If you asked an alien who had never seen a car before, "design a vehicle that carries one single human for 90% of the trips and sits idle 90% of the day", they would never in a million years come up with something as hideously oversized and wasteful as a modern car....
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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also, it weighs a ton or 2 to carry 70 to 90kg
it can run as fast as 200km, while it's legally forbidden to go faster than 130, to be ridden mostly in places where it's limited to 50 or 30km
optionally, it makes awful noises and drinks the blood of animals that died millions of years ago
I think if you add the requirement to have protection from the elements, you won't be too far from a car.
You're not talking about the American pickup trucks right now, are you? Because then we'd have to include meteor showers to "the elements"
Velomobiles are pretty cool.
@9488fcea02a9 @aptoast Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't oversizing in the animal world consistently used to either - kill, harm or capture competitors or prey, or - impress or scare off potential mates and threats? Would perfectly explain the reasons for building oversized cars...
So that's were the inspiration for Ford Prefect came from.
I remember Carl Sagan writing something similar in one of his books, I didn't know it was based on this film.
"based on this"… book
and a radio show to start with. Read those books; they are, literally, awesome
I think the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy has a similar concept when an alien visits earth and they attempt to stop and communitcate with a car but just get run over instead.
Ford Prefect - an alien from betelguse who chose then name Ford Prefect as it was "nicely inconsicuos". Douglas Adams later explained in an interview that Ford thought the dominant species on earth were cars. In the shitty film adaptation he is almost run over by a car while trying to greet it.
Known to be a problem so long ago and still no closer to solving it.
In some countries like the Netherlands we are actually. Tho our trains are still far behind those of the Swiss or Japan.
They would probably better if our government wouldn't increase ticket prices, because fewer people use the train, because the ticket prices are too high ad infinitum.
Sure. But I also mean the rolling stock. Compared to the SBB or even the DB the rolling stock of NS kinda sucks.
National Film Board of Canada represent! 🇨🇦
I remember seeing this in school as a kid. I'm 46 now.