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.

  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
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