Bicycle is in the Mind

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Steve Jobs’ persona is now slated to rival Buhdda but on a 2.0 kinda level. This is cool I guess, but more on top of that is how  awesome it is that he looked to the bicycle as a reference of ultimate efficiency. That moment as seen in the following vid was back in the 80’s. And as much as he was a soothsayer regarding the evolution of technology, he was also – although perhaps unwittingly – on point with regard to the bicycle. Nothing is as efficient, and that has major implications for how our future is going to be shaped. Who here is not welcoming it?

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I sit in wait and look forward to the day that this potential – the bicycle – sets off a sea change which will affect this country. A sea change that arrises on the collective realization that better living occures via less. Less as more. Less haste. Less dominance. Less greed. This I hope will create more demand for walks in parks and moments with our kids that cannot be replaced or virtualized. More rides with our friends and  for ourselves, to beer and to places in the middle of everywhere, and more rides to the job and to the store for more beer. I sense a theme here. I think I will see this in my lifetime. #occupybikeseat. It’s been done before. That means it can be done again:

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28 Replies to “Bicycle is in the Mind”

  1. Love the whole thrust of this post. The pathetic investment in our bike infrastructure is made clear by the dutch. In boston, some of the much touted “bike lanes” are just a painted bike in on the side of the street – same width, same double-parked cars, same ignoring cyclist by motorists.

    also nauseated by all the Steve Jobs worship – he SOLD US SHIT FOR PROFIT! All hail the dark lord of disposable consumer culture. He’s as bad as tobacco companies for seducing people onto the endless treadmill of inherently obsolete, shiny, electronic crap. The new i-phone is THINNER and LIGHTER!!

    sorry about the negative rant, i did really dig this post and it’s main points.

    -sent from my i-phone…NO

  2. yea, he was a smart guy and certainly on point with this one, but he was also a titanic arsehole. i also own an ipod.

  3. This is what I love about living in Flagstaff, always seems to be a path, don’t have to ride on the road much at all. That’s good, driver’s have trouble keeping their rigs within the lane and they tend to leak over into my shoulder, erm Bike Lane I meant. It’s strewn with rusty hardware and glass for a reason folks, stay away!

    As for jobs, he talked the talk and walked the walk for a while, too bad he stopped the walking and kept talking. Now Apple is richer than some countries. I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Too bad the mega rich aren’t seem for what they are, creepy hoarders.

  4. Come to “Little Amsterdam”, La Crosse WI. Here, the cops don’t mince their words. “You people (inferring bicyclists, not the pasty white of the North)are always the problem.” said one sheriif to me as I dialed 911 over a woman who cut me off, flipped me off, and then revved her engine at me. I was threatened with “disturbing the peace”, because I exercised my rights as a citizen and bike rider. I even had the WI DOJ bicycle laws in my pannier, and when I produced them the “pig” refused to even look at the reality of the situation. Please visit La Crosse so you too can be insulted by oil thugs.

  5. I really dig riding with my Ipod. After all the years and rides with the portable cd player, skipping with every crack in the road and trying to change cds while riding, that Ipod is the greatest. Just sayin’.

  6. When approaching an intersection in Copenhagen, a motorist came to a halt and looked at me. To my surprise, they were patiently waiting for my American ass to figure out that they were waiting for me to cross the road. It was a beautiful moment that I can’t wait to experience here in ‘Murica. I’m 39 now and hope it comes to be in my life time.

  7. I like my mp3 player as well, as well as all my other neat-o stuff. Would we here in the “developed” world be willing to pay what it would cost to enjoy all of our “stuff” if that stuff was made anywhere but in countries where workers can be taken advantage of to the extremes that they are now?

    Could we all afford our stuff if it was made in the USA or anywhere that pays workers a living wage and treats them like humans? I have always thought “YES”, absolutely, but I make the possibly dumb assumption that the obstacle to that happening is the greed of most corporate boards, corporate officers, and leading executives at large multi-nationals. They have to take a haircut to make it right for workers. Jobs led by example in that regard by eventually taking what was essentially no compensation, but how many people didn’t?

    Oh now I have to stop or this will go long. BOOOOOOBSSSSS!

  8. I absolutely concur with Mr. Gnome’s thesis here, and will add a bit of unsolicited advice: a sea change begins at home.

    Like a lot of youse guys, I’m committed to “opting out” of the consumerist culture that grips America. I’m committed to cycling as much as I can. I recently checked and my 15 year-old, 4-cylinder truck rolled less than 5000 miles last year, with most of those miles to and from the ski hill or trailhead. My house is old and small and paid for. I don’t even own a credit card and I’ve never set foot in a Wal-Mart. All I wish to consume are road/trail miles, snowy surfaces, and beer. I have it damn good.

  9. “…and I’ve never set foot in a WalMart.”

    I have never understood the BS against Wal-Mart.

    Why would you want to pay 2-3 times as much for the same product at a “local” store.

    Fuck local stores.

    Give me a Super WalMart or give me death.

  10. …fuck steve jobs…

    …much better people than he have been touting the awesome efficiency of the bicycle a lot longer than steve fucking jobs…try albert einstein…

    …& i’d safely bet every bicycle i own that his ‘recognizing’ that great efficiency was no epiphany but simply something pointed out to him…

    …i’m fucking disgusted to even see the his name & buddha in the same sentence, frankly…

  11. @01-Profit is how most of us pay our bills and put food on the table.

    @05-If you need to take “entertainment” with you when you ride, perhaps you are riding the wrong bike; perhaps for the wrong reasons.

    @11-Bad as I hate Wally World, I can’t deny it has its place.

    Ummm, Steve who?

  12. @Sparky

    Points @05 & @11 +1

    Point @01, disagree, most of us pay our bills by performing a contracted task, working agreed hours & delivering agreed results. The corporation may profit, we don’t, we just get our agreed regular paychecks.

    Steve Jobs, absolute fucking arsehole, made is name by ripping off others ideas, brutalizing his workforce & was ultimately a triumph of marketing!

  13. Never understood riding with headphones. Music is nice if you’re on a trainer, but if you’re out on the road or trail, there’s much better things to listen for.

    It’s really easy to hate on Wally World, and I do, but it’s generally done from the comfort of a town that has a few choices. Many little bibleburg hamlets don’t.

    Steve Jobs payed for a lot of those technologies. Not enough often. But he saw something bigger in them than the original developers did. Hate on him all you want, but Microsoft and Google do the same thing. Windows is stolen from Apple. Google bought Android from a small developer.

    Sent from my Macputer, while talking on my Android phone…

  14. I don’t see how that changes my statement. Apple hired xerox engineers who developed the GUI far beyond what they had done earlier. It’s a little hard to blame Steve Jobs for the fact that Atari, Commodore, and Tandy went under. Yes, they sued DRI, but apple had MacOS (and LISA and GS/OS) to market at least a year earlier. DRI was also ex-xerox employees, so it’s not like they had come up with anything truly original.

    Yes, Steve Jobs could be a dick. I’d bet Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, etc. can be too

  15. ‘Triumph of the Nerds’ is a great documentary on the development of the PC and how Jobs, Gates, etc ‘borrowed’ ideas from various sources. The story of Jobs visit to the Xerox facility and seeing their early GUI is certainly an interesting one.

  16. @15-Hurben, I don’t know how things work in your neck-o-the-woods, but around here, we who pay our bills don’t get a paycheck unless there’s some meat left on the bone for the company that employs us*. What, you thought that money came from the Paycheck Fairy or some shit? Jesus tittyfucking Christ, dude! Real world much?

    *Unless you’re talking about a Gub’mint job. Which gets its funding from assets siezed from corporations and their emplyees through threat of anything from seizure of property to incarceration to force of arms.

  17. Elvis himself stole rock n’ roll from Southern blacks.

    Some may say he was just influenced by their music and was inspired to make it his own because that’s what an artist does.

    No one has any problem with the derivative nature of human culture until the one who was inspired makes more money than the person who inspired them, now it’s cruel theft on the high seas by an uncaring brigand who did this deliberately to ruin those who came before him.

    No one is coming up with anything new, we’re all re-mixing each others shit.

  18. “No one is coming up with anything new, we’re all re-mixing each others shit.”

    Amen brother. Amen.

  19. Quote of the week.

    “I use sarcasm because beating the shit out of people is in fact frowned upon in most societies.”