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PERRIN LOVETT

~ Deo Vindice

PERRIN LOVETT

Category Archives: Other Columns

Columns concerning any and everything. Enjoy!

Fly Me Outrageous: More Lies About “Flying” Cars

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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Tags

BS, flying cars

Here we go again. And this story isn’t even about a flying car. It’s a flying …. motorbike? Jet ski?

CLEARLAKE, Calif. — On a recent afternoon, an aerospace engineer working for a small Silicon Valley company called Kitty Hawk piloted a flying car above a scenic lake about 100 miles north of San Francisco.

Kitty Hawk’s flying car, if you insisted on calling it a “car,” looked like something Luke Skywalker would have built out of spare parts. It was an open-seated, 220-pound contraption with room for one person, powered by eight battery-powered propellers that howled as loudly as a speedboat.

The tech industry, as we are often told, is fond of disrupting things, and lately the automakers have been a big target. Cars that use artificial intelligence to drive themselves, for example, have been in development for a few years and can be spotted on roads in a number of cities. And now, coming onto the radar screen, are flying machines that do not exactly look like your father’s Buick with wings.

Silicon Valley is on the case. Problem solved. Now you too can zip around, 15 feet off the ground, at 15 MPH. Without passengers. Or luggage. Or protection from the elements. For about five minutes. Best to do it over water. Wear a helmet. And, as always, “now” means some indeterminate time in the future.

nimbus-image-1493053057092

Carlos Slim’s Blog.

I have to admit that this thing looks kind of cool, in a Daffy Duck in the 25th and 1/2 Century kind of way… (Remember his suit or wings or whatever?) And it is very impressive it actually works – slowly, lowly, and for a very short time.

The Bezos-Gates-Google-Apple, flying, toy drone, Duck Rogers go-cart! Coming to a dealer near you! Sometime. Sometime tomorrow… Next year. 2030. Maybe…

I’ll believe it when I fly it.

Fly This: Another “I Told You So”

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes, Other Columns

≈ Comments Off on Fly This: Another “I Told You So”

Tags

flying cars

A week or so ago I exposed the lie that is the flying car market. Or racket. Or just “lie”. Lies, lies, and more lies. Next year…

Then, I predicted that AeroMobil’s prototype toy would be a mere prop at the (then) upcoming show. Today I read this headline: Flying cars take off on French Riviera. Complete and utter BS!

Dutch and Slovak companies unveiled their designs as world premieres in the tiny well-heeled principality, where luxury automakers have gathered until Sunday for the Top Marques showcase event.

Bratislava-based Aeromobil, whose first prototype presented two years ago suffered an accident, is back with a “new generation” of flying vehicle named after the firm which makes it.

“We are taking reservations from today for deliveries expected in 2020, after the process of (regulatory) approvals is completed,” the Slovak firm’s spokesman Stefan Vadocz told AFP.

What did I say? 2020. 2030. 2150. NEVER. Lies. Lies. Lies. And more and bigger lies.

nimbus-image-1492736648632

This is FAKE NEWS. The little car-plane that couldn’t. Phys.org.

One will note the expected delivery date is ALWAYS nebulously in the uncertain future. One will also note this sad display took place at a convention hall in Monaco. Cote d’Azur and La Mole were available, with all runways open. Then again, if you’re “prototype” can’t fly, what’s the point?

The good news is that your $1 Million, or whatever they claim, will go a long way in the general aviation market – towards a real product that actually fly – today, not in 20…never.

The bad news took place farther north in France today. I’ll be on that in a second, as soon as WP refreshes.

“Flying” cars … geesh….

 

Dick Van Dyke on Hollywood and the Culture

17 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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culture, Dick Van Dyke

Back in the 60’s my Ex-wife’s father met actor Dick Van Dyke on a Transatlantic cruise. He reported Van Dyke was a gentleman and a pleasure to be around. Van Dyke could have reported the same.

Back then, people took cruises and just about everything else a little more seriously than today. I saw a photograph of the meeting. If memory serves, Van Dyke was weaning a plaid or checkered suit, with vest, and a hat – something suitable for both hunting Scottish Grouse or walking Glasgow in the evening. He was wearing a suit and hat on a cruise, standing, right there, on the deck of the QE2. He was smiling.

Contrast that image to any modern cruise. Contrast it to anything modern. The culture, vacations, entertainment, dress, etc., has changed. Van Dyke noticed and commented:

Dick Van Dyke, who is currently filming Mary Poppins Returns, which is scheduled for release next year, has warned of his fears over the effects of “scary” video games and films on young children.

The 91-year-old actor, who will make a cameo appearance in the upcoming film, describes these activities as a far cry from the free-spirited, kite-flying, carousel-riding world of the two children, Jane and Michael, in the original Mary Poppins.

Van Dyke believes video games incite violent behaviour and that big-screen violence is affecting impressionable young people who “idolise it as a romantic way of life”. He has no doubt Walt Disney would have been horrified by the explicit depictions of blood, gore and killing in some of the contemporary productions created to entertain children. “He would have spoken out about it,” he said.

Van Dyke rose to prominence in films including Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as well as his TV sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. His role as Bert, the charming chimney-sweep in Mary Poppins, is perhaps the best known and, in the sequel, he will play the part of Mr Dawes Jr, chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, alongside Emily Blunt as the eccentric nanny.

Commenting on why the industry rarely makes films with such innocence as Mary Poppins, he said: “We lost Walt Disney, for one thing. Walt was a child at heart. He had such creativity and imagination. We said we were both children looking for our inner adults.”

…

He argued that children’s films from Hollywood’s so-called golden age taught morals and manners: “When I was a teenager, I modelled myself after the way Fred Astaire or Cary Grant dressed. Now kids emulate street gangs. They like to dress like hoods. That’s just a reversal. They’re picking the wrong role models.”

Dick_Van_Dyke_11

Like this, with a hat. PBS.

At 91, he has every right to complain. And, given the new reality, he is justified. The natives in Robinson Crusoe, USN, would be over-dressed on a Carnival ride these days. And they were supposed to be savages. What does that tell you?

Happy Easter 2017!

16 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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Easter, Jesus

Easter-religious

Have a great Sunday.

Rise of the Robots: Armed and Dangerous

14 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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future, paranoia, robots, technology

I can see it now. In the end it will be me versus these damned things up at the mountain retreat. Most of you will be long gone by then. We’ll have at it. They will win, ultimately. But, then, they won’t know what to do with all the cigars. Revenge….

Seriously, folks, do you really want the following mechanical monsters running loose at Epcot?

Humanoid robot F.E.D.O.R., set to fly into space in 2021, is now capable of shooting using both of his arms, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

“The robot of the F.E.D.O.R. platform showed skills of firing using both arms. Currently the work on fine motor skills and decision algorithms is underway,” Rogozin wrote on his Twitter.

Tweeting, like Trump, … about killer robots from sci-fi. Except these are real – and improving daily. Armed, trigger-happy, ambidextrous droids, robotic tanks, Big Dog, the Terminator. Fun! “Tweet! Tweet!”

C9T0qnEXsAAQd1Y

The Russians.

Some far-distant, android Sean Spicer will say the early robots weren’t that bad (compared to the latest AI monster): “At least F.E.D.O.R. didn’t use poison gas at Disney World; he used bullets…”

Do what you can. Resist and stuff….

On That White Privilege Thing

14 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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App. State, civilization, Fred Reed, SJW, society, white privilege

Yesterday, I remembered once reading about “white privilege” at Appalachian State University. All schools, it seems, have a horde of SJWs hell-bent on pointing out privilege and whining about it. I though this particular story was interesting, because Boone. The resident multi-culti association put a display in the student center attacking straight, white, Christian men – all the rage, don’t you know.

I checked with their “diverse” school website and got a good chuckle. It’s nice that these hateful but generally harmless people are no longer confined to padded rooms in a hospital.

It was Fred Reed’s take on the matter, yesterday that made me remember the App. State episode.

Look around your university. Who do you see taking the hard subjects–math, chemistry, physics, engineering, philosophy, computer science? Whites and Asians…right? Are they the kind of people who complain constantly about White Privilege? You may notice a pattern here: Those who can, do. The rest bitch and moan.

How about your own classes? You are not blind. If you think for yourself, you can see who the smart ones are, and who are those getting a free ride. Usually, a free ride at your expense. Your professors will not want you to notice this either. The question is whether you have been so profoundly brainwashed that you cannot see the obvious.

Being very young, you will probably have little idea of the vast body of knowledge, won over millenia, behind all the things you take for granted. At your age, I didn’t either. It takes years to get a handle on things. It will be harder for you because your universities will discourage you from looking around you. But glance at the very partial list below (I paste from an ancient column of mine) to get an idea of what the white race has done over the centuries. You will never have heard of many of these things. And that is curious. While your nose is being rubbed into the virtues, often real, sometimes imagined, of other groups, your own race is seldom motioned except to revile it.

Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. The Anabasis. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. Pierre Auguste Renoir. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. The Pill. The condom. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Skyscrapers. The piano. The harpsichord. Elvis. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray. Diffie-Hellman, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera at great length.

If you talk about these things on campus, you will be called a “white supremacist.” This is silly. But calling you a racist is an effective way of making you shut up. Do you want to be supreme over anyone? I do not. Yet other races are proud of their achievements. Why should you not be? Ask where they would be without electricity, sterile water, telephones and–well, just about everything.

Fred points out that bragging is inappropriate – as is taking abuse for nothing. A little humble pride in achievement goes a long way. Maybe the others will be motivated to get off their low horse and excel. Maybe…

WhiteMen1

Nothing to see here. Just mean, old, white men at work, exploring the universe. Fred / NASA.

Of course, if the Apple State-ling Gang was really serious about doing something to terminate modern civilization white society, then they would join this yahoo in Minnesota.

Or, better yet, they could support these causes.

Or they could just shut the hell up. I suspect that is the native reaction around Boone. But, of course, I think, suspect,and type from privilege. Wonderful, wonderful, white privilege.

I’ll Believe This When I Fly One: Dawn of the Flying Car?

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

flying cars, green space chickens, Perrin

Little known fact: Perrin is (was) obsessed with flying cars. I have studied these concepts (they’re never anything more than a concept) for over 25 years. Every two or three years it’s the same thing: “The Flying Car is Here! Today! Err…Tomorrow! Soon…ish…. sometime. Sometime soon, maybe in a year or 40….” Like this, today:

IF flying cars are the future, the future is right now.

The first ever production-ready flying car is due to be shown off later this month at the world’s most exclusive supercar show – Top Marques Monaco.

Why chose between driving or flying when you could do both?

Built by Slovak pioneering company AeroMobil, the vehicle was first revealed as a concept in 2014, and now a much improved version is ready for the world’s richest to take for a spin and purchase if they wish.

Fully functional as both an aircraft and a four-wheeled car, it is powered by hybrid propulsion, with wings sweeping back against the body when the vehicle is in driving mode.

nintchdbpict000315908526

The Sun.

“If”. If is the worst, damnedest word in the all of auto-aviation. “The future is here, today! Well, today is next month at the auto show … where the think will be a mock-up. Flight testing in 2019. On sale in 2022 2260 never….”

Spare me. That thing looks cool, much like the Moller Skycar … in 1990…

Moller_Skycar_M400

Never. Took. Off. Moller / Wikipedia.

I’m waiting patiently as I have for the past 1,000 years or so. In spite of my (what?) 1,000,000+ miles driving experience, I really, really hate traffic. That, coupled with my rudimentary and aging flying skills, make me the perfect driver/flyer for this, the Moller, or anything else that will get me up over and off of the Interstates.

Must I duct tape a hang-glider to a dirtbike or something?

How about this?

th_2

This will probably fly first.

*The ready solution is a Cessna and a rental car. Plausible, yes. But the flying car is – well, it’s the all in one package. 

Words of the Day

10 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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words

GAMMONACIOUS: something duplicitous. “The Gammonacious-faced political scum in Washington bleed us dry”.

dictionary

This and 14 other words of the double meaning.

You’re welcome. You’re welcome.

Robots to Invade Disneyland, Kill Children, Steal Jobs

08 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes, Other Columns

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Disney, economy, robots

Here’s one more terrifying reason to speed up that planned visit to Orlando or Anaheim: the robots are coming.

Soft-body robots could someday be roaming Disney theme parks, playing animated, humanoid movie characters and interacting with visitors.

A new patent application by the entertainment giant doesn’t name specific characters, but it describes “designing a robot that will move and physically interact like an animated character.”

A prototype sketch filed with the patent application shows a round body, echoing the shape of the Baymax soft-robot character in Disney’s 2014 movie “Big Hero 6.” The application, and theme park observers, say the big issue for robotic interaction is safety. The document, dated Thursday, shows Disney research scientists in Pittsburgh have worked on prototypes identified only as “soft body 300” or “soft body 1000.”

“It’s hard to know why Disney decides to file for a patent, but they have been looking at soft-body robots since ‘Big Hero,’” said theme park writer Jim Hill. “Disney is still terrified that even with this soft technology, a robot could accidentally harm a child. They do a lot of testing.”

Some corrections: First, the droids are coming, period – no “could someday” about it. And no one is terrified, though they should be. The Disney men, Walt and Roy, are long gone. The people in charge now care more about your money than your kids’ experience or anything else.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of human Goofies, Donalds, and Princess Jasmines will be out of work. Ticket prices will rise. Lines will be long. Some kids will probably be eaten…

aae2d960085a20f5fe7a7a8b2a1f8b31

Pinterest.

I warned you…

Par Three Wednesday, 2017

06 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by perrinlovett in Other Columns

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Augusta, golf, Masters Tournament

Alas … there was no Par Three Contest this year! Yesterday’s weather terminated activities around Noon. Dustin Johnson went home only to find a banana peel on the stairs…

Well, here’s a look back at Par Threes of the recent past:

2016

2015

Oh, weather or not, I did run into Mrs. Par Three, 2017, last night:

IMG_20170405_231124544

There was that!

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