Electric Buses

[dextrous63]

Anyone heard of this?

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[klondike]

Seeing is believing.

If a computer system can't even get accounting right (Horizon. cough cough) I'm dubious that they can produce something as complex as that needs to be to work properly. 

Computers are vastly faster than they were when I started working with them in the early 70s. Unfortunately that just seems to allow them to make bigger balls ups far faster and on a much bigger scale.

[dextrous63]

I wonder how it would cope with our pothole ridden roads?

[JBR]

I wonder how it would cope with our pothole ridden roads?

Our pothole ridden roads are the least of our worries!
I've always regarded us as one of the most advanced nations technologically, but now I see things as they really are.  China looks years ahead of us.

If I was younger, I'd be off to China and apply for citizenship...
er, after I have learnt what all those squiggles mean of course.

[klondike]

The whole piece reads like it was produced by a marketing wonk They'd outsource vast swathes of the coding which always means it won't work.

Not that coders from the subcontinent are stupid. In the late 80s/ early 90s I worked for a software company that produced a database along with a transaction programming language and a system that ran all that. It was an American company and they also sold a number of applications that ran on it with one being an accounting system.

I didn't have anything to do with the applications as I worked as tech support for the database and other stuff they ran on. Apparently US accounting systems were in some way different from UK/European ones and there needed to be changes to sell it in Europe. They decided to import some coders to do the work and they were paid on lines of code produced. I don't know if what they produced ever worked but I did hear that a very big percentage of the lines of code they were paid for were just comments 

[Michael Rolls]

traffic lights instantly turning green with other traffic on the road sounds fun!

[dextrous63]

Trams in Manchester have a similar precedent right of way.

[Ashy]

I assume it's a diesel. If I remember correctly, which is unlikely, one of our universities produced a vehicle that would follow a buried wire in about 1960, the same people who came up with the Maglev and the  linear motor.

[JBR]

I assume it's a diesel. If I remember correctly, which is unlikely, one of our universities produced a vehicle that would follow a buried wire in about 1960, the same people who came up with the Maglev and the  linear motor.

I think that this example of our abilities and inventiveness is, or was, one of our strongest points as a nation.
Sadly, after dumbing down policies, I'm afraid that this is now no longer the case.
Just one more change over the past thirty years or so that is causing the eventual downfall of the country of which I was once very proud.

Thirty years is not a long time, but nevertheless much has happened.  How many more years before this nation can realistically be seen as a third-world country?

[klondike]

Some parts already are.

[ansu]

Don't be so pessimistic. 
I was on a holiday in China some years ago and it's not all gold that glitters. They only show you what they wish you to see. The rents of the new flats in the big cities are extremely high. People living in the countryside are quite poor and there are lots of migrant workers (Wanderarbeiter). However, I was impressed by the activities they offer for seniors, dancing, playing games etc. in parks or on big public places. 
We always think that life in other countries/continents is better and that those countries are more advanced from the technical point of view, but we often forget that this only applies to big cities and to the rich and that there are far more poor people than rich ones.
We, too, have lots of poor people here in Germany, but  never a poor person having in her hand a plastic cup asked me for money when I left a hotel in the evening - first time in the USA.
Sorry!