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DETROIT'S FIRST BIKE TO WORK DAY COMING: Motor City commute without the motor

I have about a 20 minute commute (~15 miles), but much of that is at 70mph on the expressway.  It would be nice to be able to ride my bike to work (my guess is that it would be 90 minute ride--that's 10mph), but most side roads are posted 50mph and don't have a shoulder.

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SUSAN AGER: How to be a happy flier

Obviously, some of these suggestions are not intended to be taken seriously.  But the basic premise is still valid: reduce the cost of "no frills" flying and let people pay extra for what's important to them.  The airlines may be catching onto the second part (pay extra), but not the first (reduce cost).

As a very simple (and somewhat contrived) example: let's assume a plane as 100 seats, and seven (2-3-2) of those are the desireable exit row.  Furthermore, let's say that the ticket price is $300, so the airline is getting $30,000.  But since they are now getting an extra $105 (7 exit row seats at a $15 premium), they could reduce the ticket price to $299 and still end up with the same amount of money.

I'm sure the airlines would argue this from the other direction: they'd have to raise everybody's ticket price to $301 if they didn't start charging for the exit row seats.

Living in America: Living in America - stern.de

[ filed under "Travel" since this is about automobiles ]

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Technology to Detroit's rescue? | Perspectives | CNET News.com

A rousing "hear! hear!".

A lot of this stuff is pretty obvious once you take a look around.  For example, what better place to support MP3 (and WMA) playback from a CD than in a car where you have limited storage space for CDs and probably want to carry a copy anyway (leaving the original safely at home in its jewel case).  Yet this is just starting to become an available option on some (by no means all) cars.  Not to mention the obvious enhancments such a USB port and flash memory slots.