Actually, the government right now is subsidizing the purchase of an electric car, to the tune of $7500, which is about double the rebate from the rebate from the idiotic Cash For Clunkers program. So you can go out and buy your electric car, subsidized by the tax payers, right now if you want. Probably the reason they aren't flying off of dealers lots is that the rebate only takes them down from "really expensive" to just "expensive". That and they aren't widely available yet.
Also, if you're going to allow electrics to be exempt from a lot of the safety regulations, why not gasoline cars too? We could start building cars like the Honda CRX again, with 40+ MPG using a standard gasoline engine and no fancy tricks.
Simple. About $300 billion a year is spent preparing tax tax returns. Simplify the tax system to eliminate that cost, raise taxes slightly so that the government now gets some of that money, and let the tax payers keep the rest. The government gets more money, and the tax payer gets to keep more of theirs.
Probably because the Toyota Townace, if I'm not mistaken, is a rear wheel drive vehicle. In North America, minivans are typically front wheel drive (though there are exceptions). With the weight over the drive wheels they tend to do decently in the snow.
While you do have to worry about the batteries in an electric vehicle, I anticipate a lot lower maintenance costs overall. Internal combustion engines are complicated devices, with lots of moving parts and various fluids that have to be pumped around, monitored, and changed when they get dirty. You have valves and timing belts/chains. You have a complex transmission to transfer the power to the wheels, and has to be able to change directions to reverse because the IC motor can't. You have an exhaust system that has to be maintained. You need an alternator to get electrical power, and an electric starter to get it all going. There are a dizzying array of sensors that are needed to make it run that periodically will go bad and need to be replaced.
On the other hand, an electric motor is robust and reliable, and should require little to no maintenance for the life of the car. The transmission should be a lot simpler, and also require little to no maintenance. Add the battery, and that's about it as you don't need all these auxiliary systems like fuel, exhaust, cooling, charging, etc. like with an IC car.
So even if the battery pack costs me a few thousand dollars after 7-10 years, if I never have to get an oil change again, never have flush the coolant and transmission fluid, never to change a spark plug or a timing belt, never have to deal with a muffler rusting out, never have to deal with the O2 sensor going bad, never have to worry about failing the smog check, never have to stop by the gas station to fuel it - I'll take it. Almost all my driving is within the 60-100 miles of an electric vehicle, and the couple of times a year where I would want to go farther I have no problem with renting a standard gasoline (or hybrid) car.
Now, hybrids may be a different story, as it seems you're getting the problems of both worlds - all the problems of an IC car plus the battery issues. On the other hand, it seems like the Prius and Insight have proven themselves.
Guess it depends on what you want to call common. The WRT54G is actually a bunch of different routers, with different hardware with differing capabilities, running different OSes, all sold under the same model name.
Generally they can only repair what you authorize them to. That's so you don't take in a computer where the CD tray won't come out and have to pay for a new motherboard (which is about what I would expect from Best Buy). Also, generally you can request the broken parts back - they are yours after all.
Anyone used to the Microsoft way of doing things of recent years is probably used to right clicking a lot in Explorer. Linux tends to copy Microsoft more than Mac, so Ubuntu (Gnome) is pretty similar as this goes. A Mac can work the same way, but if it's still set up with a one button mouse there's a lot of Control + clicking involved.
Of course, you can get used to the Mac way of doing things, but overall I still consider Windows Explorer superior to the Finder, even after Microsoft screwed it all up in Vista/7.
I don't know about that. iTunes for Windows is terrible, slow, bloated garbage with an awful interface that tries to take over your computer and install stuff you don't want. Windows Media player is also bloated and has a terrible interface (though it's at least skinnable). As a Windows user I can't uninstall it, but at least it lets me install another media player and more or less stays out of the way.
My favorite way to mess with that would be to wire the outlets where your computers are hooked up to 240 V. Pretty much all computer equipment nowadays won't have a problem with this, but if they try to use a HotPlug on it... BANG. And even if they did realize what you did beforehand, it's unlikely they would have the equipment to do anything about it.
I've spun up old hard drives that have been sitting for well over a decade and was able to read the data on them. However, I don't know how well today's drives are going to hold up to that.
Stored flash will gradually lose its charge in the cells over a period of years. When this happens the flash memory is erased, though the media itself is still fine.
Exactly. You can't say anything about about NeXT without framing it with OS X. That's because it didn't amount to much until Apple bought them and turned it into OS X. NeXT itself was little more than a tech demo. Cool, but not very useful in of itself.
Sad thing is a lot of the cool stuff NeXT did, like the resolution independence, was lost when Apple dropped the clunky Mac interface on top of it.
Table 15.3 seems pretty relevant (warning: Excel file). As of 2005 they have government spending as percentage of GDP at 31.4%. Granted, the table is a bit out of date, but the numbers hang around 30% until you get back into the early 1960's. The earliest date they have is 1948 at 17.2%. Too bad this table doesn't have any pre-WW2 data. Table 1.2 goes back to 1930, and it only includes Federal spending (no state and local), and has federal spending at 3.4% of GDP in 1930. So I'll say that the 40% number for total spending seems high, but not implausible given the huge stimuluses (stimuli?) in the pass couple of years. However, I'm going to guess that the 2% number is federal spending only and therefore not comparable to the 40% number.
If the company does not pay dividends, the only way to make money with the stock is to buy it with the hope of selling it a future date for a higher price. That's the very definition of speculation.
Why don't you start making arguments for NeXT and not OSX? You're argument is not really any different than attributing the successes of Windows 7 to OS/2. It really doesn't make any sense.
NeXT was pretty slick, but it was hype. It was more of a tech demo more than anything else. It took Apple years to turn it into something useful.
Did they know you were doing this? A lot of companies would not be comfortable with the idea that you'd be walking away with a hard drive that likely held confidential information.
I find it hard to believe. Most people are going to go where they know computers are sold, and you're going to end with a bunch of random machines from Best Buy and Wal-mart. Computers that for the most part, aren't built to the same quality standards as the typical corporate desktop and are harder to repair when they break.
Then you'll have the guys like me who'll order $2000 of parts from Newegg and put it together ourselves. While in the end, this may mean I'll have a better computer suited for my job, in the meantime does the company want me using company time dicking around with a DIY-computer?
That's why the idea is such a good one. If the laws had to be continuously reviewed, they'd be a lot more concise and we'd get rid of a lot of the obsolete, outdated, and redundant ones. Though 1 year is not nearly long enough. I'd say something like 8-10 years.
The Republicans were definitely not in a good position in 2008, but the old John McCain would have been about the best possible pick as he was about as far away as you could get from Bush while still having an R after his name. However, his hard right turn starting about 2006 hurt his chances a lot, and then his pick of Palin as a running mate showed that he was no longer capable of making a good choice when it came to important decisions. That is what sank him.
Many of the cars that were turned in were not "clunkers", they were perfectly good vehicles - hence the comparison to the broken window fallacy. The two things they really did wrong was making the rebates far too big - people were turning in cars that were worth $2-4k as a trade-in (something like $3-7k retail). The other problem was that in order to participate you had to purchase a new car. The real clunkers you want to get off the road are owned by people who couldn't afford to participate in the program. Generally people who can afford a new car may drive an older, low value car, but won't put up with something that most would consider a "clunker".
Besides, the requirements were pretty broad as for what can get turned in. Basically the vehicle had to get 18 MPG or less, and was 25 years old or newer. The only lasting effect of the program was to further drive up the price of used vehicles, further squeezing the people that depend on them.
My most recent upgrade (from a Sempron 3000 with an ATI 9600Pro) was to be able to play 1080p h.264 encoded music videos without stuttering. Funny enough, that computer came about because a K6-2 just wasn't good enough to handle DVD quality Xvid/DivX music video files. And the K6-2 came about because the 6x86 I had before it sucked at playing MP3's (terrible FPU on those chips).
Now I'm waiting to see what a Phenom II X4 can't handle.
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You do realize that Apple closed off the source for the kernel years ago, right?
Actually, the government right now is subsidizing the purchase of an electric car, to the tune of $7500, which is about double the rebate from the rebate from the idiotic Cash For Clunkers program. So you can go out and buy your electric car, subsidized by the tax payers, right now if you want. Probably the reason they aren't flying off of dealers lots is that the rebate only takes them down from "really expensive" to just "expensive". That and they aren't widely available yet.
Also, if you're going to allow electrics to be exempt from a lot of the safety regulations, why not gasoline cars too? We could start building cars like the Honda CRX again, with 40+ MPG using a standard gasoline engine and no fancy tricks.
Simple. About $300 billion a year is spent preparing tax tax returns. Simplify the tax system to eliminate that cost, raise taxes slightly so that the government now gets some of that money, and let the tax payers keep the rest. The government gets more money, and the tax payer gets to keep more of theirs.
Probably because the Toyota Townace, if I'm not mistaken, is a rear wheel drive vehicle. In North America, minivans are typically front wheel drive (though there are exceptions). With the weight over the drive wheels they tend to do decently in the snow.
Seems to me that you couldn't do this without seriously hampering your ability to steer.
How is this the Prisoner's Dilemma?
While you do have to worry about the batteries in an electric vehicle, I anticipate a lot lower maintenance costs overall. Internal combustion engines are complicated devices, with lots of moving parts and various fluids that have to be pumped around, monitored, and changed when they get dirty. You have valves and timing belts/chains. You have a complex transmission to transfer the power to the wheels, and has to be able to change directions to reverse because the IC motor can't. You have an exhaust system that has to be maintained. You need an alternator to get electrical power, and an electric starter to get it all going. There are a dizzying array of sensors that are needed to make it run that periodically will go bad and need to be replaced.
On the other hand, an electric motor is robust and reliable, and should require little to no maintenance for the life of the car. The transmission should be a lot simpler, and also require little to no maintenance. Add the battery, and that's about it as you don't need all these auxiliary systems like fuel, exhaust, cooling, charging, etc. like with an IC car.
So even if the battery pack costs me a few thousand dollars after 7-10 years, if I never have to get an oil change again, never have flush the coolant and transmission fluid, never to change a spark plug or a timing belt, never have to deal with a muffler rusting out, never have to deal with the O2 sensor going bad, never have to worry about failing the smog check, never have to stop by the gas station to fuel it - I'll take it. Almost all my driving is within the 60-100 miles of an electric vehicle, and the couple of times a year where I would want to go farther I have no problem with renting a standard gasoline (or hybrid) car.
Now, hybrids may be a different story, as it seems you're getting the problems of both worlds - all the problems of an IC car plus the battery issues. On the other hand, it seems like the Prius and Insight have proven themselves.
Guess it depends on what you want to call common. The WRT54G is actually a bunch of different routers, with different hardware with differing capabilities, running different OSes, all sold under the same model name.
Generally they can only repair what you authorize them to. That's so you don't take in a computer where the CD tray won't come out and have to pay for a new motherboard (which is about what I would expect from Best Buy). Also, generally you can request the broken parts back - they are yours after all.
Anyone used to the Microsoft way of doing things of recent years is probably used to right clicking a lot in Explorer. Linux tends to copy Microsoft more than Mac, so Ubuntu (Gnome) is pretty similar as this goes. A Mac can work the same way, but if it's still set up with a one button mouse there's a lot of Control + clicking involved.
Of course, you can get used to the Mac way of doing things, but overall I still consider Windows Explorer superior to the Finder, even after Microsoft screwed it all up in Vista/7.
I don't know about that. iTunes for Windows is terrible, slow, bloated garbage with an awful interface that tries to take over your computer and install stuff you don't want. Windows Media player is also bloated and has a terrible interface (though it's at least skinnable). As a Windows user I can't uninstall it, but at least it lets me install another media player and more or less stays out of the way.
My favorite way to mess with that would be to wire the outlets where your computers are hooked up to 240 V. Pretty much all computer equipment nowadays won't have a problem with this, but if they try to use a HotPlug on it... BANG. And even if they did realize what you did beforehand, it's unlikely they would have the equipment to do anything about it.
I've spun up old hard drives that have been sitting for well over a decade and was able to read the data on them. However, I don't know how well today's drives are going to hold up to that.
Stored flash will gradually lose its charge in the cells over a period of years. When this happens the flash memory is erased, though the media itself is still fine.
Exactly. You can't say anything about about NeXT without framing it with OS X. That's because it didn't amount to much until Apple bought them and turned it into OS X. NeXT itself was little more than a tech demo. Cool, but not very useful in of itself.
Sad thing is a lot of the cool stuff NeXT did, like the resolution independence, was lost when Apple dropped the clunky Mac interface on top of it.
Here's some numbers straight from the Fed themselves:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/hist.html
Table 15.3 seems pretty relevant (warning: Excel file). As of 2005 they have government spending as percentage of GDP at 31.4%. Granted, the table is a bit out of date, but the numbers hang around 30% until you get back into the early 1960's. The earliest date they have is 1948 at 17.2%. Too bad this table doesn't have any pre-WW2 data. Table 1.2 goes back to 1930, and it only includes Federal spending (no state and local), and has federal spending at 3.4% of GDP in 1930. So I'll say that the 40% number for total spending seems high, but not implausible given the huge stimuluses (stimuli?) in the pass couple of years. However, I'm going to guess that the 2% number is federal spending only and therefore not comparable to the 40% number.
There you go again talking about OS X. What about NeXT? It's pretty clear you don't know what you're talking about.
If the company does not pay dividends, the only way to make money with the stock is to buy it with the hope of selling it a future date for a higher price. That's the very definition of speculation.
Why don't you start making arguments for NeXT and not OSX? You're argument is not really any different than attributing the successes of Windows 7 to OS/2. It really doesn't make any sense.
NeXT was pretty slick, but it was hype. It was more of a tech demo more than anything else. It took Apple years to turn it into something useful.
Did they know you were doing this? A lot of companies would not be comfortable with the idea that you'd be walking away with a hard drive that likely held confidential information.
I find it hard to believe. Most people are going to go where they know computers are sold, and you're going to end with a bunch of random machines from Best Buy and Wal-mart. Computers that for the most part, aren't built to the same quality standards as the typical corporate desktop and are harder to repair when they break.
Then you'll have the guys like me who'll order $2000 of parts from Newegg and put it together ourselves. While in the end, this may mean I'll have a better computer suited for my job, in the meantime does the company want me using company time dicking around with a DIY-computer?
That's why the idea is such a good one. If the laws had to be continuously reviewed, they'd be a lot more concise and we'd get rid of a lot of the obsolete, outdated, and redundant ones. Though 1 year is not nearly long enough. I'd say something like 8-10 years.
The Republicans were definitely not in a good position in 2008, but the old John McCain would have been about the best possible pick as he was about as far away as you could get from Bush while still having an R after his name. However, his hard right turn starting about 2006 hurt his chances a lot, and then his pick of Palin as a running mate showed that he was no longer capable of making a good choice when it came to important decisions. That is what sank him.
Many of the cars that were turned in were not "clunkers", they were perfectly good vehicles - hence the comparison to the broken window fallacy. The two things they really did wrong was making the rebates far too big - people were turning in cars that were worth $2-4k as a trade-in (something like $3-7k retail). The other problem was that in order to participate you had to purchase a new car. The real clunkers you want to get off the road are owned by people who couldn't afford to participate in the program. Generally people who can afford a new car may drive an older, low value car, but won't put up with something that most would consider a "clunker".
Besides, the requirements were pretty broad as for what can get turned in. Basically the vehicle had to get 18 MPG or less, and was 25 years old or newer. The only lasting effect of the program was to further drive up the price of used vehicles, further squeezing the people that depend on them.
My most recent upgrade (from a Sempron 3000 with an ATI 9600Pro) was to be able to play 1080p h.264 encoded music videos without stuttering. Funny enough, that computer came about because a K6-2 just wasn't good enough to handle DVD quality Xvid/DivX music video files. And the K6-2 came about because the 6x86 I had before it sucked at playing MP3's (terrible FPU on those chips).
Now I'm waiting to see what a Phenom II X4 can't handle.