Living under the sword of damocles

As I was born after 1950 and before 1986, I lived a significant part of my life with the threat of sudden nuclear war. I suspect this will become a hallmark of my generation. We've lived under the threat of sudden nuclear annihilation, which does affect ones outlook on life.

If you look at science fiction, up until around 1991, all 'near future' fiction had the US/USSR conflict extended into the future. A lot had a limited nuclear exchange as a formative event. I'll even go so far as to say that most of the fiction that was middle distance future had a nuclear exchange of some form take place in the past. After 1991 when the USSR collapsed, the future suddenly had a lot less nukes in it.

In the 1980's I grew up about 2 miles north of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and the Fort Snelling Military Reservation. This was also about 6 miles south of Downtown Minneapolis. If I wasn't killed outright in the first flash, I was in the, "dead in 3 hours," band. If we had the fabled 20 minutes warning and the roads were miraculously clear, we'd merely be in the, "dead in 2 weeks," band. If we did get the 20 minutes warning, the highways would be a parking lot and we wouldn't be any further away from the nuclear blasts than if we had stayed at home.

This is how I grew up. We knew that if the nukes started flying, we'd be dead. Period. And there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. At all. That nuclear sword could fall at any time, and we'd know maybe 20 minutes before it actually did. That was enough time to be a good God-fearing American; say our prayers and get our affairs in order. Or in true SF fashion, grumble, "So this is it, we're going to die," then lay on the front lawn in our bathrobes with a towel under our heads.

Humor was about the only way to really deal with that. When Weird Al released, "Christmas at Ground Zero," it was taken by my peers in classic bitterly-ironic fashion and sung to the rafters come each December. However, to this day I still can't listen to the end of the song, where the air-raid sirens sound, without wincing and having to either change the channel or hit next-song. Like many dark things in my life, living under the threat of instant death is not something I like to think about.

To this day I still occasionally think about survival bands and the likelihood of targets near me being hit by a nuke. I no longer live in the instant kill zone. With MSP being a major airport it was a high value target in even a limited exchange, a 'mere' low-yield tactical nuke would be enough to reduce my lifespan to weeks. This is not a reflex that people who were born after about 1986 had a chance to learn.

It is hard to describe how it feels to know that yourself and everyone within 10 miles of your location could die instantly (or worse, almost instantly). Mostly you get through things by not thinking about it. This is not something I'd wish on anyone, and I strongly hope we never go through this again; leaving tales of living under the threat of global nuclear war along side tales of surviving the dust-bowl and the threat of lynch-mobs.

The Chevy Volt

Ars Technica has posted a review of the upcoming Chevy Volt. My first reaction to it was, "WOW, I SOOO need one." But, calming down a bit, its time to look a bit objectively.

1. 40 miles per charge
40 miles is both not a lot, and quite a bit. This is what it can do on a single charge before it has to fire up the gas motor for more electricity. According to the article, the total range between fill-ups should be north of 300 miles; 40 miles on pure battery and the rest on gas-generator. This means it'll have the same effective range as conventional cars, which is critical for consumer acceptance. So when you move from Chicago to Memphis, you can at least drive the car all the way there without having to pay to have it towed.

In my case the 40 mile range is very reasonable. My round-trip commute is rarely over 35 miles, even with side-trips. Weekend errand-runs are another story, but the large majority of the run would be done on electricity sucked down in my garage. So in our case, the effective miles-per-gallon should be very high.

But for people who commute 40 miles each way, it won't buy a lot. It'll probably mean a MPG rating comparable to some of the smaller hybrids, which won't really justify the cost of the car. However, as the article points out these people are not the primary target market for this car.

2. Cubic footage lost to battery
Even more than hybrids, the Volt has a lot of cubic footage spent on housing the batteries. This is not a car designed for road-tripping to Grandma's house, it is designed for trips under an hour. Looking at it, I see potential problems for those who are over six feet tall, or are well-padded in the hip.

For our average usage, this should be just fine. That trunk can handle our groceries and usual errand-swag. For larger cargoes, longer travel times, or hauling passengers, we have the internal-combustion station-wagon. As neither of us are vertically or horizontally enhanced, we should be able to fit inside it just fine. Considering that our current 'commuter' car is effectively a 2-seater, the Volt should be an easy drop-in replacement.

3.0 Glass cockpit
Continuing the trend brought on by the Hybrids, the Volt doesn't have analog gauges for things like speed, it has LCD screens. The thing I noticed is that the driver's LCD is markedly smaller than most dashboard displays I've seen. Considering the technical challenges of this car and the column inches Ars Technica devoted to describing the software development process for the car's hardware, I strongly suspect that early-adopters are going to have to put up with regular updates to that software.

Seeing as how the target demographic is urban commuters who live relatively close to their place-of-work, it is nearly certain that there will be some kind of 3G network available. OnStar is already usable in most of the US. I suspect that this channel could be used to push out software updates to the cars themselves. We'll see how this is handled once it actually hits the streets.

I like the glass cockpit, but I do like a certain density to my information display. At a glance, without twiddling knobs, I'd like to know at least speed and estimated miles before turning on the gas-powered generator, as well as the typical gauges like fuel-level and engine-temp.

And finally, if cars like these do take off, 220v outlets in garages are going to be all the rage in new construction.

PRT and self-driving cars

This morning I noticed that CNN had an article about a Personal Rapid Transit deployment in upstate New York. If you've been reading me a while, you know my opinions about PRT. In this case, I do side with the critics in that it is largely an infeasible gimmick. For the same reason that monorail systems like Seattle's monorail never really took off, PRT systems will also fail to thrive. This is because these sorts of systems require a separate right-of-way (RoW) to work, and both prefer elevated trackage.

At the same time, ArsTechnica is running a series of articles on the future of the self-driving car. Part One was posted last week, and is a good run-down of the state-of-the-art of automated driving. Part Two posted today and discusses some of the neat things you can do with a widely deployed 'auto-driver' system. Next week they'll cover some of the social issues that may arise. These sorts of systems take advantage of the pre-existing right-of-way we drive on every day.

The only way PRT will take off is through massive governmental buy-in. We can do it with today's technology, the only sticking point is paying for it and the time required to build it out. Any time you create a brand new RoW it costs massive amounts of money and time. The Interstate Highway System took decades to get into place and cost tens of billions. Even the most robust of Commuter-Rail networks took decades to really get to a good saturation point, at least in the areas where commuter-rail didn't already exist such as the Northeast Corridor, and even they started with pre-existing rail RoW already built.

The cost of a fully deployed PRT system can only be paid for by government. No one else has the finances available for a project of that size. An as with the interstate system, it'll take a long time to get the networks up and running. With massive buy in right now, PRT systems could compete with the kind of self-driving technology we're likely to have at grade in 20 years. The US Government certainly isn't going to fund anything this large, though the more socially minded Scandinavian countries may.

Auto-driver systems are far more likely to be present in US cities in 20 years. In my opinion, wide deployment, where most people don't bother driving themselves, may come in the 30-50 range. Once the personal autonomy issues are worked through, such systems have a wide social benefit as the selfish human driver with the limited point of view (only within sight) introduces certain inefficiencies in the highway system. These are the same benefits that proponents of PRT systems bring forward, and they're right. However, the chances of getting such a separate-RoW system in place are minimal here in the US.

Taxes and tax-credits

A friend of mine recently posted a short essay about what a tax-credit would mean for her and her family. In short, not as much as you'd think. But, read it for your self:

http://wiredferret.livejournal.com/1453125.html

VP Debate

My view of the 'winner' of this debate is the same as the Presidential one: they both won.

One of the things I keep hearing about Palin, especially in the wake of the Couric interview, is that they wanted the firebrand who accepted the nomination back. In light of her closing remarks, I think Palin did that.

However, I must point out that the speech she delivered at the Republican convention was written for "VP To Be Named Later" and personalized once there was a name. And the closing remarks were probably written well before hand and memorized. So, in that sense the Republicans got what they saw the first time; a confidant running-mate willing to fight. A well packaged running-mate.

As for Biden he managed to avoid foot-in-mouth disease, which was one of his marks for 'win', and also managed to not come off as condescending. About the only time he talked about Palin directly it was in complimentary tones on topics they agreed on. When he disagreed, the target was McCain. He laughed in self-deprecating ways, not mocking ways.

I say they both won because they did what they were sent out there to do, solidify support among the leaners. People who were deeply worried about Palin but wanted to believe, because the alternative was democrats, saw a confident woman who could field questions on national TV. People who didn't know Biden, perhaps they skipped the Primary debates, had a very complimentary introduction. Those who feared foot-in-mouth disease were reassured that it didn't happen.

In the grand scheme of things, I think this debate helped repair some of the damage done by the Couric interview, especially among likely McCain voters (among Obama partisans, though, there was plenty of new satire fodder). That said, I personally was very impressed with Biden's performance. Much as the last Presidential debate gave Obama a big boost in perceived competence in foreign policy, I think this debate will give the Obama/Biden campaign a similar bounce. So in the end, I think it'll be Biden who will get the longest post-debate bump.