Now that's some hot shit!!

You're bringing up a false dichotomy of the electric vs human-powered bicycle as though an electric bike uses the battery all the time. Here in Japan what has become hugely popular are the electrically-assisted bicycles especially the type used by housewives to truck kids to and from school andto buy groceries. I live in Kanagawa-kan just outside Tokyo and there are LOTS of hills. I'll be riding around on the weekends slogging up a hill in the lowest gear on my mountain bike when a Japanese mum on her grocery-loaded electrically assisted "Mama-charin" will come cruising on by and not be breaking any sweat at all. With easily replaceable battery packs and short charging times these make bike commuting, even in hilly locations possible. The weather, of course, is a separate issue.

Actually they start dinging at 110Km/h. Some cars increase the rate the faster you go.

Fun was had a long time ago going up the Kan-Etsu at 160.

Sorry, but you are dead wrong.

In 2001 oil made up 50% of Japan's electrical energy production, coal 17%, nuclear 14%, natural gas 13% and hydroelectric contributing only 4%. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan#Electricity_generation

Japan is VERY dependent upon imported oil and LNG hence the aggressive solar programs and attempts to upgrade nuclear facilities in the face of considerable opposition.

Yes, doing something worthwhile like, say, posting on Slashdot?

Take a look at how the automobile has developed since the 60's and tell me that the private sector doesn't do anything "inspiring". (As long as there is some regulatory oversight for safety)

Not a chance.

Japanese has many homynyms making puns a breeze.

A family on a TV show had a pet turtle that liked to chase their dachsund around the house.

Turtle in Japanese is "Kame" (pronounced "ka-meh").

The turtle's name was "Diji".

So they had "Diji Kame". (=Digital Camera)

Don't you mean "[cetacean needed]"?

I remember writing that exact same program. The rising and falling of the speaker tones as I twisted the paddle knob back and forth.

Good times.

This is why a huge portion of Tokyo including the street where I used to live is no longer covered by Streetview. The wall outside our landlord neighbour's house is about 2m high. I couldn't see over it when walking by it but the Google pics when they were up it was easy to see into their living room. Most Japanese urban houses are less than 2 meters from the road. In these cases you are able to see what someone walking would not, hence the application of laws related to unnatural viewpoints.

Well DONE, sir!

From the article: "800×480 screen, 720p Video playback support"

Someone care to enlighten me as to how you get a 720 progressive-scan image on a screen that is only 480 pixels high?

What if it is not that our best minds couldn't produce to our expectations, but rather, they were prevented from doing so by our not-so-best minds?

One amusing thing I found about the Family Guy Star Wars spoof was that the graphics weren't a cheap animated copy of the original, they *were* the original graphics and matched the quality of the rest of the animation perfectly. I lovely little comment that what was amazingly cool in a major blockbuster 30 years ago is now typical in a regular animated TV show.

A bit sad to think that there will be places on Mars that we will have a better view of than ones on earth.

My mother-in-law's house in Japan, for example.

Maybe that's a good thing...