The Low-Tech Times

Kris De Decker has returned from summer vacation and has written an interesting and provocative article for his Low-tech Magazine:

If we cut the average speed of all vehicles by half, fuel consumption would decrease by a whopping 75 percent.

Breaking speed records was an almost daily occurence throughout the 20th century. Cars, ships, planes and trains became faster and faster, year after year. Because the power needed to push an object through air increases with the cube of velocity, this race to ever higher speeds raises energy consumption exponentially.

Engineers treat velocity as a non-variable, while in fact it is the most powerful factor to save a really huge amount of energy - with just one stroke, at minimal cost, and without the need for new technology. Lower speeds combined with more energy efficient engines, better aerodynamics and lighter materials could make fuel savings even larger.

WTOP News has a nice story posted by Freeman Klopott of a woman in Washington, DC who thwarted a mugger using a low-tech technique. The story shows a hi-tech taser may not be necessary to stop robbery:

A sly Northeast resident was able to get the better of a late afternoon mugger by passing off a fake wallet with only two dollars, District police said. The woman was carrying groceries and dry cleaning on the 1300 block of F Street Northeast when a man came up behind her, put an arm around her neck and pushed her forward, demanding her wallet. As she landed on the ground, the victim pulled out a fake wallet she keeps for just such occasion.

The assailant grabbed the fake wallet and took off down the street.

Netflix.com launched with a really good idea.  You can conveniently rent movies through the mail and never pay any late fees.  Additionally, their catalog of DVDs is vastly superior to any brick-and-mortar store.  Chris Anderson referenced Netflix to help make his point in The Long Tail:  Why The Future of Business is Selling Less of More.

So why did we cancel our Netflix account?

At first we would watch the movies when they arrived and promptly send them back.  Lately, we had been sometimes holding onto movies for several weeks because we lacked the time and/or desire to watch them. We weren’t getting our money’s worth because we were still getting charged between $5 and $6 a month.  If Netflix had a pay-as-you-go plan, we would not have cancelled our account.  For people that don’t watch very many movies, they should offer a plan that charges you on a per-movie basis.

Despite Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Theory, the Blockbuster Video in my neighborhood is still open for business.  Going forward, we’ll be renting movies the old-fashioned way from Blockbuster with no monthly fee.