10,000 members!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Sander_Marechal Oct 07, 2008 6:42 PM EDT |
Somewhere today we crossed the 10,000 registered member mark here on LXer. Congratulations to all! It's the members that make LXer a great place for me, so I'd like to thank everyone for their contributions and lively discussions, even though we don't always agree (and keep beating dead horses into a pulp on occasion ;-) Cheers! |
| techiem2 Oct 07, 2008 7:26 PM EDT |
Woohoo!
Party time! /me tosses patch cables around |
| tuxchick Oct 07, 2008 7:26 PM EDT |
Congratulations! Ow, hey, somebody hit me with a cable! |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 07, 2008 7:29 PM EDT |
I noticed that too, happened yesterday late. We had just over 5,700 in July of 2007. I would say that a 'doubling' of the number of registered LXers in just over a years time is a pretty good clip if you ask me. |
| tuxchick Oct 07, 2008 8:05 PM EDT |
"Linux Advocate Beats Horses-- See, Those Linux Hippies Really Are Horrid!" |
| vainrveenr Oct 07, 2008 9:06 PM EDT |
Congratulations on the 10K number are certainly in order. OTOH, one can also wonder how many of these registered LXers are newcomers to Linux (newbies), how many are established journalists or old-time developers (those "Linux Hippies"), how many are business types trying to get the low-down or take a "pulse" on the current state of FLOSS, how many are those firmly allied in some way or or another with proprietary software companies (MS), .... etcetera, etcetera ???? (and BTW, according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates, MS-Gates was not the person who really declared "640K ought to be enough for anybody") |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 08, 2008 3:09 AM EDT |
@vainrveenr: There's no way to know, unfortunately. Also not that although we passed the 10,000 mark, the number of active, regular members is far lower. But looking at all the discussions, even that number is growing steadily. |
| dinotrac Oct 08, 2008 5:30 AM EDT |
At last!! Now you can finally do your "10,0000 Mini-Cooper Giveaway". With gas prices what they are, I'll certainly appreciate mine. Oh -- and I'm sure it has something to do with Linux and nothing to do with God or politics. Well, maybe a little. Thank God you've hung around and grown instead of folding up shop. And -- gosh! Won't all those Mini-Coopers be helpful in the fight to reduce CO2 emissions and oil demand? Huh? What do you mean no giveaway? Better re-think that. Everybody's expecting it now. The negative pub could be very bad for the site. British racing green is fine for me, although bright flaming Paris-hooker lipstick red works, too. |
| tracyanne Oct 08, 2008 6:16 AM EDT |
nice |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 08, 2008 7:31 AM EDT |
Quoting: ... bright flaming Paris-hooker lipstick dino, Be by tomorrow with the choice of Red versions, however, if you fail to pick the proper shade no car for you! Be ready, around 4am local time with appropriate human models to convey the spirit in which it is given ... by the way no touching any models until you win. Got it? Control yourself. Your buddy, Txt. You get far better mileage with a Civic Hybrid. Why didn't you request one of those? You know that the expense this has caused means no winners until the million mark or more. Moreover, everyone will know who caused this difficulty. [How do I say this politely?] |
| dinotrac Oct 08, 2008 12:42 PM EDT |
>You get far better mileage with a Civic Hybrid. I'm not a believer in hybrids, though the plug-in variety may make me reconsider. Compare the Civic with the Mini Cooper, for example - If mileage is not an issue, I would never consider the Civic. It costs $4,000 more and has nowhere near the fun-to-drive elan of the Mini. Environmentally speaking, it has a big nasty battery pack with lots of noxious and ugly stuff inside of it. With mileage an issue...hmmmm. Civic -- 42 mpg vs Mini -- 32 mpg. Sounds like a big difference, but it amounts to (ta da!!) - 375 gallons vs 285 gallons for a 12,000 mile year. Nothing to sneeze at, but, at $4.00 a gallon, is $360 a year. After driving 133,000 miles, I'll break even. Well, except for that nasty battery pack. The real win doesn't come from going something like a Mini to a Civic. Both are wonderful choices in a fuel-efficient world. The big wins are in going from something like a Highlander at about 20 mpg to a Camry at about 25 mpg. That's 600 gallons a year vs. 480 , or about $480 a year. Go from a 15 mpg SUV to a 20 mpg vehicle, and you're talking $800 a year. |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 08, 2008 12:52 PM EDT |
See what happens? Its starts out all clean and highbrow and look, just look at what they do to it...:-( LOL!! |
| dinotrac Oct 08, 2008 12:59 PM EDT |
Hey Scott - If you can't stand the heat, jump into the fire. Sure, it's a bad short-term solution, but, long-term, all of your troubles are over!!!! |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 08, 2008 1:10 PM EDT |
Now that's my kind of problem solving!! Jumping... |
| gus3 Oct 08, 2008 1:22 PM EDT |
A Civic hybrid getting 42 mpg? There's nothing new or novel in that. My non-hybrid Civic is 20 years old, and it gets 42 mpg. (46 mpg if you're driving cross-country and it's loaded down with most of your worldly possessions.) Sigh. They just don't make them like they used to. |
| rijelkentaurus Oct 08, 2008 1:29 PM EDT |
@gus3...those little Toyota trucks used to get 30+ MPG, sometimes a lot more. The "little" truck from Toyota now gets about 21. Yech. Not like they used to, indeed. |
| Steven_Rosenber Oct 08, 2008 1:32 PM EDT |
I couldn't find the story, but I saw a great one recently about how people are buying up old Hondas from the '90s and even the '80s, along with old Geo Metros in an attempt to get the best gas mileage possible. And if you're talking about non-hybrids, you pretty much have to go back in time to find cars made for 40 MPG. I had '79 and '83 Honda Civics, and those things got great mileage. The '79 even took leaded gas (but nobody told the carbuerator, and it would barely run unless I had unleaded in there). |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 08, 2008 2:00 PM EDT |
I used to have a 92 Acura Integra that got 35-40mpg, Man I wish I still had that car... |
| techiem2 Oct 08, 2008 2:05 PM EDT |
I'm driving a 91 Escort which I'm sure gets great mileage...but I only drive @3mi/day.... |
| jdixon Oct 08, 2008 2:18 PM EDT |
> And if you're talking about non-hybrids, you pretty much have to go back in time to find cars made for 40 MPG. The Toyota Yaris is rated for 34/40 with a standard transmission and 34/39 with an automatic. I've routinely gotten 38 mpg highway with ours. |
| rijelkentaurus Oct 08, 2008 2:55 PM EDT |
If I drive mostly highway and drive the speed limit, accelerate slowly, etc, I have gotten as much as 36mpg in my '08 Camry. |
| jezuch Oct 08, 2008 3:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:I'm not a believer in hybrids Dude... It works for locomotives -- just as it did 80 years ago. I for one am genuinely surprised that the auto industry caught up so fast! |
| dinotrac Oct 08, 2008 4:04 PM EDT |
jesuch - Dude --- Locomotives use inline hybrids running diesels. The diesel engine always provides electricity, never power to the wheels. You will also note that locomotives are big, heavy, and expensive. That size and weight doesn't matter in a locomotive, but does in a car. Ditto the expense, which gets leveraged over lots and lots of freight hauled. |
| TxtEdMacs Oct 08, 2008 4:44 PM EDT |
Lets forget the hybrids and mpg statistics, ok? With the pile of bills I am going to dump on Dave for this extravaganza I need to know some tax rules. The contracting and flying over all those assorted hookers from Paris was pretty hefty in cash outlays alone. I am pretty sure those are legit being part of a PR and good will building program (advertising). What worries me were the associated costs getting the one day work permits [or were they one night?] through promptly and by the bureaucratic barriers erected to protect this country. Those extra expenses involved bribing Homeland Security Officials, starting at the top all the way to the least of the pen pushers. So can I call those business related expenses and write them off? I know corporations have written off fines, judgments and court loses, why not these? I need to tell Dave something before he goes into cardiac arrest upon seeing the expenditure totals. TIA, Txt. |
| dinotrac Oct 08, 2008 6:31 PM EDT |
Txt -- I think Paris hookers are a good metaphor for all those analyst types who pimp for certain unnamed evil empires. As such, it is not merely a legitimate business expense, but, I should think, a necessary one. We must know the enemy. Intimately, if duty demands it. |
| schestowitz Oct 08, 2008 6:50 PM EDT |
Now there are 5-digit people to say to "you must be new here" ;-) |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 08, 2008 6:57 PM EDT |
How do we do it? the title is 10,000 members. yet here we contemplating the price of hookers!?!?!?! too funny |
| azerthoth Oct 08, 2008 7:34 PM EDT |
There has to be atleast one or two in the mix |
| gus3 Oct 08, 2008 10:56 PM EDT |
They do have a long history of being free-marketeers... |
| theboomboomcars Oct 09, 2008 12:30 AM EDT |
dino you may like the Chevy Volt, it uses an ICE generator to provide electricity to the electric motor. I think the term for it is a range extending electric vehicle. My commuter car is a Honda Del Sol and I get about 40 mpg in it, which is nice since I drive about 100 miles per day. |
| jezuch Oct 09, 2008 2:03 AM EDT |
Quoting:Locomotives use inline hybrids running diesels. The diesel engine always provides electricity, never power to the wheels. So hybrid cars don't work that way? What a shame. Quoting:You will also note that locomotives are big, heavy, and expensive. That's because they have to pull hundreds of tons of cargo, unlike cars, which carry just a couple of people :) I'm not a fan of cars anyway. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 09, 2008 5:11 AM EDT |
I drive a big '98 Suzuki Baleno Estate station wagon. Well, it's big for European standards anyway :-) I get about 33 miles per gallon (14 kilomterers per litre). And that's driving fully loaded through the hills of France. |
| dinotrac Oct 09, 2008 6:49 AM EDT |
Sander - I do a smidge better than that with my beat-up old '93 Geo Prizm (very nearly a Toyota Corolla), getting about 34 on my daily commute.Not too bad for 145,000 miles on the odometer and a $900 investment. |
| theboomboomcars Oct 09, 2008 9:24 AM EDT |
Quoting:So hybrid cars don't work that way? Hybrids on the road to day all use a parallel system where the ICE turns the generator and goes through a transmission to the wheels. |
| NoDough Oct 09, 2008 2:58 PM EDT |
My '03 Buick Century gets 30mpg for the daily commute. When I drive the family half way accross the county in it (lots of highway driving) it gets 34mpg. What's more, it's a V6 that will out perform 90% of the cars on the road.Quoting:If you can't stand the heat, jump into the fire. Build a fire for a man and you warm him for an evening. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. |
| ColonelPanik Oct 10, 2008 11:36 AM EDT |
I walk! Thanks to everyone for putting up with everyone /°_° |
| hkwint Oct 12, 2008 4:20 PM EDT |
Even a non-hybrid can run 160km/L (for the medieval-unit users: That's 376mpg). It did in 1973 in the US, along the Mississippi. Interestingly it was build by a citizen of the US working for a British oil company. You can read about it here: [url=http://www.opel-p1.nl/custom/testcar/Shell Opel.htm]http://www.opel-p1.nl/custom/testcar/Shell Opel.htm[/url] and here: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/05/01/big-oil-conspi... Now fetch your tools and start working that Civic! Less radical, you can save about 13% fuel by installing a cyclone: http://www.cyclonenederland.nl/cyclone/cyclone/cyclone.html and about 14% by using Greentec oil; and another ~3% by using a Greentec additive. You can also save about 5% by using the most efficient tyres. Altogether these add-ons can save you 35% - without buying another car! |
| ColonelPanik Oct 12, 2008 5:21 PM EDT |
My '03 Civic w/manual shift only get 44mpg on the Highway, so I walk. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 12, 2008 5:45 PM EDT |
Quoting:You can also save about 5% by using the most efficient tyres. You can shave off another 1% or so by filling your tires with Nitrogen instead of normal air. It only costs about $2-3 per tire. Your tires will stay at the proper pressure much, much longer. It expands and contracts less when temperature changes, and you need to refill only about once a year. To boot, the handling of your car will improve noticeably. |
| gus3 Oct 12, 2008 10:22 PM EDT |
Quoting:It expands and contracts less when temperature changesThe pressure of any gas (nitrogen or otherwise) is determined by the volume, the temperature, and the moles of gas in that volume. Start with the Ideal Gas Law, PV=nRT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas_law Perhaps you are losing some oxygen or carbon dioxide gas in ordinary air to reactions with the tire rim or even the tire itself. But thermal expansion of nitrogen is not so different from that of air. Furthermore, how does the inflation get all the ordinary air out of the tire before filling it with nitrogen? Is it placed into a vacuum chamber for the inflation? Sorry, Sander, but you bought snake oil. |
| theboomboomcars Oct 12, 2008 11:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:Less radical, you can save about 13% fuel by installing a cyclone: I am not sure if this will work on many newer cars since it works on the premise of spinning the air to get a better mix with the fuel and increase velocity. Most modern cars already have some sort of swirl port design in the intakes manifold and heads. |
| jezuch Oct 13, 2008 1:59 AM EDT |
In my country people use the metric of liters/100km. Oh, the agony... |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 13, 2008 2:16 AM EDT |
Quoting:Sorry, Sander, but you bought snake oil. Tell that to the military, the air force, commercial airlines and the Formula 1 who all fill their tires with nitrogen. I did some googling: 1) An ideal gas does not exist. The composition of normal air makes it expand and contract more with temperature diofferences. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire#Aircraft 2) Nitrogen is bigger than oxygen. Normal tires deflate over time because the oxygen particles escape through the tire rubber. 20% lower pressure in the tires can cause up to 5% more more fuel usage. 3) Nitrogen is less reactive. It causes less damage to the inside of the tire than normal air. 4) Nitrogen is "clean". There's no moisture (that's removed while making pure Nitrogen). Because Nitrogen is less affected by temperature differences and is a better insulator there will be much less condensation which could corrode your rims. Quoting:Furthermore, how does the inflation get all the ordinary air out of the tire before filling it with nitrogen? Just deflate. There will be about 5-10% normal air left in the tyre. Since air is 80% nitrogen there will actually be 98-99% nitrogen in the tire and only 1-2% oxygen and other stuff. A big difference from the 20% in normal air. After about a year most of that 1-2% will have leaked away through the rubber. Re-inflate with Nitrogen and you're running on near 100% nitrogen. Quoting:Sorry, Sander, but you bought snake oil. Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't make it snake oil :-) |
| gus3 Oct 13, 2008 4:15 AM EDT |
Sander, your points do not apply to car tires. Your link discusses aircraft tires, which are subjected to conditions that never occur on an automobile. Yes, the "ideal gas" doesn't actually exist, but the test conditions of aircraft tires required inflation with water (a liquid), rather than any gas, which would endanger the test observers. And, in checking on the properties of nitrogen gas, I turned up these two links, from people who do know (N.B.: the first link is from two degree-holders from M.I.T.): http://www.cartalk.com/content/columns/Archive/1997/Septembe... http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2694/is-it-better-t... Then again, you quoted $2-3 per tire. As I like to say, if $3 endangers your budget, you have far bigger problems than $3 will fix. Like a Jewish mother with a bowl of chicken soup, maybe it won't help, but it certainly won't hurt. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 13, 2008 6:44 AM EDT |
Since your articles don't refer to any studies, here are some: [url=http://www.retread.org/PDF/M-Mech[1].pdf]http://www.retread.org/PDF/M-Mech[1].pdf[/url] (from a tire salesman, so you're probably going to yell "bias!") http://www.automotivedigest.com/view_art.asp?articlesID=2312... [url=http://www.getnitrogen.org/pdf/print_articles/Ford Baldwin research paper.pdf]http://www.getnitrogen.org/pdf/print_articles/Ford Baldwin r...[/url] Unless your an automotive fanatic who checks their tire pressure weekly anyway, I'd say it's definitely money well spent. PS: I've seen some references to US dealers who charge $10-$15 per tire, even up to $100 per car for nitrogen tires. That's definitely too much. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 8:43 AM EDT |
>so you're probably going to yell "bias!" Someboy slap that boy...unless he is now prepared to accept all of those Microsoft benchmarks and "Get the Facts" info bits of the years. Darned right there's bias. Can't be sure it affects the claims, but somebody who sells the stuff absolutely is biased in its favor. Shame on you for suggesting (via the word "yell") that it is somehow unreasonable to point that out. You're not acting your IQ here. Your last link -- from Ford -- seems to support the "snake oil" characterization, with one very large asterisk: If you put relatively few miles on your car, nitrogen may prevent the tires from being structurally damaged before the tread wears out. Don't know about anybody else here , but I've had very few tire problems in my life (and I've been driving 40 years), especially in the last 20 years or so. My biggest tire problem has been wearing out the tread. I see some claims where tread life is enhanced -- on tractor trailers -- but don't see much benefit for passenger cars. But...if you're planning to drive into orbit, race with the big boys, or haul umpteen tons of freight while driving 750 miles a day, day-in and day-out, it might just make a whole bunch of sense. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 13, 2008 11:00 AM EDT |
As you said: "Can't be sure it affects the claims". It's nothing like "Get the facts" where even my five year old niece can point out the bias in their studies. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 11:24 AM EDT |
Sander -- You seem to misunderstand what bias is. Bias exists because you have a vested interest in the results, not because you tell lies. The problem with bias is not lying, it's seeing the truth differently. It's why diverse views are more than nice -- they're essential to getting the truth. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 13, 2008 11:57 AM EDT |
If you want to get into _why_ there has been so little advance in gas milage in automobiles over the last 40 years, I'd love to. However, it would quickly be the kind of discussion that gets people mad at me. I agree with Dino, lead-acid batteries make me uncomfortable. I do not want to be in a serious wreck with all that H2SO4. The plug-in hybrid would be my ideal, at this point, but if I could wave my magic wand and have a second car be an electric for "around town" I'd do it today. Golf carts are out, with unusable top speeds, and retrofits are expensive. The dedicated electric cars have been politically crushed, or want to be futuristic exotic-material trophy cars. A simple town-car, 100 miles at 45mph, would be great. Still looking. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 13, 2008 12:01 PM EDT |
Dino, I think bias can also be personal preference. Bias is simply motivation to favor one result over another. Penn Jillette had a wonderful comment about bias in reporting: Rather than trying to push "unbiased", let the bias be right out in the open. People can make up their own minds. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 12:21 PM EDT |
Bob - Sure. A vested interest is simply a red flag that a person has reason to prefer one result over another. Jillette is absolutely correct, and it's about time that he was right about something!!! |
| gus3 Oct 13, 2008 2:03 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's nothing like "Get the facts" where even my five year old niece can point out the bias in their studies.Only because your niece hasn't yet learned Boyle's Law and its derivatives. In private automobile conditions, the thermal expansion of nitrogen gas is not different enough from that of other gases, to warrant using it in tires "as a matter of course". Also, looking back on another point you claimed: Quoting:Just deflate. There will be about 5-10% normal air left in the tyre.Releasing the normal air from tires still leaves them at ~14.7 PSI, standard atmospheric pressure. If I add another roughly 32 PSI (tire pressure gauge shows difference, not actual PSI), then that still leaves almost 1/3 with normal air. A far cry from 5-10%. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 3:01 PM EDT |
Yo GUS -- You sure about that? Wouldn't it depend on HOW you deflate the tires? I'm thinking of Zip-Loc freezer bags at the moment. You can't make a vacuum (or, at least, I can't), but you can squeeze a lot of air out. If you deflate a tire while it's still on the car, the weight of the care will squeeze air out by reducing volume. Sure, you'll still be at 14.7 lbs, but for a somewhat reduced volume. Not sure how much, but maybe enough to take that 1/3 down to 1/4. That would put you at about 95% nitrogen, 5% other gases - remembering that normal air is about 80% nitrogen. Mind you, I don't buy into the nitrogen hype (especially since tire walls are not the only way to leak air), but gotta do the math right. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 13, 2008 4:25 PM EDT |
Quoting:If you deflate a tire while it's still on the car, the weight of the care will squeeze air out by reducing volume. That's what they did with my car. |
| tuxchick Oct 13, 2008 4:55 PM EDT |
Deflating tires on the car and letting the car mash the air out breaks the seal on the beads, and then they don't hold air at all. It can also damage the tires. This is a weird thread. |
| theboomboomcars Oct 13, 2008 5:23 PM EDT |
Well it is a thread about LXer members. |
| dinotrac Oct 13, 2008 7:24 PM EDT |
>letting the car mash the air out breaks the seal on the beads That's exactly what happens when you get a flat, whether by puncture or slow leak. It can break the seal -- but you can usually fill the tire back up - and!!! It will most often hold air. Not best practice...I'll admit. |
| gus3 Oct 14, 2008 12:01 AM EDT |
@dinotrac: He didn't say "5% other gases," he said "5-10% normal air." |
| hkwint Oct 19, 2008 4:35 PM EDT |
Hmm, 10.000 members and now our members are talking about Nitrogen. Interesting. Wondering what the other 9990 members are doing. Anyway, though Boyle's equation holds both for oxygen and nitrogen, there are differences between those two. Oxygen is a rather strong oxidizing agent; much stronger than nitrogen. Therefore oxygen could make your rims rust if they are not properly coated / alloyed. Also, normal air contains dihydrogensulfide; the same stuff that makes even copper 'rust' (oxidize would be more appropriate). If you remove all the normal air from your tire, you also remove most hydrogensulfide I guess. Apart from that nitrogen has slightly less mass meaning less rotational inertia. So if it's really cheap I might try it. |
| Sander_Marechal Oct 19, 2008 6:23 PM EDT |
@hans: I paid about two euro per tire. |
| tuxchick Oct 19, 2008 8:11 PM EDT |
But Hans, we're all about gas! |
| ColonelPanik Oct 19, 2008 9:47 PM EDT |
When speaking of tires, bias is the old way of making tires.
the layers of material were 45° to the road. Now it is 90° to the road, radial. But hey, they just go around in circles, like LXer. |
| Bob_Robertson Oct 20, 2008 9:13 AM EDT |
> But hey, they just go around in circles, like LXer. And Linux boot CDs. There! Back on topic. ,,,well, some topic anyway. Anyone for politics or economics? |
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