"The 5-speed pro-active automatic gearbox with sequential shift uses all the on-board computers to adapt to your style of driving. This optimises consumption, power and roadholding." (from the Renault velsatis web page).
It's sequential, a bit like a motorbike gearbox so maybe it can't be set into neutral until it's down in 1st gear. Any Renault automatic drivers comment on that?
You're absolutely right. Jabber could be the nervous system of future businesses. I've been putting inter application communication systems together using NNTP servers given the costs of traditional middlware systems, quite a lot of work and the data formats are simple, but it works fairly well but Jabber would be faster and could be more standardised, more ubiquitous.
e.g. http://www.archeus.plus.com/colin/middlewa re/
"What chance one of the big four (aim/icq/msn/yahoo) adopting these standards?"
Immediately? Very slim.
However, like almost all of the other standardised protocols they will eventually have to be able to interoperate to survive. In the long term they will adopt a standard protocol or they will vanish.
Till a grunt can parchute into the enemy territory, hike through 50 miles worth of jungle with it in his backpack, crawl through 10 miles of underground tunnels and vapourise an entire mountain with it.
OK, so you don't mention that it only has a 5 second fuse. You put that information in the instructions. It's not like most of them can read anyway.
You can increase the cycle life of Li-ion batteries by making sure they don't overheat. If you put them in a cooling jacket which keeps the temperature well below 50C you can double or more the cycle life.
and a better riding position, fatter tyres soak up more of the bumps than skinny high pressure road tyres.
I rarely go offroad, but I bought a cheap aluminium mountain bike because of the riding position, lighter weight than a commuter style bike, and lower gearing. If I do occasionally want to take it offroad I can. I do agree about the shocks but I couldn't get an aluminium framed bike at the same price without the shocks.
And there's less money spent on a demonstrably failed policy. And the product would have to be quality controlled, so fewer health problems, and junkies would be less likely to share needles, so fewer disease problems.
Harley riders are buying into a marketing concept, the bikes are considered posing devices. Which would fit in with the predeliction for OSX I suppose.
You want a real bike? BMW, Triumph, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Ducati, Aprilia, there's plenty of choice of makers who don't recycle 60 year old crap decade after decade.
99% of Windows users have never heard of X, sit them down in front of a Linux box running X and they have no concept that there is this thing called X and they are quite happy to sit using the machine, running Gnome or better, KDE. Installers are good enough these days that X configuration is handled automatically and the performance is more than acceptable (Gnome users quit bitching and switch to KDE).
It's the obvious next step, though really it should be the Space Force making the plans, the airforce seem to have entirely missed the fact that there's no air in space.
And what do you think torque is? It's a force acting in a circular direction and then you go on to say that *energy* is what's needed to get it to move? Talk about irony.
Think of those blades as huge levers. By applying a small force at the end of the lever, you can create a truly huge force at the hub. The rotor is 126m wide.
CCTV in each car and in each station. Plus a panic button in the car which will connect you to an operator who can redirect the car to the nearest police station or hospital, which would presumably have stations built in.
Cheaper/faster/more convenient/more scalable than the "light" rail systems that are being proposed all over the place.
A train is fine if you want to go from A straight down the line to B. If however, if they don't go where you want, you want to go from A to T with 2 changes in between, you'll spend hours buggering about waiting in stations for trains to arrive.
Trains are also expensive and inefficient. They weigh at least 40 tonnes which requires significant, bloody expensive infrastructure like tunnels and bridges, they run to a schedule and this is the key, they run to a schedule whether they have any passengers or not.
During the rush hour, trains are round about *the* most efficient transport system ever devised, but that's because the are "crush loaded", a lovely term which means your face is in someone's armpit for the duration. 130% full. Outside that rush hour train efficiency sucks badly, you have 40+ tonnes which have to be accelerated and decelerated for every station down the line which seriously reduces the average speed.
The train, or "light" rail isn't the solution to the car problem. Something else is needed, something a bit like cars but which can avoid the congestion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_tran si t
Yeah, there's a 1.2km test system, which has demonstrated the cost and performance characteristics they wanted, but the politicians are scared of putting a full system in place.
PRT suffers from a catch 22 problem at the moment all over the world, the politicians won't put a system in place because there are no fully working examples of a system, and there are no fully working examples because nobody will stump up the cash to put a system in place.
PRT (Whichever actual system) has huge potential to reduce congestion and allow people to get from A to B quickly and conveniently. It could also lower the perceived political requirements for these big brother systems on the normal roads.
Could be put in place today. Basically it's information theory applied to mass transit systems. It's the only public transport system which promises to ammeliorate traffic congestion on the roads at a remotely reasonable cost, though it isn't going to completely replace the car. The traditional mass transit systems are massively expensive, inefficient and inconvenient in comparison.
Read up on it: http://www.gettherefast.org/ http://www.cprt .org/ http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/P RT/ http://www.acprt.org/
American PRT system: http://www.skywebexpress.com/
"they may be voting more because they have to worry more about extremists"
Extremists by definition have a small base of support, you can't take power with a small base of support under proportional representation.
"Maybe we have low turnout because we're basically pretty contented with our system,"
The word you're looking for is apathetic.
"despite a small minority that keep shouting at us that the sky is falling"
Hasn't the sky already fallen? You had a minority president take you to war, sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers into danger, running up massive budget deficits having draconian laws passed and turning almost the whole of the middle east against you, never mind the rest of the world.
Y'know you're probably right. We can always fall back on the "Americans are just too stupid to spend 15 mins casting a vote." explanation. Then there'd be no reason to change anything and the current two parties could just continue exchanging power.
"After all, if you want that election reform, it would be in your interest to advocate that change and help bring about voter awareness, thus making your vote count more and in theory, bringing about eventual change."
And I vote Liberal Democrat in every election in the UK despite living in a safe Labour seat, they are the only major party advocating proportional representation of any kind. We also have a winner take all election system like the US and the LibDems being the third main party with around 20-25% support don't have a great chance of getting into power. Things may be changing though:
Slashdot Mirror
"The 5-speed pro-active automatic gearbox with sequential shift uses all the on-board computers to adapt to your style of driving. This optimises consumption, power and roadholding." (from the Renault velsatis web page).
It's sequential, a bit like a motorbike gearbox so maybe it can't be set into neutral until it's down in 1st gear. Any Renault automatic drivers comment on that?
Been there, felt the pain.
You're absolutely right. Jabber could be the nervous system of future businesses. I've been putting inter application communication systems together using NNTP servers given the costs of traditional middlware systems, quite a lot of work and the data formats are simple, but it works fairly well but Jabber would be faster and could be more standardised, more ubiquitous.
a re/
e.g.
http://www.archeus.plus.com/colin/middlew
"What chance one of the big four (aim/icq/msn/yahoo) adopting these standards?"
Immediately? Very slim.
However, like almost all of the other standardised protocols they will eventually have to be able to interoperate to survive. In the long term they will adopt a standard protocol or they will vanish.
Till a grunt can parchute into the enemy territory, hike through 50 miles worth of jungle with it in his backpack, crawl through 10 miles of underground tunnels and vapourise an entire mountain with it.
OK, so you don't mention that it only has a 5 second fuse. You put that information in the instructions. It's not like most of them can read anyway.
You can increase the cycle life of Li-ion batteries by making sure they don't overheat. If you put them in a cooling jacket which keeps the temperature well below 50C you can double or more the cycle life.
and a better riding position, fatter tyres soak up more of the bumps than skinny high pressure road tyres.
I rarely go offroad, but I bought a cheap aluminium mountain bike because of the riding position, lighter weight than a commuter style bike, and lower gearing. If I do occasionally want to take it offroad I can. I do agree about the shocks but I couldn't get an aluminium framed bike at the same price without the shocks.
And there's less money spent on a demonstrably failed policy. And the product would have to be quality controlled, so fewer health problems, and junkies would be less likely to share needles, so fewer disease problems.
And cigarettes etc etc.
Course the failed War on Drugs should be canned, all drugs should be legalised, taxed and the cash used for rehabilitation services.
Who the fuck wants *Porche* to tune their engine, WTF have they won lately?
Sorry pal. Harley can't even to torque properly, it takes Kawasaki and Triumph to do that.
They are a laughing stock everywhere but America.
Harley riders are buying into a marketing concept, the bikes are considered posing devices. Which would fit in with the predeliction for OSX I suppose.
You want a real bike? BMW, Triumph, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Ducati, Aprilia, there's plenty of choice of makers who don't recycle 60 year old crap decade after decade.
Bollocks.
99% of Windows users have never heard of X, sit them down in front of a Linux box running X and they have no concept that there is this thing called X and they are quite happy to sit using the machine, running Gnome or better, KDE. Installers are good enough these days that X configuration is handled automatically and the performance is more than acceptable (Gnome users quit bitching and switch to KDE).
It's the obvious next step, though really it should be the Space Force making the plans, the airforce seem to have entirely missed the fact that there's no air in space.
Not a problem.
I don't live anywhere near Florida, so I don't see any reason not to continue driving the Landrover.
http://www.happypenguin.org/
And what do you think torque is? It's a force acting in a circular direction and then you go on to say that *energy* is what's needed to get it to move? Talk about irony.
Think of those blades as huge levers. By applying a small force at the end of the lever, you can create a truly huge force at the hub. The rotor is 126m wide.
And even less when they actually get paid from profits created by running the things.
h tm
e.g.
http://www.baywind.co.uk/pages/Westmill2.
CCTV in each car and in each station. Plus a panic button in the car which will connect you to an operator who can redirect the car to the nearest police station or hospital, which would presumably have stations built in.
Cheaper/faster/more convenient/more scalable than the "light" rail systems that are being proposed all over the place.
A train is fine if you want to go from A straight down the line to B. If however, if they don't go where you want, you want to go from A to T with 2 changes in between, you'll spend hours buggering about waiting in stations for trains to arrive.
n si t
Trains are also expensive and inefficient. They weigh at least 40 tonnes which requires significant, bloody expensive infrastructure like tunnels and bridges, they run to a schedule and this is the key, they run to a schedule whether they have any passengers or not.
During the rush hour, trains are round about *the* most efficient transport system ever devised, but that's because the are "crush loaded", a lovely term which means your face is in someone's armpit for the duration. 130% full. Outside that rush hour train efficiency sucks badly, you have 40+ tonnes which have to be accelerated and decelerated for every station down the line which seriously reduces the average speed.
The train, or "light" rail isn't the solution to the car problem. Something else is needed, something a bit like cars but which can avoid the congestion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_tra
Yeah, there's a 1.2km test system, which has demonstrated the cost and performance characteristics they wanted, but the politicians are scared of putting a full system in place.
PRT suffers from a catch 22 problem at the moment all over the world, the politicians won't put a system in place because there are no fully working examples of a system, and there are no fully working examples because nobody will stump up the cash to put a system in place.
PRT (Whichever actual system) has huge potential to reduce congestion and allow people to get from A to B quickly and conveniently. It could also lower the perceived political requirements for these big brother systems on the normal roads.
Could be put in place today. Basically it's information theory applied to mass transit systems. It's the only public transport system which promises to ammeliorate traffic congestion on the roads at a remotely reasonable cost, though it isn't going to completely replace the car. The traditional mass transit systems are massively expensive, inefficient and inconvenient in comparison.
t .org/P RT/
Read up on it:
http://www.gettherefast.org/
http://www.cpr
http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/
http://www.acprt.org/
American PRT system:
http://www.skywebexpress.com/
UK PRT system:
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
"they may be voting more because they have to worry more about extremists"
Extremists by definition have a small base of support, you can't take power with a small base of support under proportional representation.
"Maybe we have low turnout because we're basically pretty contented with our system,"
The word you're looking for is apathetic.
"despite a small minority that keep shouting at us that the sky is falling"
Hasn't the sky already fallen? You had a minority president take you to war, sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers into danger, running up massive budget deficits having draconian laws passed and turning almost the whole of the middle east against you, never mind the rest of the world.
Y'know you're probably right. We can always fall back on the "Americans are just too stupid to spend 15 mins casting a vote." explanation. Then there'd be no reason to change anything and the current two parties could just continue exchanging power.
"After all, if you want that election reform, it would be in your interest to advocate that change and help bring about voter awareness, thus making your vote count more and in theory, bringing about eventual change."
s tm
And I vote Liberal Democrat in every election in the UK despite living in a safe Labour seat, they are the only major party advocating proportional representation of any kind. We also have a winner take all election system like the US and the LibDems being the third main party with around 20-25% support don't have a great chance of getting into power. Things may be changing though:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3706100.