Frankly, I wouldn't want anyone using such a system anywhere near me on the expressway.
Obviously I can't speak for the specs or method of operation for something I've never seen, but most current nav/entertainment systems can't be operated in certain modes while the vehicle is moving....like playing DVDs on the driver-facing screen or retrieving email, etc. Many aftermarket ones actually have motion detectors in them, not just an easily-defeatable "park" signal input.
I'm going to make the wild assumption that these will have the same types of safety interlocks.
Hell, if they really cared about driver safety they'd never have foisted the SUV upon an unsuspecting population. But they did, and successfully marketed those vehicles in such a way as to appeal to the closet sociopaths among us.
Huh?
More than once I've had the crap scared out of me by a cabby watching a portable TV on the passenger seat...
Oh....now that statement makes sense. Leave the city every once in a while. And I don't just mean to the suburbs. A little further than that. Some of us actually need SUVs for the size/4wd, because they are a better choice than driving a pickup for a family (or someone who has to move "clean" stuff). While I agree that the people in cities/suburbs who drive full size SUVs to work, on the highway, alone, and never use them for anything other than a status symbol is a travesty, some of us actually like these things.....for good reasons.
What I like about this statement is how holier-than-thou it sounds while you're trying to put down people who are allegedly holier-than-thou. I'm sure your privileged life is made terribly difficult by people who drink Starbucks and carry iPods. Huh?
Have any of these "most vocal" people actually been vocal with you? About what? And how do you know they don't know the facts about having a lesser impact on the environment?
Yes. About how they are saving the environment by choosing a vehicle that uses less gas, completely discounting the fact that a smaller car would use less gas if that was the real driving force of their decision. And how do I know? It's pretty obvious: hybrids use more gas than econoboxes.
Or are you judging them to be inferior because they're different?
Different than what or who? Than me? Yeah...I guess they are different. But I didn't say they were inferior. Just morons. Get on the right topic and that tag could apply to me, and certainly you, as well.
Why are hybrid owners the subject of such ridicule.
Because the most vocal group of hybrid owners are agenda-pushing, "I'm better than you because I'm hugging trees" (based on what the media tells me, but I don't really know the facts), starbucks-moca-frappa-apple-cina-chino-at-$6-a-pop -drinking, ipod carrying, morons. If you don't like the categorization, get out of the category by choosing a different car. If you don't like that answer, you'll need to learn how to come to grips with the simple facts: car ownership in this country has somehow become intertwined with people's first impression of you. I don't support it, but I also don't stick my head in the sand and pretend its not reality.
Just about anyone with a properly installed central station alarm system already has one and probably dones't even know it. (central station like the kind with the keypad that you shut on and off in case of burglar....hooked up to your phone line to call the fire department when you're not home, etc.)
One really nice thing about natural gas is that a gas fireplace and hot water heater work when the power is out
And you can run your gas or oil furnace on just about the smallest generator you can get your hands on, as they need power only to run an ignitor, control circuity, draft fan (sometimes), and main fan/circulator pump (depending on forced air or water circulation).
talk to your local fire department. they should be able to point you in the right direction. don't forget to ask about other hazardous materials you don't how to deal with. propane. industrial solvents, pesticides, and so forth.
No. Don't. That's not our damn job, nor do we know (within the scope of our job). Call your local municipality and find out who the appropriate agency is. It may be public works. It may be an annual collection sponsored by your state DEP. It may be your public works department. But, almost NEVER EVER is it yoru fire department.
And some other advice, when we're pulling back into the barn, don't come by asking us for patches/t-shirts/etc. We act like we're happy to see you, but we aren't. Deal with it.
How can an electric furnace be inefficient? Am I missng something?
The logical assumption is that he meant electric heat pump. Which is a completely differnet animal, that includes an "electric furnace" (loding coils) for when it is either too cold to too broken to work properly. Using a heat pump, even a standard split system, is much more efficient that direct electrical loading as a heat source. Geothermal is even better.
It's called a gas vapor alarm. Any house with gas in it should have one. Just like all houses should have a smoke alarm per level, plus on in the hallway outside of the bedrooms, and on in each bedroom. This is a known quantity. That fact that people don't do it makes it tragic. The results are just predictible.
Safety is definitely the concern with natural gas. My brother is both an EMS first responder and part-time firefighter.
Blah blah blah. I'm the Fire Marshal of a small town in PA. Most fires (not just in my town) are caused by cooking, and have nothing to do with the fuel used. It has little to do with the exact method of heating, its just that its hot. It's normally because of carelessness (especially including lack of maintenence). This includes crappy old gas stoves with no thermocoulpes that aren't properly mainteined. It includes overloaded elctgrical circuits. It includes filty ranges that have dirt and buildup catch fire during normal usage. It includes imporperly installed applicnces that don't vent correctly. It includes decrepit electrical wiring in the wall supplying a 30 amp 240v circuit.
Don't kid yourself that gas is a higher risk. Improperly installed, improperly mainteained, and imporperly used are the real risks.
I've been lucky enough to figure that out a little quicker that it sounds like you did, although I'm sure figuring out how you get out of the debt kinda keeps you right in there (which is all part of the plan). I have one foot out of the computer industry at this point, working for a small town as their part-time fire marshal. You can't beat the job security, and the job satisfaction (as leat for me, a 14-year volunteer firefighter who is happy to finally show up proactively rather then after things have already gone wrong). Not to mention I work minutes from my home.
I hear the stories form friends and former colliegues about buyouts, mergers, "I think we might not get bonuses this year because the new home office says out salaires are out of line", and "I think I just got put into the department of redundancy department....better start surfing Monster." I'm so glad I don't have to deal with any of that anymore. I'm a happier person, and my friends and family can tell the difference.
I also get a kick out of the head hunters still calling me and getting their reactions. "Is this a good time?" "Sorry, no, I'm in the middle of an arson investigation." "What?" Yeah.
My mileage drops by 2 to 3 mpg (down to 15-16 mpg) if I'm towing 5,000 pounds - but my friends with gas trucks get 6 to 10 mpg with the same load.
and you probably tow it easier. I'm in the same (gas) boat towing my RV. If I had any idea that I would have been towing this thing when I bought the truck, it would have been a diesel. Now I just have to find $45,000 in the seat cushions to pay for the diesel pickup I want.
anti-lock brakes give you far more control then manual disk breaks, and they have been used for many years. Assuming your not pumping the ABS. If you are pumping , then STOP it.
Actually, anti-lock brakes give average to below average drivers, as well as good drivers who may be distracted a better chance at stopping effectively most of the time.
My biggest problem with ABS is on my pickup. It both increases the stopping distance and makes the vehicle hazzardous to handle in some special, albeit common for me, circumstances.
The most common, least special, and probably familiar to anyone who has driven a pickup with ABS is "bed hop". You are coming to a stop, hit a small bump wile unloaded, and the rear tires lose traction for a split second. And you hear the dreaded "tick tick tick tick tick tick" coming from under the dashboard, and it feel like you just let pressure off the break pedal. THen you have to decide if it's OK that you're going to stop like 20 feet after you intended to, get ont he brakes harder and hope you can stop faster, or get completely off the brakes and start over to the ABS isn't going anymore. This situation bites, only to be surpassed by early 90's and earlier ABS on pickups, where they had rear ABS only which had the wonderful tendancy to get do far out of control that the bed would actually keep hopping until you got off the brakes or came to a severely increased distance stop.
OK, group of situations number 2: off-road. In many situations, those experienced with driving off-road will get into a situation where you are going at a slow speed, down a hill, and need to turn right or left at the bottom, often times more sharply than you can reasonably do so (thanks, for making my turning circle just slightly smaller than that of a 747, Ford!). In this situation, it's pretty typical to get pointed a bit in the direction of your turn, and lock the brakes (and release, and repeat, etc in order to keep control) to slide your back end around. Yes, this was driver error on my part, but it was quite a shock to have the vehicle simply not do what it is supposed to the first (and last) time you try this maneuver in a truck with ABS (which is why I love my 1974 F250....well, that and the fact that it's a 2-ton beast that refuses to die).
So don't think that ABS is good for everyone, or for every situation. I have plenty more, but I think one very common one, and one more specialized situation are plenty to illustrate my point.
No you don't, they just make the job easier to do. You can always get the job done using more generic, everyday tools, it's just a matter of how much extra effort it takes. Sometimes only a little more effort, really.
What? Let's just take the parent's example of the fuel line disconnect tool. What common tool can you use for that, even with more effort? Answer: NONE, without damaging the original connection and/or hose.
Also, I'd like to see you get the CV joints out of a Porsche 944 without the right tool. If you don't have it, you have to make it out of "common tools", but there is simply no way around it.
Again, 944. How about the timing belt tension? Please, I'd love to know.
I could go on for a while here, but I think that makes my point.
To have a university undergrad degree assumes a certain set of skills across the curriculum--the ability write correctly, the use of critical thinking skills, as well as a basic understanding of the sciences, the arts, math, literature, language, etc.
Remember when that's what a High School diploma was supposed to mean?
I seem to recall running into something (not quite as extensive) but like that, and disabling caching too care of it. It was yet another delete the profile and start over and things magically work.
I'm not saying the feature I mentioned were perfect.....far from it. But they are an improvement when they work, and fixing them SHOULD be a service pack/hotfix not a new version. Yes, I realize who I'm talking about tha the likelihood of a "free" fix.....
Not that I use it anymore, but I recall Outlook 2003 being quite a bit better thatn Outlook 2000 because you could finally do a full-blown outlook connection to a machine over https, rather than having to have a VPN or totally insecure exchange box pointed at the Internet. It also would cache the entire profile/mail/etc and sync in the background, so you could work offline and, when working offline, things generally felt snappier, since you hacd a cached version.
You would burn out a clutch pretty quickly.
Not if you know how to drive.
Also, many Americans drive trucks, which sort of takes the fun element away from the stick shift.
How is a 275+ horsepower pickup that eats most "sports cars" (yes, I mean Mustangs and the like) from a stop or rolling start not fun? Unless you're talking about those little 1/4 ton "trucks" with the 4 and 6 speeds in them.
The Chevy's may be quiet compared to Ford or Dodges, but not compared to cars. I haven't heard any diesel, regardless of make, sound as quiet as a gasoline engine.
I know I didn't mention it before, but I've been standing next to a newer Mercedes diesel and didn't notice it was s diesel until it pulled away.....it wasn't louder, but you could hear the difference. So if you spend $70k+ on a car, maybe you can get a quiet diesel in the US;)
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Frankly, I wouldn't want anyone using such a system anywhere near me on the expressway.
Obviously I can't speak for the specs or method of operation for something I've never seen, but most current nav/entertainment systems can't be operated in certain modes while the vehicle is moving....like playing DVDs on the driver-facing screen or retrieving email, etc. Many aftermarket ones actually have motion detectors in them, not just an easily-defeatable "park" signal input.
I'm going to make the wild assumption that these will have the same types of safety interlocks.
Hell, if they really cared about driver safety they'd never have foisted the SUV upon an unsuspecting population. But they did, and successfully marketed those vehicles in such a way as to appeal to the closet sociopaths among us.
Huh?
More than once I've had the crap scared out of me by a cabby watching a portable TV on the passenger seat...
Oh....now that statement makes sense. Leave the city every once in a while. And I don't just mean to the suburbs. A little further than that. Some of us actually need SUVs for the size/4wd, because they are a better choice than driving a pickup for a family (or someone who has to move "clean" stuff). While I agree that the people in cities/suburbs who drive full size SUVs to work, on the highway, alone, and never use them for anything other than a status symbol is a travesty, some of us actually like these things.....for good reasons.
What I like about this statement is how holier-than-thou it sounds while you're trying to put down people who are allegedly holier-than-thou. I'm sure your privileged life is made terribly difficult by people who drink Starbucks and carry iPods.
Huh?
Have any of these "most vocal" people actually been vocal with you? About what? And how do you know they don't know the facts about having a lesser impact on the environment?
Yes. About how they are saving the environment by choosing a vehicle that uses less gas, completely discounting the fact that a smaller car would use less gas if that was the real driving force of their decision. And how do I know? It's pretty obvious: hybrids use more gas than econoboxes.
Or are you judging them to be inferior because they're different?
Different than what or who? Than me? Yeah...I guess they are different. But I didn't say they were inferior. Just morons. Get on the right topic and that tag could apply to me, and certainly you, as well.
Why are hybrid owners the subject of such ridicule.
p -drinking, ipod carrying, morons. If you don't like the categorization, get out of the category by choosing a different car. If you don't like that answer, you'll need to learn how to come to grips with the simple facts: car ownership in this country has somehow become intertwined with people's first impression of you. I don't support it, but I also don't stick my head in the sand and pretend its not reality.
Because the most vocal group of hybrid owners are agenda-pushing, "I'm better than you because I'm hugging trees" (based on what the media tells me, but I don't really know the facts), starbucks-moca-frappa-apple-cina-chino-at-$6-a-po
Just about anyone with a properly installed central station alarm system already has one and probably dones't even know it. (central station like the kind with the keypad that you shut on and off in case of burglar....hooked up to your phone line to call the fire department when you're not home, etc.)
One really nice thing about natural gas is that a gas fireplace and hot water heater work when the power is out
And you can run your gas or oil furnace on just about the smallest generator you can get your hands on, as they need power only to run an ignitor, control circuity, draft fan (sometimes), and main fan/circulator pump (depending on forced air or water circulation).
talk to your local fire department. they should be able to point you in the right direction. don't forget to ask about other hazardous materials you don't how to deal with. propane. industrial solvents, pesticides, and so forth.
No. Don't. That's not our damn job, nor do we know (within the scope of our job). Call your local municipality and find out who the appropriate agency is. It may be public works. It may be an annual collection sponsored by your state DEP. It may be your public works department. But, almost NEVER EVER is it yoru fire department.
And some other advice, when we're pulling back into the barn, don't come by asking us for patches/t-shirts/etc. We act like we're happy to see you, but we aren't. Deal with it.
How can an electric furnace be inefficient? Am I missng something?
The logical assumption is that he meant electric heat pump. Which is a completely differnet animal, that includes an "electric furnace" (loding coils) for when it is either too cold to too broken to work properly. Using a heat pump, even a standard split system, is much more efficient that direct electrical loading as a heat source. Geothermal is even better.
It's called a gas vapor alarm. Any house with gas in it should have one. Just like all houses should have a smoke alarm per level, plus on in the hallway outside of the bedrooms, and on in each bedroom. This is a known quantity. That fact that people don't do it makes it tragic. The results are just predictible.
Safety is definitely the concern with natural gas. My brother is both an EMS first responder and part-time firefighter.
Blah blah blah. I'm the Fire Marshal of a small town in PA. Most fires (not just in my town) are caused by cooking, and have nothing to do with the fuel used. It has little to do with the exact method of heating, its just that its hot. It's normally because of carelessness (especially including lack of maintenence). This includes crappy old gas stoves with no thermocoulpes that aren't properly mainteined. It includes overloaded elctgrical circuits. It includes filty ranges that have dirt and buildup catch fire during normal usage. It includes imporperly installed applicnces that don't vent correctly. It includes decrepit electrical wiring in the wall supplying a 30 amp 240v circuit.
Don't kid yourself that gas is a higher risk. Improperly installed, improperly mainteained, and imporperly used are the real risks.
I've been lucky enough to figure that out a little quicker that it sounds like you did, although I'm sure figuring out how you get out of the debt kinda keeps you right in there (which is all part of the plan). I have one foot out of the computer industry at this point, working for a small town as their part-time fire marshal. You can't beat the job security, and the job satisfaction (as leat for me, a 14-year volunteer firefighter who is happy to finally show up proactively rather then after things have already gone wrong). Not to mention I work minutes from my home.
I hear the stories form friends and former colliegues about buyouts, mergers, "I think we might not get bonuses this year because the new home office says out salaires are out of line", and "I think I just got put into the department of redundancy department....better start surfing Monster." I'm so glad I don't have to deal with any of that anymore. I'm a happier person, and my friends and family can tell the difference.
I also get a kick out of the head hunters still calling me and getting their reactions. "Is this a good time?" "Sorry, no, I'm in the middle of an arson investigation." "What?" Yeah.
Think of the children^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfish!
To expand on your post:
I find that shareware programmers are the worst offenders, with Apple themselves being second place, particulary in their Pro apps.
My mileage drops by 2 to 3 mpg (down to 15-16 mpg) if I'm towing 5,000 pounds - but my friends with gas trucks get 6 to 10 mpg with the same load.
and you probably tow it easier. I'm in the same (gas) boat towing my RV. If I had any idea that I would have been towing this thing when I bought the truck, it would have been a diesel. Now I just have to find $45,000 in the seat cushions to pay for the diesel pickup I want.
anti-lock brakes give you far more control then manual disk breaks, and they have been used for many years. Assuming your not pumping the ABS. If you are pumping , then STOP it.
Actually, anti-lock brakes give average to below average drivers, as well as good drivers who may be distracted a better chance at stopping effectively most of the time.
My biggest problem with ABS is on my pickup. It both increases the stopping distance and makes the vehicle hazzardous to handle in some special, albeit common for me, circumstances.
The most common, least special, and probably familiar to anyone who has driven a pickup with ABS is "bed hop". You are coming to a stop, hit a small bump wile unloaded, and the rear tires lose traction for a split second. And you hear the dreaded "tick tick tick tick tick tick" coming from under the dashboard, and it feel like you just let pressure off the break pedal. THen you have to decide if it's OK that you're going to stop like 20 feet after you intended to, get ont he brakes harder and hope you can stop faster, or get completely off the brakes and start over to the ABS isn't going anymore. This situation bites, only to be surpassed by early 90's and earlier ABS on pickups, where they had rear ABS only which had the wonderful tendancy to get do far out of control that the bed would actually keep hopping until you got off the brakes or came to a severely increased distance stop.
OK, group of situations number 2: off-road. In many situations, those experienced with driving off-road will get into a situation where you are going at a slow speed, down a hill, and need to turn right or left at the bottom, often times more sharply than you can reasonably do so (thanks, for making my turning circle just slightly smaller than that of a 747, Ford!). In this situation, it's pretty typical to get pointed a bit in the direction of your turn, and lock the brakes (and release, and repeat, etc in order to keep control) to slide your back end around. Yes, this was driver error on my part, but it was quite a shock to have the vehicle simply not do what it is supposed to the first (and last) time you try this maneuver in a truck with ABS (which is why I love my 1974 F250....well, that and the fact that it's a 2-ton beast that refuses to die).
So don't think that ABS is good for everyone, or for every situation. I have plenty more, but I think one very common one, and one more specialized situation are plenty to illustrate my point.
Human beings really can only fix cars that were designed and manufactured pre-computer.
I guess that makes me some kind of cyborg, fixing my whiz-bang 97 F150, cutting edge 98 Explorer, and uber-technologically advenced 85 944.
One of the three in my car controls the transmission (tiptronic...
Oooh....which P-car do you have?
No you don't, they just make the job easier to do. You can always get the job done using more generic, everyday tools, it's just a matter of how much extra effort it takes. Sometimes only a little more effort, really.
What? Let's just take the parent's example of the fuel line disconnect tool. What common tool can you use for that, even with more effort? Answer: NONE, without damaging the original connection and/or hose.
Also, I'd like to see you get the CV joints out of a Porsche 944 without the right tool. If you don't have it, you have to make it out of "common tools", but there is simply no way around it.
Again, 944. How about the timing belt tension? Please, I'd love to know.
I could go on for a while here, but I think that makes my point.
To have a university undergrad degree assumes a certain set of skills across the curriculum--the ability write correctly, the use of critical thinking skills, as well as a basic understanding of the sciences, the arts, math, literature, language, etc.
Remember when that's what a High School diploma was supposed to mean?
I seem to recall running into something (not quite as extensive) but like that, and disabling caching too care of it. It was yet another delete the profile and start over and things magically work. I'm not saying the feature I mentioned were perfect.....far from it. But they are an improvement when they work, and fixing them SHOULD be a service pack/hotfix not a new version. Yes, I realize who I'm talking about tha the likelihood of a "free" fix.....
Not that I use it anymore, but I recall Outlook 2003 being quite a bit better thatn Outlook 2000 because you could finally do a full-blown outlook connection to a machine over https, rather than having to have a VPN or totally insecure exchange box pointed at the Internet. It also would cache the entire profile/mail/etc and sync in the background, so you could work offline and, when working offline, things generally felt snappier, since you hacd a cached version.
Apple is closer to a "value added reseller" than a hardware manufacturer.
Since when did VAR's start deisging their own hardware and writing the software for it?
Apple is nothing at all like a VAR as far as overall business model.
Sounds like you're an idiot. Back to your parents' basement.
You would burn out a clutch pretty quickly.
Not if you know how to drive.
Also, many Americans drive trucks, which sort of takes the fun element away from the stick shift.
How is a 275+ horsepower pickup that eats most "sports cars" (yes, I mean Mustangs and the like) from a stop or rolling start not fun? Unless you're talking about those little 1/4 ton "trucks" with the 4 and 6 speeds in them.
Depending on the year, OS/2 2.x and above were your friend
No way. DesqView and QEMM all the way!
The Chevy's may be quiet compared to Ford or Dodges, but not compared to cars. I haven't heard any diesel, regardless of make, sound as quiet as a gasoline engine.
;)
I know I didn't mention it before, but I've been standing next to a newer Mercedes diesel and didn't notice it was s diesel until it pulled away.....it wasn't louder, but you could hear the difference. So if you spend $70k+ on a car, maybe you can get a quiet diesel in the US