It depends. Remember back in the late 90s, Gateway had a line of "Gateway Stores" where you could order PCs but they didn't actually have any inventory on hand for you to buy. It wasn't very successful. If people went into a Gateway Store, they actually expected to be able to walk out with a Gateway PC--not just go to a website in the store. They could have done that from home.

It's somewhat debatable, though, in regard to automobiles. I might not worry about blowing $9.99 on a crappy CD. But when it comes to a car, I--at a minimum--want a test drive. What I try to do is rent the model that I'm interested in buying for a weekend to get a real feel for what I'm getting into before I plunk down 20-30 grand.

As it was explained to me by a marketing guy, "Unfortunately, 'your machine' is not a sufficiently large market."

Maybe they went back in time. Listen for jet engines.

My guess is that since you haven't bought it, there is no "debt." IANAL, but I suppose that here in America, I could demand that you pay me in Rai stones if you haven't bought anything yet. But if you come into my restaurant and have dinner, go to pay with dollars and I say, "I don't want dollars, I want Rai stones," there could be a problem.

But I'm just guessing.

George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Okay, the Clinton one is a joke, but George Bush used to ride quite a bit.

You've never had The President visit where you live, I assume. The President Does Not Sit In Traffic. The "stop and go" is mostly after miles of driving.

Well, in the local economy, car dealers can be pretty important.

Car dealerships take up big hunks of land, and pay big hunks of property taxes. So the idea that you could have a car dealership in an extra-wide store in a mall is scary to local politicians because that's going to mean less revenue to the city. When GM closed their Pontiac and Saturn divisions, lots of localities felt the pinch. It was particularly bad in some areas that are zoned exclusively for auto dealerships--it's not like you could replace it with a mall or apartments or something like that.

So besides the dealers saying "We don't want competition," you also have local politicians saying, "if this catches on, we'll lose those property taxes!"

FTFS:

Developers of the Free Software Foundation-endorsed Replicant OS have uncovered a backdoor through Android on Samsung Galaxy devices and the Nexus S.

I can understand not reading the article, but not reading the summary?!

Damn. You beat me to it.

Sell drugs.

Actually, most of LA's subways are above ground.

I'm not sure I'd call nuclear "unrealized." From the sounds of it, they had something ready to be assembled.

Bacon.

'nuff said.

Actually, on a more philosophical note, how can you--as someone who has never eaten meat--say that you're not missing out on anything? I could say, "I've never been to Europe, but I'm not missing out on anything" because I have no idea what interesting things might be in Europe because I've never been there.

Depends on where/how you're riding.

Hell, I wear a helmet when I get on a bicycle. Period. Because I'm always riding on roads and bad things can happen when sharing the road with a car.

Well, I can get pretty sweaty. Fortunately, my sweat doesn't stink, nor does my shit, and my farts smell like flowers.

Of course, no one in the office seems to agree with this statement. They obviously have some olfactory issues...

Yeah, I'd say the vast majority do not have showers. Most places I've worked in the LA area don't.

That said, here's a few other ideas:

1. Check the local area for small health clubs or other venues of exercise. There's a rock-climbing place near where I used to work and I used to pay them $5 a month to use their showers. They were about half-a-mile from the office, so after showering and changing, I'd hop back on my bike and ride in to work.

2. Where I work now, that wasn't an option. So in the office, I have two sponges, face-cloth and hand-towel, soap, coat-hanger, and a large cup. I ride in with clean clothes in my backpack. When I get to the office, I grab my stuff and go into the bathroom. I soap up one sponge and clean myself up--wash under the arms, etc. I take the other wet sponge and wash off the soap. Pour water in my hair, towel everything off, maybe throw on some body-spray. I throw my sweaty bike shirt in the sink and wash it, wring it out, and stick it on the coat hanger. Same with the bike shorts. I change clothes and come in with the wet clothes, which I hang up behind a server to dry them out.

3. Speak with an outrageous French accent and everyone will think the smell is normal. (Sorry French people, couldn't resist...)