The only thing I'd worry about is if they're extracting Fast and Furious style horsepower from 4 cylinder engines is that they'll get Fast and Furious levels of engine life.
Japanese companies have been doing this for ages and there is no problem with reliability. While there is some challenge in making a high strung 4 banger reliable, it's a problem that was solved a long time ago. A Subaru WRX generates plenty of HP and still manages to be quite reliable. You get F&F reliability when people who don't actually know what they are doing tune their cars beyond what they were designed for. That's not an issue when you are the company designing the car in the first place.
The bigger challenge will be providing a car the plebes find competitive at the $30k mark.
Yep. I think what you'll mostly see is almost all the luxury vehicles going hybrid in the near future which will have two effects. First it will provide a test bed for battery technology and second it will generate the economies of scale for battery tech to start to move down market. Tesla is working hard to get there directly but I think they aren't going to move the wider market by themselves. I think battery tech still has a bit further to go before pure EVs for the $30K crowd become widely appealing but I also think it's getting pretty close. 10 more years maybe? Hard to say for sure but think it won't be endlessly far off.
Hey I like Tesla as much as the next guy, but wake me up when a corporation lobbies government in a way that goes against their own self-interest.
So you don't care when a company lobbies against YOUR self interest like the traditional auto makers have been doing? Personally I care about that very much. Improved fuel economy standards are in MY interest so I'm kind of behind Tesla on this one.
The theory here is that if more stringent fuel mileage standards are maintained, it will force traditional automakers to either make more tiny, anemic 4 cylinder gas engines (early 1980s anyone?) or push further into hybrid and electric car territory in order to deliver meaningful power without as much (or any) gasoline.
More or less yes. Though "anemic" is a bit subjective. 20 years ago a car with 300 HP was rather unusual. Now it's more or less routine despite very few people actually needing more than about 150 or so HP. So despite today's engines actually being much improved, fuel economy has barely budged because we keep increasing the horsepower of the cars pointlessly.
I can only have one car, and an electric just cannot now, nor is likely to be able to, in my lifetime, do the kinds of things for which I use one.
And that would be what exactly? What do you do with a car that is so different from the rest of us that it can never work for you?
It doesn't help that none of the current, or probable, models of car (not SUV) allow a linebacker-sized driver (and, yes, I've tried the on the Telsa; it's pathetic).
If you think the Tesla is "pathetic" then you are talking out your ass. It's among the nicest luxury vehicles available this side of a Rolls Royce. Maybe it's not your particular cup of tea but anyone who thinks it is "pathetic" has either never actually sat in one or has an ax to grind. You don't even have to like Tesla to see that it is a very nice car.
As for size, if you are really that big (approaching 2 meters tall) then you are way on the far side of the bell curve size and fit is always going to be a problem for you. The type of drive train will be irrelevant. If you are both tall and fat then there is a solution for at least half of that equation. One of my closest friends is around 2 meters (6'7") and there are not a lot of vehicles he can fit comfortably in which is why he drives a Chevy Suburban. Watching him get into the little two seat coupe I used to drive required some contortions on his part that I don't envy. If you are 2+ standard deviations from the mean size wise then you are going to struggle to find a vehicles that fits you.
I find it unlikely Detroit will put out any compelling auto no matter if it runs on electric, gas, diesel.
Right. That's why in 2014 GM sold 2.9 million, Ford sold 2.48 million, and Chrysler sold 2.09 million vehicles. Because it's really easy to sell over 7 million vehicles in a calendar year when you don't have any compelling products. (oops, did I leave the sarcasm bit on again? my bad)
You might not like their products but clearly a lot of people do. The Ford F150 has been the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 32 years running. That doesn't happen by accident. Are you seriously going to argue that the Corvette or Challenger Hellcat aren't interesting? Jeep has a fanatical following. They make a lot of vehicles that very clearly resonate with buyers worldwide. No they aren't all great but the notion that nothing from the so called Detroit automakers is compelling just doesn't fit the facts. Hell the sales figures alone prove that they continue to do something right.
I thought the whole idea behind the 'right to be forgotten' was that google would 'forget' who you were. If they only forget you in the EU(search results come up as 0), but still have all the data on you (serach indexes, etc) then you haven't been forgotten have you?
I think that's what France is trying to point out here.
And what France is missing is that their precious "right to be forgotten" is ridiculous and unenforceable. It's effectively an attempt to export censorship. No private sector company could reasonably follow that silly law without entirely gutting their business in the process. France has NO right to prevent me from searching for data here in the US just like I don't really think China should have the right to censor what I read outside of their country. They are trying to put toothpaste back in the tube with stupid laws that make no sense which nobody can reasonably follow or execute.
Wow. And techies thought Microsoft was arrogant when dealing with Europe in the 2000s.
The arrogance is entirely on the part of the French government. Google is right. Google cannot possible afford to let each country dictate their business practices (and by extension my use of their services) globally. The French government is making an unreasonable demand to have their particular viewpoint be enforced worldwide by Google. Google is 100% right in telling them to fuck off. That may cost them business in France but if they actually did what France asked they would be effectively unable to function outside of a single country.
It is a worry that there is a fight between a company and the people of several countries and that it is even contemplated that the company and not the people, has some rights.
If companies have no rights there is no reason for them to exist at all. Since companies are almost entirely responsible for the economic well being of the world, you should seriously consider the practicality of your position. Just because some country comes up with some loony irrational law doesn't mean that the rest of us living in other countries should have to live with it. Should I have to respect the Chinese government's position on Tienanmen Square when I live in the US? Because that is EXACTLY what you are arguing for.
In this instance Google is right. There is no way they could respect ridiculous laws like this one globally. If the people of France are uncomfortable with that then that is their problem and they have no right to make it the problem of the rest of the world.
If it is between the people and anybody else, some countries even pretend to talk about "We, the people..." and they should ALWAYS be priority number one. If it is inconvinient for a company, fuck that.
Those very same people work in the companies you are so quick to dismiss. Companies are nothing more than a collection of people working together. So because people work in a company their rights no longer matter? Thank goodness you aren't in charge of anything if that is what you really think.
A recent Childline poll found nearly 10% of 12-13-year-olds were worried they were addicted to pornography and 18% had seen shocking or upsetting images.
Kids going through puberty find porn interesting. News at 11.
I'd say the percentage of kids that have seen "shocking or upsetting images" is a good approximation of 100%. The other 82% are merely lying about it. It's impossible to even turn on the evening news without seeing shocking or upsetting images. I welcome the day when I no longer have to hear any more ads for boner pills. Try explaining that one to a 6 year old.
"Crappy power" is normal. Manufacturers need to design for that.
Yeah, see physics doesn't care what you think is "normal". While it's possible to design for a reasonable range of power conditions it is not economically possible to design for all of them. Frankly if your power quality is so poor that they are constantly blowing out light bulbs the answer is to fix the power, not the bulbs. You take the bullets out of the gun rather than insist everyone wear a bullet proof vest.
When you scale down to car or truck size, mechanical transmissions work reasonably well, and are very efficient these days.
True but...
There is a significant loss, compared to a purely mechanical setup, that occurs when you turn mechanical energy into electrical energy in a generator, just to send it over the wire and convert it right back to mechanical energy at the wheel.
By that logic hybrids in cars wouldn't make any sense either but they do. They are demonstrably more efficient at comparable horsepower even in the face of the conversion losses. Doesn't matter if they are plug in hybrids or not. Plug-in technology helps but it isn't a necessity.
If the bulk of the electricity stored in the batteries comes from a cheap source (i.e. an outlet), it still makes sense, but if you are talking about a high endurance application where the vast majority of electricity is generated locally it doesn't.
Being able to plug in helps but hybrids without plug-in tech still make sense economically. I think for something like a semi or a UPS truck it would be almost a no brainer. Honestly unless there is something huge I'm overlooking I think hybrids make WAY more sense for commercial trucks than they do for passenger cars.
Didn't think it was all that complicated. Your ICE car can go 200-500 miles between refueling. The Tesla Model S can go 200+ miles between refueling stops. That is good enough for plenty of people and hence it is competitive.
My ICE car has effectively unlimited range.
No it does not because you still have to refuel it no different than an EV. The only difference right now is that it for long distance trips it is much quicker to refuel a ICE vehicle. If you drive less than the full range of the vehicle on a given day (most people drive 50 miles per day) then the EV is actually more convenient since you can refuel it at home when the car is not in use. For local driving I'd MUCH rather have an EV in most cases. For long distance driving you want a ICE or a hybrid right now. In time that may change.
And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?
You won't see pure EV trucks for a long time. What you'll see is a power train similar to that on locomotives. Diesel engine charging electric motors with a battery bank to deal with the excess. It's very efficient, huge torque and the technology is well understood. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing it already.
EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.
All of which are solvable problems. With scale EVs eventually could be cheaper than gas cars since they have fewer parts. There already are EVs with range competitive with gas cars (see the Model S) and they are only getting better. As for apartment dwellers, eventually apartments will end up providing charging infrastructure though I fully expect this to happen late in the game because the cost isn't trivial.
Electric vehicles will probably reach a tipping point when either A) recharge times get to less than 15 minutes with a 200 mile range or B) EVs with a 500+ mile range are developed and economically feasible. Until that happens we'll see hybrids serving as a technology test platform until such time as the battery technology matures sufficiently. I fully expect most luxury cars to be plug-in hybrids within the next 10-15 years. I think you'll start to see semi trucks and long haul vehicles becoming hybrids with a power train similar to locomotives (diesel with electric motors driving the wheels).
EVs won't reach the tipping point tomorrow or even probably 5 years from now but I do think they are the likely future with hybrids being a stepping stone to get there.
Apparently the deals they make with the gasoline/diesel suppliers are so bad there is almost no profit in selling gas.
That is correct. The business model is basically that it is a concession stand that uses fuel as the means to lure people to the store. Kind of similar to how a movie theater makes all their money on concessions because the revenues for the movie (around 80%) go back to the company distributing the movie. Pretty much all the profits in the oil and gas industry are made by the big oil and gas companies. They might have service stations (like ExxonMobil) to vertically integrate the entire supply chain but independent fuel stations really don't make any money on the fuel itself.
If no lighting makes residents stay at home because they don't feel safe outside when they'd otherwise be out and about, that seems like a problem.
Their perception of danger is of no concern to me. I'm concerned with the actuality of danger. They are adults and not children who ought to be afraid of the dark. If they don't feel safe outside then I'd suggest they spend their money improving their policing or move some place where they feel safer. Again, if they are scared of nothing (and the data indicates that they are) and decide to stay home rather than face the night then I don't see an actual problem.
Or maybe spend money and resources making residents feel safe and secure in their community?
Real security isn't going to come from a bunch of wasteful street lamps. At best it is security theater and it definitely is a huge waste of resources.
scrabbling around with a torch to get into your car (and check tyres etc before setting off for work)
I press my remote entry and it lights up the car. No handheld light necessary. But even if you didn't have that what is the big problem with using a light? It's not clear to me why you need to have a large and wasteful light constantly lit on the off chance you might decide to get in your car at some point during the night. At least have it be motion activated.
I have no idea why you would bother checking the tires before driving off as a routine activity. Do a lot of tires in your neighborhood wind up unexpectedly deflated?
Did they take into account how many people used the darkened streets? Maybe people felt less safe in the dark, so avoided going out in the dark.
Ok, if that is true then where is the actual problem?
When I bike home in the dark, I take a longer route with streetlights rather than go on the dark side streets.
So we should waste money and resources and pollution lighting up roads so you can bike home? I'm all for biking but I think this is a needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few situation.
Not just a waste of money. Most of them are a waste of fuel, serve no meaningful social purpose, create needless light pollution as well as emissions and waste resources in their creation and installation. We could eliminate vast numbers of street lights in all likelihood with no adverse effect at all while saving a lot of money and reducing pollution. I'm always astonished when I fly over a city at night how many empty parking lots, unoccupied buildings, unused streets and other things we pointlessly and wastefully light up.
I've long thought that whole local power grids would switch to DC eventually anyway.
Unlikely to happen any time soon. Too much installed base of AC power. Not like people are going to rip open their walls to switch from AC to DC and virtually everything you plug into the walls is designed with AC in mind. The only wide spread DC cabling standard is USB and that's mostly low power stuff.
I have no principled objection to DC power but I think any switch will take many decades if it happens at all.
1-The only people making an in depth examination of the issue are those who make a lot of money if the answer comes back "safe".
Demonstrably not true. Certainly a lot of the studies are industry funded but there are plenty that are not. Not to mention that we've been eating the stuff for decades now as a sort of in-vivo test without any evidence of problems attributable to GMO crops or animals. If people want to be paranoid that's their problem - don't make it mine.
2-Is it ok to put pork in sausages shipped to the middle east and not lebel it?
Nice strawman. Saying something is GMO without any further details is nearly meaningless. GMO by what technique, using what genes, with what evidence of harm? If I tell you something is GMO and you make a decision based on that information alone with no further details then you are not making any sort of meaningfully informed decision based on actual evidence. You are simply being scared of something you don't fully understand.
As a parallel, there is basically no evidence that organic foods are more nutritious and it is not clear that they are better for the environment. The argument for organics is more one of logic than of actual evidence. It sounds good in principle but sounding good doesn't make it true. They require more inputs to get the same yield, the "organic" pesticides used (and they are used) are often more toxic than the synthetic options, etc. If someone wants organic food that is fine but you label what is different, not what is standard. You have the person who wants the specialty good pay extra for it.
Most food is non-organic just like for many types of food GMO has become standard. If there is a market for non-GMO food (like there is for organic) then that is fine. It might not mean much but let those who care pay extra for it. Personally I don't care but until there is some actual evidence of harm I don't care to pay for labeling that I think is unscientific and pointless and frankly amounts to scare-mongering.
Shortcut keys are for power users and aren't really meant to be memorized directly.
The term "power user" is fairly meaningless. It typically references someone who knows all sorts of arcane stuff about an application or system. But it reinforces my point. If they need to know all this arcane stuff and the system is so clumsy they need shortcuts then the system needs to be designed better. I could be considered a power user of quite a number of applications but I still think shortcut keys are usually a clumsy workaround in most cases. There are exceptions but they are exceptions that prove the rule. I think keyboard shortcuts are a perfect example of the "if the only tool you have is a hammer everything is a nail" principle.
I prefer nice menus but I tend to go look up the shortcut keys or try to create a macro when I notice that I keep doing the same thing over and over again.
Exactly my point. I do the same thing (when possible) but I maintain that generally if I need to do that it very often means the interface needs some rework.
If you want to know how useful shortcut keys can be, try playing StarCraft 1 with someone who uses shortcut keys. They will beat you every time if you're just using the mouse.
It's not that they aren't useful or that they don't work. The problem I have with them is more of a design principle than a specific complaint. For example I happen to know that the shortcut to display the History in my browser is Ctrl+Shift+H. In my opinion if I'm using that so much that it needs a shortcut then it should be a more prominent part of the interface. As a general rule I think keyboard shortcuts should not be application specific any more than absolutely necessary. Cut/Copy/Paste are fine. Ctrl+Shift+A to open the Add-Ons in Firefox should either be user defined or simply not be given a shortcut or be made more prominent in the GUI.
However, I also believe people have a right to their own paranoid delusions
That depends heavily on exactly how harmful the delusion is. Some are harmless, others not so much. But public policy should be based on actual facts and real evidence.
therefore they have a right to know whether or not the food they buy contains GMO ingredients
Why do they have a "right to know"? Is there any actual evidence that they are harmful even a little bit? If the answer is yes then maybe you have an argument. But since the answer so far is an unequivocal no, despite large amounts of research into the question, then I cannot agree with you. I prefer my public policy decisions to be made on scientific facts and not made on ill informed paranoia.
If there is a market for people who want to know if a food is GMO-free then you will see labeling to that effect on some products and that is fine. Although if they are truly paranoid I'm not sure how they could ever be sure the label was actually true.
The Windows key is pretty damned useful in day-to-day activities: I for one make use of:
That's quite a long list and I have NO interest in memorizing all that. If it works for you that's great but personally I detest arbitrary keyboard shortcuts. I use a handful that are common but to me its a sign of a poorly designed system. If the interface is so clumsy you need to memorize a page long list of shortcuts then I'll just use something else. It's a big part of why I detest both vi and emacs.
(For the record I also hate tiny icons you have to mouse over to figure out their function)
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm an advantaged rich prick". Sorry. There's no gentle way to say it.
Maybe not, but there is a way to say it like an asshole which you just proved.
The only thing I'd worry about is if they're extracting Fast and Furious style horsepower from 4 cylinder engines is that they'll get Fast and Furious levels of engine life.
Japanese companies have been doing this for ages and there is no problem with reliability. While there is some challenge in making a high strung 4 banger reliable, it's a problem that was solved a long time ago. A Subaru WRX generates plenty of HP and still manages to be quite reliable. You get F&F reliability when people who don't actually know what they are doing tune their cars beyond what they were designed for. That's not an issue when you are the company designing the car in the first place.
The bigger challenge will be providing a car the plebes find competitive at the $30k mark.
Yep. I think what you'll mostly see is almost all the luxury vehicles going hybrid in the near future which will have two effects. First it will provide a test bed for battery technology and second it will generate the economies of scale for battery tech to start to move down market. Tesla is working hard to get there directly but I think they aren't going to move the wider market by themselves. I think battery tech still has a bit further to go before pure EVs for the $30K crowd become widely appealing but I also think it's getting pretty close. 10 more years maybe? Hard to say for sure but think it won't be endlessly far off.
Hey I like Tesla as much as the next guy, but wake me up when a corporation lobbies government in a way that goes against their own self-interest.
So you don't care when a company lobbies against YOUR self interest like the traditional auto makers have been doing? Personally I care about that very much. Improved fuel economy standards are in MY interest so I'm kind of behind Tesla on this one.
The theory here is that if more stringent fuel mileage standards are maintained, it will force traditional automakers to either make more tiny, anemic 4 cylinder gas engines (early 1980s anyone?) or push further into hybrid and electric car territory in order to deliver meaningful power without as much (or any) gasoline.
More or less yes. Though "anemic" is a bit subjective. 20 years ago a car with 300 HP was rather unusual. Now it's more or less routine despite very few people actually needing more than about 150 or so HP. So despite today's engines actually being much improved, fuel economy has barely budged because we keep increasing the horsepower of the cars pointlessly.
I can only have one car, and an electric just cannot now, nor is likely to be able to, in my lifetime, do the kinds of things for which I use one.
And that would be what exactly? What do you do with a car that is so different from the rest of us that it can never work for you?
It doesn't help that none of the current, or probable, models of car (not SUV) allow a linebacker-sized driver (and, yes, I've tried the on the Telsa; it's pathetic).
If you think the Tesla is "pathetic" then you are talking out your ass. It's among the nicest luxury vehicles available this side of a Rolls Royce. Maybe it's not your particular cup of tea but anyone who thinks it is "pathetic" has either never actually sat in one or has an ax to grind. You don't even have to like Tesla to see that it is a very nice car.
As for size, if you are really that big (approaching 2 meters tall) then you are way on the far side of the bell curve size and fit is always going to be a problem for you. The type of drive train will be irrelevant. If you are both tall and fat then there is a solution for at least half of that equation. One of my closest friends is around 2 meters (6'7") and there are not a lot of vehicles he can fit comfortably in which is why he drives a Chevy Suburban. Watching him get into the little two seat coupe I used to drive required some contortions on his part that I don't envy. If you are 2+ standard deviations from the mean size wise then you are going to struggle to find a vehicles that fits you.
I find it unlikely Detroit will put out any compelling auto no matter if it runs on electric, gas, diesel.
Right. That's why in 2014 GM sold 2.9 million, Ford sold 2.48 million, and Chrysler sold 2.09 million vehicles. Because it's really easy to sell over 7 million vehicles in a calendar year when you don't have any compelling products. (oops, did I leave the sarcasm bit on again? my bad)
You might not like their products but clearly a lot of people do. The Ford F150 has been the number one selling vehicle in the US for the last 32 years running. That doesn't happen by accident. Are you seriously going to argue that the Corvette or Challenger Hellcat aren't interesting? Jeep has a fanatical following. They make a lot of vehicles that very clearly resonate with buyers worldwide. No they aren't all great but the notion that nothing from the so called Detroit automakers is compelling just doesn't fit the facts. Hell the sales figures alone prove that they continue to do something right.
I thought the whole idea behind the 'right to be forgotten' was that google would 'forget' who you were. If they only forget you in the EU(search results come up as 0), but still have all the data on you (serach indexes, etc) then you haven't been forgotten have you?
I think that's what France is trying to point out here.
And what France is missing is that their precious "right to be forgotten" is ridiculous and unenforceable. It's effectively an attempt to export censorship. No private sector company could reasonably follow that silly law without entirely gutting their business in the process. France has NO right to prevent me from searching for data here in the US just like I don't really think China should have the right to censor what I read outside of their country. They are trying to put toothpaste back in the tube with stupid laws that make no sense which nobody can reasonably follow or execute.
Wow. And techies thought Microsoft was arrogant when dealing with Europe in the 2000s.
The arrogance is entirely on the part of the French government. Google is right. Google cannot possible afford to let each country dictate their business practices (and by extension my use of their services) globally. The French government is making an unreasonable demand to have their particular viewpoint be enforced worldwide by Google. Google is 100% right in telling them to fuck off. That may cost them business in France but if they actually did what France asked they would be effectively unable to function outside of a single country.
It is a worry that there is a fight between a company and the people of several countries and that it is even contemplated that the company and not the people, has some rights.
If companies have no rights there is no reason for them to exist at all. Since companies are almost entirely responsible for the economic well being of the world, you should seriously consider the practicality of your position. Just because some country comes up with some loony irrational law doesn't mean that the rest of us living in other countries should have to live with it. Should I have to respect the Chinese government's position on Tienanmen Square when I live in the US? Because that is EXACTLY what you are arguing for.
In this instance Google is right. There is no way they could respect ridiculous laws like this one globally. If the people of France are uncomfortable with that then that is their problem and they have no right to make it the problem of the rest of the world.
If it is between the people and anybody else, some countries even pretend to talk about "We, the people ..." and they should ALWAYS be priority number one. If it is inconvinient for a company, fuck that.
Those very same people work in the companies you are so quick to dismiss. Companies are nothing more than a collection of people working together. So because people work in a company their rights no longer matter? Thank goodness you aren't in charge of anything if that is what you really think.
A recent Childline poll found nearly 10% of 12-13-year-olds were worried they were addicted to pornography and 18% had seen shocking or upsetting images.
Kids going through puberty find porn interesting. News at 11.
I'd say the percentage of kids that have seen "shocking or upsetting images" is a good approximation of 100%. The other 82% are merely lying about it. It's impossible to even turn on the evening news without seeing shocking or upsetting images. I welcome the day when I no longer have to hear any more ads for boner pills. Try explaining that one to a 6 year old.
"Crappy power" is normal. Manufacturers need to design for that.
Yeah, see physics doesn't care what you think is "normal". While it's possible to design for a reasonable range of power conditions it is not economically possible to design for all of them. Frankly if your power quality is so poor that they are constantly blowing out light bulbs the answer is to fix the power, not the bulbs. You take the bullets out of the gun rather than insist everyone wear a bullet proof vest.
When you scale down to car or truck size, mechanical transmissions work reasonably well, and are very efficient these days.
True but...
There is a significant loss, compared to a purely mechanical setup, that occurs when you turn mechanical energy into electrical energy in a generator, just to send it over the wire and convert it right back to mechanical energy at the wheel.
By that logic hybrids in cars wouldn't make any sense either but they do. They are demonstrably more efficient at comparable horsepower even in the face of the conversion losses. Doesn't matter if they are plug in hybrids or not. Plug-in technology helps but it isn't a necessity.
If the bulk of the electricity stored in the batteries comes from a cheap source (i.e. an outlet), it still makes sense, but if you are talking about a high endurance application where the vast majority of electricity is generated locally it doesn't.
Being able to plug in helps but hybrids without plug-in tech still make sense economically. I think for something like a semi or a UPS truck it would be almost a no brainer. Honestly unless there is something huge I'm overlooking I think hybrids make WAY more sense for commercial trucks than they do for passenger cars.
I don't understand your statement
Didn't think it was all that complicated. Your ICE car can go 200-500 miles between refueling. The Tesla Model S can go 200+ miles between refueling stops. That is good enough for plenty of people and hence it is competitive.
My ICE car has effectively unlimited range.
No it does not because you still have to refuel it no different than an EV. The only difference right now is that it for long distance trips it is much quicker to refuel a ICE vehicle. If you drive less than the full range of the vehicle on a given day (most people drive 50 miles per day) then the EV is actually more convenient since you can refuel it at home when the car is not in use. For local driving I'd MUCH rather have an EV in most cases. For long distance driving you want a ICE or a hybrid right now. In time that may change.
And frankly, current ranges on EV's make them pretty much useless for trucks. Who really wants to stop for a couple hours a couple times a day?
You won't see pure EV trucks for a long time. What you'll see is a power train similar to that on locomotives. Diesel engine charging electric motors with a battery bank to deal with the excess. It's very efficient, huge torque and the technology is well understood. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing it already.
EVs cost significantly more than gas cars, don't have the range of gas cars, and apartment dwellers have no way to charge them overnight.
All of which are solvable problems. With scale EVs eventually could be cheaper than gas cars since they have fewer parts. There already are EVs with range competitive with gas cars (see the Model S) and they are only getting better. As for apartment dwellers, eventually apartments will end up providing charging infrastructure though I fully expect this to happen late in the game because the cost isn't trivial.
Electric vehicles will probably reach a tipping point when either A) recharge times get to less than 15 minutes with a 200 mile range or B) EVs with a 500+ mile range are developed and economically feasible. Until that happens we'll see hybrids serving as a technology test platform until such time as the battery technology matures sufficiently. I fully expect most luxury cars to be plug-in hybrids within the next 10-15 years. I think you'll start to see semi trucks and long haul vehicles becoming hybrids with a power train similar to locomotives (diesel with electric motors driving the wheels).
EVs won't reach the tipping point tomorrow or even probably 5 years from now but I do think they are the likely future with hybrids being a stepping stone to get there.
Apparently the deals they make with the gasoline/diesel suppliers are so bad there is almost no profit in selling gas.
That is correct. The business model is basically that it is a concession stand that uses fuel as the means to lure people to the store. Kind of similar to how a movie theater makes all their money on concessions because the revenues for the movie (around 80%) go back to the company distributing the movie. Pretty much all the profits in the oil and gas industry are made by the big oil and gas companies. They might have service stations (like ExxonMobil) to vertically integrate the entire supply chain but independent fuel stations really don't make any money on the fuel itself.
I look forward to the offloading all the associated penalty costs of car ownership in favour of a service model.
You can do that today but you'll have to move to someplace like Manhattan.
If no lighting makes residents stay at home because they don't feel safe outside when they'd otherwise be out and about, that seems like a problem.
Their perception of danger is of no concern to me. I'm concerned with the actuality of danger. They are adults and not children who ought to be afraid of the dark. If they don't feel safe outside then I'd suggest they spend their money improving their policing or move some place where they feel safer. Again, if they are scared of nothing (and the data indicates that they are) and decide to stay home rather than face the night then I don't see an actual problem.
Or maybe spend money and resources making residents feel safe and secure in their community?
Real security isn't going to come from a bunch of wasteful street lamps. At best it is security theater and it definitely is a huge waste of resources.
scrabbling around with a torch to get into your car (and check tyres etc before setting off for work)
I press my remote entry and it lights up the car. No handheld light necessary. But even if you didn't have that what is the big problem with using a light? It's not clear to me why you need to have a large and wasteful light constantly lit on the off chance you might decide to get in your car at some point during the night. At least have it be motion activated.
I have no idea why you would bother checking the tires before driving off as a routine activity. Do a lot of tires in your neighborhood wind up unexpectedly deflated?
Did they take into account how many people used the darkened streets? Maybe people felt less safe in the dark, so avoided going out in the dark.
Ok, if that is true then where is the actual problem?
When I bike home in the dark, I take a longer route with streetlights rather than go on the dark side streets.
So we should waste money and resources and pollution lighting up roads so you can bike home? I'm all for biking but I think this is a needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few situation.
I see street lights as a waste of money.
Not just a waste of money. Most of them are a waste of fuel, serve no meaningful social purpose, create needless light pollution as well as emissions and waste resources in their creation and installation. We could eliminate vast numbers of street lights in all likelihood with no adverse effect at all while saving a lot of money and reducing pollution. I'm always astonished when I fly over a city at night how many empty parking lots, unoccupied buildings, unused streets and other things we pointlessly and wastefully light up.
I've long thought that whole local power grids would switch to DC eventually anyway.
Unlikely to happen any time soon. Too much installed base of AC power. Not like people are going to rip open their walls to switch from AC to DC and virtually everything you plug into the walls is designed with AC in mind. The only wide spread DC cabling standard is USB and that's mostly low power stuff.
I have no principled objection to DC power but I think any switch will take many decades if it happens at all.
1-The only people making an in depth examination of the issue are those who make a lot of money if the answer comes back "safe".
Demonstrably not true. Certainly a lot of the studies are industry funded but there are plenty that are not. Not to mention that we've been eating the stuff for decades now as a sort of in-vivo test without any evidence of problems attributable to GMO crops or animals. If people want to be paranoid that's their problem - don't make it mine.
2-Is it ok to put pork in sausages shipped to the middle east and not lebel it?
Nice strawman. Saying something is GMO without any further details is nearly meaningless. GMO by what technique, using what genes, with what evidence of harm? If I tell you something is GMO and you make a decision based on that information alone with no further details then you are not making any sort of meaningfully informed decision based on actual evidence. You are simply being scared of something you don't fully understand.
As a parallel, there is basically no evidence that organic foods are more nutritious and it is not clear that they are better for the environment. The argument for organics is more one of logic than of actual evidence. It sounds good in principle but sounding good doesn't make it true. They require more inputs to get the same yield, the "organic" pesticides used (and they are used) are often more toxic than the synthetic options, etc. If someone wants organic food that is fine but you label what is different, not what is standard. You have the person who wants the specialty good pay extra for it.
Most food is non-organic just like for many types of food GMO has become standard. If there is a market for non-GMO food (like there is for organic) then that is fine. It might not mean much but let those who care pay extra for it. Personally I don't care but until there is some actual evidence of harm I don't care to pay for labeling that I think is unscientific and pointless and frankly amounts to scare-mongering.
Shortcut keys are for power users and aren't really meant to be memorized directly.
The term "power user" is fairly meaningless. It typically references someone who knows all sorts of arcane stuff about an application or system. But it reinforces my point. If they need to know all this arcane stuff and the system is so clumsy they need shortcuts then the system needs to be designed better. I could be considered a power user of quite a number of applications but I still think shortcut keys are usually a clumsy workaround in most cases. There are exceptions but they are exceptions that prove the rule. I think keyboard shortcuts are a perfect example of the "if the only tool you have is a hammer everything is a nail" principle.
I prefer nice menus but I tend to go look up the shortcut keys or try to create a macro when I notice that I keep doing the same thing over and over again.
Exactly my point. I do the same thing (when possible) but I maintain that generally if I need to do that it very often means the interface needs some rework.
If you want to know how useful shortcut keys can be, try playing StarCraft 1 with someone who uses shortcut keys. They will beat you every time if you're just using the mouse.
It's not that they aren't useful or that they don't work. The problem I have with them is more of a design principle than a specific complaint. For example I happen to know that the shortcut to display the History in my browser is Ctrl+Shift+H. In my opinion if I'm using that so much that it needs a shortcut then it should be a more prominent part of the interface. As a general rule I think keyboard shortcuts should not be application specific any more than absolutely necessary. Cut/Copy/Paste are fine. Ctrl+Shift+A to open the Add-Ons in Firefox should either be user defined or simply not be given a shortcut or be made more prominent in the GUI.
However, I also believe people have a right to their own paranoid delusions
That depends heavily on exactly how harmful the delusion is. Some are harmless, others not so much. But public policy should be based on actual facts and real evidence.
therefore they have a right to know whether or not the food they buy contains GMO ingredients
Why do they have a "right to know"? Is there any actual evidence that they are harmful even a little bit? If the answer is yes then maybe you have an argument. But since the answer so far is an unequivocal no, despite large amounts of research into the question, then I cannot agree with you. I prefer my public policy decisions to be made on scientific facts and not made on ill informed paranoia.
If there is a market for people who want to know if a food is GMO-free then you will see labeling to that effect on some products and that is fine. Although if they are truly paranoid I'm not sure how they could ever be sure the label was actually true.
The Windows key is pretty damned useful in day-to-day activities:
I for one make use of:
That's quite a long list and I have NO interest in memorizing all that. If it works for you that's great but personally I detest arbitrary keyboard shortcuts. I use a handful that are common but to me its a sign of a poorly designed system. If the interface is so clumsy you need to memorize a page long list of shortcuts then I'll just use something else. It's a big part of why I detest both vi and emacs.
(For the record I also hate tiny icons you have to mouse over to figure out their function)