point viscerally is key to grasping the premise of technological limits. Many people seem exceedingly averse to doing so.
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Just my perspective: I don't feel like I know my friends or family very well these days, despite being friends for almost thirty years with some. Twenty years ago we would talk on MSN or email and arrange to do something or hang out. These days you just see photos of their lunch. I also feel like a lot of folks are scared to hang out, even pre-COVID, because they have nothing to talk about that isn't already on Faceb…
My perspective is quite the opposite, people travel to see each other way more, video chat way more, and we talk about more diverse and interesting stuff. They have more hobbies and more interesting hobbies (the internet has really exploded the ability to learn about and try things, and new tech like kite surfing is popular with my friends). My wife learned how to sew during the pandemic using just YouTube.
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Yes, exactly those. I would recommend reasoning backwards from the longevity statistics to the potential reasons for the changes to the designs of individual parts and systems.
Based on my calculations, it was money.
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It's a direct response to this: > It was when I looked at the tram station not far form my house, which for a year or so has been upgraded to have a display with the expected arrival times of the next three trams. > It sure is very convenient! However, compared to a similar transport system of fifty years ago, which achieved the same thing, we now have a lot of additional effort to maintain such infrastructure. It go…
> It's a direct response to this: I still don't see how the reply fits to the comments I made. You missed the point of my example by miles, is my impression still. I think I already expressed it well enough even in the original comment, so I have no idea how to re-express it for you. > 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram No you didn't. The train or bus schedule was and still is…
You said this is your main point, and I directly replied to that.
Another point you made was that electronic signs at trams aren’t an improvement. I agree! Wholeheartedly. I mean showerheads haven’t improved either! We could list all sorts of things that either haven’t changed or that aren’t improved by tech. But that would be silly.
You in fact have avoided the very valid point I made in reply to that. Electronic tram signs are a red herring. The revolution is in your pocket. I can check flights, trams, buses, anything in about 15 seconds anywhere in the world. That is a huge productive improvement.
Anyway it’s clear this convo isn’t going well, but glad we had it. I very much got your other points, I just didn’t feel them relevant to the article or this thread, it’s a whole other conversation on simplicity or satisfaction, not really productivity. You can see one of my sibling replies for what I think about it.
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Noted, FYI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31500807
You wrote above: > Gordon's point is that the best commercial-grade service ... didn't move much in the seventy-eight years* from 1936--2014. It's been nearly another decade and that story's largely the same. The fact that total passenger miles has been largely flat since 2000 (is that even accurate? [1]) has no bearing on that claim. Furthermore, the number of passengers has basically tripled in the last 20 years al…
"Revenue Passenger Miles for U.S. Air Carrier Domestic and International, Scheduled Passenger Flights"
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RPM
Jan. 2000: 48.3b
Jan. 2022: 56.4b
"US airlines revenue passenger miles" 1974-3 -- 2004-11
This shows flattenings 1979--1984 (Iranian oil embargo, Reagan recession), again 1990--1992 (First Gulf War / recession), a strong climg through 2000, then a large post-9/11 drop and relatively flat trend through late 2004. Omitted is the 2007-8 Global Financial Crisis.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/US-airlines-revenue-pass...
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> It's a direct response to this: I still don't see how the reply fits to the comments I made. You missed the point of my example by miles, is my impression still. I think I already expressed it well enough even in the original comment, so I have no idea how to re-express it for you. > 40 years ago you had to ask around, or call to ask about the times of tram No you didn't. The train or bus schedule was and still is…
> The main point though is that you don't accomplish more You said this is your main point, and I directly replied to that. Another point you made was that electronic signs at trams aren’t an improvement. I agree! Wholeheartedly. I mean showerheads haven’t improved either! We could list all sorts of things that either haven’t changed or that aren’t improved by tech. But that would be silly. You in fact have avoided t…
> You said this is your main point, and I directly replied to that.
You don't refute my statement. You still only get from A to B in about the same time. It's just slightly more convenient. But if the schedule is actually kept by the trams it's not even that, you can just look at the posted paper schedule at the station. The difference in convenience then only is that you have to walk a few steps to see the much smaller print.
I never disputed the utility of GPS. Although there is indeed the disadvantage of using it too much, having lived long enough in the pre-GPS time using maps and/or trying to use just my brain to find my way felt good in different ways, and I still use that method when going somewhere where the journey is the goal itself. It's like when one of my flight instructors covered up all the instruments and got me to fly by sight - including things like angle of attack, at least in level flight (yes that only works for small planes, large ones must be flown by the numbers and instruments, same with IFR conditions).
You still overlook all the larger picture things, the systemic stuff. A discussion so limited to only the thing itself instead of the system is useless in my view, and quite boring, more like trying to gain the upper hand in a discussion by selecting a limited scope and reading into the comment only as much so you can find some angle of attack, instead of using good will and really actually trying to see one's point. You began like that right from the very start, when you started your first reply: "What a horribly myopic take". Zero good will and insulting. AFAICS you keep looking for ways to "win". This is quite tiring.
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I went on a trip across Europe without checking any maps in advance and without any maps in my car. Multiple times. I never visited those countries before and arrived at precise locations, on time, without any kind of error. For me that’s incredible and very reliable. Thousand of kilometers to arrive in a place I’ve never been before without memorizing the road in advance is innovation. My dad never could’ve done tha…
Reading this comment and most of the thread, what is missing is the human part of the experience. GPS directions are terrific, indeed, but you are choosing (by not "checking any maps in advance") to completely pass up the opportunity to explore, to wander, to discover. You went all the way to Europe and didn't even look at a map? You could have been 100 yards from some amazing place and never even known it. Your dad…
A GPS makes it even easier to discover the world