IIRC, NYC uses Chevy Malibus as their main "workhorse" car for this reason.
In the stop-and-go driving of the city, the smaller and more fuel-efficient Malibu has big advantages.
In suburban and rural areas, Crown Vics rule because of good acceleration (big V8) and the fact that the car itself can be used as a weapon in a vehicular chase. Crown Vics can take (and give) a beating in situations that require aggressive driving.
Don't forget Ford and GM. Basically every other European company not mentioned above is at least partially owned by either Ford or GM.
IIRC, Ford owns Volvo and Aston Martin among others. GM owns Saab and about 20% of Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru).
DCX also owns a significant share of Mitsubishi. Something a lot of old Chrysler loyalists don't like, because until Daimler bought out Chrysler (merger my ass, it was a buyout), Chrysler was taking measures to distance themselves from Mitsubishi. (For example, the 3.3/3.8 liter V6 engines used heavily in minivans were designed as a replacement for the Mitsu 3.0 V6 used heavily in Chrysler cars in the late 80s and early 90s.)
I think one of the Detroit Big Three also has their fingers in Mazda or Suzuki to some degree.
I know a lot of loyal Chrysler customers (including myself) who refuse to buy any of their post-buyout products because those morons in Germany (Especially Schrempp, although I think he's gone now. He should've picked his family over his company, it would have been better for BOTH.) have been running the company into the ground.
Subarus seem to be quite popular with the unhappy ex-Chrysler loyalists. Yes, GM owns part of the company now, but the stake is only 20% and so far it seems like it's been purely beneficial to everyone involved. (Subaru gets a financial benefit but basically retains control, GM gets lots of Subaru goodies/technology to boost their not-so-well-off divisions like Saab. Although Saab loyalists are probably not too happy that the 9-2X is just a repackaged WRX.)
My dad was driving home from work in our old '88 or so Subaru Loyale, and swerved to dodge a deer. Another deer came from the other side of the road, and he spun out in a patch of sand trying to avoid it. (Sand is good for traction when it snows, but bad news once the snow melts as it's far worse than dry pavement.)
The car hit the curb sideways at about 5 MPH and that's when it rolled. (Very slowly, it almost rolled back onto its wheels, but just barely continued over.)
Thanks to his seat belt and the low speed of the crash, my dad walked away without a scratch. The Subaru wasn't so well-off though.
This is why I feel safer in a normal car than an SUV.
In a collision with an SUV, yeah, I know I'm fucked.
But in a car that can actually corner/stop/accelerate worth a damn, I'm far less likely to have a collision with another vehicle.
Better to avoid the collision than to be in one in the first place. Another reply to your poster illustrates my point - People dying because they rolled while trying to avoid an accident.
Of course, the best thing now are vehicles "in the middle" - Larger than average but with good handling. Such as my family's 2004 Subaru Outback. It's a larger vehicle, so more crumple area to absorb impacts. But it still has decent gas mileage, and thanks to 4-wheel disc brakes and a fully independent suspension (as opposed to your typical SUV's live-axle suspension), the OB outhandles my tiny LeBaron convertible. Unfortunately it has the base 4-cylinder engine so its acceleration sucks.:(
I feel safer behind the wheel of my 1995 LeBaron convertible than I ever did behind the wheel of my family's old 1989 Montero or any other SUV I've driven, simply because I have FAR more control over the vehicle and where it goes.
If you RTFA, in all three cases of battery recall/explosion incidents, the companies in question dropped their suppliers like a hot potato and switched to new suppliers.
In short, the companies did as much as they could to prevent it from ever happening again. Switching suppliers in a short time period is not a small (or cheap) task.
Dammit, yet another possible replacement for my Kyocera 6035 proves to be insufficient.
I was hoping for the 7135 to drop in price, but Verizon outright pulled it instead.
None of the current batch of smartphones appeal to me in design. They're all more PDA than phone, the Kyos were EXCELLENT phones. I *need* tactile feedback when dialing my phone, and all of the current smartphones use on-screen dialing.
Unlike vodka, which is supposed to be alcohol and water and nothing else, beer's flavor comes from all of the other things present in it. Filtering beer with a Brita would make things FAR worse.
Now, if you homebrew, filtering the water you use to brew with DOES make a lot of sense.
Also, in some situations, particulate filtering (NOT chemical filtering) in between primary and secondary fermentation stages can help too.
Doesn't work under Linux and likely never will (die TeraLogic die!) and from what I've heard its receiver is less sensitive than the MDP-120. (The 120 is also Linux-incompatible).
The end result - after being in my comp for a few months, the MDP-100 now sits on a shelf and has for over a year.
Lack of an actual market. The pcHDTV cards can support QAM in hardware, but they haven't bothered implementing it because nearly everything on cable systems is encrypted, so being able to demodulate the data doesn't help you at all.
Thanks to the broadcast flag BS from the FCC, there will likely never be a solution for anything other than recording OTA HD, or at least not for a LONG time, because realtime compression of HDTV content into a usable format (MPEG-2 for example) at an economic price is a LONG way away. Encoding 1080i in realtime requires thousands of dollars worth of dedicated hardware. General-purpose processors are probably over a decade away from that goal.
I recall in at least one episode of the original CSI, Warrick wanted to use some nifty "electronic nose" device that was on loan from some company. Grissom made him do it the "old-fashioned" way for budget reasons.
It's entirely possible for large capacitors (such as those found in heavy-duty power supplies) to pack enough punch to vaporize large chunks of your screwdriver.
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IIRC, NYC uses Chevy Malibus as their main "workhorse" car for this reason.
In the stop-and-go driving of the city, the smaller and more fuel-efficient Malibu has big advantages.
In suburban and rural areas, Crown Vics rule because of good acceleration (big V8) and the fact that the car itself can be used as a weapon in a vehicular chase. Crown Vics can take (and give) a beating in situations that require aggressive driving.
Not sure, but at the very least Dodge is working on a concept design (the Sling Shot) based heavily on the SMART.
In fact it looks almost identical to the SMART roadsters someone linked to earlier.
It sounds like the SMART is going to come to the U.S. from the original manufacturer in not too long, they're already available in Canada.
That looks a lot like pictures of the Dodge SlingShot concept car.
4 .html mentions that the SlingShot is based on the SMART.)
Not surprising since they're both made by DCX.
(Aha. http://www.allpar.com/model/concepts/concepts-200
More than that.
Don't forget Ford and GM. Basically every other European company not mentioned above is at least partially owned by either Ford or GM.
IIRC, Ford owns Volvo and Aston Martin among others.
GM owns Saab and about 20% of Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru).
DCX also owns a significant share of Mitsubishi. Something a lot of old Chrysler loyalists don't like, because until Daimler bought out Chrysler (merger my ass, it was a buyout), Chrysler was taking measures to distance themselves from Mitsubishi. (For example, the 3.3/3.8 liter V6 engines used heavily in minivans were designed as a replacement for the Mitsu 3.0 V6 used heavily in Chrysler cars in the late 80s and early 90s.)
I think one of the Detroit Big Three also has their fingers in Mazda or Suzuki to some degree.
Chrysler used to be a damn good company.
I know a lot of loyal Chrysler customers (including myself) who refuse to buy any of their post-buyout products because those morons in Germany (Especially Schrempp, although I think he's gone now. He should've picked his family over his company, it would have been better for BOTH.) have been running the company into the ground.
Subarus seem to be quite popular with the unhappy ex-Chrysler loyalists. Yes, GM owns part of the company now, but the stake is only 20% and so far it seems like it's been purely beneficial to everyone involved. (Subaru gets a financial benefit but basically retains control, GM gets lots of Subaru goodies/technology to boost their not-so-well-off divisions like Saab. Although Saab loyalists are probably not too happy that the 9-2X is just a repackaged WRX.)
Yup. In my family, we've rolled a car once.
My dad was driving home from work in our old '88 or so Subaru Loyale, and swerved to dodge a deer. Another deer came from the other side of the road, and he spun out in a patch of sand trying to avoid it. (Sand is good for traction when it snows, but bad news once the snow melts as it's far worse than dry pavement.)
The car hit the curb sideways at about 5 MPH and that's when it rolled. (Very slowly, it almost rolled back onto its wheels, but just barely continued over.)
Thanks to his seat belt and the low speed of the crash, my dad walked away without a scratch. The Subaru wasn't so well-off though.
This is why I feel safer in a normal car than an SUV.
:(
In a collision with an SUV, yeah, I know I'm fucked.
But in a car that can actually corner/stop/accelerate worth a damn, I'm far less likely to have a collision with another vehicle.
Better to avoid the collision than to be in one in the first place. Another reply to your poster illustrates my point - People dying because they rolled while trying to avoid an accident.
Of course, the best thing now are vehicles "in the middle" - Larger than average but with good handling. Such as my family's 2004 Subaru Outback. It's a larger vehicle, so more crumple area to absorb impacts. But it still has decent gas mileage, and thanks to 4-wheel disc brakes and a fully independent suspension (as opposed to your typical SUV's live-axle suspension), the OB outhandles my tiny LeBaron convertible. Unfortunately it has the base 4-cylinder engine so its acceleration sucks.
I feel safer behind the wheel of my 1995 LeBaron convertible than I ever did behind the wheel of my family's old 1989 Montero or any other SUV I've driven, simply because I have FAR more control over the vehicle and where it goes.
While it won't help all the time (and will usually hurt), I can attest to the fact that sometimes it takes a few drinks to solve a tough problem.
:)
I had a problem with a piece of software that baffled me for the better part of a semester.
Went to the bar one night, for some reason decided to take a look at the code when I came back. 2-line solution within 5 minutes.
If you RTFA, in all three cases of battery recall/explosion incidents, the companies in question dropped their suppliers like a hot potato and switched to new suppliers.
In short, the companies did as much as they could to prevent it from ever happening again. Switching suppliers in a short time period is not a small (or cheap) task.
Never skimp. Always go with the genuine deal.
I once bought a third-party charger for one of my phones. I returned it in a day because I could tell that it was doing some really funky crap.
Because the optics may still be the limit?
Cost? A lot of people might be willing to pay for a basic camera but not be willing to pay the increased cost for a 1280x960 camera.
The DS apparently has a feature where if you want to play a multiplayer game, only one DS actually has to have the cart, the others will download it.
:)
Needless to say, such a scheme is going to need some very well thought-out security.
Any bets on how many days it takes before it gets cracked and you can set up your own "DS server"?
With bad optics and bad lighting, the sensor doesn't matter.
Mobile phone cameras take shitty pictures, even for 640x480.
Dammit, yet another possible replacement for my Kyocera 6035 proves to be insufficient.
I was hoping for the 7135 to drop in price, but Verizon outright pulled it instead.
None of the current batch of smartphones appeal to me in design. They're all more PDA than phone, the Kyos were EXCELLENT phones. I *need* tactile feedback when dialing my phone, and all of the current smartphones use on-screen dialing.
The higher end Atmel AVRs are nice chips, and you can program them with GCC too, although I actually prefer CodeVisionAVR.
I think Atmel's midrange chips (in the $8 range) beat the HC11s, and have LOTS of nice features.
It wasn't replaced for environmental friendliness reasons.
It was replaced because a more fuel-efficient vehicle makes supply chain logistics significantly easier.
Vodka is a special case because of the fact that it is water and alcohol and basically nothing else. (At least it's supposed to be.)
Other forms of alcohols are very different, and hence passing them through a Brita may change their taste significantly in undesired ways.
(for example, once it's brewed you can't do much for beer.)
Unlike vodka, which is supposed to be alcohol and water and nothing else, beer's flavor comes from all of the other things present in it. Filtering beer with a Brita would make things FAR worse.
Now, if you homebrew, filtering the water you use to brew with DOES make a lot of sense.
Also, in some situations, particulate filtering (NOT chemical filtering) in between primary and secondary fermentation stages can help too.
Note that water != vodka.
More experimentation needs to be done to determine if filtering vodka destroys the filter more quickly than filtering tapwater.
Doesn't work under Linux and likely never will (die TeraLogic die!) and from what I've heard its receiver is less sensitive than the MDP-120. (The 120 is also Linux-incompatible).
The end result - after being in my comp for a few months, the MDP-100 now sits on a shelf and has for over a year.
Lack of an actual market. The pcHDTV cards can support QAM in hardware, but they haven't bothered implementing it because nearly everything on cable systems is encrypted, so being able to demodulate the data doesn't help you at all.
Thanks to the broadcast flag BS from the FCC, there will likely never be a solution for anything other than recording OTA HD, or at least not for a LONG time, because realtime compression of HDTV content into a usable format (MPEG-2 for example) at an economic price is a LONG way away. Encoding 1080i in realtime requires thousands of dollars worth of dedicated hardware. General-purpose processors are probably over a decade away from that goal.
There are some forums I occasionally visit (www.candlepowerforums.com) dedicated mainly to flashlights.
:)
There are often threads saying, "I saw them using a on CSI tonight. They seem to have switched."
I'd go nuts if a McLux showed up on CSI.
I recall in at least one episode of the original CSI, Warrick wanted to use some nifty "electronic nose" device that was on loan from some company. Grissom made him do it the "old-fashioned" way for budget reasons.
The whole story looks like a classic example of improper diagnosis and treatement that is an excellent way to breed "superbugs". :(
I suggest the high-wattage resistor approach.
It's entirely possible for large capacitors (such as those found in heavy-duty power supplies) to pack enough punch to vaporize large chunks of your screwdriver.