... or the pharmacy, or the diner, or church, or wherever else we may be prone to drive. CCN is reporting that Boeing and Porsche are partnering to develop a flying vehicle. And apparently they are not the only ones; the news report mentions some other companies that also are pursuing it. The video report includes brief video clips (or animations) of the various prototypes. The Boeing/Porsche model, I'm sorry to say, looks more like the sea plane that landed in the jungle river in that opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, than a Jetson's saucer. All in all, I'm guessing that our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, will be the ones scudding high over urban traffic to pick up the kids from school.
Our descendants won't be going anywhere. They will work on screens in their homes, and drones will bring them stuff. Heck, right today I can order meds through the mail, and have Kroger shop for me, bag up my groceries, and just roll past the drive-thru with my plastic if I want. That leaves the doctors, though half the time, I email questions to the nurses. And now there's this: https://www.virtuwell.com
ReplyDeleteJean - yes, I'm already working from home all the time. The thing is, though, that I'm doing that after 30+ years of the discipline of rolling out of bed, shaving, showering, commuting, showing up on time, and then working in a public setting (business office) where everyone is observing me. I developed habits of discipline and productivity that have carried over to the work-from-home way of working. For people that haven't developed that discipline, I wonder how well they'll do.
DeleteHow will they do? Not good. People are social creatures who seem to be voluntarily rejecting sociability. Studies indicate that this kind of behavior leads to poor nutrition and hygiene, depression, despair, illness, and early death. I am hardly a social butterfly, but this worries even me. Possibly a more immediate threat to humanity than global warming.
DeleteOtoh, I , like many other older people who see big societal shifts, are often quicker to see the pitfalls than the opportunities.
What concerns me about the work-from-home trend is that employers will increasingly see these people as "contractors" rather than employees, and will feel no responsibility for them other than to pay them for the task they carried out. Health insurance? A 401 K match? Not their problem. Pay them enough, or give them enough hours to make a living? Also not their problem.
DeleteThat has already happened.with online instruction in higher education.
DeleteThe only part of my job I could do at home was the paperwork and the BS viewgraph engineering. Luckily, the optical design software was resident on servers at work and there was plenty of work to be done in the lab. One of the best perks of my job was the camaraderie. My lunches were always with friends and we often discussed work, the fun part. Maybe one day a week at home might be a good idea but, beyond that, I think it's counterproductive in many ways, at least in technical fields.
DeleteRaber is a carpenter/cabinet maker, and these guys learn way too much from each other to be effective solo.
DeleteI agree that there are some jobs where it makes more sense to go into the workplace (not to mention jobs like manufacturing that may require the worker to be physically present at an assembly line or something similar).
DeleteMy own job is intensively teamwork-oriented. We overcome the physical separation/isolation via technology: telephone conference services, and meeting software like Webex, Skype or GoToMeeting that allows workers to share computer screen images and video with one another.
The loss of workplace camaraderie is real - I find I have to work hard to simulate it over the Internet connections with coworkers. In my case, I go "into the office" (a thousand mile flight away) for a few days every two or three months, to get some real face time. And you're right about the lack of lunchtime socialization. More often than not, I sit in front of my computer on a conference call while I'm wolfing down a lunch (usually a leftover from the fridge that I nuked in the kitchen).
On the other hand, the Internet and the meeting software have allowed us to put together virtual teams. On my team right now I have members from various points of the US, plus India and Latin America. A strictly face-to-face workplace wouldn't allow us to do that. I think there are a lot of pluses to being able to do this; and the fact is, it's just plain necessary these days. The workplace has become global.
To be honest, my former workplace isn't what it was. There is more superficiality and hierarchism in management and less cameraderie among the rest. People are more interested in becoming managers than experts.
DeleteI think a Jetson saucer would be fun. But not sure I'd trust humans to pilot it. Better have self-flying technology perfected by then. Maybe we won't use them to pick up groceries, but I could see using them to travel. We wouldn't even have to have roads to see national parks (if there's any left), the seaside, etc. And we'd figure out something to power them that didn't have a carbon footprint (might as well dream big!)
ReplyDeleteMy father was a True Believer in rail travel. His idea of a two- week vacation was to ride on as many railroad lines as possible going to and from some nominal destination. (Belated traveler's tip: The sugar cubes on the B&O.) I, of the next generation, was an airline man. I aspired to fly the Pan Am Clippers to faraway places with strange-sounding names -- until it dawned on me that Uncle Sam was training the pilots who would do that, but in B-17s. When air travel went middle class, I was in heaven. Today? My father couldn't find two railroads to put together, and I won't cram myself into an airplane except in first class because what's in back is like trying to sit up in a small dog house.
ReplyDeleteGreat means of transportation come along every generation or so. Then are ruined by the greed of the people who run them.
Tom, I'm with your dad. I only had one experience with passenger trains before the Union Pacific discontinued them. But I thought it was fun. When I was about 10 we rode the City of Denver from my hometown to Colorado. We got to ride in the bubble top car, and ate breakfast in the dining car. My husband said he rode the train to college many times, but by the time I was in college passenger service had been discontinued. Amtrak still goes through here, but it only stops a couple of places, and it's in the middle of the night.
DeleteYeah, Amtrak sucks. They need competition.
DeleteIf I am going to fly from Chicago to NYC, I can get a round trip airfare for less than $200, and the flight each direction is a bit more than two hours. On Amtrak, it's 20 hours, and if I want a bed to sleep in, it's about $350 each direction (i.e. $700 round trip). To be sure, the seat is more comfortable, and I assume the food is way better, but for a two hour flight, I don't really need any food. Amtrak stations tend to be in downtown areas, which is convenient for business and tourist travelers. They just need to figure out how to make it faster, or cheaper, or both.
There is supposed to be a high-speed train from Miami to Orlando called (using all the names it has had so far) All Aboard Florida Virgin Brightline. It is running from Miami to West Palm Beach now with snazzier cars and stations -- and double the fares -- of an existing inter-urban train system. The claim is that the trains will be so fast that people will use it for day trips to Miami from Orlando or vice versa. Some people who have looked at it says you'd still be able to fly faster, cheaper, when it's done. The former president of American Airlines and I (and a lot of others) think it's really a real estate play and the trains will never run as promised.
DeleteHow fast is fast? Some friends just went from Milan to Rome at 158 mph. A daughter and her husband have their 201 mph Chinese train passing another going in the opposite direction on their cellphones. All Aboard Florida Virgin Brightline supposedly will be doing more than 100 mph, but every town is passes through says, "Not unless you stop here," so exactly where it will attain its high speed remains a mystery to those of us watching the railroad suck up money. It does have a lovely terminal in Miami, built. Where it will stop in Orlando, if it ever does, remains a question.
Gov., now Sen., formerly hospital executive with biggest Medicare overcharges in history and 75 Fifth Amendment pleas, Rick Scott turned down federal transportation money when it was available. Said the feds couldn't afford it.
We have a love-hate relationship with railroads here. They were part of what enabled the settling of this part of the country. A lot of towns exist because they were convenient places for the trains to stop and take on water (for the old steam engines). But now they don't stop; the freight trains can go 80-100 mph, and they are after the towns to close more crossings so they can barrel on through. The U.P. tracks go through our land back home. Dad was always fighting with the railroad because they would park a train on a siding and block our crossing when he needed to haul feed across for the cattle.
DeleteAnother thought on planes vs. trains: my two hour flight to NY is more like six hours all told, from door to door. That still beats AmTrak, although if AmTrak made it $50 instead of $700 round-trip they might get some takers.
DeleteBut for shorter distances, like Miami to Orlando, an airplane flight is probably 4 hours out of someone's day, end to end. If an Amtrak train can run express at 100+ mph, and dump passengers off at a Disney World monorail station, and the cost is comparable to a flight - I think there would be takers. Whether it's financially viable, I have no idea.
I have two children who go to college in Iowa. From the Chicago area, the choices are: drive, or ride one of those discount buses (still $100+ round trip, I believe), or fly into Des Moines and then figure out how to get from Des Moines to the college town. This college is an enormous land-grant university, with many students from the Chicago area. Even if there wasn't regular rail service but a sort of Hogwarts Express that ran at the beginning and end of term, and at common holiday times like Thanksgiving, Easter and spring break, I think there would be many students and others who would choose it. I would: ride in relative comfort, inexpensively, with wi fi and a club car - there would be a lot to recommend it. I'd visit my kids more frequently. But there is no AmTrak service at all to the college town. Heck, there isn't even AmTrak service to Des Moines, presumably because a straight line from Chicago to Des Moines doesn't really lead anywhere else (even though I-80 has figured out how to connect the dots). That's pretty much a transportation system failure.
Also, if this blog post is to be believed, train travel is far and away more environmentally friendly than automobile, and apparently more than airplane travel.
Deletehttps://www.saveatrain.com/blog/why-choosing-to-travel-by-train-is-environmentally-friendly/
When in Europe, I only travel by train. Regional rail is slower but cheaper. It seems feasible enough there, perhaps less here. But I remember taking long rail trips in my childhood. I enjoyed them. However, our country is so huge. Should we build more high maintenance infrastructure or should we develop biofuel for planes to make them carbon neutral? Climate change needs to be halted. Whatever we have to do, we have to do. But sell that to a population that worships comfort and convenience.
DeleteEuropean trains are a whole other thing. I remember the guy at the German station with the stopwatch and the gun; if the engineer was on time, he put the stopwatch away with a nod. If not, he used the gun. I read somewhere that the Germans aren't that good anymore, though.
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