. The biggest question I have is, will there be a STANDARD connector for quick charging batteries so that after driving 200 miles, can we re-charge the batteries in a few minutes no matter what brand of car we're driving?

Why do people keep harping on this? This was the top rated comment last time a Tesla was mentions as well. Is it really that hard to go to Tesla's website and click on "charging"? The Tesla comes with a couple of standard plugs, including the common SAE plug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The standard plugs it comes with include a 110/120V plug, and a plug or two for 220/240V outlets; they sell about 2-3 dozen other plugs on their website. If you're visiting a friend and they have an electric dryer plug near the garage - that's more than enough juice to top it up while you're all asleep, and since the car tracks how much energy it used charging, it's easy enough to compensate your host in some way. It's about $10, maybe $15 in electricity for a full 80kW charge, by my rough math.

So, probably the best investment a Tesla owner who visits people a lot can make...is in a 220/240V extension cable. Looks like you can get 'em on Amazon for about $2/foot; Home Depot certainly carries them as well.

"Here is you precious uLock Security"

Welcome to TEN YEARS AGO. Seriously, that was in 2004. Kryptonite recalled them rather quickly, and most of the cycling community is well aware of the problem. Thanks for 'splaining to us something we already know, jackass. Why don't you try finding someone you know who bikes, and asking to see what their u-lock key looks like?

For more than ten years, the standard has been a flat/square key. They're sufficiently strong enough that thieves don't bother with them, mostly because there are still people who use cable locks, which can be cut with a variety of tools.

And yes, the people selling bikes at flea markets and out of the back of vans ARE selling stolen bikes. Legitimate used bike sales are private individuals on various forums including Craigslist (thieves have noticed that people patrol Craigslist looking for their stolen bikes) and via shops which increasingly stock used bikes.

Your entire comment is answerable with one wikipedia link.

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

The reason you don't buy bikes from a big-box store: they don't use standardized components, the components they come with don't last long (and then when it's time to replace them, surrrrrpise, your local bike shop can't find something that fits) and there are a lot of basic design flaws with the frames and such. It's not "elitist" to say "that bike you bought from Wallyworld is a waste of money because it's going to fall apart."

I'm not entitled if I want the roads *I PAID FOR JUST LIKE YOU* to be designed to not EXCLUDE me.

Cyclists ARE a persecuted group and I'm not going to debate that with you. Go argue with a black man about whether there's still racism Because Obama, or something.

Bicycles are the most energy-efficient transportation method. Google it.

I'm not going to bother responding to your other ignorant crap. Google it.

1)Buy a U-lock.
2)Change out anything "quick release" (aka quick-steal") to bolts or security skewers.
3)Put the U-lock through the rear wheel, inside the frame's rear triangle. Now neither the wheel nor frame can be stolen.
4)Attach the U-lock to something that is solidly and directly attached to the ground. Signposts that are bolted to something don't count. Porch railings don't count. Etc.
5)Remove lights and such.

Don't subscribe to the "cheap crappy bike nobody would want to steal." Guess what there's a large market for, and guess which bikes are the easiest for criminals to unload? It's hard to sell a $1k bike. Not so hard to sell a $100 beat-up bike.

Don't buy bikes from guys selling them out of the backs of vans, fly-by-night-looking shops, flea markets, etc. THEY ARE PROBABLY STOLEN.

Lastly: REPORT STOLEN BICYCLES. One of the reasons they continue to be stolen is that nobody bothers to report their bike getting stolen.

The problem isn't elegance (by which I assume they mean style. Bicycles have been refined over 150 years, and are VERY elegant when it comes to their mechanical design, provided you're not shopping at Wallyworld or the very bottom of the market. NEVER buy a "big box" store bike, for a ton of reasons.) People ride all sorts of bikes. The problem is safety (the number one concern people have is fear of being hurt by drivers. Nobody answers "why aren't you biking?" with "oh, if only the bikes looked better"), infrastructure (on many levels, ranging from traffic sensors that detect bikes, to intersections and roads designed to accommodate more than just motor vehicles, to secure lockups, to being able to take a bicycle on other transit systems, etc...this is slowly starting to change), and societal attitudes. Namely that bicycles are toys, not serious transportation, and thus should not be accomodated...which is a bit circular...and a lot of attitudes and bias that should seem oddly familiar to anyone who has studied gender and racial bias. There's a great article out there from a psych magazine noting that cyclists are treated like any other minority outgroup. For example, emphasis of negative attributes, assumption of guilt, harassment and violence against them, etc.

Which is why so many cyclists now use helmet cameras to record their travels; it's to document the harassment (because people claim it doesn't happen, when it does), but also to have evidence if you're hit, because the driver is going to claim "I didn't see them" and they were doing nothing wrong, witnesses are going to think you were "flying" even if you were well below the speed limit, etc. There's a famous case of a DC cyclist who was cut off; the driver and two witnesses claimed he ran a red light. Surprise! Traffic camera video shows the light was green, and continued to be green as he lay on the ground unconscious after having slammed into the side of the car that had just cut him off. I generally find that drivers have far less understanding of the basic rules of the road and what cyclists are allowed to do or aren't, which is ironic, given that they're the ones piloting the massive machine that can (and does, to the tune of 40,000 a year in the US alone) kill people.

We live in a country where we had a network of well-maintained roads, which were the result of cycling clubs petitioning the government for roads that were rideable. Bicycling was HUGE in the late 1800's; it even factored into women's rights, believe it or not. Then the motor car came along. And people were horrified at the deaths and injuries; speed limits were imposed. The automobile industry panicked; customers wanted to go fast, unimpeded. So they fought back with a campaign of ridiculing pedestrians and cyclists. As the automobile became a symbol of success and achievement, suddenly if you had a car you were the elite, and if you were on foot or on a bicycle, you were not. You were poor, or stupid, or whathaveyou. And the American Dream became driving a car to your suburban house which was nowhere near the market, post office, bus stop, train station, your office, etc. We've only just started to slowly realize the idiocy of this and do more mixed zoning and transit-oriented development.

Just as it became the fault of the "jaywalker" for daring to step into the street except where specifically allowed to, suddenly it became the fault of cyclists when motorists plowed into them. We expect someone operating a power saw or a gun to be careful around others...but put them in a car, and suddenly we expect everyone else to be careful of them. And to protect themselves against you by dressing in foam hats and clothing that makes them look like traffic cones with all sort of blinking lights. Drivers can spot a 2 foot pothole, but can't spot a 6 foot tall, 3 foot wide object in the road? Riiiiiight....

This attitude spread in many places, except for the Netherlands, for example, where the car came relatively late...and Dutch society revolted after the skyrocketing injuries and deaths, particularly of children (children also represent a very disproportionate number of deaths in the US to this day.) That's why you have an assumption of guilt, until proven innocent, for drivers if they hit a cyclist or pedestrian (if witnesses saw the cyclist do something illegal, or you have a dashcam, or so on, then yes, the driver isn't at fault. It's not condition-less.)

Right now drivers have zero impetus to behave. If you crash, you're protected by an amazing collection of active and passive safety devices; no physical danger. Insurance means there's no financial risk to them, and current US law means you practically have to scream, in front of witnesses, "DIE!" when you hit someone in order to be charged or certainly convicted...so no fear of criminal punishment. DUI is almost a joke; something like a million people a year regularly drunk-drive, and even when convicted, have their license revoked...they keep right on drunk-driving. But insurance money doesn't undo the injuries, pain, suffering, disabilities, and death that can result of the people you hit, particularly if they're not in a car, which is why injuries per mile are dropping for passengers of motor vehicles, but climbing for everyone else (peds and cyclists.)

Also: electric bikes generally solve a problem that doesn't exist. Bicycling is the most energy-efficient way to move, which means you don't need much energy in the first place. If you don't get any other form of regular cardio exercise (by which I mean by a few hours a week), yeah, the first week or two is gonna suck a bit, but it gets better quickly; the human body is amazing at adaptation. And if you take it easy. you don't sweat like crazy (this is the other big "fear" people have) and you won't burn yourself out.

By and large, electric bikes are heavy, less reliable, and more expensive. That's their problem...

There are plenty of questions about privacy and security raised by Google Glass but I think all products should be treated equally.

RTFAS:

"aimed at wearable technologies, such as Google Glass."

Nobody's trying to specifically legislate Google Glass. They're trying to modify existing distracted-driving laws to include wearable devices.

Also, whether a Big Mac is more distracting is irrelevant to whether wearable devices are. If they are, they should not be allowed. That said, many people DO want an overhaul of motor vehicle collision responsibility. "Changing the radio" was a successful defense for a driver who orphaned a 10 year old girl when he slammed into her parents, who were cycling well outside the travel lane...and there are dozens of examples of this kind of crap. He should've been charged with manslaughter at the least.

You do not have a RIGHT to drive; this is very consistently held up in the courts that driving is a privileged form of transportation. You especially do not have a RIGHT to do whatever you want WHILE driving.

It's been repeatedly shown that holding the phone doesn't matter (thus wearable devices are not safer) and speech-to-text isn't better (ditto) though holding a phone does impair your control of the vehicle; the real danger is that secondary tasks that involve a lot of thinking, such as composing a text message or carrying on a conversation, are distracting enough to make you have worse reaction times than someone who is drunk.

Google is just following in line with the cell phone industry in placing profits ahead of people's lives.

It's really simple: when you're in a car, your primary responsibility is to OPERATE THAT VEHICLE. Not to check your fucking email, or reply to text messages, or see what your stock price is, or what the weather is going to be like next week. Drive.

I've had it with small companies. During the '00s I twice started with small companies only to hear "pay will be late" at the end of an early pay period, then "pay is just around the corner" by the end of the next pay period. In one case, the CEO simply never paid; I left before the third no-pay period was over, demanding that I be paid for my hours, to which he basically replied "so sue us!" I didâ"but only managed to recoup some of what I was owed.

This is nothing new, nor is it specific to small companies; I think you meant "startups." Textile companies used to do the same BS, not paying workers, during the industrial revolution. It's why, for example, in MA it is a CRIMINAL matter upon the officers of the company if employees are not paid within a certain amount of time for work done. Furthermore, the law is written such that BOTH the state and you individually can pursue action against them concurrently/independently.

It's also why, if terminated or laid off, you must walk out the door with any and all money owed to you. It's not a defense that the guy who signs the checks is only in on Tuesdays, or they need to figure out how much to take out of your paycheck for purchases from the company canteen, etc. Why? Because they're choosing to end your employment, and they can choose to do so at any time. So they should terminate employment on Tuesday, after they've done the necessary calculations.

If you are reading this, live in MA (and probably a bunch of other states), and have a pay period that is not at least semi-monthly (biweekly if you're paid hourly) unless you're salaried and agreed to be paid monthly...or you have not been paid within one pay period for your work...stop reading, step outside, and call your State AG immediately, or at least read something like http://www.lexology.com/librar...

Funny how you prove his point by all but demanding a story be told by bolting PC narratives on the side and derailing the entire flow by screaming "I CARE MORE ABOUT NONWHITES, WOMEN, AND GAYS THAN YOU!" at each other and their audience. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/... Start reading, asshole. I never did anything you claim I did.

Both programs are effective in the kind of engagements that we've found ourselves in during the last couple of decades and both are paid for. It's maintenance only, as opposed to development.

"Maintenance only" when talking about military aircraft is huge, especially with planes that are 60 years old. There's a phrase in the general aviation world for planes that don't fly much and require a lot of maintenance - hangar queens. Both sitting around, and their age, causes maintenance headaches.

Plus the cost of "staffing" is enormous. The U2 is enormously difficult to fly; at altitude, the window between stall (plummet to the ground) and Vmax (lose control surface functionality and/or rip pieces of the plane off) is something like 10mph. Training people in the things places the planes and people at risk; keep up the program and eventually you won't have any U2's left to fly. Then there's the problem of an unpressurized cockpit; pilots need to nitrogen-purge for hours before flight and wear what is almost a space suit. Oh, and it cannot evade modern SAM and AA missiles....and has no steal capabilities....yet has a human inside? The US needs another Gary Powers like a hole in the head.

Then there's the fact that the U2 can only launch from a small number of bases (mostly designed to cover Russia), is slower, doesn't offer as nice real-time capabilities, and in the time it takes for a U2 pilot to plan a mission, suit up, prebreathe, etc - the drone is half-way enroute and they're figuring out the rest of the flightplan as they go. Nevermind that with so many commercial satellite imagery companies, chances are someone's already got the imagery you're looking for.

"One of the great things about ghostbusters was that it came out at a time when accepted humor wasn't limited by this kind of PC garbage."

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...

Start reading. Accusing people of being "politically correct" is a standard white, male, racist, asshole tactic for dismissing.

The problem isn't necessarily that Winston Zedmore's character sucked and was just a wall to bounce jokes off of. The problem is that is how this was the standard way virtually any black character was constructed by Hollywood. Winston's character got the least character development, his main screentime was him being all "WHOA", and most of his speaking lines were side jokes and comic relief.

There's no reason to pull out the racist card any time a black man isn't portrayed as the ultimate hero and intellect in a movie. All the characters in this COMEDY were slightly strange and comedic characters...

Yes, except virtually the only lines his character gets are to crack jokes.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...

While his character was supposed to be a little dorky I suppose, he was just pure awesome to me.

One of the things I enjoyed about his character in the movies as I got to be older was his relationship to Jeanine was a bit complicated. She clearly puts the moves on him...but unlike nearly every male movie character I can think of (who isn't implied to be gay) - he's ambivalent, tolerates, or rebuffs her. The stereotypical reaction from male movie characters is "Yeah, let's get it on!", especially in action movies.

However, there's a scene - I can't remember which - where he says something, she responds with "OH EGON, I just blah blah blah" and he responds with a look that's half "Yeah, baby. You know you like it" and half "siiiigh, ok, I'll console you, fine..."

Now...if only Winston's character hadn't been so racist. That's the part I hate the most about Ghostbusters; Winston Zedmore is pretty much just there to bounce jokes off of or be the 'dumb black clown' character. I feel like the cartoon actually gave him character development and whatnot more on par with the others (although did they ever show any of his family, for example?) The series definitely played up the "the most normal and people-skills-equipped of the group" elements.

"Despite living in a country very much shut off from the outside world, many people in North Korea do have access to technology - including mobile phones."

I keep seeing this claim, that "many" people have cell phones. This is a country where 10% of the population have a landline. North Korea claims they have 1 million cell phone subscribers, but really, do you believe that?

Even if it were true, that's about four percent of the population, which does not fit any dictionary definition of "many" I have ever seen.

We enforce laws to catch the people who feel they don't have to abide by them.

We don't enforce laws purely to make people follow them.