#liddiard

[mentitude-blog]

Peanuts 30

Le ruote omnidirezionali

Un inventore canadese, William Liddiard, ha mostrato che le ruote omnidirezionali da lui realizzate possono essere montate su una normale auto e tornare utili per compiere delle manovre ad oggi impossibili. Essendo per ora solo un prototipo, molte modifiche andrebbero compiute prima che sia fattibile commercializzare il prodotto. Articolo qui.

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[inbonobo]

(belated) Happy #Canada Day - Canadian man has reinvented the #wheel: William #Liddiard shows his car sliding sideways with its #omnidirectional wheels

The age of parallel parking may soon be over thanks to a literal reinvention of the wheel by Canadian man William Liddiard.

“True all-way drive for anything with wheels,” Liddiard says in an online writeup for his successful prototype of “omni-directional” wheels, a specialized rim and tire that can allow any car the ability to move sideways.

The tire is rounded like a donut and sits within a specialized roller-equipped rim that can move the tire horizontally. The result is a wheel that can allow any car to “crab” side to side.

“This is a world first bolt-on application for anything with wheels,” wrote Liddiard. ‘Now you can drive in all directions, and turn on the spot, when needed.”

The London, Ont., inventor exhibited the technology in a YouTube video that has since captured the attention of auto aficionados the world over, garnering more than 1.1 million views.

Entitled “you’ve never seen a car do this…,” the three minute video shows a Toyota Echo sliding around an Ontario driveway as if on a block of ice.

One source described the car as “moonwalking” across the pavement.

The wheels are merely a “proof of concept” prototype, but Liddiard asserts that his design would allow them to be made as durable and safe as standard automotive wheels.

The omni-directional wheel is not a new invention, but it has typically been used only in wheelchairs, robotics and other small-scale applications. Honda Motor Co. did debut an omni-directional wheel at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, but it was as part of a small, Segway-style personal mobility device.

“My wheel can hold ten times more than the other (wheels), while maintaining speed,” Liddiard told Postmedia in an interview earlier this year.

The inventor is currently seeking to sell the technology to a major tire or automotive company.

[falsebsides]

The criticism of critical distance

Nearly all  of my favourite albums are by people I have never met or spoken to

For some reason the other day I was thinking about the worth of critical distance with relation to music. Not the audio physics term, but with relation to the distance of the criticism of popular music. Music reviewing and writing by its nature is a echo chamber; it exists to give opinions about things the reviewer does or doesn't like.

It's almost never objective, and almost always contains biases. It's often immersive, and can only exist as such.

For example, its fucking hard to do a gig review without actually going to the gig you are reviewing. Likewise, when your writing a feature on a band or muso, your prose is likely to be swayed by their music at least as much as what they actually said in a given interview.

The old pearl about meeting your idols

Does having a beer after with a band after a set unreasonably affect your potential to write an unbiased review? Should someone who's a dedicated fan of a particular band really review a new release by that band?

For me, the answer to those questions are no and yes respectively. For me, music criticism is about the music and its context. Its about the passion and emotion that a writer can convey along with the music.

In my honest opinion, the best piece of music journalism of the last two or three years is Andrew Ramadge's short book The World According to Gaz.

The critical distance here is less than zero; the piece is essentially a fan of Gareth Liddiard watching his new album being recorded and chatting to him, his friends and family. Without Ramadge being embedded with Liddiard's camp, it could turn out to be just another fan article on how great Liddiard/The Drones are, or another distant review.

It's better than that. It has life, and it makes the album that Liddiard released (Strange Tourist) even better to listen to. It not only reflects the context of the production of the album, it provides some to the finished product.

Where was I?

Oh, critical distance. A noble ideal, but wasted on music.