Yearly Archives: 2005

big is back (out)

Business

It looks like the pendulum of automotive excess is starting to swing back toward smaller, more efficient cars. The Washington Post notes that “SUV sales have dropped by up to half”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301657.html this year over last, while small car sales have gone up, probably due to higher gas prices. Predictably, Detroit got caught with its pants down because it doesn’t have any efficient cars (read: hybrids) to offer. Too bad they didn’t pay attention back when it was made plain that fuel efficiency was going to get really important Real Soon Now.

My take on this is that the gas-price tipping point has finally been reached, so it’s a great time for cities to propose transit alternatives (read: trolleys) and actually get them funded. If I ran a city, I’d make all existing transit free for the next 6 months to get ridership numbers up, then use that period to convince people that transit is worthwhile (or at least figure out why they think it isn’t) while drumming up new funds to make it even better. Of course I don’t run a city, but I hope that folks who do start to see that transit is going to get really important Real Soon Now.

taking web 2.0 up a notch

Web 2.0

Brian Dear just posted a ginormous, well-thought-out post on “where Eventful and EVDB fit in the Web 2.0 universe”:http://blog.eventful.com/archives/2005/10/a_reponse_to_ti.html. It’s primarily a response to Tim O’Reilly’s post asking “What is Web 2.0″:http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html but it’s also leading up to the “Web 2.0 conference”:http://eventful.com/events/E0-001-000179267-5 this week.

I love how well we fit in this new ecosystem. I consider that a good sign, both about the Web 2.0 concept (it’s not just a buzzword) and about EVDB itself. Like I’ve said before, it’s really refreshing to work on something that’s both on the cutting edge and well-received by the general public.

UPDATE: Tim O’Reilly posted a nice response to Brian’s response:

bq. Brian Dear’s wonderful point by point analysis of how EVDB matches up with the points in my Web 2.0 meme map. I’d love to see more Web 2.0 companies giving this kind of feedback!

go see Serenity

Film

I rarely ask you to do anything for me, but this time I’m imploring you: go see “Serenity”:http://www.serenitymovie.com/ this weekend. Not later, not on DVD, but this weekend if you can. My motives are selfish: I want someone at SciFi to notice it and say, “Hey, that would make a good TV show.” Better yet, I want Mark Cuban to say, “Hey, that would make a good HDTV-straight-to-DVD/download show.” But that’s probably pushing it.

Just see the movie. I guarantee you’ll have a good time.

the family of tool users is growing

Science

Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and even some birds have been shown to use (and sometimes even fashion) tools in the wild, for a variety of purposes. The latest find is that “gorillas use tools in the wild”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4296606.stm, which means that there isn’t a great ape that *doesn’t* use tools.

As much as the world hates to think this, it’s becoming more and more obvious that the difference between humans and other animals is one of degree, not of kind. We haven’t developed some innate difference, we just happen to have found a runaway combination of existing qualities like social networks, tool use, and language.