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and North America more than 15 percent.

Nice tactful way to say "Mexico", guys...

Yup. North America contains the United States and Mexico. We're certainly not forgetting anyone, eh?

I have to dispute his number. According to the BTS the total number of paying customers for US carriers in 2004 was 655,115,981. I doubt 100% of these people are business flyers and I also doubt 100% of those would use a cellphone in a flight. Those that do wouldn't be on the phone the whole flight so I'd say they pulled the "billions of hours" number out of the statisical ether.

Are the power to weight ratios comparable to current internal combustion engines?

You probably mean the external combustion engine, also known as the jet engine. Only small airplanes use pistons and such. And the answer is: of course not. This is yet another PR stunt aimed at the Gasoline Is Eeeeeeevil ninnies of the world who failed freshman chemistry.

If not, what about fuel cell powered dirigibles?

I don't think the problem with dirigibles is how to power them. I think the problem is that there's just about zero demand for a transport service that's about as slow as a ship or train but neither as efficient nor as reliable.

A big cargo ship carrying 70,000 tons of cargo can cruise at 15 knots with its 50,000 HP engines running at 80%. The EPA helpfully estimates big marine engine fuel consumption as about 250 grams per kilowatt-hour, which lets you work out that a cargo ship consumes about 4 grams of fuel per ton of cargo per kilometer traveled.

Four locomotives pulling a hundred-car freight train at 60-80 MPH, with each car carrying 100 tons of cargo, will burn about 7.5 gallons each per mile. That works out to 7 grams of fuel per ton of cargo per kilometer traveled.

There's no way any vehicle that flies can ever come close to that kind of fuel efficiency. So who would want cargo delivery that's just as slow, but much more expensive?

If you want to see a city where cars are in control, go to LA. Jaywalking will get you much more than a $20 fine there, it will probably get you killed.

I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. If we look at the statistics we see that depending on what year you look at, New York is either far and away higher than California, or just a touch lower.

My understanding is that in the city of Los Angeles, anywhere but the freeway, pedestrians have the right of way, any time, any place. This is definitely true in the city of Santa Cruz, from whence I come, but the population's not all that high there so it's not very exciting.

Note that even if you have the right-of-way, crossing anywhere but where you are supposed to is still jaywalking and can come with a fine. Also note that ANYWHERE in the state of California, pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way in a crosswalk, MARKED OR NOT. That means if a pedestrian is crossing from corner to corner, you are required to stop whether there is a marked crosswalk there or not. Furthermore, California state law prevents crossing a crosswalk while there is a pedestrian anywhere in it, although that is seldom enforced.

normal car: avg 22% [1]
new car: max 30% [1]

fossil fuel power plant: up to 40% [2]
transmission loss: 7.2% [3]
ideal loss in charging a capacitor is 0% [4]
electric motor efficiency: 90% (commonly quoted, too lazy to find good reference right now)
final total: (40*(1-.072)*(0.9) = 33.4%

How much fuel? A bit less. Also less weight to carry. Also power that comes from solar, wind, or nukes.

5 minutes of google searching: priceless

--------
1. http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transport ation_statistics/2005/html/table_04_23.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_pla nt
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transm ission#Losses
4. http://www.smpstech.com/charge.htm#SOLVABILITY

6.28 mishandled bags per 1000 passengers.

http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2006/dot083_06/h tml/dot083_06.html

Thats mishandled, not lost.

When I see articles about software development groups happy to get 10bugs/KLOC, baggage handlers aren't doing bad :-)

Alright, I'm really tired of this "cell phones as bad as being drunk." Does being on a cell phone distract you sometimes? Absolutely. Does it also help you stay awake on long drives? You bet. But what impact is it actually having on accidents?

I think most people would agree (and yes, I'm making presumptions based on my own experiences and those I know) that they are able to identify more individuals who are obviously driving while on a cell phone (via visual inspection) than individuals who are obviously impared by alcohol (from swerving or some such). I would make the educated guess that this means that there are more cell phone drivers out there than drunks. Now, considering how many accidents are alcohol related (I've heard around 50% but even 10% is enough to make my point), one would expect a very, very sharp rise in the number of accidents as cell phones became popular in the last few years.

Of course, nothing like this has happenned. If you do not believe me (and also as a good Karma whoring measure) check out US Bureau of Transportation Statistics Report. I cannot extract any sudden rise from those numbers, or any significant average rise whatsoever (apart from the obvious increase corresponding to population increase in the last 15 years).

I'm pretty sure if cell phones were as bad as drunk driving, hundreds of thousands more people would be dead now, and they would be banned.

I drove 30,000 miles last year without a single accident.

Uhhh... is this cause for celebration? Seriously, 30,000 miles without an accident isn't much of an accomplishment. The U.S. accident rate is somewhere around 450,000 vehicle miles per accident (source).

> You also forgot to mention that over 40,000 people die on North American roads every single day

Year.

I mean, golly. Think.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transport ation_statistics/2005/html/table_02_01.html

Look at some of the work done by the company called( formerly called ) Rosen Motors...

http://ntl.bts.gov/card_view.cfm?docid=9775

They put a flywheel and a turbine in a Saturn back in 1996 IIRC. They used electric motors to move the vehicle IIRC and pulled energy stored in the flywheel when needed.

LoB

You define "winning" the commercialization of space based on how many space tourists countries have put in orbit? That is a little odd, particularly when you consider that Russia puts tourists in orbit to make money, whereas the US has the capability to do so but chooses not to as a matter of NASA policy (granted, even the "capability" has been limited in the wake of Columbia - but do you doubt that if the US had a change of policy and wanted to start putting tourists in orbit they couldn't?

I suggest that a much better measure of "commercial success" would be the number of commercial launches

Ok, about 40% of vehicle fatalities are alcohol related...which in 2003 was around 17,000 fatalities(http://www.bts.gov/publications/nationa l_transportation_statistics/2005/html/table_02_25. html). That's still 8.5 times what we have lost in Iraq. It could be argued that ALCOHOL is even more evil than Bush and should be targeted as the #1 threat to America. Coors field should be napalmed to hell, milwuakee...nuked, and don't forget the microbreweries in the northwest...I'll handle those personally. (mmm...redhook blonde ale...oh baby)

You can just imagine them changing the taxes so you are taxed more the more you drive.

We are taxed the more we drive... for each mile, I consume fuel, the cost of which is more than 75% tax in the UK. In fact, the UK government charge VAT (=~ value added tax, i.e. sales tax at the point of sale) on top of the excise duty already charged on the fuel, which means that the cost of the VAT is more than the actual value of the fuel!

Stats sources:
http://www.see-search.com/business/fuelandpetrolpr iceseurope.htm
http://www.bts.gov/publications/journal_of_transpo rtation_and_statistics/volume_04_number_01/paper_0 6/html/table11.html
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/

US airlines move about 600 million passengers around the US every year. (source)

Long haul trains move far less, but it is concievable that eventually rockets could be as common as aircraft are now.

Someone didn't get their naptime today....

The info from the monorail FEIS site (based on measurements of the Walt Disney World monorail) indicates that the monorail (at 40 mph) is a bit quieter than "rail transit" (at 50 mph) - the specifics aren't very clear and I don't know if they're comparing apples to apples (the technical appendix doesn't seem to clear things up). On the other hand, FTA says that monorails are about the same, or a bit louder than LRT - this info is based on a survey of several systems (and peer reviewed).

Best case: it's a wash. Worse case? Well compare the existing monorail to the Portland Max and decide for yourself.

The El isn't light rail - the El bears about as much relationship to modern light rail as the '64 impala does to the Prius.

And they say US schools are bad at teaching geography. What's YOUR excuse? The miles-to-kilometers conversion is too tough? What's your excuse for such a fundamental lack of economics knowledge? Here's my point.

I'm not at all worried about paying $4 per gallon, personally. What I am concerned about is the fact that something like 90% of our economy does business by diesel truck. The US does not have rail infrastructure capacity to replace those trucks. If I can't afford gas, I'll carpool. Hey Mr. $2 per litre, what's your next brilliant bit of genius? Suggest truck drivers start to car pool? And they say US schools suck?

So if this 200% increase in our gasoline prices create a significant dent in our GDP, that will create a significant dent in our federal tax revenue at a crucial point in history where we NEED to invest huge sums into rail and mass transit infrastructure. We have wastelands bigger than France, Germany, or Spain. We're not talking about some quaint little train system for Delaware.

Here's a list of densely populated cities. Notice anything? Very few American cities there. I've never heard of the sub-1m population European cities, but I bet I could name a dozen US cities you've heard of that aren't on that list at all.

Yeah really, what are we whining about? It's just that our entire nation is ill-equipped for mass transportation, our entire economy depends on cheap gasoline, and our gas prices have doubled in the last year. Fuck all, why don't you just burn down your schools? If you're any indication of average, you're clearly not doing you any good.

Enough with the people who don't get scale, ok?

Your average 100hp car, motorbike, whatever, puts out about 75,000W - 75kW. This is at an efficiency of maybe 25% if you are lucky. So there's 300kW of power right there - so you can blow through a lot of juice on that little car of yours.

Now, my poison of choice is turbocharged 4 bangers that make about 300hp, give or take how it's feeling on any one day. 300hp at a 25% efficiency figure, which is HIGH - is about 900kW, or almost a MEGAWATT of energy. I guess that's why I burn through gas so fast on lapping days!

Imagine what a 200hp SUV making a horrible 15% efficiency is sucking back there cruising down the highway, eh? How many cars are on the road? Now, for s*its and giggles, work out how many 1MW windmills you'd need to make up the energy consumption assuming a daily use a 1h for all 230,000,000 vehicles on the road in the USA in 2000.

(http://www.bts.gov/publications/transportation_st atistics_annual_report/2001/html/chapter_03.html)

This makes that piddly little 1kW supply - which, by the way, is probably operating near 80% efficiency - look piddly in comparison. It's almost a joke.

Similar figures work for things like air conditioning systems - just massive amounts of energy.

Energy is VERY cheap right now. It is imperative that we make use of that cheap energy to discover new ways to make more energy, before some very nasty problems appear in the next 20 years. Conservation is not an option anymore, nor are current forms of green power. We need something more like a miracle to fuel the economies into 2030 and beyond.

This is an example of misuse of economic statistics. Yes, real income has fallen, but since 1980 real disposable income is up 50% because real prices have fallen a lot faster than real wages, your examples notwithstanding.

People don't shop at Wal-Mart because they have to; we're a lot richer than we were just 25 years ago. People shop at Wal-Mart because they're cheap and convenient and we'd rather spend some of that vastly increased disposable income on other stuff... booze and hookers, in my case.

I'm glad I read thru your whole post before replying with a flame, as you initially seem to be anti-helmet.

I still disagree with what you wrote. Helmets do save lives. After Texas repealed it's helmet law in 1983, there was a 31% increase in fatalities. There are many other studies.

However, I do get what you are saying. ( I guess I agree with what you mean, just not the way you said it.) A helmet is not magical, and won't protect one from one's own stupidity.

I can understand the appeal of not wearing a helmet. I once took off on my bike and made it to the end of the block before realizing I had forgotten my helmet. I noticed because it really felt great! However, given the choice between feeling great and protecting my melon, I'll take the second.

Here's a study about the Effect of a weight-mile tax on the road damage in Oregon

It seems the damage depends on the weight per axle, not the total weight, just to complicate the weight-mile tax code; Soon we will be consulting road tax preparation pundits come road tax time :)

One document that came up easily mentions speed-limiters, but it seems they are only required for heavy vehicles. Further research seems to confirm that all vehicles over 12 metric tons require speed limiters in the EU.

This document is quite dated (1995!), but it seems speed limiters were suggested for all automobiles in the UK, but it was eventually dropped. I was not able to find very much at all about limiters for regular vehicles, so I would say they are not required over there.

This report from 2002 also mentions no other country requires them. (The US government does not, but allows the states to set more stringent regulations.) It also mentions the obvious argument for why: There are plenty of cars out there without the limiters: Imposing speed limiters on only new vehicles could encourage people to purchase "hot rod" style used vehicles, which would be less safe than standard new models.

As for the amount of energy to dispose of a car, my previous citation says

In all cases, they [MacLean and Lave] chose not to analyze environmental impacts from the recycling and disposal stage, because they agreed with earlier studies indicating that the environmental impacts of manufacture and use greatly outweighed those of disposal. They based their analysis on a 1990 Ford Taurus, assuming a vehicle lifetime of approximately 14 years and a fuel efficiency of 21.8 mpg.

I stand by my original observation that it's wrong to say that it costs more energy to replace a light truck with a hybrid car than it saves in using a hybrid car, but would still point out that that seems to me to be a straw man. In terms of actual choice when replacing a vehicle, then from an energy efficiency point of view, the hybrid wins. Whether it wins as compared to a high efficiency diesel is a moot point. As 9 million cars are replaced each year, along with 8 million trucks (SUVs & minivans are counted in this category), it seems that concentrating on halving the energy emissions of approximately 1/13th of the fleet would make a significant impact, along with encouraging end of life cars to be taken out of the economy slightly faster. When you consider that new cars are likely to be driven much higher mileages, then the figures look better still.

In short, it's not a magic bullet, but it's a good start.

Wrong. If actually read the article you posted, it states that American produces more CO2 per Capita than Canada. Canada does produce significantly more than most other countries, however it still is not close to the USA, with regards to emissions. Even per Capita it is .5 (although I think its more 5.2, while the US is at 5.7 or 5.5 I believe)difference (using your stats alone) is significant. Overall, this means a reduction is necessary by both to meet `standards`, a .1 per capita difference is more significant in a country with a larger population and significant emissions.

Also, CO2 tables clearly show the USA as being number 1 in all emissions tables. I could post more statistics or you could read your own. It disturbs me that you seem unable to assimilate the information you yourself find, but maybe this is a form of collective denial.

http://www.cnie.org/pop/intros/globalclimate2.htm
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/fa cts_and_figures/co2emissions_7.cfm
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transport ation_statistics/2003/html/table_04_49.html

Whats killing people today is not nuclear power. Its not using nuclear power thats killing people. Consider that a 2.7 mpg increase in the fuel efficiency of automobiles would eliminate the need for foreign oil. Considering that the average car has a fuel efficiency of about 22 mpg, and that oil accounts for about 7% of US energy production, if all the oil that was being used for electricity was nuclear instead, we would be independent of foreign oil. If that were the case, our interest in the Middle East would decline. Events like the first and second Iraqi war would not have occured. Instead, rabid environmentalists are causing people to be indirectly killed because of their failure to understand science and irrational fear of technologies that they don't control.

The importance of energy independence to national security cannot be underestimated.

Surely this is a troll, but I'll go anyway.

I'm always amazed by the sheer hubris that people display in assuming that their choice of car can affect anything so massive as a planet. Really, you are not that important.

Let's change that statement a bit to say "I'm always amazed by the sheer hubris that people display in assuming that their choice of candidate can affect anything so massive as a country. Really, you are not that important." That sounds pretty retarded, doesn't it.

Perhaps singly, you or I may not make much of a difference to the world. Between 1996 and 2001, there were an average of ~8.5 million new cars sold each year. And that is just in the US and only includes passenger cars! That means people made that inconsequential decision on low emission car or high consumption SUV about 42.5 million times over those five years, and once again that's just the US.

Assuming that because *I* am a single person I have no responsibility to the environment whatsoever because my choices couldn't possibly make a difference is selfish, delusional and part of the reason we have the problem we have now. Would you tell someone that their vote doesn't matter (carping about parties and electoral colleges aside), and therefore they might as well just skip it all together? It's about more than you, it's about everybody making responsible choices.

Despite a great deal of outlandish claims from many people, there's no particular evidence to suggest that humanity is having a significant impact on the planet. Claiming that we have the capability to make any kind of significant impression on something so huge and ancient is self-delusion in extremes. At most, we could wipe *ourselves* out, but the planet wouldn't care; extinction of a species is quite normal for it.

Well, to that I might remind you that homo sapiens are the only species that sets things on fire, on purpose. That fact alone should demonstrate that people have a slightly different impact in their environment than most other animals. If you don't want to listen to the "outlandish claims" of the majority of environmental scientists that the environment is changing due to our actions, let's reflect on some of the things we know we do. The fact is that we DO have signifigant impressions on the world. When it is a positive certainty that our SO2 and NOx emissions cause acid rain locally and regionally that can disrupt ecosystems and destroy forests, how much of a stretch is it to be concerned with the effects of other human sourced gas emissions.

Changing the environment, that's what we do, it's how we live. Since 1600, there have been 584 species presummed extinct just in the US, suggesting a 7,000 fold increasein the rate of extinctions since the industrial revolution. It's pretty hard to deny a connection to human activity with numbers like that, and I'd say that's a pretty signifigant impression on the world. I, for one, don't particularly care to join the other animals we have already pushed out of existence.

At present, only really careful archaeology would be able to find any trace of us in a few million years time; that's barely noticable on geological timescales. The dinosaurs were more obvious. The assumption in the past few years that humanity is responsible for any changes it doesn't understand is quite pathetic.

I'm not really concerned with a few million years down the road right now. I'm more concerned with the immediate (next 100-1000 years) well being of our species. While correlation does not necessarily imply causation, at some point you have to begin to wonder. I think it's pretty irresponsbile to write off our activity here on the planet as benign when we already have evidence that we

Sadly, they don't have enough manpower because they're too busy trying to make money off of people driving 5mph over the speed limit. How about they get traffic cops to start working on real crimes?

Speeding is a real crime. If you're travelling at 35mph then an increase of 5mph (14.3%) will increase your braking distance by 30%. The distance travelled during your reaction time is also increased by 14% however the reaction and braking distances are in different scales so cannot be simply added together. At any rate, the combined stopping distance at 40mph is something in excess of 30% more than at 35mph. That could easily mean the difference between life and death.

The Great Lie of motoring is that 5mph isn't a big deal. It's not a real crime. Surely driver attention, skill level, quality of car, surface conditions, they all outweigh the dangers of speeding. I'm a better driver than everybody else; I should be allowed to speed. Cops should be arresting those Real Criminals instead of poor little old me when I was only exceeding the speed limit by 5mph in my 2500kg V8 4WD truck.

Anybody who seriously believes those arguments should have their license immediately revoked. You only have to look at real world case studies to see that speed reduction on USA highways was the major factor in 9000 fewer road deaths in 1974.

In 2002 the USA road toll exceeded 43,000 deaths. One-sixth of those deaths were solely due to unsafe driving speeds and speed was a contributing factor in more than one-half of the fatalities

Speeding is a crime because it results in deaths. It harms society. Not only because of the human cost (which is the most tragic loss) but also because of the wasted time and money spent cleaning the spilled blood off the roads.

So the message is clear: STOP SPEEDING.

You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2. Even if you assume that the global increase is due to industrial pollution, most environmentalist are quick to point straight to 1st World countries, and most specifically the United States of America.

If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support), you are also presuming that giant wastful SUVs are the largest component of the production of CO2 in the USA. Truth be told, all of the SUVs in the entire USA amount to less than 1% of the total CO2 production in the USA. OK, I'll try to back that up with some hard figures, but this is somewhat hard to come by.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics does have some interesting numbers to compare, that can give some hard values. Basically, all categories of SUVs combined account for about 49% of all trucks sold. Trucks only account for 42% of all new vehicles sold, giving you about 20% of all new vehicles sold by dealerships in the USA are SUVs. OK, a major portion of vehicles, and certainly you can see them driven around near you, but not the #1 source of pollution. I'll also tell you that a light pickup will put out just as much if nor more pollution than an SUV, so are you trying to get them banned as well? If you look at this page, car & truck pollution is hardly even the single source of air pollution either. I feel very confident that if you take into account mass transit systems, bulk goods shipment, energy production systems (like coal fired power plants), agriculture production equipment (tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps, etc.), industrial production equipment, and even other personal transportation equipment, you would find SUVs to be well less than 1% of all CO2 production in the USA. Statistically it is insignificant even if all SUVs were made illegal to use or own tomorrow.

Also, going back to the stats pages, The USA isn't even a majority of auto production It is barely even #1, with many interesting countries that are making significant gains for presumably domestic production, including China and Brazil.

The fact is that if the USA were to suddenly cease to exist (we all got in our rockets and went to Mars, or nuked ourselves in a Civil War when Bush and Kerry deadlock in the Presidential election), CO2 production will continue to grow, and grow substantially for the next century, and even make up for everything the USA is currently producing.

This is not even to mention that there may be other causes for global warming besides just CO2 production. Please think before you start throwing stats around, even if you think you are promoting a proper philosophy. I would agree that as individuals we can try to avoid messing up our environment. Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.

You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2. Even if you assume that the global increase is due to industrial pollution, most environmentalist are quick to point straight to 1st World countries, and most specifically the United States of America.

If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support), you are also presuming that giant wastful SUVs are the largest component of the production of CO2 in the USA. Truth be told, all of the SUVs in the entire USA amount to less than 1% of the total CO2 production in the USA. OK, I'll try to back that up with some hard figures, but this is somewhat hard to come by.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics does have some interesting numbers to compare, that can give some hard values. Basically, all categories of SUVs combined account for about 49% of all trucks sold. Trucks only account for 42% of all new vehicles sold, giving you about 20% of all new vehicles sold by dealerships in the USA are SUVs. OK, a major portion of vehicles, and certainly you can see them driven around near you, but not the #1 source of pollution. I'll also tell you that a light pickup will put out just as much if nor more pollution than an SUV, so are you trying to get them banned as well? If you look at this page, car & truck pollution is hardly even the single source of air pollution either. I feel very confident that if you take into account mass transit systems, bulk goods shipment, energy production systems (like coal fired power plants), agriculture production equipment (tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps, etc.), industrial production equipment, and even other personal transportation equipment, you would find SUVs to be well less than 1% of all CO2 production in the USA. Statistically it is insignificant even if all SUVs were made illegal to use or own tomorrow.

Also, going back to the stats pages, The USA isn't even a majority of auto production It is barely even #1, with many interesting countries that are making significant gains for presumably domestic production, including China and Brazil.

The fact is that if the USA were to suddenly cease to exist (we all got in our rockets and went to Mars, or nuked ourselves in a Civil War when Bush and Kerry deadlock in the Presidential election), CO2 production will continue to grow, and grow substantially for the next century, and even make up for everything the USA is currently producing.

This is not even to mention that there may be other causes for global warming besides just CO2 production. Please think before you start throwing stats around, even if you think you are promoting a proper philosophy. I would agree that as individuals we can try to avoid messing up our environment. Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.

You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2. Even if you assume that the global increase is due to industrial pollution, most environmentalist are quick to point straight to 1st World countries, and most specifically the United States of America.

If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support), you are also presuming that giant wastful SUVs are the largest component of the production of CO2 in the USA. Truth be told, all of the SUVs in the entire USA amount to less than 1% of the total CO2 production in the USA. OK, I'll try to back that up with some hard figures, but this is somewhat hard to come by.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics does have some interesting numbers to compare, that can give some hard values. Basically, all categories of SUVs combined account for about 49% of all trucks sold. Trucks only account for 42% of all new vehicles sold, giving you about 20% of all new vehicles sold by dealerships in the USA are SUVs. OK, a major portion of vehicles, and certainly you can see them driven around near you, but not the #1 source of pollution. I'll also tell you that a light pickup will put out just as much if nor more pollution than an SUV, so are you trying to get them banned as well? If you look at this page, car & truck pollution is hardly even the single source of air pollution either. I feel very confident that if you take into account mass transit systems, bulk goods shipment, energy production systems (like coal fired power plants), agriculture production equipment (tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps, etc.), industrial production equipment, and even other personal transportation equipment, you would find SUVs to be well less than 1% of all CO2 production in the USA. Statistically it is insignificant even if all SUVs were made illegal to use or own tomorrow.

Also, going back to the stats pages, The USA isn't even a majority of auto production It is barely even #1, with many interesting countries that are making significant gains for presumably domestic production, including China and Brazil.

The fact is that if the USA were to suddenly cease to exist (we all got in our rockets and went to Mars, or nuked ourselves in a Civil War when Bush and Kerry deadlock in the Presidential election), CO2 production will continue to grow, and grow substantially for the next century, and even make up for everything the USA is currently producing.

This is not even to mention that there may be other causes for global warming besides just CO2 production. Please think before you start throwing stats around, even if you think you are promoting a proper philosophy. I would agree that as individuals we can try to avoid messing up our environment. Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.

You are very quick to openly dismiss the potential for sources other than industrial pollution causing an increase in CO2. Even if you assume that the global increase is due to industrial pollution, most environmentalist are quick to point straight to 1st World countries, and most specifically the United States of America.

If you assume that the United States of America is directly responsible for the massive increase in CO2 in the atmosphere on a global scale (a bunch of ifs so far I don't support), you are also presuming that giant wastful SUVs are the largest component of the production of CO2 in the USA. Truth be told, all of the SUVs in the entire USA amount to less than 1% of the total CO2 production in the USA. OK, I'll try to back that up with some hard figures, but this is somewhat hard to come by.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics does have some interesting numbers to compare, that can give some hard values. Basically, all categories of SUVs combined account for about 49% of all trucks sold. Trucks only account for 42% of all new vehicles sold, giving you about 20% of all new vehicles sold by dealerships in the USA are SUVs. OK, a major portion of vehicles, and certainly you can see them driven around near you, but not the #1 source of pollution. I'll also tell you that a light pickup will put out just as much if nor more pollution than an SUV, so are you trying to get them banned as well? If you look at this page, car & truck pollution is hardly even the single source of air pollution either. I feel very confident that if you take into account mass transit systems, bulk goods shipment, energy production systems (like coal fired power plants), agriculture production equipment (tractors, harvesters, irrigation pumps, etc.), industrial production equipment, and even other personal transportation equipment, you would find SUVs to be well less than 1% of all CO2 production in the USA. Statistically it is insignificant even if all SUVs were made illegal to use or own tomorrow.

Also, going back to the stats pages, The USA isn't even a majority of auto production It is barely even #1, with many interesting countries that are making significant gains for presumably domestic production, including China and Brazil.

The fact is that if the USA were to suddenly cease to exist (we all got in our rockets and went to Mars, or nuked ourselves in a Civil War when Bush and Kerry deadlock in the Presidential election), CO2 production will continue to grow, and grow substantially for the next century, and even make up for everything the USA is currently producing.

This is not even to mention that there may be other causes for global warming besides just CO2 production. Please think before you start throwing stats around, even if you think you are promoting a proper philosophy. I would agree that as individuals we can try to avoid messing up our environment. Just don't tell me to become a hunter/gatherer again like my ancestors were many years ago and force me to choose which of my neighbors are going to get killed in the coming genocide, if your philosophies prevail.

"...works against needing to leave (or enter) the cockpit"?!? I've tried several times and still can't grok that. What on earth do you mean? I'll say it again the other way around - the number of times that somebody NEEDS to get from cabin to flightdeck or vice versa vastly outnumbers the number of terrorist seizures. Because the number of terrorist incidents is tiny and the number of flights is enormous. How many people die of natural causes on flights every year?

You missed.

Unless the pilot is a doctor, there is no reason for him/her to leave the cockpit if a passenger is having a medical emergency. The ONLY reason a medical emergency should require access to the cockpit is if the pilot or co-pilot is having the medical emergency and requires assistance from a passenger or non-flight deck flight crew.

The pilot should fly the plane. period.

Source for my numbers is here and here.

Thanks for responding, even if it did take you two days to google up some unattributed figures

My "unattributed figures" are from "SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Civil Aviation Security, Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation (Washington, DC: 2001)"

You, on the other hand are at least honest that you are pulling numbers out of your ass -"I have no idea of the actual numbers" and "(again, I don't have exact numbers, but I'm confident I'm on pretty safe ground here)." I have never understood why being honest about being stupid was something to strive for, though.

Notice, too, that I said the idea does not seem like a good idea.

In particular, the thrust of Shirky's argument is that we should change how we do things (i.e., the regulatory environment) because we can make use of the spectrum as a public commons without interfering with one another. The gaping hole in this argument is that, absent FCC regulation (or something equivalent), there is nothing to guarantee that everyone will operate this way. And it only takes one bad actor to ruin everyone's fun.

As a specific example, imagine that a large telecommunications company decides to market their new "bulletproof" phone service in the (currently unrestricted) 2.4GHz band by spending a huge chunk of cash to set up megawatt-level transmitters all over the place. Sure, their service will work great... but given enough power, it will drown out many/most other devices in the band, whether they are spread-spectrum or not. Shirky also mentions people in adjacent homes using wireless routers without interfering with one another, but there is nothing fundamental about that, either -- I could build a jammer for less than $100 that would disrupt every wireless 802.11g router within a city block.

Nor is this phenomenon limited to the WiFi band -- my lab has done quite a bit of research into the potentially disruptive effects of the proposed ultrawideband (UWB) allocation on GPS, which is in wide use worldwide, including some safety-critical applications.

As for the Economist piece, many other posters in this thread have noted a multitude of problems originating from the journalist-writing-as-engineer nature of the article; here's another big one: The article suggests (in the first two paragraphs of the section entitled "The sweet and low down") that simply repurposing the lower (i.e. currently licensed) swaths of spectrum is something of a panacea. What the author doesn't seem to understand is that there is an attendant difficulty in designing efficient antennas at these lower frequencies. There's a reason, for example, that commercial radio broadcasts aren't done in the 100KHz band -- the antennas on both ends would have to be hundreds of meters long (on the order of a quarter-wavelength) to be even marginally efficient. And if the antennas have to be a manageable size (and therefore inefficient), the transmitter power has to go way up to make the link work -- and we're right back where we started.

There is certainly promise in spread-spectrum radios, mesh networks, and other cool new technology. But it's not nearly as much of a no-brainer as these two pieces make it sound. I hate to be on the side of the "old school," but there is considerable merit to that line of thinking here.

-HJ

I don't think so. Canada is only one tenth the population of the US, and has a far lower per capita GDP than the US has (Canadian per capita GDP is the sama as Korea actually), yet Canada (and Korea) both still have far wider broadband deployments than the US.

Yeah, but "[r]oughly 80 percent of Canada's 31 million population resides within 100 miles of the U.S. border"

and "40 percent of Canada's land is largely undeveloped."

Almost every part of the United States is populated, though thinly. A significant percent of the US population is really rural. 82 million rural residents is almost 3 times the population of Canada, and near to a third of the US! Broadband to the cities is already available, it's the outlying towns that are hard to reach.

See Rural Maps for more information

I'd say the most depressing fact I learned from researching this article is that while 6 million people commute via public transportation each day, and a few million walk or bike into work, 91.2 percent of commuters commute part or all of the way by car (reference), or about 50 million people a day in a car. 7 percent of commuters use a combination of modes overlapping with the public transportation statistic or about 4 million of the 6 million who use public transportation each day.

Here are the two places where I get all my map data:

Bureau of transportation statistics. Detailed data, but only down to the highway/interstate level, no residential roads.(Shapefile format)
Tiger/Line data converted into shapefiles for easy use. Down to the residential street level, very detailed!

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics maintains a lot of street data in its National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). It doesn't have all the streets, but it does have major routes &etc. They'll send you a CD for free if you're a US resident. Look under "Geospatial Information" in the above link.

You won't find free, alleyway-level data for the US. It's simply too much of a burden to keep such data updated, without doing so as a commercial enterprise.

You mean the VIN?

This seems like it might be helpful...More and more, I think car-makers are etching it in all kinds of places, like windows as well. But even if the car is ripped apart, I believe the VIN is embossed on enough parts of the car to keep track of it- that's how they identified the truck that was reponsible for carrying the Oklahoma City bomb a few years ago, if I remember right.... just by recovering the rear axle.

A metal guideway can provide the levitation without a complex linear motor along the entire length. Magnets on the train can be repelled by a conductive track (such as aluminum or copper).

Maglev has been studied for a while... Final Report on the National Maglev Initiative

The taxes currently leveled on gas could more than pay for the road and highway contruction budget of the US, were they directly tied to such. The US uses around 8000 Mbbl/Day of gasoline, which is taxed at a mean rate of $0.42 a gallon. This yields a tax credit of $51 billion. The FHA only uses a budget of around $30 billion to maintain those roads, which provides the bulk of highway spending. The rest of state spending easily fits under what is left of the $51 billion. Hence, there is no "hidden" cost of automobile usage, save that gasoline taxes do not directly pay into the funds of those institutions that maintain the roads.

Yeah right I'm as likely to die by an asteroid as in a plane crash.
How many people were killed by asteroids in the last 20 years?
How many people were killed in pane crashes?
Oh what's that you say this isn't a fair assessment? Okay, let's do a real one:

My odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 500,000. But this isn't quite right because it's assuming I fly 100,000 miles a year, which I don't neither does most of the world. So this number should be lower. So assume this killer asteriod kills everyone: 6313622537 people. Since only 20 people died in the year 2000, we would need one asteriod to kill everyone on the planet every 315 million years. Maybe that's a reasonable time frame but, it's still a bullshit comparison because it assumes I'm going to live forever, unless killed by an asteroid. One must factor in the odds of me being alive when this asteriod actually hits, otherwise I'm not being killed by it am I? Say I live for 150 years (much longer than the average lifespan). If one factors in my limited lifespan, I am suddenly 4.8 x 10^-7 less likely to be killed by an asteriod, than to die in a plane crash.

The odds are so low that I may as well start getting worried about being run over by a Porsche driven by a zebra. Since:
My odds of being run over are 1 in 588.
Let's say one in every 5,000 cars is a porsche.
There are around 132,000,000 cars on the road.
Let's say there are 300,000 zebra on the face of the earth.
Finally, lets say only ten of them (circus zebra) know how to drive (10 in 300,000 odds).
Making a totally bullshit analysis, I find out that my odds are 2.58e-14 while my odds of being killed by an asteriod are 9.52e-13. Okay, so I'm a hundred or so times more likely to be killed by the asteriod, but what if I included all those bears that drive cars too? Surely the results would be terrifying.


This public service announcement has been brought to you by my unwillingness to write my DSP paper. Good night.

I'd like to see some statistics comparing shuttle rides to, say, commutes over 20 minutes in large urban areas.

I'd like to see some statistics comparing shuttle rides to, say, commutes over 20 minutes in large urban areas.

I'd like to see some statistics comparing shuttle rides to, say, commutes over 20 minutes in large urban areas.

So, any cool new invention has to be good, and its detractors automatically the same sort of old farts you mention? Here are some data on transportation fatalities: Transportation Fatalities by Mode. Guess what mode of transportation is most dangerous. Contemplating the accumulated environmental effects of motor vehicle manufacture, use, maintenance, and disposal is left as an exercise for the reader.

I bet you still harbor the illusion that we will eventually all be using flying cars, like they predicted back in the '60s. Just a wild guess.

You could always visit Singapore. They have a brand new airport which is even bigger and badder than Denver's new airport.

Singapore also is a huge shipping hub. I've heard stories about mile after mile of huge transport ships moored off the coast and connected with floating catwalks. Reminds me of the Raft out of Snowcrash. International shipping is fascinating -- did you know there are still piracy problems, particularly in Malacca Straight off of Singapore? Most of the boats are almost fully automated. [Piracy Article], [piracy stats]

Another good place would be Iceland. They've got some of the highest per capita tech adoption rates in the world. They've also got a vibrant electronic music scene with plenty of commonly known and underground artists.

Finally there is Russia (St. Petersburg or Moscow). Here is another similar Sterling article. I was in Moscow and surrouding cities in 95. It was crazy. You would literally see black Mercedes E class sedans driving the wrong way down the street and everyone rushing to get out of the way (the mob). You would see the 24 hour mini mart in the corner of an old KGB building with an armed guard outside. Some of the old "closed cities" where they did secret military research are now open. Russia is a crazy, chaotic place.

There were about 220 million vehicles on the road during 1999, and there were 41,717 fatalities in that year. There were 6,279,000 wrecks though. So, if you rode in a car in the United States in 1999, you personally had around a 3% chance of being in a wreck. An error rate of 3% is fairly small, but it still produced 6 million wrecks in 1999.

The above numbers were made up. The were obviously chosen to demonstrate that even if the system were remarkably close to perfect (that's the 99.9% part), it still farts enough times a day to consider it unreliable for important uses. Consider if people used their computers more than once a day? How many times do you open applications per day? These DRM systems might recheck running processes for validity every few seconds. An application might have to pass thousands of validity checks per day, times the 100 million people using Palladium. That would mean billions of chances per day for it to foul up.

Granted, the above diatribe deals more with Palladium than with DRM in embedded processors, but the theory still applies. Mission critical systems are often engineered to be redundant because they can't afford to fail, but that would be pointless if points-of-failure are added at the chip level. If it can't be made absolutely perfect, then it shouldn't be attempted. The last thing to consider is that DRM isn't being added as a feature, and from the points of view of the people trying to get it included into hardware, it doesn't matter if it's perfect or not, because even if it only worked right half the time, it'll always ensure that they're making their money.

There were about 220 million vehicles on the road during 1999, and there were 41,717 fatalities in that year. There were 6,279,000 wrecks though. So, if you rode in a car in the United States in 1999, you personally had around a 3% chance of being in a wreck. An error rate of 3% is fairly small, but it still produced 6 million wrecks in 1999.

The above numbers were made up. The were obviously chosen to demonstrate that even if the system were remarkably close to perfect (that's the 99.9% part), it still farts enough times a day to consider it unreliable for important uses. Consider if people used their computers more than once a day? How many times do you open applications per day? These DRM systems might recheck running processes for validity every few seconds. An application might have to pass thousands of validity checks per day, times the 100 million people using Palladium. That would mean billions of chances per day for it to foul up.

Granted, the above diatribe deals more with Palladium than with DRM in embedded processors, but the theory still applies. Mission critical systems are often engineered to be redundant because they can't afford to fail, but that would be pointless if points-of-failure are added at the chip level. If it can't be made absolutely perfect, then it shouldn't be attempted. The last thing to consider is that DRM isn't being added as a feature, and from the points of view of the people trying to get it included into hardware, it doesn't matter if it's perfect or not, because even if it only worked right half the time, it'll always ensure that they're making their money.

There were about 220 million vehicles on the road during 1999, and there were 41,717 fatalities in that year. There were 6,279,000 wrecks though. So, if you rode in a car in the United States in 1999, you personally had around a 3% chance of being in a wreck. An error rate of 3% is fairly small, but it still produced 6 million wrecks in 1999.

The above numbers were made up. The were obviously chosen to demonstrate that even if the system were remarkably close to perfect (that's the 99.9% part), it still farts enough times a day to consider it unreliable for important uses. Consider if people used their computers more than once a day? How many times do you open applications per day? These DRM systems might recheck running processes for validity every few seconds. An application might have to pass thousands of validity checks per day, times the 100 million people using Palladium. That would mean billions of chances per day for it to foul up.

Granted, the above diatribe deals more with Palladium than with DRM in embedded processors, but the theory still applies. Mission critical systems are often engineered to be redundant because they can't afford to fail, but that would be pointless if points-of-failure are added at the chip level. If it can't be made absolutely perfect, then it shouldn't be attempted. The last thing to consider is that DRM isn't being added as a feature, and from the points of view of the people trying to get it included into hardware, it doesn't matter if it's perfect or not, because even if it only worked right half the time, it'll always ensure that they're making their money.

Try here http://www.bts.gov/. Sorry I don't have the direct link. But some searching will find a PDF with annual accident rates for motor vehicles.

Or try some of these links http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/OtherTransportation.htm

At last, I wont have to worry about getting around bubba and his double-wide on the highway anymore.
Seriously, a huge percentage of highway and rail use is for construction materials. Check out the Department of Transportation's annual report. Focusing manufacturing into a few areas (close to the materials) would have a huge impact. This could shake up a lot of industries. The Teamsters better get into the blimp business fast.