Hybrid-Car Tinkerers Scoff at No-Plug-In Rule By DANNY HAKIM
Published: April 2, 2005
DETROIT, April 1 - Ron Gremban and Felix Kramer have modified a Toyota Prius so it can be plugged into a wall outlet.
This does not make Toyota happy. The company has spent millions of dollars persuading people that hybrid electric cars like the Prius never need to be plugged in and work just like normal cars. So has Honda, which even ran a commercial that showed a guy wandering around his Civic hybrid fruitlessly searching for a plug.
But the idea of making hybrid cars that have the option of being plugged in is supported by a diverse group of interests, from neoconservatives who support greater fuel efficiency to utilities salivating at the chance to supplant oil with electricity. If you were able to plug a hybrid in overnight, you could potentially use a lot less gas by cruising for long stretches on battery power only. But unlike purely electric cars, which take hours to charge and need frequent recharging, you would not have to plug in if you did not want to.
"I've gotten anywhere from 65 to over 100 miles per gallon," said Mr. Gremban, an engineer at CalCars, a small nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, Calif. He gets 40 to 45 miles per gallon driving his normal Prius. And EnergyCS, a small company that has collaborated with CalCars, has modified another Prius with more sophisticated batteries; they claim their Prius gets up to 180 m.p.g. and can travel more than 30 miles on battery power.
"If you cover people's daily commute, maybe they'll go to the gas station once a month," said Mr. Kramer, the founder of CalCars. "That's the whole idea."
Conventional hybrid electric cars already save gas. But if one looks at growth projections for oil consumption, hybrids will slow the growth rate of oil imports only marginally, at best, with the amount depending on how many hybrids are sold. To actually stop the growth of oil imports and potentially even reduce consumption, automakers have focused on developing cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
But fuel cells would require a complete reinvention of the automobile, not to mention the nation's gas stations, and the technology to put them on the road is still a long way from fruition. Advocates of plug-in hybrids say the technology for these vehicles is available now to the point that people are building them in garages.
"All of the relevant technology is at hand," said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy and an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration. His group was among a coalition of right-leaning organizations that released an energy plan this year promoting plug-ins as one way to increase fuel efficiency in light of the instability of the Middle East.
"If you're thinking about this as an environmental issue first and foremost, you're missing the point," Mr. Gaffney said. Curbing dependence on foreign oil, he added, "is a national security emergency."
Toyota, however, says the plug-in is not ready for prime time.
"They say this is the next great thing, but it just isn't," said David Hermance, an executive engineer at Toyota. "The electric utilities really want to sell electricity and they want to sell it to the transportation sector because that expands their market. They have an agenda."
But the plug-in hybrid is not just coming out of the garages of enthusiasts in California. DaimlerChrysler has developed several dozen plug-in hybrid vans in cooperation with the Electric Power Research Institute, a group financed by more than 300 utilities, including the New York Power Authority and Southern California Edison. Testing of the vans will start this year, and one will be used by The New York Times on a newspaper delivery route in Manhattan. Several small companies are also developing or have developed plug-in hybrid prototypes.
"We think it's the only way to rekindle interest in electric transportation," said Robert Graham, who manag
GNAA declares victory over Wikipedia Zeikfried - Associated Press, Nigeria
In a week which shall be recorded in Wikipedia infamy (and then vandalized
and redirected to clitoris), the oft persecuted and never defeated internet
missionaries of the Gay Nigger Association of
America struck yet another powerful and telling blow against the powerful
forces of bigotry and racism. Most notably, the growing zionist community on
renowned internet pissing yard wikipedia.org.
And the records have indeed tumbled, with an unheard of third successful
survival from the digital shitheap that is "Votes
For Deletion". Coming in spite a heinous act of self promotion and cyber
terrorism by Pat Gunn/Improv
(formerly known as Aharon Meshenstein prior to his infiltration of the United
States), who listed and inspired mob vandalism upon the GNAA's
entry.
Fresh from his promotion of Wikipedia's $50,000 fundraiser for arms and
supplies to the Jewish state of Israel, Improv launched a series of unprovoked
and slanderous attacks against the well loved organisations leadership, all the
while using foul and unholy necromancies to enlist the dead themselves to vote
the entries deletion. Names such as "Wolfman" and "Demonslave" only adding to
the damning list of evidence linking Mr Gunn to the occult.
Though Improv's actions gained him a small majority, a shock last minute
intervention from Pope John Paul II spared the pages untimely fate, although as
yet unconfirmed reports have indicated that several hundred 8-year old negro
children were driven to the Basilica to secure the pontiffs support. Others
point towards the black curse cast upon the deletion campaign by the support of
infamous Brawl Hall mouthpiece "Yoyo"
as the main driving force behind the salvation of the aforementioned entry.
But the details are likely to cause few sleepless nights among the group,
only one of whom was willing to speak to the press. Namely GNAA Wikipedia
contributor Popeye, who interrupted his drawing of pornography to give a brief
dismissal the controversy: "Even with Improv's shady dealings, the sheer size
and girth of a swollen GNAA phallus enables it both an identity and a vote of
it's own. Making such discussion moot".
About Wikipedia:
Wikipedia, a content-free encyclopedia in many languages, started life in
January 2001 and has already risen to the status of the internets premiere
"trollpedia".
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first
organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one
common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Michael Sims Fired, Joins GNAA to Troll Slashdot Full Time
FREMONT, CA (TECHNEWS) - After a heated debate at Slashdot executive
offices, editor Michael Sims was locked out of the building and departed in a
tirade of lisping insults, vowing revenge immediately. This morning, industry
sources revealed that Sims has joined the infamous trolling organization Gay
Nigger Association of America with the intent of trolling Slashdot
fulltime.
In a short phone interview with Technews, Sims asserted that he was calm but
resolved on his course of action. "The Slashdot editors and I had a
disagreement," he explained. "I did it all for the users, but they..." he drew
the syllable out painfully, resting on a case full of Little League trophies
and certificates of participation from transgendered dating services, "They
just couldn't take my truth. They were -- babies, just babies, oh, the horror,
the abomination," he said, before being led away by three white-clad male
nurses.
According to Harvard Psychology Professor Arnold Rothstahlberg, "trolling"
is an internet phenomenon where dissenting users disrupt a site by flooding it
with absurd or paradoxical information. "It satisfies the primal id," he
said, chewing on a large, bulbous, phallic black cigar. "To justify themselves
by forcing their enemies into hysterics. It's a compensatory mechanism much
like getting back at the kids who beat you up in high school by installing
Linux and using it to pingflood their XP boxes and Macs."
Slashdot editor CmdrTaco was reticent to comment. At an interview conducted
in the crap-filled Ann Arbor bungalow he shares with his wife, to whom he
proposed over Slashdot, he said, "Well, you know, Slashdot is just a web site.
Michael should calm down about this. But if he doesn't, our corporate sponsors
will sue him until he's giving $4 blowjobs on Haight Street."
From the GNAA corporate headquarters, a mysterious floating island off the
coast of Newfoundland that few reporters have seen and even fewer have returned
from with their sexual identities intact, GNAA "Head Programmer" timecop said
he was glad to have Sims on hand. "From what I've seen of his postings on
Slashdot," said timecop, "he's a total fag. Which is convenient as all our
halfops need anal, and I can't handle the drama. That's what's worst about the
net: the drama."
Sims has been involved in previous internet firefights, most notably the
controversy over the censorware.org website in 2001. While Sims alleges that
the site was his creation that was sabotaged by others, his coworkers disagree.
Bennett Haselton, security consultant for the "Anarchy Anal" and "Chaos
Cumshot" websites, said of Sims, "We set up this website, and left him the
password. We have a disagreement, bam, the website goes down and someone raped
my two-week-old Labrador puppy with an iPod."
Slashdot Editor CowboyNeal, who was entangled in a whale net after
attempting to swim the English channel, spoke fondly of his former coworker.
"Michael always brought a certain passion to the work, a passion that was
easily ignited and led to many sweaty sessions in the corporate washroom," he
said. "I'm not at all surprised he joined an organization of gay niggers. He
always like something different and unique in his pasta salads."
Programmer Seth Finkelstein alleges that Sims is "totally unstable" and
agreed readily to this interview. "Of course, I'm a disinterested observer," he
said. "But anytime I see that closet psychopath and monkey nut-muncher stealing
the spotlight from hardworking programmers like myself, I have to speak up, for
the benefit of the people, of course," he said. Technews reporters were
permitted to leave the premises only after making a PayPal donation to
Finkelstein.
Mike Godwin of the EFF, who balances a career as privacy advocate with his
hobby of making videos of teen swingers blowing goats, agreed. "I've never met
another editor like Michael," he said. "And, since my regimen of retrovirals is
already costing me a
Slashdot Mirror
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
That Pope John Paul II has died at the age of 84.
FP.
Hybrid-Car Tinkerers Scoff at No-Plug-In Rule
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: April 2, 2005
DETROIT, April 1 - Ron Gremban and Felix Kramer have modified a Toyota Prius so it can be plugged into a wall outlet.
This does not make Toyota happy. The company has spent millions of dollars persuading people that hybrid electric cars like the Prius never need to be plugged in and work just like normal cars. So has Honda, which even ran a commercial that showed a guy wandering around his Civic hybrid fruitlessly searching for a plug.
But the idea of making hybrid cars that have the option of being plugged in is supported by a diverse group of interests, from neoconservatives who support greater fuel efficiency to utilities salivating at the chance to supplant oil with electricity. If you were able to plug a hybrid in overnight, you could potentially use a lot less gas by cruising for long stretches on battery power only. But unlike purely electric cars, which take hours to charge and need frequent recharging, you would not have to plug in if you did not want to.
"I've gotten anywhere from 65 to over 100 miles per gallon," said Mr. Gremban, an engineer at CalCars, a small nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, Calif. He gets 40 to 45 miles per gallon driving his normal Prius. And EnergyCS, a small company that has collaborated with CalCars, has modified another Prius with more sophisticated batteries; they claim their Prius gets up to 180 m.p.g. and can travel more than 30 miles on battery power.
"If you cover people's daily commute, maybe they'll go to the gas station once a month," said Mr. Kramer, the founder of CalCars. "That's the whole idea."
Conventional hybrid electric cars already save gas. But if one looks at growth projections for oil consumption, hybrids will slow the growth rate of oil imports only marginally, at best, with the amount depending on how many hybrids are sold. To actually stop the growth of oil imports and potentially even reduce consumption, automakers have focused on developing cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
But fuel cells would require a complete reinvention of the automobile, not to mention the nation's gas stations, and the technology to put them on the road is still a long way from fruition. Advocates of plug-in hybrids say the technology for these vehicles is available now to the point that people are building them in garages.
"All of the relevant technology is at hand," said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy and an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration. His group was among a coalition of right-leaning organizations that released an energy plan this year promoting plug-ins as one way to increase fuel efficiency in light of the instability of the Middle East.
"If you're thinking about this as an environmental issue first and foremost, you're missing the point," Mr. Gaffney said. Curbing dependence on foreign oil, he added, "is a national security emergency."
Toyota, however, says the plug-in is not ready for prime time.
"They say this is the next great thing, but it just isn't," said David Hermance, an executive engineer at Toyota. "The electric utilities really want to sell electricity and they want to sell it to the transportation sector because that expands their market. They have an agenda."
But the plug-in hybrid is not just coming out of the garages of enthusiasts in California. DaimlerChrysler has developed several dozen plug-in hybrid vans in cooperation with the Electric Power Research Institute, a group financed by more than 300 utilities, including the New York Power Authority and Southern California Edison. Testing of the vans will start this year, and one will be used by The New York Times on a newspaper delivery route in Manhattan. Several small companies are also developing or have developed plug-in hybrid prototypes.
"We think it's the only way to rekindle interest in electric transportation," said Robert Graham, who manag
Zeikfried - Associated Press, Nigeria
In a week which shall be recorded in Wikipedia infamy (and then vandalized and redirected to clitoris), the oft persecuted and never defeated internet missionaries of the Gay Nigger Association of America struck yet another powerful and telling blow against the powerful forces of bigotry and racism. Most notably, the growing zionist community on renowned internet pissing yard wikipedia.org.
And the records have indeed tumbled, with an unheard of third successful survival from the digital shitheap that is "Votes For Deletion". Coming in spite a heinous act of self promotion and cyber terrorism by Pat Gunn/Improv (formerly known as Aharon Meshenstein prior to his infiltration of the United States), who listed and inspired mob vandalism upon the GNAA's entry.
Fresh from his promotion of Wikipedia's $50,000 fundraiser for arms and supplies to the Jewish state of Israel, Improv launched a series of unprovoked and slanderous attacks against the well loved organisations leadership, all the while using foul and unholy necromancies to enlist the dead themselves to vote the entries deletion. Names such as "Wolfman" and "Demonslave" only adding to the damning list of evidence linking Mr Gunn to the occult.
Though Improv's actions gained him a small majority, a shock last minute intervention from Pope John Paul II spared the pages untimely fate, although as yet unconfirmed reports have indicated that several hundred 8-year old negro children were driven to the Basilica to secure the pontiffs support. Others point towards the black curse cast upon the deletion campaign by the support of infamous Brawl Hall mouthpiece "Yoyo" as the main driving force behind the salvation of the aforementioned entry.
But the details are likely to cause few sleepless nights among the group, only one of whom was willing to speak to the press. Namely GNAA Wikipedia contributor Popeye, who interrupted his drawing of pornography to give a brief dismissal the controversy: "Even with Improv's shady dealings, the sheer size and girth of a swollen GNAA phallus enables it both an identity and a vote of it's own. Making such discussion moot".
About Wikipedia:
Wikipedia, a content-free encyclopedia in many languages, started life in January 2001 and has already risen to the status of the internets premiere "trollpedia".
Currently Wikipedia contains 363950 articles, 10032 of which are genuine, and 343 of them factually accurate. Leaving Wikipedia on an academic par with "Star Wars: Incredible Cross-sections: The Ultimate Guide to Star Wars Vehicles and Spacecraft" and "My First Book of Animals from A to Z".
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what
FREMONT, CA (TECHNEWS) - After a heated debate at Slashdot executive offices, editor Michael Sims was locked out of the building and departed in a tirade of lisping insults, vowing revenge immediately. This morning, industry sources revealed that Sims has joined the infamous trolling organization Gay Nigger Association of America with the intent of trolling Slashdot fulltime.
In a short phone interview with Technews, Sims asserted that he was calm but resolved on his course of action. "The Slashdot editors and I had a disagreement," he explained. "I did it all for the users, but they..." he drew the syllable out painfully, resting on a case full of Little League trophies and certificates of participation from transgendered dating services, "They just couldn't take my truth. They were -- babies, just babies, oh, the horror, the abomination," he said, before being led away by three white-clad male nurses.
According to Harvard Psychology Professor Arnold Rothstahlberg, "trolling" is an internet phenomenon where dissenting users disrupt a site by flooding it with absurd or paradoxical information. "It satisfies the primal id," he said, chewing on a large, bulbous, phallic black cigar. "To justify themselves by forcing their enemies into hysterics. It's a compensatory mechanism much like getting back at the kids who beat you up in high school by installing Linux and using it to pingflood their XP boxes and Macs."
Slashdot editor CmdrTaco was reticent to comment. At an interview conducted in the crap-filled Ann Arbor bungalow he shares with his wife, to whom he proposed over Slashdot, he said, "Well, you know, Slashdot is just a web site. Michael should calm down about this. But if he doesn't, our corporate sponsors will sue him until he's giving $4 blowjobs on Haight Street."
From the GNAA corporate headquarters, a mysterious floating island off the coast of Newfoundland that few reporters have seen and even fewer have returned from with their sexual identities intact, GNAA "Head Programmer" timecop said he was glad to have Sims on hand. "From what I've seen of his postings on Slashdot," said timecop, "he's a total fag. Which is convenient as all our halfops need anal, and I can't handle the drama. That's what's worst about the net: the drama."
Sims has been involved in previous internet firefights, most notably the controversy over the censorware.org website in 2001. While Sims alleges that the site was his creation that was sabotaged by others, his coworkers disagree. Bennett Haselton, security consultant for the "Anarchy Anal" and "Chaos Cumshot" websites, said of Sims, "We set up this website, and left him the password. We have a disagreement, bam, the website goes down and someone raped my two-week-old Labrador puppy with an iPod."
Slashdot Editor CowboyNeal, who was entangled in a whale net after attempting to swim the English channel, spoke fondly of his former coworker. "Michael always brought a certain passion to the work, a passion that was easily ignited and led to many sweaty sessions in the corporate washroom," he said. "I'm not at all surprised he joined an organization of gay niggers. He always like something different and unique in his pasta salads."
Programmer Seth Finkelstein alleges that Sims is "totally unstable" and agreed readily to this interview. "Of course, I'm a disinterested observer," he said. "But anytime I see that closet psychopath and monkey nut-muncher stealing the spotlight from hardworking programmers like myself, I have to speak up, for the benefit of the people, of course," he said. Technews reporters were permitted to leave the premises only after making a PayPal donation to Finkelstein.
Mike Godwin of the EFF, who balances a career as privacy advocate with his hobby of making videos of teen swingers blowing goats, agreed. "I've never met another editor like Michael," he said. "And, since my regimen of retrovirals is already costing me a
Windows is easier to crack than Linux.
Windows has lower TCO than Linux and Tivo combined!!!
Tivo is DYING.