UBC Engineers Reach Mileage Of Over 3000 MPG

The New Revelation writes "Physorg reports that engineers at UBC have developed a single occupancy vehicle that achieves a ridiculous 3145 MPG! From the article: 'The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Supermileage Competition took place June 9 in Marshall, Michigan. Forty teams from Canada, the U.S. and India competed in designing and building the most fuel-efficient vehicle... The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 liters/100 km) -- equivalent of Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon (3.79 liters) of gas -- costing less than $5 at the pump.'"

Comments

Re:speed? Results

[B3ryllium]

*offtopic* Have you ever been to Rockglen? One of their residents (Tyler Lewis) is on Canadian Idol. Town of like 430 people, and he made it to the top 22. Freakyneat.

Re:That begs the question

[CRCulver]

It's not a matter of grammar, it's a matter of lexicon. If you can't tell the difference, then for pete's sake pick up something like The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language , ed. David Crystal (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

I'm increasingly beginning to understand the sense in linguists' saying that basic linguistics should accompany maths and sciences in schools.

Re:That begs the question

[MamiyaOtaru]

Linguists are fond of asking if the form of Spanish spoken in Mexico shouldn't be considered "standard Spanish" since it is spoken by more people than there are in Spain. They'd say if the overwhelming majority uses a phrase "incorrectly," it actually signifies that the meaning of the word has changed. Get it through your head that for most people (and thus for linguists), the phrase "begs the question" means something other than what it used to. Linguistics is descriptive, you're thinking of something else, something prescriptive.

Re:That begs the question

[CRCulver]

Where did I say that I wanted to make a prescriptive fiat against the phrase "begs the question"? I merely mentioned that disputes over the meaning of the term are lexical matters, not grammatical matters as the OP said.

Re:That begs the question

[billcopc]

Ahh good old americans vs canadians.. we canadians want to know how much fuel it takes to get to where we need to be. Americans want to know how far they'll go with X amount of gas, because they really have no clue where they're going, they just want to drive their flashy guzzlers right into an economic depression again.

Let's face it: on paper, consumers would be in control of the oil producers, because we have the money they so desperately love. In reality, nobody gives a damn and we just want to floor that pedal until flames shoot out the back of the muffler. Don't count on humankind growing a collective superbrain because the laws of chaos dictate exactly the opposite. It doesn't even matter how high the price shoots at the pump.. even if it goes to 10$ a gallon, the OPEC will just make greater profits because we won't stop driving to work, we won't stop heating our homes.. You would think between the 7 billion inhabitants of earth, we could all pitch in a toonie, buy out the whole goddamned desert and kick those tyrants out. Small pests, big problems.

Re:That begs the question

[Xichekolas]

I realize you're not trying to ridicule, unlike the AC who keeps posting in this little thread, who seems to take what I consider to be lighthearted sarcasm to be a seriously premeditated attempt at an ad hominem. Like this issue seriously matters enough to degenerate into something on the level of politics. I can see it now... the Strict Definitivists vs. those who liberally interpret the dictionary. I wonder which party would take up which side? ;)

But anyway, I like hashing out pointless things like this!

You can say that 'begging the question' means 'eating pineapple' all you want, but unless that becomes a common use of the term, then people will just look at you funny. I totally agree that language is communal, and that was my whole argument to begin with. Trying to impose strict rules on a language has never worked for very long. The French have been trying to do it for some time (although they do at least add new words that are approved by the group in charge of maintaining the language), and it doesn't work incredibly well. They recently created a decidedly more 'French' word for email... couriel or something. But most will probably still use the old word or at least understand it for some time. What matters, and what I was trying to convey, is that most of the people understand the meaning in context.

If we all know that X means X, then X has meaning. If, over time, we all decide that X really means Y, then X still has meaning and there's no confusion. But if some people say X means X1 and others that it means X2 then we have issues.

You say it right there... if, over time, we decide that X means Y. Those changes don't happen instantly, and at some point X will mean both X and Y. The issue is not whether X really means X or Y. The fact is that X has come to mean both X and Y, depending on the context and the audience. Allowing one group to dictate the meaning of a word regardless of context, even one they created to suit their subject matter, just doesn't work. Another group is bound to hear the new word, think it sounds cool or works in their own context, and co-opt it. It's not wrong or corrupt to do so, it is simply the evolution of language.

The group that uses 'begs the question' to mean 'raises the question' might sound like a bunch of bumbling idiots to you. That makes sense considering the context in which you are used to using the phrase. I'm not arguing that they are right and that you are wrong. I'm saying that the poster used it in a manner that was understood by the audience, and the expression served its purpose. Had he been discussing a philosophical argument, it would have been mighty confusing, but thankfully he was talking about cars.

Also, I would say that the only difference between the expression 'beating a dead horse' and 'making a quantum leap' is familiarity. The phrase 'to beat a dead horse' has probably been around long enough to be more acceptable in a non-literal sense, whereas the idea of quantum leaps is new enough that people can still remember the time when it only referred to electrons and not to flashy marketing slogans about giant leaps in product design. Similiarly, I would guess that 'begging the question' has only begun to be misused recently, and so still strikes people as strange and incorrect. Hell, I know that hearing someone use the word 'download' when they clearly mean 'install' (i.e. "Can you download Windows onto my new computer?") chaps my ass, just because it is incorrect terminology, but sadly, it wouldn't surprise me if that meaning takes off in common usage.

I guess mainly what I am trying to say is that it is easy to declare new things related to language to be 'wrong' or 'corrupting the language' ... but the reality is that languages change greatly over time, and what we have now is no more set in stone than what Shakespeare had then. Sure, writing has probably slowed this down somewhat, just because it gives us a reference point, but it's still always changing. I'm sure every generation has done a thorough butchering on the language of its parent's generation... such is life.