Hypocrisy Watch!

Nothing says "conserve natural resources" like riding a toxic-gas-spewing rocket into space! The carbon footprint of a single launch of the Russian rocket creates more carbon than a small city. But don't notice that! Instead watch the simulcast on water conservation featuring perennial private-plane-flying, huge-expensive-mansion-with-ridiculous-electric-bill-living hypocrites Al Gore and Bono! Good times!


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Cougar Watch!

Should I care what Levi Johnston has to say about Sarah Palin? The answer is "no" because Sarah Palin is hot. Now that I'm not afraid of her somehow becoming the President's backup, she's so much hotter. You betcha.


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Carbon Nanotubes - The Solution For EVERYTHING

If I had a dollar for every time some airhead science nut got a chubby over carbon nanotubes, I'd have retired to my own private island where the internet doesn't exist.

And yet, we have almost zero products on the market that actually contain carbon nanotubes.

But have no fear! Any day now they'll be getting us the waterproof textiles, combat jackets, concrete, polyethylene, sports equipment, supercomputers, synthetic muscles, fiber, bridges, flywheels, fire fighting suits, paper, film, motors, light bulbs, magnets, igniters, solar cells, ultracapacitors, displays, transistors, loudspeakers, air filters, containers, hydrogen storage cells, membranes, slick surfaces, and of course space elevator that they promise "are being developed as we speak."


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McCardle Quote of the Day

"An equal distribution of misery is not a good social goal." -McCardle


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The Judicial Branch Scores Big

Is it possible the Judicial branch of American government is the last holdout against corruption and lobbyist efforts? After the last 8 year run of Presidential favors and corporate sole-source contracts, and the continued exposures of Congressional members having relationships with lobbyists or corporate execs (or retiring from the Senate to found lobby firms), one has to admit the Executive Branch and Legislative Branch seem...ethically gray. Our new President swore no lobbyists would get Federal positions...and then gave lobbyists positions.

But today it was announced that the judicial branch, namely the Justice Department has settled with Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, to the tune of 2.3 billion. Pfizer plead guilty or no contest to several charges, including taking doctors on exotic trips in exchange for the doctors prescribing Pfizer drugs, promoting drugs as having benefits not approved by the FDA, and writing fake requests for information to doctors in order to solicit drugs for unapproved uses and doses.

Part of the beauty in this is that Pfizer was unable to get favors from anyone to quash the lawsuit. In history, it seems that part of the price you pay to become the "world's largest (insert product here) maker" is that you have to do a lot of shady and unethical things in order to beat your competition. I am glad to see Justice done.


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Cell Phone Innovation

In the wake of last week's evisceration of the cell phone industry from almost every corner of the internet, T Mobile has proven that cell phone companies are still coming up with innovation, despite protests from critics that claim innovation is being quashed.

Unfortunately for consumers, the only innovation appears to be in how we are billed. T Mobile has announced that they will now (I'm not joking) bill you for billing you. If you do not sign up for paperless billing (bills sent to your email address), then they will charge you an extra $1.50 for a paper bill, or $3.50 for a detailed bill.

Now, a righteous person would pay their bill, but not the bill for the bill, right? I mean, you can't do that to your customers! But if you don't pay the bill for your bill, they'll shut off your phone until your bill for your bill is paid. And if you don't pay the $1.50 bill for your bill, you get a late fee, which is significantly more than $1.50

I guess T Mobile's slogan should not be "Get More" but "Get Billed For More."

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Speaking of Sobriety - AUTOMATED CAR SOAPBOX TIME

This study shows 1 in 10 binge drinkers gets behind the wheel and attempts to drunk-drive home.

How many people, TAE asks himself almost daily, have to die on our roads before we buck up and let computers drive us to and from our places of interest? I have, over the last 18 months, enumerated on several occasions my belief that not only would automated cars save lives, but they'd save money, and save time.
The bizarre thing is that cars that drive themselves is no longer a question of inventing the technology, its becoming a question of human dignity. People can no longer argue that "some day in the future" cars will be able to drive themselves, because they already can. The new Mercedes can parallel park itself, detect when the driver gets sleepy and sound an alert, detect when the car in front of it slams on its brakes and it does likewise, can course-correct if the driver veers over the dividing line between lanes, and pretty much anything else you can think of to keep the driver from being...well...human.
DARPA has an ongoing competition in which automated vehicles travel across rugged terrain.
GPS navigation systems can now tell you exactly where you are to within 3 feet or less, and good car GPS systems can even tell you if you are in the wrong lane of traffic for your upcoming turn.
A remote control system to drive a car, like the kind they use on Mythbusters when a car is going to do something unsafe for a driver, can now be acquired for less than a thousand dollars, and can be installed by someone with no experience in mechanics.

So wait, we can install in our cars systems that allow them to drive themselves, systems that allow them to know where they are exactly, systems that allow the steering, gas and brakes to be remotely controlled, and systems that allow the car to navigate through sudden obstacles and rough terrain? What's the hold-up?

The answer, of course, can be found by looking in a mirror. Humans, by nature, love control, and nowhere is there a chance to exert more control than at the wheel of a 3500 lb. steel behemoth barreling down the highway at a speed faster than reflexes can handle.
Simply put, it is just going to take a fundamental change in people's understanding of what a "car" and a "commute" represents. The American people (and people in other countries too) will have to grasp the concept that getting in the car is simply the same thing as getting on the subway, or getting on the bus...a device for transit over which the passenger has no control other than their entry and exit points.

Mrs. TAE and I moved to a new apartment last weekend. My commute has shortened by about 10 minutes, depending on how lucky I am with the traffic lights. But it is still 25 minutes long. That is 25 minutes I could have spent today reading Mark Twain's "What Is Man" or taking a nap, or reading the newspaper, or watching out the window at the deer that are overpopulating a nearby park. Then, this afternoon, I have to drive almost an hour from work out to my parents farm to pick up The Abstracted Daughter. That's an hour I could spend doing paperwork for work (instead of losing an hour tomorrow morning doing it then), or talking on the phone with someone (since driving on the phone is deadly, I'll avoid doing it), or making a grocery list, or taking a nap.

I really think the sell for automated cars won't be the safety aspect; people will always claim that it's not them that is the unsafe driver, it's (amazingly) everyone else. It won't be the savings; a few hundred dollars doesn't compute with many drivers when they have to balance it against their lost control of their car.
What will sell automated cars will be the amount of free time gained by not having to concentrate on the road. It will be the 18% decrease in their commute time because automated traffic systems are more efficient than traffic lights and human drivers. What if every day I could sleep 8 minutes longer and still get to work on time? What if during the drive to work I could read the newspaper (a pleasure I rarely get to enjoy)? I absolutely would hand over the keys.

If you need other reasons why automated cars are a damn good idea, just take a moment, and remember that every 31 minutes someone is killed in a PREVENTABLE car accident in this country.


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