"Computers are like bicycles for the mind"

       Steve Jobs said that.  Recently I had the  chance to see the "lost interview" with Steve Jobs and he talked about how he reached that conclusion.  In his early days he read an article in Scientific American which compared the moving efficiency of many species of animals.   The authors considered the speed, distance traveled and calorie usage of elephants, cheetahs, horses, dogs, etc.  The most efficient by far was the North American Condor(not too surprising since they soar practically motionless for miles and miles) they blew every other species away for efficiency in travel.  Humans were dismal, until they were tested with one of their tools, a bicycle.  Human efficiency on a bicycle overwhelms every other species including the condor.

 Jobs' point was that man has always extended his abilities with tools and the computer is simply an extension of the mind like the bicycle is of the body.  They used it as the tag line in an Apple II advertisement.
    Now the internet has extended the computer from being an electric filing cabinet with a calculator attached to the tremendous communication device we are refining today.  Will our growing environmental conscience and petro-chemical expense create similar growth for cycling?  We are in desperate need for a more efficient form of urban transportation, we all know it.  As Steve Jobs noted and Scientific American documented, the bicycle is a more efficient form.  I think attitudes may be changing a great deal.  As I have mentioned, most people my age think of cycling as a last resort, a demeaning lifestyle.   When I talk to teenagers and college students who see me riding everywhere, they just think "cool,"  They are still enamored with cars and feel the need for the social validity which driving provides, but I think they will get over it much sooner than their parents.  The next generation is green to the core.  They place environmental issues at the top of every consideration they make.  Most that I talk to are sick and tired of the preoccupation the world has with oil.  They are looking for a machine which uses biodegradable fuel, processes the fuel completely without carbon emissions, has self diagnostics, adjusts it's average output to meet it's characteristic use and requires little or no maintenance.  When they look closely in the mirror they will find a way to replace 90% of their auto usage.