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The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

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Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#111

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

tw04 wrote: post #33

Did someone actually think scooters were new? We had them growing up, I thought it was common knowledge the only thing novel about e-bikes and e-scooters were the lithium ion batteries and electric motors giving adequate runtime and performance. You could drive a moped on city streets before you turned 16 which got a lot of teenagers in my hometown to work and sports in the summer when their parents couldn’t. But the…

When I was a kid in the 80s scooters weren't a thing in my country, I never saw one, but they did appear in the comics I read (from the 50s-60s). I remember asking my parents about them, and they telling me that they were toys from their time but no longer existed.

Now of course they're very common, my son has one.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#112

Post by pandaman »

agenticfish wrote: post #52
echelon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite city dwellers hating on cars and wanting complete streets, cars are poised to win even bigger when self driving becomes widespread. Our roads and highways will metamorphose into logistics corridors and optimal public transit systems. Everything will be delivered same hour. The cost of this will drop and entire new business models will be built on top of the "direct to you" model. Self-driving cars will replac…

> Bikes don't stand a chance. They're inequitable. Old people, pregnant people, sick people, and children are all left out. They suck in the rain and the snow. You can't move anything of size or scale. I would invite you to come and have a look in the Netherlands. It’s very common for octogenarians to cycle. My wife cycled up to the day of the birth of our daughter. Children have more independence because they can cy…

There are two main reasons for what you describe: very flat terrain in Netherlands and people living in multi-family buildings mostly. Thus people don't ride any substantial distance according to Netherland's own statistics [1] and don't physically exert while doing so.

In the US average commute is 42 miles daily, that's over 67 km, or more than two weeks of riding a Dutch 12-18 y.o. does, or a month of riding of a Dutch 35-50 y.o. I'd like to invite any Dutch, who believes it's the same in the US, to ride 67km daily for 5 days straight, even in their own flat neighborhood. It might enlighten them why cyclists elsewhere wear special clothes too! And this is without hills...

1. https://longreads.cbs.nl/the-netherlands-in-numbers-2022/how...

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#113

Post by array_key_first »

LEDThereBeLight wrote: post #76
coryrc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know you Europeans love your model, but it doesn't apply to us. lol. You're what we call "carbrained". Explain how the climate of the coastal West coast is unsuitable for year-round bicycling. Much of it is nicer than the Netherlands and has several times the population.

It’s not about the climate. Cities are just too big.

Not big, sprawled - because of cars. In terms of population, most US cities are not very impressive.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#114

Post by hombre_fatal »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
xgulfie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this. Why not show us the actual photo. Infuriating

I wonder how we'll deal with the inability to tell what's true or not in the coming years. Even without full deepfakes.. just a gradual hypothetical restoration turning subtle hallucination in many many places.

Judging by how little people care about the veracity of claims made on social media and youtube (long before AI), not much will change.

The root problem is that we don’t have very robust epistemic standards. We mostly go by vibes and what we want to be true.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#115

Post by wzdd »

vessenes wrote: post #29

Boy I had a liminal moment looking at these photos and videos - this all could easily have been a fun AI media project. In fact, I think the first photo used outpainting (“street background expanded” reads the subtitle). I’m enjoying my last year or so of visual media trust, as ephemeral as that is in reality.

> In fact, I think the first photo used outpainting

And it looks bad. The streetlamps on the right are way too close together and the building on the left looks like a prison or something out of Dickens.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#116

Post by gerdesj »

_yb2s wrote: post #97
Epa095 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia > The engine was an air-cooled, 4-stroke, 155 cc engine over the front wheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoped

Guess I was wrong, that’s a shocking engineering choice, that engine looks massive and heavy. A four stroke engine is about twice the weight and size for the same power output, but much more fuel efficient.

"Fuel efficient" - that's probably why. If the fuel efficiency more than off sets the additional weight, for range then four stroke might be indicated. There are lots of other factors to consider.

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#117

Post by gerdesj »

RobotToaster wrote: post #107
tgv wrote: post #38

First off, the price: £36 was much more than "£1,600 in today’s money". A railway clerk made £2 12 0 in a week in 1917, (less than £10/month if I did the shillings and all that properly), which makes the scooter price the equivalent of 3.5 months, which is £7,000 at the lowest end of today's London North Eastern Railway salary range. The fact that the picture has Lady something in it, suggests it was more of an upper…

Another way to look at it. At that time a £1 coin was a gold sovereign, one of which is worth £800 today. Which makes it £28,800.

I remember when the pound coin was first minted and I am 55 years old.

In 1915 or so, a single pound (GBP int al) was a banknote ie paper money and was thus until the coin took over in the '80s I think it was. The pound coin is not made of gold.

A gold sov. is something completely different. However "sov" is a nickname or perhaps a euphemism for a pound (GBP).

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#118

Post by thescriptkiddie »

sheepscreek wrote: post #11
hylaride wrote: post #6

> The e-scooters that clutter up pavements may seem like a new thing, but a hundred years ago, there were already people zooming around London on powered scooters. The problem is that we've given so much space to automobiles that there's no room for anything else (bikes, scooters, etc). Pedestrians have been given a sliver only because drivers need to walk between parking and their destination. This is true even in c…

Probably cause modern logistics, especially last mile logistics, is dependent on trucks/delivery vans/etc. So even though folks in a local area might like to walk around, their groceries won’t make it to the stores and packages won’t get to their homes without a robust road network. I think Bacerlona hits a good compromise. The city has the concept of a superblock, which is a few city blocks grouped into one calm zon…

it takes surprisingly few trucks to keep stores stocked. most of the trucks you see driving around are either delivering packages or hauling bulk cargo that used to go by rail

Re: The e-scooter isn't new – London was zooming around on Autopeds a century ago

#119

Post by gerdesj »

zeristor wrote: post #110
gambiting wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, thanks for explaining - but is that a standard way of writing this? Why not write £2 12s 0p?

I guess tripping on LSD L being pound, libre S being shilling D being pennies, I’m guess denari because someone went to grammar school

S for solidus (Latin again). The pound symbol £ is an L. The names are way older than grammar schools.

The way to write and "pronounce" a sum is like this: £2 3/6: "two pounds, three and six".

There are lots more "rules": 1d is a penny, 2d is tupence and 3d is thrupence, 1/2d is a ha'penny (pronounced something like "hayp-knee"). So 2 1/2d = tuppence, ha'penny.

For good measure you also have terms such as: "ha'perth" (half penny worth). So: "For want of a ha'perth of tar, the ship was lost" which is what your ISO9000 system should be all about.

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