Should have been around in the ‘60s, when the 1945 fluoridation project in G.R. was still producing angry letters to the editor (yes, the old ‘pinko plot to subvert our natural bodily fluids’) and the 1969 installation of Calder’s La Grande Vitesse (thank you, NEA!) stabile was inciting the locals to hurl bricks through organizers’ picture windows because it was – RED.
So it’s no wonder unions were seen as unholy alliances of atheists and anarchist wobblies…but everyone hoped to get a job at the (GM) Fisher Body plant.
(Nothing to do with unions, but a great snapshot of West Michigan hobbits – aka white conservative xians – in the '50s-'60s: TV was the latest tool of the devil, so you didn’t want anyone to know you owned one… The solution? Mount your rooftop antenna in the attic. lol)
If I were a benevolent genius coder I’d release an open source app for any community to roll their own car dispatch. I imagine without dreams to make billions & take over the world, running one would be quite easy and low overhead. A few sliders to tweak the algorithms and not much more.
It’s sad, the basic idea of Uber was genius, I always though it ridiculous that a good chunk of your fare in a NYC cab you were lucky to flag down went to pay a million dollar mortgage on the medallion.
My mom’s side of the family grew up mostly in the rural areas around Midland, moving around a bit for farm and/or restaurant work. Some of this sounds awfully familiar even for those areas.
