Re: Interesting hype about a secret project

[Patrick Salsbury <salsbury at sculptors dot com>]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2001 at 07:56:21PM -0500, Emilie Manning wrote:
> > Or perhaps a uni-pod device. I have a cool book from Syd Mead
> > (http://www.sydmead.com/) where he talks about gyroscopically balanced
> > unipod vehicles that can take you all over the place. There's a picture
> > here: http://www.sydmead.com/v/2/topsenmonpframe.html
> 
> That is soooooo cool!!!
> M:)M
> 
	Y'know, one of the things I found most humorous in this entire
thread was comparing the futuristic/artistic vision of Syd Mead with the
"Plain Jane" line-drawings of the patent office in this article: 
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/itmystery010111.html

	Someone else posted a link to the actual patent claim, but I can't
find that at the moment. It's full of hysterical pictures, all done in that
1950's style line-drawing. 

	I just find the striking delineation between "fantasy/Sci-Fi" and
so-called "reality" to be very humorous. If you look at our toys you can
see this as well. Kids have had futuristic looking robot-transformer toys
that can change from a robot to a plane to a motorcycle. But do we ever
build these things larger than 12"? No. 
	Why is that? Why have there always been futuristic looking
concept-cars since the 1940's or 1950's, but you never see them on the
road? Just blocky-looking Oldsmobile-type rolling bricks.

	There seems to be a wide gulf between what we *can* build, and what
people actually *want*. (Or rather, what the marketing departments of
manufacturing firms think that we want.)

-- 
Pat
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