I like the idea, but there doesn't seem a way for a pod to temporarily move into the other track, which raises questions. Like, how do they handle rebalancing the pods? Ideally, you want a free one at each station for the next person who comes along, but if you come into a station with pods already there, do you have to get out and move to the first pod? Or when you leave your station, do all the pods on the line automatically move one station up the line, making a new pod available for the next person and leaving you a smooth trip to your destination (but limiting energy savings)? Do the pods have to cycle all the way to the end of the line to turn around (again, energy inefficient if most of the traffic is between a lesser number of stations)?
I like the idea, I really do! I'm just curious how they handle balancing availability and traffic.
Good questions. I guess given how lightweight these pods look there could be probably some sort of lifting device at some of the stations to move the pods between the two rails.
Since they're light weight, they don't need the heavy rail for freight trains that put >25 tons per axle. It would be incredibly easy to make little switching stations that could pass, turn, and store these pods. Having mini train infrastructure like that everywhere would complete my autism. Life would be complete and I could die happy in a monorail pod crash.
Just bought and installed 20kWh of gently used AGM batteries, hopefully by the time they wear out they'll have been the last lead-acid cells I own. Nice to see sodium actually hit production.
The claimed 10x C rate of lithium would be insane as lithium already has great power density. At that point it's practically a capacitor, and could even be used to replace the much hated automotive starting batteries. Wonder how it handles low temperatures.
So now it's not just "bad CGI idea", it's "bad CGI idea generated by AI".
Next up: people investing billions in said cool looking bad CGI project only to find out none of it works and after wasting half a decade, they'll come to the conclusion that they'll need to invent a large transportation system with metal wheels that will run on a specialized track where you can add or remove carts as needed.
It's so bad that we don't have any of this yet!
Seriously, fuck Elon Musk for getting these scams popularized
What do you mean by always? The birth control makes sense because it's much harder to do it for men because sperm is constantly being produced and women only release 1 egg per month. What other ways do women have to mess up their bodies?
Forgetting about pregnancy and childbirth perhaps? I take it that they meant those things fuck up women's bodies pretty severely sometimes. It's a tough struggle to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, and some never do.
But apart from that, birth control should be an equal burden, IMO.
Oh, wow, do you come off as uninformed! Birth control for women has tons and tons of side effects, and it's in no way easier to prevent successful ovulation than it is to prevent fertile sperm production. In fact, birth control drugs for men have been repeatedly blocked by regulators for having too many side effects, while those side effects pretty closely mirror those of the pill for women. So, interfering with everything from blood pressure to appetite is acceptable when women are affected, but can't be burdened upon men?
Interrupting the ovulation cycle comes at great cost for the body. All the “non-hormonal” ways of birth control we have (except the condom) require either poisonous metals and foreign objects to be pushed inside the uterus, increasing the risk for cysts, causing pain, and regular checkups and painful procedures to be applied or fitted (diaphragm). Or toxins to be applied straight into a woman's private parts (spermicides). Calendar-based methods and “pulling out” have large margins of error, as have condoms.
Firstly: Disregarding the discomfort of having to see the doctor and having something shoved inside your body is a weird mistake, especially men tend to make regularly when talking about those things. Having your genitals exposed to and then painfully tampered with by what is ultimately a stranger isn't a thing most people would describe as a pleasant afternoon activity.
The side effects aren't just from hormones. Imagine having to do a prostate exam every 6 months and a metal plug shoved close to your prostate through your urethra every few years (not the same, of course, just an attempt at an analogy, since men are one hole short down there). Wouldn't you dislike that? Many women are really sensitive around their cervix and implanting the IUD can therefore be really painful.
Secondly: Period cramps increase in severity, bleeding increases for most people, and there are hints that those IUDs can increase the risk for cysts, which in turn cause issues, pain and sometimes need surgical removal.
Period cramps increase in severity, bleeding increases for most people
The two women I dated that had an implanted IUD legit didn't have a period anymore. So not only was the bleeding and cramps not worse, they simply didn't exist.
You honestly seem to just trying to be pushing some agenda, possibly because you had a bad experience and you're assuming that's just the way it is for everyone, when the reality is it's pretty rare.
why is your experience the norm and what I say "pretty rare" not the other way around? Or do you consider "two women I know" a representative group? Are "two women I knew" more significant than what professionals will tell you?
Paragard side effects can include:
spotting between periods
irregular periods
heavier or longer periods
more or worse cramping during your periods
pain when your IUD is put in, and cramping or back aches for a few days after
My wife got repeated infections and had a lot of pain from the copper iud.
If you go looking for testimonials you'll find numerous people who had bad experiences with it.
Also, they really should offer anesthetic or at least a powerful painkiller for the insertion and removal procedures. Doctors act like it's no big deal, but it's very painful.
Yet another case of the medical industry not caring one iota about women and women's ability to identify what is going on with their own bodies. The number of times I've heard of doctors dismissing women's pain and issues makes me want to scream.
I know it has many side effects. My girfriend suffered many of them when she was taking the pill and I had to beg her to stop because it just was not worth it.
And fuck off of course it's easier to stop ovulation than sperm production. It's a numbers game. Also not like I fucking made hormonal birth control. What we have now is bad and you can go ahead and find a better alternative with less side effects. That does not mean the new birth control should also have side effects. Take issue with the people that approved the current ones.
A “numbers game”? Do you think there are little men in your balls, strangulating every sperm cell when it's formed? Or… do you think the pill works by somehow interfering with the ovum itself?
Because it doesn't. Quite the opposite. Just as male contraception methods don't try to kill sperm, but to shut down the factory. Besides: You cannot measure the difficulty or complexity of medical procedures by how many cells are affected. By that logic, brain surgery would be way easier to do than amputating a leg.
What I meant is that it's easier to ensure it works being a numbers game. If you constantly have new sperm being made it's way harder to shut that down consistently than to stop one egg releasing once per month.
Honestly, as glad as this article makes me, I'd still like to see a perfect birth control for women. Periods seem like they must be the worst part of being a woman (biologically, not socially). Having a temporary, reversible way to stop ovulation without fucking up a dozen related systems and causing physical and mental anguish would be nice.
Sucks you're being down voted, I mean maybe saying "idiot-proof" isn't nice but comprehensive sex ed should cover helping those with a noodle understand how to find ones that fit comfortably and what main causes there are for breakage n whatnot. I'm currently having that discussion with my sex buddy, and I can't tell you the amount of times I've had people try to coerce me into letting them go raw dog in the past. Like keep in mind I'm in a state that has not only criminalized abortion but is defunding all planned parenthoods now.
I'm a human, I can make mistakes in the heat of the moment. I've had friend couples I know get pregnant even though they're "professional condom putters onners".
It's not the condom's fault if you make a mistake. Condom material doesn't let sperm through, it's that simple, it's been used incorrectly if it did. Companies don't want to lose time and money with lawsuits hence 99%.
Also, anecdotal evidence while you weren't in bed with them isn't much of a proof, it's as valid as me telling you I've never got any girl pregnant even when we weren't using any protection therefore pulling out is 100% effective.
yeah, not wanting 10 children is a matter of cost, of course. It's baffling to me how unreflected and naive opinions regarding reproduction still are...
The hippocratic oath, in this case. Medicine is all about risk management, the worse the "disease," the more tolerant we are of side effects for the cure. Pregnancy and birth are still pretty traumatic events that, while much safer than they used to be, are still dangerous. Female BC just has to be less risky than that. Male BC on the other hand, has to be as low the risk for a man impregnating a woman, which is to say, almost zero. Pretty much any negative side effect is worse than that, so it's very difficult to pass. I would gladly take one with comparable side effects to female BC, but sometimes unflinching ethics are inconvenient. Better than the alternative, but still.
The Hippocratic oath is not a thing in most countries and not applicable anyway. If it was, kidney transplants would be done without a doctor present (in the US that is, don't overestimate your little made up oath ritual internationally)
Somehow, we manage to accept organ transplants despite it hurting one healthy person a little to help an unhealthy person a lot. What's stopping us from treating birth control the same way?
Same. I've always preferred to be in full control of my own contraception, mostly because I just don't trust anyone else with something that consequential
I'm cautiously optimistic about this, it seems like an okay idea and the fact that they have vehicles working on a test track IRL means it's at least not an obvious scam like hyperloop.
Also the fact that they have a specific use case in mind, don't say it's going to revolutionize all transportation, and are reusing existing infrastructure, all bode well.
The problem is that the wheels have flanges on both sides, so I don't think switches work.
The best solution would be a loop connecting the rails at each end, but that's obviously not compatible with running regular freight trains since it would need to be switchless.
Thus presumably they need to be externally flipped around and moved, for which I'd guess a crane like those used for moving containers on and off trains is ideal.
With a crane they could also easily move the vehicles to a storage area so freight trains can pass through.
No disagreement at all, but I genuinely think something like this is at least worth consideration. In low traffic or rural areas having a "cab" on standby would come at worst with no downsides as long as it doesn't conflict with normal tram traffic.
At best it would be the best selling point to populations that have become accustom to personal vehicles. Be it for privacy, safety, poor time management, or whatever other reasons. Its also technically a monorail bahn
E: Also this one could've been just fine being its own cab, or we could also include the GYROSCOPE because everyone likes monorails with gyroscopes!
My main issue with these is they don't have any benefit a regular train doesn't have for long distance and for shorter commutes in low traffic areas that aren't densley populated enough to warrent a proper train or tram... You'd probably just a bike.
I happen to know the approximate area where this is being trialed, and a bike (even an electric one) is really only an alternative for hard-core all-weather bikers that have no problem driving 60+ kilometres a day.
The distances are just too far, the weather too bad 80% of the year, and the shrinking, elderly population too low density for other means of public transport to work economically.
The options are really either cars, such kind of novel ideas, or abandoning these tiny villages all together.
I think the one and only benefit would be that they can have carts going both directions at the same time using the existing 2 rail system, without building a second pair of rails. I'd love to see some sort of bike add-on that would let me do this with a bicycle.
Seabike says the prop turns slowly enough that you can safely use it at the local pool – although you'll certainly cop some dirty looks from the Speedo brigade in the fast lane.
You're going to get dirty looks because you can't do a flip turn and block the rest of us. This is cool in the open water but not for lap swimming in a pool.
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