studebaker hoch: Get one of these and learn to use it.

Should we use it with or without the flat tires?

shawn82

Would you really want to swap out a bank of 12v lead-acid batteries every few months? When gas is 65 cents a gallon?

You can maintain lead-acid batteries, right? Keep the pH properly adjusted, don't deep-discharge them, and they'll last a long time?

I think the biggest complaint was limited range, but for those people that *didn't drive very much anyway*, those cars were the shiz.

mikaloyd:
I see how this works. Get your cum guzzling syphlitic sisters nose out of your fathers drunken ass long enough that your attention can be elsewhere and you will notice that I called your allegation of the ENRON loophole "sense". That is I agreed with it you homelrss cocksucking gutter roaming incestuous waste of DNA and poor use of the planet's oxygen.

This is what happens right after a fill up

Pelota

Should we use it with or without the flat tires?

Those tires are actually filled with LOLcats, they naturally look that way.

/not much air in a LOLcat.

FarkingSean: ENOUGH.

I swore I would do it, and a few of you supported me, but we're starting a non-profit, hopefully to help end this nonsense.

Anybody who wants to support us, check us out (new window).

Email sent. Dont forward my shiat on to anyone but Im down.

The Angry Hand of God: KonamiCode: No Expectations: Maybe it is motorcycle time...

Throw in some spiked hockey/football pads and a mohawk, and we'll get a gang together and THEN march on Washington.

Beyond Thunderdome?

/To men enter one man leaves.

Come on, in this day and age, shouldn't we really be beyond Thunderdome by now?

/obscure?

studebaker hoch: shawn82

Would you really want to swap out a bank of 12v lead-acid batteries every few months? When gas is 65 cents a gallon?

You can maintain lead-acid batteries, right? Keep the pH properly adjusted, don't deep-discharge them, and they'll last a long time?

I think the biggest complaint was limited range, but for those people that *didn't drive very much anyway*, those cars were the shiz.

Like Babbage's Analytic Engine and da Vinci's helicopter, it was a great idea that wasn't feasible with the existing technology at the time.

kab: Thunderpipes:
What is DC going to do about it? They make the most money off gasoline to begin with. Should rally against environmentalists instead.

That's right... more drilling is the insta-cure, I keep forgetting.

that's right, liberal thesis. "If I am hungry, it is better to starve to death than to plant food"

I think the winning thing is balance.

Live close enough that you don't need a car to begin with.
Then ride a bike when you can.
On those trips where you must drive, use a well-maintained machine.
Take the savings and pay down your debts.
Live below your means.
Grow food if it's practical where you live.
Invest in an early retirement.

On and on, and it all starts to feedback on itself. While no one thing is enough, they all make the others easier.

Balance!

mreuther: Thinking about this, even if the US government *forced* the oil companies to sell to the US, the oil companieswould just sell the oil that would have gone here someone else, keeping the supply down (and prices up) with the added benefit of no royalty payments to the guberments.

The problem with the "start drilling here now" argument (which incidentally, I have no problem with) is it assumes all the spigots in the world are running wide open - but they are not. If we pour more oil into the world's supply, it will just get choked somewhere else to keep the prices up. And no company will sell the oil we get from here cheaper when they can get premium dollars elsewhere.

I hate to be a buzzkill, but we're at the mercy of speculators no matter what we do. As a conservative republican who believes in limited government, I believe these oil prices are a national security issue. If we federalized the oil business, we could use the resources of our government in terms of trade balance, sanctions, etc to purchase oil at it's face value (as opposed to it's value in the future). Countries would compete for our business then - ok, maybe they would. But whatever is happening now is not working,

All this saber rattling with Iran is the reason. Money is flooding into oil futures because of the threat.
The rest of the world is trying to send us a message.
Our dollar is not being accepted anymore.

Congress needs to reign Bush in and the GOP needs to realize what an attack on Iran would result in. You think things are bad now? Wait until China,Russia,India and the rest react to the disruption.

hey it's been five posts, anyone else notice that the bike I hotlinked (it's a Gary Fisher Sugar 4+) has flat tires?

/having fun... it's Friday!

Winter should be a lot of fun. I guess I can burn my coffee table to keep my pipes from freezing, since my furnace will be sitting idle.

The only things that haven't gotten higher in $$$ amount are my car payment, my rent, and my paycheck. Everything else has at least doubled. Gas, food, and electricity have gone up more than double. I can't make ends meet anymore, I know several people who literally can't afford to drive to work. Crazy.

And it only going to get worse?

/heavens help us all

Somehow this seems appropriate:

Disturbed's cover of "Land Of Confusion", animated by Scott McFarlane. (clicky poppy)

shawn82

Like Babbage's Analytic Engine and da Vinci's helicopter, it was a great idea that wasn't feasible with the existing technology at the time.

These cars were built and worked.

They weren't perfect for everyone (today's aren't either) but were good enough for some.

That's a start. One gas driver at a time converting over.

Hobodeluxe: All this saber rattling with Iran is the reason. Money is flooding into oil futures because of the threat.
The rest of the world is trying to send us a message.
Our dollar is not being accepted anymore.

Congress needs to reign Bush in and the GOP needs to realize what an attack on Iran would result in. You think things are bad now? Wait until China,Russia,India and the rest react to the disruption.

And what are they going to do? You think the price of oil is hurting us? What do you think it is going to do to them? Sure Russia sits on big oil reserves, how is their economy doing? How do you think the global economy will do if ours tanks? The rest of the world is dependant on the US' prosperity.

AlwaysRightBoy: We need to start drilling ASAP

that picture just about sums up where we're drilling

Short-range electric power commuter vehicle.

TFer: The key points are that algae is the fastest growing plant on the planet (they also use CO2 to grow) and it is NOT PART OF THE FOOD CHAIN.

Algae is not part of the food chain the same way the foundation is not part of a building, but perhaps you meant something a bit more specific.

I've told this story on here before. 8 months ago i moved into the city. Rent doubled to live a block from work. People said we must be nuts!

Now gas has literally gone up a dollar a gallon and looks to be getting worse. Everyone is trying to move closer but they have raised rates on uptown living 50%. We locked it in. I maybe have to gas up once every 3-4 weeks.im craigslisting it now for a bike because i dont think im going to even bother with a car anymore.

DFWPhotoGuy: FarkingSean: ENOUGH.

I swore I would do it, and a few of you supported me, but we're starting a non-profit, hopefully to help end this nonsense.

Anybody who wants to support us, check us out (new window).

Email sent. Dont forward my shiat on to anyone but Im down.

Promise we won't, man.

There's no damned reason we should still be sending 80 billion dollars per month to the middle east for sludge, and farking up the air we breathe in the process.

Anyone who agrees, come support us.

Hobodeluxe: All this saber rattling with Iran is the reason. Money is flooding into oil futures because of the threat.
The rest of the world is trying to send us a message.
Our dollar is not being accepted anymore.

Congress needs to reign Bush in and the GOP needs to realize what an attack on Iran would result in. You think things are bad now? Wait until China,Russia,India and the rest react to the disruption.

We're not going to attack Iran and the US and Iranian governments know it.

The upside to all this is that as things made in China and India go up in price, so do their sales go down which in turn will slow their growth, thereby reducing their oil consumption.

"Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) analyst Ole Slorer"

I bet this is an alias, because if someone knew his real name I hope they would sucker punch him in the face and steal his wallet.

shawn82

[golf cart]

There are at least two of those in use by people where I work. There could be more, but I always ride to work from the same side, I don't see the whole area.

For people who live less than a mile away, who can use residential streets and never have to go faster than 30 mph, they work just fine.

"feasibility" is based on personal need.

DFWPhotoGuy: I've told this story on here before. 8 months ago i moved into the city. Rent doubled to live a block from work. People said we must be nuts!

Now gas has literally gone up a dollar a gallon and looks to be getting worse. Everyone is trying to move closer but they have raised rates on uptown living 50%. We locked it in. I maybe have to gas up once every 3-4 weeks.im craigslisting it now for a bike because i dont think im going to even bother with a car anymore.

Welcome to the death of the american dream. About 8 month's ago I moved further from work so I buy a modest house on a 1/2 arce of land. Now my house is probably worth 25% less than what I paid for it and the amout of money I spend on gas has almost tripled. Which means if I did sell my house I would sill owe the bank money then have to pay rent.

Luckly for me (actualy not so much luck as much as foresight and hard work) i'm a .NET programmer (computer geek) and demand for my skills is still increasing, so I can afford to stay afloat.

Other office workers will be forced to move closer to the city but the lack of land will mean that people will have to live in high density apartment buildings which they will have to rent from someone else. (I don't care what you say, you don't own a condo, you just rent it permantly)

studebaker hoch: shawn82

The electric car wasn't feasible at the time.

The people that leased them didn't seem to think so.

The cars wern't even available for sale. GM was not.letting.them.go.

Not feasible? More like "revolutionary".

The EV-1 would have been roughly $90k to purchase, in 1999 dollars. For a tiny 2-seat coupe with limited range that required an expensive battery overhaul every 35,000 miles. It was workable and feasible in a technical sense only-- the market for this car would have been an incredibly small niche. It's size and form factor would give it the same approximate customer base as the 2-seat Honda Insight (which sold in trivial numbers), *if* you remove all the people interested in ever driving more than 150 miles (absolute maximum, likely less in practice) between 8-hour recharge cycles *and* all the people not willing to pay four times the price and deal with the ongoing overhauls.

We are *just barely* on the cusp of a workable electric vehicle that might sell to a wide enough market for economies of scale in the form of the Volt, and it's only workable because they toss in a ICE generator that lets you drive the thing past battery range without spending a night somewhere to recharge. We'll see if they can hit their date and cost targets.

What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

I don't see why people are so surprised by this news. If an analyst said that they expected a stock to increase almost 16% in the matter of a few weeks, a lot of people would jump at the chance to buy the stock (thereby pushing up the price). So, why does anyone think that it is so different for a commodity?

Thunderpipes:
that's right, liberal thesis. "If I am hungry, it is better to starve to death than to plant food"

The price of oil is not going to drop if more drilling takes place.

But it's neat that you're already throwing the liberal tag around. Now lets see pics of your car, the circle needs completion.

raygundan

The EV-1 would have been roughly $90k to purchase

I was not aware of that.


We are *just barely* on the cusp of a workable electric vehicle ...

I agree.

Part of it is geting consumers to live with less. I heard a car dealer say "nobody comes on my lot asking for a smaller, less powerful car". We have to unlearn fifty years of "you ain't a man without V-8 POWER!".

/using only what you need is a great way to go.

aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

You would only be adding to the problem. This is actualy what the futures markets are for. You agree to pay a certian price for a good on a future date.

You can store gas just fine but you have to add somekind of chemical to keep it fresh, dont' remember what it is.

Lots of speculator-hating in this thread.

GOOD!

I seem to remember from my high school history classes that unrestrained speculation wreaked HAVOC on the economy in the early 20th Century. As in Great Depression havoc.

♫ Hang 'em, hang 'em. Just take a rope and hang 'em. Hang 'em from the highest treeeeeeee! /♫

aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

I've heard the closet is a good place

aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

These guys might be able to help you out with that:
Link (new window)

QuitWhileYoureAhead: aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

I've heard the closet is a good place

Same here.

Gasoline does NOT store well.

Based on personal experience, after 3 months, it starts to develop nasty varnishes and crap that will get all over your intake valves.

Besides it's dangerous to have around in quantity. You really want your neighbors all having hundreds of gallons of gas in the garage?

aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

It's been tried.

Duh, oil is a commodity, a commodity in which people invest.

Right now it looks like it might be building towards a bubble. Really interesting if so.

I would love to get a bicycle as use that instead of my car, but living 16 miles from work, with the only direct route being the freeway, it's out of the question. I paid $4.359/gal yesterday.

Hmm... I've been driving for the past 23yrs, paying $x.xx9/gal forever, when am I going to get my change back?

IXI Jim IXI:
Dammit, though, I wish it'd start raining gas.

Careful what you wish for.

Me, I'm going into the basement and fix a fresh batch of hydrazine to share with all the girls and boys who traded this stuff into its own vapour...

I'm long Gold and short Retail stocks so I'll be getting a big kick out of this next week. (not in US)

gweilo8888: IXI Jim IXI: "Oh, goody.. another War Against X"

Fear not - I've started a war against wars against things.

KonamiCode: aglassonion: What about buying hundreds of gallons of gasoline while it's "cheaper" now, and storing it? I don't even know if gasoline stores well! I'm not a chemist. Any ideas?

These guys might be able to help you out with that:
Link (new window)

I figured it was a bad idea from the get-go, but was just curious about it. Thanks.

doyner: I've said it before and I'll say it again...

INVEST IN OIL!!!!

And drive an old 40 MPG 4-banger.

Okay. I drive a 4 banger, and I will invest in oil. You wanna store my barrels when the tanker shows up in July?

studebaker hoch: raygundan

The EV-1 would have been roughly $90k to purchase

I was not aware of that.

It's a rough estimate on my part, based on GM's estimate that it cost them $80k to build each EV-1 and the assumption that they'd want a profit. But most importantly, it's rare to see a farker simply say "huh, I had bad info." and move on. Kudos.

Part of it is geting consumers to live with less.

Wait until the Import Tuning crowd discovers the torque available in electric motors. But seriously, people will adjust when they have to, whether that be because of direct market forces or because of government regulation stepping in to address things early and more gradually.

MysticMango: I would love to get a bicycle as use that instead of my car, but living 16 miles from work, with the only direct route being the freeway, it's out of the question. I paid $4.359/gal yesterday.

Hmm... I've been driving for the past 23yrs, paying $x.xx9/gal forever, when am I going to get my change back?

Use an indirect route then. Sheesh, I'm sure your town's roads aren't all freeway.