HOYA SWALLOWS PENTAX !

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
.. .
jeremy wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
The US auto industry has made (so far) over 6M vehicles capable of
burning E85 (85% ethanol; 15% gasoline). One issue is the price: you
pay almost the same for a gallon of E85 as you do for gasoline. But you
get 20 - 25% less miles per gallon when burning E85.

Using ethanol is part of a good substitution strategy, however the first
environmental tenant is "reduce".

Cheers,
Alan


I think the biggest problem with E-85 is not only hi
price and poor milage but the fact that it can't use the pipeline to ship
the stuff. Imagine an oil company having to buy a tractor/trailer for every
station for every day coming from say, Iowa to NY, and getting maybe 3 to 4
MPH As it is there are gas drops all over NY. They can place an order
when they close and expect to have full tanks before 6 AM. What happens
when they have to come from the midwest? Bob Hickey

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:
"Laurence Payne" lpayne1NOSPAM@dslDOTpipexDOTcom wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:57:15 GMT, Rebecca Ore
wrote:

The infrastructure of the US is auto-centric.
Yeah. It's going to come as an even bigger shock to you guys. But
you'll cope, as we all will have to.

Yes.....I don't see any real problems, myself......Getting rid of the
gas-guzzlers might be a traumatic experience for some, but I'm sure there
will be a number of other alternatives on the horizon. I see us as being
individually transportation orientated, but not necessarily gasoline
dependent as others seem to see us. When the gas runs out, we will just
take to electric vehicles or whatever we have to do. But crowding
together into busses or trains just isn't in the cards, and I just don't
see that it should have to be. We don't think that way, and our life
style isn't designed around that sort of thing. IOW, whatever they come
up with, you can be sure of one thing.....One person will be able to
leave his house in it, and drive it to wherever he wants to go without
having to be dependent on anyone else in order to go there. Whether it
burns alcohol, or peanut shells, or runs through storage batteries, or
picks up energy from the road or whatever, it will be a one man, one
destination at a time vehicle.....Of that, you can be sure.......
I agree, but it is a lot more fun if two can go together... Grin.
Technology WILL come through when the motivation reaches the necessary
level.

Yes.....I spent a lot of my commuting life on bicycles, and still more time
on small motorcycles. (My favorite was my Honda trail 90, which got 110
miles per gallon) I enjoyed every minute of it, but I know whereof I
speak....there was no way I could have handled group transportation. For one
thing, for years I had to carry tools and spare parts around with me, so
busses and the like were out of the question. I had to have my own vehicle
in order to do my job, and I knew a lot of other folks who were in the same
boat. (no pun intended) When you fix machines for a living, you can't handle
time restraints. You leave the installation when you are done, and not
before....When the last bus leaves can't have anything to do with
it.........

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
...
Rebecca Ore wrote:
In article ,
"David J. Littleboy" wrote:

Seriously, I don't understand why more people don't decide not to own
cars. The (quite rational*) decision not to own a car ought to be a
possibility, right?

I live in Philadelphia for that reason -- public transportation. But I
may end up leaving Philadelphia for a better job. The only places where
Americans can afford not to have cars are small towns with viable
downtowns and a handful of cities which have good enough public
transportation. Some employers (Comcast in Philadelphia for one) have
moved back into the cities (over a transportation interchange in
Comcast's case); a lot are still out where the trans doesn't reach.

The infrastructure of the US is auto-centric.

It is freedom-centric. Most US residents just want to go where they want
to go, WHEN they want to go and don't want to wait on a bus, cab, or
subway. I find the whole idea of using public transportation VERY
restrictive, and confining.

And, for many occupations, impossible.......

"Laurence Payne" lpayne1NOSPAM@dslDOTpipexDOTcom wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:10:16 -0800, "William Graham"
wrote:

Depends on where you live, and what you do, or like to do. It would be
very
difficult for me to do without a car here in Salem, Oregon. We don't even
have a decent bus line that goes by my house, and most of the busses in
town
stop running at 10:00 PM every day. I have to go to the next town North of
me once a week for band practice, and the next town South of me for a
music
lesson every week.....Both places virtually inaccessible without my own
car.
If I had to do without a car, I would have to move to the heart of a very
large city just to be able to continue my two principal hobbies.
(photography and trumpet playing) And even then, getting to and from gigs
would be very problematical. - And then, there are our four cats.......

Do they drive too?

No, but their needs require the use of a car at all hours of the day and
night......Lets put it this way.....If I had to do without a car, I wouldn't
have four cats, I wouldn't have either photography or trumpet playing as a
hobby, and my life style would have developed in a totally different
direction from the way it has developed......I am now locked into an
individual transportation system, whether gasoline oriented or not.......

"Pudentame" wrote in message
...
David J. Littleboy wrote:
"Kennedy McEwen" wrote:

I personally don't want to see someone in my rear view mirror
approaching at 175MPH while I am stuck at traffic lights on my way home
from work.

The easy way to avoid that is to not own a car. (That's one of the
reasons I ended up in Tokyo.)

Seriously, I don't understand why more people don't decide not to own
cars. The (quite rational*) decision not to own a car ought to be a
possibility, right?


Unfortunately, many of us live in places where we would not be able to get
to work, buy groceries, get to school or do just about anything else in
life without a car.

I currently have to be at work at 3:00am. It's just over 5 miles away,
slightly more than an hour walking. There's no bus service at that time of
night, and damn little at any other time. And the streets I'd have to walk
do not have sidewalks for over half that distance.

The nearest grocery store is halfway to where I work. It's just about
where the sidewalks start. So to get groceries, I'd have to buy a wagon,
or some other cart and drag it 2-1/2 miles along busy streets with no
sidewalks to the store, and then drag it back along those same busy
streets with no sidewalks to get them home. Included in this stretch is a
long hill with a blind curve going to the bridge at the top. There's thick
hedges planted along the roadside to keep people from walking along the
shoulder where there's not even a place you could dive off the road if you
had to.

There is a convenience store with limited selection (and higher prices)
within a couple of blocks of my house, and I do always walk there.

Finally, what is *not* within walking distance of my house is many of the
places I want to go to take pictures.

Yes. Just because it might be possible to design one's life around an
existence without the automobile, that doesn't mean that it is something
than can be done at any time, without any trauma. Right now, both me and
millions of other Americans are virtually locked into personalized
transportation vehicles of one type or another....This isn't going to change
overnight. Their character may change. Their fuel source may change. But
millions of people can't just suddenly step into electric busses overnight
because of some law or other....To believe such a thing shows lack of basic
reasoning ability........

"Philip Homburg" wrote in message
.phicoh.net...
In article ,
Pudentame wrote:
I currently have to be at work at 3:00am. It's just over 5 miles away,
slightly more than an hour walking.

The nearest grocery store is halfway to where I work.

Ah, so all you need is a bicycle. :-)

For him, perhaps. But I am 71, and my weekly music lesson in Albany is over
20 miles away. I can't even use a moped, unless it's legal on I-5. There is
no reasonable way to get there without using the freeway.....Believe me, if
there was, I would buy a Honda trail 110 immediately.......

"Kennedy McEwen" wrote in message
...
In article , David J. Littleboy
writes

"Kennedy McEwen" wrote:

I personally don't want to see someone in my rear view mirror
approaching
at 175MPH while I am stuck at traffic lights on my way home from work.

The easy way to avoid that is to not own a car. (That's one of the reasons
I
ended up in Tokyo.)

Seriously, I don't understand why more people don't decide not to own
cars.
The (quite rational*) decision not to own a car ought to be a possibility,
right?

It is indeed a possibility David and I, for many years, lived without
owning or driving a car. However, I consciously took the leap some 15
years ago because the alternatives I was relying on were becoming too
expensive and/or unreliable and/or unsuitable for regular use. Successive
government policies have encouraged that trend. If, however, I lived and
worked in central London for example then I would gladly return to my no
car owning life. It is a lifestyle choice, but one heavily influenced by
economics and the civil planning of governments.

And by what you do for a living, and where you have to do it, and by many
other variables that usually grow along with your other choices, so changing
overnight is quite impossible, and certainly shouldn't be expected of a
whole nation of breadwinners.......

"Roger" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:50:29 +0000, Kennedy McEwen
wrote:

In article , William
Graham writes


I am impressed, however with these formula I cars that can hit the rails
at
175 MPH, fly end over end a dozen times, completely come apart at the
seams
until there is nothing left of them but the cage containing the driver,
which, after he unbelts himself, he walks away from without a
scratch....Why
can't they do that with the family sedan?

To an extent, most of them are designed to deform protectively in
exactly the same way - hence the presence of crush zones etc. Of
course, they won't withstand a 175MPH impact with all/any passengers
surviving, but the suspension doesn't fall apart when they drive over a
pothole either. Drivers and passengers of the average family sedan
wouldn't accept being strapped into the harness by a 3 man team (drivers

I took a "test drive" in a new airplane to do some aerobatics. I got
in was tightening the 5-point harness while the demo pilot for the
corporation was checking things out. I pulled the harness as tight
as I could pull, then slipped my hand under it. Sooo, I braced my hand
and pulled a bit harder, but I could still work my fingers under it.
About the time I got to the point where I could no longer get my thumb
under the harness I noticed him watching me. His only comment was "I
see you've done this before". IOW if the harness is comfortable it
isn't tight enough. If you can work your hand under it, it isn't tight
enough.

Very few drivers would ever put up with that. OTOH few are capable of
even tightening a harness that tight by them selves.

cannot tighten the harness enough by themselves), wearing a HANS brace

At least in aerobatics we don't have to have some one else tighten the
harness. :-))
or flameproof overalls every time they get into the vehicle either or
being fit enough to withstand 10g differential forces on their neck
muscles before being given a license every season.

But we do regularly pull 6 or more G's even at my age.


There have been many technologies that have transitioned from F1 to
commercial cars, seat belts, anti-lock brakes, monocoque/unibody chassis
to name a few, but ultimately they are different vehicle types with
vastly differing requirements. One common aspect is that if you make
the car capable of going fast enough, that is as fast as some people
will drive it, and I personally don't want to see someone in my rear
view mirror approaching at 175MPH while I am stuck at traffic lights on
my way home from work.

It was far from 175 MPH but one afternoon on the way home for work I
was stopped at a stop light. I was the only car in that lane. There
was a lot of crossing traffic. All of a sudden I noticed a van coming
up behind and he was coming fast. There was a small opening in the
crossing traffic. I hit the horn and put the throttle to the floor
with that Corvette engine in the TA. I made it through the
intersection leaving a cloud of smoke. The van came through right
behind me. I hit 60 in a 30 zone as he stopped getting closer about 3
feet behind me.

Yes, that was the same TA I totaled when the SUV pulled out in front
of me. I don't think I'd have fared nearly as well had I been rear
ended at that speed.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Nice heads up driving! The last time I had a close call was when I was
reading one of these changing light bulb signs on the center strip of I-84
coming into Portland, and my wife said, "Look out!" When I looked back to
the road I saw that the traffic in the left lane in front of me was stopped,
and I was going 75 with only about 200 feet left to stop. When I floored my
ABS brakes, I felt exactly ZERO stopping force, so with less than 100 feet
to go, I took my foot off the brakes, punched the gas, and drove off the
road onto the center strip at over 65 MPH....When My wife asked me later why
I was accelerating, I said. "I never skid anywhere....If I am going to go
off a cliff, you can be sure of one thing....I'm gonna drive there, not skid
there...."
Fortunately, the ice plant slowed us down fine, and I drove back up onto
the road after we drove by the obstruction. (some stupid truck stopped in
the left lane for an unknown reason) I hate to run into anything....I will
always try to drive around an accident unless there is no other
choice.......

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
...
Kennedy McEwen wrote:
In article , William Graham
writes


I am impressed, however with these formula I cars that can hit the rails
at
175 MPH, fly end over end a dozen times, completely come apart at the
seams
until there is nothing left of them but the cage containing the driver,
which, after he unbelts himself, he walks away from without a
scratch....Why
can't they do that with the family sedan?

To an extent, most of them are designed to deform protectively in exactly
the same way - hence the presence of crush zones etc. Of course, they
won't withstand a 175MPH impact with all/any passengers surviving, but
the suspension doesn't fall apart when they drive over a pothole either.
Drivers and passengers of the average family sedan wouldn't accept being
strapped into the harness by a 3 man team (drivers cannot tighten the
harness enough by themselves), wearing a HANS brace or flameproof
overalls every time they get into the vehicle either or being fit enough
to withstand 10g differential forces on their neck muscles before being
given a license every season.

There have been many technologies that have transitioned from F1 to
commercial cars, seat belts, anti-lock brakes, monocoque/unibody chassis
to name a few, but ultimately they are different vehicle types with
vastly differing requirements. One common aspect is that if you make the
car capable of going fast enough, that is as fast as some people will
drive it, and I personally don't want to see someone in my rear view
mirror approaching at 175MPH while I am stuck at traffic lights on my way
home from work.

When driving on the Autobahns, it isn't all that unusual to be passed when
going at speeds approaching 200mph! Those guys DRIVE. NOte that the
drivers are MUCH more responsible there than in the US.

A good integral rollbar would be of great aid in preventing deaths, as
would a simplified full harness, rather than the airbag.

I agree, although, I do think airbags do have a use in preventing broken
necks in motorcycle accidents.....I would like to see them deployed from the
bottom of cycle helmets......

"Laurence Payne" lpayne1NOSPAM@dslDOTpipexDOTcom wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:46:14 -0800, "William Graham"
wrote:

As I say, we here in the US are
individual-transportation oriented, and we will find a way to continue in
that mode, even if we end up each driving our own electric scooters....

You really, really don't get it, do you? (Note - no smiley)

No. - But I am waiting with baited breath for you to tell me exactly what it
is that you think I don't get....