Ace-Garageguy

All well and good, Tom, and it all sounds lovely. One little fact is that I'm more cognizant of the mechanical aspects of machine failure modes, particularly surface vehicles (and ALL of their components), and their "predictability" than probably anyone on this board, and I'm also much more well versed in the realities of Artificial Intelligence and "machine learning" than you could possibly imagine. No brag, just stating fact. It's going to be rather harder to accomplish this on a large scale than the VAST majority of people seem to realize. I'm fully aware of all of the possibilities for failure and mis-communication between various "intelligent" machines in our coming future, and I'm also fully aware of the massive amounts of code and prediction of machine behavior by humans that will be necessary to turn everything INTO code before the fact. The appalling lack of early-on industry-wide standardization in the information-management sector should be a warning that if the need for these systems to talk to each other...which implies they'll need to have EXACTLY the same coded definitions across the board from day one... isn't addressed IMMEDIATELY, we'll end up having the equivalent of Microsoft and Mac (and who knows how many other 'proprietary' self-drive systems) that do essentially the same things, but speak entirely different languages and don't even really think the same way. That will be an intolerable situation, and as little standardization as there exists even in the automotive industry today mechanically (which is a HUGE waste of effort and money that seems to be totally ignored), where is the indicator that things will be any more rational in a self-drive-car world? When I stand back and look at the lack of a coherent energy policy worldwide, which is a perfect indication of humans' inability to work well together on large-scale issues of global importance, even though the root technologies to end our dependence on traditional fossil fuels have existed for far longer than I have, I'm not encouraged that humans will get this right. At least, not for quite a while, if ever. There's also every indication that the self-drive world will be every bit as vulnerable to political posturing and idiot rule-making by inept government intervention as most things are today. You only have to look at the state of the "climate change" controversy to see how people REALLY work together. There is NO DOUBT THE WORLD IS GETTING WARMER. Any fool with access to the internet can find raw data (as in glaciers that were there when I was a child now simply GONE) to PROVE it. But rather than accepting the reality of the situation and saying "OK, it's happening; what do we need to DO about it", there's still an ongoing petty war about WHY it's happening and who should be to blame...or not...instead of a concerted global effort to DEAL with the reality. AI is rather a lot farther along than most people realize too, because of advances in the understanding and modeling of the hierarchical information processing in the human brain and its mathematical simulation that have occurred over the past decade. AI development hit a wall when people were trying to code for every eventuality, a series of "if > then" scenarios that soon became entirely unwieldy. When it became apparent that modeling a thinking machine on our emerging perception of how the human brain assembles concepts and pictures from tiny bits of data was the way to go, and then allowing it to learn based on its experience, everything changed. As of 2012, there were three essentially stand-alone systems that, if integrated, could easily have passed the classic "Turing Test" that is considered to be one proof of true artificial intelligence. I would not be surprised to find that a thinking, self-aware artificial mind exists as I write this. We can only hope that they'll proliferate, and do a better and more efficient and cooperative job of managing our future than we, as a species, have done up until now. I personally don't want to live in an interim self-drive world where, besides being continually on the lookout for sleepy doofy unskilled texting human morons, I'll have to be keeping in the back of my mind the very real possibility of self-drive failures of the vehicles near me. The transition period from the way it is to the way people envision it is going to be a killer.

No need to hit walls. Learn to go around or over them. A good place to begin learning 3D modeling is to download a FREE copy of Google's SketchUp. http://www.sketchup.com/ Much of what you'll learn here will work in other CAD programs, and there are interfaces to take files produced in SU and translate them into STL that 3D printers need. Once you have decent STL files of the parts you want, Shapeways will happily print them out. http://www.shapeways.com/ It's ALL possible with some applied intelligence and effort. A member of my club created the files to print this car body, and Shapeways did the print several years ago. It's 1/24 scale. Cost to print it was about $30.

Glad you feel like building again. I've always been a vintage Fiat fan, particularly the 806 just because of its looks. Started half-azzed looking for one after seeing it built elsewhere on this forum, I believe. Seeing your typical museum-quality results should inspire me to part with more money.

Jus' 'bout my fave-o-right summer cruise toon, since '74. Top down in the '63 Olds, beautiful girl, life was good. Until reality set in.

I pile on the Bondo Professional product. Never any futzing around waiting overnight to cure, no noticeable shrinking, almost no limit to how thick you can put the stuff on. ONLY time I'll use one-part is for tiny imperfections, for which it works a treat (Squadron Green shown here).

Boy...that's quite a lot of gadgetry and complication just to clean your backside. Looks like it even has a blower. And an LCD screen readout too. Man. That's some high-tech carp. Ain't technology grand? (Does it come with an emergency roll in case of power failure?)

I SHOULD have mentioned on this thread that it's Rik Hoving's work. I DID mention that on another thread where I used the image. Anyway, it looks like .040" or so to me.

If you choose to interpret it that way, then yes, well. sort of. But here's the thing.The MEKP added to traditional 2-part polyester products is only a CATALYST that kicks off an exothermic polymerization in the putty, and is not actually PART of the chemical combination itself. UV initiates the polymerization of the UV-cure product, and as such, "sunlight" or ultra-violet light isn't part of the final chemical substance either. The beauty of the UV-cure product is that it eliminates the measuring and mixing steps of using 2-part materials that some modelers apparently find to be problematic. And in the thicknesses modelers are going to be using, getting a full cure from the UV-activated stuff ought to be almost foolproof.

Perhaps, but it WAS state of the art aerodynamics for the time. Unfortunately, what the air likes doesn't always go hand in hand with what the mind and eye like.

Jus' got one of dese wit da 40% coopon at Hobby Lobby. Kinda wanted one for a while for the frame. Pretty nice little kit, with coil-over independent front suspension and Corvette leaf-spring IRS. The frame looks like it will be easily modified to fit up under a '32 Ford. Lotsa other good bits in the box too, not the least of which is a nicely proportioned chopped body shell that should be a fairly easy swap on to the old Monogram 1/24 '37 Ford underpinnings, and a generic-ish smallblock Chebby with billet valve covers and a GM automatic molded separately from the engine.

Pico Elgin, of the ACME club here, developed the 3D file and had this 1/24 scale model of the car printed. Pretty slick, eh?

Bondo has a 1-part UV cure glazing putty. On my 'experimental' list. http://bondo.com/bondo-sun-activated-glazing-spot-putty-930.html#rMZDbYVwIBfbtZhA.97

You mean bidets? They've been in use in Europe since the 1700s. Not really "autonomous", and you still need to dry the water...far as I know.

I'm haulin' out the ol' Gee Bee later this PM to start sanding the incorrect ribbing off the wings. It's really a very simple model, but I've been dreading the task of making masks to paint the signature scallop patterns on the wings, fuselage and landing gear. Time to move out of the comfort zone a little.

I never say "never", but it won't be next week or next year or probably even next decade. Speaking of "never", it's beginning to look more and more likely that faster-than-light space travel as envisioned by Star Trek's "warp" drive (and others) is going to be possible after all, and that the upper limit of light-speed for moving between two points (implied by Einstein's work) may in fact be neatly side-stepped. "So you never know what might develop... " Indeed.

Consider this: in a future world where all or even most of the cars are "autonomous", there will still be failures. Even the MOST robust system experiences occasional failures, and ANY failure of a vehicle transporting living human beings will HAVE to be considered "statistically significant" from a moral and legal perspective. Assume the car you're riding in has a massive system failure of some sort and the redundancies built in fail as well, possibly due to inept maintenance. If the car is in a tightly packed traffic stream, like YOU encounter every time you go on an interstate, the vehicle can't just shut down and coast safely to a stop. Nope, it's going to have to be able to communicate with the vehicles around it and 'ask' for permission to invade their space while it tries to pilot itself over to the side of the road...EXACTLY what YOU do if you blow a tire or experience some other kind of malfunction. All the OTHER vehicles will be responsible for reacting safely to the failure of the first one too. Getting a machine to be able to multi-task in a situation like this and correctly weigh all the possible variables to take life-saving action is a pretty good trick. Most humans can barely do it, and not always. Think about how YOU'D react at 70 MPH if you blew a tire in the center lane of 5, or if the car next to you or just ahead of you did. Get it?

The state of "autonomous" vehicle technology is another one of those things where the popular perception is far from the reality. A substantial number of engineers and scientists actually working on the integration of strong AI, machine vision and all the various and REAL technical obstacles understand that the perfection of the tech may be still 20 years out. I personally don't want to trust my life to the beta version. Machines do a LOT of things far far better than humans, but driving is going to take some really smart machines. No doubt the day will come, but multiple redundancy in case of failure (and fail-safe systems), as well as hardening of the systems against malicious hacking are far from fully developed now...or even really understood in the context of what it's going to take.

Gives a whole new meaning to "male performance anxiety", doesn't it?

She's a little beauty, for sure. Great model. Though I've never driven a twin-plug-head equipped version, the street Giulia with twin sidedraft Webers is a wonderful, well-balanced, agile and fun car to drive.

This is the kind of question that makes me wish I'd picked a different career-path. Being a layer in idiot times like these must be an absolute guarantee of richly remunerative employment forever.

Good question. The bozo who drove into my old truck a couple weeks past is now refusing to pay for the damage, through his attorney, on the grounds that "just because Mr. Zippy was given a police citation for 'improper lane change' doesn't automatically imply responsibility for causing the collision, much less financial responsibility for repairing any damage". OK.

I just love the techno-bozos who endlessly repeat that "steer-by-wire" and "throttle-by-wire" are "quicker responding and more precise" than mechanical linkage systems. Obviously, these are people who never took anything apart (much less put it back together) or played with an Erector Set. It's simply physically impossible to be "quicker" than a simple, correctly-designed (un-worn-out) mechanical linkage. Period. From a societal-engineering standpoint, I see the "autonomous" vehicle trend to be just another way to remove the concept of taking personal responsibility for ANYTHING from the daily lives of the sheeple. Which makes me wonder: when's autonomous toilet paper going to become popular? It would surely remove another one of life's less-than-pleasant tasks and greatly add to quality-of-life. There seem to be a fair number of less-than-skilled users of the old-fashioned manual kind, so surely the market is there. And it probably wouldn't kill you if it failed.

Yup. One of my requisites for female companionship for the past several years has been "must be able to drive a three-on-the-tree". Needless to say, I'm a lonely guy.

There ARE actually steering systems that remove the mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the road wheels, replacing it with sensors, computers and electric motors. ANY engineer who thinks this is a good idea, and ANY product planner who agrees or promotes this idiocy ought to be put in a shopping cart and rolled down a steep hill to get a feel of what it will be like when the system inevitably fails. Electrically assisted power-steering is one thing, but entirely "drive by wire" steering is stupid and unnecessary complication simply for the sake of complication...and to be all techno-hip with no connection to common sense. It makes about as much sense as designing a computer-controlled hammer to drive a nail.