The fact that the website is offering a prize is a case to prosecute the creators. I'm not a lawyer.. yet I think that rewarding an illegal act is called solicitation. In all states this is an illegal act that would be prosecuted by usually charging them with the same crime and reducing the class of the offense by one level. I hope they arrest and prosecute the moron who placed the site.
Sure they could switch over, but they would all have to get NEW phones. IDEN is unique to Nextel phones.
I pay a pretty high $70 a month for my nextel phone, but I had 3000+ incoming minutes last month during PEAK usage hours and didn't pay a dime extra. Reason: I have a free-incoming plan with Nextel.
Direct Connect is great! Fast to get the person you want, it uses a queuing system to get the persons attention, you have the option of simply starting to talk (much like the god scenario in weird science), and the best thing... No one can interrupt you while you are talking to them! HA!
Unfortunately, it's works both ways.
And why isn't someone out there filing suit against verizon for extortion, or unfair competitive practices?
Has anyone out there simply tried to get a simple phone line? It's near impossible! I just want a flat rate phone line that won't call to 'extended local areas' (.20 a min) that don't require an area code. Or how about the caller id/call blocking features they sell to consumers that they then turn around and sell anti call blocking to telemarketers?
I don't think I have to spell it out for any one, but we all know how verizon uses it's power to leverage the telecommunications industry and the government. They work harder so we can be further confused by our phone bills that each month only seem to go up and up and up.
Nextel is one of my only bills that seems to stay exactly the same each month. While my all my other communications bills seem to go up.10 to a $ each month for no apparent reason.
This is great, now when I'm using my Valentine 1 radar detector, I'll know just moments before someone slams into me by my V1 going off. Perhaps I'll have just a second or two to make evasive manuvers.
I tried to read the article, but it melted away before I could read it. It only allowed 5 minutes to read it. I suppose I shouldn't have gone to get a drink.
Go get yourself Neon Genesis Evangelion. Watch it all in one a week and come back with your comments. Biology, Tech, and the next step of evolution.
It's a work of art, not an action anime.
FWIW, I remember telling my parents 8-10 years ago that computers would simply evolve and we would eventually create the human brain. I gotta thank you for your comments. I'm really excited about what the future of biocomputers holds for us all.
How much longer until we develop biological material that we can place binary/electrical data into and control? i.e. a remote control biological single celled organism! Or perhaps a squirrel. Sure would make animals in films fun, and it would put those computer animators of small furry creatures out of work.
If they say anywhere outside of the country they are serving, then tell them you don't want to talk to them and hang up. Each time they try to sell you something, ask them.
---> Caller: Hi, would you like to transfer a balance today to our card with 3.9% APR? ---> USA Bob: Where are you located? ---> Caller: India. ---> USA Bob: Oh, don't call me back until someone from the USA is on the line, goodbye.
Interesting article, but without the original study, I can't respond. Can you help me find it? FYI, corn isn't the only source of ethanol production. There are many other materials that can be used to create ethanol, including waste products from other industry. (we could use people to make ethanol.. sorta like a 'Matrix' scenario. Hmm.. perhaps that's what the matrix is, a big ethanol plant.) I'm not saying that it's the best solution; however, it is REALISTIC.
Just wondering here, but do you think the oil supplies are going to last forever?
Err, that's called thermodynamics. It happens to apply to every energy storage mechanism which exists. Your plant biomass idea is really just a glorified solar-energy collector, which is why it appears to involve an energy surplus. But I could do the same thing by using some (albeit, highly efficient) solar cells to crack hydrogen into water. It's the SAME THING! The difference is in how you collect the energy and the form in which it's stored.
But your solar panels are SO inferior to the natural ability of plants to convert the sun's energy to stored energy. When you invent a solar panel that is efficient, let me know. I'll send you a check to take it to market. You're arguing that since there is a lowest common dominator, that everyone is wrong. Sure, EVERYTHING we burn for fuel is in one way, shape, or form not as efficient as pure energy; however, the context of this discussion is the storage of energy. aka potential. We still haven't figured out how to harness the raw power at our fingertips. Fusion power is out there, but you think it will be in our lifetime?
Let me state:
Energy can be transformed into another sort of energy. But it cannot be created AND it cannot be destroyed. Energy has always existed in one form or another
So it would take less total energy using ethanol to boil water at sea level than it would to use a solar panel that we have today. Now let's imagine that you invent your solar panel, then we can use hydrogen all day long since we are no longer using oil to create that hyrdogen. We would no longer be pulling the limited oil resouce out of the ground and steering us into a world without oil. We would be using the natural energy of the sun. Yeaa! Cool, make it happen!
Incidentally, I suspect your idea doesn't actually generate an energy surplus. Or did you think you could harvest the plant material and convert it into ethanol without expending any energy?
Read the website. Or actually let me do it for you since you decided to form conclusions without checking the facts..
I quote:
Does it take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy we get out of it?
Response:
No. This has been a common misconception of the ethanol industry, that it takes more energy to make ethanol than is available to the final consumer. Remember, ethanol is produced from plant matter, today dominated by corn, wheat, potatoes, sorgum, etc. Plants grow through the use of energy provided by the sun and are a renewable resources. In the future, ethanol will be produced from waste products or "energy crops." In fact, a partner of the NEVC, BC International (BCI), is currently constructing an ethanol production plant in Louisiana that will use sugar cane waste to produce ethanol. Additionally, BCI is considering the establishment of ethanol production facilities in California that would use the waste hulls from rice growers and wood waste from the forrest industry to produce ethanol. Energy crops such as perennial switch grasses, timothy, and other high-output/low-input crops will be used in the future.
Current research prepared by Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory), indicates a 38% gain in the overall energy input/output equation for the corn-to-ethanol process. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it, etc., 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. Corn yields and processing technologies have improved significantly over the past 20 years and they continue to do so, making ethanol production less and less energy intensive.
It takes MORE, I repeat MORE energy to manufacture the hydrogen than the hydrogen returns.
Again, we should use ethanol in a fuel mixture called E85. Requires little or no infrastructure changes and very little changes from the auto manufacturers. Ethanol IS a renewable source of energy. Biomass (including the waste from other lines of industry) can be used to create fuel grade ethanol. Not just corn, people. While E85 still outputs C02, it outputs 85% less of the fossil fuel waste that 100% gasoline outputs. Combine this with hybrid electric and you have the next LOGICAL step in vehicle evolution for the consumer. The automotive industry is so large that we are going to have to take small steps. This large steps are doomed to failure when trillions of dollars are invested in petroleum fuels. Does anyone honestly believe that we are simply going to turn of the spicket on petroleum based consumer vehicles? If so, you're a dreamer (which is good); however, your dream is an end to a means, and not the means.
Has the act of throwing away an item actually been legally defined as giving up your ownership rights to a product? If so then clearly monsterpatterns is not in violation of ANY law. It is 100% legal to give up your ownership of said property and then have it resold. The used game and CD market is evidence of this enough. The owners of the patterns gave up their right to the pattern, then monterpatterns simply picked it up and decided to sell it. As long as they don't reproduce it, then there isn't an issue.
I for one think this "hand's off nature" attitude thats made it's way into popular thinking is foolish. In the long run it's actually self defeating, since insulating the public from experiencing it in a personal way leads to a lack of appreciation for it IMHO."
This is a ridiculous statement. This is simply selfish. Must all humans learn the hard way? I appreciate the fact that I don't want to jump off a bridge or have to pick up a gun and go to war. I can appreciate what it would be like without having to make it personal. Same goes for national parks. This is an attitude that worries me. For some reason everyone thinks they are entitled to do whatever they wish. Ever think they you aren't supposed to be there, or supposed to interfere? That's the education people need.
I'm old enough to remember a time when you were allowed off the trails in most parks. I have many fond memories of exploring, discovering and having the thrill of just maybe getting lost in the woods (hey, I was a kid;-] ). Those memories, along with teaching from my parents to be responsible and not destructive gave me a great love and respect for nature. Things have changed drastically now, and not for the better.
Just because you want to be responsible and not destructive doesn't mean you have some special right to go do anything you wish. Read your post and you might realize how many times you say I or ME.
What you just said pretty much sums up the way Adobe protects it's software. Adobe isn't stupid, and they sue the pants off anyone who treads on them; however Photoshop, AFX, Illustrator, and Premier have the one of the easiest products the pirate since I can remember. Why.. like you said.. people try it, they love it, one day they buy it for business use.
Great post, and I agree with you. Yet, even deeper is the issue that less talented modelers are being employed at the growing number of game houses. Eveyone wants to be a computer animator! Furthermore...Business timeline pressures allow for quality to be pushed to the backburner. Innovating new methods to maximize framerate, using better models and LOD systems becomes a R&D expense. As I stated before, why would a business decision maker worry about innovation when they have all the new video cards to rely on. This way the customer pays for the R&D expense of innovation, by providing dollars to the video card companies. This offloads costs to the gaming company, which simply bought a game engine from a 3rd party to begin with.
Also... The gaming industry is now larger than the movie industry according to many figures. It's odd how silent the community is about the poor quality of most video games these days. Visualize the last time you went to Best Buy and looked at all the titles for XBOX, PS2, GB, PC, and GameCube. Think about all the games with movie or comic book titles. Tony Hawk 20 or ??? Smackdown, or GTAx.. Blah.. Same shit, different day. Now visualize how many of those games you would actually pony up $50 for. The lack of good titles is staggering. I'd say 5% of the titles are really worth owning. With 10% more even worth spending your time on. The entertainment industry model is duplicating itself in the gaming arena, where the top 5% of titles pay for all the loses of the other 95% of crap.
When Quake III runs at 300 FPS on my system under my 9700 Pro with 4x AA, I could care less about 3DMark and what ATI or Nvidia tweak. If the games run smooth and they look good, then go with it. Truth is, the ATI looks better than the Nvidia card under QIII, WCII, JKII, and pretty much everything else I've been playing.
The issue with low FPS is a game problem 9 out of 10 times. The faster the video card, the less the game development houses work to streamline and improve their framerate.
Good point Mike. I don't want my post to come off against EV; however, I just don't think it's the proper, "NEXT STEP". For one, the embedded fuel station infrastructure, combinded with the fact that EV doesn't address anything other than a family vehicle, makes for a very difficult goal. Actually most newer engines could burn ethanol with only a computer change and a few par changes. If you look at the FFV vehicles on the market today.. it's really amazing. They can take 100% Gasoline to 100% E-85 or any combination of. Now imagine that combined with Hybrid Electric. You'd have a realistic vehicle that get's 60 mpg and has the abilty to run up to 85% ethanol.
You have no clue. The sources for making Ethanol are the WASTES of the farming process. Otherwise the crap that is thrown out from the agricultural industry goes to waste. The "cost" you speak of is ridiculous... what's the cost of refining gasoline or mining natural gas out of the ground? What's the ecological impact of using agricultural WASTE? Sheesh.. the reason you don't have decent figures is because there are none to support your false claims. What's the figure for 1 pound of fuel for a fisson reactor or the burning of non-renewable oil or coal power plants?
You are creating more mis-information by modding the parent post up. Batteries contain materials that pollute just as much as fossil fuels, and the FACT that all these batteries still require a source to be charged. It's a pipe dream to think that the sources are all going to be wind, hydro, or solar powered. It's going to be Nukes, coal, gas, and oil.
I quote:
Fuel Source Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is produced by fermenting biomass, commonly corn (though other, lower-value feedstocks have been tested in an effort to reduce costs, like brewery waste and cheese-factory effluent--blecch!). It is thus inherently a renewable resource, and contributes nothing in itself to greenhouse-gas loading of the atmosphere (and with efficient modern farming techniques, there's still an improvement even when you add in the petroleum-based fuel burned to plow the fields, make the fertilizer, etc.). As an alternative motor vehicle fuel, it is usually blended in a mixture of 85% ethanol, 15% unleaded gasoline, whence E85. (It is also used in up to 10% blends with gasoline (gasohol) to oxygenate the gasoline, and this mixture can be used by most modern gasoline vehicles.)
Wholesale Availability E85 is, in many ways, like M85, the other alcohol fuel made with methanol instead of ethanol blended with 15% gasoline. There is no national distribution network on the scale of those for gasoline, diesel, and natural gas; however...
Retail Availability...there are starting to be a fair number of E85 outlets, mostly in the Midwest (where the crops from which ethanol is made are grown), and the changes needed to enable a gasoline station to handle E85 are even smaller than those necessary for M85. Elsewhere in the nation, E85 stations are rarer than M85 stations; in particular, I don't think there's a single one in California.
Advantages Ethanol, as noted above, is a renewable resource that contributes nothing in itself to global warming concerns. Like methanol, it can be blended with any amount of gasoline in the tank of a flex-fuel vehicle, which is what automakers are selling these days. In fact, starting with the 1999 model year, some automakers are making every one of certain vehicle models capable of using E85 in any mixture with gasoline, at no extra charge. Thus buyers will not have to do anything extra at all to have a vehicle capable of using an alternative fuel, though they will still have to find an E85 fueling station to take advantage of that capability.
Disadvantages The main disadvantage of E85 is the price of the fuel, even with the available subsidies. However, research is under way to enable the fermentation of lower-grade feedstocks (think of using not only the corn squeezin's but also the cob to make alcohol!), which should help a lot. Ethanol is somewhat corrosive, though less so than methanol, and concerns about vapor lock, cold starts, and flame visibility like those for methanol have led to the same standard blend of 85% alcohol with 15% gasoline.
These minor problems are so trivial that once there is money behind it they can be solved by using Titanium parts.
Why can't/.ers seem to understand how powerful this could be? E-85 is 85% biomass distilled alcohol that has 15% gasoline mixed in. There are already about 50 or so vehicles on the market that are e-85 ready, aka FFV. Combine this RENEWABLE fuel source with Hybrid Electric and you have a reasonable vehicle that WORKS! No needed changes to infrastructure. Your car doesn't have to be ugly and you feel good about yourself. Ethanol is used in many applications and it provides a positive return on the expenditure of energy it takes to create in comparison to the amount of energy it outputs.
Meanwhile fuel cells and electric cars with plugs require a power plant somewhere or oil to charge them.
Oh well....
A Corbin Motors official, on the condition of anonymity, stated that the company will be selling the rest of its inventory to monster truck shows around the nation. There children in their parent's YUKON, NAVIGATOR, EXPEDITION, and SUBURBAN sport utility monsters will be able to experience the feeling of running over a vehicle, all for only $69.95 per run.
Honestly, who would want to own an overpriced, slow vehicle in the land of the monster gas hogs? All the lack of safety of a motorcycle, with NONE of the fun. Must electric cars always look like a deformed chicken egg?
Slashdot Mirror
Then you shoot the plane down. Simple solution. All the more reason to shoot it down. If the vehicle is off target.. sorry.
The fact that the website is offering a prize is a case to prosecute the creators. I'm not a lawyer.. yet I think that rewarding an illegal act is called solicitation. In all states this is an illegal act that would be prosecuted by usually charging them with the same crime and reducing the class of the offense by one level. I hope they arrest and prosecute the moron who placed the site.
You simply change the default mode of DC output if you like. It then routes it to the earpiece and not the speakerphone.
Sure they could switch over, but they would all have to get NEW phones. IDEN is unique to Nextel phones. I pay a pretty high $70 a month for my nextel phone, but I had 3000+ incoming minutes last month during PEAK usage hours and didn't pay a dime extra. Reason: I have a free-incoming plan with Nextel.
Direct Connect is great! Fast to get the person you want, it uses a queuing system to get the persons attention, you have the option of simply starting to talk (much like the god scenario in weird science), and the best thing... No one can interrupt you while you are talking to them! HA! Unfortunately, it's works both ways.
And why isn't someone out there filing suit against verizon for extortion, or unfair competitive practices?
.10 to a $ each month for no apparent reason.
Has anyone out there simply tried to get a simple phone line? It's near impossible! I just want a flat rate phone line that won't call to 'extended local areas' (.20 a min) that don't require an area code. Or how about the caller id/call blocking features they sell to consumers that they then turn around and sell anti call blocking to telemarketers?
I don't think I have to spell it out for any one, but we all know how verizon uses it's power to leverage the telecommunications industry and the government. They work harder so we can be further confused by our phone bills that each month only seem to go up and up and up.
Nextel is one of my only bills that seems to stay exactly the same each month. While my all my other communications bills seem to go up
This is great, now when I'm using my Valentine 1 radar detector, I'll know just moments before someone slams into me by my V1 going off. Perhaps I'll have just a second or two to make evasive manuvers.
Way to go Honda!
I tried to read the article, but it melted away before I could read it. It only allowed 5 minutes to read it. I suppose I shouldn't have gone to get a drink.
Go get yourself Neon Genesis Evangelion. Watch it all in one a week and come back with your comments. Biology, Tech, and the next step of evolution.
It's a work of art, not an action anime.
FWIW, I remember telling my parents 8-10 years ago that computers would simply evolve and we would eventually create the human brain. I gotta thank you for your comments. I'm really excited about what the future of biocomputers holds for us all.
How much longer until we develop biological material that we can place binary/electrical data into and control? i.e. a remote control biological single celled organism! Or perhaps a squirrel. Sure would make animals in films fun, and it would put those computer animators of small furry creatures out of work.
If they say anywhere outside of the country they are serving, then tell them you don't want to talk to them and hang up. Each time they try to sell you something, ask them.
---> Caller: Hi, would you like to transfer a balance today to our card with 3.9% APR?
---> USA Bob: Where are you located?
---> Caller: India.
---> USA Bob: Oh, don't call me back until someone from the USA is on the line, goodbye.
*CLICK*
I give you a 5 rating for funny. I wonder if it would be easy to turn people into ethanol. Hmm...
Interesting article, but without the original study, I can't respond. Can you help me find it? FYI, corn isn't the only source of ethanol production. There are many other materials that can be used to create ethanol, including waste products from other industry. (we could use people to make ethanol.. sorta like a 'Matrix' scenario. Hmm.. perhaps that's what the matrix is, a big ethanol plant.) I'm not saying that it's the best solution; however, it is REALISTIC.
Just wondering here, but do you think the oil supplies are going to last forever?
Err, that's called thermodynamics. It happens to apply to every energy storage mechanism which exists. Your plant biomass idea is really just a glorified solar-energy collector, which is why it appears to involve an energy surplus. But I could do the same thing by using some (albeit, highly efficient) solar cells to crack hydrogen into water. It's the SAME THING! The difference is in how you collect the energy and the form in which it's stored.
But your solar panels are SO inferior to the natural ability of plants to convert the sun's energy to stored energy. When you invent a solar panel that is efficient, let me know. I'll send you a check to take it to market. You're arguing that since there is a lowest common dominator, that everyone is wrong. Sure, EVERYTHING we burn for fuel is in one way, shape, or form not as efficient as pure energy; however, the context of this discussion is the storage of energy. aka potential. We still haven't figured out how to harness the raw power at our fingertips. Fusion power is out there, but you think it will be in our lifetime?
Let me state:
Energy can be transformed into another sort of energy. But it cannot be created AND it cannot be destroyed. Energy has always existed in one form or another
So it would take less total energy using ethanol to boil water at sea level than it would to use a solar panel that we have today. Now let's imagine that you invent your solar panel, then we can use hydrogen all day long since we are no longer using oil to create that hyrdogen. We would no longer be pulling the limited oil resouce out of the ground and steering us into a world without oil. We would be using the natural energy of the sun. Yeaa! Cool, make it happen!
Incidentally, I suspect your idea doesn't actually generate an energy surplus. Or did you think you could harvest the plant material and convert it into ethanol without expending any energy?
Read the website. Or actually let me do it for you since you decided to form conclusions without checking the facts..
I quote:
Does it take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy we get out of it? Response: No. This has been a common misconception of the ethanol industry, that it takes more energy to make ethanol than is available to the final consumer. Remember, ethanol is produced from plant matter, today dominated by corn, wheat, potatoes, sorgum, etc. Plants grow through the use of energy provided by the sun and are a renewable resources. In the future, ethanol will be produced from waste products or "energy crops." In fact, a partner of the NEVC, BC International (BCI), is currently constructing an ethanol production plant in Louisiana that will use sugar cane waste to produce ethanol. Additionally, BCI is considering the establishment of ethanol production facilities in California that would use the waste hulls from rice growers and wood waste from the forrest industry to produce ethanol. Energy crops such as perennial switch grasses, timothy, and other high-output/low-input crops will be used in the future. Current research prepared by Argonne National Laboratory (a U.S. Department of Energy Laboratory), indicates a 38% gain in the overall energy input/output equation for the corn-to-ethanol process. That is, if 100 BTUs of energy is used to plant corn, harvest the crop, transport it, etc., 138 BTUs of energy is available in the fuel ethanol. Corn yields and processing technologies have improved significantly over the past 20 years and they continue to do so, making ethanol production less and less energy intensive.
Questions?
It takes MORE, I repeat MORE energy to manufacture the hydrogen than the hydrogen returns.
Again, we should use ethanol in a fuel mixture called E85. Requires little or no infrastructure changes and very little changes from the auto manufacturers. Ethanol IS a renewable source of energy. Biomass (including the waste from other lines of industry) can be used to create fuel grade ethanol. Not just corn, people. While E85 still outputs C02, it outputs 85% less of the fossil fuel waste that 100% gasoline outputs. Combine this with hybrid electric and you have the next LOGICAL step in vehicle evolution for the consumer. The automotive industry is so large that we are going to have to take small steps. This large steps are doomed to failure when trillions of dollars are invested in petroleum fuels. Does anyone honestly believe that we are simply going to turn of the spicket on petroleum based consumer vehicles? If so, you're a dreamer (which is good); however, your dream is an end to a means, and not the means.
For more information on e85 visit e85fuel.com
Has the act of throwing away an item actually been legally defined as giving up your ownership rights to a product? If so then clearly monsterpatterns is not in violation of ANY law. It is 100% legal to give up your ownership of said property and then have it resold. The used game and CD market is evidence of this enough. The owners of the patterns gave up their right to the pattern, then monterpatterns simply picked it up and decided to sell it. As long as they don't reproduce it, then there isn't an issue.
I for one think this "hand's off nature" attitude thats made it's way into popular thinking is foolish. In the long run it's actually self defeating, since insulating the public from experiencing it in a personal way leads to a lack of appreciation for it IMHO."
;-] ). Those memories, along with teaching from my parents to be responsible and not destructive gave me a great love and respect for nature. Things have changed drastically now, and not for the better.
This is a ridiculous statement. This is simply selfish. Must all humans learn the hard way? I appreciate the fact that I don't want to jump off a bridge or have to pick up a gun and go to war. I can appreciate what it would be like without having to make it personal. Same goes for national parks. This is an attitude that worries me. For some reason everyone thinks they are entitled to do whatever they wish. Ever think they you aren't supposed to be there, or supposed to interfere? That's the education people need.
I'm old enough to remember a time when you were allowed off the trails in most parks. I have many fond memories of exploring, discovering and having the thrill of just maybe getting lost in the woods (hey, I was a kid
Just because you want to be responsible and not destructive doesn't mean you have some special right to go do anything you wish. Read your post and you might realize how many times you say I or ME.
What you just said pretty much sums up the way Adobe protects it's software. Adobe isn't stupid, and they sue the pants off anyone who treads on them; however Photoshop, AFX, Illustrator, and Premier have the one of the easiest products the pirate since I can remember. Why.. like you said.. people try it, they love it, one day they buy it for business use.
Great post, and I agree with you. Yet, even deeper is the issue that less talented modelers are being employed at the growing number of game houses. Eveyone wants to be a computer animator! Furthermore...Business timeline pressures allow for quality to be pushed to the backburner. Innovating new methods to maximize framerate, using better models and LOD systems becomes a R&D expense. As I stated before, why would a business decision maker worry about innovation when they have all the new video cards to rely on. This way the customer pays for the R&D expense of innovation, by providing dollars to the video card companies. This offloads costs to the gaming company, which simply bought a game engine from a 3rd party to begin with.
Also...
The gaming industry is now larger than the movie industry according to many figures. It's odd how silent the community is about the poor quality of most video games these days. Visualize the last time you went to Best Buy and looked at all the titles for XBOX, PS2, GB, PC, and GameCube. Think about all the games with movie or comic book titles. Tony Hawk 20 or ??? Smackdown, or GTAx.. Blah.. Same shit, different day. Now visualize how many of those games you would actually pony up $50 for. The lack of good titles is staggering. I'd say 5% of the titles are really worth owning. With 10% more even worth spending your time on. The entertainment industry model is duplicating itself in the gaming arena, where the top 5% of titles pay for all the loses of the other 95% of crap.
Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Monitor *grin*
My 9700 Pro works without a hitch. Not a single problem.
When Quake III runs at 300 FPS on my system under my 9700 Pro with 4x AA, I could care less about 3DMark and what ATI or Nvidia tweak. If the games run smooth and they look good, then go with it. Truth is, the ATI looks better than the Nvidia card under QIII, WCII, JKII, and pretty much everything else I've been playing.
The issue with low FPS is a game problem 9 out of 10 times. The faster the video card, the less the game development houses work to streamline and improve their framerate.
Good point Mike. I don't want my post to come off against EV; however, I just don't think it's the proper, "NEXT STEP". For one, the embedded fuel station infrastructure, combinded with the fact that EV doesn't address anything other than a family vehicle, makes for a very difficult goal. Actually most newer engines could burn ethanol with only a computer change and a few par changes. If you look at the FFV vehicles on the market today.. it's really amazing. They can take 100% Gasoline to 100% E-85 or any combination of. Now imagine that combined with Hybrid Electric. You'd have a realistic vehicle that get's 60 mpg and has the abilty to run up to 85% ethanol.
Thoughts?
You have no clue. The sources for making Ethanol are the WASTES of the farming process. Otherwise the crap that is thrown out from the agricultural industry goes to waste. The "cost" you speak of is ridiculous... what's the cost of refining gasoline or mining natural gas out of the ground? What's the ecological impact of using agricultural WASTE? Sheesh.. the reason you don't have decent figures is because there are none to support your false claims. What's the figure for 1 pound of fuel for a fisson reactor or the burning of non-renewable oil or coal power plants?
You are creating more mis-information by modding the parent post up. Batteries contain materials that pollute just as much as fossil fuels, and the FACT that all these batteries still require a source to be charged. It's a pipe dream to think that the sources are all going to be wind, hydro, or solar powered. It's going to be Nukes, coal, gas, and oil.
...there are starting to be a fair number of E85 outlets, mostly in the Midwest (where the crops from which ethanol is made are grown), and the changes needed to enable a gasoline station to handle E85 are even smaller than those necessary for M85. Elsewhere in the nation, E85 stations are rarer than M85 stations; in particular, I don't think there's a single one in California.
I quote:
Fuel Source
Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is produced by fermenting biomass, commonly corn (though other, lower-value feedstocks have been tested in an effort to reduce costs, like brewery waste and cheese-factory effluent--blecch!). It is thus inherently a renewable resource, and contributes nothing in itself to greenhouse-gas loading of the atmosphere (and with efficient modern farming techniques, there's still an improvement even when you add in the petroleum-based fuel burned to plow the fields, make the fertilizer, etc.). As an alternative motor vehicle fuel, it is usually blended in a mixture of 85% ethanol, 15% unleaded gasoline, whence E85. (It is also used in up to 10% blends with gasoline (gasohol) to oxygenate the gasoline, and this mixture can be used by most modern gasoline vehicles.)
Wholesale Availability
E85 is, in many ways, like M85, the other alcohol fuel made with methanol instead of ethanol blended with 15% gasoline. There is no national distribution network on the scale of those for gasoline, diesel, and natural gas; however...
Retail Availability
Advantages
Ethanol, as noted above, is a renewable resource that contributes nothing in itself to global warming concerns. Like methanol, it can be blended with any amount of gasoline in the tank of a flex-fuel vehicle, which is what automakers are selling these days. In fact, starting with the 1999 model year, some automakers are making every one of certain vehicle models capable of using E85 in any mixture with gasoline, at no extra charge. Thus buyers will not have to do anything extra at all to have a vehicle capable of using an alternative fuel, though they will still have to find an E85 fueling station to take advantage of that capability.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of E85 is the price of the fuel, even with the available subsidies. However, research is under way to enable the fermentation of lower-grade feedstocks (think of using not only the corn squeezin's but also the cob to make alcohol!), which should help a lot. Ethanol is somewhat corrosive, though less so than methanol, and concerns about vapor lock, cold starts, and flame visibility like those for methanol have led to the same standard blend of 85% alcohol with 15% gasoline.
These minor problems are so trivial that once there is money behind it they can be solved by using Titanium parts.
Oh well.. of my soapbox.
Why can't /.ers seem to understand how powerful this could be? E-85 is 85% biomass distilled alcohol that has 15% gasoline mixed in. There are already about 50 or so vehicles on the market that are e-85 ready, aka FFV. Combine this RENEWABLE fuel source with Hybrid Electric and you have a reasonable vehicle that WORKS! No needed changes to infrastructure. Your car doesn't have to be ugly and you feel good about yourself. Ethanol is used in many applications and it provides a positive return on the expenditure of energy it takes to create in comparison to the amount of energy it outputs.
Meanwhile fuel cells and electric cars with plugs require a power plant somewhere or oil to charge them.
Oh well....
A Corbin Motors official, on the condition of anonymity, stated that the company will be selling the rest of its inventory to monster truck shows around the nation. There children in their parent's YUKON, NAVIGATOR, EXPEDITION, and SUBURBAN sport utility monsters will be able to experience the feeling of running over a vehicle, all for only $69.95 per run.
Honestly, who would want to own an overpriced, slow vehicle in the land of the monster gas hogs? All the lack of safety of a motorcycle, with NONE of the fun. Must electric cars always look like a deformed chicken egg?