What is the electric only range of a standard Prius battery pack? I can't believe it's more than 10 miles. IMO, 30-40 miles is the minimum we should be talking about in order to drop fuel use by 75+%.
Miles per gallon becomes a bad metric for plug-ins because it changes between 40 and infinity depending on your driving habits. If you're like most city dwellers and almost all of your driving consists of short trips, a plug-in hybrid could drop your gasoline costs to virtually nothing. I take a car trip longer than 40 miles maybe a couple times per month.
If GM will promise me a Chevy Volt by the Fall of 2009, for under $40k, I'll be the first to sign up. I hated it at first, but it has grown on me. Try to ignore the awful wheels.
The problem isn't building a plug-in hybrid. The problem is building a plug-in that can be sold for more than it costs to build. The state of today's battery technology makes it impossible, but that could change soon.
The commercialization of plug-in hybrids is completely dependent on the ability to manufacture what are now top of the line lithium ion batteries for 40-70% less than they currently cost. I believe this is the focus of Google's money. 10 mill isn't going to get you anywhere with fuel cells (which have been 5 years away for 30 years).
Today's hybrids are not going to seriously dent our dependence on oil, plug-in hybrids absolutely could. Unless a major car company announces a release date for a retail plug-in by next year, I'm going to buy or build a Ford Escape plug-in conversion.
Since the chances of the US using an ICBM have dropped to near 0, how about changing the direction of our efforts.
Putting firecrackers underneath trash cans (chemical rockets) are cool and impressive, but they're a terrible way to get things in to space. the Apollo program in the 60s used drafting boards, adding machines, rotary phones, and liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines. We've completely replaced all of those technologies except the rocket engines.
The day someone commits billions of dollars to build a space elevator, everything we know about space travel and exploration are going to change dramatically. Apparently, a space elevator is one of the many projects being considered by Google to spend their stock offering cash. I expect those guys to have more vision than the US government, which has decided to go back to the mooon for no apparent reason.
You obviously havn't used Skype. I use Skype everyday and I absolutely love it. It has a few small problems, the main one being that the people I call see a caller ID number of 012-345-6789 and a few freak out. I got a SkypeIn phone number for 30 Euros a year and the per minute charges are unbelievably cheap.
Another obnixious thing that Ebay needs to have fixed right away is that when Skype needs to display web content for billing or something, instead of opening a new browser window, it takes a browser that you were doing work in and just loads a new page in it.
I don't buy it. If this was a massive misinformation job, it would not be in the newspapers. It would just happen.
I think that it's people outside of the PRC using machines inside the PRC to pull this stuff. Either it was the best way to hide because they know that Chinese law enforcement is not going to cooperate or they want the US gov to freak out about "Chinese" hackers and not look for the real people.
When Stalin was running the USSR, he firmly believed some of our misinformation. When presented with the truth, he often wouldn't believe it.
That's one of things Europeans just can't understand about America. It's acceptable in America to take kids of 12 or 13 to a Schwarzenneger movie where he blows the bad guy up with a rocket launcher while saying something witty. If the movie involves people talking out their problems while there is a breast visible, then it's adults-only fare.
Let's look at the real makeup of the current US Congress:
92% Christian 8% Jewish
What seems to be missing? Oh yeah, every other religion along with the 15% of Americans who don't identify with any religion (which drawfs any non-Christian group).
Americans have elected an openly gay congressman, but are still not ready for a congressman who is not Christian or Jewish.
"If you give them IE or even usually Mozilla, they give complete working output."
That's true, but it has not been TESTED with Opera. The thinking by the suits is that they don't want to pay people to test every part of a big web site with every browser in the world. If they can test two browsers and cover a huge percentage of all users, it becomes cost effective. Since the suits don't want customer complains from untested browsers and then have to pay people to do support, they completely block some browsers. You would think that the smaller browsers like Opera would always work and not need to be tested, but that assumes that developers follow published standards and don't use crazy IE only features.
If Opera really had so many users, wouldn't the big sites that block Opera be flooded with complaints? A few hundred complaints and I would bet some sites would make a little effort.
In order to more efficiently bring you duplicate articles, Slashdot has started listing the article text twice in a row.
Either that or the text was written by Johnny Two Times, they called him that becaue he said everything two times. "I'm gonna get the papers, get the papers." I watched Goodfellas tonight.
Diamond color is on a lettered scale, I think starting at E or F (it's diamonds, nothing makes sense). The very very clear ones are worth a lot and then the price drops quickly as you get into k,l,m,n,o category because they're noticably yellow. Even cheap jewelry stores don't use p,q,r,s grade stones. Then you get all the way to Z+, and all of the sudden it's "fancy yellow" and worth more than a clear diamond. Price is just about marketing and demand. Even more expensive than yellow diamonds are pink and blue diamonds. The Hope diamond isn't so famous because it's giant, it's famous because it's giant and dark blue.
Here's a little rule of thumb. If you think a post is stupid, look at the moderation. If it has been moderated "Funny", think to yourself "maybe this isn't a serious post and shouldn't rebut it on a factual basis".
I've read some articles that say corn-based ethanol is pretty much a scam to raise the demand for (and price of) corn. Apparently producing corn ethanol requires a shit ton of energy and fossil fuels. People are tripping over themselves to create "clean" and "renewable" energy, but they're losing sight of the big picture and the laws of physics.
Other posters have noted the torutured acronym that the USA PATRIOT Act stands for. Those names are a political weapon. When it comes to election season, the commercial voice-over can honestly say, "And Douche McLiberal even voted against the No Child Left Behind Act." That implies that Douche McLiberal wants to leave children behind. The other aweful bill that comes to mind is the Defense of Marriage Act. Who wouldn't want to defend marraige? As long as people don't know anything about a bill except the name (a pretty good bet), they'll support it.
Enron and Worldcom had fraudulent accounting. Enron showed it was doing so much business because they were making it up on paper.
Sega got bumped out by bigger players entering thier market (like MS). They still make some good software, like Super Monkey Ball. Compaq didn't collapse, it got bought.
Microsoft isn't popular among the Slashdot crowd but they're still THE 800 pound gorilla in the software sector. IBM used to be the 800 lb. gorilla of the hardware sector. They're not anymore, but they're still a huge company.
In order to "die", a huge company has to either blow it terribly (like Worldcom), or have the market hugely change underneath them (like Wang).
I'm sure South Korea and China would be more than a little concerned if the US nuked North Korea. South Korea is our ally and China has more than two nukes.
The CIA briefed congress last year that North Korean missiles could probably get to California. As others are mentioning, Japan could be a target. Japan brutally occupied Korea from 1910 to WW2. The Koreans are still pretty unhappy about that.
-B
Re:"New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the U
on
US Stem Cells Contaminated
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's amazing how many people believe that stem cells come from abortions. The religious right does an amazing job of spreading bad information and nobody ever promotes correct information with as much zeal or money.
Stems cells are very much "byproducts from fertility clinics". When married couples pay for in-vitro fertilization, the clinics fertilize many eggs in a lab. After a certain ammount of time, the healthiest embryos are chosen and implanted. The rest of the embryos are destroyed as medical waste. That's it. No abortions. Those embroys were never destined to be born. Why not help people with them?
EA has been moving to simplify and standardize controls across all thier games.
People like me didn't like learning 10 button combos to do the special moves, so EA started making all special moves just moving the right stick (on PS2). The controls overall for SSX:Tricky and Def Jam Fight For NY are really similar considering one is a snowboarding game and one is a fighting game.
I've been impressed by the number of really quality titles EA has released in the past two years. Dividing into three divisions and focusing each on one facet of the game industry (simulation sports, non-simulation sports, and non-sports licenses) has worked really well.
Engineering schools tend to produce grads that start thier own companies because just a few engineers with a good idea and some capital can start a company. Graduates with political science, history, or law degrees rarely start thier own companies.
I went to the Univ. of Illinois where Thomas Wolfram founded a company so he wouldn't have to find a new apartment after graduation. His company produces Mathmatica (amazing software if you have a chance to use it).
There was an American family quoted in many news stories that were scuba diving during the tsunami and didn't notice anything had happened until they saw debris floating above.
I actually know that family from elementary school. What an amazing story.
Slashdot Mirror
Miles per gallon becomes a bad metric for plug-ins because it changes between 40 and infinity depending on your driving habits. If you're like most city dwellers and almost all of your driving consists of short trips, a plug-in hybrid could drop your gasoline costs to virtually nothing. I take a car trip longer than 40 miles maybe a couple times per month.
If GM will promise me a Chevy Volt by the Fall of 2009, for under $40k, I'll be the first to sign up. I hated it at first, but it has grown on me. Try to ignore the awful wheels.
Chevy Volt Concept
The problem isn't building a plug-in hybrid. The problem is building a plug-in that can be sold for more than it costs to build. The state of today's battery technology makes it impossible, but that could change soon.
The commercialization of plug-in hybrids is completely dependent on the ability to manufacture what are now top of the line lithium ion batteries for 40-70% less than they currently cost. I believe this is the focus of Google's money. 10 mill isn't going to get you anywhere with fuel cells (which have been 5 years away for 30 years).
Today's hybrids are not going to seriously dent our dependence on oil, plug-in hybrids absolutely could. Unless a major car company announces a release date for a retail plug-in by next year, I'm going to buy or build a Ford Escape plug-in conversion.
But you have to admit that the implosions are pretty sweet.
Since the chances of the US using an ICBM have dropped to near 0, how about changing the direction of our efforts.
Putting firecrackers underneath trash cans (chemical rockets) are cool and impressive, but they're a terrible way to get things in to space. the Apollo program in the 60s used drafting boards, adding machines, rotary phones, and liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines. We've completely replaced all of those technologies except the rocket engines.
The day someone commits billions of dollars to build a space elevator, everything we know about space travel and exploration are going to change dramatically. Apparently, a space elevator is one of the many projects being considered by Google to spend their stock offering cash. I expect those guys to have more vision than the US government, which has decided to go back to the mooon for no apparent reason.
-B
You obviously havn't used Skype. I use Skype everyday and I absolutely love it. It has a few small problems, the main one being that the people I call see a caller ID number of 012-345-6789 and a few freak out. I got a SkypeIn phone number for 30 Euros a year and the per minute charges are unbelievably cheap.
Another obnixious thing that Ebay needs to have fixed right away is that when Skype needs to display web content for billing or something, instead of opening a new browser window, it takes a browser that you were doing work in and just loads a new page in it.
-B
I don't buy it. If this was a massive misinformation job, it would not be in the newspapers. It would just happen.
I think that it's people outside of the PRC using machines inside the PRC to pull this stuff. Either it was the best way to hide because they know that Chinese law enforcement is not going to cooperate or they want the US gov to freak out about "Chinese" hackers and not look for the real people.
When Stalin was running the USSR, he firmly believed some of our misinformation. When presented with the truth, he often wouldn't believe it.
-B
I really hope that Full Spectrum Warrior is a better theraputic tool than it is a video game.
-B
That's one of things Europeans just can't understand about America. It's acceptable in America to take kids of 12 or 13 to a Schwarzenneger movie where he blows the bad guy up with a rocket launcher while saying something witty. If the movie involves people talking out their problems while there is a breast visible, then it's adults-only fare.
-B
Let's look at the real makeup of the current US Congress:
92% Christian
8% Jewish
What seems to be missing? Oh yeah, every other religion along with the 15% of Americans who don't identify with any religion (which drawfs any non-Christian group).
Americans have elected an openly gay congressman, but are still not ready for a congressman who is not Christian or Jewish.
-B
I think Darth Frist and Lord Cheney sound good. Grand Moff Rumsfeld has a nice ring to it, too.
-B
Technically, a good Jedi couldn't "force choke" you.
If someone could stand on one hand a lift a few rocks I would be impressed.
-B
"If you give them IE or even usually Mozilla, they give complete working output."
That's true, but it has not been TESTED with Opera. The thinking by the suits is that they don't want to pay people to test every part of a big web site with every browser in the world. If they can test two browsers and cover a huge percentage of all users, it becomes cost effective. Since the suits don't want customer complains from untested browsers and then have to pay people to do support, they completely block some browsers. You would think that the smaller browsers like Opera would always work and not need to be tested, but that assumes that developers follow published standards and don't use crazy IE only features.
If Opera really had so many users, wouldn't the big sites that block Opera be flooded with complaints? A few hundred complaints and I would bet some sites would make a little effort.
-B
In order to more efficiently bring you duplicate articles, Slashdot has started listing the article text twice in a row.
Either that or the text was written by Johnny Two Times, they called him that becaue he said everything two times. "I'm gonna get the papers, get the papers." I watched Goodfellas tonight.
-B
I will certainly be making an attempt at Microsoft.xxx.
-B
Diamond color is on a lettered scale, I think starting at E or F (it's diamonds, nothing makes sense). The very very clear ones are worth a lot and then the price drops quickly as you get into k,l,m,n,o category because they're noticably yellow. Even cheap jewelry stores don't use p,q,r,s grade stones. Then you get all the way to Z+, and all of the sudden it's "fancy yellow" and worth more than a clear diamond. Price is just about marketing and demand. Even more expensive than yellow diamonds are pink and blue diamonds. The Hope diamond isn't so famous because it's giant, it's famous because it's giant and dark blue.
Yes, I bought an engagement ring last year.
-B
Here's a little rule of thumb. If you think a post is stupid, look at the moderation. If it has been moderated "Funny", think to yourself "maybe this isn't a serious post and shouldn't rebut it on a factual basis".
-B
I've read some articles that say corn-based ethanol is pretty much a scam to raise the demand for (and price of) corn. Apparently producing corn ethanol requires a shit ton of energy and fossil fuels. People are tripping over themselves to create "clean" and "renewable" energy, but they're losing sight of the big picture and the laws of physics.
I'm not going to find a site because it's late.
-B
Other posters have noted the torutured acronym that the USA PATRIOT Act stands for. Those names are a political weapon. When it comes to election season, the commercial voice-over can honestly say, "And Douche McLiberal even voted against the No Child Left Behind Act." That implies that Douche McLiberal wants to leave children behind. The other aweful bill that comes to mind is the Defense of Marriage Act. Who wouldn't want to defend marraige? As long as people don't know anything about a bill except the name (a pretty good bet), they'll support it.
-B
If you could calculate exactly how improbable the Windows errors are, you could anticipate them, and save your work beforehand. I'm wicked smart.
-B
Enron and Worldcom had fraudulent accounting. Enron showed it was doing so much business because they were making it up on paper.
Sega got bumped out by bigger players entering thier market (like MS). They still make some good software, like Super Monkey Ball. Compaq didn't collapse, it got bought.
Microsoft isn't popular among the Slashdot crowd but they're still THE 800 pound gorilla in the software sector. IBM used to be the 800 lb. gorilla of the hardware sector. They're not anymore, but they're still a huge company.
In order to "die", a huge company has to either blow it terribly (like Worldcom), or have the market hugely change underneath them (like Wang).
-B
I'm sure South Korea and China would be more than a little concerned if the US nuked North Korea. South Korea is our ally and China has more than two nukes.
The CIA briefed congress last year that North Korean missiles could probably get to California. As others are mentioning, Japan could be a target. Japan brutally occupied Korea from 1910 to WW2. The Koreans are still pretty unhappy about that.
-B
It's amazing how many people believe that stem cells come from abortions. The religious right does an amazing job of spreading bad information and nobody ever promotes correct information with as much zeal or money.
Stems cells are very much "byproducts from fertility clinics". When married couples pay for in-vitro fertilization, the clinics fertilize many eggs in a lab. After a certain ammount of time, the healthiest embryos are chosen and implanted. The rest of the embryos are destroyed as medical waste. That's it. No abortions. Those embroys were never destined to be born. Why not help people with them?
-B
EA has been moving to simplify and standardize controls across all thier games.
People like me didn't like learning 10 button combos to do the special moves, so EA started making all special moves just moving the right stick (on PS2). The controls overall for SSX:Tricky and Def Jam Fight For NY are really similar considering one is a snowboarding game and one is a fighting game.
I've been impressed by the number of really quality titles EA has released in the past two years. Dividing into three divisions and focusing each on one facet of the game industry (simulation sports, non-simulation sports, and non-sports licenses) has worked really well.
-B
Engineering schools tend to produce grads that start thier own companies because just a few engineers with a good idea and some capital can start a company. Graduates with political science, history, or law degrees rarely start thier own companies.
I went to the Univ. of Illinois where Thomas Wolfram founded a company so he wouldn't have to find a new apartment after graduation. His company produces Mathmatica (amazing software if you have a chance to use it).
-B
There was an American family quoted in many news stories that were scuba diving during the tsunami and didn't notice anything had happened until they saw debris floating above.
I actually know that family from elementary school. What an amazing story.
-Barry