MemeMachineGo!

This New Yorker article on commuting discusses “extreme commuting” — people driving upwards of 6-hour round-trips daily — and other enormities. I didn’t know the etymology of “commuter”:

The term “commute” derives from its original meaning of “to change to another less severe.” In the eighteen-forties, the men who rode the railways each day from newly established suburbs to work in the cities did so at a reduced rate. The railroad, in other words, commuted their fares, in exchange for reliable ridership (as it still does, if you consider the monthly pass). In time, the commuted became commuters.