"It seems "less" wasteful when you compare it to other instances of peak competitive design such as NASCAR engines that are designed to last exactly one race, then be completely rebuilt. The goal was to create the lightest possible shoe that will last exactly one marathon race, thus lighter weight component parts that can hold structural integrity for the required miles, but not much further. So a bleeding edge design with a specific use case. There are probably gram-sized tradeoffs that could be made to bring the shoe into a more practical format."
"Airless tires don't work well and never will because they function optimally for exactly one loading, and there's no way to adjust them for ride quality or handling style like there is with pneumatic tires. Also, there's already tubeless/solid tire brands out there and they sell for a tenth of this.Additionally, NASA uses this design of wheels and tires because they weigh less than a standard pneumatic tire and function good enough for their purposes. It's about reducing lift mass, not making a better tire."
"Well in the images that are in this article, roughly 50px above this comment section, the platforms are more than spacious enough to have benches. And all people would rather sit down than stand given the option when having to wait, hence the reason benches or seats or literally any kind of flat surface existed in waiting areas for public transit for hundreds of years until assholes decided that inconveniencing poor people was more important."
"Anything to keep from making benches that homeless people might lay on, right? Wouldn't want any sort of human comforts afforded them, the filthy untermenschen they are. /s"
"That is a truly innovative design. This is someone looking at a process, examining what is necessary for the functionality of the process, and applying existing principles to reduce the solving of the process to the smallest form possible. You don't need fully developed shoulder, arm, and hand forms to simply grip and lift a package, so that's left out. You don't need to replicate bipedal leg action when you just need to move from point A to point B across a primarily flat surface, especially since standardized palletization means most warehouses are built across level surfaces, so instead they just used balancing wheels, a system already matured by the development of the Segway and imitators. I could also imagine the system expanded upon, wherein pairs of units could pick up larger items that would be difficult to balance, maybe even have the units linked and if a single unit finds itself unstable, the closest additional unit could stop its current goal process and assist."
"Oh well these are just ostentatious and useless geegaws that(sees X-files machine)okay I want one.I could see some of these being very fun to play a vertical shmup on. If I had the money for a game room, I think I'd prefer a slim form factor like these over a older style arcade cabinet."
"I can't imagine people are going to return to being more accepting of smoking in public when it hasn't been a thing for a decade now. It's still blowing carcinogens around regardless of the material, and nobody wants that anymore, except smoking A-holes."
"It pales in comparison to the other horrors of WW2, but the art and design that came out of the 1930's and how forward looking so much of it was always makes me sad that so much creativity was snuffed out by a second half decade of hell on Earth."
"I think a picture of a paper straw in a plastic cup with two to three times the mass of plastic in it, both of which will almost certainly get tossed in the same general rubbish bin, says everything about the "we need paper straws!!!" debacle."
"I suspect the side mount is a standard option for generic small monitor manufacturing; switching to a different access position would significantly raise the price per unit due to non-standard tooling."