This is where you are dead wrong. Please don't state as fact your opinions that are not based on research.
That's not opinion; it's physics.
It is physics-ly impossible to convert energy from one form to another with zero loss. Even superconductors have SOME resistance. Resistance equals heat. Heat equals loss.
The reason for this is that the electric motor is far more efficient at converting stored energy into mechanical energy. For one thing, very little energy is wasted as heat.
It had BETTER be more efficient, since your "tank" only holds the equivalent of about a litre of gasoline, energy-wise!
I know this probably doesn't make enough of a difference to matter; but did you know that, as motor windings heat up, the resistance goes up; and as the resistance goes up, the heat goes up. And as the heat goes up, the resistance goes up, and as the resistance goes up... It's called I squared R loss, and it's the same thing that causes the voltage-drop in a long extension cord if the wire gauge is too small. I'm not an expert on ICE, but I'm pretty sure that they get more efficient as they heat up, not less, like electric motors do.
You see, in a former life, for about 12 years, I designed industrial motor controls for a living; so what I am saying is not all opinion.
BTW, since I drive about 42 miles a day to work and back, I would get REAL tired of always worrying about finding an outlet at each end of the journey, especially since it would be basically impossible at the "work" end.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
One thing electric cars are accomplishing is adding a layer of abstraction to the power. Sure, lots of electricity comes from fossil fuels, but that can change. The same car that can be charged by electricity produced by fossil fuels can also be charged by the solar panel on my roof.
You're right. And when (and if) that happens, then I will be right there in line. But as I said, in the U.S., and for now, I don't see it making actual environmental sense.
That said, it's still easier to control emissions at a single source than at thousands.
I have read that claim several times in this thread; but so far, no one has backed it up with a single citation, or even a cockamamie theory. Instead, people just keep parroting the same phrases without a shred of actual facts, like with "man-made Global Warming", er, "Climate Change".
100% of gasoline powered cars rely on fossil fuels
~66% of electricity in the us is generated using fossil fuels, 39% is from coal
In some sense we are trading the smoke-plumes around, but keep in mind it is vastly more efficient to regulate and control the pollution out of one stack than one million different little stacks.
Except that, when the "little stack" is sitting in your driveway, it isn't consuming ANYTHING, nor producing ANY pollution, whereas the "big stack" WILL be running 24/7, and at many times, will be actually CONSUMING and PRODUCING without actual NEED.
One electric-powered car runs on electricity. You can bend the "formulation" of electricity a number of ways (AC vs. DC; various frequencies, voltages, currents, phase counts) and interchange them pretty efficiently.
Simply doesn't "square" with this statement:
an electric motor has torque where it counts: at the bottom of the curve.
Why? Because the second statement is only true of Permanent-Magnet DC "Traction-Motors", like are used in Starter Motors in ICE cars, and Diesel-Electric Locomotives. AC Motors and even "Field-Wound" (use electromagnets instead of permanent magnets) DC Motors have pretty sucky low-end-torque.
Plus, we haven't talked about the energy required to built batteries, nor the energy required to recycle them after they die in about 5 years.
Do you happen to know how long they have to be stopped before they shut down?
My Prius? Something like two seconds. That was one of the hardest things to get used to; it felt like "the car stalled at the light." A non-hybrid, I'm more dubious about. Maybe they just have to have a beefy enough starter motor that it can start out electric for the second or two it takes the regular engine to get going.
I don't know about a Prius, but on my rental Chevy, it starts as fast as it stops. I think they keep the fuel-rail pressurized, and so it is very ready to start.
I rode in one a couple of months ago, and it seemed like it was only a couple of seconds. It felt very strange for the car to go completely quiet on every red light.
Yeah, I rented one (a Chevy) a couple of months ago, and it shut down essentially when the wheels came to a complete stop.
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process.
Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
No, the thing to worry about there is just that the general increase in ease of DNA testing and sequencing will lead to insurance companies deciding they need to have the genomes of all their insured on file.
But, at least in the U.S., now that we have the ACA (a/k/a ObamaCare), there is less incentive for individualized "risk profiling" by insurance carriers, since things like "pre-existing conditions" can no longer be used to deny, nor "adjust" rates or coverage.
And speaking as a (now-insured) Diabetic who could not purchase private insurance under any reasonable circumstances under the "old system", because there was a chance I might actually need it, and for all its faults, I for one am happy to have the ACA.
Let me tell you, it was WONDERFUL to not have to fill-out 200 questions, just to have the insurance-carrier's system decide that it wasn't going to give me insurance (after collecting my health info and my credit card info), for the fact that I was a Diabetic (which was about the 10th question I answered out of around 200).
They will only have an incentive to fix them if people get fed up with the problem and switch to the competition.
And considering that this is about the umpteenth article on Slashdot (never mind everywhere else!) on this VERY subject, perhaps it IS time for the peasants to revolt.
Otherwise, at this point, the fandroids should simply STFU about updates; because at this point, they apparently have only themselves to blame.
As they say: Adults vote with their feet. Maybe it's time to put your foot where your mouth is.
And before anyone says you can't; you most certainly can delete every App, even the "Apple" ones, from an iPhone. I know, because I accidently deleted iTunes from my iPhone, but I was able to get it back from the App Store, too.
How did you do that? When you long-press (in iOS8.3 anyway) the Apple apps (including iTunes) don't get the little 'X' to delete them like all the others. I have no real interest in deleting them (ones like the Apple Watch app just end up in my 'Junk' folder), just curious.
I think it was an earlier version of iOS, and as I said, I don't know how I did it, because it was an accident. HOWEVER, you canstill do it through iTunes. A little more work; but it isn't like you do this every single day, and it should be a little difficult to remove stuff like Safari, Photos, Passbook, etc. by accident; so I think the "iTunes" method is a good compromise, overall.
Can't speak for conspiracy. Can speak for several friends with different models of iPhone that have seen this exact effect. There doesn't have to be a deliberate conspiracy for it still to happen.
But you did speak for[sic] conspiracy.
By using the word "force", you connoted a deliberate act. And by implying that the act was somehow deliberate, you have, de facto alleged a conspiracy.
The carriers don't pay the money; the money is paid per device by the OEM who wants to sell those devices.
Then I have a really good idea for the OEMs: Negotiate new contracts that don't allow Carrier-Specific modifications of the codebase, like Apple does; OR, shift the cost of the Certification to those Carriers that believe they MUST modify the codebase. The OEM would still pay the Regulatory Agency, then would get reimbursed by the Carrier.
See how easy that was?
I use "the FCC" in its royal sense here, i.e. to refer to all the regulatory agencies like the FCC that operate all over the world. I'm not going to list 120 regulatory agencies every time...
Then either do the following (which you have actually done in your snarky response) : a) Use a more generic term, such as "Regulatory Agency"; b)place "FCC" in quotes, which at least suggests you are using it as a "jargon term", rather than a "literal".
the FCC demands that the SDR be certified as a unit (software + hardware). That's a carrier certifiiation per carrier, per country, per device, per version update.
1. The 20 thousand dollars or so that the certification costs per year should be less than chump change for these carriers.
2. The FCC only controls what goes on in the USA. So the "per country" part of your "cost analysis" is completely bogus.
3. Run with the big dog, or get back on the porch.
It's not perfect, but the Apple model of effectively forcing old hardware into uselessness (ie becoming so slow with the latest OS) isn't exactly perfect either.
The problem with your statement is that it assumes some sort of indefinable conspiracy on the part of Apple to "force old hardware into uselessness".
Then explain the iOS 8.0.2 Update (I may have the exact version wrong) that was released specifically to address "slowdown" and "stability" issues on older hardware.
If Apple had other companies selling iOS devices, I doubt they'd have done any better at preventing fragmentation.
While I doubt that Apple would license iOS without having language in the agreement that the licensee (licensor?) would have to offer OS Updates within x days of Apple's Release Date, the problem solves itself; because Apple learned their lesson regarding licensing to competitors a long time ago...
Google has repeatedly disregarded customers by not backporting security fixes to the main trees of their old Android OS. In this case, even if the carrier or device maker wanted to update the old device, there would be no fix for the old OS available.
Nice Straw, Man.
Do you really think that someone like Samsung, HTC or LG couldn't exert some pressure on Google to "do the right thing"? That is really a knee-slapper!
Calling Android, as delivered, "Open Source" is just like calling iOS "Open Source".
Both have many Open Source components; but also have many proprietary pieces-parts, too.
Really, unless you are the.0000005% of Android users that actually purchases a Nexus-branded product, can you really claim your mobile device runs an Open Source OS?
And doesn't even the Nexus OS have proprietary bits for the baseband code, etc?
If a manufacturer wants to sell cheap phones with a old version of the software with a smaller overhead, then it is up to them to patch it, the patches are out there and really it doesn't take all that much effort, just a couple of skilled staff members as a part time effort.
All the more reason that their refusal to do so is utterly inexcusable. And you have the temerity to rag on Apple and their entire Userbase?!?
Choice inherently is fragmentation but seriously calling choice fragmentation is blatant PR=B$ and likely stems from vested advertising interest from say some other company that provides little or no choice.
Would you like to count the Samsung/HTC/LG Commercials-Per-Hour to the iPhone ones? Now who has the "vested advertising interest" (whatever that means)?
Slashdot Mirror
This is where you are dead wrong. Please don't state as fact your opinions that are not based on research.
That's not opinion; it's physics.
It is physics-ly impossible to convert energy from one form to another with zero loss. Even superconductors have SOME resistance. Resistance equals heat. Heat equals loss.
The reason for this is that the electric motor is far more efficient at converting stored energy into mechanical energy. For one thing, very little energy is wasted as heat.
It had BETTER be more efficient, since your "tank" only holds the equivalent of about a litre of gasoline, energy-wise!
I know this probably doesn't make enough of a difference to matter; but did you know that, as motor windings heat up, the resistance goes up; and as the resistance goes up, the heat goes up. And as the heat goes up, the resistance goes up, and as the resistance goes up... It's called I squared R loss, and it's the same thing that causes the voltage-drop in a long extension cord if the wire gauge is too small. I'm not an expert on ICE, but I'm pretty sure that they get more efficient as they heat up, not less, like electric motors do.
You see, in a former life, for about 12 years, I designed industrial motor controls for a living; so what I am saying is not all opinion.
BTW, since I drive about 42 miles a day to work and back, I would get REAL tired of always worrying about finding an outlet at each end of the journey, especially since it would be basically impossible at the "work" end.
Third and finally, your whole argument is about debunking that a Tesla isn't "that" green. Which is quite low on my "reason to buy a Tesla" list.
No, I was challenging EVs in general; I wasn't trying to pick on Tesla, per se.
In fact, I would love to have an EV; but I won't do it if it means that I'm just moving the smoke plume out of my locality and into another.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
One thing electric cars are accomplishing is adding a layer of abstraction to the power. Sure, lots of electricity comes from fossil fuels, but that can change. The same car that can be charged by electricity produced by fossil fuels can also be charged by the solar panel on my roof.
You're right. And when (and if) that happens, then I will be right there in line. But as I said, in the U.S., and for now, I don't see it making actual environmental sense.
That said, it's still easier to control emissions at a single source than at thousands.
I have read that claim several times in this thread; but so far, no one has backed it up with a single citation, or even a cockamamie theory. Instead, people just keep parroting the same phrases without a shred of actual facts, like with "man-made Global Warming", er, "Climate Change".
We're fixing one link in the chain. Just because the chain has multiple breaks doesn't mean we shouldn't start fixing any single one of them.
Yes it does.
100% of gasoline powered cars rely on fossil fuels ~66% of electricity in the us is generated using fossil fuels, 39% is from coal In some sense we are trading the smoke-plumes around, but keep in mind it is vastly more efficient to regulate and control the pollution out of one stack than one million different little stacks.
Except that, when the "little stack" is sitting in your driveway, it isn't consuming ANYTHING, nor producing ANY pollution, whereas the "big stack" WILL be running 24/7, and at many times, will be actually CONSUMING and PRODUCING without actual NEED.
One electric-powered car runs on electricity. You can bend the "formulation" of electricity a number of ways (AC vs. DC; various frequencies, voltages, currents, phase counts) and interchange them pretty efficiently.
Simply doesn't "square" with this statement:
an electric motor has torque where it counts: at the bottom of the curve.
Why? Because the second statement is only true of Permanent-Magnet DC "Traction-Motors", like are used in Starter Motors in ICE cars, and Diesel-Electric Locomotives. AC Motors and even "Field-Wound" (use electromagnets instead of permanent magnets) DC Motors have pretty sucky low-end-torque.
Plus, we haven't talked about the energy required to built batteries, nor the energy required to recycle them after they die in about 5 years.
Nobody talks about that.
Do you happen to know how long they have to be stopped before they shut down?
My Prius? Something like two seconds. That was one of the hardest things to get used to; it felt like "the car stalled at the light." A non-hybrid, I'm more dubious about. Maybe they just have to have a beefy enough starter motor that it can start out electric for the second or two it takes the regular engine to get going.
I don't know about a Prius, but on my rental Chevy, it starts as fast as it stops. I think they keep the fuel-rail pressurized, and so it is very ready to start.
I rode in one a couple of months ago, and it seemed like it was only a couple of seconds. It felt very strange for the car to go completely quiet on every red light.
Yeah, I rented one (a Chevy) a couple of months ago, and it shut down essentially when the wheels came to a complete stop.
By the way, I wasn't trying to start a Flame War; so whoever modded me "Flamebait" can bite me.
A "Discussion" is NOT a "Flame War".
Jeebus.
In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.
As much as I inherently love the idea of a totally-electric car (actually, a true fuel-cell car would be even nicer!), I just can't get past the fact that everyone in the U.S., at least, has to be (conveniently) overlooking the reality of where the electricity comes from.
As long as the answer to that is "Fossil Fuels" (and particularly, coal), then we are doing nothing but trading one smoke-plume for another.
And worse yet, losing overall efficiency in the process.
Please someone who understands the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics better than I, tell me how I am wrong.
I know... I probably shouldn't be here...
Chuckle...
No, the thing to worry about there is just that the general increase in ease of DNA testing and sequencing will lead to insurance companies deciding they need to have the genomes of all their insured on file.
But, at least in the U.S., now that we have the ACA (a/k/a ObamaCare), there is less incentive for individualized "risk profiling" by insurance carriers, since things like "pre-existing conditions" can no longer be used to deny, nor "adjust" rates or coverage.
And speaking as a (now-insured) Diabetic who could not purchase private insurance under any reasonable circumstances under the "old system", because there was a chance I might actually need it, and for all its faults, I for one am happy to have the ACA.
Let me tell you, it was WONDERFUL to not have to fill-out 200 questions, just to have the insurance-carrier's system decide that it wasn't going to give me insurance (after collecting my health info and my credit card info), for the fact that I was a Diabetic (which was about the 10th question I answered out of around 200).
The guy with a mac.com email address nay-saying the cautious. Funny.
...and the ANONYMOUS COWARD using an ad hominem attack against them, based on User information. Funnier.
*Re-reads my original comment*
Oh, right, yes.
Wow! A Gold Star for You, SERIOUSLY!
;-)
Other than myself, I don't think I have EVER seen anyone admit to an ill-considered Reply on Slashdot!!!
Well done, Young Human!
Now, take your hand out of the box!
They will only have an incentive to fix them if people get fed up with the problem and switch to the competition.
And considering that this is about the umpteenth article on Slashdot (never mind everywhere else!) on this VERY subject, perhaps it IS time for the peasants to revolt.
Otherwise, at this point, the fandroids should simply STFU about updates; because at this point, they apparently have only themselves to blame.
As they say: Adults vote with their feet. Maybe it's time to put your foot where your mouth is.
And before anyone says you can't; you most certainly can delete every App, even the "Apple" ones, from an iPhone. I know, because I accidently deleted iTunes from my iPhone, but I was able to get it back from the App Store, too.
How did you do that? When you long-press (in iOS8.3 anyway) the Apple apps (including iTunes) don't get the little 'X' to delete them like all the others. I have no real interest in deleting them (ones like the Apple Watch app just end up in my 'Junk' folder), just curious.
I think it was an earlier version of iOS, and as I said, I don't know how I did it, because it was an accident. HOWEVER, you can still do it through iTunes. A little more work; but it isn't like you do this every single day, and it should be a little difficult to remove stuff like Safari, Photos, Passbook, etc. by accident; so I think the "iTunes" method is a good compromise, overall.
Can't speak for conspiracy. Can speak for several friends with different models of iPhone that have seen this exact effect. There doesn't have to be a deliberate conspiracy for it still to happen.
But you did speak for[sic] conspiracy.
By using the word "force", you connoted a deliberate act. And by implying that the act was somehow deliberate, you have, de facto alleged a conspiracy.
See how English works?
The carriers don't pay the money; the money is paid per device by the OEM who wants to sell those devices.
Then I have a really good idea for the OEMs: Negotiate new contracts that don't allow Carrier-Specific modifications of the codebase, like Apple does; OR, shift the cost of the Certification to those Carriers that believe they MUST modify the codebase. The OEM would still pay the Regulatory Agency, then would get reimbursed by the Carrier.
See how easy that was?
I use "the FCC" in its royal sense here, i.e. to refer to all the regulatory agencies like the FCC that operate all over the world. I'm not going to list 120 regulatory agencies every time...
Then either do the following (which you have actually done in your snarky response) : a) Use a more generic term, such as "Regulatory Agency"; b)place "FCC" in quotes, which at least suggests you are using it as a "jargon term", rather than a "literal".
See how easy that was?
No need for a snarky, pseudo-pedantic response.
the FCC demands that the SDR be certified as a unit (software + hardware). That's a carrier certifiiation per carrier, per country, per device, per version update.
1. The 20 thousand dollars or so that the certification costs per year should be less than chump change for these carriers.
2. The FCC only controls what goes on in the USA. So the "per country" part of your "cost analysis" is completely bogus.
3. Run with the big dog, or get back on the porch.
This is simply a 'made-up' crisis from people who have Apple devices.
There is a psychological term for what you are exhibiting:
"Sweet Lemons".
Look it up.
It's not perfect, but the Apple model of effectively forcing old hardware into uselessness (ie becoming so slow with the latest OS) isn't exactly perfect either.
The problem with your statement is that it assumes some sort of indefinable conspiracy on the part of Apple to "force old hardware into uselessness".
Then explain the iOS 8.0.2 Update (I may have the exact version wrong) that was released specifically to address "slowdown" and "stability" issues on older hardware.
So now what?
If Apple had other companies selling iOS devices, I doubt they'd have done any better at preventing fragmentation.
While I doubt that Apple would license iOS without having language in the agreement that the licensee (licensor?) would have to offer OS Updates within x days of Apple's Release Date, the problem solves itself; because Apple learned their lesson regarding licensing to competitors a long time ago...
Google has repeatedly disregarded customers by not backporting security fixes to the main trees of their old Android OS. In this case, even if the carrier or device maker wanted to update the old device, there would be no fix for the old OS available.
Nice Straw, Man.
Do you really think that someone like Samsung, HTC or LG couldn't exert some pressure on Google to "do the right thing"? That is really a knee-slapper!
You seem to forget it is open source.
Calling Android, as delivered, "Open Source" is just like calling iOS "Open Source".
.0000005% of Android users that actually purchases a Nexus-branded product, can you really claim your mobile device runs an Open Source OS?
Both have many Open Source components; but also have many proprietary pieces-parts, too.
Really, unless you are the
And doesn't even the Nexus OS have proprietary bits for the baseband code, etc?
If a manufacturer wants to sell cheap phones with a old version of the software with a smaller overhead, then it is up to them to patch it, the patches are out there and really it doesn't take all that much effort, just a couple of skilled staff members as a part time effort.
All the more reason that their refusal to do so is utterly inexcusable. And you have the temerity to rag on Apple and their entire Userbase?!?
Choice inherently is fragmentation but seriously calling choice fragmentation is blatant PR=B$ and likely stems from vested advertising interest from say some other company that provides little or no choice.
Would you like to count the Samsung/HTC/LG Commercials-Per-Hour to the iPhone ones? Now who has the "vested advertising interest" (whatever that means)?