$30 plug-and-play kit converts a Bird scooter into a "personal scooter"

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/08/flipping-a-bird.html

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Are you suggesting that this conversion kit is something other than the advertised “Dashboard Cover Replacement”? /s

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That link in the first paragraph seems to have eaten most of the text too…

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Cory, your copy editor was sleeping on the job. Is this a grammatically correct sentence?

When scooter companies like Bird started the street value of the components to be found within each of these VC-backed ewaste-in-waiting devices, and tactics for hotwiring them.

You appear to be missing a comma and a verb there. Guess you overlooked them among the adjectives.

About the article, I knew it was just a matter of time before something like this would come along. I thought it would start with flatbed trucks from the Southern border and stolen credit cards.

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I’m surprised that a towing company even bothered to pick them up. Contract with the city?

“…the street finds its own uses for things”

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Will it work on the stupid green and yellow bikes everywhere in Seattle? Ummm asking for a friend…

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I was almost run over last night by one of those damn things. To hell with them.

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get the kit and you have a new hobby!

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curious i f there’s a way to boost the net connection…if it hasn’t been shutdown at the service provider.

hope to find this as a plotline in a future novel. :slight_smile:

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Bird’s business model isn’t new, we’ve seen it before:

Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
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“And now we have a 100 scooter connection to the Internet. Lets see them stop us now!”

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Point: People leave the things lying everywhere, there are careless scooter users, and they get flung into traffic on occasion.

Counterpoint: WHEEEEEEE!

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Will these people never learn the CueCat™ lesson?

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Yeah, the original discussion thread specifies that the person is buying them at impound yard auctions.

https://scootertalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=405

  1. VC funded silicon valley startup dumps a ton of scooters on the streets of a municipality without making any provision for putting in racks or pens to hold them.
  2. Municipality says something like “you are littering, stop it,” and confiscates the scooters.
  3. Startup shrugs its shoulders and walks away, leaving the city with the bill for dealing with all those e-waste scooters.
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Obligatory link:

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If the city has declared them trash, a tow company is impounding them, and the scooter company has walked away, I’d be tempted to skip the middle man and grab one myself. (After disabling the position reporting.)

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On second thought…

Scooter-sharing company Lime recently relayed a troubling messaging to its users: a portion of its fleet was at risk of bursting into flames.

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How about billing the venture capitalists directly for the clean up. I know that would just enrich a bunch of lawyers but one should not be able to ditch their responsibilities for enabling this by just saying the startup has all liabilities.

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Someone has been drinking too much cyber koolaid to think quadcopters can be built out of the motors in these things. But when they do, and they fall out of the sky, the lawyers will make a killing.

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I’m still confused as to can I legally take one of these things and throw it in the garbage as litter?

Seriously though: how can a companies business model be to leave its sh!!!t all over a city on the sidewalk? How would that not be considered abandonment in every way?

Wondering.

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