LIFT Concept Car takes parking up

One of our present-day problems that will only get worse in the future is parking. There are only so many places to put cars in the big city. I’m not looking forward to the days when parking garages will be as high as the Empire State Building.

Maybe we can use the parking method seen in I, Robot. Remember the scene where Will Smith parks his car, and then a giant robot arm takes his car and parks his car in a futuristic rack full of cars?

There is similar option for parking in the future called the LIFT. As you can see, this three-wheeled car has a back wheel behind it that can connect to an overhead track. Now the car can be put in an out-of-the-way place.

As you can see, the car is only designed for one person, which of course brings up a separate issue entirely. I suppose one-person cars might take up less space on the road. Considering most people drive to work and don’t carpool, one-person vehicles actually make a lot of sense.

I am wondering if putting cars on railings is a feasible option to getting more parking space. If all these cars are in a row, how do you get one car out that is in the middle?

Well, we shall see. I’m not certain when this will be available. As you can see, these pictures look a little CG.

Extra duck sauce for everyone

Today, we wandered around downtown for a while because it was such a nice day out. Since it was a weekend, it was spectacularly uncrowded, and I loved it. We hit the coffee shop, the bookstore, the tattoo parlor, etc. When we done wasting time, we walked back to the car. The sidewalk we were walking on runs parallel to a tall iron fence that separates the street from Congress park.

When we were nearing the car, I heard some quacking, and when I looked toward the fence I saw a mallard duck walking on the grass. Through the bars, I spotted a kid and his mom walking on the path toward the duck. The kid was running ahead a little bit, his hand outstretched. He was holding a cracker or a piece of bread or something — obviously trying to feed the duck. His mom wasn’t exactly keen on the idea, and she was desperately calling him back. “Josh! Leave the ducks alone! They aren’t hungry!”

I am a sucker for wildlife of any sort, and so before we got into the car I decided to quickly run up to the fence and see what I could see. I got to the fence just in time to realize that the ducks in question were actually pretty hungry after all.

It turns out there were two males and a female, and the lone female didn’t seem to be having a very good time of it. Or maybe she was having a good time — I confess to not knowing what sort of kinky stuff chick-ducks are into these days. One male was holding the female by the neck with his beak and humping the shit out of her while the other male looked on and quacked his encouragement. I’m not sure if he just liked to watch, or if he was waiting his turn, but I quickly turned back toward the car to let them have their privacy.

In retrospect though, given the fact that they were busily rough-humping a foot away from the sidewalk, I’m pretty sure they didn’t care all that much about their privacy. Apparently, hot, juicy duck-love overrides all inhibitions.

At least I knew why mom wasn’t too keen on letting junior attempt to shove crackers at them, and I applaud her– because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s when complete strangers try to feed me crackers while I’m attempting to get busy. It really wrecks the mood.*