Skepticism is the proper response in this instance.
Further, as far as engineering challenges I'm not big on re-inventing the wheel. I already have a job where I get to do that now. However, at least with Windows I have a better reason than simply to appease progressive arm-chair environmentalists that think they are really smart/creative and know best how to save the polar bears. That must get annoying.
Do you recall when you made the swap over to snide and complacent? I'd like to venture to guess it was somewhere around post 1,000 but I wouldn't really know for sure. You used to have some pretty thorough posts which at least seem to have some merit, but it appears you have long abandoned that long ago to now try to be as sarcastic and condencending as possible in each reply. Oh and you also seem to have an obsession with feeling superior and having superior opinions to just about anyone and making sure everyone realizes it.
Actually, I thought we were comparing a F1 engineering position, to one designing the next eco-box with a laptop battery that can fit two fat baby boomer's and their dog. I simply picked the umbrella girls over decades of real hard work for micro-level improvements.
Perhaps that is what you were talking about. I was talking about a car manufacturer reallocating their focus to developing alternate methods of vehicle propulsion rather than continuing that focus on essentially a technology nearing it's sunset. Note, the article didn't say Honda was
only going to make FCX's in lieu of F1 cars.
If you want to talk about the need for speed- then I can already produce all of the speed I could ever want from fossil fuels. I am sure of this because they have been doing it for thirty years. I don't care about efficiency, and power output is most certainly not the limiting factor of racing speeds. If you are talking about road speeds- well, crap- who needs hydrogen ion propulsion when you can hit the public speed limit on a bicycle.
Again as stated above, you used to have very compelling arguments, but even you must admit this is a terrible argument. You are basically saying that you don't need new technology because you've used it for thirty years? That's basically exactly what the XP users were saying in
this thread. And you countered with the following:
"Change is difficult."
"Genuine change takes time. My personal opinion is that it's never going to happen inside of a single client release and believe me we have many dedicated employees whom would love to see more of it on the high level. The fact that a release takes three or five years and some users see them as only incremental changes, is frankly because their technical competency is only skin deep. I could draw a technical diagram showing how audio now works and why it is better than before in every way which would be a boon if you were doing pro audio but I doubt your Mother would care."
"Some features aren't sexy. Like say better inter-process communication or more efficient multi processor support or better file system security."
You are basically telling people that change takes time, but under that hood, better things are happening whether they understand it or not. So why can't you see the relative parallel in that as we make the change to alternative fuels, this change will take time, but be for the better. Yet you keep hanging on your fossil fuels like an XP user. Why not embrace the advancement the same way you give advice on Windows software? And just because
you don't care about pollution or efficiency, other people do, so the change will take place whether you like it or not. What are you going to do when all the gas stations have changed to hydrogen stations and your still driving around in your fossil fuel dinosaur? Are you still trying to hold on to your analog TV channels too? Because guess what, you're going to be forced to get with the program on that one too.
Let's just compare liquid hydrogen to liquid gasoline.
And you are getting careless and sloppy too? That is very unlike you. I never stated liquid hydrogen relative to liquid gasoline. I clearly stated
compressed hydrogen gas has 3 times the energy density of liquid gasoline. Why did I used compressed hydrogen gas as a comparison? Well let's think about what is and would be the most common form of hydrogen we would use as fuel. Well figuring hydrogen is a gas at room temperatures and it would be incredibly difficult to maintain hydrogen in a liquid state in a vehicle, I think it would make more sense to compare hydrogen as a gas rather than a liquid. After all, why would I mention the energy density of vapor gasoline when no vehicle today uses gasoline vapor as an energy source? Obviously if we were to use hydrogen as a fuel source it would be in gas form and obviously it would be compressed when we put it in a storage cell. And again, I said that compressed hydrogen gas had 3 times the fuel density of gasoline. So where your fancy little chart showing the relationship between compressed hydrogen gas and gasoline?
and... while we are in fairy land:
Let's see, hydrogen gas has been used as a fuel source for centuries. Longer than gasoline. So who's in fairy land now?
Right, so another wards what you are saying is that after a century of development it is a reliable, mature technology. But we should ditch it.
And now you are getting delusional as well? I never said we should ditch gasoline. Why do you feel the need to insist I stated something I clearly never said. I'm saying we shoud ween ourselves towards developing alternative fuel sources. Why is that such a controversial statement to you?
Then hopefully somewhere in your future is an occupant safety system that can withstand a 3000 G impact.
It sounds to me like you are a little gassed up with Future Car episodes on the Discovery channel. BTW, this might be an inconvienent truth but the current alternative fuel land speed record stands at 328mph using
diesel. The
hydrogen weenies are only at like 207mph.
What does this have to do with anything? 2,000 years ago the land speed record was probably held by a chariot. What's your point and what does that have to do with developing alternative fuels.
See this is where it becomes painfully obvious that you are:
1) Condescending for the sake of being condescending
2) Now you are just purely being argumentative
First of all, you just love to paint me as some bleeding heart liberal, tree hugging, Al Gore lover. Well if you knew me at all, instead of just trying to smugly categorize everyone you feel is beneath you, you would know I'm not a fan of Al Gore nor any "green" movement. I don't even know what this Future Car thing you are talking about. All of my thoughts and opinions are based on my experiences in building a couple of alternative fuel vehicles (one purely electric, and one fuel cell vehicle) and several engineer courses I took on energy and land vehicle dynamics. Where are your opinions emanating from, besides your throne atop mount Microsoft from where you look down upon the world. Oh yeah and I forgot, you actually drive a gas powered car. That makes you an expert.
I am not scoffing at new technologies. The only thing certain is change. However, I am also a realist. The natural reaction is people put emotion before logic. The result is you end up with a lot of early adopter propeller heads that just want the next best thing and expect it to be the day after tommorow and be cheap. 700 RWHP 20K RPM Eco-Box that cleans the air, pays your electric bill, and walks the dog. Sure. I am sure GM will release the volt once they get that next loan.
Reality: If you are healthy and lucky; I would like to believe that you might see a human landing on mars before you die. A viable transportation alternative deployed, the end of the fossil fuel era, and happy polar bears?
Yeah... you'll have been dead for some time.
First off, I'm not ringing the bells of elation because our salvation has arrived in the form of alternative fuels. I'm not even sure where you even got that impression in the 15 or so lines I typed. I'm assuming you just swept it all under one big stereotype rug you just give all people who differ from your viewpoints. I'll give you the same reasoning that I voted Libertarian this past election. Am I die hard Libertarian? No. Do I know much about the Libertarian party? Not much. Did I expect the Libertarian candidate to even come close this year. Nope. So why did I vote Libertarian? Because I do not like the Republicans nor Democrats. So if I ever even wanted to have a
chance to have a viable third party candidate some time in the future, I had to vote Libertarian today. Otherwise, the same excuse that is used by most people, "they are not a viable party, they will never win" will always be the case for the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that. Somewhere you have to make the step, take that leap of faith; at least make the attempt to head in the right direction. Will it take time? Of course, but the start of any journey begins with a single step. The same applies for alternative fuels. Remember when we had the oil crisis in the 70's. We all said we were going to make that step towards reducing our dependence on fossil fuels but we never followed through. And right when we had our most recent oil crisis, there were a lot of people wishing we had made more of an attempt in the 70's. So now that we've had our second wake up call, I'm glad that someone is willing to answer the call and at least give us the
chance that in another 30 years when we go through another oil crisis, that it may not be such a "crisis" because we have taken steps today to alleviate that.
Secondly, I don't know about you, but I plan on being around for at least the next 40 years. Of all the people, you should know better than anyone how fast technology advances. Do you think anyone could fathom where computers would be today 40 years ago?
'While a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 10000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.'
Popular mechanics, 1949
'I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year'
Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
'But what... is it good for?'
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems division of IBM, commenting on the microchip, 1968
'There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in the home'
Ken Olson, Present, Chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
'640K should be enough for anybody'
Bill Gates, 1981
That last one should really hit home for you. The point is, what seems absolutely unfathomable today, could in fact be a lot closer than you think. Just look at the state of the following 40 years ago:
Genetics
Cloning
Computers
Internet
Space travel
Electronics
When you look back 40 years and how much has developed and changed, it doesn't seem all that reasonable that we will have an alternative fueled car that will have twice as much performance at half or even none of the pollution a car today has.