#fantastical animation

[f---nobaddesign]

(Presumably the rail and tether (tether!!!) supplies power such that the flying train doesn’t need to carry all its fuel on board.) Hey kids, let’s fly an entire long distance trip in the turbulent air near the ground!!! Also, please note these train stations don’t even have two tracks, so how are you supposed to make the return journey?

And minor quibble, but why does the audio sound like a quiet vacuum cleaner instead of fantastically loud VTOL prop planes? I mean, this is a bit like Osprey except with eight propellers instead of two. (and ... way way way way way more than four times the weight of the Osprey...)

[f---nobaddesign]

(via Shape-shifting home transforms throughout the year in response to changing temperatures | Daily Mail Online)

It's very “cool”.

But as a design solution to the problem of dealing with weather and seasons, it's bonkers and terrible. Insulation (and say, double-glazed or triple-glazed windows) is a good partial solution towards both the problem of heat and the problem of cold. Heating and cooling systems do most of the rest. Am I seriously supposed to believe that moving a house every day, continuously throughout the day, takes less energy than cooling or heating a well-insulated non-moving house?

Plus, the unfolding system means this house takes up a tremendous amount of space relative to its internal square footage. You know what actually is an efficient, sustainable way to live? Multi-unit housing! Row houses are more efficient than detached! High rises even more efficient!

Also, you gotta make sure all human and pet inhabitants are away from any walls that'll squish together or any second-floor doorways that will soon open onto empty space instead of formerly adjacent rooms.

[f---nobaddesign]

(via Engineer Designs Cabin That Can Detach Itself From An Aircraft In An Emergency | IFLScience)

Even if you buy his idea that you could separate the catastrophic failure parts from the passengers, why wouldn't they just jettison the engines and keep everything else? Why get rid of, for example, the aerodynamic lifting power of the wings? Why do the pilots have to die?

Also, if this guy is an aviation engineer, why do the animation proof of concepts not have the plane shell not go way upwards as soon as the bulk of the weight is removed from the wings+engines?