But do gamers have superior reaction times because they play games, or do they play games because they are good at them, because of their superior reaction times? My bet is on the latter.
Tickets and accidents are no indication of your driving skill (well, maybe accidents, if caused by lack of skill, as opposed to lack of attention, or failure to understand rules of the road, or an accident not of your fault). Now if you'd like to take a few laps around Road Atlanta or Laguna Seca with me, I'll judge your driving skill.
Well made racing sims (and no, not Forza or Gran Turismo, while fun, not exactly the best simulators) teach you about car control in racing situations. Granted, they teach you about car control of a Formula 1 car, or a NASCAR car, or some other racing form that rarely translates to around-town driving, but it's still a heightened awareness of how weight transfer and throttle/brake control are related, and how chassis dynamics are affected by certain types of corners under various loads, and how to effectively overcome that with driving skill.
Most importantly, if you race online with other serious sim racers, you learn the art of race craft, which to non-racers is really inexplicable. You have to experience it to understand it, and most people can't afford real racing. Sim racing, if taken seriously, can develop proper race craft.
I think he means you can get any show whenever you want, not the fact you can record one and watch it later. Having VHS didn't eliminate the need to have to wait for a show to start.
I drove my friend's Xb to the store. Some old cowboy dude driving a giant F-350 King Ranch edition stop and said, "you think your truck is ugly enough"? I wanted to punch him in the face. A) it's not a truck, B) it's not my truck, C) if you think it's ugly, don't buy one.
So evidently the Leaf is about the same as a Focus. I've never seen one (except on tv) and assumed it would be a tiny Nissan (like the Micra).
I'm very excited to see the Focus electric coming later this year. I like to buy Ford when they make interesting cars, and they haven't given me much reason to be excited over the past 10 years. I'm a bit peeved they didn't bring the same effects package for the 2nd gen Focus from Europe, since that was a much nicer trimmed out car. Oh well.
Because apples are good for your health and cheetos aren't, but given the large price disparity, only rich people will be able to afford good health. That is clearly not equitable, and it is the government's job to fix it.
If gas were suddenly $50 a gallon, you know very well that the government would HAVE to subsidies it, because of the huge impact it would have on lost productivity. The working class would no longer be able to afford to be productive. Only the rich would drive/fly. The populist movement would be up in arms demanding the government do something about it.
That's the funny thing about the populists...government is bad until they need it.
Well to be fair, you haven't seen the entirety of my comments in this story. Elsewhere I've made it abundantly clear that people who actually need a large pickup truck should be exempt from any sort of hypothetical taxation. My point being, most people who drive large trucks don't actually need one.
Amazingly, every country in Western Europe gets by just fine without large trucks and SUVs. I lived in England and Germany. A Ford Transit panel van works for 99% of tasks.
I'm not for taxing what *I* don't need. I'm for taxing what should be discouraged (frivolously large vehicles when not needed for one's livelihood), and for taxing things other people (including myself) don't need. I think history shows that taxes are used to encourage and discourage specific behaviors that are deemed good or bad for society. The belief taxes are used purely for revenue generation is like saying prisons are purely for punishing the guilty (and not to keep dangerous people out of society, for example). It's one thing to say how you think taxes *should* be used, but in reality, they are used to influence behavior.
Speaking of trucks, I wonder if any of them will be interested in dropping a monster electric motor in there, if not for the efficiency, for the torque numbers alone. The Volt is a 150hp motor that turns something like 270 ft/lb of torque. I could only imagine what an electric equivalent of one of those giant truck (gas) engines could manage for towing capacity.
If we were are so practical we'd all be driving boring Toyota Camry's and Honda Civics. Thank god not everyone boils personal consumer habits down to "function" alone. Why on earth would you think that personal choice, where style is one component, is such a bad thing?
There is nothing smug about my interest in automotive engineering. Electric motors have superior efficiency to gas engines and have huge potential in personal vehicles. Stating the obvious is not smug.
Why should you demand an electric vehicle to recharge within two minutes? I'd rather plug it in and forget it. I hate pumping gas, but I suppose only smug people are interested in the potential of never having to stop at a gas station again.
Yet, the software engineers I work with drive their F-250s to work. Because of all that hunting they do, I suppose. Or, we live in Texas, so a big dumb truck that they don't need is a status symbol, and the norm, instead of the exception for people like you who actually need a truck.
I drove a VW pickup growing up (and yes we towed a 16' ski boat with it!). It doesn't snow in Austin, so I'm not sure how many snowy hill tows we get around here either.
And my wife's vehicle is a Ford Ranger. Does everything (but tow bigger trucks up snowy hills) you claim is so important, minus the big dumbness.
No, what I mean is that I want you, me, and a bunch of other people to work hard every day in order to generate tax revenue which our government can then use to improve progress in this country.
If you wouldn't have butchered my quote and taken out the contextual words around it, what I said isn't quite as crazy as you are trying to paint it. What I said is, (paraphrasing) without subsidies, electric vehicles are too expensive and nobody will buy them, therefore companies will stop making them.
Here's an analogy. If Cheetos are $1 per ton, but Apples are $5 million per ounce, the government should probably subsidize (or even regulate) the sale of apples, because more people eating apples is better for society than people eating cheetos.
Before cars nobody new they needed a car. But now there are cars, just introducing a new power supply (that costs tons more due to R&D and emerging technologies) is not compelling enough to make entrepreneurs want to go out and take on the risk to sell a model. If Uncle Sam pitches in a bit, that helps bring the prohibitive costs of new technology down to more people. When more people buy it, more car companies will make more models, and the technology will improve and become cheaper, bring the price down even more, which causes more people to buy it.
It's not really that hard (except trying to figure out how much subsidy and where it should come from).
I applaud the guys out there making $100,000 electric cars that would cost $20,000 with a gas engine. Somebody has to get it started (and rich people will buy them, which will drive progress). But subsidies will bring prices into the range of people like myself (interested, disposable income, but not rich). When we start buying en masse, then the next round will bring them into the price range of the lunch pail/hard hat crowd. Once that happens, the internal combustion engine is dead.
That wouldn't fix the problem. The guy who is rich enough to have the 4x4 Escalade will just pay the luxury/SUV tax and still have it.
The point is not to eliminate them altogether, just to make them less attainable to the masses (who don't need them...need to give them incentive not to want one).
Those who can't really afford it, but buy them anyway (happens a lot here in Texas), will then be de-incentivized from buying one, which would be the point. I have no problem with people who are able AND willing to pay a premium from owning premium vehicles and enjoying them. It's the hoard of lower class people who live month-to-month because their Suburban payment is higher than their house (or trailer) payment. Make gas more expensive so it puts this sort of vehicle out of reach of common guy. Even some of the more sensible middle and upper middle class people may catch on and grab a Volvo wagon or something more responsible (even though they can afford the SUV).
If you think the president has any say in travel protocol -especially for official business- I would suggest you don't understand the point of protocol.
Eager to argue much? Notice I never said they don't sell Fiestas in America. I said they don't sell Fistivas, which is a typo, but meaning they don't sell Festivas. I own a Fiesta, so of course I know they exist. So that means yes, I actually did bother looking up the fact there are only 2 cars under $12k and that a Volt is more comparable in size to a Focus, Corolla, Cruze, and yes, a Honda Civic (good luck finding one for $15k).
Apparently I was. In another area of this thread somebody was saying the cost difference of a Volt is 2x a Prius (which I confused with your two priuses comment, evidently).
Unfortunately most Americans can't drive. Those people choose an SUV under the guise that it is safer, because a smaller car that is more nimble is useless to a person who can't drive...so just buy the big tank and when you crash into something, the something loses.
When's the last collision anyone has seen involving an SUV where the OTHER car is the one that ran into the SUV, and not the other way around? Well, that's kind of hard, because here in Texas, it's usually two SUVs crashed into each other.
And pickup trucks with no weight over the back wheels. The slightest rain and Texans and their stupid trucks look like Floridians trying to drive in upstate new York during an ice storm.
By law, they were destroyed (well, the engines made non-functional), then the rest were "stripped down and sold to scrap processors, auto recyclers, salvage yards, etc."
Nobody is forcing anything. I think you need to look up the definition of "incentive". Maybe your definition of a subsidy means forcing, but to me it is used to provide incentive for somebody to do something they normally wouldn't be able to afford to do.
And do you have any idea of how much energy it takes to make an internal combustion engine from bare minerals?
I think this thread has shown that no, batteries are not more expensive than gasoline per unit of energy per mile.
If you have a wife and two kids, you're stuck in four door land for a generation. If you have a third kid, or want to do any serious hauling you can either get two vehicles or you can get a vehicle that can handle five people and, say, a load of groceries or the luggage for a vacation.
Most people are going to go with an SUV with a choice like that, maybe a second car if both the parents are working.
I really hate this about America. I have a wife and three kids. I have a 4 door hatchback (Mazda) that seats all of us (with child seat for a 2 year old) AND room in the hatch for groceries, bags, whatever. We can even throw three bikes on a bike rack. I also have a 4-door small sedan (Ford Contour) that also amazingly seats 5 with room for groceries. I don't need both to accomodate everyone at once.
Unless you need a third row of seating because you have more than 5 people, what is the point?
People only "think" they need a giant SUV for a family of 5. All you need are 5 seatbelts.
And what's the point of a medium SUV that seats 5 people? My freakin' Mazda 3 seast 5 people. I don't need a generic, large ugly GM SUV for the same amount of people and stuff.
The giant SUV phenomena has nothing to do with practicality and everything to do with image.
There are only two cars sold in America under $12k (Hyundai Accent, Nissan Versa), neither of which are comparable to the Volt, and they don't sell Fistivas in America.
A better comparo would be a Volt to a Focus, Corolla, or a Cruze. Once you do that, you are in the low $20k range, which is far different than $12k
$40,000 is not a rich persons car. Lots of blue-collar people drive Chevy Suburbans (and similar SUV models) or large trucks that easily cost $40k. In fact, my ex just traded her Suburban in for a slightly used BMW 5 series, because it was cheaper!!! and got better gas mileage.
And one could reasonably expect the price of a car like the Volt to be more like similar gas powered cars (like the Cruze) once they get wider acceptance and more competition.
Slashdot Mirror
But do gamers have superior reaction times because they play games, or do they play games because they are good at them, because of their superior reaction times? My bet is on the latter.
Tickets and accidents are no indication of your driving skill (well, maybe accidents, if caused by lack of skill, as opposed to lack of attention, or failure to understand rules of the road, or an accident not of your fault). Now if you'd like to take a few laps around Road Atlanta or Laguna Seca with me, I'll judge your driving skill.
Well made racing sims (and no, not Forza or Gran Turismo, while fun, not exactly the best simulators) teach you about car control in racing situations. Granted, they teach you about car control of a Formula 1 car, or a NASCAR car, or some other racing form that rarely translates to around-town driving, but it's still a heightened awareness of how weight transfer and throttle/brake control are related, and how chassis dynamics are affected by certain types of corners under various loads, and how to effectively overcome that with driving skill.
Most importantly, if you race online with other serious sim racers, you learn the art of race craft, which to non-racers is really inexplicable. You have to experience it to understand it, and most people can't afford real racing. Sim racing, if taken seriously, can develop proper race craft.
I think he means you can get any show whenever you want, not the fact you can record one and watch it later. Having VHS didn't eliminate the need to have to wait for a show to start.
I got nothing. Lame IE8 here at work and Julia Map opens to a big blank screen with a grabber hand...nuthin'.
If it doesn't "just work" it won't gain traction.
I drove my friend's Xb to the store. Some old cowboy dude driving a giant F-350 King Ranch edition stop and said, "you think your truck is ugly enough"? I wanted to punch him in the face. A) it's not a truck, B) it's not my truck, C) if you think it's ugly, don't buy one.
So evidently the Leaf is about the same as a Focus. I've never seen one (except on tv) and assumed it would be a tiny Nissan (like the Micra).
I'm very excited to see the Focus electric coming later this year. I like to buy Ford when they make interesting cars, and they haven't given me much reason to be excited over the past 10 years. I'm a bit peeved they didn't bring the same effects package for the 2nd gen Focus from Europe, since that was a much nicer trimmed out car. Oh well.
Because apples are good for your health and cheetos aren't, but given the large price disparity, only rich people will be able to afford good health. That is clearly not equitable, and it is the government's job to fix it.
If gas were suddenly $50 a gallon, you know very well that the government would HAVE to subsidies it, because of the huge impact it would have on lost productivity. The working class would no longer be able to afford to be productive. Only the rich would drive/fly. The populist movement would be up in arms demanding the government do something about it.
That's the funny thing about the populists...government is bad until they need it.
Well to be fair, you haven't seen the entirety of my comments in this story. Elsewhere I've made it abundantly clear that people who actually need a large pickup truck should be exempt from any sort of hypothetical taxation. My point being, most people who drive large trucks don't actually need one.
Amazingly, every country in Western Europe gets by just fine without large trucks and SUVs. I lived in England and Germany. A Ford Transit panel van works for 99% of tasks.
I'm not for taxing what *I* don't need. I'm for taxing what should be discouraged (frivolously large vehicles when not needed for one's livelihood), and for taxing things other people (including myself) don't need. I think history shows that taxes are used to encourage and discourage specific behaviors that are deemed good or bad for society. The belief taxes are used purely for revenue generation is like saying prisons are purely for punishing the guilty (and not to keep dangerous people out of society, for example). It's one thing to say how you think taxes *should* be used, but in reality, they are used to influence behavior.
Speaking of trucks, I wonder if any of them will be interested in dropping a monster electric motor in there, if not for the efficiency, for the torque numbers alone. The Volt is a 150hp motor that turns something like 270 ft/lb of torque. I could only imagine what an electric equivalent of one of those giant truck (gas) engines could manage for towing capacity.
If we were are so practical we'd all be driving boring Toyota Camry's and Honda Civics. Thank god not everyone boils personal consumer habits down to "function" alone. Why on earth would you think that personal choice, where style is one component, is such a bad thing?
There is nothing smug about my interest in automotive engineering. Electric motors have superior efficiency to gas engines and have huge potential in personal vehicles. Stating the obvious is not smug.
Why should you demand an electric vehicle to recharge within two minutes? I'd rather plug it in and forget it. I hate pumping gas, but I suppose only smug people are interested in the potential of never having to stop at a gas station again.
Yet, the software engineers I work with drive their F-250s to work. Because of all that hunting they do, I suppose. Or, we live in Texas, so a big dumb truck that they don't need is a status symbol, and the norm, instead of the exception for people like you who actually need a truck.
I drove a VW pickup growing up (and yes we towed a 16' ski boat with it!). It doesn't snow in Austin, so I'm not sure how many snowy hill tows we get around here either.
And my wife's vehicle is a Ford Ranger. Does everything (but tow bigger trucks up snowy hills) you claim is so important, minus the big dumbness.
No, what I mean is that I want you, me, and a bunch of other people to work hard every day in order to generate tax revenue which our government can then use to improve progress in this country.
If you wouldn't have butchered my quote and taken out the contextual words around it, what I said isn't quite as crazy as you are trying to paint it. What I said is, (paraphrasing) without subsidies, electric vehicles are too expensive and nobody will buy them, therefore companies will stop making them.
Here's an analogy. If Cheetos are $1 per ton, but Apples are $5 million per ounce, the government should probably subsidize (or even regulate) the sale of apples, because more people eating apples is better for society than people eating cheetos.
Before cars nobody new they needed a car. But now there are cars, just introducing a new power supply (that costs tons more due to R&D and emerging technologies) is not compelling enough to make entrepreneurs want to go out and take on the risk to sell a model. If Uncle Sam pitches in a bit, that helps bring the prohibitive costs of new technology down to more people. When more people buy it, more car companies will make more models, and the technology will improve and become cheaper, bring the price down even more, which causes more people to buy it.
It's not really that hard (except trying to figure out how much subsidy and where it should come from).
I applaud the guys out there making $100,000 electric cars that would cost $20,000 with a gas engine. Somebody has to get it started (and rich people will buy them, which will drive progress). But subsidies will bring prices into the range of people like myself (interested, disposable income, but not rich). When we start buying en masse, then the next round will bring them into the price range of the lunch pail/hard hat crowd. Once that happens, the internal combustion engine is dead.
That wouldn't fix the problem. The guy who is rich enough to have the 4x4 Escalade will just pay the luxury/SUV tax and still have it.
The point is not to eliminate them altogether, just to make them less attainable to the masses (who don't need them...need to give them incentive not to want one).
Those who can't really afford it, but buy them anyway (happens a lot here in Texas), will then be de-incentivized from buying one, which would be the point. I have no problem with people who are able AND willing to pay a premium from owning premium vehicles and enjoying them. It's the hoard of lower class people who live month-to-month because their Suburban payment is higher than their house (or trailer) payment. Make gas more expensive so it puts this sort of vehicle out of reach of common guy. Even some of the more sensible middle and upper middle class people may catch on and grab a Volvo wagon or something more responsible (even though they can afford the SUV).
SUVs should be the exception, not the norm.
If you think the president has any say in travel protocol -especially for official business- I would suggest you don't understand the point of protocol.
Eager to argue much? Notice I never said they don't sell Fiestas in America. I said they don't sell Fistivas, which is a typo, but meaning they don't sell Festivas. I own a Fiesta, so of course I know they exist. So that means yes, I actually did bother looking up the fact there are only 2 cars under $12k and that a Volt is more comparable in size to a Focus, Corolla, Cruze, and yes, a Honda Civic (good luck finding one for $15k).
Apparently I was. In another area of this thread somebody was saying the cost difference of a Volt is 2x a Prius (which I confused with your two priuses comment, evidently).
But more American children means more Americans. Why are you so unamerican?
Unfortunately most Americans can't drive. Those people choose an SUV under the guise that it is safer, because a smaller car that is more nimble is useless to a person who can't drive...so just buy the big tank and when you crash into something, the something loses.
When's the last collision anyone has seen involving an SUV where the OTHER car is the one that ran into the SUV, and not the other way around? Well, that's kind of hard, because here in Texas, it's usually two SUVs crashed into each other.
And pickup trucks with no weight over the back wheels. The slightest rain and Texans and their stupid trucks look like Floridians trying to drive in upstate new York during an ice storm.
By law, they were destroyed (well, the engines made non-functional), then the rest were "stripped down and sold to scrap processors, auto recyclers, salvage yards, etc."
Nobody is forcing anything. I think you need to look up the definition of "incentive". Maybe your definition of a subsidy means forcing, but to me it is used to provide incentive for somebody to do something they normally wouldn't be able to afford to do.
And do you have any idea of how much energy it takes to make an internal combustion engine from bare minerals?
I think this thread has shown that no, batteries are not more expensive than gasoline per unit of energy per mile.
And private investment into GM was so successful, the government didn't have to bail them out...oh wait...
If you have a wife and two kids, you're stuck in four door land for a generation. If you have a third kid, or want to do any serious hauling you can either get two vehicles or you can get a vehicle that can handle five people and, say, a load of groceries or the luggage for a vacation.
Most people are going to go with an SUV with a choice like that, maybe a second car if both the parents are working.
I really hate this about America. I have a wife and three kids. I have a 4 door hatchback (Mazda) that seats all of us (with child seat for a 2 year old) AND room in the hatch for groceries, bags, whatever. We can even throw three bikes on a bike rack. I also have a 4-door small sedan (Ford Contour) that also amazingly seats 5 with room for groceries. I don't need both to accomodate everyone at once.
Unless you need a third row of seating because you have more than 5 people, what is the point?
People only "think" they need a giant SUV for a family of 5. All you need are 5 seatbelts.
And what's the point of a medium SUV that seats 5 people? My freakin' Mazda 3 seast 5 people. I don't need a generic, large ugly GM SUV for the same amount of people and stuff.
The giant SUV phenomena has nothing to do with practicality and everything to do with image.
Protocol is not set by the incumbent.
There are only two cars sold in America under $12k (Hyundai Accent, Nissan Versa), neither of which are comparable to the Volt, and they don't sell Fistivas in America.
A better comparo would be a Volt to a Focus, Corolla, or a Cruze. Once you do that, you are in the low $20k range, which is far different than $12k
$40,000 is not a rich persons car. Lots of blue-collar people drive Chevy Suburbans (and similar SUV models) or large trucks that easily cost $40k. In fact, my ex just traded her Suburban in for a slightly used BMW 5 series, because it was cheaper!!! and got better gas mileage.
And one could reasonably expect the price of a car like the Volt to be more like similar gas powered cars (like the Cruze) once they get wider acceptance and more competition.