Have you account for needing > 1 atm to inflate a balloon period on earth vs something like.00001 atm working in orbit?
Yes, the air will escape more quickly at first, and even more completely. But there's also a lack of force to collapse the balloon, assuming a mylar unstretchable type vs a rubber stretch type.
In the USA you hear 'high power rifle' more often than 'high power firearm'.
'Most' countries allow people to buy rifles and/or shotguns for hunting purposes. Even Japan does.
You're not really doing a 'proper' simulation with a ~1k feet per second handgun. A ~2-3k fps rifle will be a better solution, but even a bunch of birdshot would work at close range.
*Looks around*
I don't have a favorite high power firearm, I love them all equally!;)
There's a difference, though even WE screw it up sometimes, between a 'terrorist' and an 'insurgent'.
What's the difference? The terrorist goes after civilians with marginal connection to any occupying military. Insurgents go after military forces.
Let's take a roadside bomb - if they deliberately detonate it when a schoolbus passes, they're terrorists. If they blow it up when a military convoy is passing, they're insurgents, even if civilians are killed. The deaths of the civilians are collateral/accidental/secondary effect.
As a military member, I'll do my best to kill both; differences in treatment comes later, when the terrorists end up on trial for murder who the insurgents are released when the conflict is over/settlement negotiated.
That a leader of Russian ultranationalists could possibly be such a guy is absurd. Russian Neo-Nazis today occasionally kill people with such names and faces!
It's not quite as odd as you might think. Remember, Hitler was an Austrian who didn't exactly fit the Aryan ideal.
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
B&W vs Color is an extreme example; in that the old movies deliberately worked to make the lack of color seamless to the viewer.
I'll say the same for 3D and HDTV rather easily - the old resolution was chosen as 'good enough'. Now, you CAN do more with 720 vs 640, and you can do more with 1080 than 720, but you're pushing the limits of human perception even with 720. A good movie will entertain you even if you can't read the headstamp on the cases flying out of the machine gun.
No, a program like "Fair" Tax won't pass because it's ultimately regressive with respect to percentage of disposable income retained by low-income participants after payment of this tax
1. Taxes having to be progressive to be 'fair' is a liberal philosophy. 2. "Fair Tax" is progressive, if perhaps not as progressive as you want it to be. It does have the advantage of being 'simple' 3. 'low income' participants already don't pay income taxes
After the subsidy, the Chevy Volt is something like $35,000.
I try to avoid counting subsidies because they're a market distortion, but I'd certainly count them on an individual level.
My comment was a historical one based on 'back when' indicating, at least to me, that it was some time ago, when the price difference between a hybrid and a non-hybrid were higher.
I must say though, that they've come a lot closer in price than they used to be.
You have a glaring flaw in your comparo...the Prius is a much bigger car than a Mazda3 (which I own, btw) and a Fiesta. You need to compare a Prius to a Fusion...or better yet, a Fusion Hybrid to a Fusion.
Like I said though, I used the cars the GP mentioned.
Prius vs Fusion: $23k 50mpg vs $19,695 29mpg @15k miles a year, saves $72 a month in fuel, Loan payments: $372 for the Fusion, $434 for the prius. Means you're $10 better off with the Prius per month. Assuming battery replacement doesn't rear it's ugly head.
I used to drive (till CompUSA closed) 50,000 miles a year...
Whoof... 30 hours a week just on the commute? That's a second job! I do almost the same distance round trip, and I'm 90% highway speeds(65-70mph), and I think that's a tad long. Anyways, if I had to characterize your driving, you come closest to 'inner city cab driver'. Which is actually one of the driving patterns that can make an EV or hybrid make sense quicker than for normal drivers.
Here, do the math for me for this... and throw in an EV (let's say the Model S or the forthcoming BlueStar) at pennies a mile.
Okay, as it's not a production car I don't have access to some of the figures I'd need. Links would be appropriate in the future; along with a car you want it compared to. Found my spreadsheet - What do you pay per kwh? (Default: $.10) What figure do you want to use for Gasoline? ($3) Cost of capital/loan: 5% Any particular car to compare it to?
Wikipedia says it's being designed to compete with the BMW 5 Series. MSRP is estimated at $57,400. Tesla S - Model S, $57,400-42kwh battery - 160 mile range(3.8miles/kwh); $65k - 85kwh-300 miles(3.5m/kwh, drop likely due to extra weight). BMW 5 Series - 528i Sedan, $44,550 MSRP. - Oh my - it has hybrid tech - it's got a ~1kwh battery it charges by braking! mpg unlisted. 2010 - 17/27. Given your description, we'll go with 17 mpg.
Given your driving habits, I doubt a car will make it to 10 years; I'll say 5.
Anyways, on to the figures: Car cost: BMW is $841/month, EV is $1,083 Fuel: Gasoline is $735/month, Electricity $110
Given your usage, you'd SAVE $383/month going with the EV. Assuming it's battery could hold up to the strain. You are looking at near 2k full discharges, and lithium is normally rated for under 1k at this time. Tesla rates the Roadster battery at 100k miles, $36k for replacement(dropping to $12k). That's 12 cents a mile on it's own, and would be a deal breaker as it'd add $500/month to the expense. You save $500/year on oil changes, end up spending $12k every two to replace the battery.
Since we're talking about these cars lasting ten years, with Prius, you've also got the possibility of a major component of the engine failing and the higher costs associated with servicing and replacing those parts on the Prius. I've read that some parts of the Prius drive train can cost up to $10,000 to replace.
Actually, you "shouldn't" need to replace anything except perhaps the battery. Large electric motors can easily have lifespans measured in decades as long as you don't burn them. I mean, consider the fan in your AC/Furnace. Still, the battery is pretty much the most expensive component.
Today oil changes and such are like 1 every 5k miles. I don't do the '3 months' thing. So 3 oil changes at $50ea, that's $150/year. Double that to handle 'other things', $300.
Figure that the hybrid only needs 2 oil changes, with doubling that's $200/year. That would also be a figure for things like not having to do brake jobs as often. But if the battery doesn't last a decade, you're looking at a lot more than $1k to replace it.
Given than typical residential KW costs are about 22 cents, the utilities are paying alot of money.
I know energy tends to cost more in Europe, but ever consider that part of the reason you're paying 22 cents a kwh is these subsidies? That your electric bill is partially going towards his solar install?
I understand why Germany is doing it. It's just that I'm aware that it's not without it's costs. An awful lot of other economic activity was forgone to install those panels, and a lot of panel installs that might have gone in where they'd generate more weren't done because Germany was buying them up.
Germany isn't all that further south than Britain, and I remember reading a study that basically said that after solar power reached x% it'd actually be cheaper to lease land in Africa and run a set of superconducting through the ocean north, due to the greater power generation down there.
I bought a prius...cause I actually like the car. i payed it off. i didn't need any government incentives.
Still, you probably got at least some. Though many of the greatest rebates for Priuses have run out if I remember right.
honestly, should you pay less towards defense, fire dept, police, mosquito abatement, and social services just cause your car gets a few more MPG? should your neighbors be paying extra to cover the cost of your public education system just cause your car has extra batteries?
The idea is that you're helping build a better america or some such. Various governments, both federal and state, have decided that hybrids, EVs, and other alternate fuel vehicles are worth subsidizing for research & development purposes. The oil won't last forever, after all.
Thing is, consider the cost of said hybrid - could anybody BUT the wealthy afford them? Even with the rebates? I'll note that this is the closest I've come to running the math and having the hybrid make sense.
If it wasn't for the rebates, would you still have bought it?
The Sci-Fi Channel sent several crew and cameras to Chernobyl, and I didn't see any people living inside the zone.
The historical channel documentary DOES mention them though. Including a blurb that they have a lower cancer rate than similar elderly in close city/industrial town that had a lot of chemical pollution.
But the real issues with electric vehicles are charging(or lack of it), and electricity costs way, way, way more per-unit of energy then gasoline.
Say what? There's a reason we're hooked up to the grid and not running generators.
At $3/gallon, a 30mpg car costs around 10 cents a mile. Your standard EV gets around 3-4 miles per kwh. At 10 cents a kwh, that gives you fuel costs around a quarter that of gasoline.
They don't hate the poor, they just want to keep them in their place- where they belong, without the ability to travel that well into other areas where they do not belong.
I wouldn't have called her 'Poor', but in Europe I met a woman in her 40's who had never been more than 15 miles from where she was born. I've traveled far enough to circumnavigate the Earth. She had never felt the need.
If the government wants to encourage electric cars, why doesn't it buy them? Switch the entire damn postal service over to start with. Give grants for local comunity to switch their police cars and mass transit over.
Well, they already do. There are purchase initiatives that say x% of vehicles need to be 'alternative fueled'. Thing is, the Tesla Roadster doesn't meet their requirements.
As is, the federal government is one of the biggest buyers of E85 capable vehicles, and we do fill them up with E85*. California bought a bunch of EV vans back in the day.
The problem you run into, with electric cars at least - With mass transit it doesn't translate into individual cars, police car's scope of operation exceeds EV capabilities(though hybrid might work). The best idea might be postal cars - but I'd take a serious look at the characteristics of their drives. I mean, low speeds, lots of stop start, not very much travel per day seems ideal for EVs, but maybe they have some dark secret.;)
*NOT going to get into the whole Ethanol debate; suffice it to say that I think that they still need a breakthrough such as economic production from cellulose to make it economical
How many miles do you drive? Is it more skewed to highway or city? Lower maintenance vs higher insurance costs for a more expensive vehicle. What sort of interest rate can you get? How do you value the cost of the capital? Where do you figure gasoline is going to go?
Darn it all, I created a spreadsheet once where I could just punch the figures in and it even did cost of capital calcs, maintenance savings, etc...
Prius is more expensive - $23 - 28k; 51/48 mpg. Call it 50mpg.
Mazda3 4 door - $15k, 29mpg average city/highway Fiesta - $13k, 34 mpg average
Going by a rather high 15k miles a year, and $4/gallon gasoline(I'm being nice to the hybrid) Prius - 300 gallons/year, $1200 fuel cost a year. Mazda3 - 517 gallons, $2069 fuel, $869 more than the Prius Fiesta - 441, $1765, $565 more than the Prius
Assuming the Cars last 10 years, that's a combined fuel cost of 2.4k/year for the Prius, $1.7k for the Mazda3, $1.5k for the Fiesta.
As for the 'only liberals driving them', I won't go that far, merely stating that you get mostly those who are obsessed with 'green' or those lured by some combination of subsidies, unusual driving patterns excessively canted towards hybrid styles(inner city cab driver?), etc...
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This would cause the balloon to deflate faster
Have you account for needing > 1 atm to inflate a balloon period on earth vs something like .00001 atm working in orbit?
Yes, the air will escape more quickly at first, and even more completely. But there's also a lack of force to collapse the balloon, assuming a mylar unstretchable type vs a rubber stretch type.
In the USA you hear 'high power rifle' more often than 'high power firearm'.
'Most' countries allow people to buy rifles and/or shotguns for hunting purposes. Even Japan does.
You're not really doing a 'proper' simulation with a ~1k feet per second handgun. A ~2-3k fps rifle will be a better solution, but even a bunch of birdshot would work at close range.
*Looks around*
I don't have a favorite high power firearm, I love them all equally! ;)
First: I'm military, just a disclaimer.
There's a difference, though even WE screw it up sometimes, between a 'terrorist' and an 'insurgent'.
What's the difference? The terrorist goes after civilians with marginal connection to any occupying military. Insurgents go after military forces.
Let's take a roadside bomb - if they deliberately detonate it when a schoolbus passes, they're terrorists. If they blow it up when a military convoy is passing, they're insurgents, even if civilians are killed. The deaths of the civilians are collateral/accidental/secondary effect.
As a military member, I'll do my best to kill both; differences in treatment comes later, when the terrorists end up on trial for murder who the insurgents are released when the conflict is over/settlement negotiated.
That a leader of Russian ultranationalists could possibly be such a guy is absurd. Russian Neo-Nazis today occasionally kill people with such names and faces!
It's not quite as odd as you might think. Remember, Hitler was an Austrian who didn't exactly fit the Aryan ideal.
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
B&W vs Color is an extreme example; in that the old movies deliberately worked to make the lack of color seamless to the viewer.
I'll say the same for 3D and HDTV rather easily - the old resolution was chosen as 'good enough'. Now, you CAN do more with 720 vs 640, and you can do more with 1080 than 720, but you're pushing the limits of human perception even with 720. A good movie will entertain you even if you can't read the headstamp on the cases flying out of the machine gun.
No, a program like "Fair" Tax won't pass because it's ultimately regressive with respect to percentage of disposable income retained by low-income participants after payment of this tax
1. Taxes having to be progressive to be 'fair' is a liberal philosophy.
2. "Fair Tax" is progressive, if perhaps not as progressive as you want it to be. It does have the advantage of being 'simple'
3. 'low income' participants already don't pay income taxes
More people get W-2s than get 1099s though.
Still, we're only talking about TWO forms now and a calculator.
My mother is a CPA, she has an original copy of the first tax return form. Form AND instructions fit on the two sides of an 8.5x11 piece of paper.
So much as a 1040EZ takes around 4 pages for the form itself today, and the instructions another dozen.
But you'll find that most places are somewhere between 20-35c/kwh or higher.
And I think that in most of them you'd find that gasoline also costs a lot more.
Indeed, if I put in a seperate service for an EV, I'd be able to get electricity off-peak for 3-4 cents a kwh.
After the subsidy, the Chevy Volt is something like $35,000.
I try to avoid counting subsidies because they're a market distortion, but I'd certainly count them on an individual level.
My comment was a historical one based on 'back when' indicating, at least to me, that it was some time ago, when the price difference between a hybrid and a non-hybrid were higher.
I must say though, that they've come a lot closer in price than they used to be.
Is it government's right to decide the direction of technology?
Perhaps not, but it's got some say anyways.
You have a glaring flaw in your comparo...the Prius is a much bigger car than a Mazda3 (which I own, btw) and a Fiesta. You need to compare a Prius to a Fusion...or better yet, a Fusion Hybrid to a Fusion.
Like I said though, I used the cars the GP mentioned.
Prius vs Fusion:
$23k 50mpg vs $19,695 29mpg
@15k miles a year, saves $72 a month in fuel,
Loan payments: $372 for the Fusion, $434 for the prius.
Means you're $10 better off with the Prius per month. Assuming battery replacement doesn't rear it's ugly head.
Possibly; but you're still looking at enough time to equalize at least somewhat.
Statistically speaking; you live long enough you're going to get cancer.
I used to drive (till CompUSA closed) 50,000 miles a year...
Whoof... 30 hours a week just on the commute? That's a second job! I do almost the same distance round trip, and I'm 90% highway speeds(65-70mph), and I think that's a tad long. Anyways, if I had to characterize your driving, you come closest to 'inner city cab driver'. Which is actually one of the driving patterns that can make an EV or hybrid make sense quicker than for normal drivers.
Here, do the math for me for this... and throw in an EV (let's say the Model S or the forthcoming BlueStar) at pennies a mile.
Okay, as it's not a production car I don't have access to some of the figures I'd need. Links would be appropriate in the future; along with a car you want it compared to.
Found my spreadsheet -
What do you pay per kwh? (Default: $.10)
What figure do you want to use for Gasoline? ($3)
Cost of capital/loan: 5%
Any particular car to compare it to?
Wikipedia says it's being designed to compete with the BMW 5 Series. MSRP is estimated at $57,400.
Tesla S - Model S, $57,400-42kwh battery - 160 mile range(3.8miles/kwh); $65k - 85kwh-300 miles(3.5m/kwh, drop likely due to extra weight).
BMW 5 Series - 528i Sedan, $44,550 MSRP. - Oh my - it has hybrid tech - it's got a ~1kwh battery it charges by braking! mpg unlisted. 2010 - 17/27. Given your description, we'll go with 17 mpg.
Given your driving habits, I doubt a car will make it to 10 years; I'll say 5.
Anyways, on to the figures:
Car cost: BMW is $841/month, EV is $1,083
Fuel: Gasoline is $735/month, Electricity $110
Given your usage, you'd SAVE $383/month going with the EV. Assuming it's battery could hold up to the strain. You are looking at near 2k full discharges, and lithium is normally rated for under 1k at this time. Tesla rates the Roadster battery at 100k miles, $36k for replacement(dropping to $12k). That's 12 cents a mile on it's own, and would be a deal breaker as it'd add $500/month to the expense. You save $500/year on oil changes, end up spending $12k every two to replace the battery.
Since we're talking about these cars lasting ten years, with Prius, you've also got the possibility of a major component of the engine failing and the higher costs associated with servicing and replacing those parts on the Prius. I've read that some parts of the Prius drive train can cost up to $10,000 to replace.
Actually, you "shouldn't" need to replace anything except perhaps the battery. Large electric motors can easily have lifespans measured in decades as long as you don't burn them. I mean, consider the fan in your AC/Furnace. Still, the battery is pretty much the most expensive component.
Today oil changes and such are like 1 every 5k miles. I don't do the '3 months' thing. So 3 oil changes at $50ea, that's $150/year. Double that to handle 'other things', $300.
Figure that the hybrid only needs 2 oil changes, with doubling that's $200/year. That would also be a figure for things like not having to do brake jobs as often. But if the battery doesn't last a decade, you're looking at a lot more than $1k to replace it.
Given than typical residential KW costs are about 22 cents, the utilities are paying alot of money.
I know energy tends to cost more in Europe, but ever consider that part of the reason you're paying 22 cents a kwh is these subsidies? That your electric bill is partially going towards his solar install?
I understand why Germany is doing it. It's just that I'm aware that it's not without it's costs. An awful lot of other economic activity was forgone to install those panels, and a lot of panel installs that might have gone in where they'd generate more weren't done because Germany was buying them up.
Germany isn't all that further south than Britain, and I remember reading a study that basically said that after solar power reached x% it'd actually be cheaper to lease land in Africa and run a set of superconducting through the ocean north, due to the greater power generation down there.
I bought a prius...cause I actually like the car.
i payed it off. i didn't need any government incentives.
Still, you probably got at least some. Though many of the greatest rebates for Priuses have run out if I remember right.
honestly, should you pay less towards defense, fire dept, police, mosquito abatement, and social services just cause your car gets a few more MPG? should your neighbors be paying extra to cover the cost of your public education system just cause your car has extra batteries?
The idea is that you're helping build a better america or some such. Various governments, both federal and state, have decided that hybrids, EVs, and other alternate fuel vehicles are worth subsidizing for research & development purposes. The oil won't last forever, after all.
Thing is, consider the cost of said hybrid - could anybody BUT the wealthy afford them? Even with the rebates? I'll note that this is the closest I've come to running the math and having the hybrid make sense.
If it wasn't for the rebates, would you still have bought it?
The Sci-Fi Channel sent several crew and cameras to Chernobyl, and I didn't see any people living inside the zone.
The historical channel documentary DOES mention them though. Including a blurb that they have a lower cancer rate than similar elderly in close city/industrial town that had a lot of chemical pollution.
Not in this case, I had a spreadsheet that did some of that, but I can't find it at the moment.
It also doesn't take cost of capital into account, insurance costs, etc...
I'll note that I seem to be fairly easy on vehicle brakes - my last car went more than 5 years without needing a brake job. I did keep an eye on it.
But the real issues with electric vehicles are charging(or lack of it), and electricity costs way, way, way more per-unit of energy then gasoline.
Say what? There's a reason we're hooked up to the grid and not running generators.
At $3/gallon, a 30mpg car costs around 10 cents a mile. Your standard EV gets around 3-4 miles per kwh. At 10 cents a kwh, that gives you fuel costs around a quarter that of gasoline.
What kills EVs, at this time, are the batteries.
They don't hate the poor, they just want to keep them in their place- where they belong, without the ability to travel that well into other areas where they do not belong.
I wouldn't have called her 'Poor', but in Europe I met a woman in her 40's who had never been more than 15 miles from where she was born. I've traveled far enough to circumnavigate the Earth. She had never felt the need.
If the government wants to encourage electric cars, why doesn't it buy them? Switch the entire damn postal service over to start with. Give grants for local comunity to switch their police cars and mass transit over.
Well, they already do. There are purchase initiatives that say x% of vehicles need to be 'alternative fueled'. Thing is, the Tesla Roadster doesn't meet their requirements.
As is, the federal government is one of the biggest buyers of E85 capable vehicles, and we do fill them up with E85*. California bought a bunch of EV vans back in the day.
The problem you run into, with electric cars at least - With mass transit it doesn't translate into individual cars, police car's scope of operation exceeds EV capabilities(though hybrid might work). The best idea might be postal cars - but I'd take a serious look at the characteristics of their drives. I mean, low speeds, lots of stop start, not very much travel per day seems ideal for EVs, but maybe they have some dark secret. ;)
*NOT going to get into the whole Ethanol debate; suffice it to say that I think that they still need a breakthrough such as economic production from cellulose to make it economical
*Shrugs*
I used the cars the GP mentioned.
The math all depends on your figures.
How many miles do you drive? Is it more skewed to highway or city?
Lower maintenance vs higher insurance costs for a more expensive vehicle.
What sort of interest rate can you get? How do you value the cost of the capital? Where do you figure gasoline is going to go?
This is what I get for rushing!:
Combined Fuel/simple capital cost:
Prius - $3.5k
Mazda3 - $3.5k
Fiesta - $3.4k
I'll note that if you reduce the anticipated life or assume a 5% loan the maths will change.
Darn it all, I created a spreadsheet once where I could just punch the figures in and it even did cost of capital calcs, maintenance savings, etc...
Prius is more expensive - $23 - 28k; 51/48 mpg. Call it 50mpg.
Mazda3 4 door - $15k, 29mpg average city/highway
Fiesta - $13k, 34 mpg average
Going by a rather high 15k miles a year, and $4/gallon gasoline(I'm being nice to the hybrid)
Prius - 300 gallons/year, $1200 fuel cost a year.
Mazda3 - 517 gallons, $2069 fuel, $869 more than the Prius
Fiesta - 441, $1765, $565 more than the Prius
Assuming the Cars last 10 years, that's a combined fuel cost of 2.4k/year for the Prius, $1.7k for the Mazda3, $1.5k for the Fiesta.
As for the 'only liberals driving them', I won't go that far, merely stating that you get mostly those who are obsessed with 'green' or those lured by some combination of subsidies, unusual driving patterns excessively canted towards hybrid styles(inner city cab driver?), etc...
Or I could say 'those bad at math'.