08-22-2005, 09:40 AM | #61 |
This is a fully functional babe lair
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Akron, OH
Posts: 2,324
|
Saddam, did you ever read the article about the soldiers guarding you in prison in GQ magazine this past.. June or July I think? Aside from the murderous side of you, you would seem like a cool guy.
__________________
Kiss my white Irish ass. |
08-23-2005, 12:45 AM | #62 | |
The CIA faked my death
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: with OBL in the White House basement
Posts: 61
|
Quote:
Actually, yes. I can be a very cool guy. Without power I can be very humble and polite, yes. Maybe we could start a write in campaign for Pres in 08. There are so many people there in the states that support or sympathize with my cause, it might be worth running as a write in. |
|
08-23-2005, 03:52 AM | #63 |
to live and die in LA
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,090
|
I love LA, I really do, but this is maybe my least favorite part. I am envious of those of you who have options.
There is no real public transit in LA. I have a metro station 1/4 mile from my house, but I've been able to use it about twice in the past year. It just doesn't go anywhere that people go. Riding a bike isn't an option, for obvious reasons. Riding 30 miles with a Fender Rhodes bungee strapped to the back of a bike might be a great mental picture, but that's about it. Carpooling is rarely an option. LA isn't like most urban centers, where commerce and industry are centrally located, and residences are set in outlying areas. The sprawling decentralized layout of the southland means that there is very little chance of finding someone who lives within 5 miles of you, and works within 5 miles of your work. Compound that with the fact that property values have jumped so high, that any new freeway expansion becomes obscenely expensive just to buy the neighboring properties at market value. They are planning on expanding the 23 freeway, a small little 9 mile stretch through a residential community just west of the Valley, and the average cost of the homes that they're going to have to purchase is 1.2 million. Now add up how much 9 miles of right-of-way is going to cost. Imagine trying to expand the 101 through Woodland Hills or Studio City. I honestly don't know what the way forward looks like for LA. The pressures keep building, to the point where the average person commutes 40 miles a day from the house she can afford to the job that pays decently, and spends 2-3 hours in the car to get there.
__________________
to live and die in LA |
08-23-2005, 09:53 AM | #64 |
Professor for the school of ass-clownery
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Surprise!
Posts: 404
|
I just find it interesting that in this time and age of technological advances that no one can come up with a valid, inexpesive, safe, clean alternative fuel. I mean, come on, why does the fuel we need to use have to include oil as a main ingredient? We can make synthetic oil, synthetic fabrics, so is synthetic fossil fuels really a pipe dream? True, there are alternative fuels such as alcohol, CNG, propane, even electric (although this isn't really a good alternative becuause you still need to generate the electricity to put into the cars which results in putting more strain on the power generators), there's got to be better sources of fuel.
__________________
That's it! Send in the chimps! |
08-23-2005, 11:47 AM | #65 |
Slattern of the Swail
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 15,654
|
Currently, i can only put $4.00-$6.00 in the tank at a time. I've no stash of money anywhere and I'm counting my nickles. It's really giving me a headache.
__________________
In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
08-23-2005, 01:59 PM | #66 | |
This is a fully functional babe lair
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Akron, OH
Posts: 2,324
|
Quote:
__________________
Kiss my white Irish ass. |
|
08-23-2005, 10:05 PM | #67 | |
Professor
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,788
|
Quote:
1) Direct solar. Lousy for vehicles, currently very inefficient for anything else. Photovoltaic solar cells can barely produce enough energy over their lifetime to account for the energy it takes to manufacture it. Large-scale solar plants attract the ire of environmentalists. 2) Biofuels. They work, but they're available only on a vastly smaller scale than crude. And to produce more means to produce less food. Some of them (ethanol in particular) take more energy to grow and extract than released when burning, so are useless as a primary fuel. 3) Nukular. Err, nuclear. Lousy for vehicles. Politically impossible. Environmentalists hate it. And there still is that waste issue. 4) Hydro. Pretty much tapped out, not directly usable for vehicles, and environmentalists hate it. 5) Geothermal. Very few places it can be practically tapped, not directly usable for vehicles. Environmentalists hate it. 6) Geophysical, e.g. tidal powered. Again, few places it can be practically tapped, not directly usable for vehicles, and environmentalists hate it. 7) Good old fossil fuels -- conventionally, solar energy stored in prehistoric times. An alternate theory holds that oil is left over from the formation of the solar system. Environmentalists hate them too (except natural gas, sometimes), but they're too firmly established for those concerns to kill them. If you want something else usable as a fuel, you either need to find some other common substance with a lot of potential energy stored in it chemically, or figure a way to extract power from some available source so cheaply that it makes sense to synthesize a fuel rather than use refined oil. |
|
08-23-2005, 10:36 PM | #68 | |
Esnohplad Semaj Ton
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: A little south of sanity
Posts: 2,259
|
Quote:
|
|
08-24-2005, 09:04 AM | #69 | |
dar512 is now Pete Zicato
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Chicago suburb
Posts: 4,968
|
Quote:
__________________
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." -- Friedrich Schiller |
|
08-24-2005, 10:16 AM | #70 | |
Pump my ride!
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Deep countryside of Surrey , England
Posts: 1,890
|
Quote:
__________________
Always sufficient hills - never sufficient gears |
|
08-24-2005, 10:20 AM | #71 | |
changed his status to single
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Right behind you. No, the other side.
Posts: 10,308
|
Quote:
gas prices have gone up. we spend more on gas. people are still buying big trucks and SUV's. when it really starts to make a signicant difference in personal finances, people will quit buying large vehicles and look at smaller more economical vehicles. when people find their supply of cash effected by gas prices, demand for gas guzzlers will go down. until then we are just exercising our right to bitch. it is a national passtime.
__________________
Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin |
|
08-24-2005, 10:34 AM | #72 | |
Pump my ride!
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Deep countryside of Surrey , England
Posts: 1,890
|
Quote:
As an outsider, each successive major oil hike has seen mainstream attitudes change in respect of car ownership here, with more emphasis on fuel economy. Even in the luxury end of the market, large cars that years back would be accepted with 12-15 mpg over here are now returning 20+ mpg - the average car mpg is more in the range 35-45 here these days...
__________________
Always sufficient hills - never sufficient gears |
|
08-24-2005, 01:25 PM | #73 | |
Professor for the school of ass-clownery
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Surprise!
Posts: 404
|
Quote:
__________________
That's it! Send in the chimps! |
|
08-24-2005, 01:58 PM | #74 |
I think this line's mostly filler.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
|
Well, eliminating the "light truck" exemption is a good thing. Half the cars on the road now have no fuel efficiency standards, so removing that loophole will help.
But it's certainly not going to fix the energy issues on its own.
__________________
_________________ |...............| We live in the nick of times. | Len 17, Wid 3 | |_______________| [pics] |
08-24-2005, 03:10 PM | #75 | |
to live and die in LA
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,090
|
Quote:
1) increased efficiency of consumption, including home appliances and vehicles. 2) altered habits that rely on less use of energy, such as mass transit use and carpooling 3) an increased efficiency in the crude-to-unleaded production line, so that US gas prices don't swing by 50 cents when a single refinery goes down 4) increasing reliance on sustainable energy sources. No, there's not going to be a single new energy source that replaces oil, but broad incremental shifts to new sources will make a huge impact on demand. 5) some sort of middle-ground on new source exploration vs. environmental impact. Nobody wants to turn the Arctic circle into a teeming mass of bubbling crude, but we need to recognize that there are untapped energy resources that will take 10-20 years to go from discovery to market, and that our need for such resources will only increase in urgency. Is there no room for middle ground? Maybe the environmental groups can actually work with the energy groups to develop a plan of exploration that has minimal impact. It seems to me that various interest groups back single points of this list, and decry any other move because it's not their particular solution. Increase efficiency in vehicles is bad because it's not pushing people to new sources? that's absurd. Sustainable energy sources are bad because they're not prevelant enough to shoulder the burden of oil? that's absurd too. We need a broad range of solutions, and we need to embrace them all. There is no one solution.
__________________
to live and die in LA |
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
|
|