Talk:1990: Driving Cars - Revision history

SomebodyElse at 11:16, 12 May 2026

2026-05-12T11:16:26Z

2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E at 22:09, 30 October 2025

2025-10-30T22:09:52Z

172.68.205.134 at 09:41, 20 October 2024

2024-10-20T09:41:22Z

108.162.245.169 at 03:08, 20 October 2024

2024-10-20T03:08:36Z

Dgbrt: Vandalism by Berets.

2018-05-25T17:33:47Z

Vandalism by Berets.

Berets at 01:21, 25 May 2018

2018-05-25T01:21:02Z

Hkmaly at 23:19, 9 May 2018

2018-05-09T23:19:45Z

Cgrimes85 at 13:43, 9 May 2018

2018-05-09T13:43:18Z

Herobrine: Reply

2018-05-09T04:42:30Z

162.158.62.153 at 04:19, 9 May 2018

2018-05-09T04:19:13Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:16, 12 May 2026
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	Despite their mad shortcomings, these ‘automobiles’ were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their time. Three whole generations were slaves to them." --DW [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E\|2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E]] 22:09, 30 October 2025 (UTC)		Despite their mad shortcomings, these ‘automobiles’ were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their time. Three whole generations were slaves to them." --DW [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E\|2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E]] 22:09, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
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		+	Someone should make a section for comics where someone freaks out about something normal, such as the phone comic where Cueball (don't know how to link) wants to bring a backup battery to not run out of his stream of useless info (can't think of its number), this one, and others like it. [[User:SomebodyElse\|SomebodyElse]] ([[User talk:SomebodyElse\|talk]]) 11:16, 12 May 2026 (UTC) SomebodyElse 12:15, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:09, 30 October 2025
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	So what kind of car is it? {{unsigned ip\|108.162.245.169\|03:08, 20 October 2024}}		So what kind of car is it? {{unsigned ip\|108.162.245.169\|03:08, 20 October 2024}}
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		+	Thought I would share an excerpt from The Rolling Stones by Robert Heinlein: "Despite their great sizes and tremendous power spaceships are surprisingly simple machines. Every technology goes through three stages: first, a crudely simple and quite unsatisfactory gadget; second, an enormously complicated group of gadgets designed to overcome the shortcomings of the original and achieving thereby somewhat satisfactory performance through extremely complex compromise; third, a final stage of smooth simplicity and efficient performance based on correct under-standing of natural laws and proper design therefrom.
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		+	In transportation, the ox cart and the rowboat represent the first stage of technology.
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		+	The second stage might well be represented by the automobiles of the middle twentieth century just before the opening of interplanetary travel. These unbelievable museum pieces were for the time fast, sleek and powerful -. but inside their skins were assembled a preposterous collection of mechanical buffoonery. The prime mover for such a juggernaut might have rested in one’s lap; the rest of the mad assembly consisted of afterthoughts intended to correct the uncorrectable, to repair the original basic mistake in design – for automobiles and even the early aeroplanes were ‘powered’ (if one may call it that) by ‘reciprocating engines.”
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		+	A reciprocating engine was a collection of miniature heat engines using (in a basically inefficient cycle) a small percentage of an exothermic chemical reaction, a reaction which was started and stopped every split second. Much of the heat was intentionally thrown away into a ‘water jacket’ or ‘cooling system,” then wasted into the atmosphere through a heat exchanger.
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		+	What little was left caused blocks of metal to thump foolishly back-and-forth (hence the name ‘reciprocating’) and thence through a linkage to cause a shaft and flywheel to spin around. The flywheel (believe it if you can) had no gyroscopic function; it was used to store kinetic energy in a futile attempt to cover up the sins of reciprocation. The shaft at long last caused wheels to turn and thereby propelled this pile of junk over the countryside.
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		+	The prime mover was used only to accelerate and to overcome ‘friction’ – a concept then in much wider engineering use. To decelerate, stop, or turn the heroic human operator used their own muscle power, multiplied precariously through a series of levers.
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		+	Despite the name ‘automobile’ these vehicles had no autocontrol circuits; control, such as it was, was exercised second by second for hours on end by a human being peering out through a small pane of dirty silica glass, and judging unassisted and often disastrously his own motion and those of other objects. In almost all cases the operator had no notion of the kinetic energy stored in his missile and could not have written the basic equation. Newton’s Laws of Motion were to him mysteries as profound as the meaning of the universe.
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		+	Nevertheless millions of these mechanical jokes swarmed over our home planet, dodging each other by inches or failing to dodge. None of them ever worked right; by their nature they could not work right; and they were constantly getting out of order. Their operators were usually mightily pleased when they worked at all. When they did not, which was every few hundred miles (hundred, not hundred thousand) they hired a member of a social class of arcane specialists to make inadequate and always expensive temporary repairs.
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		+	Despite their mad shortcomings, these ‘automobiles’ were the most characteristic form of wealth and the most cherished possessions of their time. Three whole generations were slaves to them." --DW [[Special:Contributions/2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E\|2607:FB90:9E3E:864F:80DE:29F5:8041:CF7E]] 22:09, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:41, 20 October 2024
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	I altered the final paragraph, deleting some of the stuff about pollution so as to more directly address the comic itself--I don't think Randall meant to imply too much about pollution in this particular comic. It seems to be more about the immediate physical danger entailed by the widespread practice of fragile humans driving around at high speeds in large chunks of metal, with less-than-exhaustive training in safely doing so. [[User:Berets\|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets\|talk]]) 01:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)		I altered the final paragraph, deleting some of the stuff about pollution so as to more directly address the comic itself--I don't think Randall meant to imply too much about pollution in this particular comic. It seems to be more about the immediate physical danger entailed by the widespread practice of fragile humans driving around at high speeds in large chunks of metal, with less-than-exhaustive training in safely doing so. [[User:Berets\|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets\|talk]]) 01:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

−	So what kind of car is it?	+	So what kind of car is it? {{unsigned ip\|108.162.245.169\|03:08, 20 October 2024}}

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:08, 20 October 2024
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	I altered the final paragraph, deleting some of the stuff about pollution so as to more directly address the comic itself--I don't think Randall meant to imply too much about pollution in this particular comic. It seems to be more about the immediate physical danger entailed by the widespread practice of fragile humans driving around at high speeds in large chunks of metal, with less-than-exhaustive training in safely doing so. [[User:Berets\|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets\|talk]]) 01:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)		I altered the final paragraph, deleting some of the stuff about pollution so as to more directly address the comic itself--I don't think Randall meant to imply too much about pollution in this particular comic. It seems to be more about the immediate physical danger entailed by the widespread practice of fragile humans driving around at high speeds in large chunks of metal, with less-than-exhaustive training in safely doing so. [[User:Berets\|Berets]] ([[User talk:Berets\|talk]]) 01:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
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		+	So what kind of car is it?

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 And BTW, the reason people generally don't see driving is scary is because 90% of drivers thinks they are in the 10% of best drivers and that accidents only happen to bad drivers, which is both obviously incorrect. Nevertheless, yes, if "having cars" and "not having cars" would be only options, it would be worth it. In reality, we COULD make driving safer by skipping unnecessary trips and by lot of other measures ...
-:wrong on two accounts. 1) the statistic you give is “ex rectum” (Latin for “you pulled it out of your [bumfuzzle]”) and 2) the reason more than half of drivers think they are better than average is because there are multiple dimensions on which to evaluate driving skill and different drivers weight those dimensions differently.  For example, I weight achieving good fuel economy highly, other drivers weight getting to their destination in the shortest possible time highly.  One driver cannot excel on both dimensions  at the same time, but if I get good mileage and weigh that highly then I am better than average, and the person who is adept and weaving in and out of traffic is better than the average driver at getting to the destination sooner, and is better than average.  Yet, clearly we aren’t both better than average when using the same metric (either fuel economy or time).  We are each individually better at the skills we think more important to “good driving” and since our own views of what constitutes a good driver reflects our own strengths rather than weaknesses then naturally more than half of us believe ourselves better than average, because we define what it means to be average.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 04:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
+:wrong on two accounts. 1) the statistic you give is “ex rectum” (Latin for “you pulled it out of your ass”) and 2) the reason more than half of drivers think they are better than average is because there are multiple dimensions on which to evaluate driving skill and different drivers weight those dimensions differently.  For example, I weight achieving good fuel economy highly, other drivers weight getting to their destination in the shortest possible time highly.  One driver cannot excel on both dimensions  at the same time, but if I get good mileage and weigh that highly then I am better than average, and the person who is adept and weaving in and out of traffic is better than the average driver at getting to the destination sooner, and is better than average.  Yet, clearly we aren’t both better than average when using the same metric (either fuel economy or time).  We are each individually better at the skills we think more important to “good driving” and since our own views of what constitutes a good driver reflects our own strengths rather than weaknesses then naturally more than half of us believe ourselves better than average, because we define what it means to be average.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 04:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 ::That wasn't even SUPPOSED to be statistics and I though it's clear from context fuel economy is not what I'm speaking about. I'm speaking about SAFETY. And while speed is related to safety, I would be surprised if any driver would THINK he is driving dangerously fast, no matter how fast he drivers. (And BTW, you didn't addressed the second point - namely, that no matter how good driver you are, you can still be killed in accident caused by other driver in way you couldn't possibly prevent.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 ... which reminds me, those big patriotic american cars are actually SAFER than small cars. They consume more oil, but they protect driver better in crash. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 06:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 ::I'll just [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect leave this right here]. [[User:Cgrimes85|Cgrimes85]] ([[User talk:Cgrimes85|talk]]) 13:43, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
-:Which is just unfair for those who cannot afford it, but either dye when run into by these or from their extra pollution... :) See [[677: [Seigmeister]]]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
+:Which is just unfair for those who cannot afford it, but either dye when run into by these or from their extra pollution... :) See [[677: Asshole]]. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:42, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 :yet in 2015 more people died in Ford F-150’s than in Toyota Camry’s, Honda Accord’s, Ford Taurus’s and Ford Fusion’s combined.
 :Just a note that statistics and data could probably be used to pretty much isolate the decrease in lifespan due to car pollution if you could gather diverse enough deaths data such that things correlated with auto pollution are represented in a fair way. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.16|172.68.54.16]] 22:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

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 :yet in 2015 more people died in Ford F-150’s than in Toyota Camry’s, Honda Accord’s, Ford Taurus’s and Ford Fusion’s combined.
 :Just a note that statistics and data could probably be used to pretty much isolate the decrease in lifespan due to car pollution if you could gather diverse enough deaths data such that things correlated with auto pollution are represented in a fair way. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.54.16|172.68.54.16]] 22:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
-::Actually it seems that Volvo's XC60 is the safest car on the road, based on its performance in crash tests. Apparently no one has died in a crash while driving it, despite 50,000+ sold. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
+::Actually it seems that Volvo's XC60 is the safest car on the road, based on its performance in crash tests. Apparently no one has died in a crash while driving it, despite 500,000+ sold. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 00:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 :::ugh, you sound like Rush Limbaugh bragging about his “death proof” Mercedes.  While the XC60 may be very safe, to extrapolate that it is the “safest car on the road” seems a stretch when there are barely 50,000 on the road.  A valid comparison would need to (at the very least) take in to account total vehicle miles driven, and then there is the divide by zero problem of extrapolation when there has been “none” of something.  Is car X with 1 death and 100,000 units sold over 4 years less safe than car Y with 0 deaths in 10,000 cars sold over 1 year?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.153|162.158.62.153]] 04:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)