V I D I O T S . U S

Original draft written August 24, 2011 and remained unpublished.

A bit about Communications and Transportation

by Bob Kiger

Communication and Transportation are the enabling technologies that advance Modern Human culture.

Every so many units of time in history Modern Humans [hereafter called "we"] get-together and develop/copy efficient designs for vehicles, devices that transport people or cargo. Such get-togethers were few and far between in early Modern Human history. Most of them were undocumented and were very loosely organized . . . little more than “Monkey see . . . Monkey do”, since we had only primitive language skills and communicated mostly by the flattery of imitation.

During the Stone Age, somewhere in Africa, we got together on the idea that material that was lighter than water would float and if we climbed on top of that stuff, and the water was calm enough, we could use our hands and feet to steer so boats became the first vehicles.

Many millennia later, still in the Stone Age, we decided to hop onto animals and use their power to get around. Strictly speaking these animals were not be considered vehicles, until we figured out how to control them using devices which we attached to the animals, like saddles and bridles. These new vehicles got around quite fast and were deployed the length of the Silk Route between Europe and Asia in a relatively short time period.

During this time period we had also learned to write or draw pictures of our lifestyle and our vehicles. Less than 10,000 years ago we had a “wheel get together” and pictures of horses, camels and other powerful animals pulling carts, chariots and all manner of wheeled vehicles started popping up in Europe, North Africa, the Levant and the Orient.

We Modern Humans migrated and occupied most of the Earth using various simple vehicles. We tinkered with them over millennium and developed all manner of efficiencies on the basic wheel, as modern culture rolled along.

A noteworthy advance in vehicle technology began a couple hundred years ago with two milestones. Almost simultaneously the first steam rail locomotive and the first cycles were invented.

These cycles and railroads each made giant leaps in technology in the 19th Century. Railroads revolutionized the transport of large payloads across the land. Cycles revolutionized the mobility of modern humans around and between their farms and neighborhoods.

By 1890 railroads, in the US, had developed nearly 164,000 miles of railroad track. The 1890s also became known as the Golden Age of Bicycles largely because of the popularity of “Safety Bicycles”, which incorporated many of the features that characterize the bicycles that we use today in the early 21^st Century.

Back in the 1890s roads were unpaved and there was a clear need to pave as many roads as possible so bicyclists could get around comfortably and efficiently. That was the mission of the League of American Wheelmen [L.A.W.] with over 102,000 members, including the Wright Brothers, Diamond Jim Brady, and John D Rockefeller!

Imagine the excitement at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 when all the great inventors [electricity, mechanics, aeronautics, steam power, [add more] and craftsmen had another “get together” to contemplate the next step in vehicles . . . the “automobile”?

NOTE: Study the Philosophy of Charles White.

WAKE-UP It’s already nearing Halloween and this story hasn’t been published. Here’s the up-to-date research as of October 23, 2011. Over two months since we started this article the code word for it is TRANS-CON

Remembering 1900 the L.A.W. took a dramatic cultural hit when everybody leapfrogged to the motor car. They didn’t have one but they wanted [wish wished-for] one. The numbers off the L.A.W. began a precipitous decline in the late 1890s. By the year 1900 the Automobile Club of Southern California and established the model for the AAA of today.

Cyclists have been a defensive divisive bunch ever since then. We say Cyclists Unite! And a shameless plug for “Better Living through Global Cycling”

I have already, on numerous occasions wrote that IMO the LAW L.A.W. should be the party opposing the TEA party. LAW party vs. TEA party has a nice ring about it!