It's a human/electric hybrid that weighs under 60 lbs, which makes 1000 MPG equivalent pretty easy to achieve. It's also safer, cleaner, cheaper, healthier and conducive to social/environmental interaction.

Don't forget that all very powerful corporations have well funded marketing departments, whose entire purpose is the manipulation of people into parting with their money; the perfect advertisement would hook 100% of its audience, which is no different than mind control. If you ask me, the advertisements have been plenty more than effective enough for a long time. Did you know that people didn't really wear deodorant until shortly after shortly after WWII? One of the earliest incarnations was a concept of Bristol-Myers. Then all of a sudden here we are and deodorant is apparently as essential as water. The entire culture was manipulated into thinking that people "stink," which is true but misleading. Consider that deodorant works by blocking the apocrine glands in the armpit, apocrine glands being the special ones that are only found in the armpits, at the areola, and around the genitals. Is it really a leap to assume that if we have any pheremones, that's where they come from? And that by blocking our "stink," we are blocking one of the few ways in which we can sense and communicate with our fellow humans, one that might actually be rather developed after so much evolution? There are some businesses that are making a lot of money based on the misconception that deodorant is necessary; we have been convinced that we need absolutely need so many things when we really don't.

It's pretty clear that the quest of continually increasing profit is naturally anti-people (and unsustainable) because it demands the subjugation of people (employees) in order to undercut the market; it's also in a corporation's best interest to maximally inflate the price of a good over its material cost, which implies maximally taking advantage of their customers (who are people). It's really too bad that instead of using our gift of consciousness to enhance life on Earth and beyond (as the logical conclusion of evolution might suggest we do), we have chosen the strange purpose of trying to get a big number written on a bank slip. What's probably worse is that this culture of greed transcended single individuals and has become the sole drive of large and powerful organizations.

You're not the first person to point out that I tend to overlook human powered vehicles that aren't bicycles. In my city people love to use the light rail like a chairlift for longboarding.

But only if you pass on the donut. It's a problem when people choose the donut and the car, such poor choices could lead to an obesity epidemic.

Yes, I intend not to waste this gift called life.

Riding a bicycle is about 3 times more efficient than walking. Electric bikes are less energy efficient than normal bikes, but they're also easier for unhealthy people to ride.

At least it wasn't modded troll. Electric bikes are nice, normal bikes are more efficient, but for maximal efficiency the vehicle of choice is a velomobile. The human powered speed record on flat ground is over 80 mph (128 kph), in a velomobile.

Really heavy stuff should be transported by a truck, ideally by a localized freight/home delivery service. But this isn't really an argument against cars, because the majority of cars are rarely used to carry heavy things, and many heavy things (furniture) won't even fit in the typical sedan. If it's raining or cold, put on a coat. If it's hot, wear athletic fabrics and carry some insulated water bottles with ice water. If it's more than a few kms, stop being such a lazy ass--I rode my normal pedal bike over 6000 kms across the US. I ride my e-bike 5 kms to school every day, and do it faster than I can in my car. A bike can not do everything a car can do, this is true; just the same, a car can not do everything a bike can do. For any trip under 50 kms with less than 20 kgs of cargo (ie most of them), the bicycle is the most efficient option.

Put on a coat. The only weather that makes riding a bike impossible is several inches of snow, which usually precludes driving the average sedan as well. There are plenty of ways to carry groceries: a roomy backpack, an extracycle, a trailer (cargo or child), etc. As for kayaks, I've never seen it done but a kayak is certainly light enough to be towed by a bicycle.

An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy. If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.

I'm sorry if you were offended, that wasn't my intention! I definitely agree that your English writing is decent, especially as a second language--not just that, I think your writing is amazing in light of that fact. But as former chief editor of one of the premier English literary periodicals, I think it's safe to say that Mr. Hodge's writing is several orders of magnitude better than most everyone capable of writing in English, myself included. There's no sense in being offended by facts.

If anything, I think the fact that your mind has independently arrived at the same conclusions of someone with such intellectual esteem should be taken as a high complement. Notice that I did account for the possibility that you actually reached these conclusions independently.

I try my best not to insult people, I'm a loving person who dreams of humanity living in harmony; naturally I do what I can to make that a reality, which precludes insulting random people. But, and I know I'm not the only one, I've noticed a strong tendency for the starkness of terse fixed font textual communication to enable drastic misinterpretation of the emotion behind the words. If this conversation were undertaken IRL, I think it would have been very clear that I didn't intend to offend.

Is that you, Roger D. Hodge?? If not, well, I would figure the probability of such a precise summary of his excerpt in this months Harper's arising by random chance rather low. I'm always happy to stumble across a Harper's reader (since it is the singular and most incredible source of actual journalism on Earth), and I commend your swiftness in reading and recognition of applicability, with a C for comprehension, but c'mon man! Give credit where credit is due!

"In January, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court held that restrictions on independent corporate expenditures in political campaigns are unconstitutional infringements on the freedom of speech. Much of the judicial literature on the subject, including Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Citizens United, simply substitutes the words "speech" and "speak" for the words "spend" and "buy." [...] It is a curious metaphysical doctrine, is it not? Corporations are artificial beings, theoretically immortal, which come into existence by means of state charters and reproduce like amoebas by splitting into subsidiaries; midwifed by lawyers, they combine in bizarre mating rituals called mergers; they are owned, like slaves, by shareholders who buy and sell their chattel daily; and they possess constitutional rights. Oddly, however, our corporate citizens are denied the right to vote. By what logic can a corporation be granted personhood and the constitutional right to speak money, yet be denied the constitutional right to vote? How can our system permit these corporate persons to be enslaved through ownership? [...] The Democratic Party's lamentable DISCLOSE Act, which this summer failed to muster sixty votes in the Senate, would do nothing, if passed, to curb the flow of cash and the further disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the citizenry. It is no great burden for large corporations and wealthy individuals to hire more clerks to file additional disclosure forms, and under current law we already know a great deal about who buys and sells our commodified rulers and their derivative legislation."

I take it back, there's no way you're Roger, his writing is several orders of magnitude better than yours. Moral of the story: everybody subscribe to Harper's, srsly 1 year for ~$17.

Sober Utah isn't as bad as one might think, or at least not for the reasons usually assumed; SLC is 55 to 66% non-Mormon and has one of the highest population of gays per capita in the US. Utah is also the 6th most urbanized state, with the highest proportion of income given to charity and the highest rate of volunteerism. Naturally, however, wet Utah is even more fun. We have a good array of fantastic local microbreweries (Squatters, Red Rock, Wasatch, Uinta, etc.) and access to some of the really excellent wee...err beer coming out of Colorado and California. The liquor laws can be a bit asinine, but mostly end up as minor inconveniences; regular strength beer can still be purchased.

Indeed, I still own my iPhone from 2007, which was used up until a few months ago; I had my iPhone before the app store came into existence. Sure there's the youtube app which will most likely have the video you're looking for, but it's not streaming a video on the full youtube.com page that you'd normally see. Not to mention there's a few other video streaming services that don't have apps.

Not only does my nexus one readily load flash content, the dolphin browser allows one to spoof the browser identity--quite handy for getting around mobile paywalls or into iPhone specific pages. Of course the true power of this new phone probably has more to do with the public existence of what resides at android.git.kernel.org

Yup, just remember that you wouldn't ever want to browse any web/video/picture/music/e/t/c sites that make use of Flash, like, oh man I can barely think of one... I guess youtube kinda counts, but who really wants to visit a dirty smelly wretched Flash site like youtube? See, that's the point, the iPad is SOOOO amazing because Flash is BAD. It's just so obvious that overpriced, locked down media is better than free Flash-based media, because, duh, battery life and stuff.