Someone gave me a lift in one of these today

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S

I have seen the future!

If you poop yourself driving one it's known as a tesla coil

I nearly did poop myself. It goes like shit off a shovel.

The thing I love about the Tesla S is that while other sports cars have a setting called something like "Sports" or "Autobahn," the S has one called "Ludicrous Mode."

Just by doing that, Tesla made electric cars cool, even by the standards of Clarksonesque petrolheads.

(When Tesla said they "won't be going after anyone who uses our technology," giving as their reason a belief that development of electric vehicles is more important than protecting their own patents, was pretty fucking cool too.)

And just to prove how cool electric cars can be, here's an electric Ariel Atom quite literally pissing in the face of a couple of supercars... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqYbNEiW0Y

You know how some cars have a dial on the dashboard showing you the miles per gallon?

I think I'd like to add a "Super Turbo Mode" that just lifts that dial up say 20% further, without affecting anything else.

Incidentally, since we're talking about future methods of transport, Stuff magazine has a fun article about the EM drive this month.

Incidentally, since we're talking about future methods of transport, Stuff magazine has a fun article about the EM drive this month.

(This appeared twice because I've recently built my own EM drive out of old beer cans and some superconducting stuff I happened to have in the fridge, and it's now so amazingly efficient and fast that it actually went into the future and, like, some quantum stuff happened, or something.)

My gut feeling is that the EM drive will turn out to be similar to the superluminal neutrinos: they used a dodgy cable. Or perhaps it was a thermal effect: http://io9.com/no-german-scientists-have-not-confirmed-the-impossibl-1...

I'm still rooting for them, though, basically because I would love to see it work.

some superconducting stuff I happened to have in the fridge

How cold does your fridge get, exactly? How long do you have to wait for your food to thaw out before you can eat it?

"I'm still rooting for them, though, basically because I would love to see it work" - my thoughts exactly. It's one of those "if it works, we're sorted" things.

"How cold does your fridge get, exactly?" - sometimes, I accidentally nudge the temperature control up to 5 when carelessly inserting large foodstuffs such as pizza. This makes it cold enough to freeze grapes. Any physicist will tell you that this is "really cold."

It's one of those "if it works, we're sorted" things

And the rest of the Universe can go fuck itself. We're coming for you, motherfuckers.

http://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

Saved for reading at some future point when I'm not pissed (probably on the bog at work).

Hmm. I'm starting to think my pulsejet cigarette lighter idea wasn't ambitious enough...