 The Formula Sun Grand Prix (click image for larger version) |
... Don't burn any gallons!
Posted on 12/05/2011 7:42:35 AM PST by Abathar
Electric car maker Aptera Motors is closing after failing to woo enough investors to bring a new sedan to market.
Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur said the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company closed its doors Friday and laid off all 30 of its employees.
The company was hoping to get a $150 million loan from the Department of Energy but needed to raise matching funds, Wilbur said. He said Aptera had trouble drumming up interest from investors, who have been spooked by the difficulties other small electric car makers have had. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla Motors Inc., for example, has racked up millions of dollars in losses as it prepares to bring its electric Model S sedan to market in mid-2012.
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That's the best part of the show, ripping a $300k car to bits and then telling the audience they would rather drive a $30k car than that one.
I bet the BBC got a lot of very angry calls after some of their shows.
The Formula Sun Grand Prix (click image for larger version) |
... Don't burn any gallons!
Sort of like the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, but weirder. The Weinermobile just looks like a big fiberglass weiner on top of a 1970 Chevy Caprice, pretty much. The Dymaxion intended to be the weinerVery holistic, lol.
I've long admired Buckminster Fuller, but anyone who is that outside the box is going to have a few questionable moments. This is one of them.
The UK “Top Gear” episode with Clarkson doing the Reliant Robin tribute show was hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8
ROTFLMBO!
The UK “Top Gear” episode with Clarkson doing the Reliant Robin tribute show was hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8
It seems the one in front, two in back tilt problem has been solved, as Jeremy demonstrates:
Top Gear rarely gets accused of being subtle, but I loved the bit where Jeremy declared he was going to drive a Reliant Robin from Sheffield to Rotheram ... a distance of 15 miles; and the camera pulls back and you see he's been illustrating this on a map of the major roads of Europe, approx 30' long and 10' high.
On American TG that annoying voice over guy would be explaining, in detail, why that was funny.
I first met him in 1973, at USC, after I hitched with a buddy across the country to see him. He took the time to speak kindly with me. I still remember his big blue eyes magnified through his thick glasses, and his warm, strong, sailor’s hand handshake.
1974, again, in Philadelphia, same greeting. A gracious and humble man. Later, the last time I saw him, in San Marcos, Texas.
In every encounter, it was after he had been speaking for several HOURS extemporaneously, without notes, to exhaustion! – He was in his late 70’s by then, in fact, that last time, his ‘handlers’ gently had to stop him, and help him off the dais.
I often say I stand on the shoulders of GIANTS, who, in turn, sit like little children on the shoulders of the giant-MAKER. I like to think he would have appreciated it said that way. (He was a poet, too.)
One of my most treasured possessions is a book signed by him to (my name) “in friendship”…it’s falling apart. I took it everywhere with me! Going to have to get it re-bound one of these days ;)
You might like this site:
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/fuller/index.html
Somewhere in there is an old video of the SoCal speech…I couldn’t find it, but saw it a few years ago. (I was on the floor, in front, near stage left – you better believe I was looking for 19-year-old “me”! Maybe it’s a good thing it was taken from the other side of the auditorium, haha!)
I picked out a few highlights from that site, notice especially the one from 1982:
1915 Bucky is expelled from Harvard for the second and final time. Administration cites “lack of ambition.” (given his subsequent achievements, seems that Harvard’s snooty condescension is not such a recent phenomenon)
1917 Bucky enlists in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He volunteers his family’s cabin cruiser, with a crew of six including his brother Wolly and best friend Lincoln Pierce, to patrol the Maine shoreline.
1918 Fuller attends the U.S. Naval Academy for a 3-month short training course and is promoted to Lieutenant J.G.
1922 Alexandra (his firstborn) dies, leaving Bucky with an extreme sense of tragedy that he wasn’t able to provide her with a better shelter. (few understand the strength of character - brings tears to my eyes to think about - to harness such sorrow, yet it explains a lot about the man)
1927 (after the failure of a company he founded) Considering himself a complete failure, Fuller seriously contemplates taking his life. Instead, he vows to use his life an experiment aimed at discovering what an average, healthy individual (albeit penniless and with a family to support) can do in service of all humanity. He enters a period of deep introspection, absorbed in study and meditation, speaking to almost nobody for two years. His second daughter, Allegra, is born
1940 Fuller works with the Butler Manufacturing Company of Kansas City to develop Dymaxion Deployment Units, low-cost shelters built from Butler’s metal grain bins. The units are used by the military during WWII to house equipment and troops in rural, isolated locations.
1946 Bucky is awarded a patent for his Dymaxion Air-Ocean Map, which is considerably less distorted than traditional map projections. (a cut-up icosahedron, showing the true over-the-north-pole proximity between the major world populations)
1954 Fuller receives patent for geodesic domes. The Marine Corps experiments successfully with airlifting and delivery of small geodesic shelter domes by helicopter.
1975 Synergetics, the result of decades of exploration into an alternate mathematical coordinate system, is published (related to nano-tech, superconductivity, and in chemistry, 60-carbon atoms: “buckyballs”)
1982 Fuller receives the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, from President Ronald Reagan.
1983 Fuller dies on July 1, 1983 in Los Angeles, while visiting his comatose wife, Anne, in the hospital. Anne never wakes from the coma and dies 36 hours later. (in a few more days, they would have celebrated their 66th anniversary!)
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