Not only that but "THIS UNIT IS MISSING CONTROL KNOB." Who are all these fucking clutzes who keep breaking shit? I've never once managed to fuck up a single peice of electronic equipment I own. What sort of asshole forks out $2100 for a DVD player and then breaks it?
Two points:
1. They likely didn't fork out $2100 for a DVD player 2. Chances are they have kids. Kids are amazingly distructive!
Right, as if using the internet wasn't expensive enough already, you're going to be dialing international to a hypothetical ISP that has no qualms about selling accounts to foreign countries? The other issue is payment - Mastercard?
There is the other issue too. If it's so easy for people in these countries to get accountes elsewhere like the parent sugests... then it would be as easy for the non-legit users to get them as well.
This is why black listing whole countries doesn't work... you can always dialup to AOL in some other country.
I just ended a vacation in China, and pre-paid SIM cards could be obtained over the counter at the local supermarket with no ID check or anything. Then you could recharge it with other cards similarly bought over the counter. So how's one supposed to control anything when you don't know who's sending and to whom?
Well, you can track down a mobile with ease provided you have such a system in place. If i'm not mistaken your phone still has an ESN as well as a SIM. Sims you can swap out with ease, but the ESN is a touch more difficult. If you showed your ID when you bought the phone then it's associated with you. Not a lot of privacy when you have a radio becon with a unique number attached to it.
It's difficult to buy a phone without a name attached to it at some point. Even the pay as you go phones offer free time if you submit a credit card to them at some point. Buying a phone used is probally the safest bet if you are really concerned about privacy.
My point is, if someone wanted to track you down, they could do so via your mobile.
There is a value to gold connectors, they don't tarnish, ergo, the connection doesn't degrade. Is it worth the extra money? Not usually, but there is a benefit.
Tin and lead tarnish yet it's still very common place. Silver also tarnishes yet is, or at least was common place on larger ships. Aluminium tarnishes practicly the moment you expose it to air. The wisdom to what you say is the fact that a copper tarnish aka copper oxide is an insolator.
I've been upgrading to gold connectors simply because i've been finding them for $3.99 per RCA pair. I don't claim they are the apex of audio cables, but they are decent quality and better then your mega-mart varity.
How many case modding overcl0x0r5 are still going to be using the same comp in 5 years?
It's not a question of how long the moder is going to use the case, but rather how long the case is in service. Case mods are not always done by k-rad 0vercl0x0r5. Sometimes you just want more drive bays, more fans, or just want something to freaking fit.
They are not the only ones. Case moders, the hard core ones that use hacksaws, die and tap sets, and large large hammers need mounting hardware. Frankly I never thought twice about buying zinc #6 machine screws/bolts from the local hardware store. While I keep a collection of misc bolts and such, there are those days when I just need a screw. It looks like I have to be more cafeful were I get my screws from.
The BBC wanted to make some gay Daleks for a cartoon series. I applaud the estate for refusing.
Why the hell not? Daleks are after all over 40 years old, and moved beyond cult status to cultural icon status. It would be like the Asimov estate trying to control the use of the laws of robotics. They could do it but they would be hindering the use of something that was a very good idea that in it self has no comercial value. I imagine one author could ruin the image of the laws of robotics (see i robot the film), but in the grand picture who gives a fark.
I feel that refusing gay Daleks does more to harm the image people have of Terry Nation then they could do to harm the Dalek trademark.
...we were not able to give the level of editorial influence that the Terry Nation estate wished to have --TFA
*Exterminate Exterminate* What strikes me as odd is the concept of editorial control over a one dimentional grade-b supervillon that has been in our culture for over 40 years. Perhaps "Rememberence of the Daleks", an episode that has Davros fighting the the Supreme Dalek was ment to illistrate to us the fight for creative control over the future of the Daleks. The Orthadox Daleks born from Skaro's toxic enviroment with their desire to exterminate anything and everything in site, and the Neo-Davros Daleks without conscience or remorse and a geneticly implanted desire to enslave the universe and exterminate anything and everything in site.
What I find more peculiar is the very idea that anyone could "ruin the brand of the Daleks". Daleks are a b-class one dimentional supervillion with a very limited vocabulary. While Dalek is likely a trademark of Terry Nation, I don't honestly see how they could be considered to be a brand outside of Doctor Who. They are salt shakers that run around saying "exterminate" are are not likely to be licensed to anyone with the exception of Doctor Who. Keeping the integrity of a brand name is typicaly only important if you are selling a product, in this case a product that has only one customer.
Here in australia the ABC (government owned Free To Air station) has been replaying all of Dr Who right from the very first episode on up. So far, they have skipped stories and episodes that are missing or incomplete. But they have also had to skip a fair few dalek episodes (War Games is one story they had to skip for some dalek-related reason) due to this greed.
How very odd.... KBTC broadcasting out of Washington state has been showing Dr. Who in sequence from the first episode, but they are not skipping the episodes with missing parts that i've noticed, and they haven't skipped Daleks. I remember specificly a sequence with William Hartnel attempting to evade the Daleks who were chasing him through. It's a PBS station, non comercial publicly/privatly funded, mostly educational but forien TV does qualify under culture and Dr. Who seems to encourage people to donate.
Aftereffects of the irradiation of Skaro, you see.
I have always been fuzzy on this issue. Watching the first Dalek episode it would lead me to believe that they were mutated from the radation. But the Tom Baker episode showed that Davros was geneticly manipluating the pepole of Skaro into what he believed they were evolving into. Also he removed the Daleks conscience, something his fellow scientests strongly objected to. They were exterminated.
As far as as i'm aware, Davros is the father of the Daleks. The mutated creatures were his insperation, but the final design was his, which would be his undoing as the supreme Dalek didn't want to fight Davros for control over the Dalek race, and pitty wasn't in it's vocabulary.
Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) shows a Dalek hovering up a flight of stairs
And IIRC Dr. Who said "Don't worry ????, Daleks can't climb stairs". My memory could be fuzzy on this issue as I can't remember as I can't remember if it was Colin Baker or Silvester McCoy, Perry or Ace for that matter. I could ask a friend for this episode.
But needless to say, Daleks have come a long way since their 1960's version that couldn't glide over a coat.
Anything that give me more screen real estate and hides things I'm not looking at anyway is a Very Good Thing.
It's one of the things I liked about the Amiga was the fact that the file bar on most applications autohid, until you either moved the mouse to the top of the screen or hit one of your Amiga(tm) keys. In fact, I rather thought that this whole auto hiding menus was IP owned by Commodore(tm). While the taskbar is diffrent then the filebar, I noticed in I.E. 6 there was an option to autohide the file/menu bar.
A personal note: I once watched a downloaded movie "filmed in Tilt-o-vision(tm) in front of a live theatre audience" and I woved to myself never to do that again because of the poor quality. I guess the MPAA feels the same way:)
Nah... I love the cam editions. In fact, I like to plop on my widscreen version DVD ontop of an old cam version just so the letter box empty space can be filled with something on my 4:3 monitor. I want to hear the audence heckling the screen since MST3k was cancled. I want to see each of the heads holding their own camcorder with it's own blinking light.
Stealing nightvision goggles from movie theaters is still a misdemeanor, the actual class varies from state to state. People who steal them in south dakoda and use them for hunting better watch out, use of night vision goggles while hunting is a Class 2 misdemeanor
While i'm all about finding a car that matches your personality, my experence with toyotas has lead me to believe that they not only have spirit, but they have good karma. The cars i've owned have been econoboxes, not much in the way of acceleration but good high end speeds that can be maintained for hours at a time, till you run out of gas or america. I remember driving the 88 Celica All-Track turbo between seattle and portland in under two hours.
American cars drive nice and quiet. I imagine part of this is our use of cast pistons rather then forged. Forged are stronger but expand more when heated. Cast are often weaker but don't require the same warm up time, and seem to be more quiet. I wouldn't consider an American car though based on my obervations in the 80s/90s. Everyone I know that bought a Dodge or a Pontiac circa 1997/1998 now have blown headgaskets. This has gotta suck having to do engine work after only about 50,000 miles. Needless to say, while they had some faith in American cars in the 1990s, they are trading them in for imports.
Interesting... I'm doing the math. I have a Toyota ECHO that gets 48 mpg on my 100 mile round trip daily commute when the weather is nice enough not to use the A/C, and I'm not in a hurry. I get 43 MPG when I have a lead foot, or when it's suffocatingly hot here in the midwest.
Ah the midwest.... d'oh. In the northwest, we have more hills. I remember the skyline from Omaha Nebraska were the hills in some other state 300 miles away. The reason that I believe the Echo only gets 40 is based on observations here where frankly it's about the same as Corolla. I'd believe flatlands would yield a greater diffrence, but those subcompacts here kinda suck.
Typically, you can get a loan for a $17630 car with a much lower interest rate than for a $10870 car. That's simply the mechanics of car loans -
I buy used, so I pay cash. But if I were to buy new, I don't think I could get much better then.9% APR, which I know I can get with a Nissan Sentra who's base model starts at $10,800 the last time I checked. The last time I worked out the numbers, the Sentra would have cost about $200/month * 52 months (too lazy to pull up the tax and misc charges). The diffrence between.9APR and 0% apr over 52 months is $196.15 monthly (10198.24) vs $192.31 monthly @ 0%
$17630 on the other hand is a minium of $339.04 monthly*52 months or $345.82 monthly (17982.64).
Shouldn't you be comparing the diesel and petrol versions of the same car to each other, instead of entirely different cars?
I should... but I didn't. This is due to the fact that anything VW is totally out of my budget. I like VW actually, I'd consider one, but they just cost too damn much. When considering a car, I first look (sic) at the American models. Pretty cheep the American models, but I know they will fall apart after a year or two. Then I look at the Japanese imports, pretty reliable but cost a little more. Then the German imports, impressive but cost a heck of alot more. And thw Sweedish imports, which are generally bullet proof but I don't want to be stuck with some car that gets 23mpg.
But yea, my prejustice due to the extraordinary cost diffrence between German models and Japanese models, a horrible tremdious price diffrence.
Anyway, I was just commenting on the fact that the submitter appeared to think that 23 MPG was pretty decent and 36.3 a very high mileage, while I (and I am in no way an exception over here) make 50 MPG on average.
Well, this is america, and stick shifts are not the fashion. Pain in the ass to get a stick shift. Dealers will tell you it will cost you more to get a stick dispite the MSRP being lower. I suspect that it's because they must be ordered from the factory. The only sticks I see at dealers are for those cars they advertise below sticker price, and they are pretty much strippers, no electric windows/ac/stereo but are really cheep to encourage you to drive there so the dealer can convience you to buy something more costly. 36.3mpg might with an automatic transmission, and might be 40 with the manual. It also might be like a Dodge Neon with a 2.0l engine, which is damn good for an engine of that size.
Also, we might not be talking new cars here. West coast America doesn't have to put up with vehicel body inspections, only emmitions. I suspect it's because we don't use salt on our roads so it's really not needed. My last car for example I finally sold it when it reached 360,000 miles.
While I think 23mpg is poor, I know that figure well from driving midsized cars with v6 engines. I don't understand because to me they don't see much bigger then a compact. The only reason I'd buy one is if I needed to tow something, in fact, that's the only reason I ever used one, and only to tow a boat.
No doubt the economics of driving a diesel are totally different than they are here (in the Netherlands), but concerns about sustainability and the environment are not, and yet those factors don't seem to come into your (and others') decision at all, which I think is a pity.
Not entirely true, and actually I only go for used cars. Economic and enviromental concerns actually, I can't justify chucking a car before it reaches 300,000 miles, and there is a surplus of used cars presently for really really cheep. After all, a base model Sentra has an MSRP of $10,800 so a used car is going to cost less. While I can't afford a TDI presently, I did choose a 4cyl stickshift that gets 40mpg, pretty much the best I can get in my budget. If I was really a cheep eco-hazzard bastard, I would have bought a 1991 Mercury Cougar with it's 5.0l engine. I saw quite a few for about $900. Piss poor pimo-mobile getting 15 mpg.
And that's supposed to be especially economical? What kind of cars do you Americans drive?!
Ummmm, gasoline powered cars for the most part, and it's practicly impossible buying a new car with anything smaller then a 1.5l. Even Honda's new civic is a 1.7l. Some states can't sell TDI cars, only a handful IIRC.
Now, TDI would be nice, but let's look at the numbers.
A Volkswagon Bettle GL 5 speed runs $17,630 MSRP according to the website. Toyota has the Echo and Corolla at $10,870 and $14,195 respectivly, a price diffrence of $6760 and $3435.
Corolla and Echo get about the same MPG, about 40 or so, you get 50 or so. Driving 300 miles a week for 52 weeks = 15600 miles. At 50mpg that would be 312 gallons of fuel, where 40mpg would be 390 gallons of fuel, a savings of 78gals a year using my numbers.
At present fuel for me costs about $2.00/gal. I would save $156 yearly on the TDI Bettle. It would take me 43 years to see a cost savings in the echo, 22 years in the Corolla. This is assuming I pay sticker price for a base model.
I'm not saying a TDI wouldn't be cool, it indeed would be. And 50mpg would be pretty cool too, but I have to look at the bigger picture here. The amount of money I save isn't enough to justify the purchace, and i'm a cheep bastard. I know many people, friends and family alike that drive SUVs or Trucks that get 12-15mpg. This is the 5+l engine class and is generally accepted as being piss poor.
Between 30-40mpg is considered to good to great, and it is for gas powered cars with 4cyl sub 2.2l engines. 40-50mpg is considered to be excelent but none too common in gas powered cars. 20-30 is probally about average IMHO, esp among midsized cars, esp those with v6 engines in the 2.5l range.
#1: I get modded up yet you get modded down? While I'd say an actual review would be cooler then a bestbuy link, I would also say that the parent is not off topic for making a reference to the game.
#2: It's possible you are correct and the PC edition is diffrent from the Gamecube, but the link you provided says PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Windows. I'd be interested to hear how the respective version differs.
My experence is with older Corollas, more specificly the wagons American stock.
*all 5-speed* 1976 (2t-c 1.6l) - 40mpg on Premium Texaco gas, all else where Arco was closer to 30mph. This was during the gulf war when prices were damned high, but it still was more cost effective for me to buy premium. Pretty much highway driving.
1979 (2t-c 1.6 cat). This got 30mpg no matter what I did, 28mpg after 300,000 miles or so, but I suspect that switching to larger tires might have skewed my figures. I actually got 20mpg once during a road trip in california, I suspect rank fuel.
1997 corolla (4a-fe 1.6). This was a friends, but the milage was 32 on arco gas, or 37-40mpg on Chevron Premium. Combo of Seattle hills & freeway.
Currently a 1998 nissan sentra. I belive the EPA is 29/39. Reality for me is 40mpg on arco gas. Not bad for an auto that is using a timming chain. Haven't tried premium or other brands yet.
I didn't really find the game all that exciting... It takes about 4hours to complete or so and it seemed to have alot of training wheels. For example web slinging is dependent on specific web spots clearly marked throughout the city, and you get a popup when you fight an arch foe showing you what moves you need to do to defeat 'em. Also your web fluid is unlimited, and your number of lives is unlimited. Dispite being geared tward the inexperenced gammer, I did find the Mysterio sequence to be the best, where you must navigate New York in the clouds broken up into levitating islands. All and all as far as theme games go it was acceptable, almost worth the $15.00 it's presently being sold for.
There's an obvious demand for movies currently playing in theaters to be offered at home. HBO was originally founded on this notion, IIRC.
So, does this mean if you subscribe to HBO and other premium movie channels this gives you the right to actually pirate a movie? The HBO/SHO package in my region costs $25/month above and beyond base cable fees. This is a hell of a drop in cost from the $1-$10 at the boxofficce to HBO. While I don't condone going to the theater using a camcorder, I would argue the punishment doesn't fit the crime when hollywood one way or another is getting money.
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Not only that but "THIS UNIT IS MISSING CONTROL KNOB ." Who are all these fucking clutzes who keep breaking shit? I've never once managed to fuck up a single peice of electronic equipment I own. What sort of asshole forks out $2100 for a DVD player and then breaks it?
Two points:
1. They likely didn't fork out $2100 for a DVD player
2. Chances are they have kids. Kids are amazingly distructive!
Right, as if using the internet wasn't expensive enough already, you're going to be dialing international to a hypothetical ISP that has no qualms about selling accounts to foreign countries? The other issue is payment - Mastercard?
There is the other issue too. If it's so easy for people in these countries to get accountes elsewhere like the parent sugests... then it would be as easy for the non-legit users to get them as well.
This is why black listing whole countries doesn't work... you can always dialup to AOL in some other country.
I just ended a vacation in China, and pre-paid SIM cards could be obtained over the counter at the local supermarket with no ID check or anything. Then you could recharge it with other cards similarly bought over the counter. So how's one supposed to control anything when you don't know who's sending and to whom?
Well, you can track down a mobile with ease provided you have such a system in place. If i'm not mistaken your phone still has an ESN as well as a SIM. Sims you can swap out with ease, but the ESN is a touch more difficult. If you showed your ID when you bought the phone then it's associated with you. Not a lot of privacy when you have a radio becon with a unique number attached to it.
It's difficult to buy a phone without a name attached to it at some point. Even the pay as you go phones offer free time if you submit a credit card to them at some point. Buying a phone used is probally the safest bet if you are really concerned about privacy.
My point is, if someone wanted to track you down, they could do so via your mobile.
There is a value to gold connectors, they don't tarnish, ergo, the connection doesn't degrade.
Is it worth the extra money? Not usually, but there is a benefit.
Tin and lead tarnish yet it's still very common place. Silver also tarnishes yet is, or at least was common place on larger ships. Aluminium tarnishes practicly the moment you expose it to air. The wisdom to what you say is the fact that a copper tarnish aka copper oxide is an insolator.
I've been upgrading to gold connectors simply because i've been finding them for $3.99 per RCA pair. I don't claim they are the apex of audio cables, but they are decent quality and better then your mega-mart varity.
How many case modding overcl0x0r5 are still going to be using the same comp in 5 years?
It's not a question of how long the moder is going to use the case, but rather how long the case is in service. Case mods are not always done by k-rad 0vercl0x0r5. Sometimes you just want more drive bays, more fans, or just want something to freaking fit.
Colorado must be buying el-cheapo crap.
They are not the only ones. Case moders, the hard core ones that use hacksaws, die and tap sets, and large large hammers need mounting hardware. Frankly I never thought twice about buying zinc #6 machine screws/bolts from the local hardware store. While I keep a collection of misc bolts and such, there are those days when I just need a screw. It looks like I have to be more cafeful were I get my screws from.
The BBC wanted to make some gay Daleks for a cartoon series. I applaud the estate for refusing.
Why the hell not? Daleks are after all over 40 years old, and moved beyond cult status to cultural icon status. It would be like the Asimov estate trying to control the use of the laws of robotics. They could do it but they would be hindering the use of something that was a very good idea that in it self has no comercial value. I imagine one author could ruin the image of the laws of robotics (see i robot the film), but in the grand picture who gives a fark.
I feel that refusing gay Daleks does more to harm the image people have of Terry Nation then they could do to harm the Dalek trademark.
Laleks? Are these mutated smurfs encased in metal that roll around and sing, "la la la la la la exterminate"?
*Exterminate Exterminate*
What strikes me as odd is the concept of editorial control over a one dimentional grade-b supervillon that has been in our culture for over 40 years. Perhaps "Rememberence of the Daleks", an episode that has Davros fighting the the Supreme Dalek was ment to illistrate to us the fight for creative control over the future of the Daleks. The Orthadox Daleks born from Skaro's toxic enviroment with their desire to exterminate anything and everything in site, and the Neo-Davros Daleks without conscience or remorse and a geneticly implanted desire to enslave the universe and exterminate anything and everything in site.
What I find more peculiar is the very idea that anyone could "ruin the brand of the Daleks". Daleks are a b-class one dimentional supervillion with a very limited vocabulary. While Dalek is likely a trademark of Terry Nation, I don't honestly see how they could be considered to be a brand outside of Doctor Who. They are salt shakers that run around saying "exterminate" are are not likely to be licensed to anyone with the exception of Doctor Who. Keeping the integrity of a brand name is typicaly only important if you are selling a product, in this case a product that has only one customer.
He said the BBC had tried to commission a cartoon series about gay Daleks for BBC Three.
We will experiment... experiment! EXPERIMENT! We obey no one, we are the superior beings, so let's disco!
Here in australia the ABC (government owned Free To Air station) has been replaying all of Dr Who right from the very first episode on up. So far, they have skipped stories and episodes that are missing or incomplete. But they have also had to skip a fair few dalek episodes (War Games is one story they had to skip for some dalek-related reason) due to this greed.
How very odd.... KBTC broadcasting out of Washington state has been showing Dr. Who in sequence from the first episode, but they are not skipping the episodes with missing parts that i've noticed, and they haven't skipped Daleks. I remember specificly a sequence with William Hartnel attempting to evade the Daleks who were chasing him through. It's a PBS station, non comercial publicly/privatly funded, mostly educational but forien TV does qualify under culture and Dr. Who seems to encourage people to donate.
Aftereffects of the irradiation of Skaro, you see.
I have always been fuzzy on this issue. Watching the first Dalek episode it would lead me to believe that they were mutated from the radation. But the Tom Baker episode showed that Davros was geneticly manipluating the pepole of Skaro into what he believed they were evolving into. Also he removed the Daleks conscience, something his fellow scientests strongly objected to. They were exterminated.
As far as as i'm aware, Davros is the father of the Daleks. The mutated creatures were his insperation, but the final design was his, which would be his undoing as the supreme Dalek didn't want to fight Davros for control over the Dalek race, and pitty wasn't in it's vocabulary.
Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) shows a Dalek hovering up a flight of stairs
And IIRC Dr. Who said "Don't worry ????, Daleks can't climb stairs". My memory could be fuzzy on this issue as I can't remember as I can't remember if it was Colin Baker or Silvester McCoy, Perry or Ace for that matter. I could ask a friend for this episode.
But needless to say, Daleks have come a long way since their 1960's version that couldn't glide over a coat.
Auto-hide:
Anything that give me more screen real estate and hides things I'm not looking at anyway is a Very Good Thing.
It's one of the things I liked about the Amiga was the fact that the file bar on most applications autohid, until you either moved the mouse to the top of the screen or hit one of your Amiga(tm) keys. In fact, I rather thought that this whole auto hiding menus was IP owned by Commodore(tm). While the taskbar is diffrent then the filebar, I noticed in I.E. 6 there was an option to autohide the file/menu bar.
A personal note: I once watched a downloaded movie "filmed in Tilt-o-vision(tm) in front of a live theatre audience" and I woved to myself never to do that again because of the poor quality. I guess the MPAA feels the same way :)
Nah... I love the cam editions. In fact, I like to plop on my widscreen version DVD ontop of an old cam version just so the letter box empty space can be filled with something on my 4:3 monitor. I want to hear the audence heckling the screen since MST3k was cancled. I want to see each of the heads holding their own camcorder with it's own blinking light.
Stealing nightvision goggles from movie theaters is still a misdemeanor, the actual class varies from state to state. People who steal them in south dakoda and use them for hunting better watch out, use of night vision goggles while hunting is a Class 2 misdemeanor
While i'm all about finding a car that matches your personality, my experence with toyotas has lead me to believe that they not only have spirit, but they have good karma. The cars i've owned have been econoboxes, not much in the way of acceleration but good high end speeds that can be maintained for hours at a time, till you run out of gas or america. I remember driving the 88 Celica All-Track turbo between seattle and portland in under two hours.
American cars drive nice and quiet. I imagine part of this is our use of cast pistons rather then forged. Forged are stronger but expand more when heated. Cast are often weaker but don't require the same warm up time, and seem to be more quiet. I wouldn't consider an American car though based on my obervations in the 80s/90s. Everyone I know that bought a Dodge or a Pontiac circa 1997/1998 now have blown headgaskets. This has gotta suck having to do engine work after only about 50,000 miles. Needless to say, while they had some faith in American cars in the 1990s, they are trading them in for imports.
Interesting... I'm doing the math. I have a Toyota ECHO that gets 48 mpg on my 100 mile round trip daily commute when the weather is nice enough not to use the A/C, and I'm not in a hurry. I get 43 MPG when I have a lead foot, or when it's suffocatingly hot here in the midwest.
Ah the midwest.... d'oh. In the northwest, we have more hills. I remember the skyline from Omaha Nebraska were the hills in some other state 300 miles away. The reason that I believe the Echo only gets 40 is based on observations here where frankly it's about the same as Corolla. I'd believe flatlands would yield a greater diffrence, but those subcompacts here kinda suck.
Typically, you can get a loan for a $17630 car with a much lower interest rate than for a $10870 car. That's simply the mechanics of car loans -
.9% APR, which I know I can get with a Nissan Sentra who's base model starts at $10,800 the last time I checked. The last time I worked out the numbers, the Sentra would have cost about $200/month * 52 months (too lazy to pull up the tax and misc charges). The diffrence between .9APR and 0% apr over 52 months is $196.15 monthly (10198.24) vs $192.31 monthly @ 0%
I buy used, so I pay cash. But if I were to buy new, I don't think I could get much better then
$17630 on the other hand is a minium of $339.04 monthly*52 months or $345.82 monthly (17982.64).
Shouldn't you be comparing the diesel and petrol versions of the same car to each other, instead of entirely different cars?
I should... but I didn't. This is due to the fact that anything VW is totally out of my budget. I like VW actually, I'd consider one, but they just cost too damn much. When considering a car, I first look (sic) at the American models. Pretty cheep the American models, but I know they will fall apart after a year or two. Then I look at the Japanese imports, pretty reliable but cost a little more. Then the German imports, impressive but cost a heck of alot more. And thw Sweedish imports, which are generally bullet proof but I don't want to be stuck with some car that gets 23mpg.
But yea, my prejustice due to the extraordinary cost diffrence between German models and Japanese models, a horrible tremdious price diffrence.
Anyway, I was just commenting on the fact that the submitter appeared to think that 23 MPG was pretty decent and 36.3 a very high mileage, while I (and I am in no way an exception over here) make 50 MPG on average.
Well, this is america, and stick shifts are not the fashion. Pain in the ass to get a stick shift. Dealers will tell you it will cost you more to get a stick dispite the MSRP being lower. I suspect that it's because they must be ordered from the factory. The only sticks I see at dealers are for those cars they advertise below sticker price, and they are pretty much strippers, no electric windows/ac/stereo but are really cheep to encourage you to drive there so the dealer can convience you to buy something more costly. 36.3mpg might with an automatic transmission, and might be 40 with the manual. It also might be like a Dodge Neon with a 2.0l engine, which is damn good for an engine of that size.
Also, we might not be talking new cars here. West coast America doesn't have to put up with vehicel body inspections, only emmitions. I suspect it's because we don't use salt on our roads so it's really not needed. My last car for example I finally sold it when it reached 360,000 miles.
While I think 23mpg is poor, I know that figure well from driving midsized cars with v6 engines. I don't understand because to me they don't see much bigger then a compact. The only reason I'd buy one is if I needed to tow something, in fact, that's the only reason I ever used one, and only to tow a boat.
No doubt the economics of driving a diesel are totally different than they are here (in the Netherlands), but concerns about sustainability and the environment are not, and yet those factors don't seem to come into your (and others') decision at all, which I think is a pity.
Not entirely true, and actually I only go for used cars. Economic and enviromental concerns actually, I can't justify chucking a car before it reaches 300,000 miles, and there is a surplus of used cars presently for really really cheep. After all, a base model Sentra has an MSRP of $10,800 so a used car is going to cost less. While I can't afford a TDI presently, I did choose a 4cyl stickshift that gets 40mpg, pretty much the best I can get in my budget. If I was really a cheep eco-hazzard bastard, I would have bought a 1991 Mercury Cougar with it's 5.0l engine. I saw quite a few for about $900. Piss poor pimo-mobile getting 15 mpg.
And that's supposed to be especially economical? What kind of cars do you Americans drive?!
Ummmm, gasoline powered cars for the most part, and it's practicly impossible buying a new car with anything smaller then a 1.5l. Even Honda's new civic is a 1.7l. Some states can't sell TDI cars, only a handful IIRC.
Now, TDI would be nice, but let's look at the numbers.
A Volkswagon Bettle GL 5 speed runs $17,630 MSRP according to the website. Toyota has the Echo and Corolla at $10,870 and $14,195 respectivly, a price diffrence of $6760 and $3435.
Corolla and Echo get about the same MPG, about 40 or so, you get 50 or so. Driving 300 miles a week for 52 weeks = 15600 miles. At 50mpg that would be 312 gallons of fuel, where 40mpg would be 390 gallons of fuel, a savings of 78gals a year using my numbers.
At present fuel for me costs about $2.00/gal. I would save $156 yearly on the TDI Bettle. It would take me 43 years to see a cost savings in the echo, 22 years in the Corolla. This is assuming I pay sticker price for a base model.
I'm not saying a TDI wouldn't be cool, it indeed would be. And 50mpg would be pretty cool too, but I have to look at the bigger picture here. The amount of money I save isn't enough to justify the purchace, and i'm a cheep bastard. I know many people, friends and family alike that drive SUVs or Trucks that get 12-15mpg. This is the 5+l engine class and is generally accepted as being piss poor.
Between 30-40mpg is considered to good to great, and it is for gas powered cars with 4cyl sub 2.2l engines. 40-50mpg is considered to be excelent but none too common in gas powered cars. 20-30 is probally about average IMHO, esp among midsized cars, esp those with v6 engines in the 2.5l range.
Two points...
#1: I get modded up yet you get modded down? While I'd say an actual review would be cooler then a bestbuy link, I would also say that the parent is not off topic for making a reference to the game.
#2: It's possible you are correct and the PC edition is diffrent from the Gamecube, but the link you provided says PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, Windows. I'd be interested to hear how the respective version differs.
My experence is with older Corollas, more specificly the wagons American stock.
*all 5-speed*
1976 (2t-c 1.6l) - 40mpg on Premium Texaco gas, all else where Arco was closer to 30mph. This was during the gulf war when prices were damned high, but it still was more cost effective for me to buy premium. Pretty much highway driving.
1979 (2t-c 1.6 cat). This got 30mpg no matter what I did, 28mpg after 300,000 miles or so, but I suspect that switching to larger tires might have skewed my figures. I actually got 20mpg once during a road trip in california, I suspect rank fuel.
1997 corolla (4a-fe 1.6). This was a friends, but the milage was 32 on arco gas, or 37-40mpg on Chevron Premium. Combo of Seattle hills & freeway.
Currently a 1998 nissan sentra. I belive the EPA is 29/39. Reality for me is 40mpg on arco gas. Not bad for an auto that is using a timming chain. Haven't tried premium or other brands yet.
I didn't really find the game all that exciting... It takes about 4hours to complete or so and it seemed to have alot of training wheels. For example web slinging is dependent on specific web spots clearly marked throughout the city, and you get a popup when you fight an arch foe showing you what moves you need to do to defeat 'em. Also your web fluid is unlimited, and your number of lives is unlimited. Dispite being geared tward the inexperenced gammer, I did find the Mysterio sequence to be the best, where you must navigate New York in the clouds broken up into levitating islands. All and all as far as theme games go it was acceptable, almost worth the $15.00 it's presently being sold for.
There's an obvious demand for movies currently playing in theaters to be offered at home. HBO was originally founded on this notion, IIRC.
So, does this mean if you subscribe to HBO and other premium movie channels this gives you the right to actually pirate a movie? The HBO/SHO package in my region costs $25/month above and beyond base cable fees. This is a hell of a drop in cost from the $1-$10 at the boxofficce to HBO. While I don't condone going to the theater using a camcorder, I would argue the punishment doesn't fit the crime when hollywood one way or another is getting money.