Month: September 2015

Musk says VW actions proof oil’s time is over – he’s right too

Originally shared by Naoki Watanabe

Musk says VW actions proof oil’s time is over – he’s right too

Combustion engines hit their thermodynamic limit a long time ago, since then we’ve just been trying to deal with their emissions. It’s been over 150 years since J. J. Étienne Lenoir built his double-acting, spark-ignition engine. It lacked compression and had low efficiency compared to modern engines so we saw some rapid improvements over the next hundred years. But there is no escaping physics. The maximum efficiency from a combustion engine is 46-50% (Otto / Carnot cycles). In the real world we see only 15-35%. 

The available energy typically breaks down into :

– 33% lost in exhaust gasses released into atmosphere

– 24% lost in coolant

– 5% lost in friction

– 33% goes to moving vehicle and powering accessories (radio, A/C, etc)

Even a bad electric motor is 80% efficient which is why EVs top rankings in efficiency.

The highest efficiency combustion engine cars for 2015 are small body, small engine vehicles like the Honda CR-Z and Scion IQ. They manage 37 MPG. Hybrids like the Toyota Prius manage 42-50 MPG despite being larger vehicles.

Pure electric vehicles smash those numbers. The Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S, Kia Soul Electric, BMW i3, get over 100 eMPG.

The lack of headroom when it comes to combustion engines is clear in the actions taken by VW. Consumers want improvements in efficiency and are more than ever aware of the costs and global consequences of burning oil. 

But if your engine can’t deliver, and won’t ever deliver, what do you do? Cheating seems to be one of the options available to businesses.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-vw-shows-weve-reached-the-limit-of-whats-possible-with-gasoline

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-vw-shows-weve-reached-the-limit-of-whats-possible-with-gasoline

Welcome to “hell”. Um.

Welcome to “hell”. Um.

Oh please. Somebody call the waambulance. The Verge as well as being a big crybaby is also one of the worst offenders when it comes to laggy, spammy, phishy “content” on the web. http://blog.lmorchard.com/2015/07/22/the-verge-web-sucks/

Treat your readers with contempt and they’ll happily return the favour. So if this is a case of “you’ll miss us when we’ve gone” then I’d like to test that prediction.

Via Ben Carew​​

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/17/9338963/welcome-to-hell-apple-vs-google-vs-facebook-and-the-slow-death-of-the-web

Emlyn O’Regan​​​​ is on a roll channeling the Zeitgeist.

Emlyn O’Regan​​​​ is on a roll channeling the Zeitgeist. Ad-blocking is all the rage on mobile (thanks Apple) but this move seems to have reopened some seemingly settled arguments about advertising generally.

Notably absent from this debate are the Googlers.

Advertising on the web has moved on in many people’s minds from “minor annoyance” to “fucking nuisance”. Arguments have gone from “I accept that content producers need to get paid” to “fuck the media and their stinking business model. And screw their nasty spyware and malware too!”

It seems the “content” that actually gets produced is pretty shit and that some of it really needs to go away, like, now.

Originally shared by Emlyn O’Regan

Advertisers are trying to manipulate you emotionally to get you to do something you wouldn’t otherwise do, possibly something not in your own interests. So it shouldn’t be a surprise then that they don’t care about serving up malware; it’s what they’re already doing memetically anyway. Advertising is mental malware. Ad blockers are your friend.