Look up SLAPP - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A number of states now have anti-SLAPP laws, though whether this case would be covered under them would be better answered by a lawyer - like many things, it'd depend on the state statute and specifics not really mentioned here.
It might be part of the reason for dropping charging even a nominal fee for the font - becoming a non-profit activity might trigger more protection. It might even be deductible for even more tax savings than he was getting for selling it(deduct labor vs having to make a profit).
I'm not a lawyer or a tax accountant, of course. If you want to do something of this nature, talk with qualified professionals.
They aren't heating the block to heat the coolant.
No, they're heating the coolant(that's in the engine) in order to heat up the block. Same difference I guess.
Warming the oil doesn't just help the oil pump, it also helps keep the oil thinner/better lubricating. Lowers wear on the engine during start and warmup. Also requires less torque because of better lubrication.
I've looked at the statistics; one point is that when you get MPG measures over in Europe they're generally using an Imperial gallon, which is larger than a US gallon, so it's not the same thing. They do have ultra-efficient cars we just don't have, but while fleet mileage is indeed higher over there, it doesn't actually beat the USA by that much.
Still, my original point was simply that Europe is a 'better market' for EVs, due to lower average driving distances, lack of undeveloped areas where you might not be able to charge, etc... It's a bit like how solar panels are a better fit in Nevada vs Washington.
It was pretty much just a throw-away sentence, but my point remains. If EVs were 'almost' economical in the USA, they should already be so in Europe, and thus have substantial market penetration. Instead most major European car makers are actually behind the USA in EV development.
In Europe, people tend to take the car less than in the USA. Cars tend to be smaller and more fuel economical.
The economics are essentially the same though; if EVs were 'almost there' even with cheap US gasoline, then you'd see them 'all over' in Europe. There's plenty of rich people and driving distances tend to be less. There's also often even more favorable subsidies/tax breaks on EVs, as you say. So you'd think that, given the economics, there would be a lot more of them purchased.
Instead, even at $10/gasoline you see more traditional forms of conservation - lighter, less powerful vehicles driven less.
You'd need to tax it even more than that. Look over in Europe, where gas prices are up there NOW and you still aren't seeing EVs everywhere.
Remember, I'm proposing a 4X improvement in batteries. To do the equivalent to gas, you'd need it to be $16/gallon. Ouch... Besides, I'd rather look forward than back - I want electric vehicles to improve to beat gasoline ones; not handicap gasoline ones so EVs win despite their disability. One implies that the state of humanity has advanced, the other means we're simply picking the 'least worst', and we're all worse off(on average).
Current technology for electric vehicles has one huge showstopper bug in the recharge times.
Personally, as long as it's less than 8 hours for 2 days of average driving I'm good. What's killing it for me right now is the cost of the battery. Fix that and I figure you'll see them right and left.
but what if you want to take a longer trip, say from Phoenix to LA?
You do realize that you don't need to completely charge it every time you stop, right?
Hmm.... Okay, Google says Phoenix, AZ to Los Angeles, CA is 372 miles. You mentioned the Roadster, we'll figure it has 250 miles of range with you driving sanely*. ~6 hours total driving time.
So you go from LA and stop twice, hooking up to a fast charge station while you have a leisurely lunch and dinner(1 hour each). Unlike when you normally eat, the car is at least doing something useful with charging up(note: regular rest stops are advised anyways on long trips). You have 250 miles on your first charge, and each stop should add 75 miles. You should roll into downtown Los Angeles with 28 miles of charge remaining. The Model S with the 85 kwh battery pack is rated at a true 300 miles, so 1 hour of high speed charging should be (just barely) enough.
Still, there are more options: 1. Take your other vehicle; most families have 2. 2. Fly, take a bus, or rent a different car for the day. If it's a regular commute a different vehicle might be better for you 3. Rent a generator trailer
*It's a roadster, it's no fun to be driving it sanely...
[2]: There just seems to be no interest in better batteries in the US. This is a crying shame because of how this would cure a lot of problems.
Are you kidding me? There's lots and lots of interest. It's one of the reasons why EVs are switching to LiIon. The first version of the EV1(developed for California) used lead-acid. It sucked. The car weighed 3.1k pounds with them and only had 60-100 miles range. They transitioned to NiMH, which sucked a lot less; increased the energy available 45% while reducing weight by nearly 200lbs, which doubled the range. LiIon wasn't ready yet back then; they degraded too quickly. That's been mostly solved, so they go with it today, allowing ~twice as much power per pound over NiMH. Which is how a leaf manages to give 109 miles of charge on only 24kwh of battery pack.
Technologies I've seen in development are improved LiIon batteries(also seen in things like cell phones and laptops), LiFe, even flowing liquid batteries.
There's lots of interest, but right now improving on LiIon is proving tough.
I've actually done some work on this, and still think it's an interesting option.
On the upsides: 1. Higher efficiency for the most common use(tooling around town) - without the gasoline motor, you enjoy higher efficiencies, plus you either get a smaller vehicle or more trunk space. 2. For a long highway trip, it's only logical to make the trailer a touch larger than it has to be for the engine/generator - bam, instant additional storage space for your luggage. I don't know about you, but I haul more for long trips, and if you're hauling kids... I should note that I'm picturing a still relatively small two wheel trailer. 3. Don't buy; rent. If you only need it twice a year, rent it! If you need it more often than twice, at some point you're probably better off just buying a hybrid in the first place. 4. Efficiency loss shouldn't be much - you only need the thing to be big enough to make up 'most' of the energy cost of going down the highway. Downsides: 1. Cost - said trailer will likely run $8k or so 2. Training - driving training in the USA sucks as is; most don't know how to haul a trailer(though this one would be simple). 3. Cars might need to be reinforced a bit - many light cars today, even EVs, can only haul 800 pounds of trailer once you put the hitch on. This isn't much, especially if you figure on putting some cargo in the trailer as well. Plus you'll need to put a charge point in a spot suited for the trailer, and program the car to account for incoming power while moving. 'Shouldn't' be hard, but still a fringe case.
One of the ideas I've seen for EVs up here is to install a small tank of kerosene/ethanol and put an auxiliary heater in. You don't need to burn the fuel in a 10% efficient engine in that case, but in a 90% efficient burner, when all you need is heat.
That way you're burning maybe a gallon every two weeks, not 10 gallons a week.
Well, I'm in Alaska and I've given a serious look at the electric motorcycles precisesly because of the sockets all over. While 110V@12A is a 'cripple charge' for most electric cars, it's often less than an hour to 'top off' an electric motorcycle...
(resistor around the engine block or something)
Step 1: Heater into the engine block to heat up the coolant (South/North Dakota area) Step 2: Heater onto the oil pan/heated dip stick. Step 3: "Battery Blanket" style heater on the battery, or a trickle charger(I use a trickle charger; first it makes sure the battery is topped off, then when it gets really cold and the battery voltage dips it thinks it needs charging; while the battery is fully charged it acts like a resister - the energy goes to warming the core of the battery, much more efficient than a battery warmer on the outside).
I'm talking about a model where the cars have easily-swapped batteries, which the driver leases, rather than owning.
It's actually one of the common proposals. Now that I'm thinking about it in economic terms, I think I know why it's not going to fly. Benefit of the battery swap system: 1. Owner of EV doesn't have to pay for cost of battery up front(though they might require a deposit), which would be an estimated $18k(Leaf)-$32k(Roadster) up front savings. 2. No need to install chargers in a person's home. 3. "instant" recharge in a swap shop.
Downsides: 1. The car battery would have to be of a standard size(or set of). The Leaf uses a 24kwh battery, the Roadster a 53kwh one. 2. The battery, weighing between 660-992 pounds, is a significant factor to the handling of the vehicle - thus placement is fairly critical. A standardized size in a fast-swap position is a significant engineering challenge 3. The battery, at $18k-32k, is a significant (though steadily dropping) expense. Standardized sizes reduce the opportunity to 'right size' the battery to reduce capital cost. 4. While eliminating the need to charge at home reduces expense there, it increases expense that you now need a local swap point to 'refuel' your vehicle. Assuming it's as busy as a normal gas station, you're looking at needing a power hookup there sufficient to charge a several hundred batteries(assuming a gentle 24 hour charge cycle for highest efficiency/battery preservation) 5. While we're at it, we also need the SPACE to hold several hundred to a couple thousand charged/charging batteries. 6. Oh yeah, and those batteries are, say, $10k/pop, so you're looking at a battery station with upwards of a million in stock. 7. While fast charging and fancy EV stations can cost a lot of money, a basic charger only runs $800, plus install($3k typical; it's about the same as installing a dryer circuit) - Given that, it's cheaper to simply install a charger than to have a gas station buy another battery to swap with you. 8. At home charging means no time spent swapping batteries, and you might be able to get work to install a charger for you. Commercial chargers, needing security/billing features, are substantially more expensive, of course, but still less than another battery.
My figuring: First, rich/upper class green types will buy these first; they'll generally have the latest home service, 200A, which is plenty(unless you're Al Gore). Even the 60A service at my old home(ancient) would work; I'd just have to be careful to not run the water heater, dryer, and car charger at the same time. They don't care about the install cost. Then it'll trickle down to the home-owning middle class as an economical move. Eventually some apartment owners will start putting charging stations in their parking lots. At which point it'll become a selling point - an EV owner is(at least at first) likely to be a 'premium' renter unlikely to cause damage, plus the apartment owner can charge a rent premium(~$40/month?).
You make some good points, ones that I was thinking about myself, though the way you phrase them make them seem a bigger problem. First step, my assumption: People tend to buy a car to cover 90-95% of their needs/wants, not 50%(average). Especially those outside of the cities. Once you buy a more capable vehicle, it's extremely difficult to justify a smaller vehicle economically. Have a truck because you tow every weekend or have a sideline construction business? Unless your truck is unusually inefficient or you drive way more than average, you can't justify the cost of a commuter car during the week off of saved gasoline.
Anyways, that's why they're making EVs with a range of 100-300 miles, or 'plug in hybrids' with a 30-50 mile battery. Because then you can do the 15 mile commute and still have enough miles left for the store.
Still, we're back to my old saying: There's nothing wrong with EVs that a battery that lasts twice as long at half the cost wouldn't fix.
The problem is with Prosecuting Attorneys who've committed morally reprehensible acts to win cases at any cost including the cost of sending innocent people to death row. It happens, there is a rich body of evidence to prove it.
Which is why I want to see the justice system reformed; not the death penalty eliminated. That's like putting red light cameras up on a poorly designed intersection rather than fixing the yellow timing. I view a LiP w/o parole to be the same as the death penalty. I don't care whether it's murder, rape, or shoplifting, trials should be fair and dedicated to finding the truth.
California taxpayers pay $90,000 _more_ per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.
Addressed this in my first post - Inmates that are sentenced to life instead of the DP are generally not put into 'regular confinement'. They're generally put into Max, which is also far more expensive. It's also a reason to study why we have a separate death row anyways. The disparity in cost wasn't always there.
Would you be willing to die for a murder you didn't commit?
Are you accepting that legitimate or not, I'd be fighting as hard as I could to get the least sentence possible? That I support something on a statistical basis doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to beat the statistics. Remember, I consider a 'life in prison w/o parole' to be equivalent to death. If I'm not exonerated within the first 5, I'm unlikely to be exonerated at all, especially if I'm not sentenced to death.
On the other hand, I'm far, far, more likely to end up murdered than on trial for a murder I don't commit. I'd call that 'dying for a murder I didn't commit'. As such, I'd like to concentrate more on policies that reduce the murder rate, not 'improve' punishment of the murderers. I'd rather they not become murderers at all. Fix the schools, fix the home life, provide appropriate counseling, fix the culture.
On what basis to do you imagine that? Why is it that in this country, where we assume the government can't do anything right, somehow we assume it is near *perfect* when it comes to condemning people to death?
That's why juries are involved. Still, I agree with you somewhat; which is why I proposed a higher standard for the Death Penalty - in general 2nd degree(no to 20 premediation, provoked, mutual combat) would be up to 20 years. 1st degree would be pre-meditated. 0th degree, DP eligible, would require 3 or more murders and/or 'deliberate torture' to be involved. A bit of a higher standard.
Also, while it might not be 'right', in general those who end up in court aren't innocent. To bring up a fictional example, it's like the Batman helping the Joker to beat a murder rap - because he was actually innocent of *that* murder. Given the Joker's record in the comics, that's a bit like exonerating Saddam of 1 murder - you still have a few thousand to hang on him.
I've called my support for the DP the 'Joker Rule' before; it's for people who are 'just that dangerous'. I'd call it the "Anders Breivik" rule, but in containment the dude isn't as dangerous as many of the gangbangers here in the states. Of course, when I go 'evil overlord' I worry less about guilt than actual danger - a gangbanger thug might end up executed for being dangerous and 'not worth it to society' for being caught with drugs, while a doctor who murdered his cheating wife might actually see the light of day again.
Alright, how did you decide that 1/100 is unacceptable, but 1/10000 is? Do you have a rational basis for where you draw the line, or are you going by your gut feeling? If you are going by your gut feeling, what makes you think that's a reasonable basis for deciding to execute somebody?
My standard would be finding the best 'life saving' zone. Note, this would be for the trials themselves. You'd have to look at how likely an unconvicted murderer is to kill again, how public perception works for murders, etc... Note: DP is a sentence, not a trial. I don't have enough data, but I figure it's probably closer to the 1/100 rate, as to get to 1/1000 for false convictions you'd have to let an awful lot of real murderers go. It's still within the old 'better to let 10 guilty free...' saying.
I'll go out on a limb here and guess you don't actually have any children.
He might. Parents have turned their kids in for crimes before, sometimes extremely serious ones. That doesn't mean that, even if they witnessed a crime, that they're going to be standing outside the prison with a 'fry the bastard' sign. I know of parents who'd turn their kid in, then sit there 'being supportive' as they put the death drugs in his arm.
Some days I think I should write a book and self-publish on Amazon. I happen believe that we need to end the war on drugs - it'd easily become a whole chapter in the book, with trying to explain all the nuances and reasonings. Along with that, prisons need to concentrate on reform, not warehousing. When I go 'Evil Overlord', I propose things like triaging the prisons - execute the worst x% in order to free up the necessary resources to reform the rest. Druggies included(though a lot of them can better be helped simply by transferring them to a system that treats their additction as a medical, not a criminal, problem).
However - "growing epidemic"? It's growing in Mexico, but I think it's pretty much evened out in the USA. The revolving door has been the case since I was a kid. As countries like Norway show, being 'hard on crime' is actually conterproductive - you spend another $300k or so keeping somebody in prison for another decade, and they're MORE likely to commit more crimes when they get out. It's been shown that another 10-20% over incarceration expenses spent on education, reform efforts work.
Getting it right should trump being hard on crime. We should punish prosecutors who are as hard on innocence as they are on crime.
Exactly. If I was doing a scoring system, imprisoning an innocent should count as -100, where imprisoning a guilty person is only worth 1.
Your biological memories don't lie. When we can see your memory, we'll get the truth and you will be either innocent or guilty.
Actually, they do, for the same reason witnesses suck. Personally, I'm more about fxing the problems - it would be ideal if we could do an intervention BEFORE the bank robbery, stopping it entirely, not needing to send anybody to prison.
As mentioned earlier, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp, decided, at least in the USA, that a 'close as possible' copy of a public domain work can't be copyrighted, due to lack of originality.
Yes, this 'discourages' creating a digital master, but most of the time there's enough public interest to create one anyways, at least if the work has enough merit.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I familiar with every country's laws. HOWEVER, there's a critical difference between taking a still in a museum of a 100+ year old painting and making a video in a theater of a first run movie.
The video is an illegal copy of a copyrighted work - It's generally less than a year old. The painting is OUT OF COPYRIGHT, therefore duplicating it is 100% legal, no matter what the owner(museum) says. "No Commercial photography" has no force of law, other than the possibility of kicking you out.
Still, to my knowledge, educational use of the artwork is incredibly cheap, depending on the resolution. It indicates to me that the creators of the book were horrible/lazy negotiators, it shouldn't have been $800 for a bunch of(say) ~3" diagonal sized pictures of various works.
The reason the death penalty is flat out wrong is quite simple. It isn't just that you are being hypocritical about the morality of killing, it is also that you are murdering innocent people.
Different thought processes indeed. Murderers kill innocent people. The state imposing a guilty sentence on an innocent is a tragic accident; not a murder. Of course, while I view an improperly executed person to be a tragedy, I also view locking them up for life an equal tragedy. Different point of view.
In any group of convicted murderers, there are going to be some people who are innocent. That's just a fact. People (juries) make mistakes.
A group could be as few as two. So no, I don't think that 'any group' of convicted murderers is guaranteed to have an innocent in there. Yes, mistakes happen. My point would be that we need to work to reform our court system to be better at coming to a correct decision. To the point that I'm not wedded to the idea of a traditional jury trial, heck, judicial panel or a 'trial' in the traditional sense at all. Coming up with something better would be a good trick, of course. Nobel prize type material.
So some number of people you put to death are going to be innocent. It might be one in a hundred or one in ten thousand, but they are going to be there regardless of your degree of diligence. And when 15 years later, when new evidence comes to light as it seems to with alarmingly frequency, you can't just let them out of jail with an apology.
I'm sure there's quite a list of innocent people who died in prison without having been convicted of a capital crime. And even then 'just let them out of jail with an apology' is a horrible thing to do. We don't even do that with actual convicts - they need assistance to reintigrate back into society, guilty or innocent, at that point. I remember a case in Texas where a man served over 40 years of his life sentence before it was discovered that he was innocent of the rape he was convicted of.
Whenever I talk to pro-death penalty people, I ask them if they would still support the death penalty if they or one of their loved ones was one of those one in a thousand cases where an innocent person was wrongly convicted, I have yet to hear a convincing 'yes'.
Well, it'd be lower odds than winning the lottery, but I have to say 'Yes'. Oddly enough, they have better odds of getting out of prison when the truth is found due to the higher standards. Getting the state to let out somebody proven innocent after conviction can be a decades long process; in Texas people have died before being let out.
Are you so strong in your belief of the value of capitol punishment that you would be willing to die to support it? Would you stand outside the prison when your child was executed with a sign that says, 'Fry the bastard', when you knew they were only guilty of not having a good alibi and a good lawyer?
1. There's a lot of things I'm willing to die for; if I'm one of the extremely rare mistakes, so be it. Remember, I only support the DP in cases of mass murderers(more than 2 killed), or deliberate torture in addition to. That's a higher standard of evidence required right there. 2. Uh... I'm not crazy enough to stand outside the prison and hold up such a sign even for somebody I believe is guilty; much less 'require' somebody to do so for a relative they believe to be innocent. You can darn well believe that I'd be on the phone with the governor presenting my evidence of their innocence to get them to issues a stay/pardon. I'd be providing money to GET a good lawyer during the trial. Hell, I'm supportive of the idea of forcing governments to fund their defense office at least as much as they fund their prosecutor's office, and that's NOT limited to death penalty cases.
Just because I support the DP on a statistical basis doesn't mean that I'm totally hea
What's that have to do with it? That just means a totally botched investigation, a bogus eye witness (perhaps not intentional but witnesses aren't always correct either), some crucial piece of evidence overlooked/not collected/not followed up, or something those lines are an innocent person is about to be killed.
Generally speaking, I prefer that ALL trials be held to a high standard, not just DP ones. Courts that have difficulty holding a fair trial* for a DP case is likely going to have even worse problems with non-DP cases. I'm willing to bet that there are many orders of magnitude more people improperly convicted of a non-DP crime who end up dying in prison than are executed improperly. Perhaps fewer resources on appeals, more on doing the trial right in the first place?
*And I hold no special regard for our criminal trial system; at best it's one of the better examples that exist today. I'd love to see a system that's fairer on average; but it's difficult.
Do you have the balls to outright name these "subcultures"?
How about the Drug subculture, where violence often has to substitute for the unavailable justice system? How about the Gang subculture, where I see a lot of parallels with primitive tribes? How about the 'Nigger' subculture, to quite Chris Rock and a number of other black comedians?
Yes, every culture has honest and peaceful people, every culture has it's violent, thieves, and murderers. The concern is about the rate. There are sections of the USA, predominantly black, where violence is so bad that it lowers the average life expectency of black men who live there by over a decade. There are areas where violence is so low that a murder makes front page news for a month straight.
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Look up SLAPP - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A number of states now have anti-SLAPP laws, though whether this case would be covered under them would be better answered by a lawyer - like many things, it'd depend on the state statute and specifics not really mentioned here.
It might be part of the reason for dropping charging even a nominal fee for the font - becoming a non-profit activity might trigger more protection. It might even be deductible for even more tax savings than he was getting for selling it(deduct labor vs having to make a profit).
I'm not a lawyer or a tax accountant, of course. If you want to do something of this nature, talk with qualified professionals.
They aren't heating the block to heat the coolant.
No, they're heating the coolant(that's in the engine) in order to heat up the block. Same difference I guess.
Warming the oil doesn't just help the oil pump, it also helps keep the oil thinner/better lubricating. Lowers wear on the engine during start and warmup. Also requires less torque because of better lubrication.
I've looked at the statistics; one point is that when you get MPG measures over in Europe they're generally using an Imperial gallon, which is larger than a US gallon, so it's not the same thing. They do have ultra-efficient cars we just don't have, but while fleet mileage is indeed higher over there, it doesn't actually beat the USA by that much.
Still, my original point was simply that Europe is a 'better market' for EVs, due to lower average driving distances, lack of undeveloped areas where you might not be able to charge, etc... It's a bit like how solar panels are a better fit in Nevada vs Washington.
It was pretty much just a throw-away sentence, but my point remains. If EVs were 'almost' economical in the USA, they should already be so in Europe, and thus have substantial market penetration. Instead most major European car makers are actually behind the USA in EV development.
In Europe, people tend to take the car less than in the USA. Cars tend to be smaller and more fuel economical.
The economics are essentially the same though; if EVs were 'almost there' even with cheap US gasoline, then you'd see them 'all over' in Europe. There's plenty of rich people and driving distances tend to be less. There's also often even more favorable subsidies/tax breaks on EVs, as you say. So you'd think that, given the economics, there would be a lot more of them purchased.
Instead, even at $10/gasoline you see more traditional forms of conservation - lighter, less powerful vehicles driven less.
You'd need to tax it even more than that. Look over in Europe, where gas prices are up there NOW and you still aren't seeing EVs everywhere.
Remember, I'm proposing a 4X improvement in batteries. To do the equivalent to gas, you'd need it to be $16/gallon. Ouch... Besides, I'd rather look forward than back - I want electric vehicles to improve to beat gasoline ones; not handicap gasoline ones so EVs win despite their disability. One implies that the state of humanity has advanced, the other means we're simply picking the 'least worst', and we're all worse off(on average).
Current technology for electric vehicles has one huge showstopper bug in the recharge times.
Personally, as long as it's less than 8 hours for 2 days of average driving I'm good. What's killing it for me right now is the cost of the battery. Fix that and I figure you'll see them right and left.
but what if you want to take a longer trip, say from Phoenix to LA?
You do realize that you don't need to completely charge it every time you stop, right?
Hmm.... Okay, Google says Phoenix, AZ to Los Angeles, CA is 372 miles. You mentioned the Roadster, we'll figure it has 250 miles of range with you driving sanely*. ~6 hours total driving time.
So you go from LA and stop twice, hooking up to a fast charge station while you have a leisurely lunch and dinner(1 hour each). Unlike when you normally eat, the car is at least doing something useful with charging up(note: regular rest stops are advised anyways on long trips). You have 250 miles on your first charge, and each stop should add 75 miles. You should roll into downtown Los Angeles with 28 miles of charge remaining. The Model S with the 85 kwh battery pack is rated at a true 300 miles, so 1 hour of high speed charging should be (just barely) enough.
Still, there are more options:
1. Take your other vehicle; most families have 2.
2. Fly, take a bus, or rent a different car for the day. If it's a regular commute a different vehicle might be better for you
3. Rent a generator trailer
*It's a roadster, it's no fun to be driving it sanely...
[2]: There just seems to be no interest in better batteries in the US. This is a crying shame because of how this would cure a lot of problems.
Are you kidding me? There's lots and lots of interest. It's one of the reasons why EVs are switching to LiIon. The first version of the EV1(developed for California) used lead-acid. It sucked. The car weighed 3.1k pounds with them and only had 60-100 miles range. They transitioned to NiMH, which sucked a lot less; increased the energy available 45% while reducing weight by nearly 200lbs, which doubled the range. LiIon wasn't ready yet back then; they degraded too quickly. That's been mostly solved, so they go with it today, allowing ~twice as much power per pound over NiMH. Which is how a leaf manages to give 109 miles of charge on only 24kwh of battery pack.
Technologies I've seen in development are improved LiIon batteries(also seen in things like cell phones and laptops), LiFe, even flowing liquid batteries.
There's lots of interest, but right now improving on LiIon is proving tough.
I've actually done some work on this, and still think it's an interesting option.
On the upsides:
1. Higher efficiency for the most common use(tooling around town) - without the gasoline motor, you enjoy higher efficiencies, plus you either get a smaller vehicle or more trunk space.
2. For a long highway trip, it's only logical to make the trailer a touch larger than it has to be for the engine/generator - bam, instant additional storage space for your luggage. I don't know about you, but I haul more for long trips, and if you're hauling kids... I should note that I'm picturing a still relatively small two wheel trailer.
3. Don't buy; rent. If you only need it twice a year, rent it! If you need it more often than twice, at some point you're probably better off just buying a hybrid in the first place.
4. Efficiency loss shouldn't be much - you only need the thing to be big enough to make up 'most' of the energy cost of going down the highway.
Downsides:
1. Cost - said trailer will likely run $8k or so
2. Training - driving training in the USA sucks as is; most don't know how to haul a trailer(though this one would be simple).
3. Cars might need to be reinforced a bit - many light cars today, even EVs, can only haul 800 pounds of trailer once you put the hitch on. This isn't much, especially if you figure on putting some cargo in the trailer as well. Plus you'll need to put a charge point in a spot suited for the trailer, and program the car to account for incoming power while moving. 'Shouldn't' be hard, but still a fringe case.
One of the ideas I've seen for EVs up here is to install a small tank of kerosene/ethanol and put an auxiliary heater in. You don't need to burn the fuel in a 10% efficient engine in that case, but in a 90% efficient burner, when all you need is heat.
That way you're burning maybe a gallon every two weeks, not 10 gallons a week.
Well, I'm in Alaska and I've given a serious look at the electric motorcycles precisesly because of the sockets all over. While 110V@12A is a 'cripple charge' for most electric cars, it's often less than an hour to 'top off' an electric motorcycle...
(resistor around the engine block or something)
Step 1: Heater into the engine block to heat up the coolant (South/North Dakota area)
Step 2: Heater onto the oil pan/heated dip stick.
Step 3: "Battery Blanket" style heater on the battery, or a trickle charger(I use a trickle charger; first it makes sure the battery is topped off, then when it gets really cold and the battery voltage dips it thinks it needs charging; while the battery is fully charged it acts like a resister - the energy goes to warming the core of the battery, much more efficient than a battery warmer on the outside).
I'm talking about a model where the cars have easily-swapped batteries, which the driver leases, rather than owning.
It's actually one of the common proposals. Now that I'm thinking about it in economic terms, I think I know why it's not going to fly.
Benefit of the battery swap system:
1. Owner of EV doesn't have to pay for cost of battery up front(though they might require a deposit), which would be an estimated $18k(Leaf)-$32k(Roadster) up front savings.
2. No need to install chargers in a person's home.
3. "instant" recharge in a swap shop.
Downsides:
1. The car battery would have to be of a standard size(or set of). The Leaf uses a 24kwh battery, the Roadster a 53kwh one.
2. The battery, weighing between 660-992 pounds, is a significant factor to the handling of the vehicle - thus placement is fairly critical. A standardized size in a fast-swap position is a significant engineering challenge
3. The battery, at $18k-32k, is a significant (though steadily dropping) expense. Standardized sizes reduce the opportunity to 'right size' the battery to reduce capital cost.
4. While eliminating the need to charge at home reduces expense there, it increases expense that you now need a local swap point to 'refuel' your vehicle. Assuming it's as busy as a normal gas station, you're looking at needing a power hookup there sufficient to charge a several hundred batteries(assuming a gentle 24 hour charge cycle for highest efficiency/battery preservation)
5. While we're at it, we also need the SPACE to hold several hundred to a couple thousand charged/charging batteries.
6. Oh yeah, and those batteries are, say, $10k/pop, so you're looking at a battery station with upwards of a million in stock.
7. While fast charging and fancy EV stations can cost a lot of money, a basic charger only runs $800, plus install($3k typical; it's about the same as installing a dryer circuit) - Given that, it's cheaper to simply install a charger than to have a gas station buy another battery to swap with you.
8. At home charging means no time spent swapping batteries, and you might be able to get work to install a charger for you. Commercial chargers, needing security/billing features, are substantially more expensive, of course, but still less than another battery.
My figuring:
First, rich/upper class green types will buy these first; they'll generally have the latest home service, 200A, which is plenty(unless you're Al Gore). Even the 60A service at my old home(ancient) would work; I'd just have to be careful to not run the water heater, dryer, and car charger at the same time. They don't care about the install cost.
Then it'll trickle down to the home-owning middle class as an economical move. Eventually some apartment owners will start putting charging stations in their parking lots. At which point it'll become a selling point - an EV owner is(at least at first) likely to be a 'premium' renter unlikely to cause damage, plus the apartment owner can charge a rent premium(~$40/month?).
You make some good points, ones that I was thinking about myself, though the way you phrase them make them seem a bigger problem. First step, my assumption: People tend to buy a car to cover 90-95% of their needs/wants, not 50%(average). Especially those outside of the cities. Once you buy a more capable vehicle, it's extremely difficult to justify a smaller vehicle economically. Have a truck because you tow every weekend or have a sideline construction business? Unless your truck is unusually inefficient or you drive way more than average, you can't justify the cost of a commuter car during the week off of saved gasoline.
Anyways, that's why they're making EVs with a range of 100-300 miles, or 'plug in hybrids' with a 30-50 mile battery. Because then you can do the 15 mile commute and still have enough miles left for the store.
Still, we're back to my old saying: There's nothing wrong with EVs that a battery that lasts twice as long at half the cost wouldn't fix.
Oh yeah, and 140 out of how many over the time period? That's the true measure.
The problem is with Prosecuting Attorneys who've committed morally reprehensible acts to win cases at any cost including the cost of sending innocent people to death row. It happens, there is a rich body of evidence to prove it.
Which is why I want to see the justice system reformed; not the death penalty eliminated. That's like putting red light cameras up on a poorly designed intersection rather than fixing the yellow timing. I view a LiP w/o parole to be the same as the death penalty. I don't care whether it's murder, rape, or shoplifting, trials should be fair and dedicated to finding the truth.
California taxpayers pay $90,000 _more_ per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.
Addressed this in my first post - Inmates that are sentenced to life instead of the DP are generally not put into 'regular confinement'. They're generally put into Max, which is also far more expensive. It's also a reason to study why we have a separate death row anyways. The disparity in cost wasn't always there.
Would you be willing to die for a murder you didn't commit?
Are you accepting that legitimate or not, I'd be fighting as hard as I could to get the least sentence possible? That I support something on a statistical basis doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to beat the statistics. Remember, I consider a 'life in prison w/o parole' to be equivalent to death. If I'm not exonerated within the first 5, I'm unlikely to be exonerated at all, especially if I'm not sentenced to death.
On the other hand, I'm far, far, more likely to end up murdered than on trial for a murder I don't commit. I'd call that 'dying for a murder I didn't commit'. As such, I'd like to concentrate more on policies that reduce the murder rate, not 'improve' punishment of the murderers. I'd rather they not become murderers at all. Fix the schools, fix the home life, provide appropriate counseling, fix the culture.
On what basis to do you imagine that? Why is it that in this country, where we assume the government can't do anything right, somehow we assume it is near *perfect* when it comes to condemning people to death?
That's why juries are involved. Still, I agree with you somewhat; which is why I proposed a higher standard for the Death Penalty - in general 2nd degree(no to 20 premediation, provoked, mutual combat) would be up to 20 years. 1st degree would be pre-meditated. 0th degree, DP eligible, would require 3 or more murders and/or 'deliberate torture' to be involved. A bit of a higher standard.
Also, while it might not be 'right', in general those who end up in court aren't innocent. To bring up a fictional example, it's like the Batman helping the Joker to beat a murder rap - because he was actually innocent of *that* murder. Given the Joker's record in the comics, that's a bit like exonerating Saddam of 1 murder - you still have a few thousand to hang on him.
I've called my support for the DP the 'Joker Rule' before; it's for people who are 'just that dangerous'. I'd call it the "Anders Breivik" rule, but in containment the dude isn't as dangerous as many of the gangbangers here in the states. Of course, when I go 'evil overlord' I worry less about guilt than actual danger - a gangbanger thug might end up executed for being dangerous and 'not worth it to society' for being caught with drugs, while a doctor who murdered his cheating wife might actually see the light of day again.
Alright, how did you decide that 1/100 is unacceptable, but 1/10000 is? Do you have a rational basis for where you draw the line, or are you going by your gut feeling? If you are going by your gut feeling, what makes you think that's a reasonable basis for deciding to execute somebody?
My standard would be finding the best 'life saving' zone. Note, this would be for the trials themselves. You'd have to look at how likely an unconvicted murderer is to kill again, how public perception works for murders, etc... Note: DP is a sentence, not a trial. I don't have enough data, but I figure it's probably closer to the 1/100 rate, as to get to 1/1000 for false convictions you'd have to let an awful lot of real murderers go. It's still within the old 'better to let 10 guilty free...' saying.
I'll go out on a limb here and guess you don't actually have any children.
He might. Parents have turned their kids in for crimes before, sometimes extremely serious ones. That doesn't mean that, even if they witnessed a crime, that they're going to be standing outside the prison with a 'fry the bastard' sign. I know of parents who'd turn their kid in, then sit there 'being supportive' as they put the death drugs in his arm.
Some days I think I should write a book and self-publish on Amazon. I happen believe that we need to end the war on drugs - it'd easily become a whole chapter in the book, with trying to explain all the nuances and reasonings. Along with that, prisons need to concentrate on reform, not warehousing. When I go 'Evil Overlord', I propose things like triaging the prisons - execute the worst x% in order to free up the necessary resources to reform the rest. Druggies included(though a lot of them can better be helped simply by transferring them to a system that treats their additction as a medical, not a criminal, problem).
However - "growing epidemic"? It's growing in Mexico, but I think it's pretty much evened out in the USA. The revolving door has been the case since I was a kid. As countries like Norway show, being 'hard on crime' is actually conterproductive - you spend another $300k or so keeping somebody in prison for another decade, and they're MORE likely to commit more crimes when they get out. It's been shown that another 10-20% over incarceration expenses spent on education, reform efforts work.
Getting it right should trump being hard on crime. We should punish prosecutors who are as hard on innocence as they are on crime.
Exactly. If I was doing a scoring system, imprisoning an innocent should count as -100, where imprisoning a guilty person is only worth 1.
Your biological memories don't lie. When we can see your memory, we'll get the truth and you will be either innocent or guilty.
Actually, they do, for the same reason witnesses suck. Personally, I'm more about fxing the problems - it would be ideal if we could do an intervention BEFORE the bank robbery, stopping it entirely, not needing to send anybody to prison.
As mentioned earlier, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp, decided, at least in the USA, that a 'close as possible' copy of a public domain work can't be copyrighted, due to lack of originality.
Yes, this 'discourages' creating a digital master, but most of the time there's enough public interest to create one anyways, at least if the work has enough merit.
I'm not a lawyer, nor am I familiar with every country's laws. HOWEVER, there's a critical difference between taking a still in a museum of a 100+ year old painting and making a video in a theater of a first run movie.
The video is an illegal copy of a copyrighted work - It's generally less than a year old. The painting is OUT OF COPYRIGHT, therefore duplicating it is 100% legal, no matter what the owner(museum) says. "No Commercial photography" has no force of law, other than the possibility of kicking you out.
Still, to my knowledge, educational use of the artwork is incredibly cheap, depending on the resolution. It indicates to me that the creators of the book were horrible/lazy negotiators, it shouldn't have been $800 for a bunch of(say) ~3" diagonal sized pictures of various works.
The reason the death penalty is flat out wrong is quite simple. It isn't just that you are being hypocritical about the morality of killing, it is also that you are murdering innocent people.
Different thought processes indeed. Murderers kill innocent people. The state imposing a guilty sentence on an innocent is a tragic accident; not a murder. Of course, while I view an improperly executed person to be a tragedy, I also view locking them up for life an equal tragedy. Different point of view.
In any group of convicted murderers, there are going to be some people who are innocent. That's just a fact. People (juries) make mistakes.
A group could be as few as two. So no, I don't think that 'any group' of convicted murderers is guaranteed to have an innocent in there. Yes, mistakes happen. My point would be that we need to work to reform our court system to be better at coming to a correct decision. To the point that I'm not wedded to the idea of a traditional jury trial, heck, judicial panel or a 'trial' in the traditional sense at all. Coming up with something better would be a good trick, of course. Nobel prize type material.
So some number of people you put to death are going to be innocent. It might be one in a hundred or one in ten thousand, but they are going to be there regardless of your degree of diligence. And when 15 years later, when new evidence comes to light as it seems to with alarmingly frequency, you can't just let them out of jail with an apology.
I'm sure there's quite a list of innocent people who died in prison without having been convicted of a capital crime. And even then 'just let them out of jail with an apology' is a horrible thing to do. We don't even do that with actual convicts - they need assistance to reintigrate back into society, guilty or innocent, at that point. I remember a case in Texas where a man served over 40 years of his life sentence before it was discovered that he was innocent of the rape he was convicted of.
Whenever I talk to pro-death penalty people, I ask them if they would still support the death penalty if they or one of their loved ones was one of those one in a thousand cases where an innocent person was wrongly convicted, I have yet to hear a convincing 'yes'.
Well, it'd be lower odds than winning the lottery, but I have to say 'Yes'. Oddly enough, they have better odds of getting out of prison when the truth is found due to the higher standards. Getting the state to let out somebody proven innocent after conviction can be a decades long process; in Texas people have died before being let out.
Are you so strong in your belief of the value of capitol punishment that you would be willing to die to support it? Would you stand outside the prison when your child was executed with a sign that says, 'Fry the bastard', when you knew they were only guilty of not having a good alibi and a good lawyer?
1. There's a lot of things I'm willing to die for; if I'm one of the extremely rare mistakes, so be it. Remember, I only support the DP in cases of mass murderers(more than 2 killed), or deliberate torture in addition to. That's a higher standard of evidence required right there.
2. Uh... I'm not crazy enough to stand outside the prison and hold up such a sign even for somebody I believe is guilty; much less 'require' somebody to do so for a relative they believe to be innocent. You can darn well believe that I'd be on the phone with the governor presenting my evidence of their innocence to get them to issues a stay/pardon. I'd be providing money to GET a good lawyer during the trial. Hell, I'm supportive of the idea of forcing governments to fund their defense office at least as much as they fund their prosecutor's office, and that's NOT limited to death penalty cases.
Just because I support the DP on a statistical basis doesn't mean that I'm totally hea
What's that have to do with it? That just means a totally botched investigation, a bogus eye witness (perhaps not intentional but witnesses aren't always correct either), some crucial piece of evidence overlooked/not collected/not followed up, or something those lines are an innocent person is about to be killed.
Generally speaking, I prefer that ALL trials be held to a high standard, not just DP ones. Courts that have difficulty holding a fair trial* for a DP case is likely going to have even worse problems with non-DP cases. I'm willing to bet that there are many orders of magnitude more people improperly convicted of a non-DP crime who end up dying in prison than are executed improperly. Perhaps fewer resources on appeals, more on doing the trial right in the first place?
*And I hold no special regard for our criminal trial system; at best it's one of the better examples that exist today. I'd love to see a system that's fairer on average; but it's difficult.
Do you have the balls to outright name these "subcultures"?
How about the Drug subculture, where violence often has to substitute for the unavailable justice system?
How about the Gang subculture, where I see a lot of parallels with primitive tribes?
How about the 'Nigger' subculture, to quite Chris Rock and a number of other black comedians?
Yes, every culture has honest and peaceful people, every culture has it's violent, thieves, and murderers. The concern is about the rate. There are sections of the USA, predominantly black, where violence is so bad that it lowers the average life expectency of black men who live there by over a decade. There are areas where violence is so low that a murder makes front page news for a month straight.
You absolutely should not have the same punishment for rape as for murder.
Go ancient with it. Rape? long stake(die in a few hours). Rape & Murder? Short stake(can take a few days).