No.

I admit that I preferred Macs over PCs from about 1989-1998. And I preferred PowerBooks over most other laptops from about 1993-1998. But I have always run a mix of hardware and operating systems at the same time.

Currently most of my machines are IBM/Lenovo and Dell, running Windows or Kubuntu. One MacBook running OSX for Final Cut. But give me an X-series ThinkPad over any MacBook, no contest.

I've also burned through a huge number of handheld computers over the years...Sharp Wizard, Apple Newton, Palm Pilot, Handspring, Dell Axim PocketPC, etc. And music players...iRock, Archos, iRiver, iPod. And several tablet PCs.

Based on that experience, personally, I think that the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are as close to perfect as any device in their categories has ever come. Do they have problems? Yes. Like Apple's draconian control of their app market to prevent platform encroachment and leapfrogging. But I haven't seen anything better out there.

Frankly I was responding to the ego-driven-design part of your post, with which I agreed. If you think that makes me a fanboy, then please, share your credentials and perspective.

I'm going to guess right now that you're too lazy and/or stupid to do so.

Prove me wrong.

If I had mod points, I would mod you up.

One way of looking at this, is that the financial system functions as a gigantic intelligence test.

Are you smart enough to recognize that you are being raped? If so, you really should do something about it. If not, it will continue.

In theory, this design could serve a useful role in human social evolution.

In practice, the current implementation elevates the rapist to the highest position in society.

There are many people who understand the system, and are much smarter than the rapists, but who have moral and ethical frameworks that prevent them from becoming rapists. So they might protect themselves, but they can only watch (or ignore) as the masses of humanity are raped.

We could fix this problem with modern IT, by automating much of the financial system, and having the "stupidity penalties" paid out to the masses (employees, taxpayers, customers, voters), instead of sending these gains to the sharks (bankers, politicians, and their ilk).

Hopefully in the next 20 years, the "system" will break badly enough that more people will turn on their brains, and consider constitutional amendments to fully automate banking, perform government budgeting based on democratic vote, and otherwise disenfranchise the rapists. Hopefully. But extremely unlikely IMO.

On a similar note, Medicare and Social Security, which the boomers paid for over many years, are now labeled as "entitlement programs". LOL. Ironically, the "entitled" slavemasters are the ones who say that the average shmoe is acting "entitled" by expecting what was already paid for. Ridonkulous. :)

And that happens what, once every three years? Boo hoo for you.

Stay home for a day until your rickety public works apparatus figures out what to do, or until the snow simply melts.

The average English "car" is much more similar to this lightweight Aptera thingy, than it is to the average American vehicle. So frankly, you would see the least difference if a concept car like this went global.

But again, this super-efficient car was not being sold to a global market. They took preorders in California ONLY.

It quite simply does not snow in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego. In Sacramento, every five years or so, they get a dusting. But nothing that would seriously impact traffic.

Aptera did not fail because their design was wrong. They went bust because the suits who replaced the founders totally failed to execute with those designs. Another mockery to the title "executive".

snowgirl, I truly respect any other rider. I'm only offering advice because, thru the fog of the Internet, you seem to be a newish rider who is just reciting some recently taught doctrine.

My sincere apologies if I've misinterpreted our relative levels of experience.

That is the exactly the problem with this mindset. The way you should react to a driver who does not see you (common) is very different from the way you should react to an aggressive/malicious driver who doesn't like you (rare). If you assume the rare case, you may be setting yourself up for an accident in what is actually the common case.

Actually, that wiki article states that lane splitting is illegal in "many states", but it gives no reference, and the only states they specifically mention are Colorado and Nebraska.

I know a few guys in law enforcement. I suspect that if you polled the Colorado and Nebraska highway cops on their actual enforcement of these state laws, they would tell you exactly what I will tell you: It's all about SAFETY.

If you split lanes at 100mph in a 55mph zone....you're clearly breaking the law, and should be ticketed for speeding plus anything else that will stick.

If you split lanes at 55mph in a 55mph zone, when traffic is stopped...you're an idiot. The cops will never catch you, but a lane changer might, and then...game over.

If you split lanes at 20mph when traffic is stopped, or at 55mph when traffic is moving 35mph, it depends on your experience. Personally I've learned to look 10-20 cars ahead and anticipate gaps and lane-changers, so I'm comfortable with a 20-25mph differential. A new rider, or an aging rider, may want to take it more slowly.

In any case, I will argue that splitting lanes in slow traffic is generally safer than getting boxed in. The wiki article that you linked mentions that David Hough, one of the leading authorities on motorcycle safety, shares this view.

Again, it's all about SAFETY. If I can safely "speed" past an erratic driver, and get even further ahead, I will do it in a heartbeat rather than run the risk of getting boxed in with someone who could swerve or brake and cause an accident that dents a few cars, while killing me. Speed limits are supposed to protect us, but sometimes they do the opposite. Use your head.

If I could give just one piece of advice to any new rider or aspiring rider, it would be this:

Take a MSF-certified riding course before you try to ride on your own. Get trained & tested by deeply experienced teachers. Just because you love your friend, or spouse, or family member, doesn't mean that they are qualified to teach motorcycle safety.

YMMV.

Keep it upright, and enjoy the ride.

Nope.

Lived most of my life in rural New England, where a 1-foot snowstorm was common, a 2-foot storm was not unusual, and a 3-foot storm happened every few years.

During a big storm, the plows ran pretty much around the clock to keep the roads clear. They would taper off somewhat at night. But I can only remember two big ice-storms where folks were "snowed in", and that was mostly because the ice snapped so many power lines.

How about you?

You have cowardly-ignored the most salient points of my reply:

1) The initial Aptera vehicles were marketed ONLY in California, where a small single-digit percent of residents have snow & ice; and

2) There is really no difference between one of these concept vehicles, and a lightweight sportscar, from the perspective of snow & ice driving.

I'll answer on your question anyway, and ask you to do the same.

Me, I grew up in rural New England, dairy farming country, about 2 hours outside of Boston.

During a heavy snowstorm, before and during the commute hours, the state roads were plowed and sanded roughly every hour. The town roads were plowed (and some sanded) every 1-6 hours, depending on the road, the level of snowfall, and the timing relative to commute hours.

We knew our plow driver by name. As a kid, I loved hearing the sound of the plow in the wee hours, because the schools were super-cautious about running buses during a storm, even if the roads were considered "safe" for car drivers. A 4:00AM snowplow often meant a school delay, or even cancellation.

That was in a rural area. My experience in various urban areas of the northern US (Boston, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Madison, etc) is that they are cleared even more efficiently.

Yeah, you may hear about it in the news when an unexpected blizzard hits DC or NY, which both have horribly disfunctional public-works operations within their tiny city limits.

But if you get into the country, or farther north, the road crews are very efficient at clearing a blizzard. Think about it. When is the last time you heard of a blizzard shutting down a city in Canada?

Your turn now.

Where is the "magical" place that you live or have lived, in the urbanized western world, where snow is NOT cleared within a matter of hours?

So...how shall we explain that the ego-designed iPod, iPhone, and iPad won over the "good enough" alternatives?

It's worth pointing out that Aptera's initial market was limited to California. They took preorders only from CA residents only.

And in fact, 95+% of CA residents do not get any ice or snow where they live.

That said, in the parts of the urbanized western world where we do get snow every year, we usually remove it from the road within a few hours. Snowplows with salt spreaders run around the clock when necessary, so folks can make their morning commute on time.

wrt winter conditions, this concept car looked just like a small sports car/roadster. You either put snow tires on it, and drive carefully when the conditions are awful, or you drive a heavier, higher, perhaps AWD, vehicle when conditions are awful.

This quote takes front & center of the company profile page on aptera.com:

Oooops. In other words, their company motto was "we will fail".

That same page has this American-embarrassing quote:

Ouch. I hope they were wrong about this.

Anyway, you can be sure the Aptera executives walked away with $ millions in their bank accounts, because Americans still know how to print money!

The basic advice that you've been given, was terrible.

In 2 decades of riding, on 4 different continents, the only time I have experienced drivers [i]actively[/i] try to kill a motorcyclist is in the USA, in heavy traffic. They see you, they don't want you to pass them, and they try to squeeze/block you.

Presumably they feel "entitled" to higher speed with a larger or more expensive vehicle. I'm guessing this because the worst offenders (attempted murders) in my experience drive Mercedes, or the SUV models of Porsche, Lexus, Infiniti, or the big beemers (5 and 7 series). Small porsches and beemers and infinitii are generally OK, but Mercedes drivers appear to be universally idiots/assholes. YMMV.

Assholes aside, 95% of the time the problem is a car/truck driver simply doesn't see you. They are paying attention to other things, like a phone call, argument, kids, etc, and their unconscious/peripheral vision is trained to register cars & trucks, not bikes. So you are invisible.

Based on my experience, you should PASS a dangerous driver as quickly as possible, with as wide a berth as possible, and increase the margin. If you hang out behind them, you get boxed into a worse situation with other cars.

I don't know what the lane-splitting rules are by state. I've ridden through most of the states in the US, and have always worn a helmet/boots/jacket and always split lanes in traffic. One of the reasons for allowing lane splitting is safety for the rider. Another historical reason was that many motorcycles are/were air-cooled, so they ran a serious risk of rider burns or engine damage in stop & go traffic.

Keep it upright. :)

As a fellow motorcyclist with over 100,000 miles under my butt, I agree with you...if I am driving a car or truck.

When driving a car or truck, I ~always~ give a motorcycle plenty of room ahead of me, or to my side if they are splitting lanes. This is their right, perfectly legal. It amazes me how many people are so incredibly stupid that they will illegally and immorally risk the life of a motorcycle rider by attempting to block the space between lanes, simply because they don't think anyone else should be able to drive faster than them in traffic. Lives have been lost to such idiots.

When I am on my bike, the rules are different. One of the cardinal rules of motorcycle riding is that you are invisible to the average car driver. So perhaps the best way to guarantee your safety is to ride faster than any car, and to pass any car ahead of you before it has a chance to hit you.

On the freeway, anyway. On surface streets with intersections, different rules apply. Beware that left-turn soccer mom.

No, they do not; and no, it would not.

This "thing" (which is unlikely to ever exist as a real product), plus a cable, and a keyboard, and a mouse, and a 5V power adapter (sorry, but fewer than 10% of installed HDTVs worldwide have a USB port)...that collection of components would effectively make your TV a computer monitor. Connected to a very slow, limited, non-standard computer.

In your own home or office, you can simply plug a laptop into your TV. A laptop is smaller, cheaper, lighter, faster, more standardized, and more flexible. You can run full-fledged Linux, Windows, OSX. There is no reason to use a pocketable gizmo that requires a backpack full of other parts to work.

In other folks' homes or offices, you can just plug in your smartphone. Heck, if they have an AppleTV and you have a recent iphone, you don't even need to plug it in. You can video-mirror wirelessly.

This USB-stick android computer is almost as dumb as your replies. ;)

Yep.

And...these views are compatible. You can think about what different people might want, and put that on their key.

Me, I would start by putting relevant family & friend photos/videos on everyone's USB stick. Even better, I'd make the effort to organize them into slideshow/video presentations, with a soundtrack and transitions. And configure them up to auto-play on the machines of the less-clueful recipients who have not disabled auto-play. :)

Mom will like that for sure. Then maybe Dad would appreciate some good apps/installers (Firefox, VLC, Abiword, etc)...and Bro would appreciate a collection of freeware/shareware/abandonware games (thinking Humble Bundle, other indies, MAME, etc)...and Sis would appreciate a few favorite DVDs, ripped and transcoded to copy straight to her iPad (gifting the DVDs as well, but doing the work for her).

Frankly it sounds like a great idea, if you think about what your family/friends would appreciate besides just another USB stick.

Whoosh. You completely missed the point of my post.

A USB adapter is not sufficient when the device is plugged into the HDMI port of an HDTV.

You still need a USB power adapter, pluys a cable to that adapter, and then the entire package is both larger and more complicated than a "smartphone" android/ios device. And it has less capability.

So why not just use the device that is already in your pocket?

First - I think that most smart folks here realize that this thing is vaporware, unlikely to ever be produced.

That said, I assume the GP was reacting to these parts of TFA's:

It is quite clear that they are talking about "firing up" another computer to run this stick in these cases.

Also worth considering for the HDTV use case: How many consumers have a female USB cable, to power a device with a male USB jack. Yeah, OK, they could include the power cable and AC-DC power adapter with this hypothetical gadget. But then it is larger than a smartphone, and you have to ask, why would I use this gadget instead of my smartphone? Answer: You wouldn't.