Mac or PC Rap

I have been a Mac fan since 1991. Way before Apple became cool. The reason was simple: with a Mac, I was productive. In comparison, with a PC I felt like a klutz. The difference between the 2 machines in terms of usability has narrowed somewhat since 1991 (and 1997) but there are still the packaged apps: iLife. I'm sure there are probably individual programs on the PC that are as good as the iLife programs but who has the time to work it all out.

If you like I'm a Mac and I'm a PC adverts then this video is a must-see: "The Mac or Pc Rap"

And yet another plug for my favorite art program Robert Covington's Compositor - Mac users: check it out! :-)

The =Ultimate= Driving Machine

Does anybody else get a queasy feeling in their stomachs when you see those old TV cigarette adverts: an overly macho man offering an overly flirtatious female a white stick of death... The advert always stress the social interaction and not the ash fag-ends etc. And of course, not what =ultimately= would happen to the man or woman in 20 years time: the coughing, cancer and slow lingering deaths.

I am starting to get the same feeling with car adverts... yes, they do look nice. Very cute too. Happy Kids driving cars; people dancing in the streets; hey even cars spinning around acrobat style. Click that link and see that cute advert with kids driving an SUV again and think: those kids may never actually be able to drive that SUV. Ever. Even if we do overt the very worst excesses of the world's economy's dependence on oil, the price of oil is a one way bet: it is going to rise and driving in an SUV in say 10 years time will seem like Nero fiddling while Rome burns!

Meanwhile we hand out models of the Hummer H1 SUVs with MacDonalds. I feel queasy again: it feels just like giving kids sweet cigarettes to me. Who does that any more?

Consider: BMW's slogan "The =Ultimate= Driving Machine". They might be right. After the oil runs dry, imagine some post-civilization scenario, somewhere in Saudi Arabia, a goat-herder drives the last working vehicle over the desert. Yep, it could be a BMW.

Solartaxi - Around the World

3rd July 2007: An intrepid team of adventurers start a round the world tour travelling by a solar-powered Electric Vehicle. Hopefully this will stop jokes about needing a 24000 mile extension lead. Forget Hydrogen-powered cars, even Hybrids, Electric Vechiles are our best hope for transportation once the oil price goes completely out of control... my estimate: 2014! This gives us very limited time to transfer to a cheaper, cleaner, quieter, greener transportation system. Solar-power may not be the best option for the UK (Having just had our wettest June ever recorded) but grid electricity... hook it up to wind power or tidal... is the easily the best, or possibly the least-worst, fuel option.

Good luck, Team Solartaxi!

Festival of Words

Carring on the cartoon theme of previous posts, here are cartoons of Simon and Alex done by "Kevin F" - Kevin F Sutherland - from the Farnham Malting's Festival of Words.

Heptawing

Revealed for the first time outside of Sauria, the heptawing, flying reptile. Name provide by Louise Thorne, original art work (c) Andy Pritchard, dates from 1978 - scanned and coloured (by Compositor) in 2006!

Smart Roadster Love

While I wait for my EV1 (maybe a long wait) I still have to get around. My brief foray into dual fuel petrol/LPG was not successful for me; I do too many short journeys and the car took too long to click over onto LPG; I need a car that can go at motorway speeds (that rules out the GeeWhiz)... So I came up with PLAN B. We already have a small Vauxhall Astra... so what should we have for a second car that I can use for my short trips and commuting? I've always wanted one. And now I have one! A Smart Roadster! Fun, economical and fun (did I mention "fun"?) 700cc engine built by Mercedes; 55mpg: its almost a pleasure filling up! And while the car is no longer being made, I guess it wasn't economic for Smart, I highly recommend.

EV1: Old Age and Treachery

Just in case somebody has not seen or heard about Who Killed the Electric Car? then click the link and read on. It is not just a sorry tale of a motor car or "shucks, I sure hate to pay high prices at the petrol pumps", it is a tale of physcopath corporations with planetary impact way beyond the story of a single car model.

Let's re-cap: 1980s California had a real air polluction problem. Spurred on by the likes of General Motors who had developed electric vehicles like the Solarracer, the state government introduced the mandate for Zero Emission Vehicles.

GM as with any large scale organisation responded in two ways: positively, they commissioned the EV1 using the same young, enthusiatic team that built the Solarracer and negatively, trying it dammest to halt the ZEV legislation.

I don't think GM expected the EV1 to be anything except a huge flop. They certainly tried their hardest to stop its own product succeeding. The management team expected the young team to produce a lemon of a car (they didn't, they in fact produced probably the finest Electric Vehicle available in the world at the time!), they put a young inexperienced team in charge of selling the car (who against expectations, went out selling with missionary zeal!). But thereafter the will of the company succeeds: the manufacturing lines are starved of resources, the design team is not immediately informed of new battery technology, the advertising was, frankly, perverse and finally there were "surveys" conducted to new owners to warn them away from the car!!!

As the EV1 owners club (now a largely quiet bunch) chronicles in its archives up to 2000, it was really hard for anyone to get hold of one of the cars!. The site is now dedicated to the "Who Killed the Electric Car" documentary.


But the ultimate method of killing the car was the most effective: GM didn't sell the car, the car was leased! That way as soon as the ZEV legislation was removed (as soon as Bush got into office) then, the car was towed away and CRUSHED! In the documentary, you may find this hard to believe, but your heart really goes out to the owners that had clubbed together to stand guard over the last 70 EV1s in a GM compound, waving a giant cheque for $1.9million, protesting "We want our EV1s!". The police move in. There are arrests. The cars are loaded up, carried away and then smashed to pieces.

Check out YouTube for the EV1 "last ride". March 2000. No commentary, just the quiet, quiet drive of the EV1 zipping around californian streets before it was reclaimed by GM for crushing. The EV1 looks and sounds just like the 1950s vision of the Future Car. It brings a tear to my eye that I won't have that experience. Look at the photo... a line of EV1s: that's how it should have been.

It's the same old story of old age and treachery beating youth and enthusiasm. Don't assume there are hydrogen cars coming along anytime soon. Hybrids too could be just bait and switch! Meanwhile we go to war over Oil, and California still has an air pollution problem. There is more to this story but I've written enough. Check out the links.

Go buy or rent the DVD. It has 5 star rating. It's not just me that feels this.