Where Is My Flying Car?

Where is my flying car is an interesting crossover between a futurists post mortem of the lack of technical progress of the last 50 years and a deeply technical explanation of the reasons that personal flight has not become a reality.

Much of the book is a quite interesting history of futurists and explaining the Machiavellian tendencies that have prevented significant progress in specific scientific domains. One example was the widespread scientific consensus that flying machines were impossible.

Particularly interesting were the sections of the book related to the title, explaining the plethora of reasons why personal flying travel has not come to be (this is poignant for me as I sit on an airplane that was delayed by 3hrs).

However, the book falls apart when it starts talking about patently absurd technological feats that should allegedly be plausible. An elevator into space that's 100km tall allegedly would be very easy to build. Also, self replicating nano-machines are apparently not that dficult and should have been prioritized.

Thus, the book ends up feeling more like an absurd rant and stream of consciousness than a well thought out scientific explanation/extrapolation.