I dunno. Take a call centre. ASA (average speed of answer) is a common and important metric. Organisations will often have a target or SLA for their ASA, and this is something customers really care about. It's driven by a range of factors: how call centre operatives handle calls, matching of demand and supply, actions to reduce demand such as self-service (eg online) or bots to answer, etc etc. I can't see how a call centre could manage itself effectively without having both an ASA target for the centre as a whole and for individual operators.
Or in another field: mortality rates for surgeons. Distinguishing case-mix and other effects from surgical competence effects is very very hard -- but that doesn't mean we can afford to stop trying, or stop looking at these numbers.
It's no surprise to know that targets can be gamed, and that performance metrics can be poorly implemented. But this is a false dichotomy: the choice is not between poorly implemented metrics/targets and no metrics/targets. There's also the option of implementing metrics/targets well. Not perfectly: what is, in this life? But certainly possible to implement them well -- and it would be damaging for the organisation not to do so. And if the behaviours and mindsets of the organisation are broken in the first place, then an absence of metrics/targets can be just as disastrous as poorly implemented metrics/targets -- and what's really needed is effort to work on the underlying issues.
FFS 1: The intent of the OP shines through what they said: they are not outraged that dirt was exposed on Clinton, they are outraged that Wikileaks used dirt on Clinton to support Trump. Wikileaks took sides. Taking sides is the reprehensible bit. The notions that Wikileaks didn't solicit for the dirt on Clinton / the DNC, that Wikileaks didn't have dirt just as damning, if not more so, on Trump / the RNC.... well if you believe that, I've got a lovely bridge to sell you.
FFS 2: If the people wanted Sanders rather than Clinton, then they did a pretty poor job of showing it, given that she won the popular vote in the primary by 3.75 million votes. If you believe rigging delivered all those extra votes for Clinton, I don't just have a bridge for you, I have a tunnel too. If you peer through it, you'll see a magic land with unicorns and pixie dust.
No, it's not embarrassing for the Met. The Met are obliged to do this -- they cannot be seen to let a high profile suspect in a rape case escape custody -- and the higher the number, the easier it is for them to argue for additional funding.
How could you possibly interpret his statement like that? He supported the exposure of corruption when it was exposing corruption *with an even hand*. Once the exposure was applied only to one side of a partisan contest, it became insupportable.
Why bother making such ridiculous strawman statements? It's obviously not what the OP thinks. I doubt it's even what you think. It won't convince more than a handful of readers. What was the point?
It does fairly well. No 1 EV in Europe in 2015 -- but that was only 18k units. YoY growth is pretty strong, though -- CAGR of 46% from 2013 (first full year of sales) to 2015. 2016 data is not yet available but I expect another big increase, and larger still in 2017 due to the doubled range.
By comparison, there were more than 300k Renault Clios sold in 2015 (the Clio and Zoe are similar in size and trim, but the Clio is an ICE). So there's clearly a long way to go for the Zoe till it's a serious competitor to ICE cars.
By US standards, it's tiny -- the hatchback / supermini category never took off in the US, hence why it never launched in that market. But it fits five people and the trunk is 12 cubic feet, which is more than enough for my family and our suitcases for a holiday. In Europe, small cars are attractive precisely because they are small, and thus easy to manoeuvre (especially for parking) -- our streets are much narrower, on average, than in the US.
It doesn't use enough power to cause a significant reduction in range. If I put the heater on full-blast in the winter time, my Renault Zoe drops from 70 to 65 miles of range. What I actually do is put the heater on full-blast, then once the cabin is warm, turn it down and switch on Eco mode. Then my range drops from 70 to about 68.
You're over-extrapolating from N America to the rest of the world: the Renault Zoe is available here in the UK for about $15k new. Mine costs me $150 per month, all-in (including fuel costs). And in much of the world outside the US, small cars ("super-minis") are popular precisely because they *are* small, so are easy to manoeuvre. I'm sure it's too small for you, but it seats five and has a 338 litre trunk (12 cubic feet), which is plenty enough for us.
What is the benefit to the consumer of #3, other than #1 and #2?
On #4, safety, this is clearly your personal perception, and nothing more substantive than that. Gas-powered cars are quite capable of vehicle fires, and this is not exactly uncommon. And EVs have low centres of gravity and additional stiffness from the battery packs that make them more robust in a crash.
On #5, toxicity of manufacturing, you are ignoring the byproducts of gasoline / diesel manufacturing, which are every bit as icky as for a battery (and then some).
And of course, there's a balancing lists of benefits to the consumer of an EV vs an ICE, including but not limited to: 1. Much quieter cabin 2. Ability to pre-heat cabin in cold weather 3. Vibration-free ride 4. Faster acceleration, especially from 0 to 30 (one reason why EVs are especially popular in towns) 5. Ability to charge without user presence 6. Lower costs of fuel 7. Lower costs of maintenance 8. Lower carbon footprint 9. No exhaust fumes
These are tangible benefits that many (but of course not all) consumers value. With the exception of #8, they're also hardly the stuff of which dreams are made in Davos.
I'm pretty sure this is an urbanite vs non-urbanite cultural divide. There are a huge number of people living in urban who would be perfectly happy to have a car that meets 95% of their transport needs and doesn't meet the final 5%. But they're not the whole of a country. There's also a large number of people living outside urban areas who do longer journeys often enough that they would not be happy with a car that has a range of say 150miles.
In case you hadn't noticed, the vast majority of those gas stations in the Rockies that you're talking about are on mains electricity. So the problem of installing electricity infrastructure in remote areas is really not as hard as you think it is.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for that. Glad that someone else here knows this stuff.
It would really help if you looked up terms you're unfamiliar with, such as casemix. It would have saved you the bother of typing all that.
I dunno. Take a call centre. ASA (average speed of answer) is a common and important metric. Organisations will often have a target or SLA for their ASA, and this is something customers really care about. It's driven by a range of factors: how call centre operatives handle calls, matching of demand and supply, actions to reduce demand such as self-service (eg online) or bots to answer, etc etc. I can't see how a call centre could manage itself effectively without having both an ASA target for the centre as a whole and for individual operators.
Or in another field: mortality rates for surgeons. Distinguishing case-mix and other effects from surgical competence effects is very very hard -- but that doesn't mean we can afford to stop trying, or stop looking at these numbers.
It's no surprise to know that targets can be gamed, and that performance metrics can be poorly implemented. But this is a false dichotomy: the choice is not between poorly implemented metrics/targets and no metrics/targets. There's also the option of implementing metrics/targets well. Not perfectly: what is, in this life? But certainly possible to implement them well -- and it would be damaging for the organisation not to do so. And if the behaviours and mindsets of the organisation are broken in the first place, then an absence of metrics/targets can be just as disastrous as poorly implemented metrics/targets -- and what's really needed is effort to work on the underlying issues.
Exactly this.
What Orwell called blackwhite.
FFS twice over.
FFS 1: The intent of the OP shines through what they said: they are not outraged that dirt was exposed on Clinton, they are outraged that Wikileaks used dirt on Clinton to support Trump. Wikileaks took sides. Taking sides is the reprehensible bit. The notions that Wikileaks didn't solicit for the dirt on Clinton / the DNC, that Wikileaks didn't have dirt just as damning, if not more so, on Trump / the RNC .... well if you believe that, I've got a lovely bridge to sell you.
FFS 2: If the people wanted Sanders rather than Clinton, then they did a pretty poor job of showing it, given that she won the popular vote in the primary by 3.75 million votes. If you believe rigging delivered all those extra votes for Clinton, I don't just have a bridge for you, I have a tunnel too. If you peer through it, you'll see a magic land with unicorns and pixie dust.
If there's one thing this election has shown, it's that moral fiber and honesty are not prerequisites for being elected president.
Not seeing anybody doesn't mean that there was no-one there. They may have been in plain clothes, in buildings, etc
Spot on.
No, it's not embarrassing for the Met. The Met are obliged to do this -- they cannot be seen to let a high profile suspect in a rape case escape custody -- and the higher the number, the easier it is for them to argue for additional funding.
How could you possibly interpret his statement like that? He supported the exposure of corruption when it was exposing corruption *with an even hand*. Once the exposure was applied only to one side of a partisan contest, it became insupportable.
Why bother making such ridiculous strawman statements? It's obviously not what the OP thinks. I doubt it's even what you think. It won't convince more than a handful of readers. What was the point?
It does fairly well. No 1 EV in Europe in 2015 -- but that was only 18k units. YoY growth is pretty strong, though -- CAGR of 46% from 2013 (first full year of sales) to 2015. 2016 data is not yet available but I expect another big increase, and larger still in 2017 due to the doubled range.
By comparison, there were more than 300k Renault Clios sold in 2015 (the Clio and Zoe are similar in size and trim, but the Clio is an ICE). So there's clearly a long way to go for the Zoe till it's a serious competitor to ICE cars.
By US standards, it's tiny -- the hatchback / supermini category never took off in the US, hence why it never launched in that market. But it fits five people and the trunk is 12 cubic feet, which is more than enough for my family and our suitcases for a holiday. In Europe, small cars are attractive precisely because they are small, and thus easy to manoeuvre (especially for parking) -- our streets are much narrower, on average, than in the US.
Off-topic, but I really can't understand how anyone can find that an attractive way to live. Four hours to go shopping!
It doesn't use enough power to cause a significant reduction in range. If I put the heater on full-blast in the winter time, my Renault Zoe drops from 70 to 65 miles of range. What I actually do is put the heater on full-blast, then once the cabin is warm, turn it down and switch on Eco mode. Then my range drops from 70 to about 68.
Or kids on foot. So kids aren't on foot. And get fatter and die earlier. This safety thing isn't working out quite as expected.
You're over-extrapolating from N America to the rest of the world: the Renault Zoe is available here in the UK for about $15k new. Mine costs me $150 per month, all-in (including fuel costs). And in much of the world outside the US, small cars ("super-minis") are popular precisely because they *are* small, so are easy to manoeuvre. I'm sure it's too small for you, but it seats five and has a 338 litre trunk (12 cubic feet), which is plenty enough for us.
You can get a Zoe 40 for a lot less than $30k in the UK.
What is the benefit to the consumer of #3, other than #1 and #2?
On #4, safety, this is clearly your personal perception, and nothing more substantive than that. Gas-powered cars are quite capable of vehicle fires, and this is not exactly uncommon. And EVs have low centres of gravity and additional stiffness from the battery packs that make them more robust in a crash.
On #5, toxicity of manufacturing, you are ignoring the byproducts of gasoline / diesel manufacturing, which are every bit as icky as for a battery (and then some).
And of course, there's a balancing lists of benefits to the consumer of an EV vs an ICE, including but not limited to:
1. Much quieter cabin
2. Ability to pre-heat cabin in cold weather
3. Vibration-free ride
4. Faster acceleration, especially from 0 to 30 (one reason why EVs are especially popular in towns)
5. Ability to charge without user presence
6. Lower costs of fuel
7. Lower costs of maintenance
8. Lower carbon footprint
9. No exhaust fumes
These are tangible benefits that many (but of course not all) consumers value. With the exception of #8, they're also hardly the stuff of which dreams are made in Davos.
I'm pretty sure this is an urbanite vs non-urbanite cultural divide. There are a huge number of people living in urban who would be perfectly happy to have a car that meets 95% of their transport needs and doesn't meet the final 5%. But they're not the whole of a country. There's also a large number of people living outside urban areas who do longer journeys often enough that they would not be happy with a car that has a range of say 150miles.
In case you hadn't noticed, the vast majority of those gas stations in the Rockies that you're talking about are on mains electricity. So the problem of installing electricity infrastructure in remote areas is really not as hard as you think it is.
There are tons of apps showing you where to charge an EV. And most EVs have built-in sat nav that also shows chargers.
That's the Zoe 22. The Zoe 40 has a range of 190miles, so 23 miles is about 12% of its range.
There is such a car, just not in the US. It's called the Renault Zoe and can be bought in the UK for £12k new, so about $15k. And it will go 190miles.
Very droll