Problems that don't exist

POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Thursday, March 10, 2011 05:51
VIEWED: 3600
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DREAMTROVE

Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
So in your mind's eye DT, what _do you think is a problem? Because all these things, some of which I do think are real problems, seem not to bother you, so what _is a problem.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

Not this thread

Maybe some other thread.

Let me add to the list:

The war on terror. Or, perhaps, terrorism. (okay, it's a problem, in some places,) but "international terrorism" <-- I don't think this exists. I haven't yet found an example which was incontrovertible. Any international terrorist event is disputed by competing conspiracy theories. Lots of national or local terrorism is pretty much accepted by everyone.

Another one:

Crime.

Mike reminded me of it with prisons. Someone proved that statistically, cops increase crime, here on the board, and we all know that laws increase crime. Ergo, the solutions to crime are get rid of cops and laws.

Mince,

You're developing a hidden awesomeness. What did you do, outsource the dark snarky evilness to a sockpuppet?

Oh, I have to add one of my all time favorite problems which don't exist:

Identity theft.

ETA: And Wi-fi-jacking

Also, underage drinking.

Even though it's off topic, just for Riona,

Problem that does exist: DWT, Driving while texting.

Solution: All cellphones have a GPS. Make a system that has a simple baffleboard: If you are currently traveling faster than 15 MPH, you cannot text message.

Statistically, you are 23 times more likely to have an accident while texting.

THEHAPPYTRADER

Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Electric cars are doing something not just for electric cars, but for cars. The Prius consumes 20,000 watts, but the Tesla Roadster, 8,000 watts, and the new Tesla Family Car, 5,600 watts. Why the efficiency? Because there's a need. There's a demand. People want a car that goes more than 40 miles on a charge. With gas stations everywhere, we forgot about efficiency. So, yeah, cars of the future might consume gasoline, but it might be at 400 mpg. There's all sort of things we can do to avoid this so called energy crisis. We're basking in energy.

By the way, and not to get off-topic too far, but the Chevy Volt has a system by which it will force itself to use a tank of gas every year, lest the gas sit in the tank and go "sour".

Imagine that. A car that you can drive every single day, and which is in danger of NOT using a full tank of gasoline if you drive it normally. Also, it's a car that you CAN use every single day (around 40-50 miles of real-world driving, in real-world tests) without ever firing up the gas engine, OR you can drive it on long trips (300 miles or so), and it will use the gas engine as a generator.

Kind of astonishing, really. I thought I was doing good spending $20 every 3 weeks for gas. Imagine spending that every YEAR!

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

That is pretty cool, but it all depends on your definition of normal driving. I'd love to see more electric (or more accurately, mostly electric) cars but they just aren't practical in some places, where everything is at least 20 miles away, and the grocery store/wall-mart is 30. There's also those folks who have to commute to work and such. I hope they do become efficient enough to be practical for people who don't live next to everything they need. Maybe by that point I'll be able to afford one!

I'm curious though, how's the mpg when the volt does have to use it's gasoline motor.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:33 AM

Happy, got a problem that doesn't exist?

Oh, did someone say Gay Marriage already?

ETA:

National Security

National Defense. Let's face it. No one in their right mind, or even plum crazy, is going to invade the united states.

Homeland security

Social Security (Not saying welfare here or care for the elderly, but social security itself: The taking away of your money to give back to you later, at 3 cents on the dollar, on the theory that you can't handle your own money.)

Oh, Education.

Psychiatry, particularly asylums. And childhood behavioral disorders such as ADD, ADHD, ODD, etc.

Tax cuts. Sorry, among problems that need solving "someone is not paying high enough taxes" is not one of them.

Family Planning. Either side. People can probably plan their own lives without coaching.

Food. There's lots of it, and if it decays, so what, there's lots more.

Global Water Shortage. Trillions of gallons fall from the sky daily. Locally, this might be a problem. Make aqueducts, don't drain water tables.

Dictatorships. Seriously, even while I defend the definition of some countries which are really democracies, but are called dictatorships, Pakistan was a lot better off as a dictatorship, it might be true of Iraq, but we just mentioned several others like the DR here. Yeah, okay, it's a terrible form of govt., but WWII was brought on largely be democracies, as have many of the wars since It's a pretty bad form of govt. There are worse, but there have to be better, spreading democracy is not a great goal.

Counterfeiting. I mean, hey, if the FED is going to print 600 trillion in derivatives, who cares if joey the weasel is minting $20 bills from his basement on an ink jet?

Copyright infringement.

Not the stealing of ideas, good old bootlegging. I mean, when are people going to figure out that virtually all of the best selling authors artists and musicians are those who actively promoted the theft and bootlegging of their material? The only people who think it's a problem are the slimy middlemen.

Unemployment.

Seriously. Unemployment means the people at large have more free time. It's a sign that society is being highly efficient, because everyone is still eating, and not everyone is working.

Inflation

There are few better economic systems than inflation. It's the one thing that really rewards labor and productivity over inherited wealth. Also, if your inflation "problem" is bad enough, it will be advantageous to put your money back into the economy, rather than hoard it.

Decadence. I think I've made my plug in favor of decadence enough, but it's one way the rich actually distribute their money to working classes who make decadent goods and services, and it supports innovation. I *want* Larry Ellison to spend 40 million on a sailboat, because I think it really helps science. So do those capitalist CEOs who spend billions on spaceships.

I can't put CEOs salaries on this list because often they are so high that they drive companies into bankruptcy. If your CEO is earning 1000 workers salaries, maybe you should hire those 1000 guys instead, and put them in the "lets try to figure out how not to go bankrupt dept." And maybe they'd come up with novel ideas like "Let's NOT take the earnings from Q2 and invest them in mortgage derivatives. Lets use that money to build and sell cars."

THEHAPPYTRADER

Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:40 AM

I dunno, how about Snookie, Lindsey Lohan, Sarah Palin, Charlie Sheen and Kate Gosselin. It occurs to me that these are all women Still, sick of hearing about them on the news.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:56 AM

Women might be offended (just a little) at being associated with Mr. Estevez. I think that Sarah Palin/Lindsay Lohan would probably help Sarah's career. She seems to have lost it.

Way up on my list: Outsourcing.

really, people are taking their money and hiring people in what we used to call "third world" countries, so that those people can now have decent wages and raise their standard of living while americans stay home, smoke pot and play WoW. Sounds like a win/win

Seriously, though, this "problem" has done more to end world poverty than all of the charitable foundations of the 20th century.

Hacking. I know, everyone here already knows that this is where the innovation in software all comes from. But someone out there might not

This is fun. I'm afraid we're rapidly solving the world's "problems"

KWICKO

Thursday, March 3, 2011 5:23 AM

Hacking.

That made me think of another "problem" that isn't: WikiLeaks.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

KWICKO

Thursday, March 3, 2011 5:56 AM

Sorry if this appears as a double-post, but it seems the forum ate the first one, so I'm reposting just so I don't lose all this...

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:

That is pretty cool, but it all depends on your definition of normal driving. I'd love to see more electric (or more accurately, mostly electric) cars but they just aren't practical in some places, where everything is at least 20 miles away, and the grocery store/wall-mart is 30. There's also those folks who have to commute to work and such. I hope they do become efficient enough to be practical for people who don't live next to everything they need. Maybe by that point I'll be able to afford one!

I'm curious though, how's the mpg when the volt does have to use it's gasoline motor.

Hate to say it, but I'm not sure anyone's really been able to do a full road-test with just the gas engine.

At a guess, I'd bet that if you ran it ONLY on the gas engine - meaning you ran it completely out of battery juice - well... that would be impossible.

Why? Because the Volt isn't that kind of hybrid. There isn't a time when it's being propelled by only its gas engine, because its gas engine isn't hooked to a transmission or to the wheels, as I understand the system. It's *only* hooked to the electric motor/alternator/generator/battery. When the gas engine runs, it isn't to drive the car - it's to charge the battery.

As such, *IF* you could run it only on the gas engine (or what charge the gas engine could generate to an otherwise-depleted battery pack), then I'd suppose it wouldn't get as good gas mileage as, say, a same-weight car with the same gas engine driving through a normal transmission and not via a charger/generator and electric motor.

Why? Because there's no 100% efficient energy transfer system. There are always inefficiencies and driveline losses.

Chevy says the Volt will go "up to" 100 miles on pure electric power from its plug-in-to-charge battery. Car&Driver magazine says in their (admittedly rigorous and generally abusive, all-out, performance-oriented) testing, if I remember correctly, the battery was drained in less than 40 miles. But bear in mind that their version of "testing" a car is roughly akin to you drag-racing from every stop light, waiting 'til the last possible second to nail the brakes, keeping it floored at nearly all times, and other such rough treatment.

So a "realistic" expectation would be that you'd have a typical range of around 50-60 miles *ON ONLY ELECTRIC POWER* - that is, without the gas engine ever kicking in to recharge the batteries. Now, in a pure electric like the Nissan Leaf, if you wanted to go further, you'd be stuck. Or it would be like when you're trying to find that gas station or make it home when the gas needle is well below the "E" and you're feathering the throttle, coasting where you can, and "hypermiling" every chance you get, just to get home without running out of fuel.

But the Volt has a hidden secret weapon. Run down the battery power, and the gas engine steps in to take over. I believe C&D did pull well over 300 miles out of the car at a sitting, without any plug-in recharging needed. I've been reading the magazine long enough to wonder when they're going to really push the envelope and stretch the car's legs to see what it's REALLY capable of. I remember when they did a test with a CRX HF, to see how far they could drive it on one tank of gas. The goal was Los Angeles to Salt Lake City - a bit over 720 miles. If memory serves, the car had an 11-gallon tank. It took a few tries, but they ended up making it, posting up something like a 68mpg average for the trip. I've owned that car. If you really baby it, you CAN get that kind of mileage. But if you want to get somewhere, you have to flog the living shit out of the car to do so, whipping it like a rented mule all the while. Mileage in such "real-world" situations tends to drop to around 32-35mpg.

I'd guess if you drove the Volt 'til it wouldn't go anymore, and then filled the gas tank and didn't

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, March 3, 2011 7:46 AM

I want a diesel-hybrid VW Polo Bluemotion, with SVO conversion.

Ok, as-is, straight fekkin petro-diesel, it gets SIXTY miles to the gallon under normal driving conditions, and by reducing trunk space by lifting the floor and converting the back seat from a bench to buckets, raising the floor in between, you've got space for the hybrid equipment and battery, and then you're scraping damn near triple digits, and SVO is, of course, renewable.

Sure, 0-60 in 14 or so, tops at maybe 99mph - but SO WHAT, all I want or need is something to putter off to the grocery store or around town doing errands - if I need something for a long trip, I'll freakin rent it.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thursday, March 3, 2011 11:06 AM

The belief that everything has gone to shit and life is getting worse.
Adolescent behaviour is getting worse
Global conspiracies that demand some coherent and complex form of organisation from large and diverse groups of people

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, March 3, 2011 12:35 PM

Magon,

good point, "things are getting worse" is a line that's been used for a long time. I saw a page that debunked a number of them.

Frem,

Got a Problem that doesn't Exist?

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