We're both decently experienced with Linux. He had some defunct distro (forget which) on the same computer years ago and it recognized the mouse right at the install, so it's a Ubuntu thing... just thought it was interesting XP handled the legacy hardware better than the leading Linux distro...
A couple days ago me and a buddy went to put Ubuntu on an old PC with a serial mouse for his parents to check their email and it didn't recognize the mouse. Windows XP had no problem.
Liquid Motion competed with Flash, which isn't open and requires an external plugin to view, yet is still the de-facto standard (animated/scripted SVG as an open alternative isn't anywhere yet).
I guess Adobe/Macromedia need all the ammunition/leverage they can get with the coming onslaught...
Ironically, if Liquid Motions had taken off Java would still be relevant to the web (remember when Java applets were everywhere? I can't remember the last time I saw one...)
The iPod/iTunes line mentions the "Apple" name just as often as the Mac line does, which is about nowhere. The only place I can find "Apple" written on my iBook or in OS X are the copyright/trademark/"Designed by Apple in California" notices. Same as the iPod.
The Apple LOGO however is all over both lines. It's not exactly a secret the iPod is made by Apple Computer when it has that logo on the product and all over the packaging.
Apple Records is a problem for Apple, and I suspect it will cost them a lot of money in the end, but it hasn't caused them to change their branding strategy in any way.
I don't see why Apple would want this product to do well. What's to stop Apple from making phones of its own to its own designs and standards and keeping all the profit for itself?
Minus slick Apple design and marketing I don't think cell phones taking over the MP3 player marketspace is a serious threat. Now if ITMS was a money maker and wireless purchases were available I could see this sort of liscenseing scheme making sense, but I think the safer bet is to expand Apple's hardware reach.
Quicktime is Cocoa if I'm not mistaken. So is the Finder itself. Both have all the nice Quartz effects. Cocoa apps have access to all the US niceties that Cocoa apps do if done right.
I think iTunes is so weird because they re-implimented the OSX look for the Windows version in custom (hacked-on) ways, and haven't bothered to make a unique, native front-end for OSX.
How hard is it for Apple to give iTunes anti-aliased corners like every single other window in OSX? As if the old jaggies weren't bad enough, now they've just given up and squared them off! (not consistent with any other style in OSX, including the new plastic-look Mail.app). Even something as custom and cross-platform as RealPlayer manages it.
In general I understand Apple motivation for adding this new style - brushed metal is getting overplayed, and for good reason generally since it allows custom controls and layouts to be integrated in a nicer way than with aqua - but I think it's really badly done. The only nicely done plastic app I've seen so far is Camino (Mail.app and this new iTunes are travesties)...
I could care less about a second button but I REALLY wish Apple would offer an IBM-style trackpoint option for their laptops. It's a bit strange for people at first (which is probably why Apple never adopted them) but once you have the hang of it it's so much more precise than anything else out there, and you never have to take your fingers off the keyboard.
At least do what Dell, etc. do and put both on most laptops.
Also being wedded to the trackpad is an obstacle to Apple coming out with a subnotebook (the rumoured iBookMini): there'd be no room for one.
I'm suspicious of Toyota's claim that they're making money on the Prius but they seem to be closer than anyone else.
The fuel economy of hybrids also is massively overstated by EAP fuel economy numbers since the test doesn't reflect real driving conditions and massively favours hybrids. Toyota and Honda *want* to advertise *lower* numbers but it's illegal to advertize anything but the EAP number. This isn't to say they aren't better than vehicles without, but it isn't by a huge margin and it isn't anywhere near worth the increased cost (yet).
Also nobody's waiting for "low sulfer gasoline", but rather low sulfer diesel. The diesel sold in North America is much dirtier than what does in Europe and the governments have mandated that in the next few years it must be brought up to Euro' specs. Even still diesels are naturally dirtier and the copanies are having trouble getting them past ever-tightening environmental regulations (another environmentalist misconception: environmental regulations are much tougher in North America than Europe for the most part).
IIRC Toyota and Hondas best estimates only call for a small percentage (under 5%) of vehicles to be hybrids in a decade.
I'm a Canadian and can confirm this, but most electricity in Quebec (over 90% IIRC) does come from water power. This is also true in BC.
Ontario gets the bulk of its from nuclear, while the other provinces are mainly fossil fueled - but that doesn't stop us from calling it "hydro" as well;)
The North Koreans should have been dealt with a long time ago regardless. It doesn't bother you that a regeim exists which maintains millions of people as literal slaves in goulags? Which maintains its population in such a state of ignorance that they have NO idea of what has happened in the outside world since the 1950s? Which makes no effort to feed itself yet maintains one of the worlds largest standing armies which threatens the free and democratic state of South Korea with iminent destruction? Which has allowed hundreds of thousands of its citizens to *starve to death* in the *1990s*?
Yes the unions cripple Detroit. Slowly but surely however the unions are being undermined and forced into flexible contracts that put them on equal footing with the Japanese. Hell if I can figure out how its fair that only they have to deal with union blackmail.
And yes the Highlander/Rx hybrids are interesting as well, I forgot to mention them. The Lexus Rx crossover is expecially interesting since there's actually the prospect there of 1. offering the customer something other than piece of mind (namely increased performance), and 2. because they might actually be profitable.
As for GM Bob Lutz (the guy who makes all the silly pronouncements) is senile. As things are he'll be the death of GM if something isn't done about his current strategy of focusing exclusively on niche vehicles and letting the mainstream continue to fall further and further in mind. We must also remember however that he wants to push GMs advantage in technologies like cylinder deactivation anf fuel economy overall (yes, despite what you may think class-on-class GM usually gets the best fuel economy from its old-fashioned OHV engines - if poor performance). Also IIRC those comments were mainly in refrence to Europe, where I agree hybrids don't make any sense.
Much worse is GMs insistence that they are going to make a hydrogen powered car in the next few years where most everyone else has given up since it's nowhere near economical.
Hybrids in large pickups and SUVs offer other advanatges besides economy, however, such as the ability to have AC outlets mounted in the truck that feed off the battery (to plug in your tools or whatever).
Finally I don't think any SUV gets 10mpg. The diesel Excursions (the biggest SUVs on the road) get ~20 mpg.
I agree electric cars need to be phased in but this will happen over a very long period (which is starting with hybrids).
I ASSURE you oil is not about to run out any time soon, nor is the price going to rise drastically (the market price for oil should be much lower than it currently is, and will drop as massive Russian and Canadian supplies start to be tapped).
Effeciency is increasing all the time anyways at both end. As far as production the cost of extracting hard-to-get-to oil offshort is coming down all the time, as is the cost of produceing syncrude from tar sands (the lions share of the worlds oil reserves are in such tar sands, mostly in Canada - not exactly a country hostile to the US). On the use end cars are slowly getting more effecient. I read in the news this week that some wacko environmental group was running ads personally attacking Bill Ford Jr. because he didn't meet his (IMHO unreasonable) target or increasing the effeciency of Ford SUVs by 25% in 5 years. The story that doesn't get out is that they will acheive ~15% - and that with having increased power output greatly at the same time!!!
Modern petrol engines average ~25% effeciency - or a 75% loss. Note that that can be improved considerably with technology that's here now (direct injection, cylinder deactivation, hybrid electric systems, the miller effect, etc.)
A modern gas fired power plant is ~50% (50% loss). Transmission lines are ~90% effecient (10% loss). Battery effeciecy is ~75% (25% loss). And finally drive effeciency (the one people overly focus on) is a very good ~90% (10% loss). That's a total of... ~5% effeciency:(
Also worth noting newer diesel engines get near 50% effeciency to start with.
Ford's hybrid strategy actually makes sense. Instead of putting expensive hybrid powertrains in cheap and already effecient small cars, they're focusing their efforts on SUVs and large cars. The Escape (SUV) will have a hybrid powertrain in the next year or so, and the upcomming Futura (and I'm assuming it's relatives like the Mazda6, upcomming crossovers, etc.) will have one as well.
Also the reason the hybrid Escape was pushed back was because Ford decided to do te engineering by itself from scratch (originally it was more of a publicity stunt and they were going to source a Toyota or Honda powertrain).
And I assure you Ford designed powertrains run with the best of them. There's no reason to think their hybrid system won't be equal to or superior to what's coming from Honda/Toyota, especially since they have more engineering resources at their disposal and are pairing it to a newer an better gasoline engine family.
GM seems to be aiming even higher by commiting themselves to hybrid full size pickups and SUVs in the next few years. That would make for MAJOR fuel savings. Of course it would be nice of them to have a car hybrid strategy as well...
- Much of the "waste" produced and stored by nuclear power plants is not waste at all, but is material that can be reprocessed or burned in a more effecient reactor but is not for cost/legal reasons. As fuel cycles become more advanced however more of this "waste" can be economically turned into power.
Desides that the amount of waste produced is relatively small by volume and isn't that difficult to store, nor is it very dangerous.
- Nuclear power IS cost effective. The latest CANDU plants for instance have the lowest running cost of any non-hydro power source available.
- I'd consider any accident risks (which are essentially none) and the cost of disposeing of waste INCREDIBLY SMALL compared to the risk we're running altering the planets atmosphere with Co2.
- Terrorism/WMD is an issue but it's already an issue - there's no putting the genie back into the bottle. The solution is to put in place an arms controll regeim with teeth that all countries are subject to whether they like it or not, and to deal with "rogue states" before they become a threat (i.e. before we get into a situation like we now face in North Korea).
- You're orbiting solar array idea is one of the stupidest I've ever heard, and nowhere within the realm of possibilities.
Solar chimneys are indeed very interesting and perhapse workable. Last I heard they were seriously considering building one in the Australian outback, but I can't imagine many other places you'd want to put one. As with other forms of "clean" energy (wind, hydro) they're a massive eyesore and have their own environmental consequences (I wonder what a socal chimney would do to the local plant population in terms of blocked sunlight, or to wind paterns, etc.)
Still definately much better than anything else I've heard proposed.
Ethanol OTOH is all hype. Even if it was cost effective putting so much land under ploy is a MASSIVE environmental cost (another thing I don't get about most "environmentalists" is why they so passionately oppose agricultural effeciencies that would allow more land to be turned back to nature).
1. You're first point is somewhat true, but it ignored the fact that modern gasoline engines in cars are already incredibly effecient and release essentially no chemical pollutants. While they do release carbon this is unavoidable, and the increased effeciency of burning fuel directly in a car for power rather versus going through the multiple conversions involved in electric cars results in much more fuel effeciency and hence less carbon release.
Also while you obviously can't go back and retrovit existing cars with the latest controlls, cars have a far shorter life-span than generating plants and hance on balance have far more modern pollution controlls.
You're statement that any electricity plant is better than any car is also plainly false, especially when we're talking about coal fired plants.
2. This is somewhat true as well, but as I stated elsewhere in this discussion the lifespan of a car on the road (~10 years I would guess) is far, far below the horizon of signifigant "clean" energy coming online.
I think you're the one who'se buying the hype and not thinking these things through.
Slashdot Mirror
...I'd happily pay a (small) fee to keep this service available.
This will break my favourite / most used OSX Dashboard widget: http://www.patrickpatoray.com/index.php?Page=101
We're both decently experienced with Linux. He had some defunct distro (forget which) on the same computer years ago and it recognized the mouse right at the install, so it's a Ubuntu thing... just thought it was interesting XP handled the legacy hardware better than the leading Linux distro...
A couple days ago me and a buddy went to put Ubuntu on an old PC with a serial mouse for his parents to check their email and it didn't recognize the mouse. Windows XP had no problem.
Liquid Motion competed with Flash, which isn't open and requires an external plugin to view, yet is still the de-facto standard (animated/scripted SVG as an open alternative isn't anywhere yet).
I guess Adobe/Macromedia need all the ammunition/leverage they can get with the coming onslaught...
Ironically, if Liquid Motions had taken off Java would still be relevant to the web (remember when Java applets were everywhere? I can't remember the last time I saw one...)
The iPod/iTunes line mentions the "Apple" name just as often as the Mac line does, which is about nowhere. The only place I can find "Apple" written on my iBook or in OS X are the copyright/trademark/"Designed by Apple in California" notices. Same as the iPod.
The Apple LOGO however is all over both lines. It's not exactly a secret the iPod is made by Apple Computer when it has that logo on the product and all over the packaging.
Apple Records is a problem for Apple, and I suspect it will cost them a lot of money in the end, but it hasn't caused them to change their branding strategy in any way.
I don't see why Apple would want this product to do well. What's to stop Apple from making phones of its own to its own designs and standards and keeping all the profit for itself?
Minus slick Apple design and marketing I don't think cell phones taking over the MP3 player marketspace is a serious threat. Now if ITMS was a money maker and wireless purchases were available I could see this sort of liscenseing scheme making sense, but I think the safer bet is to expand Apple's hardware reach.
Carbon-to-Cocoa-to-Carbon as appropriate ;)
Quicktime is Cocoa if I'm not mistaken. So is the Finder itself. Both have all the nice Quartz effects. Cocoa apps have access to all the US niceties that Cocoa apps do if done right.
I think iTunes is so weird because they re-implimented the OSX look for the Windows version in custom (hacked-on) ways, and haven't bothered to make a unique, native front-end for OSX.
How hard is it for Apple to give iTunes anti-aliased corners like every single other window in OSX? As if the old jaggies weren't bad enough, now they've just given up and squared them off! (not consistent with any other style in OSX, including the new plastic-look Mail.app). Even something as custom and cross-platform as RealPlayer manages it.
In general I understand Apple motivation for adding this new style - brushed metal is getting overplayed, and for good reason generally since it allows custom controls and layouts to be integrated in a nicer way than with aqua - but I think it's really badly done. The only nicely done plastic app I've seen so far is Camino (Mail.app and this new iTunes are travesties)...
I ditched FireFox in the last month when I finally gave Windows the heave (in favour of Safari/OSX): congratulations Microsoft :)
I could care less about a second button but I REALLY wish Apple would offer an IBM-style trackpoint option for their laptops. It's a bit strange for people at first (which is probably why Apple never adopted them) but once you have the hang of it it's so much more precise than anything else out there, and you never have to take your fingers off the keyboard.
At least do what Dell, etc. do and put both on most laptops.
Also being wedded to the trackpad is an obstacle to Apple coming out with a subnotebook (the rumoured iBookMini): there'd be no room for one.
Apple Computer Corp. was founded on April Fools Day. Serious.
a pp lecomputer.htm
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl
I'm suspicious of Toyota's claim that they're making money on the Prius but they seem to be closer than anyone else.
The fuel economy of hybrids also is massively overstated by EAP fuel economy numbers since the test doesn't reflect real driving conditions and massively favours hybrids. Toyota and Honda *want* to advertise *lower* numbers but it's illegal to advertize anything but the EAP number. This isn't to say they aren't better than vehicles without, but it isn't by a huge margin and it isn't anywhere near worth the increased cost (yet).
Also nobody's waiting for "low sulfer gasoline", but rather low sulfer diesel. The diesel sold in North America is much dirtier than what does in Europe and the governments have mandated that in the next few years it must be brought up to Euro' specs. Even still diesels are naturally dirtier and the copanies are having trouble getting them past ever-tightening environmental regulations (another environmentalist misconception: environmental regulations are much tougher in North America than Europe for the most part).
IIRC Toyota and Hondas best estimates only call for a small percentage (under 5%) of vehicles to be hybrids in a decade.
I'm a Canadian and can confirm this, but most electricity in Quebec (over 90% IIRC) does come from water power. This is also true in BC.
;)
Ontario gets the bulk of its from nuclear, while the other provinces are mainly fossil fueled - but that doesn't stop us from calling it "hydro" as well
The North Koreans should have been dealt with a long time ago regardless. It doesn't bother you that a regeim exists which maintains millions of people as literal slaves in goulags? Which maintains its population in such a state of ignorance that they have NO idea of what has happened in the outside world since the 1950s? Which makes no effort to feed itself yet maintains one of the worlds largest standing armies which threatens the free and democratic state of South Korea with iminent destruction? Which has allowed hundreds of thousands of its citizens to *starve to death* in the *1990s*?
Yes the unions cripple Detroit. Slowly but surely however the unions are being undermined and forced into flexible contracts that put them on equal footing with the Japanese. Hell if I can figure out how its fair that only they have to deal with union blackmail.
And yes the Highlander/Rx hybrids are interesting as well, I forgot to mention them. The Lexus Rx crossover is expecially interesting since there's actually the prospect there of 1. offering the customer something other than piece of mind (namely increased performance), and 2. because they might actually be profitable.
As for GM Bob Lutz (the guy who makes all the silly pronouncements) is senile. As things are he'll be the death of GM if something isn't done about his current strategy of focusing exclusively on niche vehicles and letting the mainstream continue to fall further and further in mind. We must also remember however that he wants to push GMs advantage in technologies like cylinder deactivation anf fuel economy overall (yes, despite what you may think class-on-class GM usually gets the best fuel economy from its old-fashioned OHV engines - if poor performance). Also IIRC those comments were mainly in refrence to Europe, where I agree hybrids don't make any sense.
Much worse is GMs insistence that they are going to make a hydrogen powered car in the next few years where most everyone else has given up since it's nowhere near economical.
Hybrids in large pickups and SUVs offer other advanatges besides economy, however, such as the ability to have AC outlets mounted in the truck that feed off the battery (to plug in your tools or whatever).
Finally I don't think any SUV gets 10mpg. The diesel Excursions (the biggest SUVs on the road) get ~20 mpg.
I agree electric cars need to be phased in but this will happen over a very long period (which is starting with hybrids).
I ASSURE you oil is not about to run out any time soon, nor is the price going to rise drastically (the market price for oil should be much lower than it currently is, and will drop as massive Russian and Canadian supplies start to be tapped).
Effeciency is increasing all the time anyways at both end. As far as production the cost of extracting hard-to-get-to oil offshort is coming down all the time, as is the cost of produceing syncrude from tar sands (the lions share of the worlds oil reserves are in such tar sands, mostly in Canada - not exactly a country hostile to the US). On the use end cars are slowly getting more effecient. I read in the news this week that some wacko environmental group was running ads personally attacking Bill Ford Jr. because he didn't meet his (IMHO unreasonable) target or increasing the effeciency of Ford SUVs by 25% in 5 years. The story that doesn't get out is that they will acheive ~15% - and that with having increased power output greatly at the same time!!!
...actually my 5% number is off since I know you're only dealing with the energy downstream, but I suck at math so maybe someone else can help out.
IIRC:
:(
Modern petrol engines average ~25% effeciency - or a 75% loss. Note that that can be improved considerably with technology that's here now (direct injection, cylinder deactivation, hybrid electric systems, the miller effect, etc.)
A modern gas fired power plant is ~50% (50% loss). Transmission lines are ~90% effecient (10% loss). Battery effeciecy is ~75% (25% loss). And finally drive effeciency (the one people overly focus on) is a very good ~90% (10% loss). That's a total of... ~5% effeciency
Also worth noting newer diesel engines get near 50% effeciency to start with.
You = owned.
Ford's hybrid strategy actually makes sense. Instead of putting expensive hybrid powertrains in cheap and already effecient small cars, they're focusing their efforts on SUVs and large cars. The Escape (SUV) will have a hybrid powertrain in the next year or so, and the upcomming Futura (and I'm assuming it's relatives like the Mazda6, upcomming crossovers, etc.) will have one as well.
Also the reason the hybrid Escape was pushed back was because Ford decided to do te engineering by itself from scratch (originally it was more of a publicity stunt and they were going to source a Toyota or Honda powertrain).
And I assure you Ford designed powertrains run with the best of them. There's no reason to think their hybrid system won't be equal to or superior to what's coming from Honda/Toyota, especially since they have more engineering resources at their disposal and are pairing it to a newer an better gasoline engine family.
GM seems to be aiming even higher by commiting themselves to hybrid full size pickups and SUVs in the next few years. That would make for MAJOR fuel savings. Of course it would be nice of them to have a car hybrid strategy as well...
A few points:
- Much of the "waste" produced and stored by nuclear power plants is not waste at all, but is material that can be reprocessed or burned in a more effecient reactor but is not for cost/legal reasons. As fuel cycles become more advanced however more of this "waste" can be economically turned into power.
Desides that the amount of waste produced is relatively small by volume and isn't that difficult to store, nor is it very dangerous.
- Nuclear power IS cost effective. The latest CANDU plants for instance have the lowest running cost of any non-hydro power source available.
- I'd consider any accident risks (which are essentially none) and the cost of disposeing of waste INCREDIBLY SMALL compared to the risk we're running altering the planets atmosphere with Co2.
- Terrorism/WMD is an issue but it's already an issue - there's no putting the genie back into the bottle. The solution is to put in place an arms controll regeim with teeth that all countries are subject to whether they like it or not, and to deal with "rogue states" before they become a threat (i.e. before we get into a situation like we now face in North Korea).
- You're orbiting solar array idea is one of the stupidest I've ever heard, and nowhere within the realm of possibilities.
Solar chimneys are indeed very interesting and perhapse workable. Last I heard they were seriously considering building one in the Australian outback, but I can't imagine many other places you'd want to put one. As with other forms of "clean" energy (wind, hydro) they're a massive eyesore and have their own environmental consequences (I wonder what a socal chimney would do to the local plant population in terms of blocked sunlight, or to wind paterns, etc.)
Still definately much better than anything else I've heard proposed.
Ethanol OTOH is all hype. Even if it was cost effective putting so much land under ploy is a MASSIVE environmental cost (another thing I don't get about most "environmentalists" is why they so passionately oppose agricultural effeciencies that would allow more land to be turned back to nature).
1. You're first point is somewhat true, but it ignored the fact that modern gasoline engines in cars are already incredibly effecient and release essentially no chemical pollutants. While they do release carbon this is unavoidable, and the increased effeciency of burning fuel directly in a car for power rather versus going through the multiple conversions involved in electric cars results in much more fuel effeciency and hence less carbon release.
Also while you obviously can't go back and retrovit existing cars with the latest controlls, cars have a far shorter life-span than generating plants and hance on balance have far more modern pollution controlls.
You're statement that any electricity plant is better than any car is also plainly false, especially when we're talking about coal fired plants.
2. This is somewhat true as well, but as I stated elsewhere in this discussion the lifespan of a car on the road (~10 years I would guess) is far, far below the horizon of signifigant "clean" energy coming online.
I think you're the one who'se buying the hype and not thinking these things through.