Showing posts with label train. Show all posts
Showing posts with label train. Show all posts

Monday, August 9, 2010

China Breeds Nuclear Car Eating Monster Bus

If we go by what we see in the movies, it is usually the Japanese, not the Chinese, who breed giant green atomic monsters hell bent on taking over an entire country. But this isn't a movie, and the behemoth we're looking at today isn't a radioactive mutant dinosaur. It also isn't nuclear (I just thought that sounded cool), but China has undoubtedly created a monster -- a giant, car-swallowing people-carrying "green" monster.

Check out this video of the new Chinese straddling bus, set to be unveiled in Bejing's Mentougou district next August:



OK, the video is pretty lame, and the voice over could definitely have used a little spice from those guys over at Most Extreme Action Challenge. And lets face it, I would crap my pants the first time I was biking or driving down the street and that freaking thing passed over my head. Still, it is a pretty cool idea, and if anyone can make it work, it's the Chinese.

I wonder how it would stand up against Mothra...

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Japan Beats the US in Awesomeness Again

I like to tell people who don't live in my fair state that the best thing about California is the ability to wake up in the morning and go surfing, then head out to the mountains and go snowboarding, then cruise down to a lake and go wakeboarding, and still be home in time for dinner.

This awesome day is theoretically possible from just about anywhere in the state, but it carries a rather large carbon footprint, and you would still spend less time enjoying all these fun activities than you would driving from one to the next. Probably why this sentiment is more descriptive than it is literal.

Enter some Japanese train wizards, who are planning on making a feat of this sort not just greener, but actually practical.

According to this article in the Los Angeles Times, Japan plans to build a train by 2025 that will get a passenger from Nagoya to Tokyo (a trip of about 220 miles) in less than 40 minutes. That's right - they expect this train to travel at more than 300 miles an hour.

What up US inventors! Why are we letting the Japanese leave us in the dust with this crazy amazing train! If we brought this tecnhology to California, I could wake up for an early morning surf session at Ocean Beach, change, and hop on abullet train to Northstar in time for first tracks! Hell, at those speeds, I could leave the slopes at noon to hit LA for some early afternoon waves, and STILL make it back to SF in time for dinner.

Wait a minute - That some train from LA to Vegas would only take an hour? Might need to take a rain check on that dinner back home...