less cars : roll on $2 per litre

[Spiny Norman]

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:42:50 +0800, "Theo Bekkers"
<[email protected]> wrote in aus.bicycle:

>Terryc wrote:
>> ghostgum wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> The cost to run an electric vehicle is not the cost of the
>>> electricity to charge the batteries, it is the cost of replacing the
>>> batteries every 1-5 years.
>>
>> Is that a comment based on actual experience?
>> He certainly would be lucky to get that if he treated his batteries
>> the way most people treat their current car batteries. Depending on
>> driving conditions, say regular daily commute to desk job, with
>> proper (monthly) care, I would expect that his batteries could last
>> thn years. (thinking lead acid, nothing else).
>
>Ten years? We're not talking car batteries here, you need deep discharge
>batteries. Will last maybe 5 years in lead-acid, and cost twice as much as a
>regular car battery.
>
>Theo
>

My department at work has a Prius (sp?) and the batteries are supposed
to last 10 years. This is a hybrid car rather than an electric car.


Regards
Prickles

Timendi causa est nescire
This message only uses recycled electrons

 

[Resound]

"Zebee Johnstone" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In aus.bicycle on Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:30:29 +1000
> Terryc <[email protected]> wrote:
>> [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> I think you would be hard pressed to find a 20 storey apartment block
>>> from the 1850s.
>>
>> When did they start using concrete in tall building construction?
>> I believe the practical/economic height was limited by the compression
>> strength of bricks.
>
> Didn't start building tall things till the early 1900s, perhaps even
> 1920s? The big buildings in the US date from around then.
>
> That's when they discovered things like the air movement - a tall
> building has a fair old convection effect, hence rotating doors.
>
> I suspect the invention of the elevator had something to do with it
> too, but that's older than very tall buildings.
>
I believe it was the advent of steel framing that made taller buildings
feasible. I can't remember where I read that though.

 

[Travis]

Terryc wrote:

> Your might like to find that out yourself. Then you will appreciate the
> information. Easy to find. Just broaden your reading.

Come on Terryc, that's a bloody poor effort and you know it. Its the
easiest thing in the world to make a grand sweeping claim, its much
harder to prove it.

For example:

"Scientists have known for decades that quantum mechanics is wrong. It
doesn't work at all, but it is a dogma, a religion, and despite the top
scientists privately knowing the truth, they won't admit it publicly or
stop teaching it in physics courses. Want proof? Just do the math
yourself. I can't be bothered posting it for you right now though, if
you are smart enough you'll be able to prove it yourself."

"Aliens have been visiting Earth for many years, and there has been
high level contact between the US government and these aliens. They
are keeping the truth from us though, but if you do your own research
you will find this out for yourself because they have been clumsy at
covering their tracks, and the truth is out there, well documented."

> Most advertising also disproves your "basic principles of economics"

How?

> As I said, economics is just a philosophy. It has no practical exampes
> of ever working.

So there are no examples of the most efficient producer of items that
the market most desires making the biggest profits? And in fact there
are many examples of highly inefficient producers of items nobody wants
to buy making huge money?

Name a few such companies.


> Everytime someone trots a suppssed example of
> successfull appicaltion of the principles of economic theory, someone
> else points out political or other conditions/forces that were equally
> as responsible.

Lets start with the international chip making industry then.
Politicians around the world decided it would be a good thing for their
countries to be involved in making chips. It wasn't the free market,
it was a political idea that the best way to modernise an economy is to
manufacture microchips.

So, they provided either free or cheap finance and other incentives to
companies to build chip factories.

And the result of that is massive overcapacity around the world, with
chip manufacturing reduced to a low or negative profit margin basic
contract business.

Silicon has a little more glamour still than tin, because of the clean
rooms and white coats and everything, but the overcapacity brought
about by political forces has turned the economics of the industry into
a high tech version of the sort usually associated with making tin
cans.

Travis

 

[TimC]

On 2006-08-20, Travis (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> So there are no examples of the most efficient producer of items that
> the market most desires making the biggest profits? And in fact there
> are many examples of highly inefficient producers of items nobody wants
> to buy making huge money?
>
> Name a few such companies.

Eolas.


They buy invalid computational related patents (you know how patents
are for processes that are both novel and unobvious to those who
practice in the trade?), and enforce them on companies that either
don't want the risk of going to court (combined with a broken and
outdated US patent system), or those who don't know any better.

$500m so far, was it? They're basically a parasite, although they do
function entirely off poorly thought out government mandated
regulations.

Likewise for the Motion Picture Association of America and the Record
Industry Association of America. And SCO.

The IT industry is full of such people, but perhaps it's just because
law hasn't caught up with computers yet.

> Lets start with the international chip making industry then.
> Politicians around the world decided it would be a good thing for their
> countries to be involved in making chips. It wasn't the free market,
> it was a political idea that the best way to modernise an economy is to
> manufacture microchips.
>
> So, they provided either free or cheap finance and other incentives to
> companies to build chip factories.
>
> And the result of that is massive overcapacity around the world, with
> chip manufacturing reduced to a low or negative profit margin basic
> contract business.
>
> Silicon has a little more glamour still than tin, because of the clean
> rooms and white coats and everything, but the overcapacity brought
> about by political forces has turned the economics of the industry into
> a high tech version of the sort usually associated with making tin
> cans.

Of course, most of modern economic growth has been brought about from
increased productivity resulting from the electronic revolution. It's
been relying on Moore's law for the past 30 years. Now that Moore's
law is set to break down (indeed, has been slowing for the past 5
years) because of the physical limitations of the size of
interconnects approaching quantum levels, economies are in for a
shock. Even without the energy crisis. Whoopsies.

--
TimC
GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY (#7): April 2, 1751
Isaac Newton becomes discouraged when he falls up a flight of stairs.

 

[Dave Hughes]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:19:21 -0700, Travis wrote:

> So there are no examples of the most efficient producer of items that
> the market most desires making the biggest profits? And in fact there
> are many examples of highly inefficient producers of items nobody wants
> to buy making huge money?
>
> Name a few such companies.

Microsoft. Arguably they inefficiently produce a product that is inferior
in many ways to some that cost much less, but they are the leader through
marketing (going back to the days of DOS 3.3 and Win95).

If you really want to bring in fruit loop conspiracy theories, how about
Capitalism?

--
Dave Hughes | [email protected]
"Quantum materiae materietur marmota
monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

 

[Travis]

TimC wrote:

> > Name a few such companies.
>
> Eolas.
>
>
> They buy invalid computational related patents (you know how patents
> are for processes that are both novel and unobvious to those who
> practice in the trade?), and enforce them on companies that either
> don't want the risk of going to court (combined with a broken and
> outdated US patent system), or those who don't know any better.
>
> $500m so far, was it? They're basically a parasite, although they do
> function entirely off poorly thought out government mandated
> regulations.
>
> Likewise for the Motion Picture Association of America and the Record
> Industry Association of America. And SCO.

How interesting that all of the examples you have cited of supposed
free market failure are examples of the use and abuse of government
regulations.

These strategies would work in a completely free market where there
were no laws regulating how businesses operate. The examples you have
provided are in fact examples of the failure of government regulation.

(Or perhaps the inevitable downside to a generally positive thing, the
protection of intellectual property rights. Patent and copyright
protection is an important way to encourage people to do research and
development or make movies, records etc. Innovators are not obliged to
seek this protection though, for instance Coke has never patented their
recipe and instead keep it a closely guarded trade secret, because they
believe the best way to protect their IP is through secrecy. Patents
expire eventually, and the Coke patent would have expired years ago. I
already stated that in the case of environmental concerns, among other
things, some regulations may be beneficial and indeed necessary, IP is
another, even though it also enables companies like Eolas to make a
parasitic buck.)

> The IT industry is full of such people, but perhaps it's just because
> law hasn't caught up with computers yet.

Arguably it is because the law HAS caught up with computers, and that's
the problem.

No law = no copyright lawsuits = no parasites.

On the other hand, no law = no copyright lawsuits = as soon as you
create something someone steals it and puts it in their own box and
makes a parasitic buck selling your stuff for the cost of blank CD
media plus a small markup, not allowing you to recoup any of your
development costs.

We have to ask what is worse, and so far the general consensus is that
the occasional IP parasite like Eolas is a lesser evil compared to
rampant piracy and the complete non-protection of IP.


> Of course, most of modern economic growth has been brought about from
> increased productivity resulting from the electronic revolution. It's
> been relying on Moore's law for the past 30 years. Now that Moore's
> law is set to break down (indeed, has been slowing for the past 5
> years) because of the physical limitations of the size of
> interconnects approaching quantum levels, economies are in for a
> shock. Even without the energy crisis. Whoopsies.

They're always saying that Moore's law is set to break down, then they
come up with new technology and off we go again.

Yes, every second week in MIT's Technology Review there is another
article about how we're finally running into the limits set by physics
on conventional silicon semiconductors. Then we get an article about
the latest experiments in quantum computing and interesting new
non-silicon based semiconductors, and how now they're putting multiple
cores onto processors and developing newer and faster ways to bus
information between these cores. And then off it goes again, we've
postponed the ever inevitable end of Moore's law by another ten or
twenty years... until the next big thing that nobody has yet thought of
comes along.

Travis

 

[Travis]

Travis wrote:

> These strategies would work in a completely free market where

I mean, the strategies would *NOT* work without government regulations
to facilitate them.

You could use your examples to argue that the law is an ass, but its a
long shot to call this a failure of a free market capitalist system,
which would imply that the antidote would be markets which are more
regulated and less free.

Travis

 

[Travis]

Dave Hughes wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:19:21 -0700, Travis wrote:
>
> > So there are no examples of the most efficient producer of items that
> > the market most desires making the biggest profits? And in fact there
> > are many examples of highly inefficient producers of items nobody wants
> > to buy making huge money?
> >
> > Name a few such companies.
>
> Microsoft. Arguably they inefficiently produce a product that is inferior
> in many ways to some that cost much less, but they are the leader through
> marketing (going back to the days of DOS 3.3 and Win95).

They efficiently produce products which the market wants.

You can say "the market are idiots for wanting that product" until
you're blue in the face, but it starts to look like sour grapes after a
while.

> If you really want to bring in fruit loop conspiracy theories, how about
> Capitalism?

I know, its the worst system ever devised, apart from socialism.

At the end of the Korean War the North Korean side of the border had
almost all of the undamaged infrastructure, all the factories, all the
mineral wealth etc. They had everything going for them. The South
Korean side of the border on the other hand was smashed, barely a
factory still stood, a far greater portion of houses were demolished.
The whole south was a smoking ruin, and everyone expected that the
North would always be more powerful than the South.

The language of the Korean peoples is the same. They had the same
culture, the same values. The difference was that the government in
the North thought they could run the economy more efficiently than a
free market could. The government in the South decided just to let
market forces shape the economy.

50 years later, the North doesn't have enough electricity to light
their cities at night. The south is an economic powerhouse, admired
all over the world.

A pretty positive experimental result showing the advantages of
capitalism over socialism don't you think Dave?

Travis

 

[Dave Hughes]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:26:06 -0700, Travis wrote:

> They efficiently produce products which the market wants.

They've made the market want their products, and therein lies the fault of
capitalism. It's a subtle difference, but the reason we don't have a pure
capitalist society. Or have you never needed consumer protection laws?

--
Dave Hughes | [email protected]
Brooker's Law: "The wackier the project, the easier it is to fund."

 

[Travis]

Dave Hughes wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:26:06 -0700, Travis wrote:
>
> > They efficiently produce products which the market wants.
>
> They've made the market want their products, and therein lies the fault of
> capitalism. It's a subtle difference, but the reason we don't have a pure
> capitalist society. Or have you never needed consumer protection laws?

Nobody is forcing people to buy MS. There are many competing products,
including much cheaper products which are highly compatible with MS
products. People choose MS anyway.

Capitalism produced the Hummer H3, a vehicle which is useless for
offroad driving, but appeals to certain noobs who don't know better.
The soviets on the other hand produced the Trabant, and anyone could
get one a decade or so after being put onto a waiting list for one.
However, capitalism has also produced a number of very reliable very
well equipped very economical compact cars and hybrids.

While people are stupid and tend to buy things like Hummer H3s, they
have a choice. They can install Linux (and run a Windows emulator if
they need to) and install OpenOffice. This will cost them nothing, or
at most a nominal cost.

Notwithstanding wasteful gluttonous abominations like the H3, I'd
prefer to have the choice of buying one of those, or buying a compact
hybrid car, rather than having to sit on a ten year waiting list for a
Trabant.

Like I said, while capitalism is far from a perfect system, much like
democracy it is superior to every other system yet tried. There is a
very good reason why the poorest countries of the world usually have
socialist governments. Excessive focus on the "fairness" of wealth
distribution tends to detract from the proper way to end poverty -
creating wealth to be distributed.

Travis

 

[Dave Hughes]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 02:44:37 -0700, Travis wrote:

> Like I said, while capitalism is far from a perfect system, much like
> democracy it is superior to every other system yet tried. There is a
> very good reason why the poorest countries of the world usually have
> socialist governments.

Enjoy your publicly funded education did you? How about your last stay in
hospital? And if *you* (or your parents) have the money to go private,
what does that say about the humanity of the person who can't?

I am going to try to stay out of this thread from now on. However, I have
seen nothing to make me believe that while capitalism has its good points,
it is the only way to manage an economy. I contend that the healthiest
countries (socially and economically) are those who take a middle of the
road approach, which Australia is fast deviating from. You (and others)
obviously do not agree with me, and that's fine. But I don't think we're
going to convince each other, so let's end this now before Godwin gets
involved (Although since I'm the one with vaguely socialist views, I get
to win when you call me a Nazi! Woohoo!).

To all the regular a.b.ers. I apologise for getting so side tracked, and
will endeavour to restrain myself. A little bit, anyway

--
Dave Hughes | [email protected]
There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.
- Niels Bohr

 

[Zebee Johnstone]

In aus.bicycle on 20 Aug 2006 02:44:37 -0700
Travis <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Nobody is forcing people to buy MS. There are many competing products,
> including much cheaper products which are highly compatible with MS
> products. People choose MS anyway.

That's not quite so.

The MS story isn't straight forward... It involves, for example,
buying up competing products and stopping production. It involves
trying to *stop* people being interoperable, check on the stories
about Samba for example.

The difficulty is that they have distorted the market - they have the
penetration and they put lots of obstacles in the way of others. So
it's not possible to be fully MS compliant, check the current status
of the EU lawsuit.

They also have agreements with many OEMs so that MS is all the OEMs
can sell their PC with, or write drivers for.

Given that they have a large market share and they aggressively stop
competition and interoperability, then the choice is hardly free. TO
not use MS causes a lot of problems.

So they aren't a good mark for the free market either because they've
done all the textbook monopolist things and have had to be forcibly
restrained from doing so.

Zebee

 

[Plodder]

--
Frank
[email protected]
Drop DACKS to reply
"Terryc" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:44e72085$0$7791$61c65585@un-2park-reader-01.sydney.pipenetworks.com.au.
...
> [email protected] wrote:
>
> > I think you would be hard pressed to find a 20 storey apartment block
> > from the 1850s.
>
> When did they start using concrete in tall building construction?
> I believe the practical/economic height was limited by the compression
> strength of bricks.

I doubt it. Look at some of the Roman and other (and much earlier) brick
constructions. Lots of height, but they were not meant to be climbed by
everyone regularly.

I heard/read/saw somewhere (can't be stuffed looking for a cite) that it was
the invention of the lift that enabled tall building construction. That's
why buildings higher than about 7 stories didn't commonly appear before the
mid 1850s. That would mean the practical/economic height was limited by the
compression strength of knees...

me

me

 

[Travis]

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
> In aus.bicycle on 20 Aug 2006 02:44:37 -0700
> Travis <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Nobody is forcing people to buy MS. There are many competing products,
> > including much cheaper products which are highly compatible with MS
> > products. People choose MS anyway.
>
> That's not quite so.
>
> The MS story isn't straight forward... It involves, for example,
> buying up competing products and stopping production. It involves
> trying to *stop* people being interoperable, check on the stories
> about Samba for example.

I'm not here to defend Microsoft, and if they are indeed engaging in
anti-competitive behaviour they should have the book thrown at them.

Capitalists say competition is healthy and drives progress,
productivity and wealth, which is the opposite of endorsing tactics
like those alledgedly used by Microsoft, or M$ if you prefer to spell
it that way.

> So they aren't a good mark for the free market either because they've
> done all the textbook monopolist things and have had to be forcibly
> restrained from doing so.

Examples of where people and companies have NOT played fair and have
distorted a free market are not black marks on the free market, they're
black marks on anti-competitive behaviour. You can't argue against
free markets by citing examples of non-free markets, just as you can't
argue against globalisation (i.e. free trade across international
borders) by citing examples of tarrifs etc, like European farm
subsidies.

Travis

 

[gplama]

So it only took 193 posts to make this a Microsoft bashing thread?

 

[Theo Bekkers]

Terryc wrote:
> Theo Bekkers wrote:
>
>> Ten years? We're not talking car batteries here, you need deep
>> discharge batteries. Will last maybe 5 years in lead-acid, and cost
>> twice as much as a regular car battery.
>
> Yes, I have a few. {:-(.
>
> Apparently their life is closely related to the cost of the charger
> you
> use and the depth/rate of discharge. A $300 battery requires a $500
> charger.
>
> Cost varies from 150-200% for Centurion, etc, to quadruple for name
> brands.

> what use have you used them for?
> Mine have just been standby for power outages, so they don't really
> get stressed.

My mother-in-law's shop-rider. The damn thing takes 2 x 12V batteries and
they cost around $230 each. And they do get stressed in one of those things.

Theo

 

[Theo Bekkers]

Terryc wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> I think you would be hard pressed to find a 20 storey apartment block
>> from the 1850s.
>
> When did they start using concrete in tall building construction?

I think it was the Romans that invented it.
But nobody wanted tall buildings before they had elevators, as Zebee said.

Theo

 

[Theo Bekkers]

Spiny Norman wrote:
> , "Theo Bekkers" wrote

>> Ten years? We're not talking car batteries here, you need deep
>> discharge batteries. Will last maybe 5 years in lead-acid, and cost
>> twice as much as a regular car battery.

> My department at work has a Prius (sp?) and the batteries are supposed
> to last 10 years. This is a hybrid car rather than an electric car.

I'd be very interested to know what the replacement cost would be and the
effect it has on overall economy. Say the cost of batteries divided by ten
added to the annual fuel cost, then calculated back to litres of fuel that
could have been bought instead.

Theo

 

[Rob]

Theo Bekkers wrote:
> Terryc wrote:
>
>>[email protected] wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I think you would be hard pressed to find a 20 storey apartment block
>>>from the 1850s.
>>
>>When did they start using concrete in tall building construction?
>
>
> I think it was the Romans that invented it.

yes lime mortar


> But nobody wanted tall buildings before they had elevators, as Zebee said.
>
> Theo
>
>
>

 

[TimC]

On 2006-08-20, Theo Bekkers (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Spiny Norman wrote:
>> , "Theo Bekkers" wrote
>
>>> Ten years? We're not talking car batteries here, you need deep
>>> discharge batteries. Will last maybe 5 years in lead-acid, and cost
>>> twice as much as a regular car battery.
>
>> My department at work has a Prius (sp?) and the batteries are supposed
>> to last 10 years. This is a hybrid car rather than an electric car.
>
> I'd be very interested to know what the replacement cost would be and the
> effect it has on overall economy. Say the cost of batteries divided by ten
> added to the annual fuel cost, then calculated back to litres of fuel that
^------ (and the cost of the electricity)
> could have been bought instead.

How much electricity would it require? Lets say it draws 10 amps for
a few hours each night after coming home. That's like running a stove
for a few hours. That's a dollar per 4 hours at current electricity
rates.

--
TimC
Dijkstra probably hates me
(Linus Torvalds, on gotos in kernel/sched.c)