I'm probably lost here, but I'm confused why it is bad. I mean, I see Germany is one of the few countries that has met its Kyoto obligations. And I believe they did that at least partially by 1. force power companies to buy solar power from anyone for a great price 2. German companies started seeing huge demand for solar, and could be sure it would continue to increase, so they increased investments and manufacturing 3. profit! 4. German semiconductor stock market gets a boost from foreign investments, and does well. 5. more profit 6. other countries buying german solar products and technology 7. even more profit!
Joking aside, it was business innovation that started investing only when they knew they could profit from it, which resulted in a net profit for the companies, and Germany met their goals.
So what's wrong with protecting the patent rights of companies that innovate, even if a lot of it will go to big oil companies?
So I may be missing something, but it sounds like you're saying that if all the systems only got 50% more efficient, and everyone was forced to join, sustainability is actually possible without destroying demand?
I am a numbers guy, and I haven't seen them, so you may be right - we might have a lower standard of living here in the US. But if we don't curb global warming, I see huge refugee camps forming, where people starve to death and start wars (and the defense dept agrees). So be sure to include those factors in your program: the # of dead parents and starving children. And come to think of it, if New Orleans refugees in Texas were any indication, the US will not be a happy place either, although they'll probably be alive and fed well.
I'm not trying to troll, but its how I feel and can't figure out a less inflammatory way of sayin it. Please try to extract the logic part w/out the emotion:)
Yeah, and all those people who can't afford to buy new cars or who don't have access to alternate transportation will just have to suck it up and choose between gas and food or rent/mortgage payments.
A smaller wagon would save her money on repair costs, even if her gas bill was the same.
Yet, you fail to adress whether or not it would meet her needs and standards. Clue: There's a lot of factors involved in choosing a vehicle. I'm getting close to dropping my minivan for a truck that gets half the gas mileage but which, as the minivan has problems with, does the jobs I need done.
I was replying to your comment about people who can't afford new cars. I'm saying those people eventually do get new or used cars, despite the fact they shouldn't be able to afford it, and then make the poor choice of getting the larger car. If they 'need' it for status or to sit high and make them feel good, then I think thats a want, not a need. So these people should not get to pollute the planet for free. If people have a genuine need for a truck, thats slightly different, but I still don't see why we can't put a battery in that too. If the big advantage of hybrids are regenerative braking, then a larger vehicle would produce more regenerative braking, and the advantage is still there. Even if a bigger battery is more expensive, the biggest profit margins are in trucks anyway, so the car companies excuses are just that. And if every car/truck in America is a hybrid, then you will see the price of those batteries go down.
You also fail to address that the true cost of polluting will be charged to us all in the future. The current cost is already high and barely being charged in car/fuel prices. I agree that people should be allowed to buy what they want, but not to a point where it hurts the rest of us.
"If there is a negative externality that they are not taking into account - figure out it's cost, and add it to the product (for the record, I think the negative externality argument is overused and doesn't apply here - but I'd rather have a tax on some of my options than to have those options removed)"
I would agree with these arguments if you see that through all the reasons we have a huge presence in the Middle East, oil is a big part if not the heart of them all. So fine, lets put a cost on all our military there, and put that price directly in a gas tax. If you want, we can even say the cost of our soldiers lost lives is $0, just to be conservative. I think the numbers come out to $3/g, which would be radical. A gas tax of adding $0.10 every year is more realistic, but still political suicide, so these fuel stds are the best they can do right now. It would take just a few Republicans to tell their Reps that a gas tax would be good to change that though.
And if you dont want to realize how much oil has to do with our military in the Middle East, ask our Defense Department whether Global Warming is a security risk. Thats where we get into serious money.
I don't know, I talk to a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of one girl in particular. She has 2 jobs and 3 kids, but has to have her giant new SUV. A smaller wagon would save her money on repair costs, even if her gas bill was the same. A lot of both poor and rich people can afford to change their habits, they just don't want to. OTOH, some people I talk to love not even owning a car in New York, and those people are more often thin, healthy, & prosperous.
If you really have a bleeding heart, think about the poor people on the Florida coast in 50 years, when everything they own is under water. Whats their property value? And remember everyone in America is rich compared to millions of coastline-dwelling people around the world.
Yes, we all should suck it up a little, change our habits a little, to save a lot of money, heartache and war 100 years from now. A $0.50 gas tax is the least we could do.
Because it "costs enormous political capital and pays insufficient returns." I'm still in favor of a small one though. The best thing I wish for but will never happen is a carbon tax, but again, the political forces against it would invest in commercials to rile up the Palin crowd like you've never seen. That is, unless enough of us that see the (security, humanitarian, and environmental) threat of global warming actually let our politicians know.
Well how much money do we spend on military in the Middle East? There's lots reasons why we're there, but they all eventually point back to oil. Since we get ~30% of our oil from there, I say we tax 30% of the entire cost of our military presence in all Mideast Countries directly to a gas tax. Thats actually paying for what you're getting, would the conservatives in us agree to that?
Actually I'd be happy not buying any oil from any country whose leaders and businesses have any predilection towards donating money to Al Queada.
No, what made last summer's gas prices so painful was that they were sudden. Make the gas tax very small, incremental, and steady over many years, and at least people (& companies) will know what to expect. Maybe even have a summer gas tax holiday if it gets bad again, or other methods of evening out prices.
Exactly - obvious cheapness of the stuff you pay extra for is just annoying. Tesla offering all the connectors and the nice screen - it strikes me as finally giving the customer some bells that are actually cheap without charging them for a 'package', granted the car's not out yet. But by all indicators, I find myself rooting for them, & wishing this GM bailout talk included giving Tesla some part of GM, like a manufacturing plant or something. They deserve it more.
& btw, I convinced my gf to get the '08 Civic Hybrid last summer (I told her to wait a few months, but she couldn't). The sales guys were adamant about the hybrid demand, & cost of the extra packages the car had, but she gave them the cost she wanted to pay (less than base sticker) & walked out. They called her back the next day and gave her all the options for free. Goes to show how much they really pay.
Ok, we get it. This car is almost, but ultimately, not for you. But I think it is for anyone who A) lives w/in 100mi from a repair shop, and B)
1. likes public transport every once in a while, or
2. has a 2nd vehicle, or
3. lives with someone with a vehicle they can borrow, or
4. takes long trips so seldom they don't mind the public transport
OR, anyone who has enough money to afford sending the car off for repairs and has a concern for the environment, or doesn't like sending money to the middle east, where some ends up in the hands of al queida, or believes in global warming, or likes to show off their tech, etc.
Agreed. This is leap frog technology, skipping hybrids. I imagine GM has to do that to even out their guzzlers, increasing their average fuel efficiency & helping out their public image. But what nobody has mentioned is this country's expenses if we don't subsidize electric cars. How much money will we end up spending in Iraq, and what percentage of the reason for that war is oil? What are the security risks and costs of global warming? We've known since '07 its huge. If anyone thinks today's global economy is bad, what happens when we multiply drought and floods everywhere?
On your envelope, did you include savings on oil changes, brakes, & brake pads? Most importantly, did you calculate how much money you would get for the car when you sold it? Did you see used Prius prices last summer? There is a heavy up front cost, but there is also a backend reward depending on the price of gas & condition of battery.
...you can't fix education by throwing money at it.
I agree. My gf's inner city elementary has very new laptops, desktops, smart screens, complicated AV systems, and almost none of it is used *at all*. Thats right, they're mostly paper weights. Disgusting.
Here's my suggestion: All the federal money spent needs to go to a national database keeping track of students' lifetimes. When a student graduates, an additional, say 1% of his/her salary is taken out in taxes, to be split up among all of the teachers he/she had. If he/she logs into a website and rates teachers as to how positively they affected him and his earning power, then those teachers will get a bigger/smaller percentage of that 1%. Modifiers to the algorithm should be included to 1) reward improvement in performance (over other teachers in same school, etc) 2) reward teachers who work in areas of need (eg. inner city++, rich suburbs--)
This system, would basically give teacher's residual salaries & retirements, decrease govmt spending, repay teachers for time & money spent on individual children, attract quality educators and life coaches, and reward teachers who get larger class sizes (they should start with 15 students, and additional 'heads' should be rewarded to teachers who improve test scores and get good ratings), and allow unmotivated teachers that don't need money but just like to be around children to basically be paid $20k/year to babysit 12 kids at a time.
"My thought then was to try to explain legal news stories as they came along. I was forever reading/. [Slashdot] comments about legal news and most of the comments would be way off...and any time I tried to comment, it mostly ended up moderated a zero, meaning nobody read it, including probably the moderators, so I gave up on that..."
I wish they'd stop rewarding first posts more than insightfullness (they do just fine ignoring spelling & grammer).
I posted a question before looking up whether its already been asked. Of course it was, more or less. Well here's the link, if anyone else wants to support Tesla:
Its our responsibility to rally against paperless voting machines. I think the general public equates electronic voting with newfangled, unnecessary, geeky stuff that in the end doesn't work. It's not tech's fault, its the way it was implemented. Nerds should all be voicing contempt that for such a simple technical challenge America has failed so utterly. One message we should all be delivering, in unison, is that electronic voting is easy, saves the government time and money, and is more reliable as long as we have 1) paper trail (easily scanned), 2) encryption and secure programming, 3) physical security. Why don't I hear that more often from sites like this, or every time a nerd is interviewed by the press?
No, they're calling it the "Cold Rush". Ha ha. Still ironic, but less funny is the realization that here is another force pitting big money vs global warming. Drilling and shipping routes opened by the loss of northern icecap make and save trillions to companies and countries.
Just went back and looked at engrish.com I was disappointed because when I first discovered the site a while back, there were less posts, but all funny. Still worth goofing off from work for a while.
When plugging in numbers, don't forget to add a subsidized solar industry's effect on the stock market. Look at Germany, where the flourishing industry has helped their entire economy. All this, while Germany gets 1/3 less sun per day than many (most?) states in the US.
I don't understand your argument. Why did GM risk this PR problem when they could've just sold the cars 'as is' to the people leasing them, instead of trashing them? Yes, tell them they have to pay true cost of the battery, be it whatever the market asks. If another company can make it cheaper, then buy from them. At least make 24k back on the car. Auction them even. How much would crazy car collectors have paid?
Also, how much of the 1.5B was development, marketing, etc, how much on actual production? How much did the government subsidize? Please readjust your numbers and provide links, especially to battery costs and performance.
Then, how much has this PR problem cost them? I wouldn't buy a GM car now, how many more are like me? Why not just make the $24k+ ($100k?) back, explain the issues and avoid the PR problem?
I can agree with both sentiments, by putting forth a 3rd option: Learn it in your spare time from friends. I had a Chinese roommate while getting my EE degree. I learned a bunch of phrases and used them with him "good morning" "see you later" "you got any food?" After school, got a job in Semiconductor, and eventually had to install tools in Taiwan. Of all the engineers that went there, I had the most fun, as I would talk to everyone I could outside the fab, and continued my 'learning through phrases'. I'd write them down and memorize them for 15min before sleep each night. After several 2 week trips, I can now at least communicate in Mandarin. Even if I hadn't got the travel opportunities, I could always have said I didn't waste any time with it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm probably lost here, but I'm confused why it is bad. I mean, I see Germany is one of the few countries that has met its Kyoto obligations. And I believe they did that at least partially by
1. force power companies to buy solar power from anyone for a great price
2. German companies started seeing huge demand for solar, and could be sure it would continue to increase, so they increased investments and manufacturing
3. profit!
4. German semiconductor stock market gets a boost from foreign investments, and does well.
5. more profit
6. other countries buying german solar products and technology
7. even more profit!
Joking aside, it was business innovation that started investing only when they knew they could profit from it, which resulted in a net profit for the companies, and Germany met their goals.
So what's wrong with protecting the patent rights of companies that innovate, even if a lot of it will go to big oil companies?
So I may be missing something, but it sounds like you're saying that if all the systems only got 50% more efficient, and everyone was forced to join, sustainability is actually possible without destroying demand?
:)
I am a numbers guy, and I haven't seen them, so you may be right - we might have a lower standard of living here in the US. But if we don't curb global warming, I see huge refugee camps forming, where people starve to death and start wars (and the defense dept agrees). So be sure to include those factors in your program: the # of dead parents and starving children. And come to think of it, if New Orleans refugees in Texas were any indication, the US will not be a happy place either, although they'll probably be alive and fed well.
I'm not trying to troll, but its how I feel and can't figure out a less inflammatory way of sayin it. Please try to extract the logic part w/out the emotion
Yeah, and all those people who can't afford to buy new cars or who don't have access to alternate transportation will just have to suck it up and choose between gas and food or rent/mortgage payments.
A smaller wagon would save her money on repair costs, even if her gas bill was the same.
Yet, you fail to adress whether or not it would meet her needs and standards. Clue: There's a lot of factors involved in choosing a vehicle. I'm getting close to dropping my minivan for a truck that gets half the gas mileage but which, as the minivan has problems with, does the jobs I need done.
I was replying to your comment about people who can't afford new cars. I'm saying those people eventually do get new or used cars, despite the fact they shouldn't be able to afford it, and then make the poor choice of getting the larger car. If they 'need' it for status or to sit high and make them feel good, then I think thats a want, not a need. So these people should not get to pollute the planet for free. If people have a genuine need for a truck, thats slightly different, but I still don't see why we can't put a battery in that too. If the big advantage of hybrids are regenerative braking, then a larger vehicle would produce more regenerative braking, and the advantage is still there. Even if a bigger battery is more expensive, the biggest profit margins are in trucks anyway, so the car companies excuses are just that. And if every car/truck in America is a hybrid, then you will see the price of those batteries go down.
You also fail to address that the true cost of polluting will be charged to us all in the future. The current cost is already high and barely being charged in car/fuel prices. I agree that people should be allowed to buy what they want, but not to a point where it hurts the rest of us.
"If there is a negative externality that they are not taking into account - figure out it's cost, and add it to the product (for the record, I think the negative externality argument is overused and doesn't apply here - but I'd rather have a tax on some of my options than to have those options removed)"
I would agree with these arguments if you see that through all the reasons we have a huge presence in the Middle East, oil is a big part if not the heart of them all. So fine, lets put a cost on all our military there, and put that price directly in a gas tax. If you want, we can even say the cost of our soldiers lost lives is $0, just to be conservative. I think the numbers come out to $3/g, which would be radical. A gas tax of adding $0.10 every year is more realistic, but still political suicide, so these fuel stds are the best they can do right now. It would take just a few Republicans to tell their Reps that a gas tax would be good to change that though.
And if you dont want to realize how much oil has to do with our military in the Middle East, ask our Defense Department whether Global Warming is a security risk. Thats where we get into serious money.
I don't know, I talk to a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of one girl in particular. She has 2 jobs and 3 kids, but has to have her giant new SUV. A smaller wagon would save her money on repair costs, even if her gas bill was the same. A lot of both poor and rich people can afford to change their habits, they just don't want to. OTOH, some people I talk to love not even owning a car in New York, and those people are more often thin, healthy, & prosperous.
If you really have a bleeding heart, think about the poor people on the Florida coast in 50 years, when everything they own is under water. Whats their property value? And remember everyone in America is rich compared to millions of coastline-dwelling people around the world.
Yes, we all should suck it up a little, change our habits a little, to save a lot of money, heartache and war 100 years from now. A $0.50 gas tax is the least we could do.
Because it "costs enormous political capital and pays insufficient returns." I'm still in favor of a small one though. The best thing I wish for but will never happen is a carbon tax, but again, the political forces against it would invest in commercials to rile up the Palin crowd like you've never seen. That is, unless enough of us that see the (security, humanitarian, and environmental) threat of global warming actually let our politicians know.
Well how much money do we spend on military in the Middle East? There's lots reasons why we're there, but they all eventually point back to oil. Since we get ~30% of our oil from there, I say we tax 30% of the entire cost of our military presence in all Mideast Countries directly to a gas tax. Thats actually paying for what you're getting, would the conservatives in us agree to that?
Actually I'd be happy not buying any oil from any country whose leaders and businesses have any predilection towards donating money to Al Queada.
No, what made last summer's gas prices so painful was that they were sudden. Make the gas tax very small, incremental, and steady over many years, and at least people (& companies) will know what to expect. Maybe even have a summer gas tax holiday if it gets bad again, or other methods of evening out prices.
Exactly - obvious cheapness of the stuff you pay extra for is just annoying. Tesla offering all the connectors and the nice screen - it strikes me as finally giving the customer some bells that are actually cheap without charging them for a 'package', granted the car's not out yet. But by all indicators, I find myself rooting for them, & wishing this GM bailout talk included giving Tesla some part of GM, like a manufacturing plant or something. They deserve it more.
& btw, I convinced my gf to get the '08 Civic Hybrid last summer (I told her to wait a few months, but she couldn't). The sales guys were adamant about the hybrid demand, & cost of the extra packages the car had, but she gave them the cost she wanted to pay (less than base sticker) & walked out. They called her back the next day and gave her all the options for free. Goes to show how much they really pay.
Ok, we get it. This car is almost, but ultimately, not for you. But I think it is for anyone who A) lives w/in 100mi from a repair shop, and B)
1. likes public transport every once in a while, or
2. has a 2nd vehicle, or
3. lives with someone with a vehicle they can borrow, or
4. takes long trips so seldom they don't mind the public transport
OR, anyone who has enough money to afford sending the car off for repairs and has a concern for the environment, or doesn't like sending money to the middle east, where some ends up in the hands of al queida, or believes in global warming, or likes to show off their tech, etc.
OTOH, the AUX & ipod input probably cost $1 each. I don't understand why every car built after 2005 doesn't have those.
Agreed. This is leap frog technology, skipping hybrids. I imagine GM has to do that to even out their guzzlers, increasing their average fuel efficiency & helping out their public image. But what nobody has mentioned is this country's expenses if we don't subsidize electric cars. How much money will we end up spending in Iraq, and what percentage of the reason for that war is oil? What are the security risks and costs of global warming? We've known since '07 its huge. If anyone thinks today's global economy is bad, what happens when we multiply drought and floods everywhere?
On your envelope, did you include savings on oil changes, brakes, & brake pads? Most importantly, did you calculate how much money you would get for the car when you sold it? Did you see used Prius prices last summer? There is a heavy up front cost, but there is also a backend reward depending on the price of gas & condition of battery.
Would you mind posting your calculations?
...you can't fix education by throwing money at it.
I agree. My gf's inner city elementary has very new laptops, desktops, smart screens, complicated AV systems, and almost none of it is used *at all*. Thats right, they're mostly paper weights. Disgusting.
Here's my suggestion: All the federal money spent needs to go to a national database keeping track of students' lifetimes. When a student graduates, an additional, say 1% of his/her salary is taken out in taxes, to be split up among all of the teachers he/she had. If he/she logs into a website and rates teachers as to how positively they affected him and his earning power, then those teachers will get a bigger/smaller percentage of that 1%. Modifiers to the algorithm should be included to
1) reward improvement in performance (over other teachers in same school, etc)
2) reward teachers who work in areas of need (eg. inner city++, rich suburbs--)
This system, would basically give teacher's residual salaries & retirements, decrease govmt spending, repay teachers for time & money spent on individual children, attract quality educators and life coaches, and reward teachers who get larger class sizes (they should start with 15 students, and additional 'heads' should be rewarded to teachers who improve test scores and get good ratings), and allow unmotivated teachers that don't need money but just like to be around children to basically be paid $20k/year to babysit 12 kids at a time.
Ya, I'd rather slashdot focus on improving comment rating than ipv6.
/. [Slashdot] comments about legal news and most of the comments would be way off...and any time I tried to comment, it mostly ended up moderated a zero, meaning nobody read it, including probably the moderators, so I gave up on that..."
Consider PJ's comment from groklaw:
"My thought then was to try to explain legal news stories as they came along. I was forever reading
I wish they'd stop rewarding first posts more than insightfullness (they do just fine ignoring spelling & grammer).
I posted a question before looking up whether its already been asked. Of course it was, more or less. Well here's the link, if anyone else wants to support Tesla:
http://moderator.change.gov/?embed=http://change.gov/openforquestions#9/e=8&t=tesla
> How often does the outcome matter?
Do you really think there would have been little difference between an Al Gore presidency and George W. Bush?
> Bullshit.
2) I use 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter from frys: $2.50
My killer app would be a simple stopwatch for when I go running. Even better tell me how far I ran. Anyone seen that yet?
Its our responsibility to rally against paperless voting machines. I think the general public equates electronic voting with newfangled, unnecessary, geeky stuff that in the end doesn't work. It's not tech's fault, its the way it was implemented. Nerds should all be voicing contempt that for such a simple technical challenge America has failed so utterly. One message we should all be delivering, in unison, is that electronic voting is easy, saves the government time and money, and is more reliable as long as we have 1) paper trail (easily scanned), 2) encryption and secure programming, 3) physical security. Why don't I hear that more often from sites like this, or every time a nerd is interviewed by the press?
I'm not talking about voting, donating money, licking envelopes, or standing on street corners "Baracking the vote"
Oblig RTFA
No, they're calling it the "Cold Rush". Ha ha.
Still ironic, but less funny is the realization that here is another force pitting big money vs global warming. Drilling and shipping routes opened by the loss of northern icecap make and save trillions to companies and countries.
Just went back and looked at engrish.com I was disappointed because when I first discovered the site a while back, there were less posts, but all funny. Still worth goofing off from work for a while.
When plugging in numbers, don't forget to add a subsidized solar industry's effect on the stock market. Look at Germany, where the flourishing industry has helped their entire economy. All this, while Germany gets 1/3 less sun per day than many (most?) states in the US.
I don't understand your argument. Why did GM risk this PR problem when they could've just sold the cars 'as is' to the people leasing them, instead of trashing them? Yes, tell them they have to pay true cost of the battery, be it whatever the market asks. If another company can make it cheaper, then buy from them. At least make 24k back on the car. Auction them even. How much would crazy car collectors have paid?
Also, how much of the 1.5B was development, marketing, etc, how much on actual production? How much did the government subsidize? Please readjust your numbers and provide links, especially to battery costs and performance.
Then, how much has this PR problem cost them? I wouldn't buy a GM car now, how many more are like me? Why not just make the $24k+ ($100k?) back, explain the issues and avoid the PR problem?
I can agree with both sentiments, by putting forth a 3rd option: Learn it in your spare time from friends. I had a Chinese roommate while getting my EE degree. I learned a bunch of phrases and used them with him "good morning" "see you later" "you got any food?" After school, got a job in Semiconductor, and eventually had to install tools in Taiwan. Of all the engineers that went there, I had the most fun, as I would talk to everyone I could outside the fab, and continued my 'learning through phrases'. I'd write them down and memorize them for 15min before sleep each night. After several 2 week trips, I can now at least communicate in Mandarin. Even if I hadn't got the travel opportunities, I could always have said I didn't waste any time with it.