Ken Nelson

In the category of “faster please”….   Google is working on a car that drives itself. And it seems to work pretty well:

With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation.

Since I’ve driven probably 12,000 miles in the last 6 months, I’d ready for a computer to take over!

Google, with a market capitalization of $170 billion, is a fraction of the size of the government.  But… wouldn’t you say that Google has made your life better over the last decade?  Now… how do you feel about government during that time?

It just highlights the benefits of letting people innovate and be rewarded rather than letting the government handle everything.   Just imagine if this had been NASA doing this project… it would be hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of people and the car wouldn’t have left the lab yet.

about traffic is wrong:

This idea, that making roads less safe leads to less accidents appeals to me. I can’t help but wonder if a lot of the problems people, states and the country face can be best addressed by ignoring what “experts” tell us we need (higher taxes, more regulation, more central control, more of others deciding for us) and that we should instead just let individuals get on with their lives in their naturally cooperative fashion.

I would welcome Mr. Monderman’s traffic ideas in St. George. We already have a fair number of traffic circles, but no traffic “squares” that I’m aware of.  Watch the video above, it is eerily cool how cars just approach 4 way intersections with no controls on them and do the right thing.

Down with traffic lights!

I just got back from Texas.  None of my customers knew I was traveling.  As we flew along the Interstate, I readily answered e-mail, or took phone calls. I didn’t blog, but that was mainly cause when I wasn’t working I wanted to look at scenery or chat with my fellow travelers.

What really made this possible was my father-in-law came along and did most of the driving. Oh… and amazing 3G wireless technology helped too. (-:

Out west public transportation just won’t work. But I can envision comfortable, information highway enabled jitneys moving people about so they can remain in the knowledge game. And for some higher value knowledge workers, I could easily justify a driver just so they can keep working.

I just bought a 2009 E350 Ford Van with 12 captains seats in the back. It was a commercial shuttle. I’m turning it into  a Nelson “info highway” travel van where we can comfortably make some regional trips we have planned, while still being “information” enabled.  We will be making trips to Washington State, Texas, Arizona, California, Idaho and New Mexico – that is just through August.

I’ll leave 6 seats in back, adjusting their location for legroom. Each will have a power port off a 600  watt inverter hooked directly to the battery. A laptop rack bolted to the seat bottom will hold a laptop for computing and media. A small fridge will keep us refreshed (and my medicine properly chilled). And, naturally there will be WiFi in the van and a Wilson electronic cell phone antennae giving us 20 mile cell range.  The back will be storage on a sliding rack and a pop up bunk bed for when my son and I travel to shooting matches. Should be a good rig. It isn’t an RV, but we learned last year that RV travel is cool, but not that comfortable for the passengers. This will be an RV for two heartier travelers, and a comfortable way to get from hotel to hotel for a larger group.

I’ll post pictures of the final project in a month or so after we’ve finished kitting it out.

I don’t like license plates. I don’t like vehicle registration. They are just money makers for the state and generally pains in the butt. What does a license plate do? It identifies the car. Does it identify the driver? No.  Does it prevent stolen cars? Nope. Just change the plates, about a 1 minute operation.

Just think about it… do you need a license plate? Do you use them? Who uses them? The Government!  Do they use them to help you?

The only thing license plates and registration stickers do is make money for the state, give police a reason to stop you, and in general cause you pains in the butt once a year times every vehicle you own. 

If I were Governor of Utah one of the things I’d love to get rid of is vehicle registration and the bureaucracy it creates.  I’d also eliminate license plates, but permit any store to sell Utah plates with random numbers on them for traveling in other states.

Some states, like Georgia, are buying automatic license plate readers that automatically scan license plates in parking lots or even while driving looking for hits on BOLOs and expired registration. They sell it as a theft aid:

Last October, Lt. Scott Burke of the Portsmouth, Va., Police Department said he took one of their new systems out for a test, and in 33 minutes got a "hit" on a sedan reported stolen in a carjacking.

But the real reason is so they can make money finding expired tags. And ultimately to track your movements.

We need to pay for roads, but with driving ubiquitous, road infrastructure should be paid for out of general taxation.

License plates pose a privacy and government intrusion risk – they should be eliminated.

SO easy to derail, even a caveman could do it.

Barry wants to waste some of our newly printed money on high speed rail projects. It must be a good idea because his chin was high when he read it from Mr. Tele-prompter.

But I have worries…. mainly about it not working well enough to sustain without subsidy, but also about terrorism. High speed rails would be super easy to take out. And even worse you don’t have to die to do it. You can do it again, at some other location.  What do you need to do it?  A car and a brick on the gas pedal?   A couple pieces of dynamite?    A portable plasma cutter?  Lots of options.

So, not only do I think high speed rail is a stupid idea just because it is impractical here in the large US, I think it dangerous because it is so obviously an easy target.

Yes, I know General Electric wants to railway engine contracts, but gosh Barry, are you going to let them continue to run things?

 
European cities have sudden stops (no sprawl)
Shown: Veenendaal, Holland (near Arnhem)

Suppose I could take a train to Salt Lake City from St. George.  That would be nice. But how would I get around once I got there?  Salt Lake, like other US cities, has sprawled all over the place.  The Wasatch front has a surface commuter train, but it covers a small part of the valley.  It certainly went nowhere near where I needed to go last time I went to SLC.

This rings true for any city except New York City that I’ve visited last year – and I visited a LOT of cities.

So when Obama promises $8 billion for “high speed trains” in his State of the Union address, I don’t get all giddy.  Instead, I wonder how unionized train building is. It always traces back to unions with this President.  And I know General Electric has to be getting some of that action.

The GOP only WISHES they could be this corporately corrupt…

Anyway, back to trains. Won’t work.  Most of our cities were designed and expanded well after the car.  To live, work, and even tour them requires a car.  Tulsa, and OK, OK – car. Niagra Falls – car.  Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque – car.   Only New York, Boston, and perhaps Washington D.C. come to mind as places you can avoid needing  car.

Besides, I already have a fast, cheap, way to get from town to town, should I not want to drive.   Ever hear of Southwest Airlines?

Far cheaper would be to deregulate air travel further and let Southwest and its competitors penetrate to more and more cities.  I’d much rather fly over, than speed through, this country – especially in the age of terrorism.