Electric Scooter
The electric scooter represents perhaps the most democratised form of motorised transport in human history. Available for purchase at electronics retailers worldwide, requiring no licence, minimal training, and approximately four hundred pounds sterling, the scooter invites universal participation. Rental schemes have placed scooters on street corners across every major metropolis, accessible to anyone possessing a smartphone and functional balance.
The barriers to scooter usage are refreshingly modest: sufficient coordination, adequate weather, and a willingness to accept judgmental glances from motorists. Children can operate them; pensioners have adopted them; and everyone in between has opinions about them.
Area 51
Area 51 maintains what can only be described as aggressive inaccessibility. The installation sits within the Nevada Test and Training Range, itself within the Nellis Air Force Base Complex. Warning signs promise prosecution; sensors detect approach from considerable distances; and armed security personnel patrol perimeters with notable dedication. Even the airspace above is restricted—commercial aircraft must detour around the invisible boundaries.
The US government denied the facility's existence until 2013, when CIA documents finally acknowledged it. Employees reportedly travel via unmarked aircraft from Las Vegas. Freedom of Information requests return heavily redacted documents. The facility's inaccessibility is not merely physical but ontological—designed to make citizens question what they think they know.