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Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

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Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#61

Post by hmmokidk »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #40
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so assuming inner sidewalk moving at 100 mph, next outer at 95, and each moving at 5 per less, when big muscular terrorists placed on s-100 carrying a big cardboard box filled with nails and throw it as quickly and hard as possible so that the box of nails open up over s-75 at what velocity are the nails raining down on pedestrians on s-75?

Assuming that these terrorists are relatively fast runners, being in good shape, and they decide to exit the walkways on the other side, how far on the other side will they be in relation to the nail rain on s-75 they caused.

Two planes are headed towards new york. The first is descending into the city at 805 miles per hour. The second 846 miles per…

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#62

Post by cyberax »

cogman10 wrote: post #29
bofadeez wrote: post #20

Time traveler: "No, in 120 years we won't have moving sidewalks almost anywhere" Tech enthusiasts: "Oh what a luddite, didn't you see the demo? This is the future!"

Cars really messed a lot of that up. In the 1900s every city was walkable. Most cities had trains of some sort for the majority of transport and bikes or horses for the last mile. It really makes me sad to see even old cartoons showing off the tram systems of the day. Those all got pulled up for "progress" thrusting us all backwards into bumper to bumper traffic. Whats incredible is that happened almost immediately a…

> In the 1900s every city was walkable. Most cities had trains of some sort for the majority of transport and bikes or horses for the last mile.

Not the "last mile". The _only_ mile. Cities were so walkable that London had multiple distinct local accents because people were living their entire lives in one neighborhood, venturing outside only for special occasions.

This changed only with the invention of electric trams that allowed people to relatively cheaply move around. Technically, horse-driven trams were invented a bit earlier but they never got built at scale.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#63

Post by bryanrasmussen »

hmmokidk wrote: post #61
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that these terrorists are relatively fast runners, being in good shape, and they decide to exit the walkways on the other side, how far on the other side will they be in relation to the nail rain on s-75 they caused.

Two planes are headed towards new york. The first is descending into the city at 805 miles per hour. The second 846 miles per…

given these facts that I have already laid out, which terrorist has the blue handlebar mustache?

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#65

Post by rootbear »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #12
delichon wrote: post #3

I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…

Yeah, love that idea of progressive velocities. I ant someone to at least build a short test track like this so we can play with it. Seem to recall they were called "slidewalks" by some Sci-Fi author—probably Heinlein, eh?

Larry Niven called them slidewalks and I've always been sorry this terminology never caught on.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#66

Post by ggm »

timcobb wrote: post #64

> moving walkways, those standard infrastructural elements of such utilitarian spaces as airport terminals, subway stations, and big-box stores big-box stores? where??

used to go between levels so a flat escalator, can take trolleys or there is a trolley chain haul beside. Bunnings (Hammerbarn if you must) have them. Giant tilt slab constructed category killers. Where sprawl is permitted they're a one layer building but in space constrained areas they have two or three (carpark under a 2 layer building) and these walkways exist to get your inflatable shark, chainsaw and bucket of chips down or up, depending.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#67

Post by econ »

bluGill wrote: post #54
userbinator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency should not be pursued to the exclusion of everything else. As the article itself says: trans­porta­tion should be about more than just get­ting from A to B; it should be a plea­sure as well

That is stupid. people have places to be. Only a tiny minority are on transit for fun. Everyone else just wants to be there. you do these people a massive disservice by not making their ride efficient. and the minority who are for the ride will figure out how to make it work.

I'm not sure. I want to see public transport in a city done with rollercoasters. The amount using it for fun would go up dramatically. It would change overnight from just another utterly boring city not worth visiting into a tourist hot spot. Similarly, people who need to be places will make it work.

Life is about the journey. All those roads and other boring means of transportation are just places no one wants to be.

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#68

Post by drfenagle »

comrade1234 wrote: post #11
delichon wrote: post #3

I'd guess that Heinlein was aware of it and scaled it up in his imagination. The Roads must roll — they are the arteries of the nation. When they stop, everything stops. Factories idle, food rots, men starve. The nation cannot live without its Roads. A thousand feet wide, level as a floor, strip after strip moving past in ordered procession. The slow strips on the outside moved at five miles an hour; the inner ones f…

I think about this every time I get on a moving walkway and wish it had a few more speeds.

I think about:

https://m.soundcloud.com/thomas-dolby-official/pedestrian-wa...

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#69

Post by jazzyjackson »

bluGill wrote: post #54
userbinator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency should not be pursued to the exclusion of everything else. As the article itself says: trans­porta­tion should be about more than just get­ting from A to B; it should be a plea­sure as well

That is stupid. people have places to be. Only a tiny minority are on transit for fun. Everyone else just wants to be there. you do these people a massive disservice by not making their ride efficient. and the minority who are for the ride will figure out how to make it work.

Even with a job I'd rather spend an hour on a train than 35 minutes in LA traffic. (30 minutes... I guess I'd prefer the stress + a little more time for breakfast. But I'd put a 2x multiplier on not having to drive myself)

Re: Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)

#70

Post by TacticalCoder »

illusive4080 wrote: post #42
LiquidPolymer wrote: post #7

I love the kid who is hamming it up at the bottom of the frame. I've been a photographer/videographer for my entire professional career and have run into this kid many, many times. Adults exhibit this behavior too but it is usually much more moderated. This kid had to know what a camera was, which end was filming (some early film cameras appeared to be simple boxes), and wanted to make his mark on the final product.

It’s crazy to me watching this and thinking that if that kid lived to 100 he would’ve died 30+ years ago. That unknown child will be forever captured on this film. Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.

> Every time I watch old films with children in them I always think about how they’ve been dead, hopefully of old age, for a long time already.

I've got movies (black & white, no audio) recorded on a "Pathe-Baby" camera [1] from my grand-mother and her sister, my great-aunt, in the early 1920s, where they're both little girls playing.

I knew them both very well, they lived through WWII in Europe and they both died old. My great-aunt lived until her 100th year.

Very few things are as moving as this little, short Pathe Baby vids I've got of them.

A few years ago we asked a little local shop to convert these to digital format and these files are precious treasure in the family.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9-Baby

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