The attorneys and the patent office are supposed to do due diligence when a patent is applied for. The fear is that an engineer, searching for prior art, may uncover a patent that the company is unknowingly infringing. Then the unknowing infringement becomes a willful infringement from that point forward, with a potential treble damage award. Whereas, an attorney might find the same patent but would not know that the company he represents is infringing the patent.
Nobody (that I'm aware of) does a patent search on a new design that they don't intend to patent.
You are right on both points. But I'm having a hard time imagining what sort of circumstantial evidence might exist in a case like this. In a criminal case, it might be something like "witnesses saw suspect walking away from the scene of the crime with what appeared to be blood stains on his clothing". In this case, what? "Netflix employee was spotted at library"?
It's kind of interesting; patent attorneys at corporations often tell the engineers not to do patent searches on their own. If the company subsequently infringes a patent, and the designers are found to have potentially known about it, damages can triple. The possibility of a case like this creates a double bind. If there is prior art, is it better to know, or to avoid any appearance of the possibility of knowing?
Your conditions and mine are different, then. I've probably got closer to 20 traffic lights and stop signs, and usually have to stop for around a dozen of them -- all in the distance of under 13 miles. Half my commute is flat, and the other half is hills (though what you call mountains in New England is probably not much steeper than what we call hills in California). Slowing for curves probably does have less impact than frequent stopping, and maybe keeps your top speed down. We have a lot of straight roads and everyone drives 55 MPH or faster even if there is a red light a quarter of a mile ahead (I start coasting whenever I'm in range of a red light, but still might hit 50 or 55 before backing off on the accelerator).
I am thinking these days that the lower mileage I see compared to other Prius drivers is more a result of my relatively short commute than anything else. Mathematically, it makes sense. 4 miles at 25 MPG followed by 8 miles at 60 MPG would result in around 41 MPG. 4 miles at 25 MPG followed by 16 miles at 60 MPG would result in around 47 MPG.
What valid points does the article bring up? It is simply reporting the existence of a report -- a report that doesn't cite sources for its many assumptions and hasn't withstood any critical review.
I downloaded the report some time ago, and it basically said that the customers of the recycling industry are bearing most of this cost. If it is to be believed, then Toyota could make more money by recycling Priuses right off the production line, than it could by selling them to drivers.
They could be available today. Once invented, what's to stop people from bringing them back in time and selling them at a premium? Oh, must be the scarcity of flux capacitors.
I'm always curious when I see people with 50+ MPG. I've got an '04 and never get better than 45 MPG. Well, once driving through Mississippi and Alabama with flat terrain and no wind, and being paranoid about the speed limit, and 99% highway driving, I did get about 51 MPG, but that was the only time. I don't question your numbers, but I'd like to know what driving conditions leads to them. Is it flat or hilly where you live? Lots of traffic lights on your daily commute, or few? Are they synchronized?
The commute time may be a big factor. Mine is 25 minutes. I only get about 25 MPG in the first 10 minutes or so, then after warm-up I get 45+ MPG. Does this match your experience?
For all those Democrats that want to scream, yell, and pull their hair (even after re-count after re-count and investigation after investigation) they should be pointing figure as themselves (sic) if they didn't vote.
Er, by and large, elections are determined by independent voters. Hardcore Dems and Reps tend to turn out in fairly equal, fairly consistent numbers. Anyway, if you are going to complain about low turnout, why isn't vote suppression that reduces turnout a valid complaint?
Those of us do who vote regularly have nothing to be ashamed of, but we certainly are entitled to outrage over any kind of election fraud.
Got any hard data on the insurance? Insurance repairs are almost always all body and chassis work; changing to a hybrid shouldn't increase collision repair costs much. Our two hybrids are slightly higher insurance-wise than what we paid pre-hybrid, but the previous vehicles were different body types (minivan, SUV) so it would be an apples to oranges comparison if I just looked at past insurance bills.
You're way off base about the battery. 10 years is closer to the mark. $3K is the approximate price I've heard for a Prius battery.
In California, it's longer: 10 years and 150000 miles, IIRC. California imposed those requirements on the sale of hybrid and electric vehicles years ago.
Partially offsetting the battery cost is the fact that the brakes wear a lot slower, since most of the stopping power is from regenerative braking.
I thought they were just being phased out by gradually, not that this is the last year. I could be wrong, though. But the thing to watch out for is this: If you are subject to AMT, or are close to being subject to it, you lose eligibility for all or part of the credit. That's because the credit doesn't reduce the minimum tax calculation; it just reduces the regular tax calculation. If the reduced regular tax falls below the minimum tax, then you become subject to AMT, canceling the portion of the credit equaling the difference. These days, many engineering and IT professionals could be affected by AMT, especially in states with high state income tax. Lots of people got burned by that catch last year, and since it's still not widely known, I suspect a lot will be burned by it this year.
Thanks for your insight. You should edit the wikipedia article I previously linked, and correct this statement: An absorbing dynamometer acts as a load that is driven by the prime mover that is under test. The dyno must be able to operate at any speed, and load the prime mover to any level of torque that the test requires.
Lower mass vehicles will get better economy (halving the weight doubles the MPG)
The first part is true (if no other factors come into play). The second part is true only if your fuel consumption is 100% due to kinetic energy dissipation (energy exhausted through friction braking and engine braking) and hill climbing -- IOW, it isn't true at all, since things like drag and accessory usage have nothing to do with the vehicle's weight. At highway speeds on moderate grades, without a lot of stop-and-go, drag is the dominant factor.
I'm not sure what "bloat" you would propose cutting, unless it's comfort things like air conditioning and stereo. Not safety features such as reinforced doors, I hope. Could you be more specific?
The new mileage ratings were posted some weeks or months ago, so this article is late to the party. But it still gets it wrong on a few counts. Mostly not factually wrong, just wrong on interpretation. For instance:
Hybrid vehicle performance was previously overestimated partly because the tests included vehicles' idling for long periods, causing many hybrids to shut down their engines to conserve fuel. The old testing methodology registered "a higher fuel economy for hybrid vehicles than is achieved under typical driving conditions," according to EPA documents.
Linking these two statements into one paragraph suggests that shutting down the engine while stopped causes the hybrid to perform better in the test than in the real world. That's not true; the same benefit is derived by the hybrid in real-world driving (most of the stops in the old EPA test were briefer than a typical traffic light stop -- not "long periods", a factual error in the article). In reality, a full hybrid such as the Prius also stops the engine while coasting (if the speed is low enough to allow this), but the EPA didn't seem to think it needed to do anything to remove this advantage from the tests.
The earlier test methodology ran the cars through a certain speed profile (one profile for "city", the other for "highway"). The results were known to be optimistic because (1) A/C was not on during the test; (2) most people drive faster than the profiles; (3) in many people's "city" driving there are more frequent stops than in the test, although this varies with location; (4) probably a host of other reasons. To compensate for these factors, the EPA applied fudge factors to the result, derating the MPG to better match real-world conditions. The same derating was applied regardless of the type of vehicle, so some cars get more optimistic ratings than others.
The fix to this inequality was to change the test so that the derating factors could be eliminated. The profiles were changed, and things like cold engine starts and the use of A/C were taken into account.
But, if you change the amount of time the car is stopped during the test, this would have no effect on the outcome for a Prius or similar hybrid (I'm not sure if the Civic hybrid shuts off the engine while stopped; I seem to remember reading that it doesn't). It doesn't use any gas while stopped, so the denominator is not increased, but it doesn't go anywhere during the same period, so the numerator is not increased. For a non-hybrid, there is a definite increase in measured MPG if there is less time when the engine is idling, so the ratings gap between hybrids and non-hybrids is reduced.
Consider a hypothetical example. Car A is a hybrid and gets 65 MPG under the old city test; with the derating factor applied, it gets 60 MPG (roughly the numbers for a Prius). Car B is a non-hybrid that gets 32.5 MPG on the cith test, derated to 30 MPG. Under the new test, the conditions are tougher (higher speeds, A/C is on part of the time, etc.), so both cars see a drop in measured MPG. Say Car A now gets 48 MPG and Car B gets 27 MPG (Car B sees a lesser drop because, although the test is tougher in other ways, it doesn't have to idle as much, a benefit that is meaningless to Car A). No derating is applied, so these are the published numbers. Car A's EPA rating drops by 20% from the previous method, and Car B's drops by 10%.
Another factor is that running the A/C takes up a bigger percentage of the fuel consumption in a car with higher fuel economy. That's not hybrid-specific; any non-hybrid that is in the 35-MPG and higher territory is going to see a big difference between A/C and non-A/C operation.
You'd also have variable air temperatures to deal with; that affects mileage, too. Since the dynamometer used in the test models the effect of drag, the indoor test in a controlled environment is far more reliable.
That's just plain wrong. A dyno has a controllable load, because you can't measure power without a load; you'd just be measuring the RPM of the wheels. The load is important, whether you are measuring power or fuel economy, and that is why the EPA uses dynamometers instead of ordinary rollers.
It's called a dynamometer and it presents a controlled load. The air resistance is determined from the drag coefficient (which can be gotten by wind tunnel testing) and the cross-sectional area, and this load is applied to the engine via the dynamometer. It's accurate as far as modeling real-world no-wind conditions. Head- and tail-winds can also be modeled, in principle, although the EPA tests don't do that. Crosswinds seriously change the effective drag coefficient and cross-sectional area so modeling this would require additional data.
Good name. How does this differ from something like JV Power Tools (my current favorite Windows cleanup tool)? It looks like it's an uninstaller with a knowledge base of uninstallation procedures for specific applications. One thing I'd like to see is a database that can tell me what all those seemingly useless programs were intended to do, so that I can make an intelligent decision about the rare preinstalled program that might actually be worth keeping.
The formatting in the examples does have syntactical, if not semantic, significance. It looks to me like they have the following rules (conjecture from looking at the examples):
1. Break at the start of a clause or prepositional phrase;
2. Break for verbs, unless it is too soon after a break due to rule 1 (but I have no
idea why the Declaration of Independence example has a break between "have" and
"connected", since the conjugated verb here is "have connected");
3. Use cues such as commas and verb phrases to decide when to shift the indentation
to the left; else, shift the indentation to the right with each line.
I did find it easier. With the normal rasterization of the text, the eye has to work a lot harder, jumping from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. With long paragraphs, it is easy to jump to the wrong line with each retracing. The shorter lines mean shorter retracing (almost no retracing, since the lines are short enough to absorb in one glance), and with the indentation, the eye simply drops to the next line, so the chance of landing on the wrong line is nearly eliminated.
The only retracing occurs with the slightly longer lines ("to dissolve the political bands" in the Declaration of Independence example from your link) or when the indentation shifts significantly to the left, (as between "connected them with another" and "and to assume"). The example might be improved by indenting "and to assume" more than it is; perhaps the indentation should be calculated so that the distance from the end of line N to the beginning of line N+1 is constant, except for an occasional reset to prevent the text from wandering off the right edge of the page.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody (that I'm aware of) does a patent search on a new design that they don't intend to patent.
Might be hard to show actual damages if that's the argument. Haven't prices stayed the same since Blockbuster entered the online rental business?
It's kind of interesting; patent attorneys at corporations often tell the engineers not to do patent searches on their own. If the company subsequently infringes a patent, and the designers are found to have potentially known about it, damages can triple. The possibility of a case like this creates a double bind. If there is prior art, is it better to know, or to avoid any appearance of the possibility of knowing?
I am thinking these days that the lower mileage I see compared to other Prius drivers is more a result of my relatively short commute than anything else. Mathematically, it makes sense. 4 miles at 25 MPG followed by 8 miles at 60 MPG would result in around 41 MPG. 4 miles at 25 MPG followed by 16 miles at 60 MPG would result in around 47 MPG.
What valid points does the article bring up? It is simply reporting the existence of a report -- a report that doesn't cite sources for its many assumptions and hasn't withstood any critical review.
I downloaded the report some time ago, and it basically said that the customers of the recycling industry are bearing most of this cost. If it is to be believed, then Toyota could make more money by recycling Priuses right off the production line, than it could by selling them to drivers.
Somebody mod parent as "funny".
They could be available today. Once invented, what's to stop people from bringing them back in time and selling them at a premium? Oh, must be the scarcity of flux capacitors.
The commute time may be a big factor. Mine is 25 minutes. I only get about 25 MPG in the first 10 minutes or so, then after warm-up I get 45+ MPG. Does this match your experience?
Er, by and large, elections are determined by independent voters. Hardcore Dems and Reps tend to turn out in fairly equal, fairly consistent numbers. Anyway, if you are going to complain about low turnout, why isn't vote suppression that reduces turnout a valid complaint?
Those of us do who vote regularly have nothing to be ashamed of, but we certainly are entitled to outrage over any kind of election fraud.
For my favorite Palast article -- the title is classic -- see here.
You're way off base about the battery. 10 years is closer to the mark. $3K is the approximate price I've heard for a Prius battery.
Partially offsetting the battery cost is the fact that the brakes wear a lot slower, since most of the stopping power is from regenerative braking.
I thought they were just being phased out by gradually, not that this is the last year. I could be wrong, though. But the thing to watch out for is this: If you are subject to AMT, or are close to being subject to it, you lose eligibility for all or part of the credit. That's because the credit doesn't reduce the minimum tax calculation; it just reduces the regular tax calculation. If the reduced regular tax falls below the minimum tax, then you become subject to AMT, canceling the portion of the credit equaling the difference. These days, many engineering and IT professionals could be affected by AMT, especially in states with high state income tax. Lots of people got burned by that catch last year, and since it's still not widely known, I suspect a lot will be burned by it this year.
Don't forget to cite your references.
For "real world anecdotal numbers", don't you mean? That's pretty much a self-selected group you've linked to.
The first part is true (if no other factors come into play). The second part is true only if your fuel consumption is 100% due to kinetic energy dissipation (energy exhausted through friction braking and engine braking) and hill climbing -- IOW, it isn't true at all, since things like drag and accessory usage have nothing to do with the vehicle's weight. At highway speeds on moderate grades, without a lot of stop-and-go, drag is the dominant factor.
I'm not sure what "bloat" you would propose cutting, unless it's comfort things like air conditioning and stereo. Not safety features such as reinforced doors, I hope. Could you be more specific?
Hybrid vehicle performance was previously overestimated partly because the tests included vehicles' idling for long periods, causing many hybrids to shut down their engines to conserve fuel. The old testing methodology registered "a higher fuel economy for hybrid vehicles than is achieved under typical driving conditions," according to EPA documents.
Linking these two statements into one paragraph suggests that shutting down the engine while stopped causes the hybrid to perform better in the test than in the real world. That's not true; the same benefit is derived by the hybrid in real-world driving (most of the stops in the old EPA test were briefer than a typical traffic light stop -- not "long periods", a factual error in the article). In reality, a full hybrid such as the Prius also stops the engine while coasting (if the speed is low enough to allow this), but the EPA didn't seem to think it needed to do anything to remove this advantage from the tests.
The earlier test methodology ran the cars through a certain speed profile (one profile for "city", the other for "highway"). The results were known to be optimistic because (1) A/C was not on during the test; (2) most people drive faster than the profiles; (3) in many people's "city" driving there are more frequent stops than in the test, although this varies with location; (4) probably a host of other reasons. To compensate for these factors, the EPA applied fudge factors to the result, derating the MPG to better match real-world conditions. The same derating was applied regardless of the type of vehicle, so some cars get more optimistic ratings than others.
The fix to this inequality was to change the test so that the derating factors could be eliminated. The profiles were changed, and things like cold engine starts and the use of A/C were taken into account.
But, if you change the amount of time the car is stopped during the test, this would have no effect on the outcome for a Prius or similar hybrid (I'm not sure if the Civic hybrid shuts off the engine while stopped; I seem to remember reading that it doesn't). It doesn't use any gas while stopped, so the denominator is not increased, but it doesn't go anywhere during the same period, so the numerator is not increased. For a non-hybrid, there is a definite increase in measured MPG if there is less time when the engine is idling, so the ratings gap between hybrids and non-hybrids is reduced.
Consider a hypothetical example. Car A is a hybrid and gets 65 MPG under the old city test; with the derating factor applied, it gets 60 MPG (roughly the numbers for a Prius). Car B is a non-hybrid that gets 32.5 MPG on the cith test, derated to 30 MPG. Under the new test, the conditions are tougher (higher speeds, A/C is on part of the time, etc.), so both cars see a drop in measured MPG. Say Car A now gets 48 MPG and Car B gets 27 MPG (Car B sees a lesser drop because, although the test is tougher in other ways, it doesn't have to idle as much, a benefit that is meaningless to Car A). No derating is applied, so these are the published numbers. Car A's EPA rating drops by 20% from the previous method, and Car B's drops by 10%.
Another factor is that running the A/C takes up a bigger percentage of the fuel consumption in a car with higher fuel economy. That's not hybrid-specific; any non-hybrid that is in the 35-MPG and higher territory is going to see a big difference between A/C and non-A/C operation.
You'd also have variable air temperatures to deal with; that affects mileage, too. Since the dynamometer used in the test models the effect of drag, the indoor test in a controlled environment is far more reliable.
That's just plain wrong. A dyno has a controllable load, because you can't measure power without a load; you'd just be measuring the RPM of the wheels. The load is important, whether you are measuring power or fuel economy, and that is why the EPA uses dynamometers instead of ordinary rollers.
It's called a dynamometer and it presents a controlled load. The air resistance is determined from the drag coefficient (which can be gotten by wind tunnel testing) and the cross-sectional area, and this load is applied to the engine via the dynamometer. It's accurate as far as modeling real-world no-wind conditions. Head- and tail-winds can also be modeled, in principle, although the EPA tests don't do that. Crosswinds seriously change the effective drag coefficient and cross-sectional area so modeling this would require additional data.
Good name. How does this differ from something like JV Power Tools (my current favorite Windows cleanup tool)? It looks like it's an uninstaller with a knowledge base of uninstallation procedures for specific applications. One thing I'd like to see is a database that can tell me what all those seemingly useless programs were intended to do, so that I can make an intelligent decision about the rare preinstalled program that might actually be worth keeping.
The formatting in the examples does have syntactical, if not semantic, significance. It looks to me like they have the following rules (conjecture from looking at the examples): 1. Break at the start of a clause or prepositional phrase; 2. Break for verbs, unless it is too soon after a break due to rule 1 (but I have no idea why the Declaration of Independence example has a break between "have" and "connected", since the conjugated verb here is "have connected"); 3. Use cues such as commas and verb phrases to decide when to shift the indentation to the left; else, shift the indentation to the right with each line.
The only retracing occurs with the slightly longer lines ("to dissolve the political bands" in the Declaration of Independence example from your link) or when the indentation shifts significantly to the left, (as between "connected them with another" and "and to assume"). The example might be improved by indenting "and to assume" more than it is; perhaps the indentation should be calculated so that the distance from the end of line N to the beginning of line N+1 is constant, except for an occasional reset to prevent the text from wandering off the right edge of the page.
Bravo! That was superb.