I should sell bumper stickers that show a big truck obliterating a small economy car, with big letters that say "RULE OF TONNAGE" or some other lame edgy thing like that.

The most important thing is: get an ebike. Then you have an ebike.

Proprietary bullshit is the rule not the exception. You can always trade your bike if you're getting pissed off with it. Just make sure you keep up with maitenance, and it should be reliable. I use Bosch stuff on my bike, and I've made peace with it - it works fine, and I can get any replacement parts I need on eBay, and the local shop can service the electronics.

These e-bikes feature the non-proprietary generic batteries and hub motors that increase repairability and don't keep you forced to an ecosystem that you're not sure will have replacements in 5 years.

There's a balancing act here, since generic equipment on your bike will be attractive to bike thieves. The integrated battery definately helps with that... but it's annoying in other ways, and in any case thieves will prioritize taking the entire bike. Maitenance is a risk, especially since we've seen some manufacturers fail and then parts becoming difficult to find. But I think if you're handy and keep up with maitenance, you may find that your bike just keeps on working well beyond that 5 year mark. The battery does get affected by cycle time, but modern battery chemistry is pretty good, so there are a lot of old batteries out there that still have 85%+ of of their capacity even after a couple of thousand cycles.

I lock up my bike outside for several hours at a time most weeks. Having a decent lock, and then just making sure it's not locked up in a dark alley overnight has kept it safe so far. But I accept that my ebike might get stolen someday, and try not to let it prevent me from using it.

If you ask a truck owner that, there's a 25% chance that they will straight-facedly tell you it's so that the other driver dies in the collision.

...is it supposed to look like Loc-Nar, the sum of all evils?

Geoff Dyer in London, Ana Rodríguez Brazón in Caracas, Claire Jones in Washington and Joe Daniels in Bogotá

I wonder how these four (!) authors are going to feel about the time and effort they put into writing all this when, next month, Trump declares that he's stealing all the gold.

Although I live kinda rural and the store is 2 miles away on a highway with no sidewalk so yikes

Walking and biking is legit dangerous in most of the USA because of this. I've been trying out bike commuting to work, but there's one unavoidable section where there's no curb or sidewalk, and it's made me switch back to the bus.

Did it work out last time? No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... but it might work this time.

Chudsploitation cinema

I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm not buying a $17 burrito.

McKinsey Global Institute keeps the Horned Rat chained up in the basement.

I don't think it's going Similar to the "datacenters in space", it's going to make it cost 10x as much. There's a reason we don't build much underground.

One of the conceits that Dante uses in The Inferno (to explain why he is meeting the souls of the apparently still-living): when a person commits sins so unfathomably evil, their soul is ripped away from their still-living body and dragged to hell. The soulless shell of their body then continues to live on earth, worn as costume by a possessing demon.