Tag: Transportation

the Invisibles

They are out there, sleeping in street corners, behind dumpsters, in the park and parking lot.

They move about collecting bottles and cans, junk and juice.

We have trained our eyes to tune them out, to ignore their pleas and pitches.

We certainly don’t read their signs. We already knew, since it’s written on cardboard and held up at street corners.

More people are invisible nowadays.

They don’t vote, nor do they write to their Congressional Representatives.

Whatever funding earmarked for Social Assistance, perhaps never got to them.

Another group of invisibles  but someday, they will be here: future generation.

Inheriting and becoming “salt of the Earth“.

They will drive Electric Vehicles, pick up the bottles and cans after themselves and even plant some organic vegetables.

Last type of invisibles are unseen trends but will be here: mobile payment, paperless society, central ID, Medical ID etc…

We know they are coming. We just resist the technology with policy.

Blocking natural science with political science.

But they will be here, in your children’s face.

Whether you like it or not.

The environment will need to sustain this Earth.

The product we use will need to be recycled.

And the weak among us will need to be tended to and be made productive again.

Can’t legislate away people, who elected you. Can’t ignore them. Can’t tune them out. It’s not kind and it’s not wise.

The invisibles will soon be the majority, if neglected long enough. Wise leaders are those who can see a little bit further into the future, and shed some lights on the gravest of matter. That’s why they are elected to represent us. Now, do your job.

Rev tone

Public concerns for traffic safety create a new market for rev tones used in electric vehicles.

People fear they cannot hear those noiseless cars approaching. So with multiple “ring tones” currently in the works,

pedestrians might get more than what they were bargaining for: out-of-sync responses to false stimuli (young men get a kick  souping up their Civics with fast-approaching Ferrari sound).

Similar chaos were experienced in the streets of New York before the DoT came up with the Red-Green-Yellow convention.

A friend of mine got hit from behind while walking in Dalat with MP3 on. The motorbike that hit him was

going down hill with engine off (apparently during the months of high fuel prices) with rider  facing down to avoid heavy rain . Hear no evil, see no evil.

With each invention comes a cluster of ancillary products: PBX + voicemail and headsets, wire line phones + answering machines, and now electric vehicles create a need for revving tones.

Just like those Ford automobiles (as long as it’s black!) in the old days, electric vehicles will clutter our nation ‘s highways,and personal “rev tone” will deceive our ability to I.D. them (our audio memory bank hasn’t yet been updated, except for a meager sound effect collection, e.g. electric luggage carts operated inside the airports or the fast beeping of backing-up trucks.) Cars will be manufactured Just-in-time like Dell. And with voltage (or storage capacity) options just like our choices of CPU. Would you like to pick out your rev tone to go with it?  Gas station will be changed to car station, and won’t take up all the precious real estate

(there is no need for a large driveway to accommodate fuel trucks).   Soon, charging stations will be cheap enough like treadmills to be installed in one’s garage. Garages will really be crowded: it gets in-sourced as home gym, hot water tank storage, home office,

garage band studio and vehicle charging station. Apartment and condo managers will be busy assigning

charging spots. So are corporations with assigned “employee of the month” space. Obnoxious salesmen won’t be able to hide their “rev tone” as easily as they did their tattoos.

Best way for rev tone to serve electric vehicle drivers is to give them an option to turn it on or off. That way, a party goer can sneak back into the neighborhood at night, undetected. That would be quite eerie even to the by-then drunk driver himself.

He might all of a sudden hear not just the rev tone, but a prerecorded ” raise your hands up to where I can see them!”. At least, this can prevent a possible screeching sound then complete silence preceded by that awful wham (of an automobile at impact). All is quiet on the western front. That is, until the next rev tone cruises by. In South LA, a drive-by is nothing but quiet.