I'd love to hear some more typical values of the efficiencies involved, if you can provide some. Please do give some citations rather than just presenting some figures.
Why should I do your homework? What is this, the old Tom Sawyer's fence trick?
Some good samaritans have already given you some reasons, so I'll not repeat them.
You sound like an intelligent guy, and unusual here, polite (even if a little testy). I'm sure that you can think of five or ten advantages of power plants over car engines by yourself in a few minutes, but I'd bet that you can't find one inverse example. And that without taking in account that car engines are very, very rarely well mantained.
The subject of the article was, in case you missed it --
Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg
Doug, we're splitting hairs here, but just the same...
That was the title of the article.
The subject (your point) was other, and
the emphasis (my point) was still another.
True, the title was sensacionalist and misleading (but not false), but the body of the article made much more sense.
And, for the expressed purpose of reducing oil compsumption, the guy's solution was sound, and his claims were valid.
And furthermore, keep in mind that the car's owner didn't wrote the title, so he wasn't making any wild claims
The fact that you refuted vehemently the title (agreed a bad one), while waltzing around the content of the article gave the impression that you hadn't read it.
I do believe that the generators down at the power plant are in general more efficient than the engine in your car (...) but I suspect it's not a LOT more efficient.
(...) after all, power plants will burn a given fuel in the same way that a car engine will, so the waste products will be the same (...)
You were moderated insighful for this howler? You must have a very large family...
Borrowing a phrase, your post is so wrong it's not even wrong. Google is your friend, ask him.
The only advantage wall-plugs do on electric vehicles is move where they're poluting -- it moves to the power plant, instead of the point of use.
Dude, you shouldn't be using the word only unless you're damn sure there are no other advantages.
This is clearly not the case here. Other important advantage is that very few utilities produce electricity burning oil, and reducing oil dependency was the focus of the article.
not to mention they will subsiduse it to make the whole deal sweet.
And a non-insignificat portion of said subsidies is going to subsidize new cars, swimming pools, and posh vacations to everyone that has a part in the procurement process.
However I will still maintain that the people approving business process patents and software patents possess little to no experience and competence in those fields. The patents you guys issue prove this rather effectively I'm afraid.
Have you considered:
a) They're smart, but are bein pressured by their political masters into approving this shit or
b) They're smart, but they're in the take?
These would be the two first things coming to mind here in cynical South America, and we would be batting 1.000
On the other hand, MS actively lobbied for software patents in the recent EU brouhaha. Which suggests they may have some other role in mind for their portfolio.
The MSFT patent juggernaut looks like global warming: for years scientists saw it coming, and corporate mouthpieces, their sockpuppets in the media and governments and assorted morons were in denial. Now, every day there's a new fact confirming it (see the Siberian permafrost story today), but it looks is already too late.
MSFT has been amassing a massive patent portfolio. It has a long and undisputed history as a monopolist, corporate predator, and unethical and paranoid entity, bent in detroying what cannot control. What do you think they are patenting for?
The usual suspecs keep saying is for defensive purposes. Yeah, sure, there's a bridge here for sale.
Why is so hard to face the obvious: MSFT, having failed to own the computing universe by marketing and dirty tricks, is going to try to do so by legal and political means. With the emasculating of the sanctions after the monopoly trial, we already know the Bush administration is in Bill's pocket.
In one or two years MSFT is going to unleash the Mother of All Patent Wars against OSS, with the intention of utterly destroy it. The only question is what IBM (with an even more massive patent portfolio) will do.
They may be tempted to share the spoils, in a kind of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, or they can fight.
If they're going to fight in the side of the angels, they should state it now, in unequivocal terms. As in: we're going to bury in patent lawsuits any body who dares to use patents against an OSS project. Maybe just the statement is deterrent enough.
Am I the only person who is saddened by the fact that corporations seem to be modeled after total sociopaths?
And the worst part is, these sociopaths are immortal.
In the good old days you at least knew the bastard (king, tyrant, warlord,conqueror, whatever) would die, hopefully before you.
Now, we've created a Frankenstein's monster which can keep going forever.
We feel comforted by the fact that apparently the mortality rate of the new life form is very high, either from their own mistakes (Commodore, Enron), or killed by predators (Stac, Netscape). But we fail to see that corporations are very, very young (200 or so years), and are learning fast, and worse, evolving.
They have been developing amazing abilities.
Some can change their environments to suit their needs. Disney extends copyright laws at will, and others have to adapt, despite if makes sense for society or not. IBM, MSFT, and many, many others are copying the strategy, but with patents. Wanna bet patent terms are going to be extended, sooner than later?
Some can jump over frontiers, and play one group of humans against the other. They take your job to India, and kill a few thousands Irakis in order to bring their oil to you. Win some, lose some.
Before, in order to affect policy, they had to corrupt the government. Now, they are the government.
I'm sure we could make a long list, but the point is made. Perhaps is time to try to control the plague before is too late. Introducing natural death to corporations by means of limited-time charters would be a good beginning. Or limiting size, splitting companies once they reach some arbitrary number of employees, or sales, or whatever. You can think of more.
These rules would have the addeed advantage of accelerating evolution. At the very least, we(the humans) would have an easier time.
My comments were about Opera the company and Opera users, and probably only a small (but vocal) minority of those.
Well, I, for one, am an Opera user since 3.52, and agree with you 100%.
The very first thing I do when installing a new version is changing the string agent to Opera. I don't know if we Opera users are a lot or very few, but hiding as IE is just awful and counterproductive.
Not to nitpick on your fine post, but it has been explained a thousand times:
1984 was a very thinly disguised vision of an authoritarian present.
Orwell was refering to Stalinist URSS, in 1948. Wink, wink.
This is really obvious to anyone who knows a little about the period, but most people still think 1984 was some kind of dark SF. The reason why, I cannot grasp.
Everyone talks about Ed Wood, Jr. being a totally incompetent filmmaker, but that is incorrect. Wood was selectively incompetent, which is far more interesting.
That, and the fact that he just LOVED films and filmmaking, and it showed even through his huge shortcomings as a producer, director, writer, etc.
May be we should make him the Saint patron of amateurs. Every person who's passionate about something he's not really good at will understand.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd love to hear some more typical values of the efficiencies involved, if you can provide some. Please do give some citations rather than just presenting some figures.
Why should I do your homework?
What is this, the old Tom Sawyer's fence trick?
Some good samaritans have already given you some reasons, so I'll not repeat them.
You sound like an intelligent guy, and unusual here, polite (even if a little testy). I'm sure that you can think of five or ten advantages of power plants over car engines by yourself in a few minutes, but I'd bet that you can't find one inverse example.
And that without taking in account that car engines are very, very rarely well mantained.
Aren't you playing Devil's advocate?
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Doug, we're splitting hairs here, but just the same...
That was the title of the article.
The subject (your point) was other, and
the emphasis (my point) was still another.
True, the title was sensacionalist and misleading (but not false), but the body of the article made much more sense.
And, for the expressed purpose of reducing oil compsumption, the guy's solution was sound, and his claims were valid.
And furthermore, keep in mind that the car's owner didn't wrote the title, so he wasn't making any wild claims
The fact that you refuted vehemently the title (agreed a bad one), while waltzing around the content of the article gave the impression that you hadn't read it.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
I do believe that the generators down at the power plant are in general more efficient than the engine in your car (...) but I suspect it's not a LOT more efficient.
(...) after all, power plants will burn a given fuel in the same way that a car engine will, so the waste products will be the same (...)
You were moderated insighful for this howler? You must have a very large family...
Borrowing a phrase, your post is so wrong it's not even wrong.
Google is your friend, ask him.
Or it was a great troll?
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
In Europe, gas prices are much higher than in the US, much higher than $4/gal already, and that hasn't stopped everyone from driving.
Well, maybe it hasn't stopped everyone, but it has certainly discouraged a lot of people from driving.
And the average European uses public transpot much, much more than the average American.
And the average european car is really stingy with fuel compared with the average American car.
You don't need to use an electrical car and consume no oil, just a lttle common sense will take you halfway there.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
The only advantage wall-plugs do on electric vehicles is move where they're poluting -- it moves to the power plant, instead of the point of use.
Dude, you shouldn't be using the word only unless you're damn sure there are no other advantages.
This is clearly not the case here. Other important advantage is that very few utilities produce electricity burning oil, and reducing oil dependency was the focus of the article.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
If you charge your battery by plugging it in at the house, then you're cheating. MPG doesn't mean much when all the power doesn't come from the gas.
The emphasis of the article was not on the energy efficiency of the vehicle, but its capacity to reduce oil consumption, for political reasons.
Far from me to suggest you didn't RTFA, but it sure looks so.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
not to mention they will subsiduse it to make the whole deal sweet.
And a non-insignificat portion of said subsidies is going to subsidize new cars, swimming pools, and posh vacations to everyone that has a part in the procurement process.
Cheers,
However I will still maintain that the people approving business process patents and software patents possess little to no experience and competence in those fields. The patents you guys issue prove this rather effectively I'm afraid.
Have you considered:
a) They're smart, but are bein pressured by their political masters into approving this shit or
b) They're smart, but they're in the take?
These would be the two first things coming to mind here in cynical South America, and we would be batting 1.000
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
On the other hand, MS actively lobbied for software patents in the recent EU brouhaha. Which suggests they may have some other role in mind for their portfolio.
The MSFT patent juggernaut looks like global warming: for years scientists saw it coming, and corporate mouthpieces, their sockpuppets in the media and governments and assorted morons were in denial. Now, every day there's a new fact confirming it (see the Siberian permafrost story today), but it looks is already too late.
MSFT has been amassing a massive patent portfolio. It has a long and undisputed history as a monopolist, corporate predator, and unethical and paranoid entity, bent in detroying what cannot control.
What do you think they are patenting for?
The usual suspecs keep saying is for defensive purposes. Yeah, sure, there's a bridge here for sale.
Why is so hard to face the obvious: MSFT, having failed to own the computing universe by marketing and dirty tricks, is going to try to do so by legal and political means.
With the emasculating of the sanctions after the monopoly trial, we already know the Bush administration is in Bill's pocket.
In one or two years MSFT is going to unleash the Mother of All Patent Wars against OSS, with the intention of utterly destroy it.
The only question is what IBM (with an even more massive patent portfolio) will do.
They may be tempted to share the spoils, in a kind of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, or they can fight.
If they're going to fight in the side of the angels, they should state it now, in unequivocal terms. As in: we're going to bury in patent lawsuits any body who dares to use patents against an OSS project.
Maybe just the statement is deterrent enough.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
last time I checked, a microsoft server can't stay up for years at a time without babysitting
Last time I checked, a Microsoft server can't stay up for years, period.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
As we say in Spanish: "La intencion es lo que vale" (What really counts is the intention).
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Am I the only person who is saddened by the fact that corporations seem to be modeled after total sociopaths?
And the worst part is, these sociopaths are immortal.
In the good old days you at least knew the bastard (king, tyrant, warlord,conqueror, whatever) would die, hopefully before you.
Now, we've created a Frankenstein's monster which can keep going forever.
We feel comforted by the fact that apparently the mortality rate of the new life form is very high, either from their own mistakes (Commodore, Enron), or killed by predators (Stac, Netscape).
But we fail to see that corporations are very, very young (200 or so years), and are learning fast, and worse, evolving.
They have been developing amazing abilities.
Some can change their environments to suit their needs.
Disney extends copyright laws at will, and others have to adapt, despite if makes sense for society or not.
IBM, MSFT, and many, many others are copying the strategy, but with patents. Wanna bet patent terms are going to be extended, sooner than later?
Some can jump over frontiers, and play one group of humans against the other. They take your job to India, and kill a few thousands Irakis in order to bring their oil to you. Win some, lose some.
Before, in order to affect policy, they had to corrupt the government. Now, they are the government.
I'm sure we could make a long list, but the point is made. Perhaps is time to try to control the plague before is too late.
Introducing natural death to corporations by means of limited-time charters would be a good beginning.
Or limiting size, splitting companies once they reach some arbitrary number of employees, or sales, or whatever.
You can think of more.
These rules would have the addeed advantage of accelerating evolution. At the very least, we(the humans) would have an easier time.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
My comments were about Opera the company and Opera users, and probably only a small (but vocal) minority of those.
Well, I, for one, am an Opera user since 3.52, and agree with you 100%.
The very first thing I do when installing a new version is changing the string agent to Opera.
I don't know if we Opera users are a lot or very few, but hiding as IE is just awful and counterproductive.
Nice troll
Why? A troll should go undetected, posing as a legitimate post. Wins points for subtlety.
The shit you're responding to is obviously flamebait,and more really tired and old by now than nice.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
The main difference was that under Stalin you had a higher chance to be killed if you were close to him, than you had under Hitler.
That was the most succint illustration I've seen to date.
Kudos!
Carlos Cesar
1984 is a vision of an authoritarian future
Not to nitpick on your fine post, but it has been explained a thousand times:
1984 was a very thinly disguised vision of an authoritarian present.
Orwell was refering to Stalinist URSS, in 1948. Wink, wink.
This is really obvious to anyone who knows a little about the period, but most people still think 1984 was some kind of dark SF. The reason why, I cannot grasp.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Steve, we know it's you. Stop posting here.
Do you think that any geek who achieves momentary fame should have a job for life?
Yes.
Don't you think an employee should be measured by the value he's contributing now?
No.
Next question? Maybe, Why?
+1, Insightful
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
He's already a multi-millionaire as a result.
Well, I'd be very surprised if when this story ends, two or three years from now, Darl's money is enough to pay his personal legal bills.
Remember, Bernie Ebbers looked as a smart guy not so long ago...
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Everyone talks about Ed Wood, Jr. being a totally incompetent filmmaker, but that is incorrect. Wood was selectively incompetent, which is far more interesting.
That, and the fact that he just LOVED films and filmmaking, and it showed even through his huge shortcomings as a producer, director, writer, etc.
May be we should make him the Saint patron of amateurs. Every person who's passionate about something he's not really good at will understand.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
This looks great but can some people please think of better applications than advertising...
Surely Fujitsu have more exotic plans for this technology than curved posters ?
Well, is pretty obvious, but I do a LOT of wordprocessing, and I'd kill for a really large cheap flat screen.
A cheap e-book is another use that just jumps out.
To Fujitsu: hey, morons! Most of us don't live in a FPS game. Text is STILL king.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
how much would you know about the victorian age if all you ever heard about was the works of shakespeare and such.
Sorry to nitpick, but the answer is "very little".
You're about 250 years off.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Let me guess, you're the Opera CEO, right?
Is that, or you have a really big monitor.
Cheers,
carlos cesar
Dude, I'm posting from Opera right now, and I've done neither. Just like 4 of each 5 Opera users.
If your post wasn't supposed to be Funny, you're rather naive.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar