Get FireFox.. on IE7.com?

IE7.com is just a big FireFox logo. Very funny (IE7 is a direct competitor to FireFox).

An EV as a second car

When the topic of electric vehicles (EVs) comes up, people always seem to think that they are a decade or so away from being good enough to be useful. They're thought of as interesting, as a good idea, but not something this is practical or that there is a market for right now. The reasons for that are something like this: 'They are too expensive', 'EVs don't have enough range, people need their cars to go farther than that.', 'They won't last long enough', or 'Electric cars aren't powerful enough'.

First of all, electric motors can be made more powerful than needed to move a car. Most diesel trains are actually electric trains with diesel generators. Most every engineer knows that you can get far more torque out of an electric motor than a engine of the same size.

Second, the longevity issue. Electric cars are more simple than their gasoline counterparts, due to the fact that they do not have any of the following: radiator, injection system, ignition system, gas tank, gas pump, timing system, belts, oil or cooling system, ETC. Because there are far fewer parts, lower pressures, and lower temperatures in an electric car, EVs tend to last longer. The batteries may need to be replaced every half decade or so, but thats how long some gas cars are kept anyway.

Third, the range and expense issue. The problems presented in these areas are quite correct, if the electric car is to be your primary or only vehicle. However, if it is a secondary car used for running errands, it would not need more the maybe a one-hundred-fifty mile range. By observation I would guess that, for most demographics, the great majority of the distance they travel comes from trips less than one-hundred-fifty miles long. If you had two cars; a regular fossil fuel one and an electric one, and the gasoline powered car were to be used only on the trips exceeding the electric car's capability, very little gasoline would be used.

Think about this example: A family has a SUV that works fine for everything they need, except for the fuel efficiency.
For the sake of simplicity lets say that the price of an electric minivan is the same as that of the normal minivan. Lets also assume that the price per mile driven in the cars is as follows: $.20 per mile for the SUV, $.12 per mile for the Minivan, and $.04 per mile for the electric car. Lets also say that 10% of the driving distance requires the SUV, 20% requires long range capabilities, and the remaining 70% can be done with the electric car. So, with these numbers let's calculate the cost per hundred thousand miles.


Option 1 (which is all that is currently available):
They buy a minivan seeking a more fuel efficient vehicle that can still fit all of them and their stuff. It works reasonably well; they only use the SUV for rough terrain and hauling large loads. The minivan in now used for almost all of the driving that takes place. Here, the SUV would only drive 10% and the minivan would drive the other 90%.
SUV: 10,000 miles times $.20 per mile equals $2,000.
Minivan: 90,000 miles times $.12 per mile equals $10,800.
Total: $12,800.

Option 2:
They get an electric car with a range of only one hundred fifty miles. They use the SUV for the long trips, such as vacation, in addition to the hauling. The SUV is driven more than in option 1, but the increased use is offset by the fact that it is the sole consumer of gas. In this scenario the SUV would be going 30% of the total distance and the electric car would take the remaining 70%.
SUV: 30,000 miles times $.20 per mile equals $6,000.
Electric car: 70,000 miles times $.04 per mile equals $2,800.
Total: $8,800.
Amount saved verses option 1: $2,000 per 100,000 miles. This figure does not reflect the reduced maintenance cost of operating an electric vehicle over one burning fossil fuel.

Why don't people buy apples?

Many people - even a large percentage of windows users - agree that the Macintosh is a superior platform to the PC. So why aren't more people using macs?
Some of the major concerns of the windows community pertain to software support: What if I want to do X (EG. record video in windows media 9), but it can't be done on a mac from lack of software?
This is more of a problem to the advanced users, like those who would be willing to use Apple's solution to this problem, boot camp. Boot camp, simply put, allows windows to be installed on a Intel based Mac.
This leads into the next problem: Hardware. Apple has come part way by offering macs with Intel processors. But there is still a big gap between the hardware options of the PC and the Mac.
For instance, there really is no cheap mac. Sure, there is the Mac mini, but once you add a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and speakers you have an almost $800 computer. What apple needs is a computer for $499 or so that has everything you need.
Another hole left unfilled is expandability; to have any chance of getting more hardware into you computer (EG. Hard-drives, Optical drives, TV Tuners) you have to get the huge, expensive G5 tower. Few people have that kind of cash to spend on a computer. Even if they did have the cash, they might not want to spend it on a Mac OSx only computer.
What Apple needs here is a computer that people can afford, in the tower form-factor so you can put your new junk in it, and yet still an apple.

Web Design Trend Obituary

The Web Design Trend Obituary & Death Clock is about current web design fads the the writer predicts will go the way of the dinosaur (or the way of the 486, or... Oh, never-mind).

Link: AdSense Cheats

AdSense Cheats
While not actually about cheating adsense, it does have some nice information about using adsense.

Brayton-Cycle Engine

Green Car Congress: A Compact Brayton-Cycle Engine and Biomass Process for Mixed-Alcohol Fuels
No, I didn't understand the whole article either.

Link: ColorBlender.com

ColorBlender.com
A very nice color scheme generator.

Link: JoeSchmidt.com

JoeSchmidt.com - Blog...Rinse...Repeat.
This is a blog about, well, nothing in particular, but it's interesting.

Free SketchUp

SketchUp - Download
Google has, as you may know, bought @Last software, which is the company that makes sketchup. There is now a free version of sketchup (the normal cost is $495) available for download from google. Some of the features of the paid version have been removed, though that should not be a problem for basic users.

Would you like that round or square?

Once, a few years back, I went in to a radio shack to look for floppies (CD-RW drives were much more expensive then). The location of the diskettes was not immediately apparent, so help was sought from the clerk. When asked about floppies, she replied: 'Do you want the round ones of the square ones?'
The ignorance of this radio shack employee still baffles me. I mean, how could you work for radio shack and not know?