They aren't nearly up to par with monitors, but they are usable. Of course you're limited to 704x480 or 704x576, and the interlacing will cause flickering with smaller fonts. However, if you use large fonts (eg. 24pt or 80x24 text console) it can work just fine.
Just look at any DVRs for an example. I often browse the web on mine, when I want to look up something fairly simple. Though I certainly don't recommend reading text off a TV screen for hours at a time. If you're poor, the lower quality is probably worth the $100 savings over buying a monitor.
The irony is that I can buy a nearly top of the line computer for $199 here in the states. It just takes some smart shopping and rebate forms.
You can't count "Rebates", "Sales", "Clearance", etc. They only work because there is a thriving high value market in the US already. It's often a tactic to get their company name out there, or develop consumer demand to get shelf-space in stores. In other words, if there weren't millions of people willing to pay $500+ for a computer, you wouldn't companies taking a loss and dumping old ones at dirt cheap prices. So, it's good to be poor in the US, but it's not a model that can be applied elsewhere.
However, I do share your skepticism at the price of this thing. If no monitor is needed, it would be easy to make a (current, but low-end) PC for just a bit over $100, and have a much better chance in the Chinese market.
As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time.
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of crime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice.
Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
I would like to welcome back the dot-com bubble. v2 is shaping up to be better than the first.
People want tech products. Tech products are expensive. Advertising gives us money. Therefore, we should give away computers... I mean phones. Those 2/10ths of a cent we get for every ad are free money. We'll be GAZILLIONAIRES in a week! No need to worry about the hundreds of dollars of investment in equipment and large monthly service fees. If we decide we aren't making enough money, we'll just throw in twice as many ads, and make twice as much money! It can't possibly fail! FREE MONEY!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go integrate my customized strategic life-cycle synergy platform into the vibrant emerging vertical market to differentiate my uniquely challenged customers and organizationally leverage our thriving demographic margins under one roof.
They tried it with PNGs to overcome the GIF legal encumbrances, but just what percentage of images out there in the wild are PNGs?
PNG has been pretty successful, and getting moreso all the time.
The problem, as I see it, is that they didn't include (simple) animation capabilities in the standard from the start. So while PNG is fairly popular, GIF still has to be used for animated images of any kind.
IMHO, SVG suffers the same problem. It's touted as being an alternative to flash, but it has no audio capabilities (to go along with it's animation capabilities).
the efficiency is stated as 1.4 (IE you get 40% more heating of the water than pure electric power into)
Very start of the paper:
"Heat pump water heaters (HPWH) have the potential to reduce annual water heating costs for residential and commercial buildings by a factor of 2 or more compared to conventional electric resistance water heating products."
Later they cite 2.47 for one unit. The only 40% I noticed was the absolutely worst case scenario. And more importantly, that paper is about ambient-air heat pumps, where ground-source universally does far better, no matter the local climate.
I've been using a Logitech "Trackman" for several years, and I have a couple observations.
I must grudgingly agree that I'm not as accurate as I was with a standard mouse, but the inaccuracy really only consists of a pixel off when trying to draw a straight line, so nothing major. And perhaps that wouldn't be a problem if I bought a slightly more expensive model with more fluid motion. Though, I imagine if I needed to be, I could lift my hand up, and use my whole hand to carefully control the cursor for detail work. I could also reduce the speed at which the cursor moves, and get the same effect.
However, the big reason I suggest a thumb operated trackball to everyone all the time is because it's FAST, damn fast. With a 1" movement of my thumb, the cursor goes from one side of the screen to the other. In a tenth of of a second I can (100% accurately) click on any element, anywhere on the screen, without the slightest bit of effort.
More importantly, it is much less stressful. With a mouse, or a traditional trackball, you're using your hand, wrist, and shoulder a tremendous amount, which all starts to get sore after a few hours. Moving your thumb around completely eliminates all of that, and changes it to just moving one finger, an inch at a time. It's a huge relief.
I can recall my thumb getting sore on rare occasions, but I can remember much more often my wrists, hand, shoulder, neck, etc. hurting from using a mouse (for a fraction as long) every day. It's just an added bonus that I get things accomplished far faster.
The most efficient use of solar power is the water heating system.
I'm not too sure about that. How about a PV panel powering a ground-source heat pump? I'm willing to bet that would give you more hot water than direct solar heating, at least in most climates.
Think about using solar for energy (i.e. solar panels on hood and/or trunk),
Only if you don't actually want to drive it any distance... It'll take a month to charge the batteries one time.
Diesel would make a good backup for long trips or when the battery is running low.
People talk about hybrids like they're magic. Weight makes for worse gas mileage, and hybrids are heavy. The fact that they can be made to bridge the inefficiencies of gasoline ICE is the only reason they are worth it at all (and still not by much). No such luck with diesels.
If you want an electric car, get electric car, but don't add a heavy powertrain to it. A hybrid diesel is simply going to be a waste of money, as both electric and conventional will lose out.
you should be able to get a significant heat difference in a moving vehicle on a sunny day by (a) putting the hot end of the SE in a glass-enclosed bubble on top of the car and (b) putting the cold end of the SE on a heat sink that is a set of fins
Yeah, that would get you all of 100watts, and that only while already moving...
Americans have become such friggen stick in the muds. We've been top dog for so many years we've gotten allergic to change. I don't know if many people noticed, but the most significant thing in this article for me was how close this thing was to production, then was dropped by Ford when the CA regulations were dropped. Our big companies, it seems, only innovate when there's a regulatory gun to their head.
As opposed to the Japanese car companies, who developed hybrids BECAUSE OF THE EXACT SAME REGULATION?
The only difference being that hybrids don't require any transition from conventional cars, where electric vehicles would require significant changes in driver's habits.
I've got one (don't ask, it's complicated). I don't recomend it to anyone.
1) The center of gravity is very low, and you sit extremely high up, on bench seats that are straight up (not leaning back, which would help a little bit). It's hard to describe just how terrible the ride is even at the top speed of 25MPH. Hitting a pothole could very easily throw you from the vehicle if you aren't wearing the seatbelt. God help you if you modify it.
2) The shocks are rock hard. You'll feel every single bump. Of course, if they were soft the problem of throwing people out would be more serious, as well as the potential for flipping it (onto its' side) while turning.
3) The accelerator is absolutely horrible. You have no choice but to rest your entire foot on it. That may not sound bad, because no cars ever made have done anything so stupid, so it's unfamiliar to everyone (Even golf carts are made the right way!). What it means is, on anything other than a perfectly smooth road, you have no control over speed. The slightest little bump will push your foot up or down uncontrollably, and you will constantly accelerate/decelerate with no control at all. Basically, you can be stopped, or you can be at full speed, nothing in-between.
If they can get that sucker down in price for a 4-seater with hard-doors and a better top speed (say, around $6k), I'd jump on it in a second.
All of those are no problem, actually.
There is a 4-seater available. Hard doors are available as an option. You can get them new for something like half the advertised price (who knows why, perhaps they have a quota), and used much, much more cheaply.
As for speed, the electric motor has far more power than needed. It's only limited to 25MPH by the computer. In fact, when accelerating, it's standard to spin the wheels without even trying. If you were to replace the front pair of wheels (tiny, 5" IIRC) with some that are 2X the perimeter (approx. 7 or 8" wheels), you could easily get it to go 50MPH. Though, I don't know how much that would affect the range. And that's not at all street legal of course, and look through my list (above) to understand just how terrifyingly dangerous that would be with a GEM.
Re:It's all in the name
on
Blue Blu-ray
·
· Score: 1
He'll think WTF is Blu-Ray? I'll buy HD-DVD.
Would that be the same reason the CD failed ("WTF is a Compact Disk?") and everyone now stores their music on Digital Audio Tape (DAT)?
Diesel and gasoline can't be compared directly. They're very different fuels, and at different prices.
If my car got 5MPG burning WATER, you wouldn't be complaining that your VW TDI that gets 60MPH on diesel is better.
Also, it really isn't (or rather wasn't) possible to buy diesel cars in California, thanks to strict emissions controls, and sulfur diesel. However, that means you'd be buying a brand new VW TDI ($20,000?), vs. a 15 year-old small used car (for $2,000).
There's nothing to prevent hybrid systems where the ICE component is a diesel.
Yes, in fact there is.
Hybrids do so well with gasoline engines, because they can workaround the inefficiencies of gas ICEs. With diesels, there's very little benefits to be had.
With gasoline engines, shutting it off for 30 seconds and starting it again is a benefit. Diesels, however, are much more fuel thrift, and can idle down to almost nothing, a few drops of fuel, so you gain almost nothing. Diesel engines are also much harder to start up again than gasoline engines, so the small benefit you got from shutting it off is going to be spent in energy starting it again.
With gasoline engines, it's extremely inefficient to accelerate from a stop, diesel engines are much better.
With diesels engines, you could still get some benefits from regenerative braking, but it's difficult to see where you'd spend that energy again, since shutting off the engine for a few moments is not likely to ever be economic. Perhaps diesels would be a good candidate for regenerative braking using hydraulic storage.
Removing one or two cylinders and using the electric motor to make up the power different, as is common in hybrids, isn't likely to help either, since diesels can adjust their displacement as much as necessary, so having more cyl. isn't much of a fuel economy hit.
So, by all means, I'd like to hear someone explain what diesels are going to gain from being hybridized, because I can only see tiny improvements, and great expense to get them.
Now, most studies show there is no real safety difference than a mid sized car, but when you don't feel safe in a little aluminum toy car on the road with big steel SUVs, you won't drive or buy that car.
As soon as SUVs are dramatically more expensive than small cars, either with skyrocketing fuel prices, or with electric, which requires a large bank of batteries to power your massive SUV (unless you want 1/3rd the range); You'll see irrational fears give way to rational decisions. Right now, it just isn't painful enough to buy an SUV.
If we shift 1.000.000 drivers that used to drive fossil fueled cars to electric cars we don't really solve anything since the electricity that powers those cars is going to have to come from somewhere.
Actually, it solves a LOT.
Internal combustion engines are extremely low efficiency. If you were to directly take a tank of gasoline from one car and ship it to a power plant, you could power at least 4 electric vehicles off of it, and quite possibly more.
Pollution controls are far better.
And the grid is served not JUST by coal, but also by wind, solar, hydro, etc. In CA, almost 1/3rd of the electricity is generated by hydro, and the majority of the rest is generated by natural gas (still fossil fuel, but much cleaner) and nuclear plants.
As for coal plants, we have a legislative problem... Old and polluting coal plants are grandfathered in. If forced to build new ones, at least they will be far cleaner than the old.
Not to mention that there is now intense interest in building new nuclear power plants, which hardly pollute at all, and provide massive amounts of electricity.
Compared to conventional combustion engines, they Stirling engines are more efficient,
Pretty much EVERYTHING is more efficient than old gasoline ICEs.
Turbo Diesel engines (which are Internal Combustion), however, certainly can be more efficient than Sterling engines, not to mention cheaper.
Turbines can thoroughly beat Sterling engines on efficiency as well.
There are problems external combustion engines as well. You're going to have to have an impressive engine assembly to withstand the extremely high temperatures, which have to be extremely high for reasonable efficiency. You're going to have to get regular maintenance on a much more complex and/or high tolerance piece of equipment. etc. etc.
They can be powered by pretty much anything that generates enough heat, including but not limited to fossil fuels.
Sterling engines will run on just about any fuel, but so will ICEs... Throw some Tequila in your gas tank, and watch it run. If you can figure a way to shovel ultra-fine coal dust in there, it'll burn that too. Diesels also support a wide range of fuels, and run at surprisingly good efficiency with most. And turbines can handle any fuels a sterling engine can.
The problem lies in adjusting the engines for the different fuels. You aren't going to fill up with fossil fuels one day, and pure ethanol the next. Adjustments need to be made, at least if you want any kind of reasonable efficiency.
It's not like people in the US are jumping to replace their SUVs and trucks with little electric cars.
Almost...
Several years ago, when gasoline prices doubled, I noticed a hell of a lot more old and small cars on the road... Cars that you could barely sell months before, seemed to be at every stop light. Their only possible positive attribute being their 35MPG fuel economy.
Hybrids have been a huge hit over the past couple years. So, given the lack of any fully electric cars, that's about as close an equivalent as you can get. I'd say people are at least clamoring for SOMETHING different. The rich aren't going to toss their leather-clad Hummers, and those that need trucks will continue to buy them, but I expect there's a whole lot of demand in the market for some, ANYTHING that doesn't use up lots of gasoline.
Since Compaq did not support Win2K on that particular model, I had to hunt down which obfuscated drivers fit those particular chips on other Compaq models... install those... and hope they worked. Or find OEM versions. Eventually I got everything running (more or less).
Why do so many people still not get it after 8 years? As of Windows 2000, YOU CAN USE DRIVERS FOR OLDER VERSIONS OF WINDOWS. That's right, for most everything, the Windows 98 drivers will work for 2K and XP just fine... Just ignore the warnings/prompts and try it out.
I don't understand why nobody has gotten the hint yet. Has nobody noticed it automatically selecting to use the (signed) Win98 drivers before the (unsigned) 2K drivers? Did you really think Windows is so stupid it selects drivers it can't use over the ones it can?
they would have to add a chipset that could communicate with your drive.
As opposed to what? I realize it's Flash memory, but it's certainly not going to be hardwired to the bus... That would make for a ridiculously proprietary system, that needs custom kernel patches to boot at all.
If you're talking about USB, well, taking up a USB port that could otherwise be used isn't free, and USB-IDE adapters are pretty close to dirt cheap in quantities.
In fact, you can get a $4GB USB drive for around $30 *retail.*
That's extremely generous. Sales and clearance items do not apply. I'd put the price at $50, and that's generous.
Meanwhile, a 20GB 2.5" HDD can be had for $30, and yet has 5X the capacity. And the capacity increases far faster than size. You can get an 80GB HDD for the same price as your 4GB flash.
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They aren't nearly up to par with monitors, but they are usable. Of course you're limited to 704x480 or 704x576, and the interlacing will cause flickering with smaller fonts. However, if you use large fonts (eg. 24pt or 80x24 text console) it can work just fine.
Just look at any DVRs for an example. I often browse the web on mine, when I want to look up something fairly simple. Though I certainly don't recommend reading text off a TV screen for hours at a time. If you're poor, the lower quality is probably worth the $100 savings over buying a monitor.
You can't count "Rebates", "Sales", "Clearance", etc. They only work because there is a thriving high value market in the US already. It's often a tactic to get their company name out there, or develop consumer demand to get shelf-space in stores. In other words, if there weren't millions of people willing to pay $500+ for a computer, you wouldn't companies taking a loss and dumping old ones at dirt cheap prices. So, it's good to be poor in the US, but it's not a model that can be applied elsewhere.
However, I do share your skepticism at the price of this thing. If no monitor is needed, it would be easy to make a (current, but low-end) PC for just a bit over $100, and have a much better chance in the Chinese market.
As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time.
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of crime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice.
Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
I would like to welcome back the dot-com bubble. v2 is shaping up to be better than the first.
People want tech products. Tech products are expensive. Advertising gives us money. Therefore, we should give away computers... I mean phones. Those 2/10ths of a cent we get for every ad are free money. We'll be GAZILLIONAIRES in a week! No need to worry about the hundreds of dollars of investment in equipment and large monthly service fees. If we decide we aren't making enough money, we'll just throw in twice as many ads, and make twice as much money! It can't possibly fail! FREE MONEY!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go integrate my customized strategic life-cycle synergy platform into the vibrant emerging vertical market to differentiate my uniquely challenged customers and organizationally leverage our thriving demographic margins under one roof.
PNG has been pretty successful, and getting moreso all the time.
The problem, as I see it, is that they didn't include (simple) animation capabilities in the standard from the start. So while PNG is fairly popular, GIF still has to be used for animated images of any kind.
IMHO, SVG suffers the same problem. It's touted as being an alternative to flash, but it has no audio capabilities (to go along with it's animation capabilities).
Very start of the paper:
"Heat pump water heaters (HPWH) have the potential to reduce annual water heating costs for residential and commercial buildings by a factor of 2 or more compared to conventional electric resistance water heating products."
Later they cite 2.47 for one unit. The only 40% I noticed was the absolutely worst case scenario. And more importantly, that paper is about ambient-air heat pumps, where ground-source universally does far better, no matter the local climate.
I've been using a Logitech "Trackman" for several years, and I have a couple observations.
I must grudgingly agree that I'm not as accurate as I was with a standard mouse, but the inaccuracy really only consists of a pixel off when trying to draw a straight line, so nothing major. And perhaps that wouldn't be a problem if I bought a slightly more expensive model with more fluid motion. Though, I imagine if I needed to be, I could lift my hand up, and use my whole hand to carefully control the cursor for detail work. I could also reduce the speed at which the cursor moves, and get the same effect.
However, the big reason I suggest a thumb operated trackball to everyone all the time is because it's FAST, damn fast. With a 1" movement of my thumb, the cursor goes from one side of the screen to the other. In a tenth of of a second I can (100% accurately) click on any element, anywhere on the screen, without the slightest bit of effort.
More importantly, it is much less stressful. With a mouse, or a traditional trackball, you're using your hand, wrist, and shoulder a tremendous amount, which all starts to get sore after a few hours. Moving your thumb around completely eliminates all of that, and changes it to just moving one finger, an inch at a time. It's a huge relief.
I can recall my thumb getting sore on rare occasions, but I can remember much more often my wrists, hand, shoulder, neck, etc. hurting from using a mouse (for a fraction as long) every day. It's just an added bonus that I get things accomplished far faster.
Why? You planning on putting a 50:1 solar concentrator mirror/lens in your yard?
I'm not too sure about that. How about a PV panel powering a ground-source heat pump? I'm willing to bet that would give you more hot water than direct solar heating, at least in most climates.
Only if you don't actually want to drive it any distance... It'll take a month to charge the batteries one time.
People talk about hybrids like they're magic. Weight makes for worse gas mileage, and hybrids are heavy. The fact that they can be made to bridge the inefficiencies of gasoline ICE is the only reason they are worth it at all (and still not by much). No such luck with diesels.
If you want an electric car, get electric car, but don't add a heavy powertrain to it. A hybrid diesel is simply going to be a waste of money, as both electric and conventional will lose out.
Yeah, that would get you all of 100watts, and that only while already moving...
As opposed to the Japanese car companies, who developed hybrids BECAUSE OF THE EXACT SAME REGULATION?
The only difference being that hybrids don't require any transition from conventional cars, where electric vehicles would require significant changes in driver's habits.
I've got one (don't ask, it's complicated). I don't recomend it to anyone.
1) The center of gravity is very low, and you sit extremely high up, on bench seats that are straight up (not leaning back, which would help a little bit). It's hard to describe just how terrible the ride is even at the top speed of 25MPH. Hitting a pothole could very easily throw you from the vehicle if you aren't wearing the seatbelt. God help you if you modify it.
2) The shocks are rock hard. You'll feel every single bump. Of course, if they were soft the problem of throwing people out would be more serious, as well as the potential for flipping it (onto its' side) while turning.
3) The accelerator is absolutely horrible. You have no choice but to rest your entire foot on it. That may not sound bad, because no cars ever made have done anything so stupid, so it's unfamiliar to everyone (Even golf carts are made the right way!). What it means is, on anything other than a perfectly smooth road, you have no control over speed. The slightest little bump will push your foot up or down uncontrollably, and you will constantly accelerate/decelerate with no control at all. Basically, you can be stopped, or you can be at full speed, nothing in-between.
All of those are no problem, actually.
There is a 4-seater available. Hard doors are available as an option. You can get them new for something like half the advertised price (who knows why, perhaps they have a quota), and used much, much more cheaply.
As for speed, the electric motor has far more power than needed. It's only limited to 25MPH by the computer. In fact, when accelerating, it's standard to spin the wheels without even trying. If you were to replace the front pair of wheels (tiny, 5" IIRC) with some that are 2X the perimeter (approx. 7 or 8" wheels), you could easily get it to go 50MPH. Though, I don't know how much that would affect the range. And that's not at all street legal of course, and look through my list (above) to understand just how terrifyingly dangerous that would be with a GEM.
Would that be the same reason the CD failed ("WTF is a Compact Disk?") and everyone now stores their music on Digital Audio Tape (DAT)?
Diesel and gasoline can't be compared directly. They're very different fuels, and at different prices.
If my car got 5MPG burning WATER, you wouldn't be complaining that your VW TDI that gets 60MPH on diesel is better.
Also, it really isn't (or rather wasn't) possible to buy diesel cars in California, thanks to strict emissions controls, and sulfur diesel. However, that means you'd be buying a brand new VW TDI ($20,000?), vs. a 15 year-old small used car (for $2,000).
Yes, in fact there is.
Hybrids do so well with gasoline engines, because they can workaround the inefficiencies of gas ICEs. With diesels, there's very little benefits to be had.
With gasoline engines, shutting it off for 30 seconds and starting it again is a benefit. Diesels, however, are much more fuel thrift, and can idle down to almost nothing, a few drops of fuel, so you gain almost nothing. Diesel engines are also much harder to start up again than gasoline engines, so the small benefit you got from shutting it off is going to be spent in energy starting it again.
With gasoline engines, it's extremely inefficient to accelerate from a stop, diesel engines are much better.
With diesels engines, you could still get some benefits from regenerative braking, but it's difficult to see where you'd spend that energy again, since shutting off the engine for a few moments is not likely to ever be economic. Perhaps diesels would be a good candidate for regenerative braking using hydraulic storage.
Removing one or two cylinders and using the electric motor to make up the power different, as is common in hybrids, isn't likely to help either, since diesels can adjust their displacement as much as necessary, so having more cyl. isn't much of a fuel economy hit.
So, by all means, I'd like to hear someone explain what diesels are going to gain from being hybridized, because I can only see tiny improvements, and great expense to get them.
As soon as SUVs are dramatically more expensive than small cars, either with skyrocketing fuel prices, or with electric, which requires a large bank of batteries to power your massive SUV (unless you want 1/3rd the range); You'll see irrational fears give way to rational decisions. Right now, it just isn't painful enough to buy an SUV.
Actually, it solves a LOT.
Internal combustion engines are extremely low efficiency. If you were to directly take a tank of gasoline from one car and ship it to a power plant, you could power at least 4 electric vehicles off of it, and quite possibly more.
Pollution controls are far better.
And the grid is served not JUST by coal, but also by wind, solar, hydro, etc. In CA, almost 1/3rd of the electricity is generated by hydro, and the majority of the rest is generated by natural gas (still fossil fuel, but much cleaner) and nuclear plants.
As for coal plants, we have a legislative problem... Old and polluting coal plants are grandfathered in. If forced to build new ones, at least they will be far cleaner than the old.
Not to mention that there is now intense interest in building new nuclear power plants, which hardly pollute at all, and provide massive amounts of electricity.
Pretty much EVERYTHING is more efficient than old gasoline ICEs.
Turbo Diesel engines (which are Internal Combustion), however, certainly can be more efficient than Sterling engines, not to mention cheaper.
Turbines can thoroughly beat Sterling engines on efficiency as well.
There are problems external combustion engines as well. You're going to have to have an impressive engine assembly to withstand the extremely high temperatures, which have to be extremely high for reasonable efficiency. You're going to have to get regular maintenance on a much more complex and/or high tolerance piece of equipment. etc. etc.
Sterling engines will run on just about any fuel, but so will ICEs... Throw some Tequila in your gas tank, and watch it run. If you can figure a way to shovel ultra-fine coal dust in there, it'll burn that too. Diesels also support a wide range of fuels, and run at surprisingly good efficiency with most. And turbines can handle any fuels a sterling engine can.
The problem lies in adjusting the engines for the different fuels. You aren't going to fill up with fossil fuels one day, and pure ethanol the next. Adjustments need to be made, at least if you want any kind of reasonable efficiency.
Almost...
Several years ago, when gasoline prices doubled, I noticed a hell of a lot more old and small cars on the road... Cars that you could barely sell months before, seemed to be at every stop light. Their only possible positive attribute being their 35MPG fuel economy.
Hybrids have been a huge hit over the past couple years. So, given the lack of any fully electric cars, that's about as close an equivalent as you can get. I'd say people are at least clamoring for SOMETHING different. The rich aren't going to toss their leather-clad Hummers, and those that need trucks will continue to buy them, but I expect there's a whole lot of demand in the market for some, ANYTHING that doesn't use up lots of gasoline.
So you clearly haven't ever tried it, and based on your buzzword knowledge of NT you're sure it can't? And I'm the one that's ignorant?
Why do so many people still not get it after 8 years? As of Windows 2000, YOU CAN USE DRIVERS FOR OLDER VERSIONS OF WINDOWS. That's right, for most everything, the Windows 98 drivers will work for 2K and XP just fine... Just ignore the warnings/prompts and try it out.
I don't understand why nobody has gotten the hint yet. Has nobody noticed it automatically selecting to use the (signed) Win98 drivers before the (unsigned) 2K drivers? Did you really think Windows is so stupid it selects drivers it can't use over the ones it can?
I'd bet that's just a loss-leader, both because of the price (lower than anywhere else) and also due to them advertising that low price.
As opposed to what? I realize it's Flash memory, but it's certainly not going to be hardwired to the bus... That would make for a ridiculously proprietary system, that needs custom kernel patches to boot at all.
If you're talking about USB, well, taking up a USB port that could otherwise be used isn't free, and USB-IDE adapters are pretty close to dirt cheap in quantities.
That's extremely generous. Sales and clearance items do not apply. I'd put the price at $50, and that's generous.
Meanwhile, a 20GB 2.5" HDD can be had for $30, and yet has 5X the capacity. And the capacity increases far faster than size. You can get an 80GB HDD for the same price as your 4GB flash.