Can It Be this SIMPLE? (the Off-Topic continuation)

[sayzer]

...which in turn appears to have sparked a Geo-Political / Economic discussion among some.

Going back to the TRANSPORTATION issue, SOME peoples perceptions / beliefs in the USA,are that the slow progression of alternate fuel vehicles is....

Welcome to among "some" Mike_Lynch!

[Luciano]

Hi,

Sugar Cane in Brazil = Uncontrolled Deforestation

* * *

In Italy we just use small cars.

Example:
http://www.fiatpunto.com

Best regards,

Luciano

[Acetronics2]

Hi,

In Italy we just use small cars.

Example:
http://www.fiatpunto.com

Best regards,

Luciano

Hi, Luciano

For once, I do not agree with you ...

The real problem is ...

- must a "Fiat Punto " reach 150 km/h and beat the 1/4 mile record ???

- must we use use an electric tool instead of a manual one ???

- must we Posess the last 4Ghz PC to write mails ???

- must we use a PIC when a couple of transistors are far enough ???

.... and so on ...


Back to this Topic ...

- is it REALLY necessary to have a faster toy than our neighbour ???

Humour ....

Alain

[Mike_Lynch]

Must we have Green & Purple Hair?

Must we have tongue, lip, eyebrow & assorted other body parts pierced?

Must we have a Million dollar house in a 250 Thousand dollar neighborhood?

Must we have 2 BMWs and a Hummer in a Ford, Chrysler / Dodge, GM / Chevrolet,
Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota Neighborhood?

A Riding lawnmower on a ¼ acre lot?

(Yea, I could go on quite a way too . . . )

“is it REALLY necessary to have a faster toy than our neighbor ???”

Obviously, the answer to all the above is NO.

However I believe it all comes from our desire to stand out from the crowd,
and announce our individuality. Just remember if you do the same thing as
so many others, then you don’t really stand out, you become another member
of that group.

BTW my fastest PC is a 900 Mhz P3, I still use a P2 as a router / gateway and
my cell phone is still
#%^'' %$@# (sorry for the static, I'm breaking up)
ANALOG . . . They Work.

THESE are just observations, no harm / no fowl intended or taken.

[Acetronics2]

may we call ourselves ... responsible ???

heuuuuu ....

Alain

[Melanie]

The answer to all of that Alain is No... but...

There's only one of me, yet I own two cars, one is a small car, the other a large gas-guzzling 4x4 Diesel. If I could get one for a sensible price (instead of the riddiculous prices dealers charge), I'd probably buy a Hummer just because I'd be the only kid on the block with one (the other problem with the Hummer is that Americans have forgotten how to make cars and their build quality is attrocious - GM take notice if you read this forum!).

Which car I chose to drive depends on my mood and where I'm going. If around town I might take the small car, or I just might take the 4x4 because manufacturers spend millions on designing fenders which I consider an under-utilised accessory, and I've found they're great for creating gaps in parking where none previously existed provided there's enough horsepower behind them.

Why should I, as an individual, be asked to economise on energy and minimise pollution when more than half the world doesn't care?

I do my bit... I turn the lights off in the Bedroom when I go to bed (saving 200W), but I keep the air-con running (burning 3kW) because I want to be comfortable. I junked the 28" (300W) widescreen, for a 32" (100W) LCD - saving 200W, a good move but offset by the fact that manufacturing the LCD produced three times as much greenhouse gasses than the glass tubed one.

Do you consciously buy product A because it's 'greener' than product B although it's inferior? Let's get real. I don't want to drive a 'Smart' or today's FIAT 500 or Citroen 2CV equivallent.

When at the end of my days my Grandchildren ask (no, I'm not married and have no children as yet - this is hypotheical) "Grandma what did you do when you were younger?", I want to tell them that "I drove up down motorways at 140mph, burnt fuel at 11/gallon in sound-proofed air-conditioned comfort whilst listening to my favourite music at 110dB". I want to tell them that I was a CONSUMER, I worked hard and in turn made my life comfortable.

[Acetronics2]

Hi, Mel

" I want to tell them .... I worked hard and in turn made my life comfortable. "

That's not - exactly - what I understood from two or three years reading carefully your posts on this forum ...

" bearable " sounds better to me.

Might I take off a couple of your " memories " as examples ??? ...

Now, we should redirect this interesting discussion to " off topic " section , ... may be ...

Alain

[Mike_Lynch]

Out of context quote

. . .When at the end of my days my Grandchildren ask "Grandma what did you do when you were younger?", I want to tell them that "I drove up down motorways . . . . whilst listening to my favourite music at 110dB". . . . .

Are you sure you won’t be telling them
“Eeehhh, What did you say? Speak Up I can’t hear you when you mumble ”

M.L. (Ducking for cover)

[Melanie]

Off-Topic coninues here...

The technicalities of Mikes Barbie Dragster continues in Mel PIC Basic Pro section...

I'm actively looking for one of those Victorian ear trumpets in readiness for the times when I'm old and grey and have even more attitude than today...

Spooky Alain... you saving up my posts for some kind of future biography? *smiles*

[Acetronics2]

Spooky Alain... you saving up my posts for some kind of future biography? *smiles*

Who ??? me ??? you should know there's some kind of gentleman in me ... and, for the little girl inside you, I will never cross the line ... I've never written for the "SUN" and never will .


Back to cars, I've also a pair ( Thanks ...) one drinks 8 l/100 km and the other ... exactly the same .
One is an Opel Corsa 1400cc 60 HP, the other is a Honda Accord 2.0 l 155 HP ... don't you feel a waste somewhere ???

WASTE ... that's the correct word I looked for.

Alain

[Luciano]

I want to tell them that I was a CONSUMER...

Me too!



Luciano

[f_lez]

I do my bit... I turn the lights off in the Bedroom when I go to bed (saving 200W), but I keep the air-con running (burning 3kW)

200w for a bedroom!

My bedroom is 12ft*12ft and was light by a 60w bulb, now it has a 15w energy efficient bulb that has equiv 70watt light output!

Those must be subsidised because our local netto store (netto.co.uk) sells them for 47p/$0.25, I buy two every trip and a have a cupboard full, they last about a year even though they claim longer.

As for air-con, MOVE! think of the savings.....(I know its not always possible)

We've just had a really hot summer for us, hitting 36c for about a week, I did the unthinkable and went out and bought a pedestal fan....

Even my car does not have air-con, Air-con is another planet killer, its hot, so you use energy to pump out more heat into the local area, cooking everyone else, making them turn on their air-con...........

You sit in traffic in a car, turn on the air-con, pump out hot air to all the cars stuck in traffic around you, who turn on air-con....

whoever invented air-con, well.........

Now transportation, I drive a big car, 2.1ltr turbo diesel, old but efficient at about 40mpg.(Citroen XM)(AFAIK never sold stateside) and pay about $370 a year tax just for ownership, its less for smaller engines/cars.

Best fuel for it is oil seed rape (canola oil?) but corn oil and sunflower oil are good also but if you run it on that it smells like french fries, oddly corn oil makes it smell like popcorn...

If I did that, I would get up-to a $4000 fine, my car impounded and possibly crushed for evading the paying of road fuel tax, unless I register as an experimental fuel producer and voluntarily keep record of what I burn and pay the required tax, which should be bio-fuel rate of £0.27/$0.50 a ltr, unfortunately our tax office do not officially recognise plant oil / waste cooking oil as a bio fuel(!) and so want standard road fuel tax rate of $0.43/$0.90 a ltr tax. (plant oils have nearly a 0 carbon footprint, IE they are only releasing the carbon that they previously absorbed)

[Mike_Lynch]

whoever invented air-con, well.........

Isn’t air conditioning an offshoot of refrigeration?

Without refrigeration we (I) would have to make a lot more trips to the store to buy Fresh Meat,
Dairy, Produce Products (burning more Gas). Trucks would have to bring the products to market
more often, (Burning More Gas). Products which come from producers FAR away would never
make it to market before spoiling. There would be NO Ice-Cream, Frozen Yogurt.
(NO Ice-Cream may just trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it.)
Look at all the products in your cupboard / pantry that say “refrigerate after opening” on the label.
Would you want to purchase those in “one time use” package sizes, resulting in more waste in the
landfills and requiring the burning of more gas to haul to the dump? No Ice for your soda, no cold beer,
(NO COLD BEER would be worse than no Ice-cream) Look in your refrigerator / ice box and
think about all the things that you wouldn’t be able to have or keep for more than a day or so.

[f_lez]

]There would be NO Ice-Cream, Frozen Yogurt.
(NO Ice-Cream may just trigger the downfall of civilization as we know it.)

Look at all the products in your cupboard / pantry that say “refrigerate after opening” on the label.

(NO COLD BEER would be worse than no Ice-cream) Look in your refrigerator / ice box and
think about all the things that you wouldn’t be able to have or keep for more than a day or so.

My granny never had a fridge, we had a celler, it was cooler down their and thats where she kept things that needed to be cooler.

I can see that without ice cream etc etc but thats because we are used to having it, at the expense of the planet.

Ice cream is the new planet killer (tm)

I just think we are not doing it right, we should not be trying to modify our environment to the extent that we curerently are, the knock on effect is damn big and its going to come back and bite future generations.

I have a refrigerator, and only a month ago I was discussing with the wife about moving it from out the kitchen into the back yard so its no longer working like an indoor heat pump, then maybe I can turn down the fan on my desk....


Its little things like this what can help.


Everything we seem to 'invent' seems to be just another fuel hungry monster, the computer, emm, about 100 watts for an old one, the newer ones even more, cell phones, not great, but whats the power consumption of the infrastructure running them, all those transmitters, computers, routers etc etc, add on the last 10 years explosion of the internet, all those isp's and the servers running night and day.

We need more power every day, its a spiral, at least we may get more power stations but the only option now is nuclear....

I did hear that the nuclear generators on submarines cant do a chenobyl because they dont contain enough explosive material, so why do we build big dangerous ones instead of a hundred smaller safe ones???


If it was not for the chilled vodka, how would I sleep at night........

[sayzer]

Is there a particular topic here or we are just shooting for free and adding couple of quotes?

[Melanie]

This is free-for-all thread, the PIC controlled dragster is on the other one.

Like all good pub/club conversations (this one sadly doesn't serve alcohol or Turkish coffee), it starts with the price of gas and ends up fixing global warming, whether Pluto has enough mass to be called a planet or a skinny dog, and finally revealing Osama Bin Ladens hideout.