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Those huge blimps – like the famous Hindenburg zeppelin that burned when it was landing in New Jersey in 1937 – are flying again; this time around San Francisco Bay. Of course, the new ones are filled with helium, not hydrogen, and thus are not flammable. The news ships are technical wonders, and the views are spectacular.

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A survivor described the quake as like the waves of the ocean, but swift and choppy, with a grinding noise like an enormous train. Wooden buildings crashed down, cable car tracks collapsed, and streets caved in. The gas mains burst and fires broke out and raged for four days, destroying 500 city blocks and killing more people than the quake itself, perhaps as many as 20,000.

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Shai Agassi — brilliant software engineer and entrepreneur — recently founded Better Place, a company developing an infrastructure of electric vehicle charging and battery exchange stations. If successful, Better Place would make electric vehicles convenient and extremely useful. Will it succeed?

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A few forces of nature.