re: #55 Antinous, see my comment #16. Like minds, eh? :-)

Adam Stein -

Thanks for your comments, and I do approve of what TerraPass is trying to do. On the other hand, when will TerraPass start investing in changed-behavior projects? For example, if someone can offer measured & verified carbon reductions from a cluster of odometer-enabled cyclists for a designated period, how could they tap into a TerraPass investment?

Nice marketing, but all so retrograde. $6000 could buy a very nice & practical bicycle, safety equipment, lock, maintenance contract, and possibly even gym membership for shower access.

Put your child on a baseline low-carbon future.

Clever use of consumer empowerment to cut down on transaction costs, overhead, and technological mediation. Wal-Mart's strategy taken to another degree, at a different scale. Unfortunately, it probably can't be scaled up very well - as I recall Communist police states extended to toilet paper rationing grannies in public WCs.

re: #75

That's because the bicyclists are in a group large enough to see and exhibiting fairly predictable behavior. For those who don't see bike road kill as a sport, driving downtown is terrifying. Lower Market Street should really be a no-car zone.

It's a fair point that at least at the CM's start in SF, the mass is clumped, and mostly compliant with basic road rules (e.g. side of road). I also take your point about Market St. hazards. Ultimately though, in a city as small as SF, no one road user can have total use all the time. It gets right to the heart of the CoExist campaign.

It's part of the romance of CM to actually see bicycles attain the dominance of a car on the city's streets, even for its brief moment. The role-reversal in the power relationships on the road is straight out of Fat Tuesday. And yes, it can definitely be irksome when it's real, and not a packaged tourist exposition.

re: #77 If Critical Mass really wanted to demonstrate the problems with cars, they should parade their cars around town (slowly) instead of their bikes.

As others have mentioned, the point is to *be on a bicycle* ... moreover, how would deliberate automotive congestion be distinguishible from any other day of the week? Even with the theatrics, the troublesome anarchists, the event remains a form of political action. It therefore needs the attention it attracts.

I won't make assumptions about the preponderance of arseholes in NYC, be they on foot, on bicycle, in a car, or have a badge - but I can share a little of my own CM experience.

The typical CM in San Francisco is met with largely positive support from pedestrians *and* motorists. The police have usually been effective conflict managers and default to their highest priority purpose of public safety during an event that is by nature uncontrolled and uncontrollable. I also give SFPD credit for keeping cyclists off of highways and bridges.

Are some drivers & motorcyclists put out by the instant-congestion? Yes. Likewise, people dependent on surface transportation have been stuck during CM. The best sit back & enjoy the show, the worst engage in conflict.

Still, with a start time of 6pm, a known starting point, and a well-advertised monthly existence, it's a wonder that more people don't know to expect the CM.

Are some cyclists aggressive monkeys who ruin the experience for all concerned? Yes. They represented the greatest shortcoming of the CM as a self-regulating system. The testosterone brigade really should be arrested, and sometimes are.

Still, at least for my fair city, with a history of dreaming of new possibilities and welcoming all types - the CMs I have experienced are one part of my city's identity, and are in effect as eventful as San Juan Capistrano's migrating swallows.

Additionally, credit is due to organizations like the SF Bike Coalition for sponsoring "Critical Manners" - and to others who promote safety awareness such as "The Ride of Silence."

Wot? I thought *everyone* brought a mask and horticultural implement to a Gaudy.

A few more comments...

1. The VW auto-storage system:
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/19/volkswagen-brings-love-of-vending-machines-to-car-storage/

2. Many here have speculated about machine failure and how to properly match bicycle to owner.

Firstly, any machine, even a bicycle, is only as effective as it is maintained. Since this parking system is located with a train station, I'm sure the overall transport system people have a vested interest in keeping the bike parker in good working order.

Second, it should be pretty simple to have the next storage slot associated with a unique ID, which could be via SmartCard-chip; Credit Card number; rail pass; or mobile phone number with password authentication. This last method/technology is supposed to have been deployed with vending machines for several years now.

Leave it to the Japanese to take the automated "vending machine"-style of car storage by VW, miniaturize it, and apply it to bicycles. AWESOME!

Ha! Hobbit Feet without the hair? Tsk tsk tsk

Interesting tradeoffs, and I wish the map showed greater sensitivity than a 45% of income benchmark. Someone here mentioned the valuing of open spaces and relative quiet - that can be an opportunity cost, but isn't necessarily the case. Additionally, it may be worth factoring in the relative inaccessibility of equity-earning tools which a surburban subdivision was designed for.

Still, someone with more options than a car has more ways to deal with fuel priceshocks.

Not to worry, the National Guardsmen and their bullets will be overseas. I guess it's back to hammers and spears, and pressganged convicts.

Congratulations! I think we have now seen an "Idiot Tax."

Wilkommen Staatsicherheit 2.0!

A monkey without an eyepatch and a vial of poison? Doesn't seem particularly useful to me.

Orlando, home of Disney and anthromorphizing animals? Why am I not surprised.

We should remember that monkeys are not cute harmless animals. They have guile, curiosity, passions, and opposable thumbs.

Good job, and great outcome!

About time people everywhere start making the most of declining crime dividends (and confronting those problems directly if they trends aren't going down). Who knows, we might all get a civic society of empowered individuals at journey's end.

Ahem, technically he's Swiss, not German.

I've been fumigated in the cabin before. Actually, the chmicals used smelled slightly sweet. It's probably not a great exposure, but is a relatively small one for the occassional traveler. Agricultural workers, however, they have a totally different set of exposures.

That was really very well done.

All religion and morality models aside, this was a remarkably lucky event.

Lucky for Julio Diaz that he wasn't sliced.

Lucky for the teen mugger who wasn't shot by a hypothetical Diaz with a concealed firearm.

Lucky for them both that they were both in an emotional, communicative, and non-drugged place where such a compassionate transaction could be completed.

Definitely an aspirational model, but one that should be guarded by the realism of any given situation.

Others have commented on this in detail, I'll only add that just because it's old, is not in first- or second-line use, doesn't make it any less effective for its intended purpose. Plenty of nations and groups would like to know how to accurately detonate a nuclear explosive, as one integral part of the overall puzzle.

Also, given that it's taken over a year for this story to come to the public, I'd say there's a fair chance that several reverse-engineered clone models are now an option for Taiwanese business interests.

What, no cocoon emergency escape rocket launch through the roof or wall? Useless!

Better for areas with shelter needs not prone to earthquakes.

What may be perhaps more insulting to these futurologist authors is that the organ-harvesting idea is hardly new. The Soviets played that card against the Americans before.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/The_Baby_Parts_Myth.html

Lombard, Vermont, and another street to remain unnamed all vie for 'crookedest' in San Francisco.

There's also a similar illicitly-organized race in another unamed part of the city in the early part of the year.

Well, there could be an entirely different practical reason for ending the ubiquitious WiFi dream...interference with older first-responder radio systems. Yet another priority never properly budgeted for.

Now, for the "Kirk Rampant" version, sans torn shirt - and you've got yourself a real winner. :-)

"If they have a girlfriend at all it’s amazing."

Well, one could be the incredibly creepy female collector, as in "The Collector."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collector

#15 THELASTSPOT

While I am at it, why the HELL do you guys refuse to use dollar coins?

What do you take us for, loonies? ;-p Chalk it up to more "American Exceptionalism" and our proud monochrome fraud-enabling currency traditions.

Entrepeneurship at its best.

A much more interesting indicator is how many African merchants now know their numbers in Mandarin Chinese.

GDP is just one indicator. The UN has put a lot of time and work into other relevant indicators of human welfare. There have even been "sustainability indices" posited.

The problem isn't so much a lack of measures, as our use of them. So long as all parties in a society seek the most reductive "indicator" to reference all progress, it's never really going to achieve much. Now...whether business should adopt more measures and be held to account for them every bit as strongly as returns is an issue worth debating. After all, so long as business retains its cultural primacy on these measures, then these other ones, no matter how good at painting a richer portrait of a given situation, will always be secondary, or left to the wonks.

Sent over the River Avon?

Sounds like (the Oxford-disavowed) DangerSoc's exploits.

Chicken manure should make a reasonable defence though.

My goodness, so many things to explain it can't possibly fit into one comment box!

Firstly - definition of "collapse." There are *many* stages of realignment the US economy can undertake before we all become extras from "Road Warrior."

Secondly - the impact of realignments will be felt unevenly across the economy. The super-rich will, by in large, remain insulated from these changes. The highly-educated (with marketable skills) will remain the most globally competitive, and barring labor movement restrictions should compete evenly against the best anywhere in the world for any currency. If the realignments can be 'dialed in' slowly enough, skilled industrial laborers should do better in the US ... but I don't care to think what this will mean for unions and the ILO.

Thirdly - a lot of this 'realignment' need not come at extreme depredation of living standards. Fewer SUVs are not a loss of a standard of living, so long as good substitutes are enplaced (more efficient cars, non-car alternatives under relevant circumstances).

The challenge is to consider how much money it's going to cost to recapitalize the country to the new realities. This, at the very time when energy & commodities will be more expensive than a recession should "normally" warrant.

What the Bear Sterns bail-out really presents is the federal government again repeating its role of final guarantor. So much for all that 'free market' philosophy. Even Republicans act like neo-Keynesians in the crunch.

This makes me really sad. It's just hard to get past such a uniquely creative person like Clarke.

So it can't be resealed and protected from moisture, dirt, and whatnot after opening? Not that useful then.

re: #21 Belac

Yes, a lower US dollar should improve exports. Alas, I don't know how many of those exports are job-rich, or job-poor. I see far more scrap and commodities leaving the Port of Oakland than I do new cars or other manufactures.

The challenge is to make sure the US doesn't turn completely into a very busy & efficient dismantler of its economic infrastructure.

A striking story ... but I'm sure any American tourist can slide their credit card into the nearest ATM and obtain Euros. The exchange rate may be tanking, but the banking fees will be less than those moneychangers'.

Great. What others do for "re-education" and state control, we'll do for mass amusement. Too bad we won't even get reliable psychological data from this unethical exercise.

A Vorpal Sword +5 should cut him down to size.

re: Xopher #47.

To save space in comment, I'll just say at least these couple of bus lines during commuting hours give a unique perspective on a cross-section of San Francisco society: the 9 San Bruno, & the 22 Fillmore. It's not the "underprivileged" alone, though the train vs. bus status does hold up.

You rhetorically ask: "Why do these young people WANT to inconvenience the riders of those buses?" - I'm 99% sure that doesn't even enter their minds. The bus can become as much an authority symbol as any other.

IME though, there's a big difference in who litters and who destroys the buses - and they don't conform to stereotypes.

re: Antinous #45 says it all well enough.

I would add the following.

1. "prankster" doesn't accurately describe the situation.

2. Interesting to see the gap between a technology and the social conditions its deployed in. For one reason or other, I somehow don't think Mississauga, Ontario has the same conditions as San Francisco, or Hunter's Point in particular.

Bad news: just more evidence of what an enormous hole the US has put itself in.

Good news: there is a whole world of need out there, and the US can do a great deal to help. Some may look the gifthorse in the mouth, but most people sincerely appreciate a helping hand during times of need.

No more words. Deeds. Now is our time of action. That's the best way to clear away the obfuscation of invested interests and muddied politics...genuine, unalloyed, non-ideological, help. I don't care what political stripe, I think most Americans would get behind that kind of policy.

He's an animal lover, he and his family adopted 3 cats from the shelter...wait, *three more* birdkillers? Does Isenhour have an avian vendetta or something?

At least the BrickArms SS Major doesn't have any Swastikas. I do wonder what Lego's (legal) view is of this secondary industry?

And if this were Dune, all the House Harkonnen TSA guys would have gut-emptying tubes as well.

Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! ;-)

I got the answer right here:

http://www.germes-online.com/direct/dbimage/50280147/Kraft_Paper_Bags.jpg

Oh my, where to begin without flaming or instigating a flamewar?

(deep breath)
As a cattlecar air traveler, I'm just not convinced that this serves any improved security purpose, it 'feels' a lot more like a First Class service bifurcation only.

It seems to me, if TSA wants to have better data on domestic air travelers, it should instead require passports. Sure, one could potentially load a lot more data on a smartchip - but that leaves only one verification method - the chip-reader, and probably an incredibly bored TSA employee. From scenarios of technology failure to the ironic boon in catching malfeasence from photo-substitution...a passport is simply a much more flexible & reliable information technology.

"That ain't a knifethreat of violence...that's violence."

Missed the Hong Kong Chinese method of counting I've witnessed ... a kind of fanning out all the bills in one hand (a bit like a hand of Poker), and either visually scanning or pick-counting through the fan's leaves.

No dogs, clubs and water cannons? I suppose we can call this 'progress.'

Is cleancool now!

Right idea, wrong University. I'd wager erotic illuminations are stored somewhere in The Bodleian library.

Coraline, clearly. Upcoming 3D film release? Cross-marketing potential? Mutual back-scratching with publishers? Is there any question?

Elements required:

Whaling habits in Norge
Another Venn bubble for Denmark
Iron ore for Sweden
At centerpoint: pan-Scandiavian cooking (and what an uncomfortable alliance that is too)

Remember, meatspace visual processing relies on packaging, and little else. That why those tasteless tomatoes are oh-so-red-delicious! ;-)

I'm as big a fan of jets as the next geek, but the trailer and "unprecedented access" suggests more propaganda, milking the last bit of iconic value from that obsolete weapons platform. But then hey, there's a more dramatic story in a woman in a family of pacifists achieving her dreams to launch munitions at Mach 2 than the elimination of pilots from weapon systems entirely.