I had seriously considered getting an HP Pavilion desktop with the nVidia graphics chipset but I fortunately thought better of the idea. That's why I have a Pavilion a6400f with the Intel G33 graphics chipset--not the most capable but at least it's reasonably stable.:-)
Also, Toyota is starting to wind down production of the current model, since the third-generation Prius is coming early next year. From what I've read, the third-generation Prius is more an evolutionary design with slightly more interior space and an improved hybrid drivetrain.
Besides the fact you can get about 45-49 mpg in "real world" driving on the current Prius, don't forget that the car itself sports an amazing amount of interior space (the roomy back seating especially) and the fact you can fold down the back seats to get a big cargo area.
It will be very interesting to see what Toyota does with the 2010 model, the third-generation of this ground-breaking car. We do know that Toyota wants improved performance and even better fuel economy, probably by going to a more powerful electric motor and an improved gasoline engine.
I think going slow will save gas, but the aggravation of interfering with other drivers (and the boredom factor driving long distances at slower speeds) outweigh the benefits.
Besides, with a many 2006 or later model year cars, the combination of modern aerodynamics for body design and modern engine designs means going just a tad slower won't save you significant amounts of fuel. For example, a 2008 Honda Civic sedan won't use much more fuel going from 55 mph to 65 mph, given the modern aerodynamic design of the body and the fact the engine computer constantly adjusts the ignition timing and valve timing for best possible fuel economy.
I think you forgot that under FairTax, you get a prebate payment to cover the 23% consumption tax to cover the cost of that tax up to the Federally-defined poverty level. You can read about this on this PDF file:
I actually like some of your ideas, along with my suggestion for kiboshing the current Federal income tax system in favor of a pure consumption tax of 23% (no deductions allowed) along the lines of the FairTax system.
I would do one thing additional though: impose a 30% minimum margin requirement for trading in hedge funds and stock derivatives, with a margin requirement as high as 50% for critical items such as important foodstuffs, strategic metals and financial stock derivatives. At these high levels of minimum margin requirements, it keeps out the "riff raff" that can drive up and down the price of commodities and stock derivatives with wild swings that can end up causing serious economic harm (as the price runup for crude oil during the first half of this year and the stock price rundown of financial companies over the past few months demonstrates all too clearly).
1. We have 35,000-plus lobbyists in Washington, DC trying to "warp" the Federal tax code to support their narrow constituencies. And we know what "warping the Federal tax code can do, as noted by the current sub-prime mortgage meltdown. 2. This results in a completely unwieldy Federal tax code, with 60,000-plus pages of regulations that is barely comprehensible even to the most seasoned tax professional. 3. We're now spending nearly US$600 billion per year trying to comply with the Federal tax code and in pre-compliance economic decisions. 4. The Federal tax code discourages people from actually saving because of the taxes on savings interest, dividend interest, and capital gains on property or equity sale. 5. Because of #4, many Americans are sending their liquid assets out of the country to avoid the clutches of the IRS. Why do you think some experts estimate we have at least US$14 TRILLION socked away at offshore financial centers (OFC's) in places like the Bahamas, Grand Cayman Islands, Panama, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Hong Kong, Nauru, Monaco, and so on?
It is high time we kibosh the current Federal income tax system and come up with a consumption-based income tax system that encourages people to invest and save. Perhaps the best example of this is the FairTax proposal, which intends to replace the current income tax system with a single 23% consumption tax (no deductions whatsoever), where the Federal government sends a monthly prebate check to cover the 23% consumption tax on basic necessity items up to the Federal-defined poverty level. While FairTax is not perfect, it certainly beats the current income tax system for these reassons:
1. Because of no more taxes on paychecks, interest income, dividend income, capital gains income and even on estate, it encourages people to save and invest (there's nothing wrong with that!). 2. Because of #1, the advantages of "offshoring" your liquid assets are gone. That means potentially several trillion US dollars coming back to the USA to be invested in our financial institutions, which would quickly stop the slide in the stock market and provide a new liquidity base for loans and lines of credit. 3. With no more taxes on investments, foreigners will send several trillion dollars of investments themselves into the USA, since we will become the world's largest legal tax haven. Again, this provides a huge bolster for the liquidity base in our financial system. 4. With no more taxes on payroll, corporate income, dividend income, and capital gains, it encourages American companies to keep as much goods production in the USA. Cities like Detriot and Cleveland could experience an economic boom as blue-collar jobs return to the USA under more advantageous tax conditions.
In fact, one of the best things about the click-wheel interface iPods is its very simple, yet very effective interface for the player itself. Why do you think the Sansa Fuze and View players have a quasi-Click Wheel interface?
One thing I don't like about the iPod Touch is its interface, which has just too many options available on-screen, confusing new users to no end.
Unfortunately, in Europe, where diesel-powered cars are over 50% of new car sales, many of these new cars lack particulate traps. As a result, you get a lot of soot in the air, a major problem especially in Switzerland, where the altitude and the topography of Alpine valleys trap in these harmful pollutants. With [i]Euro 5[/i] emissions compliance, new cars with diesel engines now require particulate traps, so hopefully the particulate issue can be reduced over the next few years.
Actually, particulate filters that trap and "burn off" diesel particulate have been around since the 1980's--Mercedes-Benz had them on US-market 300D's and 300SD's. Why Europeans didn't make them mandatory back in 2000 when the technology for such filters are mature is beyond me.
I think the EU should have adopted mandatory use of particulate filters for diesel-powered automobiles as far back as 2000, just when diesel-fuelled automobiles started to increase in popularity. That would have avoided a lot of the sooty air you're getting nowadays in European cities with so many diesel cars on the streets.
I do know that all motor fuels in the USA have to meet the maximum 15 parts per million standard for sulfur compounds very soon; that may finally make it possible to use advanced deNOx catalytic converters, which will allow for the use of direct-injection gasoline engines with lean-burn operation (which can improve fuel economy as much as 8%).
However, all those new diesel cars from Europe still can't meet the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions standard without a LOT of very expensive emissions control hardware (read: Daimler AG's BlueTec system with its urea gas injection).
In the rush to embrace the higher fuel efficiency of diesel engines, Europeans are now running into the problem of higher NOx emissions and diesel particulate emissions, a problem that is quite serious in Switzerland, where the altitude and the geography of the country can trap air pollution in Alpine valleys.
...there are serious issues with the pollution output from a diesel engine, even if you're using biodiesel fuel. Reducing the higher NOx gas output and the diesel particulates is a very expensive proposition, and just to make a diesel engine meet the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 standard is expensive enough that you might as well buy a Toyota Prius or the new Honda Insight instead at pretty much the same price.
I actually don't like cloud computing for these reasons:
1) Unless you have a really fast broadband connection, running apps "from the cloud" is not a good idea except for maybe email. Besides, with hard disk storage so cheap nowadays, even a big program like Microsoft Office 2007 uses only a small percentage of hard disk space on computers where 300 GB or larger hard disk drives are very common at both the desktop and portable levels. Of course, you can get by with OpenOffice 2.4.3 (soon 3.0), which has much less hard disk storage requirements.
2) Who wants to run applications "from the cloud" if you have an unreliable Internet connection?
You didn't read my post carefully. I said that despite the housing bust, you still have a lot of demand for residential repairs, and a lot of older residences in the inner city have become very attractive as "fixer uppers" (why do you think both Harlem and the South Bronx in New York City gentrified really quickly during the 1990's?).
That's why I'm hoping that some national politician has the gumption to finally decide to scrap our current income tax system and start over with a tax system that encourages production of goods to stay in the USA, which would certainly make the "Rust Belt" suddenly really attractive again.
I agree on this--if you're willing to do manual work the pay for carpenters, plumbers, or anyone involved in building trades can be US$40 per hour or more! Despite the housing bust, there's always a lot of demand for residential repairs, and with many people wanting to move closer to the center of the city, there is huge demand for anyone in the building trades needed to restore old housing to be livable again (during the 1990's when places like Harlem and South Bronx in New York City started to rapidly gentrify, anyone that could work restoring old residences in NYC probably made a fortune).
I do think, though that the USA needs a massive revamp of our tax laws to encourage more US-based production. Maybe it's time for the Federal government to seriously look at if the idea of the consumption-based FairTax makes sense to revive the American economy.
I think the big problem is that while this device claims to atomize the fuel better, it doesn't work on a modern car (at least 1998 model year and newer) because modern fuel injectors already atomize the fuel very finely anyway.
While it may work for older cars, it won't work with modern cars because modern fuel injectors already atomize the fuel so finely that using this device adds nothing to improving fuel economy.
Actually, the basic "look and feel" of the early Windows Chicago alpha versions from late 2003 didn't change much to the final Window 95 version that came out August 2005. Microsoft was actually taking a huge risk here because it was such a radical change in regards to the GUI interface compared to the MS-DOS 5.x/6.x and Windows 3.1x combination.
Usually, very early beta releases tend to use the interface from previous versions, so in terms of "look and feel" there won't be significant changes. Microsoft usually does the interface changes starting with the second beta releases, if the experience from the Windows XP and Vista beta testing is anything to go by.
(If I remember correctly, Windows 95 was probably the only Microsoft OS that had the new interface right from the first beta test versions, mostly because it was such a radical change in the interface compared to the MS-DOS 5.0/6.0 and Windows 3.1x combination.)
Windows 7 will be a hit if they focus on what people have been complaining about, which is largely the sluggish performance - and this is what we should devote our attention to.
I would not be surprised Microsoft does the following:
1) They aggressively optimize the code base for x86-based CPU's, which means overall faster performance.
2) They decide (despite what has been said publicly to this day by Microsoft managers) to drop any pretenses of Windows 98 and earlier compatibility and require at least WIN32 API compatibility, so everything runs in flat memory model to allow for true protected memory management all around.
Actually, most of the Cairo concepts is now in Windows Vista--the only significant thing missing is the object-based Windows File System (WinFS) that Microsoft has been working on for many years.
I expect Windows 7 to have a lot of interface changes to make it easier to master and use, even with "behind the hood" tools to adjust the various aspects of the OS. Also, since Windows 7 won't have to deal with an potential to use non-x86 CPU's, Microsoft could highly optimize the code for the x86 code base, which means possibly dramatic increases in overall performance.
However, with the price of players soon to drop under the bellweather US$200 barrier, that will finally make the format viable because a lot more people can afford players, especially given the potentially huge market with all the non-CRT rear-projection TV's, plasma-panel TV's and LCD panel TV's with HDMI inputs sold in the last four years.
I mean think about it: until an unknown Chinese company named Apex started to produce low cost players in 2002, DVD players usually cost US$250 and up, which caused a lot of resistance to many buyers. When Apex arrived on the scene, that forced the major manufacturers to produce lower cost DVD players, and that's when the DVD format really took off starting around late 2002.
And the Obama campaign better pray the Secret Service investigation doesn't point directly to an Obama staffer. That could turn REALLY ugly and the last thing the Obama campaign wants is an investigation of a Federal felony, which is punishable by a mandatory sentence.
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I had seriously considered getting an HP Pavilion desktop with the nVidia graphics chipset but I fortunately thought better of the idea. That's why I have a Pavilion a6400f with the Intel G33 graphics chipset--not the most capable but at least it's reasonably stable. :-)
Also, Toyota is starting to wind down production of the current model, since the third-generation Prius is coming early next year. From what I've read, the third-generation Prius is more an evolutionary design with slightly more interior space and an improved hybrid drivetrain.
Besides the fact you can get about 45-49 mpg in "real world" driving on the current Prius, don't forget that the car itself sports an amazing amount of interior space (the roomy back seating especially) and the fact you can fold down the back seats to get a big cargo area.
It will be very interesting to see what Toyota does with the 2010 model, the third-generation of this ground-breaking car. We do know that Toyota wants improved performance and even better fuel economy, probably by going to a more powerful electric motor and an improved gasoline engine.
I think going slow will save gas, but the aggravation of interfering with other drivers (and the boredom factor driving long distances at slower speeds) outweigh the benefits.
Besides, with a many 2006 or later model year cars, the combination of modern aerodynamics for body design and modern engine designs means going just a tad slower won't save you significant amounts of fuel. For example, a 2008 Honda Civic sedan won't use much more fuel going from 55 mph to 65 mph, given the modern aerodynamic design of the body and the fact the engine computer constantly adjusts the ignition timing and valve timing for best possible fuel economy.
I think you forgot that under FairTax, you get a prebate payment to cover the 23% consumption tax to cover the cost of that tax up to the Federally-defined poverty level. You can read about this on this PDF file:
http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/FairTaxPrebateExplained2007.pdf
As such, that prebate cushions the cost of that 23% tax to poor families.
I'd recommend you go to www.fairtax.org and read up on the various research papers linked to this web site that explains how the entire system works.
I actually like some of your ideas, along with my suggestion for kiboshing the current Federal income tax system in favor of a pure consumption tax of 23% (no deductions allowed) along the lines of the FairTax system.
I would do one thing additional though: impose a 30% minimum margin requirement for trading in hedge funds and stock derivatives, with a margin requirement as high as 50% for critical items such as important foodstuffs, strategic metals and financial stock derivatives. At these high levels of minimum margin requirements, it keeps out the "riff raff" that can drive up and down the price of commodities and stock derivatives with wild swings that can end up causing serious economic harm (as the price runup for crude oil during the first half of this year and the stock price rundown of financial companies over the past few months demonstrates all too clearly).
The US Federal income tax system.
I mean, consider this:
1. We have 35,000-plus lobbyists in Washington, DC trying to "warp" the Federal tax code to support their narrow constituencies. And we know what "warping the Federal tax code can do, as noted by the current sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
2. This results in a completely unwieldy Federal tax code, with 60,000-plus pages of regulations that is barely comprehensible even to the most seasoned tax professional.
3. We're now spending nearly US$600 billion per year trying to comply with the Federal tax code and in pre-compliance economic decisions.
4. The Federal tax code discourages people from actually saving because of the taxes on savings interest, dividend interest, and capital gains on property or equity sale.
5. Because of #4, many Americans are sending their liquid assets out of the country to avoid the clutches of the IRS. Why do you think some experts estimate we have at least US$14 TRILLION socked away at offshore financial centers (OFC's) in places like the Bahamas, Grand Cayman Islands, Panama, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Hong Kong, Nauru, Monaco, and so on?
It is high time we kibosh the current Federal income tax system and come up with a consumption-based income tax system that encourages people to invest and save. Perhaps the best example of this is the FairTax proposal, which intends to replace the current income tax system with a single 23% consumption tax (no deductions whatsoever), where the Federal government sends a monthly prebate check to cover the 23% consumption tax on basic necessity items up to the Federal-defined poverty level. While FairTax is not perfect, it certainly beats the current income tax system for these reassons:
1. Because of no more taxes on paychecks, interest income, dividend income, capital gains income and even on estate, it encourages people to save and invest (there's nothing wrong with that!).
2. Because of #1, the advantages of "offshoring" your liquid assets are gone. That means potentially several trillion US dollars coming back to the USA to be invested in our financial institutions, which would quickly stop the slide in the stock market and provide a new liquidity base for loans and lines of credit.
3. With no more taxes on investments, foreigners will send several trillion dollars of investments themselves into the USA, since we will become the world's largest legal tax haven. Again, this provides a huge bolster for the liquidity base in our financial system.
4. With no more taxes on payroll, corporate income, dividend income, and capital gains, it encourages American companies to keep as much goods production in the USA. Cities like Detriot and Cleveland could experience an economic boom as blue-collar jobs return to the USA under more advantageous tax conditions.
In fact, one of the best things about the click-wheel interface iPods is its very simple, yet very effective interface for the player itself. Why do you think the Sansa Fuze and View players have a quasi-Click Wheel interface?
One thing I don't like about the iPod Touch is its interface, which has just too many options available on-screen, confusing new users to no end.
Unfortunately, in Europe, where diesel-powered cars are over 50% of new car sales, many of these new cars lack particulate traps. As a result, you get a lot of soot in the air, a major problem especially in Switzerland, where the altitude and the topography of Alpine valleys trap in these harmful pollutants. With [i]Euro 5[/i] emissions compliance, new cars with diesel engines now require particulate traps, so hopefully the particulate issue can be reduced over the next few years.
Actually, particulate filters that trap and "burn off" diesel particulate have been around since the 1980's--Mercedes-Benz had them on US-market 300D's and 300SD's. Why Europeans didn't make them mandatory back in 2000 when the technology for such filters are mature is beyond me.
I think the EU should have adopted mandatory use of particulate filters for diesel-powered automobiles as far back as 2000, just when diesel-fuelled automobiles started to increase in popularity. That would have avoided a lot of the sooty air you're getting nowadays in European cities with so many diesel cars on the streets.
I do know that all motor fuels in the USA have to meet the maximum 15 parts per million standard for sulfur compounds very soon; that may finally make it possible to use advanced deNOx catalytic converters, which will allow for the use of direct-injection gasoline engines with lean-burn operation (which can improve fuel economy as much as 8%).
However, all those new diesel cars from Europe still can't meet the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions standard without a LOT of very expensive emissions control hardware (read: Daimler AG's BlueTec system with its urea gas injection).
In the rush to embrace the higher fuel efficiency of diesel engines, Europeans are now running into the problem of higher NOx emissions and diesel particulate emissions, a problem that is quite serious in Switzerland, where the altitude and the geography of the country can trap air pollution in Alpine valleys.
...there are serious issues with the pollution output from a diesel engine, even if you're using biodiesel fuel. Reducing the higher NOx gas output and the diesel particulates is a very expensive proposition, and just to make a diesel engine meet the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 standard is expensive enough that you might as well buy a Toyota Prius or the new Honda Insight instead at pretty much the same price.
I actually don't like cloud computing for these reasons:
1) Unless you have a really fast broadband connection, running apps "from the cloud" is not a good idea except for maybe email. Besides, with hard disk storage so cheap nowadays, even a big program like Microsoft Office 2007 uses only a small percentage of hard disk space on computers where 300 GB or larger hard disk drives are very common at both the desktop and portable levels. Of course, you can get by with OpenOffice 2.4.3 (soon 3.0), which has much less hard disk storage requirements.
2) Who wants to run applications "from the cloud" if you have an unreliable Internet connection?
You didn't read my post carefully. I said that despite the housing bust, you still have a lot of demand for residential repairs, and a lot of older residences in the inner city have become very attractive as "fixer uppers" (why do you think both Harlem and the South Bronx in New York City gentrified really quickly during the 1990's?).
That's why I'm hoping that some national politician has the gumption to finally decide to scrap our current income tax system and start over with a tax system that encourages production of goods to stay in the USA, which would certainly make the "Rust Belt" suddenly really attractive again.
I agree on this--if you're willing to do manual work the pay for carpenters, plumbers, or anyone involved in building trades can be US$40 per hour or more! Despite the housing bust, there's always a lot of demand for residential repairs, and with many people wanting to move closer to the center of the city, there is huge demand for anyone in the building trades needed to restore old housing to be livable again (during the 1990's when places like Harlem and South Bronx in New York City started to rapidly gentrify, anyone that could work restoring old residences in NYC probably made a fortune).
I do think, though that the USA needs a massive revamp of our tax laws to encourage more US-based production. Maybe it's time for the Federal government to seriously look at if the idea of the consumption-based FairTax makes sense to revive the American economy.
I think the big problem is that while this device claims to atomize the fuel better, it doesn't work on a modern car (at least 1998 model year and newer) because modern fuel injectors already atomize the fuel very finely anyway.
While it may work for older cars, it won't work with modern cars because modern fuel injectors already atomize the fuel so finely that using this device adds nothing to improving fuel economy.
Actually, the basic "look and feel" of the early Windows Chicago alpha versions from late 2003 didn't change much to the final Window 95 version that came out August 2005. Microsoft was actually taking a huge risk here because it was such a radical change in regards to the GUI interface compared to the MS-DOS 5.x/6.x and Windows 3.1x combination.
Usually, very early beta releases tend to use the interface from previous versions, so in terms of "look and feel" there won't be significant changes. Microsoft usually does the interface changes starting with the second beta releases, if the experience from the Windows XP and Vista beta testing is anything to go by.
(If I remember correctly, Windows 95 was probably the only Microsoft OS that had the new interface right from the first beta test versions, mostly because it was such a radical change in the interface compared to the MS-DOS 5.0/6.0 and Windows 3.1x combination.)
Windows 7 will be a hit if they focus on what people have been complaining about, which is largely the sluggish performance - and this is what we should devote our attention to.
I would not be surprised Microsoft does the following:
1) They aggressively optimize the code base for x86-based CPU's, which means overall faster performance.
2) They decide (despite what has been said publicly to this day by Microsoft managers) to drop any pretenses of Windows 98 and earlier compatibility and require at least WIN32 API compatibility, so everything runs in flat memory model to allow for true protected memory management all around.
Actually, most of the Cairo concepts is now in Windows Vista--the only significant thing missing is the object-based Windows File System (WinFS) that Microsoft has been working on for many years.
I expect Windows 7 to have a lot of interface changes to make it easier to master and use, even with "behind the hood" tools to adjust the various aspects of the OS. Also, since Windows 7 won't have to deal with an potential to use non-x86 CPU's, Microsoft could highly optimize the code for the x86 code base, which means possibly dramatic increases in overall performance.
However, with the price of players soon to drop under the bellweather US$200 barrier, that will finally make the format viable because a lot more people can afford players, especially given the potentially huge market with all the non-CRT rear-projection TV's, plasma-panel TV's and LCD panel TV's with HDMI inputs sold in the last four years.
I mean think about it: until an unknown Chinese company named Apex started to produce low cost players in 2002, DVD players usually cost US$250 and up, which caused a lot of resistance to many buyers. When Apex arrived on the scene, that forced the major manufacturers to produce lower cost DVD players, and that's when the DVD format really took off starting around late 2002.
And the Obama campaign better pray the Secret Service investigation doesn't point directly to an Obama staffer. That could turn REALLY ugly and the last thing the Obama campaign wants is an investigation of a Federal felony, which is punishable by a mandatory sentence.