The Possibilities of a Driverless Car

In movies and television shows depicting the future, there are flying cars and cars that drive themselves — and sometimes a combination of the two. In the movie Total Recall, for example, there are taxi services that are entirely driven by robots. The promise of the future is that people will no longer have to drive if they don’t wish to do so, and that driving can be a more passive activity to be watched as though it were a form of entertainment of its own.

Continue reading → The Possibilities of a Driverless Car

Ndamukong Suh and the $18,000 Cat

Ndamukong Suh — “Mr. Suh” to you and me — is a 6’4″, 300 pound, defensive tackle on the University of Nebraska football team and possible Heisman Trophy candidate. A couple of days ago, Mr. Suh crashed his 2003 Land Rover into two parked cars at 2:20am. 
He was not driving drunk.

Continue reading → Ndamukong Suh and the $18,000 Cat

Urban Chariot

Is this ridiculous thing — reeking of foppish desperation and geek fantasia — the new Urban Chariot?  Is our future so doomed by the economy that we’ll be coerced into actually traveling the streets of Manhattan and rolling along the suburban wilds in a P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) from Segway and General Motors?  We know the future is round, but must it also be ugly as well as silly?

Continue reading → Urban Chariot

Adding Fake Sound to Electric Cars

We all know technology can kill us — but we must learn to leave behind our current, menacing, totems if we ever hope to stretch into the future of us to create a cleaner and quieter world. There is an idiotic move afoot to make electric cars as noisy as their prehistoric gas-guzzling ancestors.

Continue reading → Adding Fake Sound to Electric Cars

Flickering in Starlight

I miss the old days of watching stars flicker under lingering stars in the open and unprotected midst of a drive-in movie theatre.

Continue reading → Flickering in Starlight

Unwanted Witness to an Instant Death

The other day Janna and I were walking around Journal Square. I was looking one way and Janna another when she saw what I missed: A young woman stepping into the street in the middle of traffic.

Continue reading → Unwanted Witness to an Instant Death