It strikes me as very odd that in a state as liberal and environmentally minded as California, a lower emission engine isn't available in these cars. My guess is that some old-timer remembers the diesels that belched black smoke all day and doesn't realize how many advances have been made in diesel engines.
What happened was, certain automakers played to these black smoke prejudices, and got diesels banned so their competitors couldn't get a toehold. Using pollution issues as an excuse, the CARB took a radical stance against diesel cars at the behest of Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc., in order to keep out Volkswagen and Daimler/Chrysler (Mercedes). As if a few more relatively clean diesel cars on the road would make a difference, considering the number of diesel trucks, locomotives, industrial equipment, and jet aircraft!
The biggest savings these people are experiencing is from avoiding road taxes, which are a major part of the price of commercial gasoline or diesel. Right now the "underground" biodiesel movement exists in a gray area. There are too few people for the authorities to bother cracking down on, but if enough people start doing it they will. Right now, untaxed diesel for off-road use in boats and industrial/farm equipment is dyed red. If you're caught with "red" diesel in your car or truck, you'll have to pay huge fines. The dye is stubborn, too -- once it's in there, it stays for many, many tanksful.
Sooner or later there's going to be a crackdown. Making your own biodiesel may soon be illegal, for all practical purposes -- either explicitly, or through red tape that's too hard to deal with. You're either going to have to add red dye, prove that you're paying road taxes, or something.
Personally, I think the best way for the government to spur development of alternative fuel infrastructure is to offer a road tax holiday for alternative fuel users -- say 5 years or so. Let this apply to all biodiesel, CNG, hydrogen, ethanol, and electric vehicles.
Environmental issues aside, what are the real costs of nuclear power? In the early days it was sold as the cheapest energy source available -- "practically free." The question is, how cheap is it, really? How much of the cost is actually being carried by the taxpayer?
From research and development to mining and processing uranium to disposing of waste, everything is subsidized by government programs. Since many of these are high security defense programs, we'll never know the true cost. Furthermore, government contractors like Bechtel who do this work also do other government work, obscuring the true cost of the nuclear work. A similar example would be Boeing -- its cost of producing airliners is subsidized by cushy defense contracts, but we'll never really know by how much.
I'm not arguing that government subsidies are wrong. But we must know the true costs if we're going to make fair comparisons, and the true costs of nuclear power are very well hidden.
"Hmm, not likely, considering two factors: 1) I don't own a house. 2) I'm only paying $250 a month for the two-bedroom I'm at now. Again, given that I'm living in the greater Seattle area, moving would be an incredibly foolish financial decision."
You might want to rethink this a little, if not for right now, then in the future. $250/month is really cheap for Seattle, but...
Think about keeping the money you have saved for this vehicle purchase, and putting it toward a downpayment on a house or condo very close to work. Your mortgage may be more expensive than your current rent, even 2-3 times, but you'll be trading both your current rent *and* most of your commuting expenses for an equity-building mortgage payment, instead of throwing all of that away. Consider the rest of the difference to be forced savings, plus the opportunity to take advantage of real estate appreciation (which may be slowing down, but still there for the forseeable future, IMO).
This is what I'd do, unless I knew my current job was only temporary -- less than 2 years.
18 miles is not too far for a bicycle!
on
Alternatives to Cars?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
As an avid cyclist, I can vouch for the fact that 18 miles is not too far for a bicycle. After a month of commuting by bike, you'll find that distance (36 miles per day round trip) is like nothing. Of course this depends on terrain -- if the roads are dangerous or extremely mountainous, or if the weather is bad, it might not be practical. But the distance isn't a problem. I can haul my sorry 40 year old butt along at over 20 MPH on flat terrain, and 16-17 MPH in the mountains -- indefinately. You can too.
I live in a similar sized neighborhood (24 houses) in the US. Frustrated by the lousy local cable TV internet service, I looked into getting a T1 into the neighborhood, and hooking everyone up myself.
As it turns out, the cost is not that much less than cable internet or DSL. Not counting labor, maintenance, and technical support, the cost for a wireless setup would be about $25/month per household. That sounds pretty good, but since then, DSL has arrived on the scene at $35 a month, and cable internet has both dropped in price and service improved, because of the competition. It seems like a homebrew network would still be cheaper, but it's only $10 a month cheaper. It also involves bringing all the homeowners together and getting them to agree on the plan, and doesn't count maintenanace costs. What happens if I move? Who will they call? How much will it cost? They're still enthusiastic about the idea, but I'm not sure it's so good.
Easy while your young, but it gets progressively harder. Especially when you start adding up all the things that I've had to deal with on a regular basis
That's why I included the "unless you're old" disclaimer. As for the other things you mention:
From drivers (hit by a car once. many close calls)
No difference bewteen a bicycle and a scooter.
From snow (drifts, and mounds. Love it when the plow throws it up on the sidewalk) and ice (very fun)
Again, no difference, except you may be going faster on a scooter, so you'll fall harder.
Flat tires, and the occasional (other part failing, or just wearing out).
Again, the same as with a bicycle, only a bicycle is cheaper to fix. If you have problems with flats on a bicycle, get some tougher tires. Some are practically impervious to any kind of damage, although a little slower rolling than the more fragile ones.
I'll give you the hot and sweaty complaints, if you live in that kind of a climate in hilly terrain. But otherwise, just go easy. I know people who ride 20 miles each way in summer, in shirt-and-tie work clothes, w/ no problems. The rest of your complaints may be covered by the "old" disclaimer. Regarding that, though -- look at the kind of riding many "old" people are still doing:
...I can't imagine anything you can do with one of these things that you can't do with a regular bicycle.
I once tried an electric Lepton scooter (like a Vespa), and liked it so much I considered buying one. However, when I really thought about it, there's no trip I could do on the scooter that I couldn't already do on a bicycle. The scooter may be quicker in traffic, but that's not really an issue.
Unless you're already rich, you have to consider the costs of graduate education. And the cost of living while attending school is usually a bigger factor than tuition and fees, unless you're going to MIT or Harvard. Some countries have an extremely high cost of living. I certainly wouldn't want to add the cost of a few years' living in London or Tokyo to my personal debt pile. Going to Canada may be cheaper than the US, and some otherwise expensive countries like Germany or France may actually have cheap living for students. But most countries you'd want to study in are going to be more expensive to live in than the US. Think about it.
We joke about people with no technical skills becoming managers. But the fact is, management is a different skill. Being a good manager may or may not have anything to do with being a good coder or engineer. Some people can do both, just as some chemical engineers are also good singer/songwriters, but it's not common. Being a good manager requires a basic understanding of the technical tasks at hand, but the real job is -- managing.
...since they started using open source software extensively, and selling products and services based on it. Other companies based entirely on open source software have made many people rich -- Redhat, for example.
Gee, I wonder if someone in the proprietary software business is backing these De Toqueville folks -- Microsoft, perhaps?
"It just wasn't cool to be smart. The smart kids go teased and beat up."
How is this a new phenomena? -m
And how does this change throughout life? It's not as if smart adults are appreciated -- look at our president! Look at our celebrities and cultural heroes too...
You can transfer your license to anyone provided the receiving party agrees to the license agreement. If that's your plan, bring a lunch -- it's a long license agreement and you'll have a lot of explaining to do.
I had enough trouble getting through this reviewer's 7-8 paragraph summary of Corel's license!
What's with the wordiness of these reviews anyway? Do young geeks really drink that much Jolt Cola?
Why the hell would anyone need to reinstall an entire OS every month? I mean - I know Windows is bad, but come on - its ridiculous.
That's easy -- to wipe out all the demo/shareware timeouts! I know people who have been using Dreamweaver, Flash, Quark, etc., for YEARS, by simply reloading their OS every two weeks or a month.
I wish I had a black box in my car when I was involved in an accident a few years ago. I was completely innocent, and it probably would have saved me from all blame. Unfortunately, there was no way to prove I was in the right, and I wound up with a couple of points on my license.
I came to a stop sign at a "T" intersection. I saw headlights way off in the distance, so I started to pull out to make a left turn. I only moved about a foot or two before I noticed the car way off in the distance was going very fast, perhaps 2-3 times the 25mph speed limit. So I stopped, over the line but still not sticking out into the intersection, put my car in reverse, and backed up behind the line. Well, the sight of me startled the other driver, who swerved, lost control, swerved back, and then sideswiped my front bumper.
Unfortunately, there were no witnesses except a security guard who was a friend of the other driver, who worked in the neighborhood. This witness lied profusely. It was my word against theirs. They won.
Black boxes would have proven the other driver was speeding, and that he swerved and then swerved back to hit me. For me, it would have proven that I had rolled forward, then back, and that the impact occurred *after* I had pulled back and stopped for at least a second. Plus, in this particular area, going 50mph or more *is* reckless, by anyone's standards. This driver would have had no sympaty from any judge or jury. Black box evidence would have backed up my story, and I'm pretty sure it would have gotten me off the hook.
No one was *really* hurt in this accident -- I barely felt the impact, and all it did was peel the license plate and some rubber off my front bumper. It put a shallow dent and streak along the side of the other vehicle. But of course, the other driver got involved with a typical LA crooked lawyer/chiropractor duo, who bilked my insurance company for thousands.
Imagine all the pointless litigation that could be eliminated by these black boxes. I say bring them on! We should have had them 20 years ago (before then was probably not technically/economically feasible). The only people hurt by black boxes are lawyers, and that's a good thing!
The biggest problem with sailboat generators is they're designed to be used when the boat is travelling at least 5-6 knots. That's very fast for a river, and nothing like the Susquehanna that I've seen. So they're definately not the low-velocity, high-torque units you seek. Secondly, they generally produce less than 1kW -- enough for lighting and electronics aboard a sailboat, but not enough for a home. Finally, they're expensive, suffering from low-volume production, and the "yachtsman's discount."
This is what I don't understand about corporate America -- what's in it for managers who do this kind of thing? They usually make the same salary no matter what. I can't imagine a scenario where they get something out of this, other than a personal power trip. I guess these people have shitty jobs too, and the shittier they are, the more desperate these people get.
I can't stand TV anymore. There's nothing to watch but cheesy "reality" shows and actual or defacto infomercials. And for this I pay $50 a month? I spend more time reading online anyway. In the last few years, any time I had the TV on, it lost out to something else for my attention. All it was doing was blaring away in the background. So I got rid of my cable.
My only reservation about cutting the cable was missing important news. Then I discovered XM radio has CNN, CNBC, C-Span, BBC, etc. You don't actually have to "watch" this stuff -- the audio is fine. So this replaces my TV news now, for $10 a month. I enjoy the rest of the 100 channels too.
And movies? Other TV shows? Netflix! Who cares if the Sopranos on DVD is a season old -- it's new to me! All you can eat, for $20 a month.
Broadband? DSL. 30% cheaper than cable internet, and way better service.
So there you go -- broadband, sattelite radio, and Netflix. Oh, and NPR too.
Wouldn't it be great to have a fuel cell powered laptop, where all you have to do is pour in more methanol to get 40 hours' more runtime? Wouldn't it be great if this technology would trickle down to flashlight cells? No more noxious disposable batteries going into landfills, and no more pollution from the process of making them. Methanol is a byproduct of oil refining and other industrial processes. Using it in fuel cells would be practically pollution free, and eliminate other pollution from battery manufacture and disposal.
But wait!
This is not what's happening. In fact, you won't be able to top off your fuel cell with a bottle from the drugstore. What Toshiba, Hitachi, and others are planning, is to capitalize on the lucrative disposable battery/razorblade business model -- with disposable methanol cartridges, like the CO2 cartridges for seltzer water makers, bicycle tire inflators and BB guns. The cartridge concept for fuel cells was supposedly to get around airline regulations about open containers of flammable liquids, but the lucrative disposable battery/razorblade business model is the real reason.
Remember lithium-ion batteries used in most laptops are also extremely flammable. In fact, they're so flammable that manufacturers won't sell you raw cells to experiment with, unless you're a bona fide engineer.
Uh, check the colophon on your O'Reilly books --- most of them were done using FrameMaker.
They've been done with various tools. That wasn't my point.
That said, it's a _lot_ of work to make nice looking books in FrameMaker, requiring a lot more hands-on, fussy, fiddly things than LaTeX / TeX requires.
For ages I've longed for something to make and share quick sketches with my collegues. A picture is worth a thousand words, so to speak. And sometimes it seems to take a thousand words to explain what could be drawn in a quick sketch. The trouble is, bitmapped formats suck for line drawings, and breaking out Flash tools for a quick sketch is a bit much. So gimme a quick, easy vector format, that my friends can read in their browsers and email clients!
Slashdot Mirror
It strikes me as very odd that in a state as liberal and environmentally minded as California, a lower emission engine isn't available in these cars. My guess is that some old-timer remembers the diesels that belched black smoke all day and doesn't realize how many advances have been made in diesel engines.
What happened was, certain automakers played to these black smoke prejudices, and got diesels banned so their competitors couldn't get a toehold. Using pollution issues as an excuse, the CARB took a radical stance against diesel cars at the behest of Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc., in order to keep out Volkswagen and Daimler/Chrysler (Mercedes). As if a few more relatively clean diesel cars on the road would make a difference, considering the number of diesel trucks, locomotives, industrial equipment, and jet aircraft!
The biggest savings these people are experiencing is from avoiding road taxes, which are a major part of the price of commercial gasoline or diesel. Right now the "underground" biodiesel movement exists in a gray area. There are too few people for the authorities to bother cracking down on, but if enough people start doing it they will. Right now, untaxed diesel for off-road use in boats and industrial/farm equipment is dyed red. If you're caught with "red" diesel in your car or truck, you'll have to pay huge fines. The dye is stubborn, too -- once it's in there, it stays for many, many tanksful.
Sooner or later there's going to be a crackdown. Making your own biodiesel may soon be illegal, for all practical purposes -- either explicitly, or through red tape that's too hard to deal with. You're either going to have to add red dye, prove that you're paying road taxes, or something.
Personally, I think the best way for the government to spur development of alternative fuel infrastructure is to offer a road tax holiday for alternative fuel users -- say 5 years or so. Let this apply to all biodiesel, CNG, hydrogen, ethanol, and electric vehicles.
Environmental issues aside, what are the real costs of nuclear power? In the early days it was sold as the cheapest energy source available -- "practically free." The question is, how cheap is it, really? How much of the cost is actually being carried by the taxpayer?
From research and development to mining and processing uranium to disposing of waste, everything is subsidized by government programs. Since many of these are high security defense programs, we'll never know the true cost. Furthermore, government contractors like Bechtel who do this work also do other government work, obscuring the true cost of the nuclear work. A similar example would be Boeing -- its cost of producing airliners is subsidized by cushy defense contracts, but we'll never really know by how much.
I'm not arguing that government subsidies are wrong. But we must know the true costs if we're going to make fair comparisons, and the true costs of nuclear power are very well hidden.
"Hmm, not likely, considering two factors: 1) I don't own a house. 2) I'm only paying $250 a month for the two-bedroom I'm at now. Again, given that I'm living in the greater Seattle area, moving would be an incredibly foolish financial decision."
You might want to rethink this a little, if not for right now, then in the future. $250/month is really cheap for Seattle, but...
Think about keeping the money you have saved for this vehicle purchase, and putting it toward a downpayment on a house or condo very close to work. Your mortgage may be more expensive than your current rent, even 2-3 times, but you'll be trading both your current rent *and* most of your commuting expenses for an equity-building mortgage payment, instead of throwing all of that away. Consider the rest of the difference to be forced savings, plus the opportunity to take advantage of real estate appreciation (which may be slowing down, but still there for the forseeable future, IMO).
This is what I'd do, unless I knew my current job was only temporary -- less than 2 years.
"The biggest problem with commuter electric vehicles is that most of them consume more energy per mile than an economy car with one occupant."
Where do you get this shit? It's all documented right here:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov
...and you're just plain wrong!
As an avid cyclist, I can vouch for the fact that 18 miles is not too far for a bicycle. After a month of commuting by bike, you'll find that distance (36 miles per day round trip) is like nothing. Of course this depends on terrain -- if the roads are dangerous or extremely mountainous, or if the weather is bad, it might not be practical. But the distance isn't a problem. I can haul my sorry 40 year old butt along at over 20 MPH on flat terrain, and 16-17 MPH in the mountains -- indefinately. You can too.
I live in a similar sized neighborhood (24 houses) in the US. Frustrated by the lousy local cable TV internet service, I looked into getting a T1 into the neighborhood, and hooking everyone up myself.
As it turns out, the cost is not that much less than cable internet or DSL. Not counting labor, maintenance, and technical support, the cost for a wireless setup would be about $25/month per household. That sounds pretty good, but since then, DSL has arrived on the scene at $35 a month, and cable internet has both dropped in price and service improved, because of the competition. It seems like a homebrew network would still be cheaper, but it's only $10 a month cheaper. It also involves bringing all the homeowners together and getting them to agree on the plan, and doesn't count maintenanace costs. What happens if I move? Who will they call? How much will it cost? They're still enthusiastic about the idea, but I'm not sure it's so good.
Easy while your young, but it gets progressively harder. Especially when you start adding up all the things that I've had to deal with on a regular basis
u rope/Tour_Reports/Tour_of_the_Alps/
That's why I included the "unless you're old" disclaimer. As for the other things you mention:
From drivers (hit by a car once. many close calls)
No difference bewteen a bicycle and a scooter.
From snow (drifts, and mounds. Love it when the plow throws it up on the sidewalk) and ice (very fun)
Again, no difference, except you may be going faster on a scooter, so you'll fall harder.
Flat tires, and the occasional (other part failing, or just wearing out).
Again, the same as with a bicycle, only a bicycle is cheaper to fix. If you have problems with flats on a bicycle, get some tougher tires. Some are practically impervious to any kind of damage, although a little slower rolling than the more fragile ones.
I'll give you the hot and sweaty complaints, if you live in that kind of a climate in hilly terrain. But otherwise, just go easy. I know people who ride 20 miles each way in summer, in shirt-and-tie work clothes, w/ no problems. The rest of your complaints may be covered by the "old" disclaimer. Regarding that, though -- look at the kind of riding many "old" people are still doing:
http://www-math.science.unitn.it/Bike/Countries/E
Jobst is in his late 60s, maybe 70 by now.
...I can't imagine anything you can do with one of these things that you can't do with a regular bicycle.
I once tried an electric Lepton scooter (like a Vespa), and liked it so much I considered buying one. However, when I really thought about it, there's no trip I could do on the scooter that I couldn't already do on a bicycle. The scooter may be quicker in traffic, but that's not really an issue.
Unless you're already rich, you have to consider the costs of graduate education. And the cost of living while attending school is usually a bigger factor than tuition and fees, unless you're going to MIT or Harvard. Some countries have an extremely high cost of living. I certainly wouldn't want to add the cost of a few years' living in London or Tokyo to my personal debt pile. Going to Canada may be cheaper than the US, and some otherwise expensive countries like Germany or France may actually have cheap living for students. But most countries you'd want to study in are going to be more expensive to live in than the US. Think about it.
We joke about people with no technical skills becoming managers. But the fact is, management is a different skill. Being a good manager may or may not have anything to do with being a good coder or engineer. Some people can do both, just as some chemical engineers are also good singer/songwriters, but it's not common. Being a good manager requires a basic understanding of the technical tasks at hand, but the real job is -- managing.
...since they started using open source software extensively, and selling products and services based on it. Other companies based entirely on open source software have made many people rich -- Redhat, for example.
Gee, I wonder if someone in the proprietary software business is backing these De Toqueville folks -- Microsoft, perhaps?
I see a lot of no-bid listings...
"It just wasn't cool to be smart. The smart kids go teased and beat up."
How is this a new phenomena? -m
And how does this change throughout life? It's not as if smart adults are appreciated -- look at our president! Look at our celebrities and cultural heroes too...
You can transfer your license to anyone provided the receiving party agrees to the license agreement. If that's your plan, bring a lunch -- it's a long license agreement and you'll have a lot of explaining to do.
I had enough trouble getting through this reviewer's 7-8 paragraph summary of Corel's license!
What's with the wordiness of these reviews anyway? Do young geeks really drink that much Jolt Cola?
Why the hell would anyone need to reinstall an entire OS every month? I mean - I know Windows is bad, but come on - its ridiculous.
That's easy -- to wipe out all the demo/shareware timeouts! I know people who have been using Dreamweaver, Flash, Quark, etc., for YEARS, by simply reloading their OS every two weeks or a month.
Not too many people check out opera CDs, but most libraries carry those. Part of a library's purpose is to introduce people to new things.
I wish I had a black box in my car when I was involved in an accident a few years ago. I was completely innocent, and it probably would have saved me from all blame. Unfortunately, there was no way to prove I was in the right, and I wound up with a couple of points on my license.
I came to a stop sign at a "T" intersection. I saw headlights way off in the distance, so I started to pull out to make a left turn. I only moved about a foot or two before I noticed the car way off in the distance was going very fast, perhaps 2-3 times the 25mph speed limit. So I stopped, over the line but still not sticking out into the intersection, put my car in reverse, and backed up behind the line. Well, the sight of me startled the other driver, who swerved, lost control, swerved back, and then sideswiped my front bumper.
Unfortunately, there were no witnesses except a security guard who was a friend of the other driver, who worked in the neighborhood. This witness lied profusely. It was my word against theirs. They won.
Black boxes would have proven the other driver was speeding, and that he swerved and then swerved back to hit me. For me, it would have proven that I had rolled forward, then back, and that the impact occurred *after* I had pulled back and stopped for at least a second. Plus, in this particular area, going 50mph or more *is* reckless, by anyone's standards. This driver would have had no sympaty from any judge or jury. Black box evidence would have backed up my story, and I'm pretty sure it would have gotten me off the hook.
No one was *really* hurt in this accident -- I barely felt the impact, and all it did was peel the license plate and some rubber off my front bumper. It put a shallow dent and streak along the side of the other vehicle. But of course, the other driver got involved with a typical LA crooked lawyer/chiropractor duo, who bilked my insurance company for thousands.
Imagine all the pointless litigation that could be eliminated by these black boxes. I say bring them on! We should have had them 20 years ago (before then was probably not technically/economically feasible). The only people hurt by black boxes are lawyers, and that's a good thing!
The biggest problem with sailboat generators is they're designed to be used when the boat is travelling at least 5-6 knots. That's very fast for a river, and nothing like the Susquehanna that I've seen. So they're definately not the low-velocity, high-torque units you seek. Secondly, they generally produce less than 1kW -- enough for lighting and electronics aboard a sailboat, but not enough for a home. Finally, they're expensive, suffering from low-volume production, and the "yachtsman's discount."
This is what I don't understand about corporate America -- what's in it for managers who do this kind of thing? They usually make the same salary no matter what. I can't imagine a scenario where they get something out of this, other than a personal power trip. I guess these people have shitty jobs too, and the shittier they are, the more desperate these people get.
...broadband, Netflix, sattelite radio (XM).
I can't stand TV anymore. There's nothing to watch but cheesy "reality" shows and actual or defacto infomercials. And for this I pay $50 a month? I spend more time reading online anyway. In the last few years, any time I had the TV on, it lost out to something else for my attention. All it was doing was blaring away in the background. So I got rid of my cable.
My only reservation about cutting the cable was missing important news. Then I discovered XM radio has CNN, CNBC, C-Span, BBC, etc. You don't actually have to "watch" this stuff -- the audio is fine. So this replaces my TV news now, for $10 a month. I enjoy the rest of the 100 channels too.
And movies? Other TV shows? Netflix! Who cares if the Sopranos on DVD is a season old -- it's new to me! All you can eat, for $20 a month.
Broadband? DSL. 30% cheaper than cable internet, and way better service.
So there you go -- broadband, sattelite radio, and Netflix. Oh, and NPR too.
Wouldn't it be great to have a fuel cell powered laptop, where all you have to do is pour in more methanol to get 40 hours' more runtime? Wouldn't it be great if this technology would trickle down to flashlight cells? No more noxious disposable batteries going into landfills, and no more pollution from the process of making them. Methanol is a byproduct of oil refining and other industrial processes. Using it in fuel cells would be practically pollution free, and eliminate other pollution from battery manufacture and disposal.
But wait!
This is not what's happening. In fact, you won't be able to top off your fuel cell with a bottle from the drugstore. What Toshiba, Hitachi, and others are planning, is to capitalize on the lucrative disposable battery/razorblade business model -- with disposable methanol cartridges, like the CO2 cartridges for seltzer water makers, bicycle tire inflators and BB guns. The cartridge concept for fuel cells was supposedly to get around airline regulations about open containers of flammable liquids, but the lucrative disposable battery/razorblade business model is the real reason.
Remember lithium-ion batteries used in most laptops are also extremely flammable. In fact, they're so flammable that manufacturers won't sell you raw cells to experiment with, unless you're a bona fide engineer.
Uh, check the colophon on your O'Reilly books --- most of them were done using FrameMaker.
They've been done with various tools. That wasn't my point.
That said, it's a _lot_ of work to make nice looking books in FrameMaker, requiring a lot more hands-on, fussy, fiddly things than LaTeX / TeX requires.
Exactly!
For ages I've longed for something to make and share quick sketches with my collegues. A picture is worth a thousand words, so to speak. And sometimes it seems to take a thousand words to explain what could be drawn in a quick sketch. The trouble is, bitmapped formats suck for line drawings, and breaking out Flash tools for a quick sketch is a bit much. So gimme a quick, easy vector format, that my friends can read in their browsers and email clients!