"Nature: Green Plastic Army Men" just aired. It was great, right up until the end.
(Voice = "David Attenborough"): "Unfortunately, the once-common army man figurine faces extinction due to overuse of its most valuable resource, petroleum, to move SUVs around."
Don't know, it was just an off-the-cuff theory as to how to optimize the technology and make it thinner.
I suspect 16 lasers could at least each scan at 1/16 the speed of a single laser, but brightness loss in a laser is far from linear, so I don't think you could drop the power to 1/16 per laser.
Actually, my objection is to the term "caught", as if he was doing something wrong. The only thing he did wrong was to apologize for breaking it. I would have pointed to the phone and done my best Nelson impression: "Ha-Ha!"
I do agree, however, that the phone isn't useless just because multiple direct hits of a pointy metal object to the LCD protection barrier eventually made it break. I'd still choose one of these over my Blackberry Curve and a protective zip-loc baggie to accompany me on my next kayak expedition or camping trip in the rain.
But the guy who repeatedly said "unbreakable" on camera had better be prepared for a lot of laughter pointed his way when a reporter manages to break it in less than 20 seconds. It's like saying "inedible" to a programmer just because the pizza's been out for a few weeks and is turning a bit fuzzy. It's not a statement of fact any more, it's a CHALLENGE.
Yeah, but cost is also a factor in a lot of cases, and this could well be an acceptable compromise for a lot of people.
These are supposedly a lot cheaper to manufacture and draw a lot less power, so if you are willing to put up with something that has some depth, you may be able to skip the 55 inch screen and go straight to 70 inches for the same money, and lower long-term costs of operation. Or get that 55-inch screen and have $800 left to buy a whole lot of movies to play on it.
A lot of people still have CRT or back-projection televisions. Something like this could appeal to those people, because they are already used to their TV having some depth anyway, and you can get them to high def in an affordable way. I have to imagine a laser projection could at least be slimmer than a CRT.
Plus, CRTs are HEAVY in addition to being bulky. It sounds like something like this would be a box filled with mostly air, so it's at least easier to move around.
Actually, if you made 4 lasers (or 1 laser with a very clever series of 4 mirrors), each one could be responsible for 1/4 of the screen and you'd end up with something shallower than a 1-laser rig. 16 lasers or mirrors would make it shallower still. But then you're starting to draw as much power as an LCD and manufacturing costs are probably as high or higher. So there are adaptations to this technology that could make them slimmer, if you're willing to pay for them, and if you don't apply them to the point you are exceeding the cost of LCD.
But, you your self said "the word that we cannot say". Twice.
King Arthur: Cut down a tree with a herring? It can't be done. [the Knights of Ni scream and cover their ears] Knight 1: Don't say that word! King Arthur: What word? Knight 1: I cannot tell! Suffice to say, is one of the words the Knights of Ni cannot hear! King Arthur: How can we not say the word if you don't tell us what it is? [the Knights of Ni scream again]
That is the first practical application of charging a phone over WiFi I've seen presented here.
Except your friend might get mad. "Perpetual motion" turns into "perpetual emotion".
Personally, I'd look for a stranger with the same model phone I have, and do it to them. Wear good sneakers in case they see you, and pick someone who doesn't look very fit. Be sure you can outrun them.
Ignoring the obvious impracticality of collecting useful amounts of power from WiFi signals..
Umm, since these gizmos run on WiFi, where exactly are you going to get the WiFi signal to run them? From the WiFi router they are running? It's far more efficient to plug a power strip into itself to get power. At least you've only spent $5 on the power strip.:)
My WiFi access point (WRT54GL) is running aftermarket firmware that allows me to specify the transmit power on my unit in mW. The standard "100%" reads as 42mW. The Broadcomm radio is capable of cranking up to about 250mW without external cooling, and could go as high as 1 watt if I put some serious cooling into it. I don't know what FCC regs I'd be busting doing that, but anyway...
Most public access points are going to run the standard signal strength, so your average radio will be cranking out under 50mW. Assuming you have a large antenna placed right next to this thing (which means you're blocking/absorbing signal in that direction almost entirely), you might be able to harvest about 30% of that signal, and given the losses involved in even the smallest of distances you'll probably yield about half that. So, at best, you'll get about 7mW, and you'll have a VERY angry WiFi operator.
My Blackberry's stock charger puts out 5V at 700mA, which if I understand my electric conversions properly is somewhere around 3.5 watts. Or 3,500mW if we want to stick to a consistent unit of measure. And it takes two hours to charge my BB from 0% to 100%, which gives me about 2 days of "average" operation (an hour or two a day of running the GPS, an hour or two of talk time, and a little web surfing).
To put that in perspective, my stock Blackberry charger puts out 500 times the amount of power that a WiFi collector could collect in its wildest dreams in an unrealistic scenario. So if my charger takes 2 hours, that would mean a WiFi would take somewhere significantly north of 1000 hours to do a full charge, and even that's a mad fantasy. That's about a month and a half.
Even if they managed to get 50mW of collection, which has gone from the realm of fantasy to that of engineering wet dreams, it would take 140 hours to charge a phone that discharges in 48 hours at best. And a lot of that discharge is the cell radio, which you need to have on to receive calls. If they managed that kind of collection, they could market it as an "occasional use emergency" phone, but it would cost a fortune. Giving someone an old handset with a car charger would be a far better emergency phone.
They make kinetic chargers and stitch-on solar panels that would both yield orders of magnitude more power.
The AA batteries you mention are also a superior alternative. They would hold more power than this thing could collect in months, and are disposable and cheaply replaced, and are actually better for the environment. This gizmo might replace AT BEST about 10 AA batteries in its lifetime, but it's far harder to produce, and has a heavy-metal rechargeable battery and features a lot more gimcrackery inside that's probably full of nasties. A modern disposable AA is no environmental treat, but it's designed to be disposed of and they've eliminated a lot of the nasty stuff.
Hell, I've got a 12V crank charger that's smaller than this thing, and it has a standard automotive power socket (what we used to call a "car cigarette lighter socket" back when I was a kid - now get off my lawn!). It can generate as much power as I care to put in to it in the form of cranking. If you want emergency power, it's really hard to beat a simple hand-crank dynamo. I can, and have, put power into my Blackberry using it. Not my preferred method for charging my phone, but in an emergency 15 minutes of cranking would buy me at least 2-3 hours of talk time.
They didn't even need to do that for this demo. They "pre-charged" it using WiFi, with no indication of how long it took to charge. They probably had to have the prototype built back in June or July and set it right next to a dedicated access point dialed up to "11" since then to get enough charge to top a Blackberry from 30% to 100%.
If they're really lucky, they'll have the SAME device recharged for CES next year and it can charge a Blackberry from 0% to 100%. They'll have to have 4-5 more access points dedicated to charging it, of course, for the entire year.
Kind of expensive for a device that can pull maybe $1 worth of electricity each YEAR. It's got an 40-year ROI, and it'll probably last about 3.
Seriously, especially in your case of being "out in the sticks", you'll get maybe -90db of signal, which isn't going to be sufficient to power the radio receiver, much less send the occasional blip back to the tower using the transmitter. You might extend the 2-day battery life of your phone by, possibly, about 10 minutes. And I'm being generous.
I suppose you could leave the charger battery at camp and have enough to charge/power the phone there for occasional visits, but you're talking about a long charge time, probably measured in months.
It's an expensive and inefficient way to collect energy. For a camp, you're better off with a larger-capacity battery and a solar panel. You'll collect more power, you aren't dependent on a WiFi transmitter, and it's probably cheaper. I imagine a 2" square solar panel would collect more power than this thing could possibly do, especially in areas far from the nearest cell tower.
Actually, you still bring value to the site. Facebook makes money from ads, and pays money for server space and bandwidth.
A user who uses Facebook obsessively makes them more money, of course, but they also cost the site more money in bandwidth and server space. No doubt they are far more profitable even with that, but there's no reason to purge people who actually visit the site and put up even minimal information. You aren't making them a lot of money, but you aren't really costing them anything either.
Plus there's something to be said for "momentum". As more people find their friends (like you), they might decide to be more and more active on the site. If 200 minimal accounts like yourself manage to get one recruit who goes hogwild on apps and stuff, you're worth the few megabytes of disk space and bandwidth you use.
Exactly. If you have data you're worried about out there, the best thing to do is drown it in irrelevancies before you kill it.
Post a bunch of inane Facebook updates all the time that have nothing to do with what you are doing in real life, delete your existing pictures but upload tons of others of nothing in particular. Change all of your preferences/likes, etc to random stuff. In other words, make it look like every other Facebook account out there, but not look like you.
Once you've done that, start playing some of the games and running a few apps so the "bad" information gets out to all of the ad servers that Facebook has.
Give that a month or so, then delete your account.
I'm still struggling with the economics of it. I guess for a one-car household, this would make some sense, but it's a pricey combo deal. The premium over a small, efficient gas car that gets decent mileage is pretty extreme.
Example: We paid $16000 with all taxes and everything for a Pontiac Vibe. It's a pretty capable little car that is comfy for 4 and converts to a good wagon/hatchbacky thing if you need to haul something of modest size. Average fuel mileage is around 30MPG for daily driving, a tad better on the highway.
Let's say I drove round-trip every day in it or the Volt.
My round-trip is 30 miles, so in the Volt I'd use about $1.25 of power (power is 16 cents a kwh here). In the Vibe, I'd use around a gallon of gasoline, so let's say that's about $3. So (round up to) $2 a day more for my commute in the Vibe.
But I saved $24,000 up front buying the Vibe, and all of the efficiency is coming from the fact that it's a Toyota Corolla with nicer body panels (in other words, it's built on a reliable frame with a small engine).
So, if I drive to work 300 days of the year, saving $2 a day, I'd make my $24,000 back in, ummm, errrr, 40 years. Even if gasoline went up to $21 a gallon, it'd still take 4 years to pay for the mileage advantage.
My wife and I each have (and each need) a car. In our case, we could get one pure electric and one gas or Diesel and probably get by pretty well. I basically commute back and forth to work and with carpooling would really only need about a 40 mile range, give or take. Take out the IC engine, put in some extra batteries, and make me a 100-mile-range car (enough to run the occasional errand after work or run some heat or AC in the winter and summer) and I'm good.
For longer trips, we could use the gas/Diesel car. Pick something efficient like the Vibe or my Jetta TDI, and it'll be relatively efficient even for daily driving, but have the capacity for long trips efficiently as well.
If/when one of our cars finally gives up the ghost, I'll probably seriously shop for a pure-play electric as a commuter car. Assuming I'm still working close enough to home to use it.
The few lucky kids living in rural parts may still be able to grab a fishing pole and get out of sight for a while.
Your response:
Have you ever been to suburbia?
Suburbia is not "rural". Suburbia is exactly what it says - "Sub-urban". It's worker-storage. It's a moderately nicer version of an apartment with all the disadvantages of ownership (you're responsible for all maintenance and upkeep) and all the disadvantages of apartment dwelling (when you repaint it, you're given a choice of 4 shades of sandalwood that you're allowed to buy from a pre-approved vendor at your expense). In return, you get the illusion that the small green space bordered by the big wooden picket fence is "outdoors".
Suburbs are a great place to store a family, but generally, IMHO, generally a terrible place to raise one.
Yes, mine was the GLS/TDI. And, you know, it might be weaker "by the numbers" than the Prius of the day, but it sure didn't seem like it. The TDI suffers from a little turbo lag here and there, but I can compensate for that. The Prius was just, well, awful. Hey, light's green, put your foot down... wait for it... wait for it... sorry, the light's turned red again. (yes, I'm being sarcastic, but I was.. unimpressed, and I'm not a power hound).
To be honest, I only spent about 10 minutes behind the wheel. I'll also freely admit I have a strong bias toward manual transmissions. I think I would have been reasonably happy with it had I purchased it, but initial impressions were like driving through molasses. FROZEN molasses. Just... ugh.
The screen was drop dead sexy for the day, though, I'll give it that. Geek in me really wanted that. But better driving, sunroof, more interior room, better trunk, and myriad other little details won.
And, yes, I agree that biofuels are a limited-user niche or could potentially be worse than electrics. But if it's a long-term solution, we'll be using algae or more efficient crops anyway.
However, we're comparing long-range vehicles here. Electrics, for all their potential, are going to be a niche. One I will probably seriously consider for a commuter car if some cheap pure-play electric comes out, since my commute is only about 15 miles each way.
Of course, what I'd really like to do is get an electric assist hub for my bicycle and cut my trip down from one hour each way, so I can justify more cycling and leave the car behind more often in the summer when my carpool arrangement isn't happening. Two hours a day on the bicycle is just too long, though it does make me pretty fit.
THAT battery pack would have a decent ROI, methinks.:)
I had heard, when they first came out, that they had an expected lifespan of about 7 to 10 years. That was a factor in my decision to get the Diesel, especially because it was an "expected" lifespan - the whole concept of a gas/electric hybrid was pretty much new in the mass market arena back then.
I also didn't know what the temperatures here in New England would do to them (what effect would routinely being cooled to below freezing do?). Obviously, better than I thought back in 2002.:)
Of course, the fun thing about batteries is the variance in capacity you can accept before you consider them "bad". I have a 5-year-old Dell laptop. According to Linux Mint the battery pack retains about 52% of its original capacity to hold a charge, which ain't bad for a 5-year-old LiIon battery pack.
In other words, my original 4-hour battery life is now approximately two. But, at that reduced capacity, the batteries work just fine. If I used them for work and went to lots of meetings, I'd want new batteries, but I usually use the machine plugged in anyway.
What I don't know for sure is how a reduction in battery charging capacity might affect, say, the mileage of a Prius in the city. Obviously it has little effect on the highway since the Prius uses mostly gasoline power at highway speeds.
As the batteries get older and lose capacity, does that translate to more frequent engine starts that last shorter periods? Does the gas motor get used more since you can't get as much power out of the batteries for electric assist? Is regenerative braking power lost to an extent because there is less capacity to store it?
So, assuming the anecdotes are true, how much actual capacity was in those batteries, and how was that loss of capacity affecting their fuel mileage?
Not to get all "Clinton", but it all depends on what your definition of the term "lasting" is, and how much of the battery is still usable, and whether it's really contributing to fuel mileage any more.
*New* Prius batteries cost $2,229 for the first-gen and $2,588 for the second-gen.
All the replacements I've read about were in the $3600 range, but I'll take your numbers rather than looking it up. I stand corrected, and would like to change my original math from a THREE year supply of Diesel to a TWO year supply of Diesel.:)
2.
The Jetta TDIs score just above 40mpg (depends on what year you got).
2002 Jetta TDI: EPA rating was 42 city, 49 highway. Once I got past 50,000 miles, I routinely exceed that (very slightly) in real life driving in the summer, and fail to meet it (slightly) in winter. Overall, the numbers are pretty damned close to my real-world experience driving the car 85,000 miles over 8 years.
2002 Toyota Prius: EPA rating was 52 city, 45 highway. I have no real-life experience with one, so I can't determine its real mileage. Anecdotal stories on discussion boards vary too wildly.
3.
Diesel mpgs != gasoline mpgs
True, but recall that when I purchased the car Diesel was cheaper than gasoline. So I got better fuel mileage in a car that burned cheaper fuel. The 2007 (IIRC) cleaning up of Diesel was a good move, but made Diesel more expensive.
So, in case I was unclear, I'm measuring efficiency in dollars-per-mile, not CO2. If CO2 was my primary concern, I would about what the Prius battery packs cost ($1500-2000) and do a VeggieVan conversion to my TDI, and burn used fryalator oil as my primary fuel. That way, most of the CO2 I'd be releasing would have been sequestered in the process of growing the plants that the oil was harvested from, and I'd be using precious little dinosaur-sequestered CO2.
If I had to choose today, I'd have to research all over again. Toyota has touted efficiency increases (51/48 now), and VW has somewhat pandered to the power hungry drivers and added some horsepower at a cost to mileage. Plus Diesel is now more expensive. So the Prius battery packs may well be worth their expense in terms of day-to-day efficiency increases now. They certainly weren't when I did my research 8 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
"Nature: Green Plastic Army Men" just aired. It was great, right up until the end.
(Voice = "David Attenborough"): "Unfortunately, the once-common army man figurine faces extinction due to overuse of its most valuable resource, petroleum, to move SUVs around."
D'OH! So much for action figures. On to NASCAR...
For a moment, you had me worried. That's a rather large TV to have surgically implanted. :)
Yes, one guy was arrested for armed robbery... 90 times.
Didn't you read the summary? They specifically mention bluetooth enhancements.
All I need to read is "Huff" and I know it's full of hot air. :)
Don't know, it was just an off-the-cuff theory as to how to optimize the technology and make it thinner.
I suspect 16 lasers could at least each scan at 1/16 the speed of a single laser, but brightness loss in a laser is far from linear, so I don't think you could drop the power to 1/16 per laser.
Actually, my objection is to the term "caught", as if he was doing something wrong. The only thing he did wrong was to apologize for breaking it. I would have pointed to the phone and done my best Nelson impression: "Ha-Ha!"
I do agree, however, that the phone isn't useless just because multiple direct hits of a pointy metal object to the LCD protection barrier eventually made it break. I'd still choose one of these over my Blackberry Curve and a protective zip-loc baggie to accompany me on my next kayak expedition or camping trip in the rain.
But the guy who repeatedly said "unbreakable" on camera had better be prepared for a lot of laughter pointed his way when a reporter manages to break it in less than 20 seconds. It's like saying "inedible" to a programmer just because the pizza's been out for a few weeks and is turning a bit fuzzy. It's not a statement of fact any more, it's a CHALLENGE.
Hmm, you must be new to the Huffington Post. I don't even need to read the article to come to that conclusion, only the URL. :)
Yeah, but cost is also a factor in a lot of cases, and this could well be an acceptable compromise for a lot of people.
These are supposedly a lot cheaper to manufacture and draw a lot less power, so if you are willing to put up with something that has some depth, you may be able to skip the 55 inch screen and go straight to 70 inches for the same money, and lower long-term costs of operation. Or get that 55-inch screen and have $800 left to buy a whole lot of movies to play on it.
A lot of people still have CRT or back-projection televisions. Something like this could appeal to those people, because they are already used to their TV having some depth anyway, and you can get them to high def in an affordable way. I have to imagine a laser projection could at least be slimmer than a CRT.
Plus, CRTs are HEAVY in addition to being bulky. It sounds like something like this would be a box filled with mostly air, so it's at least easier to move around.
Actually, if you made 4 lasers (or 1 laser with a very clever series of 4 mirrors), each one could be responsible for 1/4 of the screen and you'd end up with something shallower than a 1-laser rig. 16 lasers or mirrors would make it shallower still. But then you're starting to draw as much power as an LCD and manufacturing costs are probably as high or higher. So there are adaptations to this technology that could make them slimmer, if you're willing to pay for them, and if you don't apply them to the point you are exceeding the cost of LCD.
Not Safe For Work
But, you your self said "the word that we cannot say". Twice.
King Arthur: Cut down a tree with a herring? It can't be done. [the Knights of Ni scream and cover their ears]
Knight 1: Don't say that word!
King Arthur: What word?
Knight 1: I cannot tell! Suffice to say, is one of the words the Knights of Ni cannot hear!
King Arthur: How can we not say the word if you don't tell us what it is? [the Knights of Ni scream again]
That is the first practical application of charging a phone over WiFi I've seen presented here.
Except your friend might get mad. "Perpetual motion" turns into "perpetual emotion".
Personally, I'd look for a stranger with the same model phone I have, and do it to them. Wear good sneakers in case they see you, and pick someone who doesn't look very fit. Be sure you can outrun them.
Hmm, phone charging AND fitness! Brilliant!
Ignoring the obvious impracticality of collecting useful amounts of power from WiFi signals..
Umm, since these gizmos run on WiFi, where exactly are you going to get the WiFi signal to run them? From the WiFi router they are running? It's far more efficient to plug a power strip into itself to get power. At least you've only spent $5 on the power strip. :)
My WiFi access point (WRT54GL) is running aftermarket firmware that allows me to specify the transmit power on my unit in mW. The standard "100%" reads as 42mW. The Broadcomm radio is capable of cranking up to about 250mW without external cooling, and could go as high as 1 watt if I put some serious cooling into it. I don't know what FCC regs I'd be busting doing that, but anyway...
Most public access points are going to run the standard signal strength, so your average radio will be cranking out under 50mW. Assuming you have a large antenna placed right next to this thing (which means you're blocking/absorbing signal in that direction almost entirely), you might be able to harvest about 30% of that signal, and given the losses involved in even the smallest of distances you'll probably yield about half that. So, at best, you'll get about 7mW, and you'll have a VERY angry WiFi operator.
My Blackberry's stock charger puts out 5V at 700mA, which if I understand my electric conversions properly is somewhere around 3.5 watts. Or 3,500mW if we want to stick to a consistent unit of measure. And it takes two hours to charge my BB from 0% to 100%, which gives me about 2 days of "average" operation (an hour or two a day of running the GPS, an hour or two of talk time, and a little web surfing).
To put that in perspective, my stock Blackberry charger puts out 500 times the amount of power that a WiFi collector could collect in its wildest dreams in an unrealistic scenario. So if my charger takes 2 hours, that would mean a WiFi would take somewhere significantly north of 1000 hours to do a full charge, and even that's a mad fantasy. That's about a month and a half.
Even if they managed to get 50mW of collection, which has gone from the realm of fantasy to that of engineering wet dreams, it would take 140 hours to charge a phone that discharges in 48 hours at best. And a lot of that discharge is the cell radio, which you need to have on to receive calls. If they managed that kind of collection, they could market it as an "occasional use emergency" phone, but it would cost a fortune. Giving someone an old handset with a car charger would be a far better emergency phone.
They make kinetic chargers and stitch-on solar panels that would both yield orders of magnitude more power.
The AA batteries you mention are also a superior alternative. They would hold more power than this thing could collect in months, and are disposable and cheaply replaced, and are actually better for the environment. This gizmo might replace AT BEST about 10 AA batteries in its lifetime, but it's far harder to produce, and has a heavy-metal rechargeable battery and features a lot more gimcrackery inside that's probably full of nasties. A modern disposable AA is no environmental treat, but it's designed to be disposed of and they've eliminated a lot of the nasty stuff.
Hell, I've got a 12V crank charger that's smaller than this thing, and it has a standard automotive power socket (what we used to call a "car cigarette lighter socket" back when I was a kid - now get off my lawn!). It can generate as much power as I care to put in to it in the form of cranking. If you want emergency power, it's really hard to beat a simple hand-crank dynamo. I can, and have, put power into my Blackberry using it. Not my preferred method for charging my phone, but in an emergency 15 minutes of cranking would buy me at least 2-3 hours of talk time.
They didn't even need to do that for this demo. They "pre-charged" it using WiFi, with no indication of how long it took to charge. They probably had to have the prototype built back in June or July and set it right next to a dedicated access point dialed up to "11" since then to get enough charge to top a Blackberry from 30% to 100%.
If they're really lucky, they'll have the SAME device recharged for CES next year and it can charge a Blackberry from 0% to 100%. They'll have to have 4-5 more access points dedicated to charging it, of course, for the entire year.
Kind of expensive for a device that can pull maybe $1 worth of electricity each YEAR. It's got an 40-year ROI, and it'll probably last about 3.
I think somewhere south of zero.
Seriously, especially in your case of being "out in the sticks", you'll get maybe -90db of signal, which isn't going to be sufficient to power the radio receiver, much less send the occasional blip back to the tower using the transmitter. You might extend the 2-day battery life of your phone by, possibly, about 10 minutes. And I'm being generous.
I suppose you could leave the charger battery at camp and have enough to charge/power the phone there for occasional visits, but you're talking about a long charge time, probably measured in months.
It's an expensive and inefficient way to collect energy. For a camp, you're better off with a larger-capacity battery and a solar panel. You'll collect more power, you aren't dependent on a WiFi transmitter, and it's probably cheaper. I imagine a 2" square solar panel would collect more power than this thing could possibly do, especially in areas far from the nearest cell tower.
Actually, you still bring value to the site. Facebook makes money from ads, and pays money for server space and bandwidth.
A user who uses Facebook obsessively makes them more money, of course, but they also cost the site more money in bandwidth and server space. No doubt they are far more profitable even with that, but there's no reason to purge people who actually visit the site and put up even minimal information. You aren't making them a lot of money, but you aren't really costing them anything either.
Plus there's something to be said for "momentum". As more people find their friends (like you), they might decide to be more and more active on the site. If 200 minimal accounts like yourself manage to get one recruit who goes hogwild on apps and stuff, you're worth the few megabytes of disk space and bandwidth you use.
Exactly. If you have data you're worried about out there, the best thing to do is drown it in irrelevancies before you kill it.
Post a bunch of inane Facebook updates all the time that have nothing to do with what you are doing in real life, delete your existing pictures but upload tons of others of nothing in particular. Change all of your preferences/likes, etc to random stuff. In other words, make it look like every other Facebook account out there, but not look like you.
Once you've done that, start playing some of the games and running a few apps so the "bad" information gets out to all of the ad servers that Facebook has.
Give that a month or so, then delete your account.
Thanks. I was a tad high.
I'm still struggling with the economics of it. I guess for a one-car household, this would make some sense, but it's a pricey combo deal. The premium over a small, efficient gas car that gets decent mileage is pretty extreme.
Example: We paid $16000 with all taxes and everything for a Pontiac Vibe. It's a pretty capable little car that is comfy for 4 and converts to a good wagon/hatchbacky thing if you need to haul something of modest size. Average fuel mileage is around 30MPG for daily driving, a tad better on the highway.
Let's say I drove round-trip every day in it or the Volt.
My round-trip is 30 miles, so in the Volt I'd use about $1.25 of power (power is 16 cents a kwh here). In the Vibe, I'd use around a gallon of gasoline, so let's say that's about $3. So (round up to) $2 a day more for my commute in the Vibe.
But I saved $24,000 up front buying the Vibe, and all of the efficiency is coming from the fact that it's a Toyota Corolla with nicer body panels (in other words, it's built on a reliable frame with a small engine).
So, if I drive to work 300 days of the year, saving $2 a day, I'd make my $24,000 back in, ummm, errrr, 40 years. Even if gasoline went up to $21 a gallon, it'd still take 4 years to pay for the mileage advantage.
My wife and I each have (and each need) a car. In our case, we could get one pure electric and one gas or Diesel and probably get by pretty well. I basically commute back and forth to work and with carpooling would really only need about a 40 mile range, give or take. Take out the IC engine, put in some extra batteries, and make me a 100-mile-range car (enough to run the occasional errand after work or run some heat or AC in the winter and summer) and I'm good.
For longer trips, we could use the gas/Diesel car. Pick something efficient like the Vibe or my Jetta TDI, and it'll be relatively efficient even for daily driving, but have the capacity for long trips efficiently as well.
If/when one of our cars finally gives up the ghost, I'll probably seriously shop for a pure-play electric as a commuter car. Assuming I'm still working close enough to home to use it.
Original statement:
The few lucky kids living in rural parts may still be able to grab a fishing pole and get out of sight for a while.
Your response:
Have you ever been to suburbia?
Suburbia is not "rural". Suburbia is exactly what it says - "Sub-urban". It's worker-storage. It's a moderately nicer version of an apartment with all the disadvantages of ownership (you're responsible for all maintenance and upkeep) and all the disadvantages of apartment dwelling (when you repaint it, you're given a choice of 4 shades of sandalwood that you're allowed to buy from a pre-approved vendor at your expense). In return, you get the illusion that the small green space bordered by the big wooden picket fence is "outdoors".
Suburbs are a great place to store a family, but generally, IMHO, generally a terrible place to raise one.
Yes, mine was the GLS/TDI. And, you know, it might be weaker "by the numbers" than the Prius of the day, but it sure didn't seem like it. The TDI suffers from a little turbo lag here and there, but I can compensate for that. The Prius was just, well, awful. Hey, light's green, put your foot down... wait for it... wait for it... sorry, the light's turned red again. (yes, I'm being sarcastic, but I was.. unimpressed, and I'm not a power hound).
To be honest, I only spent about 10 minutes behind the wheel. I'll also freely admit I have a strong bias toward manual transmissions. I think I would have been reasonably happy with it had I purchased it, but initial impressions were like driving through molasses. FROZEN molasses. Just... ugh.
The screen was drop dead sexy for the day, though, I'll give it that. Geek in me really wanted that. But better driving, sunroof, more interior room, better trunk, and myriad other little details won.
And, yes, I agree that biofuels are a limited-user niche or could potentially be worse than electrics. But if it's a long-term solution, we'll be using algae or more efficient crops anyway.
However, we're comparing long-range vehicles here. Electrics, for all their potential, are going to be a niche. One I will probably seriously consider for a commuter car if some cheap pure-play electric comes out, since my commute is only about 15 miles each way.
Of course, what I'd really like to do is get an electric assist hub for my bicycle and cut my trip down from one hour each way, so I can justify more cycling and leave the car behind more often in the summer when my carpool arrangement isn't happening. Two hours a day on the bicycle is just too long, though it does make me pretty fit.
THAT battery pack would have a decent ROI, methinks. :)
I had heard, when they first came out, that they had an expected lifespan of about 7 to 10 years. That was a factor in my decision to get the Diesel, especially because it was an "expected" lifespan - the whole concept of a gas/electric hybrid was pretty much new in the mass market arena back then.
I also didn't know what the temperatures here in New England would do to them (what effect would routinely being cooled to below freezing do?). Obviously, better than I thought back in 2002. :)
Of course, the fun thing about batteries is the variance in capacity you can accept before you consider them "bad". I have a 5-year-old Dell laptop. According to Linux Mint the battery pack retains about 52% of its original capacity to hold a charge, which ain't bad for a 5-year-old LiIon battery pack.
In other words, my original 4-hour battery life is now approximately two. But, at that reduced capacity, the batteries work just fine. If I used them for work and went to lots of meetings, I'd want new batteries, but I usually use the machine plugged in anyway.
What I don't know for sure is how a reduction in battery charging capacity might affect, say, the mileage of a Prius in the city. Obviously it has little effect on the highway since the Prius uses mostly gasoline power at highway speeds.
As the batteries get older and lose capacity, does that translate to more frequent engine starts that last shorter periods? Does the gas motor get used more since you can't get as much power out of the batteries for electric assist? Is regenerative braking power lost to an extent because there is less capacity to store it?
So, assuming the anecdotes are true, how much actual capacity was in those batteries, and how was that loss of capacity affecting their fuel mileage?
Not to get all "Clinton", but it all depends on what your definition of the term "lasting" is, and how much of the battery is still usable, and whether it's really contributing to fuel mileage any more.
1.
*New* Prius batteries cost $2,229 for the first-gen and $2,588 for the second-gen.
All the replacements I've read about were in the $3600 range, but I'll take your numbers rather than looking it up. I stand corrected, and would like to change my original math from a THREE year supply of Diesel to a TWO year supply of Diesel. :)
2.
The Jetta TDIs score just above 40mpg (depends on what year you got).
2002 Jetta TDI: EPA rating was 42 city, 49 highway. Once I got past 50,000 miles, I routinely exceed that (very slightly) in real life driving in the summer, and fail to meet it (slightly) in winter. Overall, the numbers are pretty damned close to my real-world experience driving the car 85,000 miles over 8 years.
2002 Toyota Prius: EPA rating was 52 city, 45 highway. I have no real-life experience with one, so I can't determine its real mileage. Anecdotal stories on discussion boards vary too wildly.
3.
Diesel mpgs != gasoline mpgs
True, but recall that when I purchased the car Diesel was cheaper than gasoline. So I got better fuel mileage in a car that burned cheaper fuel. The 2007 (IIRC) cleaning up of Diesel was a good move, but made Diesel more expensive.
So, in case I was unclear, I'm measuring efficiency in dollars-per-mile, not CO2. If CO2 was my primary concern, I would about what the Prius battery packs cost ($1500-2000) and do a VeggieVan conversion to my TDI, and burn used fryalator oil as my primary fuel. That way, most of the CO2 I'd be releasing would have been sequestered in the process of growing the plants that the oil was harvested from, and I'd be using precious little dinosaur-sequestered CO2.
If I had to choose today, I'd have to research all over again. Toyota has touted efficiency increases (51/48 now), and VW has somewhat pandered to the power hungry drivers and added some horsepower at a cost to mileage. Plus Diesel is now more expensive. So the Prius battery packs may well be worth their expense in terms of day-to-day efficiency increases now. They certainly weren't when I did my research 8 years ago.
Saved for future reference. Looks like a fruitful springtime project.
** THANK YOU!!!! **
I need to hang out at tdiclub more often. I really do.