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Thanks mubs for the compliments. I was afraid I was in danger of hijacking your thread but I'm glad you saw my post for what it was-an attempt to start a debate of hybrids versus other technologies. I fully agree with everything else you wrote. Until the automakers change their business model...

Tony, you and your friend Tea are, um, special cases. :wink: Of course there are not going to be any recharging stations when you take your long trips across the outback. Then again there won't be any gas stations, either. Don't forget that battery technology is advancing at a rapid pace...

And I also need to add that no R&D is needed to make a good BEV today other than gearing up for mass production same as with any other car. Compare that to the fuel cells which have been researched since the 1960's and which will eventually be dismissed as unfeasible because of cost issues by...

A state of the art BEV (battery electric vehicle) can get a 300 mile range, recharge to 80% capacity in 15 minutes, doesn't pollute at all, can out-accelerate any gas car, will be much cheaper to refuel, and won't have the maintainance issues anything with an engine will have. A hybrid may be a...

I think it was simple demographics that caused MS to pull out-car and plane simulators sell better than train simulators. Or maybe they just couldn't get it to work right. The exact audience which would buy MSTS II would be more concerned with having realistic physics and realistic operation...

The only games I ever play are simulators. I just never got into all the other types of PC games. I have MS Flight Simulator, MS Train Simulator, and Fly currently installed. As far as I know, the physics on the two flight simulators are halfway decent but out of the box MS Train Simulator...

Looks like the 100 lumen per watt barrier for white LEDs has finally been broken! :cheers: Amazing! We went from 60 to 100 in less than two years. At this rate we may be at the 2012 goal of 150 lm/W far sooner than expected. The future certainly looks bright (pun intended).

I just want to point out that this election was mainly to elect legislators. They weren't choosing more important posts like president, prime minister, fuhrer, ayatollah, or whatever other name they may ultimately choose to hold the highest elected office there. Whenever elections for that...

Same here. It's above freezing after quite a few days of 20°F and much less. It looks like it'll be seasonal for at least the next week or so rather than below average. I might also add that it's odd how it can feel "warm" in the 30s in midwinter after a cold snap yet in fall the first day in...

Why on Earth would venture capitalists invest in screwing up people's computers? Adware makes machines unstable and slow to the point that they're unusable. What good is trying to sell stuff via adware if the adware renders the PC useless? I cleaned junkware from my sister's computer 3 times...

Last night it got down to 5°F. I actually went for a long walk earlier when we were having a heat wave (10°F). I enjoy this kind of weather. Very exhilarating. The snow's coming down hard now. Looks like about 4" so far with much more to come. Looks like I'll be busy shoveling on and off...

Now all we have to do is turn it into a commercially viable system. ;) Seriously, as much as I want fusion to be used as soon as possible, it looks like any practical implementations of it are millenia away. By then it'll simply be too late for the planet. Of course, if we put as much R&D...

I agree Tea. I just mentioned it because so little has been happening with hard drives these last few years that, well, I had to mention something else besides higher areal density and less noise. I have yet to own a SATA drive. I just don't see any compelling reason to. And yes, the...

About the only major developments in the last few years have been increasing areal density and SATA. Lately even areal density hasn't gone up by much. Seek times, power consumption, and spindle speeds have remained more or less the same. Any real speed improvements are a result of increasing...

Actually Coug, that was 630 meters for the initial wave height, or over 2000 feet. :o We're roughly 8 miles from water here so hopefully we should be OK but my brother just bought a house on the Rockaway Peninsula and he's about 70 feet off Jamaica Bay. At least about 1 mile of island is...

Since my brother moved back with us in June his cat made the adjustment very well. Within a month she acted like she owned the place. I think frequent moving is a bad thing for cats, but moving every few years or less often shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Ok, that changes things a lot if he has the problems you mentioned. Parenting can only do so much in a situation like that. My post was referring to children without such issues. Sorry about the lecture. :mrgrn: What brought it on is that I'm more than a little annoyed when I read about...

There was exactly one good thing about 2004. I got roaring drunk to celebrate it's end. Let's hope 2005 brings better things.

Agreed. In fact, this is the only way a child can grow into a normal, healthy, thinking adult. The current climate of parents spying on their children in all sorts of ways is a disgusting trend. If a parent does a good enough job instilling some sort of inherent sense of right and wrong, they...

The death toll started out at 3000 when I first learned of this. Now it's up to 7100. :cry: It's humbling that for all our technology and science we still can't always predict things like this.

Heat might help. I sleep on my side most of the time like mubs, and if I face my back towards an electric heater set on low I find it helps if I'm starting to get any aches. Also, you might try elevating your feet. This seems to help me relax more, and when I'm more relaxed I'm less likely to...

I personally don't know what the bandwidth limit is for a cable ISP like RR but the modem they gave me is good up to 30 Mb/sec. I wonder when/if we'll ever see standard speeds that high? About the only difference I'm noticing at this point going from 3 to 5 Mb/sec is that downloads are much...

I've never had back pain to the point that it's very painful, but when I notice it starting I'll sleep in my workroom either on the table (wood composite) or on the floor (ceramic tile over concrete) for one night. Usually the table works but if it doesn't the floor certainly will. In both...

I'm as happy as all hell for you, Merc. Given everything that's happened to you, it's nice to finally see your luck changing. It couldn't happen to a more deserving person.

Yep. Plain old 21-speed road bike. The funny part with the 65 mph run was that I could have gone even faster but my gearing limited my top speed. Figure that with a 53 tooth gear on the crank and a 12-24 cluster in back, plus a 27" tire, when I reach 180 RPM (about the fastest I can do) this...

Maybe I'm the only one here who thinks in exactly the same way. I stayed in NYC after college despite a smaller variety of job choices for the very reasons you mention. I simply don't wish to be a slave to a car so that means living in an area that offers comprehensive public transportation...

Thanks, Pradeep. That did the trick-4725 mbs down! :thumbright: Still 384 kbs up but I guess you can't have everything. We'll see if everything feels faster.

When I read your post I was ready to say I hadn't noticed any difference but then I decided to try one of the download speed tests to see if the service really was upgraded. I did and I got the same 2814 kbs which I've gotten since I hooked up with RoadRunner. Apparently the speed increase...

And the bitter irony is that if one was mass produced, it would actually cost less than a gas-engined car. It's a chicken and egg sort of thing where I feel the government may need to step up to the plate and jump start the EV industry. BTW, I don't know what sort of physical condition your...

Doug, it's the burning oil for power part which concerns me more than anything else. The other methods of using oil you mentioned put far less junk in the air than using it for fuel. In fact, all the more reason to conserve oil since it's a finite resource and very useful for something besides...

It's dumb in that vehicles like that shouldn't even be made unless there is a real need for it. You don't see me complaining that an 18-wheeler gets maybe 4 mpg because that's the best you can do given the requirements. If someone really needs to tow 10,000 pounds, drive on a glacier, or drive...

I was just laughing reading this line in that article Howell linked to: We shouldn't even be using internal combustion engines in 2020, but to say we'll only have 5% to 15% of vehicles hybrids (with the rest presumably regular internal combustion engines) by 2020 is laughable. This is...

I'm glad he's doing what he's doing but nobody will listen until oil gets expensive and/or there's massive climate change. Sadly, it's human nature to do nothing about a problem until it comes up and bites you in the behind. The fact is that fossil fuel use kills over 600,000 per year in the...

Was this the company you're referring to? Fiber optics isn't really something that this project calls for since we have plenty of room to put the LEDs in the sign. I do wish I had some 80 or 90 lm/W LEDs though.

Bumping this thread a few days ago turned out to be very serendipitous indeed. It looks like it's time for another update Quite a number of highlights here. Cree has their XT-24 blue chip in production with the XT-27 available in sample quantities. The XT-24 outputs 24 mW and the XT-27...

I did encounter some information about growing plants in the course of my research. Here is a page comparing the effectiveness of different types of fluorescent tubes for plant growing in gory detail. NASA's studies using red and blue LEDs to grow plants are another interesting read. Here's...

The used monitor idea sounds interesting. I'm not sure where I would look, though. There's not too many mom and pop computer stores around here. On eBay the shipping would be prohibitive. As I'm sure you've guessed, I have budget constraints. I've been wanting a 19" flat CRT for quite some...

Best Buy has the MAG 972PF-S for $99 after rebate. I've been in need of a better monitor than what I'm using for a long time. In case anyone is curious, my original 15" monitor got too dim to be useable about a year ago. Ever since I've been using a 15" I found by the curb. The color isn't...

Having lived at the same address for the last 26 years and 4 months I think I might hold the record around here. How about everyone else?

I thought maybe you were talking about Charlie Chestnut but that was a squirrel.

I thought it was rather humerous that the smallest capacity was 200 GB. I'm also surprised that they didn't make a 1 platter 133 GB version. This would be perfect to upgrade older machines as it would be allow nearly the full 28-bit LBA capacity on a drive with a single platter. And we creep...

You're right, Bill. I can't conclusively prove God doesn't exist. However, Occam's Razor makes it highly unlikely that he/she/it does exist given that the probability of a simpler solution is more likely. Therefore, it is more rational to not believe in a God than it is to believe in one...

And I'm sure all the believers here will think I'm going straight to hell for my last post. :diablo: No matter. It's probably infinitely more interesting than the other place anyway.

A belief in God requires faith. Faith is something that only exists in the minds of man, and not in the material world. Therefore, God does not exist. QED.

Very eloquent Gilbo. I'm just curious though why a rational (by your definition) person like Martin Luther would even believe in God, heaven, or hell? I've yet to find any convincing reasons to believe the Bible is anything other than an elaborately written history book. If God existed at...

I'm wondering how long it will be before the traumatized Kerry supporters file a lawsuit against the Bush campaign for causing them their trauma by winning the election. Don't laugh. It could conceivably happen, and there are juries stupid enough to actually award money in cases like this...

I base my moral decisions on what is good for the majority of people. Sometimes this makes you unpopular, sometimes not. I don't purposely go out of my way to please people, but rather hope that by acting in such a way as to benefit the majority I'll be more popular than unpopular, and hence...

Sure I do. I was merely trying to point out that morals can take you to the same places that lack of morals can, albeit for very different reasons. In general, morals and ethics serve as an attempt to balance an unbalanced equation. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. And there is...

I have to say that on average I've found that most people, religious or otherwise, are too lazy to think anything other than what they're told by whatever leader they happen to hold in esteem. By extension, this means that most religious people are inherently incapable of exercising moral...

RW, in Merc's defense he is a bit hypersensitive on both homosexual and abortion rights. The other members here know that and don't push those buttons too often. NVidia and Sony are other topics where Merc has, shall we say, very strong feelings (he's anti both). Just a friendy word of...