Who Did Kill the Electric Car?

I just finished watching the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" and I am having a tree hugging moment. I am not the consummate recycler of paper, plastic and soda cans; I do wish I had the option to use an electric car instead of a gas guzzling, carbon emitting one.

Also to think that I once owned a Saturn myself (a non-electric different-kind-of-car). GM marketed the EV1 through Saturn dealers in California and Arizona. GM really has squandered all of Saturn's warm and fuzzy heritage. First build a rattle itself apart car in Springfield TN (my car), then pry away a viable electric car with your OIL stained hands; crushing, disabling and hiding every one of the EV1.

So the movie is "Who Killed the Electric Car" and if you can stomach a little green guilt while getting another viewpoint on where we could have been with electric vehicles; I recommend the movie.

One of the interesting points made in the movie is that GM did not market the cars very well, I agree if this ad is any indication of what they tried. Who actually puts the idea of an electrical outage and electrical appliance malfunction in an ad for an ELECTRIC APPLIANCE car?

Linerider - Line Art Art

There is this addictive little program called Linerider which in the right hands (not mine) can be used to make mesmerizing rube-goldbergesque layouts. The game is based off of simple concepts - gravity, a line (to ride and bounce off), a little guy in a sled.

Since there are actual game physics to contend with it is not a mere fantasy of flight, make the drop too steep and the rider is crushed on impact, lose too much inertial energy and he will not make up the slope. This is all too hard to explain with words, here is an awesome Linerider You Tube video synced with a Nickelback song (double points for the music choice).



Search for Linerider on Youtube, there are a lot of these.

Open Pandora's Box

Ok, I might be behind the times, and so many have already discovered this, but Pandora.com is a awesome internet radio creation site.

Go to Pandora and type in your favorite artist and automatically and very quickly a custom radio station will be created for you. It is super simple to use and o-so-slick.

Share your station; create up to 100; even include them on your blog!

While you are thinking about what's the Best for That listen to the Best Picks. I started off with U2; added Radiohead and then a little Midnight Oil for grit. Comment if you have more suggestions.

Pioneer VSX-1016

I just bought and installed a Pioneer VSX-1016 receiver. While it is not part of their elite series; it is the best of the regular-joe series.

I picked this receiver for several reasons:

• It has the THX logo on it (who cares if it is just Select 2 certified)
• It upconverts analog signals to the component output (this is the real reason why I bought it)
• It mentions HDMI, even if there are limitations with its implementation (not even close to HDMI 1.3 compliant, which is a low level concern for me right now)

I will post a longer overview later. In short it works!