The space station and humans in space will always need water, so that should be the "fuel" they haul up with one of the shuttles, as much water as possible. Another shuttle should haul up as many advanced solar PV panels as they can deploy. Then they can have a lot more electrical power for actually doing some useful stuff, and also make more fuel (electrolysis),and burn hydrogen and oxygen in a small rocket to maintain orbit. An added bonus is more oxygen for the crew if it is needed. I don't know how practical that would be due to temperature variances tough, perhaps they need to maintain their water storage deep inside the station where it is protected more. The shuttles are allegedly pretty well insulated though (the famous foam), so inside them might be sufficient.
Do you happen to know offhand approximately how much fuel of what type they currently use to maintain ISS in that orbit?
...a good possible use for the remaining shuttles is to launch them unmanned and somehow attach them to the ISS or park them near by for other uses. On the ground sitting still they are OK. Up in space floating around they are OK. The transition in and out of the atmosphere is where they *blow goats*, so do that one more time with no humans in them. As already-up-in-space vehicles and as work/living space they are fine,and they are already built and functional. I say move them to orbit one last time and never return them back down, haul some cargo up with the last launches of them but stop risking humans in them with launches and reentry nonsense. Comes a time to cut your potential losses. Just the savings over the next few years would do wonders for NASA's budgets and to help re-fund a lot of the unmanned satellite jazz they are dropping-because the shuttle sucks down most of their cash. Spend the time designing the next replacement vehicle, and let the Rooskies haul the folks back and forth, they got the rig that works for that.
Must be different where you live then, I have parked trailers all over georgia, including inside metro atlanta, heck I have even lucked out and found adjoining spaces and parallel parked on busy streets before. Just depends on the situation I guess. It is somewhat of a pain, but it's doable. As I said, the trailers are for longer trips, like going on vacation, etc. I don't think the parking would be much of an issue. Vehicles towing trailers are quite common here, I honestly don't see it as a problem, just about everyone around here has a trailer, whether a boat on a trailer or a ramp-equipped small trailer for hauling the lawnmower or ATV or bikes around or a flatbed work trailer, etc.
Heh, I just finished up some haying today, I backed in a ten foot wide rake with one inch clearance on the walls at the hangar where we park it (we hay around the airport where we live). Using trailers is pretty easy once you get used to it, you don't even think about it, becomes more or less automatic like any other type of driving.
You have to admit though, that Tzero car with the new design extended hybrid generator trailer is *pretty spiffy*, especially how it mounts rigid to make backing up easier. Now I don't see joe sixpack getting one like that, same as joe sixpack don't buy ferraris usually, but a more sedate modest and cheaper one, with a larger trailer able to haul the generator plus some cargo would be a natural, they would sell if they were on the market. In fact, I think a neat design would be small four wheels as the commuter car, attach rigid framework with pickup bed with two more wheels (or duallies) to the rear, the generator part is under the floor, giving you a commuter car OR pickup with greater cargo capacity or range "on demand". Monday through friday night, joe commuter car, backin, attack extension, ou got a crew cab pickup to haul family and gear to gram maws for thw weekend, etc.
Anyway, there's just millions of people who fall inside the "one person in a vehicle commuting less than 100 miles total" range in the US, who most likely also live in the 'burbs and most likely also _do_ have said garage, with said garage roof ready for solar panel installation.
It'll happen, we'll see it soon, as in a few years soon now, the US is sometimes a little slow out of the blocks but then we seem to adopt and adapt readily once situations force the issue, and people REALLY will start looking at alternatives once gas hits steady over three bucks here, that seems to be the pain threshold for folks, so 4 or 5 would be a major inducement for some companies to buck the trend and try it. Just the pressure from normal hybrid owners now wanting a plug in" option is headed that way now, people *dig* the idea of being able to cruise a lot of miles on just the batts.
...they are adopting a GPS based mileage tracker, precisely for this purpose. You not only get to pay a tax, they will know where your ride is all the time if they feel like it.
I guess all the folks who tow trailers never park? I tow various trailers of various sizes all the time, including normal US highway speeds, never seems to have been much of an issue once you learn to drive with one. The genny trailer is only for long trips beyond the range of the original charge, it isn't for day to day commuter driving downtown.
There is no one size fits all vehicle out there, it doesn't exist, even with a normal straight fueled ICE engine vehicle. The electric car is designed for light duty day to day reasonable distance commutng, or inner city delivery purposes with small trucks, etc. The hybrid trailer is a way to extend the range for trips, and who knows, maybe they will be rentable so you don't have to buy one. Here is one developed already:
It is one potential form of the evolution of the car, that's all. If you think it sucks, just don't buy one when they come out! It's that easy. In the meantime, like all other human tech advances, the backyard guys and the innovators are quietly advancing the tech, there are already a lot of electric vehices out there and they aren't going away, the numbers increase daily and once a critical mass of people interested in them gets large enough they will be manufactured in larger numbers. Whether you "approve" of it or not. Just like what happened with the personal computer.
And if you follow battery tech there are breakthroughs daily. Even cheap batteries can be made to last with a little care. My storage batteries for my solar PV are 8 years old and still work fine, and only cost 50 clams apiece.
I am aware of the issues provided in the article movie reference, but I still plan on seeing that movie, I advise folks who question what I am saying to just *go see the movie*, those boys came up with the same stuff I did, and it's along with the same reasons "why", because that is the data out there to look at.
Some of ya'all debunkers remind me of a conversation I had with my dad a long time ago. We were sitting around talking economics and general BS. He was just about to rollover some jumbos, i suggested to him that perhaps he might want in on a little apple action (they were just hitting around then), I told him that eventually everyone would have a home personal computer because they were just so cool. He scoffed (even though he was a mainframe hardware guy), he said "no one would ever use them, too small, can't do anything, useless, yada yada yada). *Snort*. He got a few percent on his jumbos...big deal.
Another time in the 60s I was in the UAW in detroit. I was talking to some of my "brethren" saying like "Ya know, these japs gonna come in here and take a huge share of the market, lookit these little cars and how well built they are and how much good mileage they get", etc. Remember, this was way back when *very few* little cars around, VW beetles, a few renaults, etc, mostly just big detroit cars. They all laughed, said I was crazy and "no one will ever buy a little four cylinder car jap car". Oh man I got dissed and ranked over that, much worse then this little disagreement action on slashdot, it was like I was ouling the holy sacrament or something to suggest anything other than a 5-10 MPG detroit v-8 beast that needed replacing every three years.. I would also vote to *not* go on strike because we were already very well paid and I could see a huge pension gap coming that would kill off the biz a lot and would lead to "too expensive" of cars that would also hurt business. GEE, LOOK AROUND NOW, what is going on with GM and Ford?? Ha! After those conversations about "tiny jap cars",a few years later OPEC embargo. Lookee there, seems I was right after all....
I quit the UAW eventually (worked GM), because _both_ the union and management were mostly retards (red neck drunks and pompous preppy management cokeheads is all I ever saw), and they still are judging by how they run their business, I just can't be around non thinkers who can't see past next week. On the net it's OK,I can deal with it, but in meat space I just can't be around morons who go out of their way to remain ignorant.
You ARE going to see a lot of electric vehicles on the road, your concerns about batteries or whatever notwithstanding. Checkout the movie when it comes out, maybe someone will accidently release a torrent or something...
Uhh, no, they can be much simpler to make, and would probably be more robust. I honestly don't know where you are coming from but I am an older life long blue collar guy. Electric motors are WAY more reliable than most fueld engines.
The tow behind trailer for long range trips? Already being built and be on the market shortly, because it's a good idea, the article was covered here on slashdot at least once that I recall, so it is you who are kidding yourself that this isn't possible. There's a company in california (ACPropulsion) makes very expensive (and fairly fast)exotic sportscar model electric vehicles, they have the trailer for extended range trips, but I thought of the idea independently of hearing about them, but to refresh maybe your memory here is a link to their site, so far they have cars, electric planes they are working on and now the "instant hybrid" trailer:
Go see the movie in the article if you want to argue more about it, those are the points they are making, very similar. The elev\ctric car was killed *on purpose* because it is disruptive technology and a threat to established big money. There are a number of smaller companies heavily into it now (go ahead, google around for it), eventually you'll see mid sized then the big companies-eventually, and it might be *soon* eventually. Because that is in the future and speculative we'll have to wait and see who is right, cool? I predict it will happen, you don't, we'll check back in a few years or so...
They work fine, and the specialists are no more specialists than any other shop mechanics. This is ho hum stuff here. I've used electric pallet jacks and forklifts quite a bit, they are robust and actually *don't* break that often. I also used an electric golf cart converted into an outdoor gbrteenskeeping utility wagon one summer, ran the piss out of it, it never broke down that I recall, just plug it back in at night, that's it. You?? You actually used them -electric forklifts or mining equipment, etc, day in day out for full shifts, do you have personal experience? I have, so don't teach gramps about it, 'k? I know exactly how much they break down or not. They are robust and the batteries are fine as long as the nimrods don't cheap out and put mineraly tap water in them, then, sure, they can kill the batts quickly, but that is just common sense, and you don't run them completely flat, again, common sense and working within your limitations.
I still stand by my statement, electric cars are disruptive technologies to the established car companies, a big fnancial threat long term, a threat to governments from loss of road tax, and a definite threat to the oil companies and by allusion to the established electric grid monopoly suppliers because it is one step away going from an electric car to contemplating being your own power producer with solar or wind, etc. This is big time folding month *threats* to those wealthy and powerful folks, of course they are gonna FUD it out and deny and delay. It's only logical from their POV.
And that is the primary reason you don't see them out there on the dealers lots. And that is why the government is pushing hydrogen, it keeps control and the money directly where it already goes now-eventually. The big companies and big governments make no profit in you becoming independent of them. The car companies are not going to bork their long term sales and repair business by releasing vehicles with just a few moving parts that function well.
I have worked in some factories that have big electric motors running heavy machines for FIFTY YEARS or more and they hadn't broken down. One factory in particular I remember had some in the 70's when I was working there that were installed in the *teens* IIRC. They had oiler reservoirs for the bearings, big huge honking motors that drove belts all across the floors and simultaneously ran a lot of older but still quite functional woodworking machinery. three shifts a day when I worked there, those electric motors ran just about constantly, day in day out, months and years on end-and didn't break. The factory also burnt their own wood scrap (mostly lathe hearts, what we called them and what was left over after sections got run through what is called a peeler lathe-I ran one, that was my job there), anyway, burning that wood fed the boilers,which went to a GE steam turbine,and generated all their own electricity-everything- and they still sold off 10 grand a rough monthly into the grid, which more than paid the two firemen and some incidental repairs or the GE plant.
Electric motors *don't break* very easily. If the bearings stay good, that's it, blow them out and clean them with compressed air once in awhile or put some new brushes in if they are required.
Eventually you'll see them, but only after a lot of startups start selling them en masse, then you'll see the big car companies reluctantly jump in, just like they did with hybrids once toyota showed them how popular they were. There's already any number of smaller companies out there selling electric cars or offering conversions or kits. It is in roughly the same situation personal computers were in the early 70's, but, it has the potential to really take off. I expect some chinese companies to release them first actually, but that is a pure SWAG on my part, based on them now pumping out a lot of scooters and golf carts and atvs and tractors and now regular engine cars that will be hitting north american and european markets next year-cheap, as in under 10 grand new cheap.
Good link, I hope the naysayers see it and read it. Once you have lived with solar-or like these guys with the electric vehicles, it strips away just a TON of industry mass brainwashing.
You can go get any size solar rig you want to get now, and a lot of mortgage lenders will tie it into your 20 year house note. For some people it is actually cheaper (the increase on the house note) to get solar that way then to pay the normal electric bill.
If you google around you can find examples of people driving electric vehicles that they charge from home solar, it's doable. You charge off from your battery bank at home when you park for the night, or the grid, your choice. Sometimes you can get a deal from the electric company to use electric during off peak times and get a price break.
mining concerns and warehouses use electric drive vehicles all the time. while joe public has concerns-like yours-those folks are just going to work and getting the job done daily with "ohh dangerous high electric voltages", all over the world. Just because GM made a working but overy expensive and semi crippled on purpose car doesn't mean that a normal reliable and simple one isn't possibe. the one does not mandate the other. That's the point -who killed the electric car and why-and how.
Perhaps *you* should do some more research on it. And there are *thousands* of people all over the planet who have conversions and DIY models, and don't seem to suffer a whole lot. Hey, how about the millions of golfers, we don't seem to hear of them magically exploding or whatever from battery driven vehicles. It is old tech man, there were electric rides a hundred years ago, electric motors and batteries are just not that exotic, it is classed as "normal" human technology, just we are just starting to see more interest from the pollution angle and from the cost angle now.
I can remember getting gasoline at a scosh over 12 cents, that's my cheap record I recall, so I have a little historical perspective here. Of course there wasn't a lot of interest back then and up to now, it was incredibly cheap to drive, and most cars then were paid off in 12 months, that was a common loan then. Times change, stuff is expensive now, so people are looking at the electrics and the net is making a lot of shared knowledge and research possible. It's coming, ready or not, along with a ton of other neat stuff.
GM intentionally crippled their car (BTW, I used to *work* for GM and was in the UAW) and made it overly complicated and overly expensive on purpose, then never offered to sell them, just so they *wouldn't* have to keep making them., because electric vehicles are a considerable threat to the gas vehicle status quo. Like I said, disruptive technology, the main part of the article at the top-who killed the electric car and why. You can keep on trying to debunk it, I heard the same or similar about hybrids a few years ago, I heard it about solar a long time ago, and now that they are getting common, they are the hottest styled new type of car out there. And plugin hybrids are coming, because it makes sense and people want them. And solar PV is in extremely hot demand, new factories going in all over. We have neat new battery tech coming out now, and...just an exciting time now, stuff is coming together.
I'm not saying they are perfect, far from it, and so are gas buggies, I should know, been wrenching on them since they were mostly all flatheads. But for the target market, commuter cars, one guy driving, the tech we have now is more than adequate. My normal flooded lead acid storage batteries for my solar rig are 8 years old and still working fine. Why is that? I have had all sorts of internet "experts" tell me that "your batteries won't last". Well, they do and have, and they are cheap ones too. Sorry, but I have heard fud after fud after fud about alternative energy stuff over the years, and that is what most of it is, fud. Some is real, a lot is just fud.
The stuff works, and it is a clear and present danger and serious threat to various multi-billion dollar industries, that is the primary reason it has taken so long to reach good market penetratrion, but now it has. You *will* be seeing more pure electrics, plug in hybrids, a lot more solar installs, wind chargers-you name it, whether you think it "works" or not, because just way too many other people actually are doing it and it *does* work and can be made affordable.
Sorry,. I just have no truck with entrenched luddism on this subject, it has been an interest and hobby of mine for over three decades now. I have worked on superinsulated homes that practically needed zero additional heating in the winter other than the lights burning and cooking. That is possible with just normal tech we have had for year
neat! I use a desulphator on my battery bank for my little solar rig. The batteries (golf cart 6 volters) are from 98 and still fine working. It seems to work as advertised.
...it was apparently *too good*. Demand real high, good sales, but they stopped selling them. gee, wonder why??
You can't keep selling cars if they don't break down as much. Dealers make a ton of loot from repairs as well as from sales. Electric cars bork both of those business models severely. You can't keep milking drivers at the pump if there is no need for it and joe driver can make his own power for his vehicle that lasts a long time and works well..
This is also why they are pushing hydrogen over something else, the hydrogen infrastructure (creation/delivery/retail sales) will invariably fall to the already entrenched multi-billionaires in the oil business, who control government and policy in those areas. They will *never* advocate anything that would put them out of business, or reduce their business. The doofus CEO of exxon in congressional testimony said it from their POV, "we are not in the alternative energy business-we sell oil". If they can't control it and profit from it *in perpetuity*, they will spend any sum to FUD it away or make it not happen. IMO, hydrogen is 99% conjob right now.
GM made the electric because california mandated it(so many cars in the fleet had to be zero emission, etc), it was designed on purpose the way it was so they could say "see, too expensive, and no one wants them", etc. The electric ford rangers as well, although the last few ford relented and let the leassees keep them, but just a few, they crushed most of them. I believe this was covered on slashdot and I know I put some stuff up on technocrat about it.
I am looking forward to the movie, it's something I have been aware of for a long time now, and thanks for reminding me of that toyota, forgot about that model and AFAIK I never saw one. I have seen a couple EV1s driving around and a LONG time ago a few Lectric Leopards, which were handbuilt one at a time, conversions made from renaults modified to be electric.
So far though no smaller vendor will just do the practical thing and do a normal looking car. You either see those extremely expensive high end sportscar models, or the pith helmet on wheels joke toy car models. first guys out with a normal looking car or truck that isn't totally stupid will sell a lot of them. I think they should go whole hog and offer a complete package, the car or pickup, etc, the "instant hybrid" tow behind cargo/generator trailer for longer trips, and the home solar recharger station. And I bet you could come in with that whole bundle for the price of a high end SUV. I am thinking 20 grand for the basic ride, 20 grand for a *nice* home recharge solar station, and 5 grand for a nice genny trailer, something along those lines anyway, and right now, most of that stuff has some decent federal tax credits and some states have similar deals.
Electric cars can be quite fast. Electric motors have all their torque starting at one rpm and it just goes on from there. There isn't a fuel engine made that can compare horsepower to horsepower down where the rubber meets the road with an electric motor. People who managed to *lease* an EV1 loved them (EV1's were leased, not sold for the most part), they tried their darndest to get GM to sell them at end of lease and GM just took them away and crushed them while they were still in perfect working order. Read up on it, or actually go see that movie in the article, that is what this is all about.
Electric cars are a threat to auto makers because there is much less stuff to break and they are simpler to make (think about that one for a long time, it is a critical part of the equation), and they are a threat to governments because there is no way to apply the road fuel tax to them (short of the GPS tracking deal they just started in oregon). You can theoretically own an electric vehicle, own some solar panels, and eventually be driving for pretty darn cheap per mile. Many people are happily doing that today, proving it is possible and can fill a lot of niche driving. As to range,50-100 miles on a charge is doable *now*, which would handle just millions of commuter profiles, that is *easily* extended and handled by having an additional tow behind trailer with a fuel burning generator in it for trips, which would then morph your ride "on demand" into a hybrid vehicle..
Pure electric cars are a clear cut example of what is called "disruptive technology" that threatens big auto, big oil and big government. A lot of big money and big juice there that doesn't want that sort of threat, yes? That is why electric cars "failed",not that they don't work or can't be built in mass productyion style, of course they can,but they were never offered in the first place.
When is the last time you saw a pure electric car at a normal mainstream dealer *for sale*? I'm an old gear head,and I have *never* seen one for sale, never. I have seen anything and everything else under the sun with an engine that moves for sale, the only electric "car" I ever saw for sale was a golf cart, not a real car. I have seen a few low production prototypes that people hand built, and you were able to buy them used that way as one or two-offs,but that's it, nothing mass produced.
They say "there is no market", well it is a self fullfilling prophecy if you never even try to sell them.
Vice laws are a big fat waste of time really, they have never worked, and several thousand years of human history shows that the collective *we* enjoy various vices. Governments all over should just admit reality and move on to something constructive.
10 years ago we had no hybrid vehicles on the market (major manufacturers). None of the domestic big three thought there would ever be a market for them, they sold zero...today? Fastest growing market segment. While they waited around and just kept building the same old things with some new shiny different looking sheetmetal and gas hog engines, toyota came in and grabbed early lead-and they are a profitable company, as opposed to the domestic big three which are bleeding red ink daily and just recently starting to offer some half baked hybrids.
Stuff changes and the computer industry changes much faster than cars=big vendors who are ignoring linux are doing so at their own peril. It may not be profitable this quarter or next quarter, but eventually it will be a considerable chunk of market share.
Here's another one none of the big boys are looking at, the hundred buck (whatever) laptop. That thing is going to run linux. Not windows, not osx, linux. Think eventually hundreds of millions of units all over the planet and..linux.
Once it is introduced that *flavor* of linux will be the most installed distro on the planet within short order (it will certainly top any of the current top ten by vast numbers would be my guess, maybe even combined...). All those millions of kids are going to be cutting their teeth on linux and open source, and a lot will rub off, and they are in where the world will be growing the fastest and where the new emerging markets will be. Yes, this is some years, but..it's going to happen.
Stockholders who only look at this quarters financials are *nuts*, IMO.. It's a part, sure, but to think it is even the most important part is sorta economically naieve. Companies that succeed look to the long haul, even if it means supporting some "new thing" isn't all that profitable right off the bat. The trick is to spot trends, and it is safe to say trend-wise that linux isn't going away anytime soon and ignoring it will not be a smooth move by the big guys, because some *won't* ignore it and those are the ones that will be getting the business down the road. A lot of business.
you mean like an actual cell phone that was large enough to have a viewable screen with older eyes and buttons that normal fingers fit, and the solid hefty weight came from internal/replaceable d-cell batteries that would last, instead of some tiny propietary battery that the replacement costs more than a new phone???
I'll take one...as for "convergence" if it had a pushbutton to turn on the *bright* LED flashlight part that would be about it for add-on doo dads I would prefer.
they know the success in the server room has opened up a lot of businesses to consider it on the desktop. And with the next success of the open document format, and with OOorg sneaking up on them, how the hell will they be able to compete in the next few years charging around 4-500$ a seat for an OS and an office app?? Maybe that was cool back when the hardware cost 3 grand, but not now......
wall-handwriting
They are going down, back to just being another company, not the dominant ones. It will still take some time, but it will happen. The only thing they have left that could stop it is bribery of governments and dropping their prices down to like 20 bucks or something for the OS/office bundle, which is about all they are worth anyway.
And before anyone says boo about this, remember just a few years ago, enron was this huge widely successful company, one of the largest in the world. Where are they now? Stuff happens in business and things can change quickly.
I didn't mean every single web page, I meant the personal DE. Once you got to a page it would display however the webmaster designed it. Just for running your desktop, opening apps, etc, and the surfing point A to B I think would be fun. Sometimes fun can trump *fast*. I know it, to me, is a lot more fun to go floating slow down in a stream in a canoe or go rock crawling in the jeep at a very slow speed compared to cruising down the highway at 75 or something in some regular sedan.
It would be nice to have a *choice* depending on your mood and preferences. If such a desktop evolves I would be one of the first in line to try it out, but weirdly, I honestly don't like video games(I don't see the point any, never did really). I just like the concept of fantasy world surfing and running the desktop. And I bet a lot of other folks would too, and I bet it happens someday as well, the concept is a direct outgrowth of developiong intense 3-d graphics, and we already have fantasy world games, so taking it a small step further into normal surfing and computer using seems a fairly modest futurist guess.
I just think it could be a popular hoot, given how well graphics intensive video games are received. Imagine a desktop ernvironment where rather than picking a simple skin and wallpaper background, etc for the theme, you pick a fantasy world.All your web surfing takes place in this fantasy world, sort of combining an interactive game plus the web. Niche market but I bet it would sell. I know I got ranked by the other replies, but seeing as how less than 1% of the planet thinks CLI is the way to go, I can dismiss those concerns and dissings, because I just see it-a 3D world desktop environment, as a future advancement of the GUI. All a GUI is, is real simple pictures, advancing that to the next step just leads to more realistic sort of graphics. CLI has it's place, but for the bulk of the computing public, it is an anachronism. I know way back when I was using DOS then got to use a mac with GUI one day I went YES, this is better. I could do more stuff in the first five minutes playing with it than I could in months learning DOS, and I have greatfully forgotten most of that. Later on I switched to Linux because mac osx wouldn't run on my last mac, and then I discovered FOSS and the GPL, which I prefer as a model by far. Reminds me of old community friendly barn raisings. Everyone helps out with what they can, everyone gets a barn. But even on Linux I am still a GUI guy, I use the command line when I absolutely have to, that's it, king of the copy/pastes here...
I know some folks will always argue about it,CLI/GUI/whatever is next, but the numbers speak for themselves, GUI desktop is king now, so..what IS next? When I saw the article I went YES again, same as way back when I first used a mouse with GUI.
If the mouse pad was an input device you could get by with the regular mouse. Just make the pad have a slight tilting motion to it, back and forth,a pivot underneat, you could easily adjust to getting the third depth dimension by tilting forward or backward just slightly. It doesn't have to be much at all, just slightly.
They have HUGE net presence, yet, I see nothing on any of their home pages about this net neutrality matter. Where they could easily have a single tasteful sentence there pointing to a single web page with information on this, they fail it. This situation called for drastic action, and in googs case I see an additional "wow, get world cup scores here" link on their main page. retardo-you get what you deserve, too weenie to fight, you'll get kicked by the bullies every time and get your lunch money snagged. Amazon main page-Fathers Day gifts! No net neutrality info. eBay main page-L@@k! buy more used crap! as usual
Big fat weenies, the lot of them
It does no good some exec doofus on his blog buried way back in some area 99.999% of your vistors to your site never go makes a plea for help to defeat something like this. For mainstream advertising specialty companies, they are *pitiful* on the political advertising part. If you don't want to help yourself with your own site, don't expect the great unwashed masses to be psychic and find out about it. And I'll tell you one thing I learned about US politics, trying to lock the barn door after the horse gets out (waiting until AFTER some nasty bill passes into law), just never, ever, ever, ever, works, you wind up screwed and it becomes 100 times harder to get old laws made into no-laws again. Run the numbers, check the odds, how many old laws get repealed compared to new ones put in?
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The space station and humans in space will always need water, so that should be the "fuel" they haul up with one of the shuttles, as much water as possible. Another shuttle should haul up as many advanced solar PV panels as they can deploy. Then they can have a lot more electrical power for actually doing some useful stuff, and also make more fuel (electrolysis),and burn hydrogen and oxygen in a small rocket to maintain orbit. An added bonus is more oxygen for the crew if it is needed. I don't know how practical that would be due to temperature variances tough, perhaps they need to maintain their water storage deep inside the station where it is protected more. The shuttles are allegedly pretty well insulated though (the famous foam), so inside them might be sufficient.
Do you happen to know offhand approximately how much fuel of what type they currently use to maintain ISS in that orbit?
...a good possible use for the remaining shuttles is to launch them unmanned and somehow attach them to the ISS or park them near by for other uses. On the ground sitting still they are OK. Up in space floating around they are OK. The transition in and out of the atmosphere is where they *blow goats*, so do that one more time with no humans in them. As already-up-in-space vehicles and as work/living space they are fine,and they are already built and functional. I say move them to orbit one last time and never return them back down, haul some cargo up with the last launches of them but stop risking humans in them with launches and reentry nonsense. Comes a time to cut your potential losses. Just the savings over the next few years would do wonders for NASA's budgets and to help re-fund a lot of the unmanned satellite jazz they are dropping-because the shuttle sucks down most of their cash. Spend the time designing the next replacement vehicle, and let the Rooskies haul the folks back and forth, they got the rig that works for that.
Must be different where you live then, I have parked trailers all over georgia, including inside metro atlanta, heck I have even lucked out and found adjoining spaces and parallel parked on busy streets before. Just depends on the situation I guess. It is somewhat of a pain, but it's doable. As I said, the trailers are for longer trips, like going on vacation, etc. I don't think the parking would be much of an issue. Vehicles towing trailers are quite common here, I honestly don't see it as a problem, just about everyone around here has a trailer, whether a boat on a trailer or a ramp-equipped small trailer for hauling the lawnmower or ATV or bikes around or a flatbed work trailer, etc.
Heh, I just finished up some haying today, I backed in a ten foot wide rake with one inch clearance on the walls at the hangar where we park it (we hay around the airport where we live). Using trailers is pretty easy once you get used to it, you don't even think about it, becomes more or less automatic like any other type of driving.
You have to admit though, that Tzero car with the new design extended hybrid generator trailer is *pretty spiffy*, especially how it mounts rigid to make backing up easier. Now I don't see joe sixpack getting one like that, same as joe sixpack don't buy ferraris usually, but a more sedate modest and cheaper one, with a larger trailer able to haul the generator plus some cargo would be a natural, they would sell if they were on the market. In fact, I think a neat design would be small four wheels as the commuter car, attach rigid framework with pickup bed with two more wheels (or duallies) to the rear, the generator part is under the floor, giving you a commuter car OR pickup with greater cargo capacity or range "on demand". Monday through friday night, joe commuter car, backin, attack extension, ou got a crew cab pickup to haul family and gear to gram maws for thw weekend, etc.
Anyway, there's just millions of people who fall inside the "one person in a vehicle commuting less than 100 miles total" range in the US, who most likely also live in the 'burbs and most likely also _do_ have said garage, with said garage roof ready for solar panel installation.
It'll happen, we'll see it soon, as in a few years soon now, the US is sometimes a little slow out of the blocks but then we seem to adopt and adapt readily once situations force the issue, and people REALLY will start looking at alternatives once gas hits steady over three bucks here, that seems to be the pain threshold for folks, so 4 or 5 would be a major inducement for some companies to buck the trend and try it. Just the pressure from normal hybrid owners now wanting a plug in" option is headed that way now, people *dig* the idea of being able to cruise a lot of miles on just the batts.
...they are adopting a GPS based mileage tracker, precisely for this purpose. You not only get to pay a tax, they will know where your ride is all the time if they feel like it.
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/6/12/4359
I guess all the folks who tow trailers never park? I tow various trailers of various sizes all the time, including normal US highway speeds, never seems to have been much of an issue once you learn to drive with one. The genny trailer is only for long trips beyond the range of the original charge, it isn't for day to day commuter driving downtown.
i ng_trailers.htm
There is no one size fits all vehicle out there, it doesn't exist, even with a normal straight fueled ICE engine vehicle. The electric car is designed for light duty day to day reasonable distance commutng, or inner city delivery purposes with small trucks, etc. The hybrid trailer is a way to extend the range for trips, and who knows, maybe they will be rentable so you don't have to buy one. Here is one developed already:
http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extend
It is one potential form of the evolution of the car, that's all. If you think it sucks, just don't buy one when they come out! It's that easy. In the meantime, like all other human tech advances, the backyard guys and the innovators are quietly advancing the tech, there are already a lot of electric vehices out there and they aren't going away, the numbers increase daily and once a critical mass of people interested in them gets large enough they will be manufactured in larger numbers. Whether you "approve" of it or not. Just like what happened with the personal computer.
A link provided me from elsewhere in the thread (thanks zenhkim), here read this:
e res-my-electric-car/20952/
http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/dude-wh
And if you follow battery tech there are breakthroughs daily. Even cheap batteries can be made to last with a little care. My storage batteries for my solar PV are 8 years old and still work fine, and only cost 50 clams apiece.
I am aware of the issues provided in the article movie reference, but I still plan on seeing that movie, I advise folks who question what I am saying to just *go see the movie*, those boys came up with the same stuff I did, and it's along with the same reasons "why", because that is the data out there to look at.
Some of ya'all debunkers remind me of a conversation I had with my dad a long time ago. We were sitting around talking economics and general BS. He was just about to rollover some jumbos, i suggested to him that perhaps he might want in on a little apple action (they were just hitting around then), I told him that eventually everyone would have a home personal computer because they were just so cool. He scoffed (even though he was a mainframe hardware guy), he said "no one would ever use them, too small, can't do anything, useless, yada yada yada). *Snort*. He got a few percent on his jumbos...big deal.
Another time in the 60s I was in the UAW in detroit. I was talking to some of my "brethren" saying like "Ya know, these japs gonna come in here and take a huge share of the market, lookit these little cars and how well built they are and how much good mileage they get", etc. Remember, this was way back when *very few* little cars around, VW beetles, a few renaults, etc, mostly just big detroit cars. They all laughed, said I was crazy and "no one will ever buy a little four cylinder car jap car". Oh man I got dissed and ranked over that, much worse then this little disagreement action on slashdot, it was like I was ouling the holy sacrament or something to suggest anything other than a 5-10 MPG detroit v-8 beast that needed replacing every three years.. I would also vote to *not* go on strike because we were already very well paid and I could see a huge pension gap coming that would kill off the biz a lot and would lead to "too expensive" of cars that would also hurt business. GEE, LOOK AROUND NOW, what is going on with GM and Ford?? Ha! After those conversations about "tiny jap cars",a few years later OPEC embargo. Lookee there, seems I was right after all....
I quit the UAW eventually (worked GM), because _both_ the union and management were mostly retards (red neck drunks and pompous preppy management cokeheads is all I ever saw), and they still are judging by how they run their business, I just can't be around non thinkers who can't see past next week. On the net it's OK,I can deal with it, but in meat space I just can't be around morons who go out of their way to remain ignorant.
You ARE going to see a lot of electric vehicles on the road, your concerns about batteries or whatever notwithstanding. Checkout the movie when it comes out, maybe someone will accidently release a torrent or something...
Uhh, no, they can be much simpler to make, and would probably be more robust. I honestly don't know where you are coming from but I am an older life long blue collar guy. Electric motors are WAY more reliable than most fueld engines.
i ng_trailers.htm
The tow behind trailer for long range trips? Already being built and be on the market shortly, because it's a good idea, the article was covered here on slashdot at least once that I recall, so it is you who are kidding yourself that this isn't possible. There's a company in california (ACPropulsion) makes very expensive (and fairly fast)exotic sportscar model electric vehicles, they have the trailer for extended range trips, but I thought of the idea independently of hearing about them, but to refresh maybe your memory here is a link to their site, so far they have cars, electric planes they are working on and now the "instant hybrid" trailer:
http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extend
Go see the movie in the article if you want to argue more about it, those are the points they are making, very similar. The elev\ctric car was killed *on purpose* because it is disruptive technology and a threat to established big money. There are a number of smaller companies heavily into it now (go ahead, google around for it), eventually you'll see mid sized then the big companies-eventually, and it might be *soon* eventually. Because that is in the future and speculative we'll have to wait and see who is right, cool? I predict it will happen, you don't, we'll check back in a few years or so...
They work fine, and the specialists are no more specialists than any other shop mechanics. This is ho hum stuff here. I've used electric pallet jacks and forklifts quite a bit, they are robust and actually *don't* break that often. I also used an electric golf cart converted into an outdoor gbrteenskeeping utility wagon one summer, ran the piss out of it, it never broke down that I recall, just plug it back in at night, that's it. You?? You actually used them -electric forklifts or mining equipment, etc, day in day out for full shifts, do you have personal experience? I have, so don't teach gramps about it, 'k? I know exactly how much they break down or not. They are robust and the batteries are fine as long as the nimrods don't cheap out and put mineraly tap water in them, then, sure, they can kill the batts quickly, but that is just common sense, and you don't run them completely flat, again, common sense and working within your limitations.
I still stand by my statement, electric cars are disruptive technologies to the established car companies, a big fnancial threat long term, a threat to governments from loss of road tax, and a definite threat to the oil companies and by allusion to the established electric grid monopoly suppliers because it is one step away going from an electric car to contemplating being your own power producer with solar or wind, etc. This is big time folding month *threats* to those wealthy and powerful folks, of course they are gonna FUD it out and deny and delay. It's only logical from their POV.
And that is the primary reason you don't see them out there on the dealers lots. And that is why the government is pushing hydrogen, it keeps control and the money directly where it already goes now-eventually. The big companies and big governments make no profit in you becoming independent of them. The car companies are not going to bork their long term sales and repair business by releasing vehicles with just a few moving parts that function well.
I have worked in some factories that have big electric motors running heavy machines for FIFTY YEARS or more and they hadn't broken down. One factory in particular I remember had some in the 70's when I was working there that were installed in the *teens* IIRC. They had oiler reservoirs for the bearings, big huge honking motors that drove belts all across the floors and simultaneously ran a lot of older but still quite functional woodworking machinery. three shifts a day when I worked there, those electric motors ran just about constantly, day in day out, months and years on end-and didn't break. The factory also burnt their own wood scrap (mostly lathe hearts, what we called them and what was left over after sections got run through what is called a peeler lathe-I ran one, that was my job there), anyway, burning that wood fed the boilers,which went to a GE steam turbine,and generated all their own electricity-everything- and they still sold off 10 grand a rough monthly into the grid, which more than paid the two firemen and some incidental repairs or the GE plant.
Electric motors *don't break* very easily. If the bearings stay good, that's it, blow them out and clean them with compressed air once in awhile or put some new brushes in if they are required.
Eventually you'll see them, but only after a lot of startups start selling them en masse, then you'll see the big car companies reluctantly jump in, just like they did with hybrids once toyota showed them how popular they were. There's already any number of smaller companies out there selling electric cars or offering conversions or kits. It is in roughly the same situation personal computers were in the early 70's, but, it has the potential to really take off. I expect some chinese companies to release them first actually, but that is a pure SWAG on my part, based on them now pumping out a lot of scooters and golf carts and atvs and tractors and now regular engine cars that will be hitting north american and european markets next year-cheap, as in under 10 grand new cheap.
Good link, I hope the naysayers see it and read it. Once you have lived with solar-or like these guys with the electric vehicles, it strips away just a TON of industry mass brainwashing.
You'll have to convince these movie guys about your claims then. You can get rich! Make an electric car debunker movie!
a r/
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricc
Looking forward to it! I'll watch both back to back!
You can go get any size solar rig you want to get now, and a lot of mortgage lenders will tie it into your 20 year house note. For some people it is actually cheaper (the increase on the house note) to get solar that way then to pay the normal electric bill.
If you google around you can find examples of people driving electric vehicles that they charge from home solar, it's doable. You charge off from your battery bank at home when you park for the night, or the grid, your choice. Sometimes you can get a deal from the electric company to use electric during off peak times and get a price break.
mining concerns and warehouses use electric drive vehicles all the time. while joe public has concerns-like yours-those folks are just going to work and getting the job done daily with "ohh dangerous high electric voltages", all over the world. Just because GM made a working but overy expensive and semi crippled on purpose car doesn't mean that a normal reliable and simple one isn't possibe. the one does not mandate the other. That's the point -who killed the electric car and why-and how.
Perhaps *you* should do some more research on it. And there are *thousands* of people all over the planet who have conversions and DIY models, and don't seem to suffer a whole lot. Hey, how about the millions of golfers, we don't seem to hear of them magically exploding or whatever from battery driven vehicles. It is old tech man, there were electric rides a hundred years ago, electric motors and batteries are just not that exotic, it is classed as "normal" human technology, just we are just starting to see more interest from the pollution angle and from the cost angle now.
I can remember getting gasoline at a scosh over 12 cents, that's my cheap record I recall, so I have a little historical perspective here. Of course there wasn't a lot of interest back then and up to now, it was incredibly cheap to drive, and most cars then were paid off in 12 months, that was a common loan then. Times change, stuff is expensive now, so people are looking at the electrics and the net is making a lot of shared knowledge and research possible. It's coming, ready or not, along with a ton of other neat stuff.
GM intentionally crippled their car (BTW, I used to *work* for GM and was in the UAW) and made it overly complicated and overly expensive on purpose, then never offered to sell them, just so they *wouldn't* have to keep making them., because electric vehicles are a considerable threat to the gas vehicle status quo. Like I said, disruptive technology, the main part of the article at the top-who killed the electric car and why. You can keep on trying to debunk it, I heard the same or similar about hybrids a few years ago, I heard it about solar a long time ago, and now that they are getting common, they are the hottest styled new type of car out there. And plugin hybrids are coming, because it makes sense and people want them. And solar PV is in extremely hot demand, new factories going in all over. We have neat new battery tech coming out now, and...just an exciting time now, stuff is coming together.
I'm not saying they are perfect, far from it, and so are gas buggies, I should know, been wrenching on them since they were mostly all flatheads. But for the target market, commuter cars, one guy driving, the tech we have now is more than adequate. My normal flooded lead acid storage batteries for my solar rig are 8 years old and still working fine. Why is that? I have had all sorts of internet "experts" tell me that "your batteries won't last". Well, they do and have, and they are cheap ones too. Sorry, but I have heard fud after fud after fud about alternative energy stuff over the years, and that is what most of it is, fud. Some is real, a lot is just fud.
The stuff works, and it is a clear and present danger and serious threat to various multi-billion dollar industries, that is the primary reason it has taken so long to reach good market penetratrion, but now it has. You *will* be seeing more pure electrics, plug in hybrids, a lot more solar installs, wind chargers-you name it, whether you think it "works" or not, because just way too many other people actually are doing it and it *does* work and can be made affordable.
Sorry,. I just have no truck with entrenched luddism on this subject, it has been an interest and hobby of mine for over three decades now. I have worked on superinsulated homes that practically needed zero additional heating in the winter other than the lights burning and cooking. That is possible with just normal tech we have had for year
neat! I use a desulphator on my battery bank for my little solar rig. The batteries (golf cart 6 volters) are from 98 and still fine working. It seems to work as advertised.
...it was apparently *too good*. Demand real high, good sales, but they stopped selling them. gee, wonder why??
You can't keep selling cars if they don't break down as much. Dealers make a ton of loot from repairs as well as from sales. Electric cars bork both of those business models severely. You can't keep milking drivers at the pump if there is no need for it and joe driver can make his own power for his vehicle that lasts a long time and works well..
This is also why they are pushing hydrogen over something else, the hydrogen infrastructure (creation/delivery/retail sales) will invariably fall to the already entrenched multi-billionaires in the oil business, who control government and policy in those areas. They will *never* advocate anything that would put them out of business, or reduce their business. The doofus CEO of exxon in congressional testimony said it from their POV, "we are not in the alternative energy business-we sell oil". If they can't control it and profit from it *in perpetuity*, they will spend any sum to FUD it away or make it not happen. IMO, hydrogen is 99% conjob right now.
GM made the electric because california mandated it(so many cars in the fleet had to be zero emission, etc), it was designed on purpose the way it was so they could say "see, too expensive, and no one wants them", etc. The electric ford rangers as well, although the last few ford relented and let the leassees keep them, but just a few, they crushed most of them. I believe this was covered on slashdot and I know I put some stuff up on technocrat about it.
I am looking forward to the movie, it's something I have been aware of for a long time now, and thanks for reminding me of that toyota, forgot about that model and AFAIK I never saw one. I have seen a couple EV1s driving around and a LONG time ago a few Lectric Leopards, which were handbuilt one at a time, conversions made from renaults modified to be electric.
So far though no smaller vendor will just do the practical thing and do a normal looking car. You either see those extremely expensive high end sportscar models, or the pith helmet on wheels joke toy car models. first guys out with a normal looking car or truck that isn't totally stupid will sell a lot of them. I think they should go whole hog and offer a complete package, the car or pickup, etc, the "instant hybrid" tow behind cargo/generator trailer for longer trips, and the home solar recharger station. And I bet you could come in with that whole bundle for the price of a high end SUV. I am thinking 20 grand for the basic ride, 20 grand for a *nice* home recharge solar station, and 5 grand for a nice genny trailer, something along those lines anyway, and right now, most of that stuff has some decent federal tax credits and some states have similar deals.
Electric cars can be quite fast. Electric motors have all their torque starting at one rpm and it just goes on from there. There isn't a fuel engine made that can compare horsepower to horsepower down where the rubber meets the road with an electric motor. People who managed to *lease* an EV1 loved them (EV1's were leased, not sold for the most part), they tried their darndest to get GM to sell them at end of lease and GM just took them away and crushed them while they were still in perfect working order. Read up on it, or actually go see that movie in the article, that is what this is all about.
Electric cars are a threat to auto makers because there is much less stuff to break and they are simpler to make (think about that one for a long time, it is a critical part of the equation), and they are a threat to governments because there is no way to apply the road fuel tax to them (short of the GPS tracking deal they just started in oregon). You can theoretically own an electric vehicle, own some solar panels, and eventually be driving for pretty darn cheap per mile. Many people are happily doing that today, proving it is possible and can fill a lot of niche driving. As to range,50-100 miles on a charge is doable *now*, which would handle just millions of commuter profiles, that is *easily* extended and handled by having an additional tow behind trailer with a fuel burning generator in it for trips, which would then morph your ride "on demand" into a hybrid vehicle..
Pure electric cars are a clear cut example of what is called "disruptive technology" that threatens big auto, big oil and big government. A lot of big money and big juice there that doesn't want that sort of threat, yes? That is why electric cars "failed",not that they don't work or can't be built in mass productyion style, of course they can,but they were never offered in the first place.
When is the last time you saw a pure electric car at a normal mainstream dealer *for sale*? I'm an old gear head,and I have *never* seen one for sale, never. I have seen anything and everything else under the sun with an engine that moves for sale, the only electric "car" I ever saw for sale was a golf cart, not a real car. I have seen a few low production prototypes that people hand built, and you were able to buy them used that way as one or two-offs,but that's it, nothing mass produced.
They say "there is no market", well it is a self fullfilling prophecy if you never even try to sell them.
ahahahahahaha! Too true!
Vice laws are a big fat waste of time really, they have never worked, and several thousand years of human history shows that the collective *we* enjoy various vices. Governments all over should just admit reality and move on to something constructive.
10 years ago we had no hybrid vehicles on the market (major manufacturers). None of the domestic big three thought there would ever be a market for them, they sold zero...today? Fastest growing market segment. While they waited around and just kept building the same old things with some new shiny different looking sheetmetal and gas hog engines, toyota came in and grabbed early lead-and they are a profitable company, as opposed to the domestic big three which are bleeding red ink daily and just recently starting to offer some half baked hybrids.
Stuff changes and the computer industry changes much faster than cars=big vendors who are ignoring linux are doing so at their own peril. It may not be profitable this quarter or next quarter, but eventually it will be a considerable chunk of market share.
Here's another one none of the big boys are looking at, the hundred buck (whatever) laptop. That thing is going to run linux. Not windows, not osx, linux. Think eventually hundreds of millions of units all over the planet and..linux.
Once it is introduced that *flavor* of linux will be the most installed distro on the planet within short order (it will certainly top any of the current top ten by vast numbers would be my guess, maybe even combined...). All those millions of kids are going to be cutting their teeth on linux and open source, and a lot will rub off, and they are in where the world will be growing the fastest and where the new emerging markets will be. Yes, this is some years, but..it's going to happen.
Stockholders who only look at this quarters financials are *nuts*, IMO.. It's a part, sure, but to think it is even the most important part is sorta economically naieve. Companies that succeed look to the long haul, even if it means supporting some "new thing" isn't all that profitable right off the bat. The trick is to spot trends, and it is safe to say trend-wise that linux isn't going away anytime soon and ignoring it will not be a smooth move by the big guys, because some *won't* ignore it and those are the ones that will be getting the business down the road. A lot of business.
you mean like an actual cell phone that was large enough to have a viewable screen with older eyes and buttons that normal fingers fit, and the solid hefty weight came from internal/replaceable d-cell batteries that would last, instead of some tiny propietary battery that the replacement costs more than a new phone???
I'll take one...as for "convergence" if it had a pushbutton to turn on the *bright* LED flashlight part that would be about it for add-on doo dads I would prefer.
they know the success in the server room has opened up a lot of businesses to consider it on the desktop. And with the next success of the open document format, and with OOorg sneaking up on them, how the hell will they be able to compete in the next few years charging around 4-500$ a seat for an OS and an office app?? Maybe that was cool back when the hardware cost 3 grand, but not now......
wall-handwriting
They are going down, back to just being another company, not the dominant ones. It will still take some time, but it will happen. The only thing they have left that could stop it is bribery of governments and dropping their prices down to like 20 bucks or something for the OS/office bundle, which is about all they are worth anyway.
And before anyone says boo about this, remember just a few years ago, enron was this huge widely successful company, one of the largest in the world. Where are they now? Stuff happens in business and things can change quickly.
quote "You just want to WORK"
gee what an amazing coincidence that the corporate run government really pushes this stuff, and sometimes makes it a requirement for children.
I didn't mean every single web page, I meant the personal DE. Once you got to a page it would display however the webmaster designed it. Just for running your desktop, opening apps, etc, and the surfing point A to B I think would be fun. Sometimes fun can trump *fast*. I know it, to me, is a lot more fun to go floating slow down in a stream in a canoe or go rock crawling in the jeep at a very slow speed compared to cruising down the highway at 75 or something in some regular sedan.
It would be nice to have a *choice* depending on your mood and preferences. If such a desktop evolves I would be one of the first in line to try it out, but weirdly, I honestly don't like video games(I don't see the point any, never did really). I just like the concept of fantasy world surfing and running the desktop. And I bet a lot of other folks would too, and I bet it happens someday as well, the concept is a direct outgrowth of developiong intense 3-d graphics, and we already have fantasy world games, so taking it a small step further into normal surfing and computer using seems a fairly modest futurist guess.
I just think it could be a popular hoot, given how well graphics intensive video games are received. Imagine a desktop ernvironment where rather than picking a simple skin and wallpaper background, etc for the theme, you pick a fantasy world.All your web surfing takes place in this fantasy world, sort of combining an interactive game plus the web. Niche market but I bet it would sell. I know I got ranked by the other replies, but seeing as how less than 1% of the planet thinks CLI is the way to go, I can dismiss those concerns and dissings, because I just see it-a 3D world desktop environment, as a future advancement of the GUI. All a GUI is, is real simple pictures, advancing that to the next step just leads to more realistic sort of graphics. CLI has it's place, but for the bulk of the computing public, it is an anachronism. I know way back when I was using DOS then got to use a mac with GUI one day I went YES, this is better. I could do more stuff in the first five minutes playing with it than I could in months learning DOS, and I have greatfully forgotten most of that. Later on I switched to Linux because mac osx wouldn't run on my last mac, and then I discovered FOSS and the GPL, which I prefer as a model by far. Reminds me of old community friendly barn raisings. Everyone helps out with what they can, everyone gets a barn. But even on Linux I am still a GUI guy, I use the command line when I absolutely have to, that's it, king of the copy/pastes here...
I know some folks will always argue about it,CLI/GUI/whatever is next, but the numbers speak for themselves, GUI desktop is king now, so..what IS next? When I saw the article I went YES again, same as way back when I first used a mouse with GUI.
If the mouse pad was an input device you could get by with the regular mouse. Just make the pad have a slight tilting motion to it, back and forth,a pivot underneat, you could easily adjust to getting the third depth dimension by tilting forward or backward just slightly. It doesn't have to be much at all, just slightly.
They have HUGE net presence, yet, I see nothing on any of their home pages about this net neutrality matter. Where they could easily have a single tasteful sentence there pointing to a single web page with information on this, they fail it. This situation called for drastic action, and in googs case I see an additional "wow, get world cup scores here" link on their main page. retardo-you get what you deserve, too weenie to fight, you'll get kicked by the bullies every time and get your lunch money snagged. Amazon main page-Fathers Day gifts! No net neutrality info. eBay main page-L@@k! buy more used crap! as usual
Big fat weenies, the lot of them
It does no good some exec doofus on his blog buried way back in some area 99.999% of your vistors to your site never go makes a plea for help to defeat something like this. For mainstream advertising specialty companies, they are *pitiful* on the political advertising part. If you don't want to help yourself with your own site, don't expect the great unwashed masses to be psychic and find out about it. And I'll tell you one thing I learned about US politics, trying to lock the barn door after the horse gets out (waiting until AFTER some nasty bill passes into law), just never, ever, ever, ever, works, you wind up screwed and it becomes 100 times harder to get old laws made into no-laws again. Run the numbers, check the odds, how many old laws get repealed compared to new ones put in?