New York Uber Uber

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Score one more for government control, corruption, and general silliness. New York’s TLC threw down the glove a while ago on the “Uber” application which allows taxi and “black car” drivers to arrange rides over the Internet. This isn’t the first time TLC has acted all crazy and stuff. Wait, wrong TLC. Oh well — the sentence two previous to this one applies even without the link.

You can’t fight City Hall — after all, this is the same commission which magically decided to replace every taxi in New York with Japanese minivans assembled in Mexico that didn’t actually exist at the time of the decision, and nobody said nothing, yo. No surprise, then, that Uber is leaving Gotham like Batman riding that bomb out to the ocean in the last Dark Knight film.

Sorry for spoiling the film for you, if you haven’t seen it. However, it turns out that Batman wasn’t on the plane. He actually checked some code into Wayne Enterprises’ subversion or ClearCase or whatever that fixed the autopilot, and he’s hanging out in Italy with Anne Hathaway. Because he totally had a bunch of time to code while he was busy saving the world. I want to believe that the autopilot was written in GNU C++, by the way. But anyway, he isn’t dead.

Oh, damn. Now I’m really sorry. Also, the chick in the Crying Game was a man. And Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze. I have to stop doing this. DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER AND ALSO LEIA IS HIS SISTER SO WHAT WAS THAT WHOLE KISS ABOUT WHEN HE CAME OUT OF THE WEIRD HEALING TANK OOOOH?

Where were we? Yes. Uber. According to The Verge, Uber asked everybody to come in for their checks this month — and hand in your phone while you’re at it, please. This shutdown only applies to Ubertaxi: the “Black Car” service is still up. For now. But probably not for long. Because Uber is the smartphone app the city deserves, but not the one it needs right now.


Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Dolorean Dolorean on Oct 17, 2012

    Seems to me this is the free market working as it should. Oh, I know, its this bright and shiny Utopia that perfectly defines working economics. The reality is Greed, as some who work on Wall Street and comment on TTAC have alluded to, being a very fickle mistress who likes things they way they are and can become violently reactionary when it comes to change. These fortunates rig the system so it continues to work for them at the expense of the masses standing in the rain, hoping for a yellow cab to stop and take them uptown.

    • See 2 previous
    • Golden2husky Golden2husky on Oct 19, 2012

      @CelticPete .....Trains are out of the question. The wall streeter either drives their private vehicle or has a driver of their private vehicle..... Not necessarily true. Plenty of Wall street types take the Long Island Rail Road or the Metro North Rail Road. There the ones with the fancy cars in the RR parking lot or they have a "station" car...usually nothing in the middle...and most are on a 4:30 train going home...

  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Oct 18, 2012

    "Sorry for spoiling the film for you, if you haven’t seen it" Hmmm. I seem to recall a friend who told me he was Tivo'ing the race when I texted him that the problem with Dario Franchitti winning the Indy 500 was having to watch Ashley Judd hog camera time.

  • GregLocock That's a bodge, not a solution. Your diff now has bits of broken off metal floating around in it.
  • The Oracle Well, we’re 3-4 years in with the Telluride and right around the time the long term durability issues start to really take hold. This is sad.
  • CoastieLenn No idea why, but nothing about a 4Runner excites me post-2004. To me, they're peak "try-hard", even above the Wrangler and Gladiator.
  • AZFelix A well earned anniversary.Can they also attend to the Mach-E?
  • Jalop1991 The intermediate shaft and right front driveshaft may not be fully engaged due to suspected improper assembly by the supplier. Over time, partial engagement can cause damage to the intermediate shaft splines. Damaged shaft splines may result in unintended vehicle movement while in Park if the parking brake is not engagedGee, my Chrysler van automatically engages the parking brake when we put it in Park. Do you mean to tell me that the idjits at Kia, and the idjit buyers, couldn't figure out wanting this in THEIR MOST EXPENSIVE VEHICLE????
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