h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, Hoovooloo, I do get it now. Thank you.

""If some things go over my head, so be it."

If there's one thing that gets on my wick, it's aggressive ignorance. 'I don't know' is an honourable admission. 'I don't know, and don't WANT to know' is the mark of the worst kind of idiot""

I doubt that there's anyone on the planet who understands *everything* that the person hears or reads. If there is such a person, it's not me. So, some things will go over my head. I can get upset, or I can figure that that's life. Maybe some kind person can help me out, and point out reasons for becoming interested, in which case I might be happy to learn more. I've met some nice people who have used praise and encouragement, and I thank them. They didn't get flustered and call me an idiot, aggressive or otherwise.

There's always a temptation to shrink into a shell and imagine that the things I'm interested in are the only things that are worth being interested in. I'd like to fight that urge, but it's easier to do so with an occasional carrot than with a stick beating my back. That's okay. Far more people are carrot people than stick people, a ccoridng to people who have studied such things.

Anyway, I didn't come here to be the one who pretends to know everything. I used to work as a reference librarian, and I sometimes dreaded it when people assumed that I knew things I really didn't. It can be a delicate matter to explain that I have to look things up, too. So, sometimes I have defenses that kick in. I've enjoyed learning about people's lives and giving them a pat on the back when they were down.

You expressed that beautifully, paulh.

Thanks, Witty Moniker.

>>a half full tank would not make much difference, since you don't use any petrol while filling your tank you would use slightly less../

You're also normally stationary, so your mpg would not improve. Or perhaps there is a revolutionary new method of mobile refuelling?

Here's an interesting related argument I heard yesterday:

Part of the economic case for building a railway is reduced journey times. The logic is based on the idea that on the train there are lots of valuable people who would be doing something productive, if only they were at work SOONER.

Which is of course true... if it's 1998. But people using this website *might* have noticed that technology has moved on a bit since The Verve were in the charts. People WORK on trains now... in fact a lot of people claim to get MORE work done on the train than in the office, because of fewer distractions. So getting them to the office early is active of NEGATIVE economic value. Which makes building high speed rail links actually an extremely bad idea.

Where is this leading? Ten years from now, some - perhaps many - cars on the road will be driving themselves. It is definitely coming, and it's a severely disruptive technology. Apart from anything else, it means we won't need to build new roads.

Again - the economic case for building a new road is that people get where they're going sooner, and get to work making positive economic contributions to the country sooner. Right now, in 2013, time spent driving a car really is dead time. Unlike on a train, you really can't (or shouldn't) do anything - even talking on the phone - which distracts you from driving. But ten years from now that idea will seem quaint. We'll get in our cars, tell them where we want to go, then fire up the laptop and either do our emails or watch some cats on Youtube or something. The car will drive - our time in the car will be our own. We'll get where we're going as quick or quicker, safer, and having used less fuel.

Road building projects will wither, because we won't be able to justify them financially...

Discuss.

there was a short clip on the Today programme yesterday morning about HS2 from a businessman who currently travels between Manchester and London by train and uses his time on the train to work and finds it very productive.

He said that when HS2 comes along he'll be reluctant to use it because it will cut in to his working time *on the train* and make him less productive since once he's in the office there are too many other things that get in the way.

I loathe my commute (1 hour at least each way) in my car because it's unproductive time. When I spent a month doing it by public transport (2.5 hours each way ) I read a lot and for me it was very productive indeed.

It's unproductive *and tiring*. I know some people find driving relaxing but I don't - my commute is 45 minutes of being on red alert. So my current arrangement (2 days in the office, 3 working at home using a VPN connection) is the most efficient of all.

The train is great - I can read or sleep - but then on my local line I can always get a seat. Commuting by train to and from the office also built in an hour's worth of walking every day, so I got super fit when I travelled that way. But it takes twice as long, didn't fit with home life when my husband went back to work, and isn't practical with heavy case files.

Totally agree about car headlights. I tried to follow the diagrams in the car manual to change ours, and found it needed Special Tools (a sort of spanner on a stick to remove the last nut). And *then* I found that because I'd been following the diagram, I'd loosened the offside headlight in the picture, rather than the nearside one that actually needed replacing. I had to get the garage to do it. But no wonder people drive around with headlights not working.

My sister reckoned she improved her fuel economy by clearing the car of all detritus (when you transport kids, this accumulates to astonishing levels). But she failed to provide me with evidential figures.

And in answer to the OP - as soon as my car gets to half-full, I start calculating when and where I'll be filling it up again (something I like to do at the quarter-full mark and without making a special journey). If I kept the level in the tank between quarter and half full and never filled it right up, I'd be visiting the filling station almost every time I went beyond our village. I doubt I'd save money and I'd certainly be wasting more of my time.

Mol

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/61152/car-manufacturers-ditch-spare-tyres

Less than a fifth of new cars in the UK will have a full spare provided.

Interesting points raised, Hoo, maybe we'll all have that Shangri-La of increased leisure time.

I'm lucky that I have a very convenient filling station on my way to work. I pass Junction 2 of the M5 and there's a supermarket one between the off ramp and the on ramp so it could hardly be easier. Plus it's a pay at pump one, which means no hanging around waiting for someone to finish browsing in the shop before they move their car.

I have a 25 mile each way drive to work and I don't find the time wasted. While my conscious mind is looking out for pillocks who may endanger my life, my subconscious is free to wander and do a bit of problem solving or whatever. Or I sing along to a CD (which I can do whilst concentrating on the road) which boosts my mood and I often arrive at work in a better mood than I left home.

Public transport isn't a viable option for me since my company moved from Birmingham city centre to Halesowen. It would involve a couple of train changes plus two buses and would take at least twice as long as the drive does, provided everything goes smoothly. Before I got my driving licence I got the train to Birmingham for ten years and I can say categorically that everything going smoothly was the exception rather than the rule. In the 6 years I've been driving I would say I've encountered bad journeys (ie taking over an hour more than usual) maybe six times and truly awful ones (over two hours longer) exactly twice. So even if public transport was an option I doubt I'd take it.

Regarding spares, I would definitely call out the professionals rather than change it myself. I have arthritic hands with very little strength so doubt I could manage to do the unscrewing let alone anything else.

That's a bit of a long ramble without a definite point, possibly

Deb

I rather like the argument about working on trains whilst commuting. I've experienced this myself and it *is* very productive.
However this was on *very early* trains and on one I had to have a stand up argument to get the table seat with a power socket that I'd actually booked from the people who'd just sat there regardless. I have also experienced commuter trains where I've had to stand all the way - that's not productive, not pleasant and made me never want to travel on the train again. Swings and roundabouts.

I have some sympathies with the government (has to happen occasionally right ) on the plans for the new hyperspeed railroute. They're constantly berated for being short-termist yet as soon as they indulge in a long term plan we get lurid headlines that we won't see a return on our money for TEN TO TWENTY YEARS!!!! . Well yes, that's what long term-infrastructure investments are all about surely.
Not sure if that railroute is what we need - I don't know enough about such things, but they are damned if they do and damned if they don't as far as I can see.

Interesting point about the working on trains angle, never thought about that.

I'm a bit wary about driverless cars and I think it'll be much longer than 10 years before we see them other than very specific taxis doing very specific routes in cities.

As a sales guy I hate the idea of driverless cars. My company is ok (just now) - I see my boss and colleagues about 4 times a year and I'm left alone but one of the distributors I supply has reps that are controlled to the nth degree. Their cars are chipped and all movements between 6am and 8pm are logged. Their laptops are gps enabled and map the route taken. Their calls are generated automatically - basically their customer list is analysed for call frequency and order quantities and a programme then produces a call plan for the month telling the rep who to call on, how long the call should last and mapping the optimum route for fuel efficiency. There's a bit of flexibility but not much.

Micro-managing companies like that will seize upon driverless cars. I can see a day when the rep steps into his car which then whisks him off to his first call whilst motivational speeches are played at full blast and projected directly onto the rep's retinas whilst a cyber manager delivers holographic kicks to his/her backside.

If they're doing more work on the trains - then arguing that they'd actually do worse to get to the office earlier only applies if they were already travelling via train - if they were driving (and so presumably struggling to work - or at least I hope they weren't) then they would benefit from any work done on the train

Annoyingly, the HS2 will give good train links to Leeds - about 6 years after I finish my degree here

>I see my boss and colleagues about 4 times a year and I'm left alone but one of the distributors I supply has reps that are controlled to the nth degree. Their cars are chipped and all movements between 6am and 8pm are logged. Their laptops are gps enabled and map the route taken. Their calls are generated automatically - basically their customer list is analysed for call frequency and order quantities and a programme then produces a call plan for the month telling the rep who to call on, how long the call should last and mapping the optimum route for fuel efficiency.<

Blimey Maybe my job's not so bad after all.

As a full on commuting cyclist, I'm very wary about cars driven by people frankly. With fully automated cars lets watch the killed and seriously injured figures on roads plummet. Won't happen though - people like zapping about for kicks too much - and I include myself in that.

both that some people enjoy driving and also that as soon as one computer controlled car crashes (probably irrelevantly of whether it was the computer's fault) their sales will drop massively

Indeed - won't matter that it'll be far safer than a people-driven car either.

I'd be interested to see how they'd program a car to react in cases where there is no way to avoid collisions - especially situations where there'd be more than a very short period of time before collision

Programming a car to know which object would do the car the least damage would be extremely hard and so would programming it to avoid hitting certain objects (like humans?) over others

Whereas, given a little time, humans can make no-win choices (not that we'll always go for the right one)

I'm skeptical of the idea that roads won't need to be replaced once cars drive themselves. Don't roads go awry due to frost heaves, overflowing rivers, and other factors? Also, will large trucks drive themselves, too, or will people still be driving them. In my area, a bridge had to be rebuilt because a truck was too tall for the bridge it tried to pass under.

Also, not all of the passengers on a train are businessmen. Even among those, some may find distractions at the office, while others may not. Some ride trains to get to and from work. Others ride them to get to school, to visit relatives/friends, to get to holiday destinations, or just because they like to ride on trains. The people who run the railroads probably do research to find out what their riders want.

>The people who run the railroads probably do research to find out what their riders want. <


You'd think so wouldn't you


Lower fares? So that it isn't cheaper to fly than go by train... mmmm.

or longer trains or more seats...