My Scion xA is rated at 0-60 in under 11 seconds (108 hp, 105 lb-ft)
There's something wrong with your car. My 5-speed Hyundai Accent is rated at 0-60 in 10 seconds flat (104 hp, 106 lb-ft) and easily topped 60 mph on every on ramp I've ever driven on, including the circular ones with 25 mph curves (that I can take at 40+ mph).
It might help that mine is a 5-speed, and yours is (probably) a slushbox...
a "small car" (that's also lacking such amenities as air conditioning and power steering
Find me a website for a new small car in the US that's being sold without standard power steering and available air conditioning, I dare you. Here's a hint: you can't do it. Now, shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about.
However, if you've seen crashes where the cars tumble and roll, they do a great job protecting the driver. A street car rolling the same way would be a fatality.
5-point harnesses, helmets and head restraints are probably mostly responsible for that.
I can only think of one car company that has scaled down the size of their cars (albeit slightly), and that is Honda with their Civic (6th-7th gen)
Huh? The latest Civic is huge! No, Honda did exactly the same thing as Toyota (and Nissan (Sentra->Versa), and Chevrolet(Cavalier->Aveo), etc.): increased the size of the Civic and brought in a new model (the Fit) below it.
You know what the really funny thing is? The Fit is probably bigger than even an old Accord!
If you did research, you could probably quantify exactly how painful a drive needs to be, in order to get an average U.S. resident to use public transportation.
That's easy without research: it would have to be more painful than using public transportation (which, in most parts of the US, it is). For example, my (driving) commute to college takes about 45 minutes and, say, $3.00 (gas) + $1.50 (parking). If I were to use transit it would take about 45 minutes (20 of driving to the nearest subway station, 25 waiting for/riding the train) and $3.50 (MARTA fare) + $1.00 (gas). It's a wash, except that driving doesn't lock me into a fixed schedule, lets me carry more stuff if I need to, and lets me go other places near school. Therefore, I drive.
The other issue is that a whole lot of people really abhor living in high-density areas.
There's also the issue that high-density areas are expensive. If I could afford to live near school, believe me, I would!
(Now, much of this preference is driven by the huge tax breaks given to mortgage payments that aren't given to rent, but that's another story.)
Compared to owning, renting is stupid. All you're doing is throwing away money that would otherwise be building equity. I see no problem with encouraging investment by giving tax breaks to people who make smart choices.
I beg to differ. I live in Australia, you would hardly call that a densely populated area...
Australia as a whole, sure, but I'll bet your cities are more densely populated than those in the US (except for the ones in the northeast, like New York or Boston, that were built before cars existed).
What does this show? It shows that given the choice, people would probably take cars, but because more people want to do that than there is space on the road or parking spaces available, those without large amounts of surplus time and money are pushed onto mass transit.
Yep, and that's why all the people around my neck of the woods (Atlanta) who want to "reduce traffic" by building more roads are fucking morons. Instead, what we really need to do is bulldoze the roads in order to force people to use transit!
There's not a lot you can shave off the Insight before it becomes impractical. Maybe you can go Diesel and boost the milage, do some creative work with the fuel to ensure it is completely consumed, and finally start losing acceleration, seats and trunk space... turning it into something as impractical as the Smart, only much more fuel efficient. Then to make 100, start cutting safety features.
Or simply replace the batteries with lithium-ion of equivalent size and weight, and plug it in.
(Of course, it would be significantly better if the Insight were designed like the Prius, with its planetary gearset and the ability to move without the engine running.)
You obviously don't live in a mountainous area. My 2.4L Stratus has a lot of power for general driving, but when I'm going up the Coquihalla with a full car, I wouldn't want anything less.
A car with a 1.3L engine and a turbocharger (to compensate for the elevation) would work just as well as your Stratus and probably get better mileage too.
The Smart Car weighs at least as much as my Hyundai Accent, seats two fewer people, and (will) cost several thousand dollars more. It's a joke. It does get marginally better mileage, but that's because I live in the US where Hyundai only sells the Accent with a 1.6L gasoline engine. If I lived in Europe, I could get a diesel Accent and probably get better mileage than a Smart Car.
Bullshit. My 1.6L Hyundai merges just fine. And those "really tight" ramps aren't a problem because my car is light and nimble enough that I can handle them at highway speed!
if you spend that much on a windows laptop then you sir are a foaming at the mouth moron.
Hey, fuck you! Maybe you're too much of a foaming-at-the-mouth moron to realize it, but there are some laptops high-end enough out there to be worth $2000 (and running Windows is irrelevant to that).
Yes, I understand that not everyone is a programmer so the ease-of-programming in *nix (compared to Windows) doesn't appeal to them. But not everyone is a graphic designer, Engineer (CAD), accountant, or gamer either.
As an engineer, I would love it if AutoCAD ran in Linux (or better yet, if a cross-platform app overtook AutCAD's dominance in civil engineering).
People use "quantum" in this sense to refer to a discrete leap, not a small one. In other words, the parent meant that DOS was an instant [huge] regression from UNIX (or whatever) rather than a continuous decline.
Check your reading comprehension. He said "if he needed," in the hypothetical sense. He doesn't have one that needs it now, but he got it anyway because it was cheap for a limited time and one might need it in the future.
Floppies? By the time Windows 95 came out, even my so-low-end-that-it-was-actually-"refurbished" Packard Bell 486 had a CD-ROM drive! And yes, I did install Win95 on it from a CD (in fact, that was the last -- and only -- version of Windows that I ever willingly bought).
I subscribed to Cedega for a few months, because I heard how good it was. But then while I was on it, I kept hearing how Wine was just about as good in most ways, and better in others, apparently since Cedega's greed locked them out of Wine updates, but forced them to contribute back. Since Cedega was iffy anyhow, and only played 1 game that I liked, and played it very poorly, I dropped my subscription. Even worse was the changelogs... Wine seems to fix a LOT more each month than Cedega does. Very sad.
Personally, I'd like to see a version of Crossover with a focus on gaming. Codeweavers seems to be much better than Transgaming in terms of cooperating with the WINE developers.
For all my math/engineering classes, I bit the bullet and got a Tablet PC. It's really great for writing equations and drawing diagrams. Of course, my situation is a bit different because I also needed something viable for programming and general-purpose use (and thus decided against buying and hacking one of these instead), but it still works out well.
The only downside is that there's really no viable tablet software for Linux or Mac OS*, so I'm stuck with Windows for the foreseeable future. I think I'll be a lot happier when KDE/Windows comes out...
(*My laptop should be capable of running OS X, albeit in violation of the EULA. The support for the Wacom serial tablet is the only remaining concern about that.)
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There's something wrong with your car. My 5-speed Hyundai Accent is rated at 0-60 in 10 seconds flat (104 hp, 106 lb-ft) and easily topped 60 mph on every on ramp I've ever driven on, including the circular ones with 25 mph curves (that I can take at 40+ mph).
It might help that mine is a 5-speed, and yours is (probably) a slushbox...
Find me a website for a new small car in the US that's being sold without standard power steering and available air conditioning, I dare you. Here's a hint: you can't do it. Now, shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about.
5-point harnesses, helmets and head restraints are probably mostly responsible for that.
What he should have said was "many cars can easily beat a Prius hybrid on fuel economy in Europe." The cars he's talking about aren't sold here.
No, it's not a cultural US thing.
Here in the US, it turns out that the biggest group of users of SUVs are.... also married women with kids!
Huh? The latest Civic is huge! No, Honda did exactly the same thing as Toyota (and Nissan (Sentra->Versa), and Chevrolet(Cavalier->Aveo), etc.): increased the size of the Civic and brought in a new model (the Fit) below it.
You know what the really funny thing is? The Fit is probably bigger than even an old Accord!
That's easy without research: it would have to be more painful than using public transportation (which, in most parts of the US, it is). For example, my (driving) commute to college takes about 45 minutes and, say, $3.00 (gas) + $1.50 (parking). If I were to use transit it would take about 45 minutes (20 of driving to the nearest subway station, 25 waiting for/riding the train) and $3.50 (MARTA fare) + $1.00 (gas). It's a wash, except that driving doesn't lock me into a fixed schedule, lets me carry more stuff if I need to, and lets me go other places near school. Therefore, I drive.
There's also the issue that high-density areas are expensive. If I could afford to live near school, believe me, I would!
Compared to owning, renting is stupid. All you're doing is throwing away money that would otherwise be building equity. I see no problem with encouraging investment by giving tax breaks to people who make smart choices.
Australia as a whole, sure, but I'll bet your cities are more densely populated than those in the US (except for the ones in the northeast, like New York or Boston, that were built before cars existed).
Yep, and that's why all the people around my neck of the woods (Atlanta) who want to "reduce traffic" by building more roads are fucking morons. Instead, what we really need to do is bulldoze the roads in order to force people to use transit!
Not in America.
Again, not in America -- here you'll just get run over because people hardly ever see people cycling, and therefore don't expect you.
Not in America -- Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards haven't risen significantly in a decade or so, IIRC.
Or simply replace the batteries with lithium-ion of equivalent size and weight, and plug it in.
(Of course, it would be significantly better if the Insight were designed like the Prius, with its planetary gearset and the ability to move without the engine running.)
A car with a 1.3L engine and a turbocharger (to compensate for the elevation) would work just as well as your Stratus and probably get better mileage too.
The Smart Car weighs at least as much as my Hyundai Accent, seats two fewer people, and (will) cost several thousand dollars more. It's a joke. It does get marginally better mileage, but that's because I live in the US where Hyundai only sells the Accent with a 1.6L gasoline engine. If I lived in Europe, I could get a diesel Accent and probably get better mileage than a Smart Car.
Bullshit. My 1.6L Hyundai merges just fine. And those "really tight" ramps aren't a problem because my car is light and nimble enough that I can handle them at highway speed!
Alright Mr. I-drive-only-5-minutes-to-work, do you still own a car at all? If so, then you still have to pay that insurance and whatnot too!
Now, I'm not saying that living close to work isn't a good thing, but don't overstate your case.
Hey, fuck you! Maybe you're too much of a foaming-at-the-mouth moron to realize it, but there are some laptops high-end enough out there to be worth $2000 (and running Windows is irrelevant to that).
As an engineer, I would love it if AutoCAD ran in Linux (or better yet, if a cross-platform app overtook AutCAD's dominance in civil engineering).
People use "quantum" in this sense to refer to a discrete leap, not a small one. In other words, the parent meant that DOS was an instant [huge] regression from UNIX (or whatever) rather than a continuous decline.
Check your reading comprehension. He said "if he needed," in the hypothetical sense. He doesn't have one that needs it now, but he got it anyway because it was cheap for a limited time and one might need it in the future.
Whoops, forgot the link
The Windows 95 launch video is rather apropos as well... "You make a grown man cry," indeed!
Floppies? By the time Windows 95 came out, even my so-low-end-that-it-was-actually-"refurbished" Packard Bell 486 had a CD-ROM drive! And yes, I did install Win95 on it from a CD (in fact, that was the last -- and only -- version of Windows that I ever willingly bought).
Don't forget classic Mac OS.
Personally, I'd like to see a version of Crossover with a focus on gaming. Codeweavers seems to be much better than Transgaming in terms of cooperating with the WINE developers.
For all my math/engineering classes, I bit the bullet and got a Tablet PC. It's really great for writing equations and drawing diagrams. Of course, my situation is a bit different because I also needed something viable for programming and general-purpose use (and thus decided against buying and hacking one of these instead), but it still works out well.
The only downside is that there's really no viable tablet software for Linux or Mac OS*, so I'm stuck with Windows for the foreseeable future. I think I'll be a lot happier when KDE/Windows comes out...
(*My laptop should be capable of running OS X, albeit in violation of the EULA. The support for the Wacom serial tablet is the only remaining concern about that.)