Transportation Thoughts

As I was driving to Solvang today, I was thinking of some of the impact that autonomous vehicles are likely to make. I think they will be a huge game-changer, and my hope is that they may help to undo the tremendous damage that automobiles have done to our society, environment and culture.
For one thing, I think that car ownership will fade away. Not at first. At first, the manufacturers will be trying to sell autonomous vehicles to everyone who has a car already, as the next step in car ownership. But eventually people will begin to realize that these robots (that's what they are) will be so efficient at getting to where they are needed, that the wait time for one to appear at your door will be measurable in seconds. Uber and Lyft already show us a model of the convenience that an app-linked transportation appliance can be. If you remove the last inefficiency -- the driver -- then the response time becomes close to nothing.
Transportation of goods and materials will also be made much more efficient. Transportation vehicles will be able to be active around the clock. The roads won't have to be as smooth either, both because the vehicles won't care how smooth the ride is, and because of active shock absorption. Air travel will disappear eventually for a number of reasons, primary among them the lack of portable fuels, but also because autonomous vehicles will be able to travel at rates far exceeding what human drivers can accomplish. The extra cost of air travel for a few saved hours won't be worth it, especially if you are traveling in what is effectively an office/lounge/suite.
But how will we power these vehicles? I think that there may be a very large solar power infrastructure that develops. Certainly the roadways will be lined with solar panels. They may even be covered overhead by panels. Getting the energy to the vehicles may be as simple as using conductive pick-offs like electric rail systems do. Or, the solar electricity could be used to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen to create portable fuels. Hmmm. Maybe air travel could use these same fuels after all; who knows? The electric pick-off systems might only be used on long highway stretches, while for urban and rural use, the vehicles would switch over to portable fuels.
Without so much car ownership, the cars that do exist will be in more constant use. Parking lots will be less and less desirable.  Won't that be nice? Maybe our society won't have to be built so much around the needs of these machines as they are for cars today. Maybe there could be more walkable plazas, social meeting places, outdoor entertainment venues, parks and nice places to be.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Another Change of Heart

OK, so I took a four-year detour. I seriously bought into the idea that industrial civilization is doomed, and that we all had better learn some basic survival skills so that we can, basically...survive. Well, I'm not a young guy these days, and I find that if I do much more than basic work in the garden, I seriously hurt myself. Yeah, I'm trying to get much more physically fit, and I've made lots of progress there (50 pounds lost, maybe 50 more to go?). But there are hard limits. So, you won't see me hefting bales of hay anytime soon, I'm afraid.

This year I was too disheartened to even do much in the vegetable garden. My Permaculture aspirations were going nowhere. I was in a tailspin of misdirection and disappointment. My house, while now being paid off, is still a tax burden, and it needs constant maintenance to not fall down. Luckily, the roof is in good shape, except for the patio roof. That area needs attention, because the next rainy season -- if we get one -- will likely make things a lot worse.

My wife has serious health problems with her ankles and now her knees. Arthritis. So I'm her caretaker, and that takes up much of my day.

So, why am I writing anything now at all? Well, I am coming out of my blue funk, having finally rediscovered an old interest that I think I can nurture into a new vocation, and I read an inspiring piece of fiction that made me somewhat optimistic for the future, and wanting to learn and create again. Yippee!

If anyone is interested, the fictional work is Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow, and, as always, he offers the book FOR FREE on his website, http://www.craphound.com. I bought the book used, so poor Cory didn't see any revenue from that sale. But in the spirit of what Cory stands for in regard to copyright and the ability to share something you buy, I passed my copy on to a young person who I think will get something out of it, based on some of his comments about life and the future. Hopefully I'm not being too vague.

I have decided to resurrect my lifelong interest in Photography and Video Production, and open a little boutique video transfer service in my local area. I will compete with the mass service people based on price points, pickup and delivery service, and extended services, such as curating, organizing titling and packaging customers' years of video onto an easy to access external hard drive. I also do video editing, so if a customer needs a video collage, I can take the best of what they
have, and make an emotive memory for them.

But what do I think is really going to happen to industrial civilization? Look at who is in the White House! Look at the hurricane that just threw Puerto Rico into a collapse situation of its own! Won't
we be following right along in a few years' time? Maybe. But I've been waiting for several years for the big stock market crash, the shuttering of the Walmarts, the halt of all food deliveries, and the rise of gangs of ravenous, hungry mobs. I can't just focus on gloom and doom all the time anymore. There will be disasters, sure, but not all at once. And I can't just sit and wait to die in one.

I have other interests that I want to follow, too. There are a few bits of robotic machinery that I would like to build, and that I think I CAN build, if I can finally clear out a lot of the excess STUFF I have
that's in my way. My wife and I have accumulated a lot of clutter that needs to be cleared out so that we can access the useful things we have. Nowadays, we can't find anything, so we have to buy stuff that we know we already have. That's not very smart!

So, that's where I stand today. Hopefully, I'll have a lot more for you
soon.