I see what you're saying. We all want to improve technology here right. But I don't find it a great deal of effort to leave my phone on a charging mat when I go bed already. I think we're already at an efficient cost of effort over financial cost of an even more effortless technology already.
First off, I'm not saying I want this tech, I'm saying it would do well in the marketplace if it existed. Second, the 'effort' is not the physical act of plugging in, but rather the mental act of remembering to. Plus the potentially huge downside of running out of battery in a precarious situation.
for me, it’s not about when i go to bed. that part’s easy already; it’s about when you’re at a friends house, or work, etc for longer than you expect and your battery starts to go flat. in this case, you think “i should have just charged my phone; i was next to a USB port all day”. it totally eliminates these situations once lightbulbs with charging become common place because you just show up and your phone starts charging without thinking about it
It's very likely that the low-tech alternative just catches up way sooner than the (objectively better) high tech solution becomes viable.
The low tech in this case is that your friend probably has a compatible charger, and it's probably even already lying around so you can just plug in without even breaking conversation.
(There are a number of incompatible standards out there, but wireless charging would also be beset by competing standards)
Really there are only three standards I can think of - micro usb, covering probably 80%+ of devices, whatever the current becoming popular. That's way better than it used to be.
I suspect ubiquitous charge pads will get us most of the way there a long time before any sort of long distance wireless (especially if e.g. the EU mandate a single charging standard as they did with micro USB). If they are everywhere, it's relatively easy to remember to put your device there, and forgetting to do so doesn't matter most of the time if/when you can get a meaningful amount of charge in just a few minutes.
The Stifford estate photo is my favorite. The 'new' brutalist architecture of social housing marching in over the old pre war landscape. It's hard to imagine the utopia it was supposed to represent. Roll forwards 20 years those sorts of buildings represented drugs crime and poverty.
Brutalist developments in London are weirdly polarised. Either they've been torn down because of chronic social problems like the Heygate estate, or they're Grade II listed and massively desirable like Trellick Tower, the Barbican or Rowley Way.
The Heygate estate is an interesting point. I used to live in the foursquares, a smaller equally deprived estate just to the east.
At the time of the "regeneration" (2000s) it was a toss up between a number of estates and the heygate. However because of its size and location the heygate was chosen
My estate was turned around, and I was lucky enough to live in the estate, not on it. I got to know some of the original residents(and still do).
There are two important things to note, Council housing is almost exclusively of a very high standard (bigger than new builds by ~10+ sqm) Compared to the slums described so vividly in the road to wigan pier, a paradise. (running toilets, windows, heating plaster, enough bedrooms for each kid)
Until a rule change in the late 70s, you had to have a job to be eligible for council housing. There were (and still are, more or less) residents associations that look after the running of the estate. Caretakers lived on site, towers had 24 hour concierges, and ne'dowells were evicted.
However, that was all taken away in favour of dumping problem families, outsourcing cleaning and upkeep (In some cases, one cleaner 2 hours a day costs something line £80k annually.)
In short, there is nothing wrong with the estate fabric (of the surviving estates) but how they are looked after, and who lives there. Grenfell is a shining example, a solid block that was subdivided and halfarsedly put in new gas mains.
By living _in_ the estate, I mean I turned up to the residents meetings, and participated in the governence of the estate. Council housing has been sold off, and represents a cheap, profitable rental income. Because of the high rate of change, they are socially and funtionally seperated from either leaseholders or council tenants.
When it came to regeneration/improvements, we were the one consulted, not the private renters.
If I missunderstood your question, here is some waffle:
An estate is a logical collection of dwellings, normally flats (but can be houses) that were commissioned and built by local governement for the express purpose of housing the employed working classes.
for example my estate was made up of four blocks of about 180 flats. Each block encloses a shared garden, with childrens play equipment.
It's important to know that the Barbican was built as luxury housing. Trellick or Alexandra Road were social housing and they still have a much broader social mix.
On one hand, I'm sure I would hate living in a city where everything looked like the Barbican. Yet, every time I'm there I'm awed by its strange beauty. It has such a strong identity.. it feels like walking inside a sculpture.
I found that one part of the feeling you describe comes from it being "organic" in an unusual way. It's easy to find any number of modern buildings that use "organic" shapes or materials (think curved or made from wood). However, they will still be boring and predictable inside and fit into a very boring street grid outside. Barbican is different: it's "brutalist" and as un-organic in its material as possible, but the structure itself is an unpredictable, multilevel maze where you don't know what awaits you around the corner. That provokes a very different feeling, more akin to a forest over the rolling hills than to a city. And it's built that way both inside and out, at least as far as public spaces are concerned.
I think that different kind of "organic" is why I love Barbican. There aren't many places that make me feel like a child exploring a new area, but Barbican is the best at that.
Don't underestimate how terrible the low-incoming housing stock was beforehand. It was already decades behind the standards that you'd find in, say, an American city (mostly because London had grown huge earlier than they had, so a lot of expansion had been constructed to an earlier standard) Having chunks of it bombed flat in WW2 didn't help, either.
I think the people behind this launch would have given some thought to this. I mean they're quite thorough and intelligent people. As in so clever and interested in the subject that they could be ..... Rocket scientists... :P
Okay fine. Just don't call it motor racing then. Given that the cars are obviously running in some artificially crippled state compared to the 'boosted' car. Call it ... Car-big-brother or something instead :p
The cars’ power output is electronically limited, this limit is raised during the 5s of boost.
The same thing could be done for normal F1 cars - for example, by raising the RPM limit, power output or drag reduction for a few seconds. In fact, with KERS, F1 drivers already have the same kind of boost but without the voting.
Sure. The voting aspect is my big gripe though. Without the voting they don't need the limiter. If the dumped the voting and allowed teams to innovate battery I'd be ALL OVER IT but they need dump the voting aspect like-right-now.
Like I commented elsewhere, you're making a big deal out of basically nothing.
FanBoost is a gimmick, and even F-E management acknowledges that it has virtually zero impact on the race itself.
It's a 5-second ~5% power boost.. That's not going to change anything, and neither would letting the cars run at 5% more power in general without it..
I am sure that teams are innovating battery and motor just fine even with this minor limitation..
Don't you think if FanBoost was actually crippling or limiting innovation in the way you're assuming, the teams would cry foul? That kind of counter-productive decision would go against one of the main reasons they do these racing leagues (to innovate!).
As an aside, all motor racing is "crippled", as you put it, by rules and regulations designed to provide a reasonably level playing field.
Even Formula 1 has all kinds of limiting rules and guidelines that prevent teams from simply building the fastest/lightest/most powerful cars they can possibly design, and that's intentional.
So all the smart people know this is a scam played on uneducated redneck masses in order to grow following. I bet nothing can go wrong with building your fan base out of idiots.
I haven't even watched any F-E race at all, but am a bit bothered by your comment. What makes it a scam? It's all fully laid out, and there is a (small) chance the voters can actually impact the results of the race as suggested.
Generally speaking, I agree with what you're saying - I think FanBoost is stupid. BUT - the limit would still be there. They limit the RPM, etc. in the petrol cars for other reasons too. I think this is a really small impact on how "crippled" the cars are.
I wouldn't get worked up about things being 'limited' when virtually all race cars are limited in some form. F1 has fuel flow restrictions and rev restrictions (which can't be reached due to the fuel flow requirement). Nascar has restrictor plates. LMP2 and 3 both have displacement restrictions. Indycar has rev restrictions.
Unlimited racing basically becomes a bloodbath and a contest of who has the most money (which is a problem that F1 still has). Yes, fan boost is a gimmick, but don't get too upset about the purity of 'artificially crippled' racing.
THIS
I immediately stopped watching Formula E because of that. I like motor racing not popularity contests with cars. The tech involved in the cars is great though.
The constant use of "silly daddy". The show seems to attack the father figure whilst making the mother figure seem always right (in my personal opinion). Mummy pig is overweight too, nothing gets said about that though. It feels like a reverse gender bias in that show.
