[flash]

i live in one of those areas where solar power generation, especially in winter, is low.  guess what.  it still works.

 

personal freedom must give way to the greater good.  it's inevitable.  

 

the only other thing we can do is to limit human reproduction.  the planet cannot sustain the number of people it has now.  the population needs to decrease by half.  that means not allowing people to reproduce at all for 10 years, and then only one child per family for another 20, when it can then go back to 2 per family.  not an attractive concept to most people, but an alternative that would work.

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[ds968]

As draconian as that concept may be, I can't say that I disagree with it .. Not for the negligible impact on the world's " carbon footprint " but for all the other depletion of resources which are in no way near enough to sustain even half of the current population, much less continuing growth of it . The result is only positive : reduction of poverty, hunger, diseases / illness , crime , etc. etc. etc. But 1) how do you convince 75 % of the world population who thinks children are " gifts from God , Allah , some Diety with six arms and an elephant nose , reincarnated grandparents spirits, or any other similar religious icon " and 2) what government other than China or North Korea would dare impose any such rules on its people without fear of an overthrow ?!

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[lbpesq]

Easy solution. Build a wall between all the men and women. Make Mexico pay for it. Problem solved.


Bill

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[Waylander]

Ohh will you get Congress to vote on it?


Trump should write a book on making friends and alienating the rest of the planet

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[ds968]

Easy solution. Build a wall between all the men and women. Make Mexico pay for it. Problem solved.

Bill

   

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[MCL968]

Cask of Amontillado?

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[ds968]

Back to petrol / gasoline  vs. other means of powering the car  ;  buried deep somewhere in another thread and among my 8,845 previous posts is the defining argument in favor of gasoline, that being made by the great Eric Clapton in the below noted legendary song lyrics :    ok, everybody sing-along now ! 

 

If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out.

Octane .
If you wanna get down, down on the ground.
Octane.

<i>[Chorus:]</i>
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie;
Octane.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues.
Octane .
When your day is done and you wanna run.
Octane.

<i>[Chorus]</i>

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on.
Octane .
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back.
Octane .

 

 

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[Rap]

What a great mind.

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[Cloud9...68]

I was alerted to this by one of my vanpool riders:

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marshall-me...0-minutes/

 

The gist of it is that this company claims to have found a practical way to extract the sugars from the inedible cellulose fibers of plants to create not just ethanol, but also gasoline, jet fuel, basically any type of fuel.  Now, claims like this are a dime a dozen (remember cold fusion?), but this company's method is pretty ingenious, and it has the backing of a lot of smart and influential people in the energy field.  IF (a massive if) it works, this is truly the holy grail, where we could have our cake and eat it too, as it's a completely CO2-neutral approach, because the plants consume CO2, which offsets the CO2 produced when the fuel burns.  This is a much more appealing solution than electric cars, which rely on the worldwide adoption of nutty solar and wind power schemes to generate the electricity they use before they have any impact.  So, we could have our 650 hp cars, minus the guilt.

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[ds968]

I like that !

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[Cloud9...68]

The point is that climate change is a technological problem, and human ingenuity at solving technological problems is always woefully underestimated.  I'm not the least bit worried about climate change - it is  a solvable problem, whether it's through biofuels, geoengineering, or some as-yet not even conceived breakthrough - most likely a combination of several parallel efforts.  But it won't be solved by small-minded approaches like forcing people to give up their personal liberty and opportunity to live better than their kids through unrealistic and ineffective schemes to cut down on CO2 emissions.

 

I'm similarly completely unworried about population growth.  This it a tired load of hogwash that's been shoved down peoples' throats by crackpots like Paul Ehrlich for decades, and yet, the truth is that despite ever-growing population, by any measure - prosperity, opportunity, tolerance, life expectancy, infant mortality, you name it, there has never been a better time to be alive in the history of the world than today.  The earth can easily sustain 100 billion people, as long as a significant percentage of those people are allowed to apply their inherent genius toward making the world a better place.  I'm much more worried about the amount of debt that exists in the world, and about how I'm going to close the gap between my lap times, and those of the fastest guys at the track.  Maybe 650 biofueled hp would do the trick...

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[Rap]

I agree. Lap times are the greatest challenge we face today. That and of course democrats wanting to take our hard earned money away from us

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[lbpesq]

As opposed to Republicans who believe that all millionaires are created equal?

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[ds968]

There is no more money left for democrats to take from us , the republicans have taken all of it to spend it on a wall which a mentally ill despot wants to build not realizing that countless tunnels can be dug under it, undetected and as quickly and easily as can be , and of course we must not forget the republicans promoting and approving the annual $ 600 billion spending on an obscenely excessive military , 80 % of which is entirely unnecessary...unless of course we're preparing to protect our borders from the inevitable invasion by Mexico , or perhaps Canada .

Yes, the democrats take from the rich and spend it on social programs for the disenfranchised , the republicans take from the rich AND from he poor and give it to the rich. Do we really want to debate this on a horsepower thread ?!


And yes, I'm one of those " rich " in the notorious 1 % . Not very rich by this area's standards, lol, but comfortably rich enough to be subjected to 53 % of all my annual income going to federal and state taxes , and to the " communist " social security system contribution . Thankfully republicans don't consider that one socialism , in spite of the fact that it's nothing but that ! ;-)

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[Waylander]

Time to do a bob and vacate, all you can blame is the idiots that voted him in


We should send him Diane Abbot as a second in command, they both came from the same mental institution

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[ds968]

Must share a dialogue I had today at work with one of my friends who just bought a Tesla .


Me : what the hell made you buy an electric car ?

Him : just thought I need a change of pace, why , what's wrong with that ?

Me : because it's not a real car, it's just a novelty and has no SOUL ! Have you lost your passion for driving and for cars ?

Him : why can't I have a passion for two different things , that's like saying I can't have a passion for blondes and also a passion for brunettes.

Me : that's a completely wrong analogy ; the appropriate analogy in this case is ; " why can't I have a passion for women , and also a passion for an inflatable doll " ?!


Now, where is that mike drop icon ?! ;-) :-) .

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[Cloud9...68]

Too funny.  I see Tesla is laying off 7% of their work force.  This doesn't necessarily mean the end is near for them, but it can't be taken as a good sign.  But I also think that while your anecdote applies well to car enthusiasts, I think the vast majority of the car buying public couldn't care less whether their vehicle has any "soul" - it's just an appliance to most people.  There are far bigger problems with electric cars (range, charging time, purchase price, the environmental impact of mining and disposing of lithium, the fact that the vast majority of the electricity they use comes from burning fossil fuels, and will continue to be for decades, and the fact that governments will have to find ways to tax them to make up for the fact that their drivers aren't paying road taxes through their fuel purchases) all handily trump their lack of "soul". 

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[flash]

lol - all it means is that they have to adjust their pricing.  other companies are selling electric cars for half of what tesla is.

 

in the 4 years we had the 2 different i3s, we NEVER ran out of range.  charging time was NEVER a problem.  it won't be for 95% of the public either.  they only travel 30 miles a day.  every electric car out there does far more than that.  you quickly figure that out, once you get one.  you also quickly figure out that you save yourself a LOT of time by having one.  no maintenance to speak of.  no time wasted at the gas station.  no working your schedule to accommodate those.  it really is a much simpler way to get around.  

 

i also love the immediacy of the power.  much better to 40mph than any gas car i have ever driven.  for commuting, this is perfect.  very quiet inside too, with no engine or drivetrain noise.

 

if we had a garage here, we would absolutely have another electric car.

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[Cloud9...68]

It's great that you had such a good experience with your i3.  Personally, if I were (heaven forbid) to buy a car , it would probably be an electric, because of my unique situation of having charging stations (which sit collecting dust because nobody uses them) at work.  But at least for the time being, the general public's acceptance of electric cars is on life support.  Most concerning is the fact that so many people who have bought electric cars (or hybrids) have said they wouldn't do it again.   

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[ds968]

Most concerning is the fact that so many people who have bought electric cars (or hybrids) have said they wouldn't do it again.

Not concerning at all, it simply means they came to their senses, realized it was just a silly phase they went through , and now they're back to driving "adult" cars once again . Sorry Flash, but hey, if you want to drive a fast golf cart, more power to you .., the reality is that only a small fraction of those who owned electric cars would buy one again, and I still stand by my prediction - the e-car indutry is in the ICU and it will be dead as a doornail in a just handful of years, when someone finally decides to pull the plug ( ahem...a little pun there ) That will happen as soon as a better alternative is found and accepted by a large enough segment of the population to sustain it, but until then far everyone seems to be going back to back to the familiarity of the gasoline world , although as noted earlier, auto manufacturers are focused on much smaller, more efficient engines with a large percentage of those turbocharged .

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