My Impala is comfortable, reliable, safe, and it gets surprisingly good gas mileage - a consistent 24/31. But by no stretch of the imagination is it exciting.
In many cars, when a dashboard indicator comes on it stays on until it is reset - even if you fix the problem.
So if this girl had the gas cap loose once, it's possible that the light would stay on even after she tightened it. Not knowing why the light stayed on, she went back to the dealer.
My father-in-law has a car with a standard and he offered to teach me some time. I've just been so damn busy. Hopefully I can prevail upon him for lessons later this summer.
I'm mostly just drawn by the better gas mileage. The gas mileage difference for compact cars is 3-8 mpg, which adds up fast when you consider the 20,000 miles I drive each year.
I think you used manual where you meant automatic and vice versa a few times. If not, I'm really confused.
First you mention a cheap automatic that can handle 1000 horsepower, then you say that an automatic that can handle 500 horsepower costs a fortune. Which is it?
I want to learn how to drive standard, but I never had the chance. Oddly enough, most of the software engineers I work with use manual transmissions, despite the fact that only one is a real enthusiast.
The payments and insurance on a Hummer H2, Cadillac Escalade, Ford Expedition, or Toyota Land Cruiser will top $1000 per month easily. Even at $2 per gallon, fuel expenses are insignificant by comparison.
There are very fuel efficient cars on the market - Volkswagen Jetta TDIs, Honda Civic HXs, the Toyota Echo and Corolla, plus the hybrids. Most of them are reliable, safe, excellent vehicles. The fact remains that the big trucks outsell them five to one. Any automaker that doesn't take advantage of that trend will just go out of business.
Yes, but in Europe the $4 or $5 per US gallon cost reflects substantial government taxes.
The cost in the linked article is pre-tax, before calculating costs to transport the fuel to fueling stations, and before factoring in price markups for gas station profits. We're talking $6 per gallon easily, before we even add tax.
The technology needs to get substantially cheaper before it is viable.
You're absolutely right. A simple cost benefit analysis shows that buying a brand new more fuel efficient vehicle is almost never the cheaper way to go when you already possess a vehicle that works.
I owe about $8,000 on a car worth $6,500 that gets 25 mpg. If I plan for the next five years, fuel prices have to average more than $8.00 per gallon for it to be worthwhile to trade it in for a new car with better fuel efficiency.
A used car with good fuel efficiency, good crash protection and side curtain airbags is, unfortunately, still a rarety. That would ultimately be the best choice.
Yeah, but then you get nonsense like this, wherein an environmental scientist writes up a beautiful plan for making Biodiesel for the whole US and then carefully downplays the fact that the cost per gallon exceeds $4.00 before you even ship the product to a fueling station
This kind of thing only works if it's cheap, and it's only cheap for this guy because so few other people do it.
Agreed. A college friend mine did his senior thesis on a program that could verify proofs using only two axioms and three transformations that were very simple.
It was a lot of work, despite the absurdly simple proofs it was checking.
I'm not sure why, but on all of the newer fullsize trucks the ones with automatic transmissions have greater towing capacity.
Not that there's anything wrong with a standard transmission, I'm just pointing out that it may not be the best way to go if you plan to do any towing.
First, a debt owed 50 years from France and England from 60 years ago is as irrelevant as the one Germany owes all three.
But that said, remember that France and England let the Nazies grow to power and violate the terms of the treaties after WWI, take Austria, and conquer Poland without doing anything. They didn't get involved until they were attacked directly, which puts them on moral ground no higher than the US.
Remember too that the US was in a two-front war, and things might have been substantially different in Europe if the Japanese weren't involved.
You are right, though, that well over half the German soldiers killed in the war died fighting Soviet troops.
Slackware 9.1 has KDE - I should know, I have it running.
But it doesn't auto-detect and install my CD-burner, I have to configure it myself. It also doesn't support my wireless card. I had to read the man pages to create users. When it loads up, I have to login as root, start kdm, then login as a user - I know I can set it to boot to kdm automatically, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Once it's all up and running, it's every bit as user friendly as any other OS. But the install and configuration still requires much more work than Windows.
Feeding pigs requires particular foods and a lot of time and energy. Why bother? Why not just use the Thermal Depolymerization on the crops directly?
It would be more efficient to pick plants that grow as quickly as possible or required relatively low amounts of fertilizer. Maybe industrial hemp, bamboo, or just plain old grass.
Petroleum is still the most energy dense fuel it is feasible to use in internal combustion engines for automobiles. Whether we like it or not, for the forseeable future we need it.
If we can move most or all of our fixed electrical grid to renewable resources like solar, wind, and hydro-electric power, a sufficiently large network of these conversion plants could create all the automotive fuel we need.
AND remove our dependence upon foreign nations for energy.
AND keep all of the money spent on energy in the hands of businesses based in the US.
If the Christian God exists, I frankly would rather side with Lucifer. At least Lucifer is honest - he's evil and trying to take over. The Christian God is a petulant, capricious, childish ruler who's not worthy of worship.... I don't know what term would describe my beliefs. I can accept that a God exists, but I don't believe it gives a damn (pardon the term) about human worship.
Thank you for the reasoned and thoughtful response. I disagree with much of what you say, but I'm grateful that you're willing to engage in a polite discussion.
It is true that behaviors outside of homosexuality would push harder for acceptance once homosexuality was accepted. But that doesn't mean they would make any headway. The North American Man Boy Love Association exists, and has been fighting for (male) pedophiles' rights for years. But I believe people will continue to understand, as they do today, that the concept is an abomination.
You are right that reasoned debate on many subjects is often quashed, and I do think it's wrong.
If I recall correctly, there are enough passages in the Bible which condemn homosexuality that it takes a big stretch to say they all meant something else. However, the point is irrelevant since I am not a Christian.
You would think of homosexual behavior was so counterproductive, natural selection would have removed it from the animal kingdom long ago. But it still shows up in other primates and a few other species.
I personally don't put much stake into the experimentation and puberty viewpoint on it. The idea of sex with another man is so distasteful to me, I could not possibly experiment with it. That cements my position that sexuality is part of a person's fundamental psychological nature, because nothing could make me choose to be other than heterosexual.
I think a lot of the historical prejudice against homosexuality has been from primitive views on the roles of men and women and the way reproduction worked. First, most ancient societies considered men superior to women. In homosexual encounters, one of the men had to be penetrated - i.e. take on the woman's role. This was considered degrading to all men and thus forbidden. Second, before the medical understanding of sex, it was believed that a man's semen was all that was required to make a baby. The semen had to be deposited inside a woman for the baby to grow, but they didn't know about how a sperm must join with the egg to form a zygote. That's why the Judeo-Christian religions considered male masturbation a grave wrongdoing - they thought spilling semen ouside a woman's body was infanticide. Similarly, when two men had sex the semen would not end up in women, and they thought it was infanticide.
"I've tried several times to start an exercise program, but I've got so far to go before it's really fun."
I think you missed his point entirely.
When I had a 70 pound bench maximum press, I had no enthusiasm for working out because even a 20 pound increase in my maximum would still leave me with an overall poor level of strength.
Now I have a 200 pound bench press, and my workouts are much more demanding across the board. Yet I positively love working out now, because my strength is good and I'm excited about making it even better.
I think that's what the guy is talking about. It's hard to get excited about running a 12 minute mile, even if it is the fastest you've ever been, because it's still really slow. If you run eight minute miles and you're trying for six minute miles, you are going from moderately fast to very fast, and chances are good that you'll be very excited.
If you're driving a Corvette with an automatic transmission and you try to keep your foot all the way to the floor for 60 seconds straight, you're either on a particularly long and deserted stretch of highway or flat as a pancake:).
I don't know anything about stirling engines - I'll look it up, thanks.
The advantage over a steam engine is at least three factors: 1. You don't need time to warm up the steam tank when you start the car. 2. You don't need to keep refilling a water reservoir. 3. Excess power generated in one trip (i.e. the air volume in the tanks) can be stored for future trips. In steam, the excess is wasted.
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I'm still jealous. I'd love an MR2.
My Impala is comfortable, reliable, safe, and it gets surprisingly good gas mileage - a consistent 24/31. But by no stretch of the imagination is it exciting.
If you're buying, I'll take one.
Otherwise, a $40,000 hot rod which probably has a huge dealer markup due to the large waiting list is out of my range.
(off topic) Awesome signature.
Brainiac,
In many cars, when a dashboard indicator comes on it stays on until it is reset - even if you fix the problem.
So if this girl had the gas cap loose once, it's possible that the light would stay on even after she tightened it. Not knowing why the light stayed on, she went back to the dealer.
Thanks for the tip.
My father-in-law has a car with a standard and he offered to teach me some time. I've just been so damn busy. Hopefully I can prevail upon him for lessons later this summer.
I'm mostly just drawn by the better gas mileage. The gas mileage difference for compact cars is 3-8 mpg, which adds up fast when you consider the 20,000 miles I drive each year.
Engine size is a red herring anyway.
GM uses tall gearing on their large V6 engines. The Impala 3.4 liter V6 is EPA rated at mileage 21/32. The new Malibu 3.5 liter V6 is EPA rated 23/32.
The 3.0 liter Accord V6, the 3.0 liter Camry V6, the 2.5 liter Altima I4, and 2.8 liter Passat V6 are all rated for poorer gas mileage.
GM's European divisions sell less fuel efficient engines in their vehicles based upon the same platform because of European tax on engine size.
I think you used manual where you meant automatic and vice versa a few times. If not, I'm really confused.
First you mention a cheap automatic that can handle 1000 horsepower, then you say that an automatic that can handle 500 horsepower costs a fortune. Which is it?
Thanks for the info.
I want to learn how to drive standard, but I never had the chance. Oddly enough, most of the software engineers I work with use manual transmissions, despite the fact that only one is a real enthusiast.
It's a cost issue, not a conspiracy.
The payments and insurance on a Hummer H2, Cadillac Escalade, Ford Expedition, or Toyota Land Cruiser will top $1000 per month easily. Even at $2 per gallon, fuel expenses are insignificant by comparison.
There are very fuel efficient cars on the market - Volkswagen Jetta TDIs, Honda Civic HXs, the Toyota Echo and Corolla, plus the hybrids. Most of them are reliable, safe, excellent vehicles. The fact remains that the big trucks outsell them five to one. Any automaker that doesn't take advantage of that trend will just go out of business.
Yes, but in Europe the $4 or $5 per US gallon cost reflects substantial government taxes.
The cost in the linked article is pre-tax, before calculating costs to transport the fuel to fueling stations, and before factoring in price markups for gas station profits. We're talking $6 per gallon easily, before we even add tax.
The technology needs to get substantially cheaper before it is viable.
You're absolutely right. A simple cost benefit analysis shows that buying a brand new more fuel efficient vehicle is almost never the cheaper way to go when you already possess a vehicle that works.
I owe about $8,000 on a car worth $6,500 that gets 25 mpg. If I plan for the next five years, fuel prices have to average more than $8.00 per gallon for it to be worthwhile to trade it in for a new car with better fuel efficiency.
A used car with good fuel efficiency, good crash protection and side curtain airbags is, unfortunately, still a rarety. That would ultimately be the best choice.
Right, but it's a question of scale.
According to the article linked in this slashdot discussion, the US uses the equivalent of about 141 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year.
That's around 500 gallons per person in the country. You'd need a thousand times as many restaurant fryers to come up with that much vegetable oil.
Yeah, but then you get nonsense like this, wherein an environmental scientist writes up a beautiful plan for making Biodiesel for the whole US and then carefully downplays the fact that the cost per gallon exceeds $4.00 before you even ship the product to a fueling station
This kind of thing only works if it's cheap, and it's only cheap for this guy because so few other people do it.
Agreed. A college friend mine did his senior thesis on a program that could verify proofs using only two axioms and three transformations that were very simple.
It was a lot of work, despite the absurdly simple proofs it was checking.
I'm not sure why, but on all of the newer fullsize trucks the ones with automatic transmissions have greater towing capacity.
Not that there's anything wrong with a standard transmission, I'm just pointing out that it may not be the best way to go if you plan to do any towing.
First, a debt owed 50 years from France and England from 60 years ago is as irrelevant as the one Germany owes all three.
But that said, remember that France and England let the Nazies grow to power and violate the terms of the treaties after WWI, take Austria, and conquer Poland without doing anything. They didn't get involved until they were attacked directly, which puts them on moral ground no higher than the US.
Remember too that the US was in a two-front war, and things might have been substantially different in Europe if the Japanese weren't involved.
You are right, though, that well over half the German soldiers killed in the war died fighting Soviet troops.
Exactly.
Exxon doesn't put $6.00/gallon biodiesel in its fueling stations because nobody would buy it, not because Exxon executives hate the environment.
The energy companies want to stay in business and make a profit while doing so. They want the cheapest supply of crude oil they can get, period.
Like you said, it's OPEC that would benefit by squashing cheap alternative fuels.
Slackware 9.1 has KDE - I should know, I have it running.
But it doesn't auto-detect and install my CD-burner, I have to configure it myself. It also doesn't support my wireless card. I had to read the man pages to create users. When it loads up, I have to login as root, start kdm, then login as a user - I know I can set it to boot to kdm automatically, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Once it's all up and running, it's every bit as user friendly as any other OS. But the install and configuration still requires much more work than Windows.
Feeding pigs requires particular foods and a lot of time and energy. Why bother? Why not just use the Thermal Depolymerization on the crops directly?
It would be more efficient to pick plants that grow as quickly as possible or required relatively low amounts of fertilizer. Maybe industrial hemp, bamboo, or just plain old grass.
Petroleum is still the most energy dense fuel it is feasible to use in internal combustion engines for automobiles. Whether we like it or not, for the forseeable future we need it.
If we can move most or all of our fixed electrical grid to renewable resources like solar, wind, and hydro-electric power, a sufficiently large network of these conversion plants could create all the automotive fuel we need.
AND remove our dependence upon foreign nations for energy.
AND keep all of the money spent on energy in the hands of businesses based in the US.
AND keep tens of thousands of Americans employed.
I'm all for it.
If the Christian God exists, I frankly would rather side with Lucifer. At least Lucifer is honest - he's evil and trying to take over. The Christian God is a petulant, capricious, childish ruler who's not worthy of worship. ...
I don't know what term would describe my beliefs. I can accept that a God exists, but I don't believe it gives a damn (pardon the term) about human worship.
Thank you for the reasoned and thoughtful response. I disagree with much of what you say, but I'm grateful that you're willing to engage in a polite discussion.
It is true that behaviors outside of homosexuality would push harder for acceptance once homosexuality was accepted. But that doesn't mean they would make any headway. The North American Man Boy Love Association exists, and has been fighting for (male) pedophiles' rights for years. But I believe people will continue to understand, as they do today, that the concept is an abomination.
You are right that reasoned debate on many subjects is often quashed, and I do think it's wrong.
If I recall correctly, there are enough passages in the Bible which condemn homosexuality that it takes a big stretch to say they all meant something else. However, the point is irrelevant since I am not a Christian.
You would think of homosexual behavior was so counterproductive, natural selection would have removed it from the animal kingdom long ago. But it still shows up in other primates and a few other species.
I personally don't put much stake into the experimentation and puberty viewpoint on it. The idea of sex with another man is so distasteful to me, I could not possibly experiment with it. That cements my position that sexuality is part of a person's fundamental psychological nature, because nothing could make me choose to be other than heterosexual.
I think a lot of the historical prejudice against homosexuality has been from primitive views on the roles of men and women and the way reproduction worked. First, most ancient societies considered men superior to women. In homosexual encounters, one of the men had to be penetrated - i.e. take on the woman's role. This was considered degrading to all men and thus forbidden. Second, before the medical understanding of sex, it was believed that a man's semen was all that was required to make a baby. The semen had to be deposited inside a woman for the baby to grow, but they didn't know about how a sperm must join with the egg to form a zygote. That's why the Judeo-Christian religions considered male masturbation a grave wrongdoing - they thought spilling semen ouside a woman's body was infanticide. Similarly, when two men had sex the semen would not end up in women, and they thought it was infanticide.
"I've tried several times to start an exercise program, but I've got so far to go before it's really fun."
I think you missed his point entirely.
When I had a 70 pound bench maximum press, I had no enthusiasm for working out because even a 20 pound increase in my maximum would still leave me with an overall poor level of strength.
Now I have a 200 pound bench press, and my workouts are much more demanding across the board. Yet I positively love working out now, because my strength is good and I'm excited about making it even better.
I think that's what the guy is talking about. It's hard to get excited about running a 12 minute mile, even if it is the fastest you've ever been, because it's still really slow. If you run eight minute miles and you're trying for six minute miles, you are going from moderately fast to very fast, and chances are good that you'll be very excited.
It depends upon your power output, doesn't it?
:).
If you're driving a Corvette with an automatic transmission and you try to keep your foot all the way to the floor for 60 seconds straight, you're either on a particularly long and deserted stretch of highway or flat as a pancake
I don't know anything about stirling engines - I'll look it up, thanks.
The advantage over a steam engine is at least three factors:
1. You don't need time to warm up the steam tank when you start the car.
2. You don't need to keep refilling a water reservoir.
3. Excess power generated in one trip (i.e. the air volume in the tanks) can be stored for future trips. In steam, the excess is wasted.