It isn't like reading in the car makes a person vomit immediately, perhaps if they just read for one minute more each day they would get to a point where it wouldn't make them sick.
There are very very few people who would go to that effort in this case. 99.999% of people would get motion sick once and then never use the device again. Since it is for entertainment purposes primarily what would be the point?
Given that we've had 'imperfect' (read 'downright sucky') VR available to the public essentially without success for over a decade now, I'd say that they have reason to keep polishing.
I used to work with technology like this about 10 years ago. Even if it were spectacularly good imaging that isn't really the problem with it. The biggest problem is that most people do not like wearing headsets. Oh, you can get someone to try it out for fun once or twice but after that the novelty wears off quickly for most. You might get some hardcore gamers and technophiles to buy it but I really cannot see this being a mass market item. It's fairly expensive to make, the market size is relatively small, there are a lot of development costs, etc. Don't get me wrong I think it is neat and I wish them the best of luck but I don't see this being interesting to a wide audience.
I have no idea; but shoddy VR implementations are pretty uncompelling except for 5 minutes of novelty use.
Even very good VR implementations are uncompelling except for 5 minutes of novelty use. Somewhat like 3D glasses this is a technology that sounds better on paper than it turns out to be in practice.
Carmack will keep dinking around with this and never ship a product. They should just get version 1.0 out the door and start working on 2.0.
Have to be careful with that when it comes to technology. You might be quite right but in many cases if the technology isn't sufficiently well developed then then potential customers get pissed off and never come back. This can be true even if you eventually work out the problems. See Apple's Newton for an example. A lot depends on the sort of customers you have and how forgiving they are of rough edges on technology. Consumer electronics customers tend to be not too forgiving in my experience.
I used to do a lot of work with (older) technology like this in my day job. The market for this sort of stuff is surprisingly niche. Military, some industrial prototyping/testing, marketing and in some cases entertainment. It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea but the real world applications are more limited than I would have thought when I first got into VR technologies. Even if the software is easy to use (it usually isn't) there has to be a lot of effort (thus $) put into virtual model development which means that you have a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to develop the software unless there is an installed base of hardware and no one wants to buy the hardware without the software.
If they aren't going to bother with a semi-auto they aren't going to bother with a full auto.
The reason so few crimes are committed with them is because we have regulated them out of common use. It is very difficult to buy one.
The reason they are not used is that they are difficult to carry, difficult to conceal, attract a lot of attention (especially from law enforcement) and the only reason to carry one is to commit mass murder which is actually a very rare occurrence. Most people actually are sane, including criminals. Handguns on the other hand are easy to carry and easy to conceal can kill people with approximately the same effectiveness even in groups.
How many people in the USA died at the wrong end of a fully automatic assault rifle?
So few that it is statistically insignificant. The exact number is less than 100
I'll tell you why there are so few deaths from fully automatic assault rifles: gun control works.
Really? There are about 100 million rifles in the US with AR15 "assault rifles" accounting for around 5 million of these. In 2012 rifles of any sort were used to kill 348 people. That means the percentage of rifles used in a murder is 0.000384%. More people were killed from hands and feet then were killed by rifles of any sort last year. And you are going to tell me that an assault weapon ban is anything but propaganda?
If you want to talk about gun control, handguns account for virtually all murders with a firearm. Worrying about any other type of firearm is simply a waste of time.
When I think of knock, I think of bad bearings, main or rod. Pre-ignition I call pinging.
Knock and pinging are synonyms per standard usage. Pre-ignition is technically a separate phenomenon. Knocking is when fuel/air explodes outside the normal envelope of the combustion front. Pre-ignition is when the fuel/air explodes prior to the spark plug firing. It's common for people to confuse the two and to use the terms interchangeably but among us engineers this is technically not correct.
Gasoline, diesel, etc don't have to be Fossil Fuels. We can make them with a biological process for example.
All so-called fossil fuels come from biological processes. The only real difference the ones we make and the ones we dig up is when they were made. The ones we dig up were biological processes that took place a long time ago. This means it requires comparatively little energy to get them because we just dig them up. If you want to make them the energy required for processing becomes a MUCH bigger piece of the economic and chemical equation.
These processes are basically carbon neutral since the carbon emitted during internal combustion recently came out of the atmosphere.
No they will not be carbon neutral because the conversion process will not be 100% efficient. The processing of the fuel will require energy which baring some unexpected breakthrough in energy technology will result in net carbon being emitted.
and the idea that we can - in a perfect world - eliminate the need for work allowing people to concentrate on the betterment of themselves and their fellow man.
Has it occurred to you that in many cases work IS a way for people to concentrate on the betterment of themselves? Work is not some horrible thing to be eliminated or feared.
I've never had an engine fail due to piston ring wear.
Most haven't but that doesn't mean something potentially better than piston rings isn't worth trying. Piston rings work pretty well but their very design is sort of a workaround solution. In theory they shouldn't be necessary at all. A design that could eliminate them altogether could in theory be a very big improvement in engine efficiency and reliability.
Oh and I have had a piston ring fail. Even if they don't fail they will cause wear which results in reduced efficiency over time.
Seems to me this may be an idea looking for a problem.
Only if you don't understand the engineering tradeoffs being made. Piston rings generate friction, they require complicated lubrication systems, they can and do fail sometimes, they are expensive to replace, they complicate engine assembly and design which adds cost, etc.
A waiter in an upscale restaurant can easily afford a Prius. A LOT of culinary school graduates are actually working the front of the house instead of the kitchen and salaries of between $70-100K+ are not unheard of at top restaurants. Plenty of waiters make $50K+ per year which is more than enough to buy/lease a Prius if they want to.
'Kodak employed more than 140,000 people.' Kodak made plenty of mistakes, but look at what is replacing it: 'When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people.
Stupid argument. Instagram isn't what killed Kodak and Instagram wouldn't even indirectly compete with Kodak. Kodak built their business around selling film rather than around selling cameras. Kodak was a at its core a chemical company, not a consumer electronics firm. When the need for film went away with the advent of digital cameras Kodak wasn't able to shift their business model. They are a classic example of the Innovators Dilemma.
Yet AT&T profited by $7.3 billion last year, which is enough to replace 2.3% of their assets (including buildings and wires).
Probably not true. If you are looking at their balance sheet for asset value, remember that the assets shown are at book value, not replacement value. Many of those assets were bought a long time ago for prices that are significantly less than they would cost today. This is a perfectly normal accounting practice which makes sense for a number of arcane reasons but you can be fairly confident that AT&T's assets on their balance sheet probably understates their real worth if they had to go out and buy them today or if they were to sell them outside of a forced liquidation.
They've had sustained profits for many years, but yet there's still not enough bandwidth.
That doesn't mean they can decide to plow all profits back into infrastructure realistically, though I do agree with you that they could do a lot more than they have been.
Winter driving doesn't need AWD or lots of power or terrific handling: It just needs enough traction to operate at a reasonable speed.
I disagree with this on several counts. AWD/4WD is super helpful for accelerating in sloppy conditions. Having 4 drive wheels gives a much better chance of gaining traction when one or more of the drive wheels inevitably spins. Most FWD cars do not have a limited slip diff so if one drive wheel loses traction the car will be unable to accelerate. In most cases AWD makes it much easier to get the vehicle moving in the direction you want when conditions are icy. There is a reason most rally cars have 4 drive wheels but the same reason applies to passenger vehicles. After a good set of winter tires, AWD/4WD is the next option I typically want on a vehicle when available for winter driving. (other stuff like ABS etc comes standard)
You also do need decent handling for sloppy conditions but the type of handling you need is different than that for dry pavement. You need a car that will tend to keep the nose of the vehicle pointed where you want it, that will not remove traction from wheels due to suspension dynamics, etc. Cars that handle off-road driving well tend to do well in snowy conditions too and handling is an important part of that.
We have so many ideas what dark matter might be composed of that they span 5 Wikipedia articles.
And not one of them has experimental evidence to back it up. We simply don't know if dark matter actually exists nor do we know what it might be composed of. We're basically just guessing at this point. It's quite possible it doesn't exist at all and we simply have an incomplete model.
True , but we know that every test of relativity has strengthened it, not even once have we gathered data that contradicts it
So you are arguing that the theory of relativity only gives the right numbers if dark matter exists? Then if it turns out that dark matter does not exist you are proving the theory of relativity wrong. Relativity is a super well tested model and it might imply that dark matter exists but that is a HUGE leap away from proving the existence of dark matter. There are lots of things we haven't reconciled relativity with, quantum mechanics not the least of them. Just because relativity doesn't rule something out doesn't mean it exists or even that relativity is correct itself.
Maybe but the point you ignored is maybe-not. With the evidence in hand, an incorrect model is a much cleaner explanation than some as yet undiscovered exotic form of matter than we aren't actually sure exists. I'm not saying dark matter doesn't exist, merely that I'm skeptical in light of the lack of evidence. It sounds like an effort to make the data fit the current model when there is a non-trivial chance the current model is wrong somehow.
No one has ever come up with a theory of Modified Gravity that can explain the data we have , but Dark Matter does.
Never mind the tiny, little, minor detail that we have NO idea if dark matter actually exists or what it might be composed of it it does exist. It's not an unreasonable theory to investigate but I'm pretty reluctant to invoke some new exotic form of matter as a go-to explanation. Remember it was 400 years between Newton and Einstein. If the math model needs adjusting (and dark matter turns out to not be the answer) it might be a while before we figure it out.
Every complaint you make about the Prius is actually a complaint about the tires.
Not at all. You could put the best winter tires possible on it and I would still have plenty to complain about. No AWD, pathetic power, shitty handling, borderline ugly looks, bizarre dashboard, cheap materials, very limited battery only range, etc. This is not a car I would chose to go winter rallying in regardless of the choice of tires. At best you'll make it reasonable for commuting but it never is going to be more than bearable in the snow.
Even on your Xterra: Put some decent rubber on the thing that's made for the conditions, and just go for it.
I could but I have some excellent tires with a very aggressive tread on mine. Handles incredibly well in the snow - well enough that winter tires haven't been necessary. I even have a plow attached and it works great. I also have a small sports car which does have a set of winter tires which are VERY necessary or else the thing would be utterly undriveable in the winter. (light + front engine + rear drive + wide tires = sled)
The only time it has issues is on fresh snow up to 8 or 9 inches deep.
We got nearly twice that yesterday where I live. Snowfalls that deep happen usually at least once a year here and usually more often.
In the 7 or 8 years I've owned this car, it has been stuck once. And that was on 13 inches of newly-fallen snow. The rest of the time, I carry a tow strap to help other vehicles out of ditches....much to the amazement of several FWD sedan drivers, and one or two 4WD Jeep owners.
That sounds more like competent driving than anything else. If you can haul another vehicle out of a ditch with a small FWD sedan then it wasn't stuck too badly to begin with. I don't really consider a vehicle stuck until you need a winch.:-)
Global waming is such a stupid word to use, because people who wants to argue with you will focus on that single word.
They can argue all they want but if the average temperatures are actually rising around the world then calling it Global Warming is 100% correct.
Global climate change is a much better wording - you can even add a small star "due to global temperature average climbing".
If the phenomenon being discussed is the fact that average global temperatures are rising over time then Global Warming is the correct terminology. Why would you not use the correct terminology. Yes it is climate change but calling it climate change when we are discussion global temperature increases is A) less clear about exactly what is happening globally and B) less useful for getting people to act since climate change isn't as scary a term to most people.
I'm not saying Global Warming doesn't exist, it does! However given this cold spell, I fail to see how the earth is warming up.
Weather != Climate. Weather is what we are experiencing right this minute. Climate is the average of weather over time. You can have a colder than usual few days and still have the average temperature higher than before. Measure the temperature every day for a year and you have climate. Compare each year with the ones before it to see if there is a trend in the temperature. All the evidence seems to indicate that average temperatures are climbing. Saying this winter storm is evidence against climate change is basically an admission that A) you don't understand what climate is and B) you don't grasp statistics.
Additionally we are talking about global changes in climate. The fact that the Midwest US is currently colder than average is just one tiny, almost insignificant, data point in the global average temperature.
Prius are heavier for their size and weight distribution thanks to the batteries and the transaxle (generator/motor). This added weight makes the Prius far better in the snow than the average front wheel drive vehicle.
A current generation Prius weighs almost exactly the same as a current generation VW Golf. Both are around 1325 kilograms. I've driven one myself in the winter weather where I live and it was pretty pathetic in the snow - although to be fair not vastly worse than a lot of other small hatchbacks with all season tires. The low rolling resistance tires were not very good - they are skinny which is actually helpful in snow but the tread and rubber compound does you no favors in icy/wet conditions. We had several Priuses at a test track I used to work at a few years ago so we got to know them pretty well. Let's just say their winter performance wasn't exactly confidence inspiring. My sister owned one for about 3-4 years and her opinion is similar to mine though she live further south where bad weather was less common. With a set of winter tires it ought to handle reasonably well compared with similar hatchbacks though no where near as well as my Xterra.:-)
Another Michigander (Michiganian?) here. Only one guy decided to brave his way into the office this morning. The rest of us were smart enough to fire up our remote terminal connections over our company VPN and work from home.
I live in Michigan too. Wasn't that bad unless you are driving something like a Prius (aka a sled). Most of us don't have jobs that can be done from home. I run a manufacturing plant and it's pretty hard to make parts over a VPN connection.
I was all set to at least attempt the trip in, but the 4 foot snow pile at the end of my driveway said otherwise.
So you don't own a shovel? [/teasing] I plowed my driveway 3 times yesterday and again this morning. The roads near me were reasonably clear considering. Was a little later than usual but staying home wasn't really necessary.
80% of the universe is made up of with Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The theories suggests the universe is made up of about 27% dark matter (not 80%) which is the subject of the article. Dark energy is a sort of negative gravity and is the force pushing galaxies apart faster and not relevant to this article's topic.
The whole notion of "dark matter/energy" seems a little desperate to me. We have evidence that our models of gravity cannot account for certain observations. That means one of two things. Either A) the model is correct and there is something out there that has mass that we cannot presently see OR B) the we can see all the matter out there meaning the model is wrong and needs revision. So far I've seen no compelling argument that A is more likely than B. I understand the hesitation to revise our model of gravity but invoking dark matter/energy is an awfully big fudge factor in the absence of any plausible explanation for what might constitute dark matter/energy.
GPS means Global Positioning System, and they're geostationary (or at least some of them are) and they're satellites
No they are not geostationary. They have orbits that make at least 6 satellites visible from nearly every point on earth at all times. Each satellite completes two orbits each sidereal day.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't like reading in the car makes a person vomit immediately, perhaps if they just read for one minute more each day they would get to a point where it wouldn't make them sick.
There are very very few people who would go to that effort in this case. 99.999% of people would get motion sick once and then never use the device again. Since it is for entertainment purposes primarily what would be the point?
Given that we've had 'imperfect' (read 'downright sucky') VR available to the public essentially without success for over a decade now, I'd say that they have reason to keep polishing.
I used to work with technology like this about 10 years ago. Even if it were spectacularly good imaging that isn't really the problem with it. The biggest problem is that most people do not like wearing headsets. Oh, you can get someone to try it out for fun once or twice but after that the novelty wears off quickly for most. You might get some hardcore gamers and technophiles to buy it but I really cannot see this being a mass market item. It's fairly expensive to make, the market size is relatively small, there are a lot of development costs, etc. Don't get me wrong I think it is neat and I wish them the best of luck but I don't see this being interesting to a wide audience.
I have no idea; but shoddy VR implementations are pretty uncompelling except for 5 minutes of novelty use.
Even very good VR implementations are uncompelling except for 5 minutes of novelty use. Somewhat like 3D glasses this is a technology that sounds better on paper than it turns out to be in practice.
Carmack will keep dinking around with this and never ship a product. They should just get version 1.0 out the door and start working on 2.0.
Have to be careful with that when it comes to technology. You might be quite right but in many cases if the technology isn't sufficiently well developed then then potential customers get pissed off and never come back. This can be true even if you eventually work out the problems. See Apple's Newton for an example. A lot depends on the sort of customers you have and how forgiving they are of rough edges on technology. Consumer electronics customers tend to be not too forgiving in my experience.
I used to do a lot of work with (older) technology like this in my day job. The market for this sort of stuff is surprisingly niche. Military, some industrial prototyping/testing, marketing and in some cases entertainment. It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea but the real world applications are more limited than I would have thought when I first got into VR technologies. Even if the software is easy to use (it usually isn't) there has to be a lot of effort (thus $) put into virtual model development which means that you have a chicken and egg problem. No one wants to develop the software unless there is an installed base of hardware and no one wants to buy the hardware without the software.
Fully automatic. Think Tommy gun.
If they aren't going to bother with a semi-auto they aren't going to bother with a full auto.
The reason so few crimes are committed with them is because we have regulated them out of common use. It is very difficult to buy one.
The reason they are not used is that they are difficult to carry, difficult to conceal, attract a lot of attention (especially from law enforcement) and the only reason to carry one is to commit mass murder which is actually a very rare occurrence. Most people actually are sane, including criminals. Handguns on the other hand are easy to carry and easy to conceal can kill people with approximately the same effectiveness even in groups.
How many crimes were perpetrated with fully automatic machine guns?
Very few. The actual number is pretty close to none.
How many school killings were committed with one?
Also an incredibly small number.
How many people in the USA died at the wrong end of a fully automatic assault rifle?
So few that it is statistically insignificant. The exact number is less than 100
I'll tell you why there are so few deaths from fully automatic assault rifles: gun control works.
Really? There are about 100 million rifles in the US with AR15 "assault rifles" accounting for around 5 million of these. In 2012 rifles of any sort were used to kill 348 people. That means the percentage of rifles used in a murder is 0.000384%. More people were killed from hands and feet then were killed by rifles of any sort last year. And you are going to tell me that an assault weapon ban is anything but propaganda?
If you want to talk about gun control, handguns account for virtually all murders with a firearm. Worrying about any other type of firearm is simply a waste of time.
When I think of knock, I think of bad bearings, main or rod. Pre-ignition I call pinging.
Knock and pinging are synonyms per standard usage. Pre-ignition is technically a separate phenomenon. Knocking is when fuel/air explodes outside the normal envelope of the combustion front. Pre-ignition is when the fuel/air explodes prior to the spark plug firing. It's common for people to confuse the two and to use the terms interchangeably but among us engineers this is technically not correct.
Gasoline, diesel, etc don't have to be Fossil Fuels. We can make them with a biological process for example.
All so-called fossil fuels come from biological processes. The only real difference the ones we make and the ones we dig up is when they were made. The ones we dig up were biological processes that took place a long time ago. This means it requires comparatively little energy to get them because we just dig them up. If you want to make them the energy required for processing becomes a MUCH bigger piece of the economic and chemical equation.
These processes are basically carbon neutral since the carbon emitted during internal combustion recently came out of the atmosphere.
No they will not be carbon neutral because the conversion process will not be 100% efficient. The processing of the fuel will require energy which baring some unexpected breakthrough in energy technology will result in net carbon being emitted.
and the idea that we can - in a perfect world - eliminate the need for work allowing people to concentrate on the betterment of themselves and their fellow man.
Has it occurred to you that in many cases work IS a way for people to concentrate on the betterment of themselves? Work is not some horrible thing to be eliminated or feared.
I've never had an engine fail due to piston ring wear.
Most haven't but that doesn't mean something potentially better than piston rings isn't worth trying. Piston rings work pretty well but their very design is sort of a workaround solution. In theory they shouldn't be necessary at all. A design that could eliminate them altogether could in theory be a very big improvement in engine efficiency and reliability.
Oh and I have had a piston ring fail. Even if they don't fail they will cause wear which results in reduced efficiency over time.
Seems to me this may be an idea looking for a problem.
Only if you don't understand the engineering tradeoffs being made. Piston rings generate friction, they require complicated lubrication systems, they can and do fail sometimes, they are expensive to replace, they complicate engine assembly and design which adds cost, etc.
Since when can a waiter afford a Prius?
A waiter in an upscale restaurant can easily afford a Prius. A LOT of culinary school graduates are actually working the front of the house instead of the kitchen and salaries of between $70-100K+ are not unheard of at top restaurants. Plenty of waiters make $50K+ per year which is more than enough to buy/lease a Prius if they want to.
'Kodak employed more than 140,000 people.' Kodak made plenty of mistakes, but look at what is replacing it: 'When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people.
Stupid argument. Instagram isn't what killed Kodak and Instagram wouldn't even indirectly compete with Kodak. Kodak built their business around selling film rather than around selling cameras. Kodak was a at its core a chemical company, not a consumer electronics firm. When the need for film went away with the advent of digital cameras Kodak wasn't able to shift their business model. They are a classic example of the Innovators Dilemma.
Yet AT&T profited by $7.3 billion last year, which is enough to replace 2.3% of their assets (including buildings and wires).
Probably not true. If you are looking at their balance sheet for asset value, remember that the assets shown are at book value, not replacement value. Many of those assets were bought a long time ago for prices that are significantly less than they would cost today. This is a perfectly normal accounting practice which makes sense for a number of arcane reasons but you can be fairly confident that AT&T's assets on their balance sheet probably understates their real worth if they had to go out and buy them today or if they were to sell them outside of a forced liquidation.
They've had sustained profits for many years, but yet there's still not enough bandwidth.
That doesn't mean they can decide to plow all profits back into infrastructure realistically, though I do agree with you that they could do a lot more than they have been.
Studs are surprisingly loud, and that bothers some people.
They also aren't legal on public roads in some places. They work great but aren't always an option. In Alaska I'd consider them standard equipment.
Winter driving doesn't need AWD or lots of power or terrific handling: It just needs enough traction to operate at a reasonable speed.
I disagree with this on several counts. AWD/4WD is super helpful for accelerating in sloppy conditions. Having 4 drive wheels gives a much better chance of gaining traction when one or more of the drive wheels inevitably spins. Most FWD cars do not have a limited slip diff so if one drive wheel loses traction the car will be unable to accelerate. In most cases AWD makes it much easier to get the vehicle moving in the direction you want when conditions are icy. There is a reason most rally cars have 4 drive wheels but the same reason applies to passenger vehicles. After a good set of winter tires, AWD/4WD is the next option I typically want on a vehicle when available for winter driving. (other stuff like ABS etc comes standard)
You also do need decent handling for sloppy conditions but the type of handling you need is different than that for dry pavement. You need a car that will tend to keep the nose of the vehicle pointed where you want it, that will not remove traction from wheels due to suspension dynamics, etc. Cars that handle off-road driving well tend to do well in snowy conditions too and handling is an important part of that.
We have so many ideas what dark matter might be composed of that they span 5 Wikipedia articles.
And not one of them has experimental evidence to back it up. We simply don't know if dark matter actually exists nor do we know what it might be composed of. We're basically just guessing at this point. It's quite possible it doesn't exist at all and we simply have an incomplete model.
True , but we know that every test of relativity has strengthened it, not even once have we gathered data that contradicts it
So you are arguing that the theory of relativity only gives the right numbers if dark matter exists? Then if it turns out that dark matter does not exist you are proving the theory of relativity wrong. Relativity is a super well tested model and it might imply that dark matter exists but that is a HUGE leap away from proving the existence of dark matter. There are lots of things we haven't reconciled relativity with, quantum mechanics not the least of them. Just because relativity doesn't rule something out doesn't mean it exists or even that relativity is correct itself.
Like, I dunno, maybe dark matter?
Maybe but the point you ignored is maybe-not. With the evidence in hand, an incorrect model is a much cleaner explanation than some as yet undiscovered exotic form of matter than we aren't actually sure exists. I'm not saying dark matter doesn't exist, merely that I'm skeptical in light of the lack of evidence. It sounds like an effort to make the data fit the current model when there is a non-trivial chance the current model is wrong somehow.
No one has ever come up with a theory of Modified Gravity that can explain the data we have , but Dark Matter does.
Never mind the tiny, little, minor detail that we have NO idea if dark matter actually exists or what it might be composed of it it does exist. It's not an unreasonable theory to investigate but I'm pretty reluctant to invoke some new exotic form of matter as a go-to explanation. Remember it was 400 years between Newton and Einstein. If the math model needs adjusting (and dark matter turns out to not be the answer) it might be a while before we figure it out.
Every complaint you make about the Prius is actually a complaint about the tires.
Not at all. You could put the best winter tires possible on it and I would still have plenty to complain about. No AWD, pathetic power, shitty handling, borderline ugly looks, bizarre dashboard, cheap materials, very limited battery only range, etc. This is not a car I would chose to go winter rallying in regardless of the choice of tires. At best you'll make it reasonable for commuting but it never is going to be more than bearable in the snow.
Even on your Xterra: Put some decent rubber on the thing that's made for the conditions, and just go for it.
I could but I have some excellent tires with a very aggressive tread on mine. Handles incredibly well in the snow - well enough that winter tires haven't been necessary. I even have a plow attached and it works great. I also have a small sports car which does have a set of winter tires which are VERY necessary or else the thing would be utterly undriveable in the winter. (light + front engine + rear drive + wide tires = sled)
The only time it has issues is on fresh snow up to 8 or 9 inches deep.
We got nearly twice that yesterday where I live. Snowfalls that deep happen usually at least once a year here and usually more often.
In the 7 or 8 years I've owned this car, it has been stuck once. And that was on 13 inches of newly-fallen snow. The rest of the time, I carry a tow strap to help other vehicles out of ditches....much to the amazement of several FWD sedan drivers, and one or two 4WD Jeep owners.
That sounds more like competent driving than anything else. If you can haul another vehicle out of a ditch with a small FWD sedan then it wasn't stuck too badly to begin with. I don't really consider a vehicle stuck until you need a winch. :-)
Global waming is such a stupid word to use, because people who wants to argue with you will focus on that single word.
They can argue all they want but if the average temperatures are actually rising around the world then calling it Global Warming is 100% correct.
Global climate change is a much better wording - you can even add a small star "due to global temperature average climbing".
If the phenomenon being discussed is the fact that average global temperatures are rising over time then Global Warming is the correct terminology. Why would you not use the correct terminology. Yes it is climate change but calling it climate change when we are discussion global temperature increases is A) less clear about exactly what is happening globally and B) less useful for getting people to act since climate change isn't as scary a term to most people.
I'm not saying Global Warming doesn't exist, it does! However given this cold spell, I fail to see how the earth is warming up.
Weather != Climate. Weather is what we are experiencing right this minute. Climate is the average of weather over time. You can have a colder than usual few days and still have the average temperature higher than before. Measure the temperature every day for a year and you have climate. Compare each year with the ones before it to see if there is a trend in the temperature. All the evidence seems to indicate that average temperatures are climbing. Saying this winter storm is evidence against climate change is basically an admission that A) you don't understand what climate is and B) you don't grasp statistics.
Additionally we are talking about global changes in climate. The fact that the Midwest US is currently colder than average is just one tiny, almost insignificant, data point in the global average temperature.
Prius are heavier for their size and weight distribution thanks to the batteries and the transaxle (generator/motor). This added weight makes the Prius far better in the snow than the average front wheel drive vehicle.
A current generation Prius weighs almost exactly the same as a current generation VW Golf. Both are around 1325 kilograms. I've driven one myself in the winter weather where I live and it was pretty pathetic in the snow - although to be fair not vastly worse than a lot of other small hatchbacks with all season tires. The low rolling resistance tires were not very good - they are skinny which is actually helpful in snow but the tread and rubber compound does you no favors in icy/wet conditions. We had several Priuses at a test track I used to work at a few years ago so we got to know them pretty well. Let's just say their winter performance wasn't exactly confidence inspiring. My sister owned one for about 3-4 years and her opinion is similar to mine though she live further south where bad weather was less common. With a set of winter tires it ought to handle reasonably well compared with similar hatchbacks though no where near as well as my Xterra. :-)
Another Michigander (Michiganian?) here. Only one guy decided to brave his way into the office this morning. The rest of us were smart enough to fire up our remote terminal connections over our company VPN and work from home.
I live in Michigan too. Wasn't that bad unless you are driving something like a Prius (aka a sled). Most of us don't have jobs that can be done from home. I run a manufacturing plant and it's pretty hard to make parts over a VPN connection.
I was all set to at least attempt the trip in, but the 4 foot snow pile at the end of my driveway said otherwise.
So you don't own a shovel? [/teasing] I plowed my driveway 3 times yesterday and again this morning. The roads near me were reasonably clear considering. Was a little later than usual but staying home wasn't really necessary.
80% of the universe is made up of with Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The theories suggests the universe is made up of about 27% dark matter (not 80%) which is the subject of the article. Dark energy is a sort of negative gravity and is the force pushing galaxies apart faster and not relevant to this article's topic.
The whole notion of "dark matter/energy" seems a little desperate to me. We have evidence that our models of gravity cannot account for certain observations. That means one of two things. Either A) the model is correct and there is something out there that has mass that we cannot presently see OR B) the we can see all the matter out there meaning the model is wrong and needs revision. So far I've seen no compelling argument that A is more likely than B. I understand the hesitation to revise our model of gravity but invoking dark matter/energy is an awfully big fudge factor in the absence of any plausible explanation for what might constitute dark matter/energy.
GPS means Global Positioning System, and they're geostationary (or at least some of them are) and they're satellites
No they are not geostationary. They have orbits that make at least 6 satellites visible from nearly every point on earth at all times. Each satellite completes two orbits each sidereal day.