The other day I was writing a simple app to modify some of the bit flags in MPEG movie files. Some movie files exceed 2GB or 4GB in length. The code would have been pretty easy to write if I could have addressed the entire file, but I had to implement a sliding-window thing which was kind of a pain.
That's basically why I wasn't enthused by the film. (Well, that and the huge anthropomorphic machine face thing.)
From this early part of this film I would lump in a few more unanswered questions: the meaning of the subway station, of the non-human little girl, and of the Oracle losing her shell.
After a net search I find that the father of the non-human girl makes a cameo in Revolutions and has something to do with the Oracle's shell, but that this is only explained in a Matrix video game. Tell me, what other answers am I missing because I don't play video games?
I think what people fail to grasp is that the hybrid system exists primarily for the purpose of recovering the energy of motion of the car and reusing it.
I disagree. There's some of that, but the real energy savings come from:
not running the engine when it's not needed (stoplights, going downhill, gridlock)
The combustion engine doesn't have to provide 100% of the power, so it can be smaller and more efficient. (And at least in the Prius, it can always be run at the most efficient RPM values, thanks to cleverness in the CVT design.)
For an example of the #2, consider the hybrid Lexus RX. They were going to have to put in a V-8 to meet customer power demand, but instead are going with a V-6 hybrid system. In addition to the other hybrid advantages, the V-6 is just plain more efficient than the V-8.
If it's real hot outside and you set the Prius's thermostat to a low temperature, the engine almost never turns off. You don't get hot, but you burn more gas.
Personally, my mpg drops by 3 or 4 during the summer when I run the AC more often. Your milage may vary.
btw, the redesigned 2004 Prius (due out next month) has electric air conditioning that can run without the combustion engine running. Cool, eh?
I bought my Prius after I moved from Wisconsin to D.C., but it has handled well in the snow that D.C. has thrown at it, including this batch. I prefer it to my non-hybrid in the snow, if that helps.
I keep seeing miles-per-gallon for these vehicles. Why aren't we talking miles-per-Joule, including the electrical energy input?
We're ignoring it because all the electrical enegry is generated by burning gas. If (hypothetically) one could plug these things into the wall to recharge then we would have to take it into account. But all hybrids out there charge their batteries by a combination of these two methods:
Burning gas to turn the electric motor/generator to charge the battery
Using kinetic energy to turn the electric motor/generator to charge the battery ("regenerative breaking")
And if you think about where the kinetic enegry in #2 comes from, it all comes down to burning gasoline eventually. Either burning gas turned the wheels directly. Or burning gas charged the battery, which drove the motor/generator, which turned the wheels. Or maybe you coasted down a large hill, but then (barring a lift from some kind of huge dirigible) you burned gas to get up the hill in the first place.
Give credit to Honda for squeezing essentially the same gas efficiency from their less complex design.
Toyota seems to have gained a few notches in efficiency with their 2004 Prius. One way they have done this is to give it electric air conditioning, so your comment about needing to burn gas to run the a/c doesn't apply to this model. I was unimpressed with the 2004 Prius (vs. 2003 Prius) before I discovered this.
You'd get run off the road if you were only doing 70, and you don't hit "agressive" until you're triple digit.
Then a Toyota hybrid may not be the best for you. A side effect of their planetary CVT design is a velocity ceiling. I don't have the exact number on hand, but I think the top speed of the 1997-2003 Prius is somewhere in the 104-112 mph range.
cvt is dang cool though . . . the belt is metal and therefore pretty constant width, and the pulleys are shaped like: )( and can spread apart to drop the belt down lower or get closer together and push the belt out toward the edges. this effectively gives you infinite gears.
That's Honda's system. Toyota's planetary gearing system (no belts) is also dang cool.
AFIK all hybrids have CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission). Well, excluding a few that have manual transmission.
Certainly my Prius has a CVT, unless you consider its planetary gearing system not to be a duck even though it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.
Allow me compare the pickup of my 2001 Toyota Prius to my two previous cars: My Prius is considerably zippier than my 1998 Honda Civic, but my 1996 Infiniti G20 was considerably zippier than my Prius.
I can't speak for other the other hybrid cars out there, but the Prius has enough pickup for all but the heaviest of leadfoots. (leadfeet?) And it handles quite well, too.
Frankly, I wish my other car were more like my hybrid. My lowly PT Cruiser accelerates more slowly, gets fewer than half as many miles per gallon, and it keeps its gasoline engine running during red lights and gridlock (which surprisingly I'm beginning to lose tolerance for).
And actually, the Cruiser doesn't hold much more than the Prius does. I haven't seen one yet, but I won't be surprised if the bigger-and-better 2004 Prius (due next month) bests it.
I really need a car that can hold me, my spouse, my kid's car seat, a friend, and a baritone saxophone. The 2001 Prius and the Cruiser fail at this, as presumably the 2004 Prius will.
I like hybrids well enough that I'm trying to hold out for one. Perhaps the rumored 2005 hybrid Toyota Sienna. Or maybe the 2004 hybrid Ford Escape, though I'm not fond of its body style.
An iTunes (AAC) version of Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve sold on eBay yesterday for $3.75.
It will be interesting to see how the buyer, seller, and Apple handle the sale. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to observe their actions.
Two minutes after I posted that, I was outbid by someone else. The high bid now stands at $1.03. Do you think it'll get up to the $16,000 heights that Double Dutch Bus reached before its untimely demise?
My max bid was 98 cents. After all, I could by it from Apple for 99 cents (if I were willing to create an iTunes account for myself) and I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed the song much anyway.
They may have yanked the Double Dutch Bus auction but I'm currently the high bidder (at 79 cents) of another iTunes song on ebay, Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve.
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The other day I was writing a simple app to modify some of the bit flags in MPEG movie files. Some movie files exceed 2GB or 4GB in length. The code would have been pretty easy to write if I could have addressed the entire file, but I had to implement a sliding-window thing which was kind of a pain.
That's basically why I wasn't enthused by the film. (Well, that and the huge anthropomorphic machine face thing.)
From this early part of this film I would lump in a few more unanswered questions: the meaning of the subway station, of the non-human little girl, and of the Oracle losing her shell.
After a net search I find that the father of the non-human girl makes a cameo in Revolutions and has something to do with the Oracle's shell, but that this is only explained in a Matrix video game. Tell me, what other answers am I missing because I don't play video games?
- not running the engine when it's not needed (stoplights, going downhill, gridlock)
- The combustion engine doesn't have to provide 100% of the power, so it can be smaller and more efficient. (And at least in the Prius, it can always be run at the most efficient RPM values, thanks to cleverness in the CVT design.)
For an example of the #2, consider the hybrid Lexus RX. They were going to have to put in a V-8 to meet customer power demand, but instead are going with a V-6 hybrid system. In addition to the other hybrid advantages, the V-6 is just plain more efficient than the V-8.Personally, my mpg drops by 3 or 4 during the summer when I run the AC more often. Your milage may vary.
btw, the redesigned 2004 Prius (due out next month) has electric air conditioning that can run without the combustion engine running. Cool, eh?
I bought my Prius after I moved from Wisconsin to D.C., but it has handled well in the snow that D.C. has thrown at it, including this batch. I prefer it to my non-hybrid in the snow, if that helps.
- Burning gas to turn the electric motor/generator to charge the battery
- Using kinetic energy to turn the electric motor/generator to charge the battery ("regenerative breaking")
And if you think about where the kinetic enegry in #2 comes from, it all comes down to burning gasoline eventually. Either burning gas turned the wheels directly. Or burning gas charged the battery, which drove the motor/generator, which turned the wheels. Or maybe you coasted down a large hill, but then (barring a lift from some kind of huge dirigible) you burned gas to get up the hill in the first place.Additional notes:
You'd get run off the road if you were only doing 70, and you don't hit "agressive" until you're triple digit.
Then a Toyota hybrid may not be the best for you. A side effect of their planetary CVT design is a velocity ceiling. I don't have the exact number on hand, but I think the top speed of the 1997-2003 Prius is somewhere in the 104-112 mph range.cvt is dang cool though . . . the belt is metal and therefore pretty constant width, and the pulleys are shaped like: )( and can spread apart to drop the belt down lower or get closer together and push the belt out toward the edges. this effectively gives you infinite gears.
That's Honda's system. Toyota's planetary gearing system (no belts) is also dang cool.AFIK all hybrids have CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission). Well, excluding a few that have manual transmission.
Certainly my Prius has a CVT, unless you consider its planetary gearing system not to be a duck even though it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.
Allow me compare the pickup of my 2001 Toyota Prius to my two previous cars: My Prius is considerably zippier than my 1998 Honda Civic, but my 1996 Infiniti G20 was considerably zippier than my Prius.
I can't speak for other the other hybrid cars out there, but the Prius has enough pickup for all but the heaviest of leadfoots. (leadfeet?) And it handles quite well, too.
Frankly, I wish my other car were more like my hybrid. My lowly PT Cruiser accelerates more slowly, gets fewer than half as many miles per gallon, and it keeps its gasoline engine running during red lights and gridlock (which surprisingly I'm beginning to lose tolerance for).
And actually, the Cruiser doesn't hold much more than the Prius does. I haven't seen one yet, but I won't be surprised if the bigger-and-better 2004 Prius (due next month) bests it.
I really need a car that can hold me, my spouse, my kid's car seat, a friend, and a baritone saxophone. The 2001 Prius and the Cruiser fail at this, as presumably the 2004 Prius will.
I like hybrids well enough that I'm trying to hold out for one. Perhaps the rumored 2005 hybrid Toyota Sienna. Or maybe the 2004 hybrid Ford Escape, though I'm not fond of its body style.
An iTunes (AAC) version of Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve sold on eBay yesterday for $3.75. It will be interesting to see how the buyer, seller, and Apple handle the sale. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to observe their actions.
Two minutes after I posted that, I was outbid by someone else. The high bid now stands at $1.03. Do you think it'll get up to the $16,000 heights that Double Dutch Bus reached before its untimely demise?
My max bid was 98 cents. After all, I could by it from Apple for 99 cents (if I were willing to create an iTunes account for myself) and I suspect I wouldn't have enjoyed the song much anyway.
They may have yanked the Double Dutch Bus auction but I'm currently the high bidder (at 79 cents) of another iTunes song on ebay, Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve.
Do you think they'll yank that one too?
As of a few minutes ago, ebay's site says "the item you requested ( 2555673237 ) is invalid, still pending, or no longer in our database."
But never fear, there's another auction for an iTunes song. For the moment I'm the highest bidder (at 69 cents) for Bittersweet Sypmhony by the Verve.