Drive*

The title of this entry is Drive*.  Notice the asterisk?  The other day, a dear friend posted one of those ubiquitous internet memes berating Generation Me.  You know—those confounded millennials every elder despises?  Yes, them…again.

Here it is:

I posited that an asterisk should be attached to “drive”, appending another note of sarcasm.  Now, my sarcasm should have been interpreted to berate those kids further, meaning, they actually haven’t learned to drive—at least, not properly, nor remotely to the standards of their pontificating elders.  In fact, I don’t believe drivers (mostly the American variety) et al have evolved much.  We’re all doing our best—in the most wildly varying sense—navigating from A to B without catastrophe, using an olden system of roads and rules rife with ambiguity and interpretation.  Nobody, it seems, wants to change anything, even after confronted with disheartening 35,000/year death and 3M/year injury stats.  When they do, those efforts are suddenly gift-wrapped in blaze red cellophane tape.  Example?  Look no further than GOP hopeful and former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush.  Back in May 2005, he cited a lack of empirical evidence after vetoing a popular Road Rage Reduction Act in Florida.  It would have made it illegal to loiter in the left lane of an interstate or multi-lane highway.  You know the rule—Keep Right Except to Pass?  Nobody squats in the left lane making others angry, supposedly.  That, my friends, is the very definition of disconnect.  But no, I’m not blogging a hit piece on Jeb today.  Other than the aforementioned disconnect, well, and that whole Florida homeowner’s insurance rates quadrupling during his reign thing, I suspect he’s a rather nice fellow.  My concern is for the simple stagnation in basic transportation, and its need to evolve.  Who’s championing this?  I mean right now, who?

You may have been monitoring the autonomous automobile ongoings at Google, Tesla, and other tech campuses such as Audi, BMW, and, yeah, yet another German automaker, Mercedes-Benz, and their ‘mobile living space’.  (Neat, but really, Mercedes?)  Suffice to say, there are more than a few brilliant minds groupthinking their way towards removing your hands from the steering wheel.  Is that what we want?  Woody Allen’s Sleeper?  Someone pass the orb, dude!  Ah well, I believe driving—it’s purpose—comes down to individual philosophy, attitudes, and their resulting (pardon the pun) impacts they have on other drivers.

For those that tremble at the responsibility, dread climbing into that seat, timidly thrust themselves into the fray of a multi-lane freeway, and general perceive driving as a necessary labor of despise—a painful sacrifice to Chronos—self-driving automobiles hearken lofty angelic chorales and glistening metallic pain crystals (throw a little Vaseline on the lens for that softened soap opera look).  And, this might be a good thing.  You see, these are the folks that just might not belong behind the wheel in the first place, similarly to the many disabled people who also need a ride (well argued in this Oatmeal article).  Philosophy and attitudes may conflict with additional education on the subject, let alone any enthusiasm.  Folks like myself, on the other hand, wish we could get better at it.  Moreover, we enjoy driving itself, and crave the war on Chronos when it matters.  Get out of the way you texting pacifists, I’m trying to DRIVE here!

To be fair, those same car manufacturers excel at the conventional driver experience (Google being the exception, of course).  We already have countless vehicles with exceeding capabilities far beyond that which global governments will permit.  Why is that, by the way?  Ah, well, not the debate de jour.  What I mean is, if we possess the Six Million Dollar Man army in vehicles—to go better, faster, etc.—what’s the holdup? 

Us

Yes, it’s us.  We are the flatulence nobody claims, the sloth—the whining sloth—that deserves what is to come.  That’s right.  Once this autonomous driving thing is perfected, and we are all still paying through the nostrils for insuring the technology, a driving we will no longer go.  God forbid a software glitch makes a deadly mistake creating a class litigation swarm complete with desperate television advertisements.

So help me out here:  Who is listening to actual drivers out there?  No, I don’t mean anyone behind a steering wheel, I mean those who wish to stay there and get better at it.  Who?  Anyone?  Helloooooooo...

Better Drivers, Better Roads, Better Rules.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  What do we get?  Better cars, but with more distractions and less visibility.

The above article was meant to conjoin a previous installment regarding a Super License.  There exists individuals with ideas, obviously.  Mine is not exactly original.  I would also cite the entire country of Finland and their efforts to create the Master Race(rs) (used in pointed pun and jest).     

So what does politics have to do with it?  Everything.  Be mindful of those that champion your cause and vote for them accordingly.  But if you detect a sniveling panderer to complacency, dump ‘em like the steaming handful of poo they are.  Please! ;) 

Listen*

Oops. Another asterisk.  Have you seen this?

The Info Age is slowly but surely whittling away the ‘magic’ that is ..er.. was the craft of commercial music.  For the purposes of disclosure, I’ve been dawdling within that industry for a couple decades now, and I’ve been exposed the man behind the curtain.  Hmm… not sure that came out right.  Anyway…  Now hang on, don’t get your G-strings over-tightened, folks.  Not every artist is a manufactured dupe.  I’m strictly referencing the carefully-considered-in-a-boardroom-think-tank types.  These acts have been around for decades because they make money.  Remember, it’s the music business.  The music industry.  The publishing industry.  And on and on and so forth.  Although true artist/performers are commingled within, there will always be a percentage of commercially-conceived performers miming the latest computer-generated hits.  Until the consuming public defers those acts, they will always be around.  Don’t be surprised by this if you’re buying into it.  Engineering feats and faultless acting are ever on the increase.  It’s up to you to buy it or not—especially after your enlightenment.    

Writing Update and More from …Nelson’s Arcane

DUST’s sequel is still in the making, of course.  I’ve experienced a recent slow-down due to a real-estate intervention and other life activities, but the creating and writing continues!  I’m still hoping for a 2015 release, but I can’t give a date yet.  There is a lot of work yet to be done.  In the meantime, here are a couple more hidden homages within DUST:

From the chapter, “Rocked”:

“…Trovarto produced a plain black metallic and rectangular bar that measured about nine centimeters long, four centimeters wide, and just one centimeter thick..”  —The dimensional ratios of Monsignor Trovarto’s communicator are the same as the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  This ratio also appears throughout the famous Parthenon.

From the Chapter, “Amerimem Industries”:

“You can always throw a sheet over him or something.”  —Chris said this to Emily when she became frightened at the prospect of another night with Xeno (a stuffed toy clown) in her room.  This is a reference to a classic scene from Poltergeist.

More Soon!

/T