Re:Evolution is change over time
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Evolving Rocks
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· Score: 1
No they don't. They object to a stalking-horse theory that only superficially resembles Darwin's.
Not true. They object to any of a broad class of actual or hypothetical theories which involve speciation as a result of natural selection, including all existing modern evolutionary theory.
They frequently direct their arguments at strawman positions that bear only superficial resemblance to actual theory or any of its components or results, but that's a different issue.
Re:No its worse than that
on
Evolving Rocks
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· Score: 1
They are using "evolved" to mean changed.
Actually, they are using it to mean "developed gradually over time". Which is, after all, what "evolved" means outside of biology. The biological use is a special case of the general use.
And the use in the non-biological sense is a perfectly reasonable use in the context of geology.
Except that GM's experiment with them showed that they could not be sold at anything remotely approaching a profit.
GM never tried to sell them. It met the legislative demand by making them available for lease only, effectively cutting out the entire majority of the market that prefers ownership, tried very hard to make them impossible to get to avoid them becoming too popular, because it was trying to kill the legislative mandate and if the cars were popular, that political position would have been undermined, and then when it did kill the mandate, stopped leasing the cars.
In terms of actual dollars per mile the Prius is only marginally better than the (significantly cheaper) Corolla.
Even if this was true (and depending on driving profile, the Corrolla uses anywhere from about 1.4 to about 1.6 times the fuel of the Prius, so in terms of fuel costs, it really isn't true), you expect, all other things being equal, the fuel economy of a compact car to be better, not worse (even if "marginally") than a midsize car.
With a Prius you get better fuel economy and greater utility.
You also pay a lot more up front. Whether that's worthwhile to you depends on your priorities.
just that it's not the perfect technological heaven a lot of people seem to consistently paint it as.
Since no one has argued here that Japan is anything like a "perfect technological heaven", I'd say that's a nice fat strawman you are whacking at there. What people have argued here is that it is better than the US in some features of its mass transit systems and that the US would do well to emulate it in those specific areas.
The idiocy of the US is the fault of the EPA which continues to use the misleading MPG rating for fuel economy.
There's nothing misleading about using MPG to rate fuel economy.
(Except insofar as the assumptions underlying the tests don't represent actual driving conditions, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem with the newer ratings.)
The idiocy of the US is the fault of the EPA which continues to use the misleading MPG rating for fuel economy. Given how bad our educational system is, its not reasonable to expect consumers to re-do the math themselves.
In terms of actual dollars per mile the Prius is only marginally better than the (significantly cheaper) Corolla.
Dollars/mile may be useful for financial planning, but have nothing to do with "greenness". That being said, I'd like to see the definition of "marginally better" and the supporting detail for this argument.
Several hundred to a few thousand years might not be renewable
The only estimates I've seen on that order assume use of nuclear power at the present rate, the estimates of the total extractable supply of fuel, and (for the "few thousands") complete replacement with the most advanced reactor designs. They don't account for any increase in nuclear energy use even to keep the current share of total energy use, they certainly don't factor in the fuel use for nuclear power actually substantially replacing any other existing source of energy by increasing its share of overall world energy production.
and any one that drives one should be hauled off to the gallows for their "let them eat cake" attitude.
Um. WTF?
Here's a car that gets 100mpg and fits a normal human being just fine.
Some people need a car that can fit more than a normal human being. Some people are above average size. Some people shop. And it only gets ~80 MPG (US). And drivers can hardly be blamed for not buying a car that hasn't been available for more than 40 years, and probably wasn't street legal most places, and of which only 50 were made.
I'm not saying that Japan isn't ahead of America in some areas, just that it's not the perfect technological heaven a lot of people seem to consistently paint it as. I mean, Australians have crappy internet, so to them, America looks like it has incredible internet... but I'm sure Americans disagree when they look at Japan, Sweden, or South Korea.
So your support for the argument that people are overstating the degree to which Japan is ahead of America in adoption of useful technology is pointing to an example of yet another area where Japan is ahead of America in adoption of useful technology?
They are also the only state that is currently asking for a large loan package from the federal government.
No, they aren't. California has far and away the largest economy and budget of any state, and its shortfall is the largest in absolute terms, but not proportionately to the total state budget or economy, and its not the only one looking to the feds for major assistance because most states can't run an operating deficit but the feds can.
california does not have a balanced budget and hasn't for the past few years.
California, like many states, has a Constitutional mandate for a balanced operating budget, which encourages all sorts of gimmicks to make sure that the budget actually voted on is technically balanced (note: the budget is required to be balanced, the actual mix of realized revenue and expenditures is a different matter; the budget can control the expenditure side, but not the revenue side.)
Even though the entire budget isn't balanced (both due to the fact that the gimmicks are just that, and the fact that the mandate does not include everything [bond-funded capital projects, etc.]), it has exactly (among other effects) the effect GP suggested; the feds have a lot more maneuvering room because they can overtly run an operating deficit if they chose to do so.
Diesels are drastically better than gas vehicles on CO2.
No, they aren't. The best diesels are maybe slightly better than comparable gas-powered hybrids in terms of mileage per unit volume (but maybe not, the best ones I've seen have been subcompacts in the 60s of MPG, whereas the best hybrid subcompact -- the old Honda Insight -- was in the same range; most comparisons are apples to oranges, comparing subcompact diesels to, for instance, the midsize Prius), but diesel has higher GHG emissions per unit volume than gasoline.
(Diesel hybrids exist, mostly in large vehicles, but you don't get as much mileage increase from making a diesel a hybrid because a basic diesel engine doesn't have as much of the kind of inefficiency that a hybrid system will minimize as a gasoline engine.)
In Europe fuel costs 4 times as much as it does over here right now. The majority of vehicles sold in Europe are diesels. You almost never see a Prius. In fact, you'll see them ridiculed in the automotive press as an example of American idocy more often than you'll see them on the roads over there.
Europe has higher fuel costs because they tax the fuel heavily to support mass transit and other things that make it so that people don't need to use their cars constantly. This rather changes what kind of car it makes sense for individuals to purchase.
VW already has a small car out that'll get 60+ MP-USG Highway.
Um, so? The old Honda Insight hybrid was a small car that got 61 city/70 highway on gasoline (which has less GHG emissions per unit volume than diesel). Sure, its better than the Prius (though not much, after consideration of the differences between diesel and gasoline), but the Prius is a midsize car, not a small car.
I'll simply insist that - it seems to me - that I've heard for years why light rail is a bad idea because of the great time and cost to build it.
Light rail is a good (though far from complete idea), but there is a time and large cost, and it doesn't (even with better heavy rail) solve the whole problem. People are going to need to drive for quite some time in all but the most heavily urbanized areas, where life without a car is, in some cases, practical now, and where closing the mass transit gap is easiest. And dealing with the impact of pollution from those cars in a shorter term than the kind of radical transformation of the way cities are built that is needed to make American sprawl livable without a car means more environmentally friendly personal vehicles, and particularly electric and plug-in hybrids, are essential.
I don't think that all CA traffic is simply a case of shorter trips.
Most driving is shorter trips. But, yes, not all traffic is shorter trips. And, yes, commuter rail can help a lot with longer trips, though it takes a long time and lots of money to significantly expand commuter rail coverage.
Electric vehicles may help - but light rail, not just a bit more BART - would help WAY more, imo.
Light rail, commuter rail like BART and some of the existing Amtrack California lines, and long-distance high-speed rail may, in the long-term, help more than electric vehicles, though I'm skeptical that over, say, the next century rail infrastructure will pay off more per dollar of investment than electric vehicle infrastructure. But I don't seem them as opposed, either. I think we need to do all of them.
On streets?!? Gee, what could possible go wrong with that... nobody would be tempted to, say, unplug that cable from your car and steal the power you are paying for, now would they?
Lots of places in CA already have these in unsecure parking lots and/or streest. Not nearly as much as would be envisioned by this, of course, but given that they have been deployed, if there was a general problem, it would, I expect, have been identified.
Wouldn't a simple battery-exchange program(just like the propane-tank exchange they already have at Lowe's/Home Depo) work a lot better?
Battery exchange is, perhaps, less abusable in the worst case, but, since you have to get people to the exchange point and actually handle exchanging bulky batteries, logistically more complicated. So if charging stations work, and since they've been in use in many places, there should be some information on that, I'd say that it makes sense to use them as the first line, since they are more convenient for everyone involved.
Even a fair-sized city usually won't have a great subway or train infrastructure, just a few stations on the main line that happens to pass through down.
Many fair-sized US cities are lucky to have a passenger rail station. Comparatively, even with your description, I think Japan is ahead.
No, because the American car companies paid to destroy commuter rail in the early part of the 20th century and, consequently, even most cities in America, where mass transit would generally be most effective, are designed around the car, and built for the car as a dominant form of transportation. People find that the car works best because most of America is designed expressly for that to be the case.
Reversing that is going to take several trillion of dollars of infrastructure investment and several decades.
Mass transit is the answer - not just BART - REAL mass transit. I cannot stress enough that if one travels to Japan and sees for oneself how fucking cool and efficient the Japanese mass rail system is - billion dollar proposals like this would die at conception.
Mass transit first - electric cars (if they're still needed, really) second.
Real mass transit infrastructure is going to take decades longer and many times as much money as the kind of electric vehicle infrastructure being discussed here (for California, you need improved long-range, high-speed, heavy passenger rail, like that to be funded by Prop 1A, better coverage with commuter rail systems like BART and some of the Amtrak California commuter lines, and improved local mass transit -- light rail, bus mass transit with dedicated roads, etc.) Given that most driving of most drivers is fairly short range, EVs would address some of the problems. They won't solve other problems, but then, mass transit doesn't solve all the problems either. Mass transit is a bigger, but longer range, part of the solution, but it doesn't eliminate the value of electric vehicles replacing gas vehicles for personal use.
I know the latest theory is dinosaurs may be related to birds
Actually, that birds are dinosaurs.
but I'm not seeing how an Archaeopterix could have flown with to-scale T-Rex arms.
Yeah, that's kind of odd. Wings aren't much like a Tyrannosaur's arms. I suppose they could be trying (very badly) to say that Big-T had arms that are like a bird's legs.
I haven't had time to try this but if they are just sitting on top of everyone else's rendering engines then how can they claim to be faster than any of them?
It is actually pretty easy to claim that.
It is a bit harder to do it. But claiming it is no problem.
I don't see cloning a dead, probably-intelligent species as being much different from AI research or SETI, from an ethical viewpoint.
Cloning of mammals has a high failure and defect rate, last I heard, plus it tends to require a host of the same or closely related species to bring the clone to term.
If AI research was anywhere near approaching sentience, it might produce some ethical issues of a vaguely similar type (particularly if any successes were likely to be fragile), but in the real world that's an abstract rather than a real issue for the moment. SETI doesn't have any issues that are even similar.
Chrome isn't ready for prime time... not a good idea at this point.
You don't, usually, start working on how you are going to distribute a product after you know it is ready for the market. You work on what you need to do to secure the distribution channels you want to have while you are getting the product ready, so when it is ready, those will be in place.
Presumably, Google has an idea of where it wants Chrome to go and a plan to get it there. If it doesn't then, sure, this discussion of OEM deals may be premature, but you certainly can't conclude that from the fact (which I certainly don't dispute, though I use Chrome for almost all of my home browsing now) that Chrome isn't ready today to be most people's sole browser.
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Not true. They object to any of a broad class of actual or hypothetical theories which involve speciation as a result of natural selection, including all existing modern evolutionary theory.
They frequently direct their arguments at strawman positions that bear only superficial resemblance to actual theory or any of its components or results, but that's a different issue.
Actually, they are using it to mean "developed gradually over time". Which is, after all, what "evolved" means outside of biology. The biological use is a special case of the general use.
And the use in the non-biological sense is a perfectly reasonable use in the context of geology.
GM never tried to sell them. It met the legislative demand by making them available for lease only, effectively cutting out the entire majority of the market that prefers ownership, tried very hard to make them impossible to get to avoid them becoming too popular, because it was trying to kill the legislative mandate and if the cars were popular, that political position would have been undermined, and then when it did kill the mandate, stopped leasing the cars.
Even if this was true (and depending on driving profile, the Corrolla uses anywhere from about 1.4 to about 1.6 times the fuel of the Prius, so in terms of fuel costs, it really isn't true), you expect, all other things being equal, the fuel economy of a compact car to be better, not worse (even if "marginally") than a midsize car.
With a Prius you get better fuel economy and greater utility.
You also pay a lot more up front. Whether that's worthwhile to you depends on your priorities.
Since no one has argued here that Japan is anything like a "perfect technological heaven", I'd say that's a nice fat strawman you are whacking at there. What people have argued here is that it is better than the US in some features of its mass transit systems and that the US would do well to emulate it in those specific areas.
There's nothing misleading about using MPG to rate fuel economy.
(Except insofar as the assumptions underlying the tests don't represent actual driving conditions, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem with the newer ratings.)
Dollars/mile may be useful for financial planning, but have nothing to do with "greenness". That being said, I'd like to see the definition of "marginally better" and the supporting detail for this argument.
The only estimates I've seen on that order assume use of nuclear power at the present rate, the estimates of the total extractable supply of fuel, and (for the "few thousands") complete replacement with the most advanced reactor designs. They don't account for any increase in nuclear energy use even to keep the current share of total energy use, they certainly don't factor in the fuel use for nuclear power actually substantially replacing any other existing source of energy by increasing its share of overall world energy production.
As nuclear is not renewable, this is an incoherent position.
"Zero/low GHG emission" is not the same thing as "renewable".
No, its a midsize car.
Um. WTF?
Some people need a car that can fit more than a normal human being. Some people are above average size. Some people shop. And it only gets ~80 MPG (US). And drivers can hardly be blamed for not buying a car that hasn't been available for more than 40 years, and probably wasn't street legal most places, and of which only 50 were made.
So your support for the argument that people are overstating the degree to which Japan is ahead of America in adoption of useful technology is pointing to an example of yet another area where Japan is ahead of America in adoption of useful technology?
You may want to think about that again.
No it wouldn't.
San Francisco is not. A lot of the North Bay is not. Substantial parts of Berkeley and Oakland are not...
In short, the Bay Area isn't all that flat. You may be confusing it with the Central Valley, in terms of flatness.
No, they aren't. California has far and away the largest economy and budget of any state, and its shortfall is the largest in absolute terms, but not proportionately to the total state budget or economy, and its not the only one looking to the feds for major assistance because most states can't run an operating deficit but the feds can.
California, like many states, has a Constitutional mandate for a balanced operating budget, which encourages all sorts of gimmicks to make sure that the budget actually voted on is technically balanced (note: the budget is required to be balanced, the actual mix of realized revenue and expenditures is a different matter; the budget can control the expenditure side, but not the revenue side.)
Even though the entire budget isn't balanced (both due to the fact that the gimmicks are just that, and the fact that the mandate does not include everything [bond-funded capital projects, etc.]), it has exactly (among other effects) the effect GP suggested; the feds have a lot more maneuvering room because they can overtly run an operating deficit if they chose to do so.
No, they aren't. The best diesels are maybe slightly better than comparable gas-powered hybrids in terms of mileage per unit volume (but maybe not, the best ones I've seen have been subcompacts in the 60s of MPG, whereas the best hybrid subcompact -- the old Honda Insight -- was in the same range; most comparisons are apples to oranges, comparing subcompact diesels to, for instance, the midsize Prius), but diesel has higher GHG emissions per unit volume than gasoline.
(Diesel hybrids exist, mostly in large vehicles, but you don't get as much mileage increase from making a diesel a hybrid because a basic diesel engine doesn't have as much of the kind of inefficiency that a hybrid system will minimize as a gasoline engine.)
Europe has higher fuel costs because they tax the fuel heavily to support mass transit and other things that make it so that people don't need to use their cars constantly. This rather changes what kind of car it makes sense for individuals to purchase.
Um, so? The old Honda Insight hybrid was a small car that got 61 city/70 highway on gasoline (which has less GHG emissions per unit volume than diesel). Sure, its better than the Prius (though not much, after consideration of the differences between diesel and gasoline), but the Prius is a midsize car, not a small car.
Light rail is a good (though far from complete idea), but there is a time and large cost, and it doesn't (even with better heavy rail) solve the whole problem. People are going to need to drive for quite some time in all but the most heavily urbanized areas, where life without a car is, in some cases, practical now, and where closing the mass transit gap is easiest. And dealing with the impact of pollution from those cars in a shorter term than the kind of radical transformation of the way cities are built that is needed to make American sprawl livable without a car means more environmentally friendly personal vehicles, and particularly electric and plug-in hybrids, are essential.
Most driving is shorter trips. But, yes, not all traffic is shorter trips. And, yes, commuter rail can help a lot with longer trips, though it takes a long time and lots of money to significantly expand commuter rail coverage.
Light rail, commuter rail like BART and some of the existing Amtrack California lines, and long-distance high-speed rail may, in the long-term, help more than electric vehicles, though I'm skeptical that over, say, the next century rail infrastructure will pay off more per dollar of investment than electric vehicle infrastructure. But I don't seem them as opposed, either. I think we need to do all of them.
Lots of places in CA already have these in unsecure parking lots and/or streest. Not nearly as much as would be envisioned by this, of course, but given that they have been deployed, if there was a general problem, it would, I expect, have been identified.
Battery exchange is, perhaps, less abusable in the worst case, but, since you have to get people to the exchange point and actually handle exchanging bulky batteries, logistically more complicated. So if charging stations work, and since they've been in use in many places, there should be some information on that, I'd say that it makes sense to use them as the first line, since they are more convenient for everyone involved.
Many fair-sized US cities are lucky to have a passenger rail station. Comparatively, even with your description, I think Japan is ahead.
No, because the American car companies paid to destroy commuter rail in the early part of the 20th century and, consequently, even most cities in America, where mass transit would generally be most effective, are designed around the car, and built for the car as a dominant form of transportation. People find that the car works best because most of America is designed expressly for that to be the case.
Reversing that is going to take several trillion of dollars of infrastructure investment and several decades.
Real mass transit infrastructure is going to take decades longer and many times as much money as the kind of electric vehicle infrastructure being discussed here (for California, you need improved long-range, high-speed, heavy passenger rail, like that to be funded by Prop 1A, better coverage with commuter rail systems like BART and some of the Amtrak California commuter lines, and improved local mass transit -- light rail, bus mass transit with dedicated roads, etc.) Given that most driving of most drivers is fairly short range, EVs would address some of the problems. They won't solve other problems, but then, mass transit doesn't solve all the problems either. Mass transit is a bigger, but longer range, part of the solution, but it doesn't eliminate the value of electric vehicles replacing gas vehicles for personal use.
Actually, that birds are dinosaurs.
Yeah, that's kind of odd. Wings aren't much like a Tyrannosaur's arms. I suppose they could be trying (very badly) to say that Big-T had arms that are like a bird's legs.
It is actually pretty easy to claim that.
It is a bit harder to do it. But claiming it is no problem.
Cloning of mammals has a high failure and defect rate, last I heard, plus it tends to require a host of the same or closely related species to bring the clone to term.
If AI research was anywhere near approaching sentience, it might produce some ethical issues of a vaguely similar type (particularly if any successes were likely to be fragile), but in the real world that's an abstract rather than a real issue for the moment. SETI doesn't have any issues that are even similar.
You don't, usually, start working on how you are going to distribute a product after you know it is ready for the market. You work on what you need to do to secure the distribution channels you want to have while you are getting the product ready, so when it is ready, those will be in place.
Presumably, Google has an idea of where it wants Chrome to go and a plan to get it there. If it doesn't then, sure, this discussion of OEM deals may be premature, but you certainly can't conclude that from the fact (which I certainly don't dispute, though I use Chrome for almost all of my home browsing now) that Chrome isn't ready today to be most people's sole browser.