Bullshit. You can care about the environment but live somewhere where public transportation isn't viable (i.e. most of the United States). So you make the tradeoff and buy a new car that's more efficient to send the market signals that more efficient cars are demanded. What's next? You're going to tell people they have to kill themselves if they REALLY REALLY REALLY care about the environment?
You can be a "green" person, but not scream "end of the world". Think of it as insurance. Maybe the world isn't warming because of us. But it's probably cheaper to steer towards renewables now instead of trying to push the supertanker that is human momentum onto a different course decades down the line. If your employer will allow a charger onsite, get a Nissan Leaf when you're ready to trade in the Prius.
Today's hybrids are tomorrow's electric cars. How much R&D costs do you think Toyota saved by having hundreds of thousands of hybrids "in the field" with two electric motors (MG1 and MG2) and battery packs? They have real world data most manufacturers would kill to have. Partnering with Tesla didn't hurt either.
Our Camry Hybrid requires an oil change and tire rotation every 5K miles. A coolant flush? Every 100K. Brakes? Every 100-150K miles due to the regeneration. I'm fairly certain hybrids require less maintenance than your standard ICE vehicle. We're only at 60K miles on ours, but I'm fairly certain the battery is going to last us until 200K miles, as it's NiMH and not a LiIon that starts losing capacity the moment it's manufactured.
I rack up 150,000 miles or more in 5 years just in my car.
Nope, I buy nice cars, I just *want* to drive cars with less than 200k on them and less than 8 years old.
YOU might not change cars that often, and likely your idea of keeping the car longer makes better financial success. That isn't the engine that drives the economy in the US though. What drives our overconsumption style economy is, well, overconsumption. If people only bought the things they *NEED*, our entire economy would collapse over night.
What part about driving 30K miles a year *isn't* overconsumption? Your posts are contradictory, and I think you don't understand that you complaining about something (overconsumption) that you yourself are doing.
This report by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) identifies and quantifies the many external costs of using motor vehicles and the internal combustion engine that are notreflected in the retail price Americans pay for gasoline. These are costs that consumers pay indirectly by way of increased taxes, insurance costs, and retail prices in other sectors. The report divides the external costs of gasoline usage into five primary areas: (1) Tax Subsidization of the Oil Industry; (2) Government Program Subsidies;(3) Protection Costs Involved in Oil Shipment and Motor Vehicle Services; (4) Environmental, Health, and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage; and (5) Other Important Externalities of Motor Vehicle Use. Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year, which, when added to the retail price of gasoline, results in a per gallon price of $5.60 to $15.14
Unless you drive 35,000 miles a year, you're not replacing the battery pack in a Prius every 3 years. Most battery packs in the field are close to 200K-250K miles before replacement. Also, the *dealer* cost to replace the pack is around $4K. Stop exaggerating.
Some of us don't care about it being a pure economic benefit play. I make a decent wage and didn't mind subsidizing Toyota's R&D by buying an '08 Camry Hybrid for my wife. But then again, I own a Roadster and have $5K down on a Model S, so I'm not your typical consumer. If you're going to base your decision solely on ROI, wait until us first adopters have thrown money at the problem by buying the cars when they're expensive so others can buy them when the price drops.
The price difference between the high-end '08 Camry (leather, nav, heated seats, etc.) and the Hybrid version was about $2K two years ago when I bought the car for my wife. When I'm buying a car near $30K, I could care less about an extra $2K if it insures me a bit against $4/gallon gas and has lower maintenance costs over the life of the vehicle.
Current hybrids don't make economic sense except in extreme or lucky circumstances, or when your net benefit is based on government hand-outs.
Kind of like gas-only vehicles only make sense with hundreds of billions of dollars in government hand outs to gas and oil companies? God forbid you have to pay the $8-12/gallon true cost of gasoline instead of the $2.50-$4/gallon subsidized price.
THIS. We should be spending as much as possible to industrialize the world and bring the whole thing up to first world standards. Women who don't have to worry about farming and their 10th child dying tend to have less children and put off having children longer.
And putting Google "pods" (i.e. glorified cargo containers) at these sites with limited bandwidth (T1s or microwave backhauls to better connected towers) is going to be useless. You can't cache everyone's Gmail data at each pod (although you could make a fair attempt at doing so, across thousands of cell sites), and you can't cache all of Youtube at each pod. It'd be cheaper to drag fiber to the towers like AT&T is doing.
While I see your point, I would like to be sure in a firefight that the guy who has been ordered to watch my back is actually there and not on a plane home because he/she decided they didn't want to play war any more.
What happens when said person shoots you in the back because they weren't allowed to go home willingly? Better to let those who don't want to be there to go home, instead of having people there either indifferent or who will work against you.
I quite enjoy the irony that someone enlisted can lose their job reading a document that I can go grab from Wikileaks as a civilian with no penalty. "Military intelligence" indeed. I wonder what stupid strategy the armed forces comes up with next to lose dedicated service personnel.
Before the trolls come in, I support the troops (4 of my brothers are in the armed forces), just not the fools at the top with policies in direct conflict with reality.
Electric technology isn't anywhere where you want it to be yet, at least not a the price point you'd want to sell to your average consumer. So you make money on the high end (Tesla Roadster) and the low end (Nissan Leaf), and hope you recoup your R&D fast enough that costs will drop and you'll eventually be able to sell what you want manufacturers to sell.
Unless "the man" is going to come spray black spray paint on your solar panels and tear your wind turbines down with Oil and Gas pickup trucks, I'm fairly certain renewables are the future. They of course *do* have an upfront investment, but with lifetimes measured in decades, it seems to be a worthwhile investment.
Fine. If you're *that* worried, use a prepaid debit card you manually have to refill so it's not tied to an account anywhere. Or make sure they accept Paypal and let you manually pay your bills every month and not require a subscription payment setup.
Pay for a virtual private server somewhere. Tie it to a credit card or some payment method that you need to keep paying. You die? Payments don't get made, hosting provider nukes the virtual machine after X days for non-payment.
What devices can I connect with my iSpot? It’s easy to use the iPadTM, iPod Touch®, and iPhone® with iSpot. Right now, you’re probably saying “I want it.”
What if I want to connect my laptop? iSpot was built and optimized by CLEAR for Apple mobile devices (although Apple isn’t likely to tell you that) . If you want to experience the same kind of tummy-twisting speed on your laptops, cameras or other smartphones, there are some sweet Spot products that will make you very happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit. You can care about the environment but live somewhere where public transportation isn't viable (i.e. most of the United States). So you make the tradeoff and buy a new car that's more efficient to send the market signals that more efficient cars are demanded. What's next? You're going to tell people they have to kill themselves if they REALLY REALLY REALLY care about the environment?
You can be a "green" person, but not scream "end of the world". Think of it as insurance. Maybe the world isn't warming because of us. But it's probably cheaper to steer towards renewables now instead of trying to push the supertanker that is human momentum onto a different course decades down the line. If your employer will allow a charger onsite, get a Nissan Leaf when you're ready to trade in the Prius.
Today's hybrids are tomorrow's electric cars. How much R&D costs do you think Toyota saved by having hundreds of thousands of hybrids "in the field" with two electric motors (MG1 and MG2) and battery packs? They have real world data most manufacturers would kill to have. Partnering with Tesla didn't hurt either.
Most Prius vehicles in the wild are seeing 200-250K miles between battery pack replacements.
Our Camry Hybrid requires an oil change and tire rotation every 5K miles. A coolant flush? Every 100K. Brakes? Every 100-150K miles due to the regeneration. I'm fairly certain hybrids require less maintenance than your standard ICE vehicle. We're only at 60K miles on ours, but I'm fairly certain the battery is going to last us until 200K miles, as it's NiMH and not a LiIon that starts losing capacity the moment it's manufactured.
I rack up 150,000 miles or more in 5 years just in my car.
Nope, I buy nice cars, I just *want* to drive cars with less than 200k on them and less than 8 years old.
YOU might not change cars that often, and likely your idea of keeping the car longer makes better financial success. That isn't the engine that drives the economy in the US though. What drives our overconsumption style economy is, well, overconsumption. If people only bought the things they *NEED*, our entire economy would collapse over night.
What part about driving 30K miles a year *isn't* overconsumption? Your posts are contradictory, and I think you don't understand that you complaining about something (overconsumption) that you yourself are doing.
Market price is not the *true cost*.
This report by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) identifies and quantifies the many external costs of using motor vehicles and the internal combustion engine that are notreflected in the retail price Americans pay for gasoline. These are costs that consumers pay indirectly by way of increased taxes, insurance costs, and retail prices in other sectors. The report divides the external costs of gasoline usage into five primary areas: (1) Tax Subsidization of the Oil Industry; (2) Government Program Subsidies;(3) Protection Costs Involved in Oil Shipment and Motor Vehicle Services; (4) Environmental, Health, and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage; and (5) Other Important Externalities of Motor Vehicle Use. Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to $1.69 trillion per year, which, when added to the retail price of gasoline, results in a per gallon price of $5.60 to $15.14
.
http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf
That is only one example. Feel free to Google "true cost of gasoline."
Unless you drive 35,000 miles a year, you're not replacing the battery pack in a Prius every 3 years. Most battery packs in the field are close to 200K-250K miles before replacement. Also, the *dealer* cost to replace the pack is around $4K. Stop exaggerating.
Some of us don't care about it being a pure economic benefit play. I make a decent wage and didn't mind subsidizing Toyota's R&D by buying an '08 Camry Hybrid for my wife. But then again, I own a Roadster and have $5K down on a Model S, so I'm not your typical consumer. If you're going to base your decision solely on ROI, wait until us first adopters have thrown money at the problem by buying the cars when they're expensive so others can buy them when the price drops.
The price difference between the high-end '08 Camry (leather, nav, heated seats, etc.) and the Hybrid version was about $2K two years ago when I bought the car for my wife. When I'm buying a car near $30K, I could care less about an extra $2K if it insures me a bit against $4/gallon gas and has lower maintenance costs over the life of the vehicle.
Current hybrids don't make economic sense except in extreme or lucky circumstances, or when your net benefit is based on government hand-outs.
Kind of like gas-only vehicles only make sense with hundreds of billions of dollars in government hand outs to gas and oil companies? God forbid you have to pay the $8-12/gallon true cost of gasoline instead of the $2.50-$4/gallon subsidized price.
Greed is a dirty word for efficiency
Walmart is the payday loan store equivalent for consumer goods.
THIS. We should be spending as much as possible to industrialize the world and bring the whole thing up to first world standards. Women who don't have to worry about farming and their 10th child dying tend to have less children and put off having children longer.
Akamai's model only works for content, not full-blown applications.
And putting Google "pods" (i.e. glorified cargo containers) at these sites with limited bandwidth (T1s or microwave backhauls to better connected towers) is going to be useless. You can't cache everyone's Gmail data at each pod (although you could make a fair attempt at doing so, across thousands of cell sites), and you can't cache all of Youtube at each pod. It'd be cheaper to drag fiber to the towers like AT&T is doing.
I guess we need the phrase "Application Delivery Network" now.
Flamebait? For pointing out shit that really happens? Only on Slashdot. *sigh*
While I see your point, I would like to be sure in a firefight that the guy who has been ordered to watch my back is actually there and not on a plane home because he/she decided they didn't want to play war any more.
What happens when said person shoots you in the back because they weren't allowed to go home willingly? Better to let those who don't want to be there to go home, instead of having people there either indifferent or who will work against you.
I quite enjoy the irony that someone enlisted can lose their job reading a document that I can go grab from Wikileaks as a civilian with no penalty. "Military intelligence" indeed. I wonder what stupid strategy the armed forces comes up with next to lose dedicated service personnel.
Before the trolls come in, I support the troops (4 of my brothers are in the armed forces), just not the fools at the top with policies in direct conflict with reality.
Electric technology isn't anywhere where you want it to be yet, at least not a the price point you'd want to sell to your average consumer. So you make money on the high end (Tesla Roadster) and the low end (Nissan Leaf), and hope you recoup your R&D fast enough that costs will drop and you'll eventually be able to sell what you want manufacturers to sell.
Unless "the man" is going to come spray black spray paint on your solar panels and tear your wind turbines down with Oil and Gas pickup trucks, I'm fairly certain renewables are the future. They of course *do* have an upfront investment, but with lifetimes measured in decades, it seems to be a worthwhile investment.
Fine. If you're *that* worried, use a prepaid debit card you manually have to refill so it's not tied to an account anywhere. Or make sure they accept Paypal and let you manually pay your bills every month and not require a subscription payment setup.
Pay for a virtual private server somewhere. Tie it to a credit card or some payment method that you need to keep paying. You die? Payments don't get made, hosting provider nukes the virtual machine after X days for non-payment.
The link I thought was in my original post:
http://www.clear.com/spot/ispot?intcmp=1DaySp:HomePage:Carousel
What devices can I connect with my iSpot?
It’s easy to use the iPadTM, iPod Touch®, and iPhone® with iSpot. Right now, you’re probably saying “I want it.”
What if I want to connect my laptop?
iSpot was built and optimized by CLEAR for Apple mobile devices (although Apple isn’t likely to tell you that) . If you want to experience the same kind of tummy-twisting speed on your laptops, cameras or other smartphones, there are some sweet Spot products that will make you very happy.