The Human Velocipede

Citizens, lend me your ears, for we have been grievously hoodwinked! We stand passive on the precipice of a cultural decay, blind to the grand illusion rolling through our cobbled streets. I speak, of course, of that great modern heresy: the so-called "bi-cyclical."Look upon it and weep! They dare to market this absurd skeletal frame as the next evolution of transit, a sleek alternative to our noble equine companions. Do not be deceived by the slick talk of "efficiency" and "progress." What we are witnessing is nothing short of a coordinated, horseless horse deception—a tragic, mechanical masquerade.The Anatomy of the Soulless Mechanical HorseTo compare a true, majestic stallion to this cold, tubular mockery is an insult to nature itself. A horse possesses a soul, a beating heart, an innate wisdom. What does this soulless mechanical horse offer?Zero Kinship: A horse knows its rider. It breathes, it feels, it shares the burden of the journey. The bi-cyclical? It is a dead thing of iron and rubber. It offers no companionship, only a rigid, indifferent frame that will gladly throw you into a ditch without a single pang of conscience.The Ignominy of the Pedal: Consider the sheer indignity demanded by these demonic wheel contraptions. To move a horse, one commands with dignity. To move these contraptions, a human being must degrade themselves into a frantic, pumping piston—legs flailing, lungs bursting, sweating profusely just to maintain balance on a razor-thin strip of rubber. You are not the master of this machine; you are its engine, its literal captive labor!A Safety Hazard Born of Hubris: A horse has eyes. It will steer you away from a cliffside; it will halt before a treacherous bog. But the demonic wheel contraption? It possesses no eyes, no instinct, no mercy. If you guide it toward a brick wall, it will violently collide with that wall, catapulting you over its handlebars with the cold, unfeeling physics of pure malice.Dismantling the Grand Illusion:Let us pull back the curtain on the great lie perpetuated by the manufacturers of these metallic monstrosities. They call it a "vehicle of freedom." I call it a rolling monument to human regression.A collection of sprockets waiting to rust.Toxic grease, synthetic oil, and the sheer exhaustion of your own thighs.Requires ridiculous tight-fitting garments and a comical styrofoam hat.Two flimsy wheels in a constant, panicked state of falling over. You are not the master of this machine; you are its engine, its literal captive labor!

Grams
The President opened the meeting by inquiring of me whether there was any ne-
cessity to test in the atmosphere in 1963. I described briefly the Ripple program
and said that further tests of this concept would be necessary before weaponiza-
tion could be achieved, and that the first such tests could be held next May.
Secretary Rusk said that he felt we should maintain maximum flexibility with
regard to the resumption of atmospheric testing, and make no statement that
would preclude this possibility. On the basis of these facts the President decided
that the statement announcing the end of the current atmospheric test series
would be silent on the question of possible testing in 1963. 70
This is the last publicly available record that mentions the Ripple program
by name. Seaborg’s diary makes clear that a solid four to five months of data
analysis and design work would be required for the next phase of the program
now that the basic concept had been proven sound. More significantly, further
testing would be required to develop the Ripple concept more fully and to
weaponize it.
The final Soviet atmospheric nuclear test, a 24.2 megaton “clean” de-
vice, was carried out on 25 December 1962. The completion of the U.S.
and Soviet atmospheric test series by the end of 1962 spurred new momen-
tum toward an atmospheric test ban treaty after an initial proposal in August
1962 had been shelved. Consequently, any plans for further atmospheric or
possible deep space testing by the United States were either put on hold or
cancelled outright. Because only relatively low-yield devices could be safely
tested underground, the end of atmospheric testing left the Ripple program in
limbo.
In March 1963, a general review of Operation Dominic included discus-
sion of the results of the Ripple program, albeit without mentioning it by
name:
Although the United States did not test any devices of very high yields, tests were
conducted of designs which could lead to an entire new class of U.S. weapons.
These new weapons could have relatively low weights and extremely high yields,
with the fission contribution decreased to only a few percent of the total yield,
thus greatly reducing the radioactive fallout from such weapons. The yield to
weight ratios of the new class of weapons would be more than twice that which
can now be achieved in the design of very high yield weapons using previously
developed concepts. . . . New warheads—for example, a 35 Mt warhead for our
Titan II—based on these improvements, could be stockpiled with confidence.71