Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for April 25, 2013

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    trspence  over 11 years ago

    I’m in!

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    firedome  over 11 years ago

    brilliant, bob!

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    Salinasong  over 11 years ago

    simpsonfan2: And you were going to LA!

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    Varnes  over 11 years ago

    When the conversation is at the “transporter beam” stage, you’ve had more than a couple drinks…They’re about two drinks away from “I love ya, man….”………..

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    Brass Orchid Premium Member over 11 years ago

    The economy is still reeling from the trauma dealt by the paddle-wheeler. It can’t survive another hit like that!

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    Randy B Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Have Jeffrey give Lars a call and short-circuit the whole “inventing” step.

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    pcolli  over 11 years ago

    I still think the “beam” would be the wrong way to go. I prefer the idea of an inter-locational portal, where distances between places are made irrelevant.

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    thirdguy  over 11 years ago

    If your luggage got beamed somewhere else, you would never get it back!

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    roctor  over 11 years ago

    The baggage must be attached to you by a space lanyard.Unless she’s in the other room.

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    jmcenanly  over 11 years ago

    The transporter may not only upend the travel industry, but manufacturing as well. Why build something in a factory when you can order it from a replicator?

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    tripwire45  over 11 years ago

    Why does inventing something revolutionary that would improve our lives but put one industry out of business automatically “tank the economy?”

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    vwdualnomand  over 11 years ago

    i’m still waiting for a flying car(jetsons). america will have high speed train travel that competes with the airlines. and, a cure for cancer(you would think all that money raised by walks, etc… that they would used the money more wisely instead of using it for lawsuits)

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    J Short  over 11 years ago

    I wish they would invent something to tank the tax industry.

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    Q4horse  over 11 years ago

    The transporter doesn’t actually transport anything. It destroys the original when it is scanned and than assembles an exact replica at the destination. Step in the transporter and be executed, than be replaced by a carefully government reprogrammed replicate. Yup, the government will love this technology.

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    Lyons Group, Inc.  over 11 years ago

    Albert Enstein said that time travel is possible. I wonder if he mention anything about teleportation?

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    KEA  over 11 years ago

    I’m wondering what it’s going to do to battery life

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    Beleck3  over 11 years ago

    boy all the negative vibes about transporters! can’t you people be positive about being transported. “killed and re-assembled”? geesh!!

    where the imagination, the good way. lol

    getting rid of the TSA and their shoe fetish would be worth it alone. who says we have to be “executed” to be transported?that’s what i want to know!

    hope flies out the window with the transporter. but then again. think of all the Republicans we could transport to Somalia in their Libertarian Paradise! now that is a positive!!!!

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    avtar123  over 11 years ago

    I’ll buy one.

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    puddlesplatt  over 11 years ago

    the more we invent, the more landfills needed !

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    freewaydog  over 11 years ago

    Yeah sure, let more terrorists in,…but then again there’s bad ppl everywhere,…

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    Gokie5  over 11 years ago

    One of the advantages of having to remove your shoes during airline screening is that when you’re 75, you don’t have to do it anymore. Woo hoo!

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    DutchUncle  over 11 years ago

    Read Larry Niven’s essay “Theory and Practice of Teleportation” (he’s a science FICTION writer, not a scientist), in which he discusses the factors he considered before writing a series of stories involving “teleport booths” (think phone booth sized space, step in, dial your destination, swipe your card, poof).

    - How does the cost vary with:- weight? shipping small valuables is worth it, shipping big things still needs trucks?- distance? Is it the same cost to go near or far?- height? Is it more expensive to “lift” something up to a mountaintop?- movement – including the rotation of the earth? What happens if you go to the opposite side of the planet, which is moving in the opposite direction as the earth spins?

    Can it be individualized, or is there still benefit to having transport hubs (short-distance vs. long-distance technology)?

    If it’s cheap enough, suddenly everyplace in the country can be a “suburb” of everywhere else. No more flyover places. OTOH when the power goes out, or the line goes down, you’re stuck somewhere for a while…

    Rare vacations aren’t rare anymore. Anyone can get to Antarctica, or the Galapagos. But only so many people can fit, so tickets for timeslots still exist.

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    Burnside217  over 11 years ago

    I’ll take the transporter-ish devise (portal, not dematerialization). Boeing can build unmanned aircraft. The federal agents can keep their gloved hands to themselves.

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    dabugger  over 11 years ago

    lets hope any demise of TSA will be a shoe in…..

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    Zero-Gabriel  over 11 years ago

    Teleportation may happen one day…But despite that… Planes, Trains and Cars, Motor-Cycles or Bicycles will still be around for those who still like to enjoy a ride…I mean till this day, Horse-riding still hasn’t gone out of style yet…

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    ibid Premium Member over 11 years ago

    It would also screw up real estate. You can live in Bermuda and work in New York. Property values in cities would plummet. Maybe the reason there’s a global government in Star Trek is because anyone can go anywhere at any time and that’s the only way to still have laws.

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    yimhere  over 11 years ago

    Egon said to never cross the beams….. but it’s inevitable!!

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    Thomas Hamrick Premium Member over 11 years ago

    It’s not destinaion – but the journey…

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    AlonzoQuijano  over 11 years ago

    Ooooh! That sounds a bit like Riff-Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show! “We return to Transylvania, prepare the transit beam!”

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    Happy, happy, happy!!! Premium Member over 11 years ago

    It would change the transport industry. FedEx, UPS Etc. would not be hurt one bit.

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    Happy, happy, happy!!! Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Windows 8 is why I went iOS.

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    Potrzebie  over 11 years ago

    I heard the Airline lobby is what kept us from having flying cars and jetpacks.

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    proverbs14.29  over 11 years ago

    As long as it doesn’t cause cancer like the backscatter x-ray machines. Of course I’d have to get a smart phone, too.

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    sbeavin  over 11 years ago

    Yep end the tsa dog and pony show.

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    The Life I Draw Upon  over 11 years ago

    Let us not forget every delivery service. Choose it from the Internet website transport it from the factory floor to your home / office. A transporter would be the 3D printer of the future.

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    pcolli  over 11 years ago

    Or the pleasure booth!

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    sarah413 Premium Member over 11 years ago

    Shoe fetish? Is Imelda Marcos returning from the great beyond?

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    Can't Sleep  over 11 years ago

    You said: "So it took Wiley all week to get to this … ?

    No, dd. It’s only Thursday.

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    Ernest Lemmingway  over 11 years ago

    Ah, and ruin the chance to make their lives miserable when they get a whiff of the cheese on my feet?

    .How many studies—independent and by the government—have shown the TSA is not only ineffective but a major drain on the federal budget? How many times has the TSA failed to do its job? Look it up and be prepared to be horrified. As our found father Benjamin Franklin once put it, “Those who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security will gain neither and lose both.”

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    bransom  over 11 years ago

    Read about the candle makers union in Ayn Rand’s Anthem. Of course they hated the light bulb!

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    Kali39  over 11 years ago

    I don’t know – transporter beams aren’t everything they’re cracked up to be. Still, there are advantages…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-vSss-03mM

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    Timothy Madigan Premium Member over 11 years ago

    It’s potentially too green an idea so it must be evil.

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    route66paul  over 11 years ago

    There would still have to be some travel – the people that build the booths have to travel to the new destination to set up and calibrate the new booth. As the distances get further and further, it will be a longer and longer trip to build one……

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    chasobrien  over 11 years ago

    Amen!

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    live.the.future  over 11 years ago

    Putting the airline industry out of business in favor of transporters would tank the economy? Is that what happened when cars replaced horse carriages?facepalmNon Sequitur is funny but Wiley’s non-education in economics is readily apparent.

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    Kali39  over 11 years ago

    Leonard McCoy: I signed about this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered all over space by this gadget...Captain Kirk: You’re an old fashioned boy, Bones.

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    Caddy57  over 11 years ago

    Ya canna change the laws of physics laws of physics , ya canna change the laws of physics captain. I miss the REAL Dr. De Mento!

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