Steve Blank:

One of Tesla features is a $2,250 “smart air suspension” option that automatically lowers the car at highway speeds for better mileage and stability. Over a period of 5 weeks, three Tesla Model S cars had caught fire after severe accidents – two of them apparently from running over road debris that may have punctured the battery pack that made up the floor pan of the car. After the car fires Tesla pushed a software release out to its users. While the release notice highlighted new features in the release, nowhere did it describe that Tesla had unilaterally disabled a key part of the smart air suspension feature customers had purchased.
 
 Only after most of Telsa customers installed the downgrade did Tesla’s CEO admit in a blog post, “…we have rolled out an over-the-air update to the air suspension that will result in greater ground clearance at highway speed.”
 Translation – we disabled one of the features you thought you bought. (The CEO went on to say that another software update in January will give drivers back control of the feature.) The explanation of the nearly overnight removal of this feature was vague “…reducing the chances of underbody impact damage, not improving safety.” If it wasn’t about safety, why wasn’t it offered as a user-selected option? One could only guess the no notice and immediacy of the release had to do with the National Highway Safety Administration investigation of the Tesla Model S car fires.

via Steven Sinofsky.

A recent Prius taxi ride offered a bit of data on fuel efficiency, durability and cost of ownership.

The kind driver mentioned that the Prius had 277,000 miles on it. “We replace the battery pack at 150,000 miles. They are expensive, about $5,000.00. “We average at least 41mpg and drive them hard. One Prius in our fleet has 350,000 miles on it. They cost about $28,000 new.”

It occurs to me that a diesel Golf, Jetta or Passat might be a better deal economically. I wonder if someone has done the math?

The Prius is certainly an interesting car and marketing initiative, but I do find them somewhat less “solid” than others.

A recent Asymcar podcast questioned why fleet owners have been slow to adopt non-traditional power systems.

Finally, I am constantly amazed at the places I find iPad apps used for line of business functions. The iOS wave continues to grow.

Cruising at 35,000′ (10,668m), halfway into our eight hour journey, my finally, I think I am asleep slumber was interrupted by turbulence.

A flight attendant then began asking a passenger across the aisle to “get up”, “get up”, “Sir you must take your seat. The captain has illuminated the seat belt sign”.

I glanced to my right and was astonished to see a tall man lying on the floor, from one end of the 777’s bulkhead to another.

The flight attendant attempted to lift the passenger, without success. “OK, I will have to call the Captain“.

A number of flight attendants quickly congregated just in front of my somewhat cozy exit row seat. A large first aid suitcase appeared along with a defibrillator.

The lead flight attendant sought assistance: “Ladies & gentlemen, we have a medical situation and are looking for a doctor. Please ring your call button and we will find you.”

Two physicians appeared. The seasoned flight attendant asked for ID. The first doctor – well tanned from a vacation – said he did not carry a card. The flight attendant asked where he practiced and if he knew Dr. _____________. “He’s an opthamologist, right?”. “Yes, ok, you’re a doctor”.

The second doctor was an Army captain on his way to Afghanistan.

Three nurses appeared as well.

They quickly went to work, checking the sedate man’s vitals including his pulse, blood pressure and temperature.

More communication with the Captain.

The passenger and his wife spoke little English.

The medical volunteers decided to check next for diabetes. “Does anyone on board have a diabetes monitor?” (I have likely erred in the name of this device).

Two passengers appeared with their devices….

The medical team and flight crew were making little progress talking with the man’s wife. Soon, the lead flight attendant sought another volunteer “Does anyone on board speak Czech?”

The odds were loooooooooong, I thought, now standing to give the passenger assistance crowd more space.

Yes! A young Czech woman appeared. Communication happened. What were the odds?

90 minutes of flying time remained. The passenger was stable. We continued to jet east, seeking a sunrise.

More conversation with the Captain. We seemed to accelerate a bit. There would be no circling. Landing was prompt and foggy. I don’t recall such a direct approach on any previous flight.

All passengers were asked to stay seated while the paramedics walked on board and attended to the patient.

Remarkably, he walked off the plane with them….

I fondly recall this event as a wonderful example of human to human kindness. I did not observe any passenger grumbling, rather I enjoyed plenty of grace that recent night, at 35,000 feet.

Farhad Manjoo:

I believe the children aren’t our future. Teach them well, but when it comes to determining the next big thing in tech, let’s not fall victim to the ridiculous idea that they lead the way.
 
 Yes, I’m talking about Snapchat.
 
 Last week my colleagues reported that Facebook recently offered $3 billion to acquire the company behind the hyper-popular messaging app. Stunningly, Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, rebuffed the offer.

Pew Internet:

Two-thirds of online American adults (67%) are Facebook users, making Facebook the dominant social networking site in this country.1 And new findings from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project indicate there is considerable fluidity in the Facebook user population:
 
 61% of current Facebook users say that at one time or another in the past they have voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more.
 
 20% of the online adults who do not currently use Facebook say they once used the site but no longer do so.
 
 8% of online adults who do not currently use Facebook are interested in becoming Facebook users in the future.

Seth Godin:

Engaging in the middle of a tantrum does two things: it rewards the tantrum by giving it your attention, and it makes it likely that you’ll get caught up, and say or do something that, in the mind of the tantrum-thrower, justifies the tantrum. That’s the fuel the tantrum is looking for–we throw tantrums, hoping people will throw them back.
 
 When you have valuable employees or customers (or kids) who throw tantrums, that might be a sign that there’s something wrong with your systems. The most basic way to decrease tantrums is to find the trigger moments and catch the tantrum before it starts. By creating a way for people to raise their hand, send a note, light a signal flare or otherwise highlight the problem (internal or external) before it leads to a tantrum, you can shortcircuit the meltdown without rewarding it.

asymcar.com:

The Transportationist, David Levinson (@trnsprttnst) joins us to discuss the technical, human, environmental and economic factors driving change to the auto-ecosystem.

Tap or click for a larger version.

Anthony Crupi:

Call it déjà view.

With three weeks of Nielsen data in the books, the 2013-14 broadcast TV season is shaping up to be a carbon copy of last year’s campaign. Ratings are effectively flat versus the first three weeks of last season, and the trends that have stymied networks for years (a rapidly aging audience, commercial avoidance) show no sign of reversing field.

For the period spanning Sept. 23-Oct. 13, overall deliveries are up a smidgen (8.17 million viewers versus 8.13 million in the year-ago period), while the average rating for adults 18-49 is flat at a 2.3. As was the case a year ago, NBC is in first place among live-same-day deliveries, averaging a 2.9 in the demo, while CBS and ABC are tied with a 2.1. Bringing up the rear is Fox (1.9).

As stable as the early ratings have been, the age discrepancy between now and 12 months ago is a bit disconcerting. But for ABC, every network has aged up a bit versus the year-ago period, bringing the average broadcast viewer to a ripe old 53.9 years. In other words, nearly half of those watching network television have aged out of the 25-54 demo.

With a median age of 58.2 years, CBS remains the oldest-skewing of the Big Four. No fewer than 10 CBS programs—NCIS, Blue Bloods, Hawaii Five-0, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, Undercover Boss, The Mentalist, Person of Interest, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours—deliver a median age of 60 years and up, and the Friday night cop show Blue Bloods is the grayest of all (62.6).

Jordan Weissman:

Has the United States passed peak car? It’s one of the more tantalizing questions that energy and urban-planning nerds are pondering these days. Ever since the recession, Americans have been driving less, getting fewer licenses, and using less gas. But is that just the work of the recession, or something more permanent?
 
 Over the past several months, Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute has released a series of short papers chipping away at the peak-car issue. They don’t give us a definitive answer. But his findings, collected in a third study released this week, do a marvelous job illustrating the post-bubble decline of car buying, driving, and fuel consumption in the U.S. Here are what I think are his most interesting take-aways.

Via Steven Sinofsky.