Underground Freight Networks 284
morphovar writes "The German Ruhr University of Bochum is conducting experiments with a large-scale model for an automated subterranean transport system. It would use unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel in a network through pipelines with a diameter of 1.6 meters, up to distances of 150 kilometers. Sending cargo goods through underground pipelines is anything but new — see this scan of a 1929 magazine article about Chicago's underground freight tunnel network (more details). Translating this concept to the 21st century would be something like introducing email for things: you could order something on the Internet and pick it up through a trapdoor in your cellar the next morning."
Fabbing (Score:4, Insightful)
Email for things? (Score:4, Insightful)
Security concerns? (Score:4, Insightful)
The postal system is more secure because people are constantly in the loop.
Series of tubes (Score:2, Insightful)
Just hope that a shipment of spam doesn't clog your tubes :)
good luck w/ bombs (Score:2, Insightful)
To Your Cellar? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't work in Florida (Score:1, Insightful)
Not for the home (Score:5, Insightful)
The best you could hope for is to have it dug to the basement of a large apartment complex.
Re:Fabbing (Score:3, Insightful)
They should have an integrated wireless connection and be designed to set up a peer to peer mesh network, then automatically share any new design that is loaded into them with any other similar devices within range.
That should pretty much destroy the justification for intellectual property laws... everyone will be scratching their own itches, automatically sharing what they create and automatically being able to leverage other peoples creations.
Then we just need an extraterrestrial based power generation infrastructure to feed the things, a democratic-communistic society based around the maintenance of the critical infrastructure that drives everyones newfound empowerment.
Re:Why (Score:3, Insightful)
You going to put a large tube above ground in the way of everything? This is the well established technique - subways, sewers, utility tunnels, even catacombs. If this were to be implemented it could even follow the existing networks. The tubes could follow the subways to neighborhood distribution centers or the sewers to individual buildings.
If you put it above ground, you get increased traffic congestion (given that it will reduce available space), lesser security (items could "fall off the truck" any place the system was accessible) and a lesser adaptability. If a river is in the way of a surface road, you have to build a bridge. If a river is in the way of a tunnel, you build more tunnel.
Re:good luck w/ bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good luck w/ bombs (Score:3, Insightful)
However, if you're somehow insinuating that terrorist acts are up you have a disgraceful knowledge of history. I mean, it's been almost thirty years since someone tried to assasinate a US president. Things are pretty mellow all things considered. While Al Qaida may have pulled off one stupendous crime in America they're pretty pathetic when you compare them to groups like the Weathermen or the SLA. Heck they're even pretty pathetic when you compare them to the DC snipers.
Re:I don't have a cellar (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We have these already (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't have a cellar (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen some nice finished cellars. Now if you want a room you are going to spend 12 hours a day in, you want windows...otherwise it's just like work!
Cellars would make an excellent home theater space, also a great space for a LAN gaming set up. The constant coolness of a cellar would be good for computers, and the heat computers give off would rise to the rest of the house.
Re:I don't have a cellar (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if you would otherwise build a one story house to begin with, and I'm firmly of the opinion that in cities where land is expensive due to scarcity, construction of one-story buildings, residential or otherwise, should be prohibited by building code because it is basically squandering land. Don't get me started about all the one story office buildings in the Silicon Valley area. If all of those one-story office buildings were two story buildings, we almost wouldn't have land scarcity at all... but I digress.
If you're starting out with a two story house, two stories with a basement generally is a lot nicer to look at than three stories. Adding a basement also provides a lot more usable space than turning the attic into a partial floor. And, of course, adding a basement means that if you later need still more space, you have an attic that you can convert into a partial floor.... It's a lot harder to add a basement afterwards than it is to convert an attic.
Re:Fabbing (Score:2, Insightful)
Very sad, but very true. Long live the patriarchy!
Re:I don't have a cellar (Score:4, Insightful)