back to article NASA flying car engineer shoots down Reg coverage

Here at the Reg we're no strangers to a bit of robust reader input. We get flamed by all sorts: dog lovers, vegans, Nigerian helicopter pioneers, members of the Parachute Regiment, Welshmen. Today, however, we have a first. An actual NASA engineer has joined this illustrious lineup to pour vitriol on our output. The trouble …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    That's what I like...

    ... the cut and thrust of true scientific debate!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Reg....

    You are amazing.

  3. Richard 81
    Thumb Down

    BS

    "soon we'll all be zooming in to work above the traffic jams in our Puffins"

    That may be the kind of quote he'd like, but it'd be total bull.

    Unless flying cars use autopilot all the time when in the air, with a minimum of human input, they'll remain toys for rich businessmen with personal helipads and wallets that'll stretch to huge costs of getting a pilot's license. Put regular idiots with a driver's license at the controls of these things and be prepared to armour your roofs, walls and heads, 'cos they're going to be coming down in their thousands.

  4. Stone Fox
    Coffee/keyboard

    a clear case of

    raging butthurt!

    Could someone spare some time to fly over there (in a personal air vehicle possibly?) and untange the poor boffins knickers for him?

  5. Douglas Fingles
    Megaphone

    We readers DO appreciate you...

    mostly.

  6. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Flame

    I've seen better flames

    I suspect this chap was just having a bad day...

  7. Blofeld's Cat
    Boffin

    Hammer vs screwdriver

    Sorry Doc but you can use a hammer as a screwdriver. The claw bit makes a pretty good tin opener as well.

    Those chunky handled screwdrivers also make pretty good hammers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      needs to get his facts right

      A hammer is also known as a manchester screwdriver; the act of hammering a screw is therefore known as manchestering.

      1. Neil 23

        Nah

        Its a Black Country* Spanner, ain't it?

        [* or Birmingham, depending on which side of the Midlands you come from]

        1. Disco-Legend-Zeke

          If You Only Have...

          ...one tool, it should be a pair of Vice Grip brand locking pliers.

        2. Martin 19
          Boffin

          A thought a 'Black Country spanner' was simply a convenient rock?

          A hammer is a 'patent delicate adjustment device' in Brum...

          /says Brummie skilled in the art of percussive maintenance

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    NASA

    Never

    Argue

    Sensibly

    Again...

  9. Lionel Baden
    Thumb Up

    Hammer Screw Driver

    AHA !!!!

    http://www.froobi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/11-in-1-screwdriver-unit.jpg

    MWaaaahhhahahahahahaaa

    Dammit i cant laugh any more i have to goto client and install ram :/

    giggle ....

    Icon Well dammnit i just hit my thumb Mwaaahaaa

    no must go .,.....

    ...

    teehee

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hammer Screw Driver

      http://www.seeitornot.faketrix.com/funny-pictures-comedy-pics-humor-photos-104-womens-hammer-screwdriver-tool-set.htm

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    Saw the Youtube stuff

    Ames, Iowa looks brass monkey cold.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Like it!

    " none have been flying cars – about a quarter have been personal air vehicles."

    And the distinction is what exactly. IIRC when pundits first talked about flying cars they weren't talking about road going vehicles that could fly, they were talking about the airborne equivalent of the road going car. Or to put it another way; "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads." I would have said that another way of describing such a contrivance would be a personal air vehicle.

    Bartering semantics like this reminds me of the time that the body representing the motorcycle trade in the UK came up with the term Powered Two Wheeler or PTW to describe the supposedly more civilized end of the market. The idea being that names like motorbike, scooter and moped all had negative connotations whereas PTW didn't. There's no difference between a motorcycle and a PTW as far as the man in the street is concerned. Likewise there is no difference between a Personal Air Vehicle and a flying car.

    No that's not my car, it's my personal transport pod.

    Anyhow, flying cars or indeed personal air vehicles will not take off any time soon. If cars had not been invented until the 21st century I doubt they'd have been allowed either, just look at the health and safety implications. The air above every town and city full of personal air vehicles. Can you imagine the rush hour? The average motor vehicle accident results in some bent panels and frayed tempers. The same thing at 200 metres? Deaths.

    And look at the regulations covering remote controlled aircraft these days. Murkyside police need all sorts of permits and insurance just to fly their remote controlled surveilance chopper. And even then they can't get it very near people or buildings. Imagine the hoops you'd have to jump through to get a licence to fly your PAV and the cost of the insurance. Forget it.

  12. Melvin Meatballs

    Hammers

    Well my Dad always refered to a hammer as a Manchester Screwdriver.

    1. Fluffykins Silver badge

      Nah!

      I always thought it was a French screwdriver.

      Or was that the sledgehammer?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        French hammer?

        Surely that's a cheese hammer?

        1. Mike Sallman
          Big Brother

          Spanish, I think....

          That would be a "hammer cheese sandwich", I believe...

          Big Brother icon because it sort of looks like Manuel, maybe? If you squint really hard?

      2. T-Bo

        Sledgehammer

        Always called that the "Mexican Speedwrench"

  13. Graham Jordan

    It was going so well...

    Until he used the word dude.

    Dude is for students, surfers and a very selectr group of ninja turtles.

    1. RichyS
      WTF?

      Turtles?

      There's a wider group of Ninja Turtles?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        yes

        DUH that's cos they're INVISBLE

  14. Dave 62
    FAIL

    LOOK AT ME I HAVE A PHD IM SO GREAT

    Hey Doc, way to make yourself look like a seething lunatic.

    How many of your "advanced concepts" are now in everyday use? How many of those PAV concepts are actually in use today, because I don't have a PAV, do you?

    The majority of your youtube videos are computer generated. There is one video showing a weak fan in a lab environment with no mention of power source weight.

    If you want respect, you've got to act respectable. Now excuse me while I go work on some personal transport solutions which actually adress current real-world challenges and may actually see the light of day.

  15. Olafthemighty
    Thumb Up

    What a total amateur!

    Call that a flame? I've seen better with my eyes shut!

    GO REG!!!

    1. JimC

      > call that a flame

      To be fair to the guy the highest quality most rabid flames seem to come from those who have little to do but sit behind a keyboard all day. Whilst we might doubt the effectiveness and practicality of what our here is doing, its clear that it takes up more of his time than internet flaming does.

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Also

        It helps to be at least a bit unhinged to write good flames. On the other hand being unhinged doesn't help being a scientist or engineer, so we have a divergence in expertise.

  16. Brett

    hammer

    it was always a Birmingham Screwdriver in our line of work .....

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Heard this before...

    > You made no effort to get this story straight, but just to spout your own opinions – that’s why your type of journalism is so unappreciated.

    Lewis Page writing an opinion piece? Whatever next...

  18. Somerset John
    Gates Halo

    Visionary

    Well, I guess it was time someone stepped up to the plate and supplanted Paul Moller as Pie, sorry, Car in the sky visionary.

  19. Jolyon Ralph
    Heart

    He is right, mostly

    El Reg isn't really renowned for the quality of it's journalism. The phrase "bunch of ignorant hacks" may be a little unfair, but there you go, I've used it anyway!

    But we still love you anyway

  20. Nebulo
    Thumb Up

    Moore is less

    and the Reg is more, after that little tirade. Splendid stuff!

    As for "what gives you the right to spout this kind of opinion" ... you mean we now need someone like him to give us permission to have an opinion? Didn't realise the N.W.O. Takeover had progressed quite that far.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Poor chap does have a point

    The FoTW coverage is actually more newsworthy (marginally, but still) than the original article.

    This I determined without so much as reading the original and only skimming the flame. Still, I'm sure I'm right, for I read el reg. What are you handing me that coat for? It doesn't even look remotely like mine.

  22. Anonymous John
    Unhappy

    He's just jealous

    of the El Reg Paris program.

  23. Matthew 3

    "What gives you the right...?"

    Surely El Reg's response should be 'Because it's our website, dickhead!'

    (or refer him to Arkell v Pressdram)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahhhh

    Don't bait the engineers.

  25. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Pirate

    Well

    it's not a new BOFH episode, but it's pretty good fodder for a Friday. Too bad nobody took a leisure cruise down a flight of steps, or learned first-hand about the electical conductivity of the human body. That woulda made it perfect.

    WTF is up with BOFH anyhow? Simon starts a new era then leaves it for three weeks?

    1. Linbox
      Thumb Up

      ^ this ^

      *very much*

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Suggestion

    Why can't The Reg use their expense accout to buy a $ 200 flight with one of those sophisticated, brand new, leading-edge Cessna Internal Combustion-Engine Powered Wonders ?

    They can fly hundreds of kilometers unrefuelled and land and takeoff on less than 300meters of runway. Maybe NASA will actually purchase one of those Wondercrafts ?? Then the Prof could be amazed the whole day. He would not even have to increase the energy density of Carbonhydrates by the factor of three ! Imagine that !!!!!!

    1. Daniel Evans

      Carbohydrates?

      If you're on about Cessna fuel, it'd be Hydrocarbons (C and H, mostly - e.g. octane), not Carbohydrates (C and some multiple of H2O - e.g. glucose).

      Although some O is required to use your Hydrocarbons for flight.

  27. Neal 5

    Hmmmmmmmmmmm

    I think i agree with the learned Doc's views in part, anyways, definately more than the commentards here, who seem only intent on whether ist's a Manchester, Blackburn, or Brummie screwdriver, none of whom have actually commented on the most interesting aspect.

    The differences between the right handed and the left handed version of the *screwdriver*

  28. oldredlion
    Pint

    Titular

    It's all very well, arguing and poking fun at geeks, but - Gods dammit - I want my jet pack!

    If they spent less time reading articles and more time sorting themselves out then I could be zooming about and narrowly missing crashing into trees and buildings.

    I have long dreamed of the day of flying about with a rocket lashed to my back. (ever since I saw the old black and white Rocket Man films at the pictures - fairly sure I didn't just dream it)

  29. Stevie

    Bah!

    Dear Mr Elvis Pargeter

    That told you. It's about time too.

    Please check your facts before attacking any more scientists who are actually doing science.

    You may have free rein (and my blessing) when savaging the useless bunch who do nothing but argue how their betters did it wrong and how Pluto isn't a proper planet and Lake Huron is just a bulge.

    Yours etc (Mrs)

  30. Hawkmoth
    WTF?

    Propeller beanies all around!

    Oh for crying out loud, Doc, you've just got to get it together. You can't rant back at English people like that, it just show us (Americans) as the unsophisticated louts they already think we are. You've got to keep your composure while you deliver some biting yet witty comeback. See the Oxford SCR scene in the movie Shadowlands for how this is done.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hammer

    Anybody who spends much time reading automotive workshop manuals will tell you that the correct term for a hammer is "special workshop tool #1".

  32. Evil Auditor Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    I beg to differ

    "that’s why your type of journalism is so unappreciated"

    This type of journalism is exactly why we appreciate El Reg so much! Thank you.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Fail

    While I like the idea of a "flying car", can you imagine many of the lusers & hoons you find on the road today, up in the air?

    As for using batteries as the power source for an aircraft.... I hope that thing comes with a ballistic parachute as standard equipment.

    Oh yes, being a doc and a prof engineer doesn't mean anything. Been there, done that.

    Well done El Reg.

    1. Keith Oldham

      Re : Fail

      No, no ... Navigation will be under software control ... there's an app for that.

      Or FAR more worryingly .. a Redmond 'solution'.

      1. Geoffrey W
        Alert

        Look to the skies

        Or even more worryingly, an open source solution written by a bunch of overweight pasty faced blokes in their bedrooms in between playing Dark Void.

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