Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

so they say. without any empirical evidence that the common person can access, it's hard to say what's going on with this. what is certain is the obstructions the airlines have placed because of this. you basically can bring some clothes and everything else is banned. i honestly see things like this as the further demise of the airline industry. despite the fact that we need airlines for travel, the fact that this shit is going on (both in terms of theoretical terrorism and the security policies restricting people and creating massive inconvenience) and the airlines are just failing miserably in addressing these issues imply that less people are going to want to travel in the future, at least by international airlines. it's like the saying goes, "one or two idiots ruin it for the rest of us." two things besides these points strike me in this. first, one of my gut reactions was thinking that what you'll see is an increasing isolation between nations with travel being threatened from security and security measures. i can see a future where people will minimally be able to cross borders. in my paranoia, what you'll see is a country like the US isolating their borders this way and then firing a bunch of nukes to rid the rest of the world of their enemies. it's just like 1984 in having three major nations left on the earth just warring with each other constantly. the second issue that comes to mind is that the aerospace industry really needs to address the problem of flight. the problem with current travel in terms of security is that these planes are nothing more than an oversized missile with (mostly) innocent people inside. makes a great weapon in the hands of some psychopath. however, there is obviously a keen need to travel overseas. addressing this though is tough since few people have come up with feasible solutions. naturally, the best model would be something like a teleporter. however, physics and time aren't exactly supportive of this notion so you can forget it in the next 500 years of your life. but what about flying cars? there has been a few attempts at this but the problem is none of them are really practical. there's the Molar flying vehicle, which is nothing more than a Harrier Jumpjet. who's going to fly that? like software, the problem is understanding the requirements and creating a simple yet effective solution. the two requirements are this: 1) fuel efficient; 2) capable of travelling great distances; 3) safe; 4) user friendly. 1) really powers 2) so people should concentrate not on the aerodynamics of this problem but the issue of powering the sucker. forget gas. it's a horrible fuel source as demonstrated through the massive drain on supplies. fusion power? again no. the energy source must be renewable and powerful enough to fly between countries within hours. safety of course is huge. it can't be a rocket that the enemy can fly into a building and take out. also, you want to make sure no border guard is going to shoot you down. so these things have to be smart since you don't want users to be able to kill themselves so easily. make the vehicle contrl about 40-60% of the operation and the user just inputs the directions. user friendly is a must. these things should be intuitive, minimal buttons, little training involved. make it natural. the thing is that you're going to be involving an "upper and down" stick on top of the accelerator. how do you get a user adjusted to three dimensional space when most people can only perform in two dimensions? you shouldn't require a special pilot's license for something like this. the cockpits in planes make me think the airline industry is just fucking around with people and trying to create job stability rather than innovation. if people are capable of making a better car, why can't they be capable of making a better flying thing!?!?!!!?!?