Trouble Maker

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If the right one comes to the states they would be on my short list of cars to drive if I were buying a new one. They make some very nice looking cars.

I don't know what they do to calibrate torque wrenches, but they are calibrate-able, or at least you can check them to make sure they are within spec. When I'm back at work next week I will ask the guy who is in charge of sending all of our gauges out for calibration if he knows what they do with torque wrenches. One thing I've heard is to measure some distance, put a weight hanging out at that distance and set the torque wrench to that torque. 1ft-lb is 1 lb out at 1 foot. You wouldn't check a wheel torque wrench at 1ft-lb, but it gives you the idea. If it clicks at the correct distance, but not closer in to the center of the wrench, then you are good. I've never actually done this to check one, but it makes sense as an quick and easy check for personal use. EDIT: Nate beat me to it while I was typing this, albeit with much better info.

Did a 3rd gen plant it's seed inside of you or something? I like the white one, it's very clean which I typically gravitate to.

I am keeping an open mind and am willing to check it out. Also I agree with this article that most people who will end up buying a 500 won't necessarily do so for the gas mileage, it will be for the style. And I think it will sell well on that note. Too bad the for Smart the Fourtwo is ugly as sin. http://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/28/official-2012-fiat-500-fuel-economy-numbers-fall-short-of-40-mpg/ So the only thing it has going for it over b-segment cars is style (opinion) and a few grand in price, but gets worse gas mileage and is a much less usable car due to the smaller size. The only way I'm really interested in one of these cars is if it get's better gas mileage due to being smaller, and it will still be too small for what I use cars for. I think that's saying a lot since I like cars that are typically small for the american market. I still have to be able to fit my skis and bike (not at the same time) in the back.

I will have to also (almost) completely agree with you at this point. The way we move freight does need to change. I think our long term vision of when electric cars will be viable is just a bit different. I'm thinking 25-50 years, and I'm optimistic that it will be closer to 25 years for mass adoption (90+% of the population driving electric cars or some other alternative). Until we implode technology will always continue to evolve more and more rapidly. It took us 120 years to get from no car to where we are now, I don't think it will take another 100 years to get to something different. Cars will be continually made more efficient through reduced drag and friction losses outside of the engine and this will help combustion cars, but electric cars even more since they use more of the energy that is stored. This will help the issue of needing lots of power from the grid. We will also see battery tech greatly improve, increasing range and leading to other possibilities like battery swapping stations or quick charging stations. Another thing that will help, if the alternative ends up being electric cars or some variant is that everything in our home get more efficient to reduce the amount of energy we use in our homes, freeing up power on the grid for electric cars. Smart grids will come into play to do the higher energy things, like charging up the car at night. I think now if the cars were charged up only while you were sleeping, so you aren't using anything else in the house, there wouldn't be much of an issue.

Color me throughly unimpressed with the 500 now that the fuel economy numbers are out. What car is next, anything worth buying?

Well lets ignore where the energy comes from because if we say 'all other things being equal' we have to say that they come from the same source for either method. So if it comes from solar, it comes from solar to make that synthetic fuel, or make some other fuel or to go straight to the car (elelctric car). So beyond that there are always emissions when processing anything, these may not be carbon emissions, but they are emissions. So negative for the processed fuel. Often these fuels take more energy to make than we could ever get back out of them, so there is a net loss there compared to just using the energy right in the car. They often use many gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of fuel, and we may have all of the water we want, but look at some other states or if you really want to realize water is not that plentiful look at many third world countries. Fuels also have to be shipped, that cost energy and emissions burnt in whatever is shipping it where electricity goes across wires with only some energy loss. Last but not least, with current combustion engines we are getting ~13% of the energy in the fuel going to the wheels. Most of that loss (62%) is in the engine to heat. Electric motors are very efficient, 90%+. In this respect at the very least you have to consider that larger engines like power plants are far more efficient. So if we burned the same exact fuel in a power plant as we do in our cars, then piped it via wires to our cars we would already be much better off from an energy efficiency standpoint. So making this fuel and put it into our current cars is pretty foolish. The only way this fuel makes sense is if we start to run out of oil and if that's the case we better be well on our way to more efficient means of transportation. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/tech/energy.gif

Assuming they aren't skirting any rules, any oil that has some known rating on it is probably fine. Especially if you stick to the ~3-4kmi oil change, though I don't think this 5k period would really hurt either. As for shopping at walmart to begin with, that I can't agree with. Autozone also has generic oil, but I have no idea what it is or how much it cost.

Likely the energy cost and emissions from beginning to end is much higher than with other alternatives, i.e. electric vehicles, etc. I would bet that this fuel is worse than regular fuel at this point, and that it would take a lot of work to even get it close. All of that processing cost a lot of energy, water and emissions. If this is all true the only way this makes any sense is if the gas and oil start to run out. We should be spending our resources and knowledge working on long lasting alternatives that have higher efficiencies and less emissions. A fossil fuel replacement that works in combustion engines is just a band aid, they are far too inefficient and emission producing (at this point). That way in xx years when oil does start to run out we aren't using band aids, we are using solutions.

http://www.f88me.com/images/smilies/ttiwwop.gif Wait... what? :funny:

No suggestions on a metal case... I finally broke down and got a case since my phone case back was starting to crack near the jack on the bottom. I never really wanted one, but figured I had to or I would have to replace the phone case soon. I saw it at work, went to microcenter on the way home and just picked something out of what they have. I went with the Speck Candy Shell. It's a little thick, but I didn't notice that after a few days. It may not be any better or worse than other cases in this respect as I have no experience with other cases. The only real gripe i have about it is that it's very hard for someone with real size fingers and not long finger nails to turn the ringer switch off. Turning it on is fine, but off is a PITA. Other than that I like it so far. Those bamboo cases look sweet, too bad they are only for the 4 and a little expensive. I might go $50, but $70 seems like a bit much for a case.

From what I understand of those that have lived there it's a fake nice. They will say hi, etc. to everyone only because it's what you are supposed to do, but nothing really beyond that. Someone could hate you and ask you 'hi, how you are you doing?' That doesn't mean they like you or are being nice to you. You would never realize it's fake when you are just visiting there for a few days.

I would have told him to quit being a pussy and pushed him down.

Clay, I'll do 11.3% and promise to bring it to cars and coffee often.

Where's option 3, Ben is going to rape some woman again?

Doesn't Doc own a Century, just not a V12 version. If so, yes he should buy the engine and have it swapped into his Century. :bangbang:

You want him to die?

Well... everything you've posted in here, this thread existing and a decent amount of your post on this board says otherwise, including other excerpts from that post. Actions speak louder than words, but when all of your words say that you are nothing without this one thing I can only assume that's the only thing that defines you as a person. I wasn't stating it as a bad thing or trying to bash, simply stating that's the one way it can come across. But I'll take your word for it that you are a more in depth person than this since I've never meet you. Congrats on achieving something in what you chose to focus on!

Phil, this whole thing is just really sad. Seems like you are trying to prove some self worth to everyone here by this. Are you defined mostly by racquetball? That's the vibe you put off here. If so, I feel really bad for you.

Greco roman wrestling? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/GrecoRomanWrestling1.jpg/372px-GrecoRomanWrestling1.jpg Womans boxing? http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/files/morethanthegames/womens%20boxing.jpg

In any testing scenario where you want to test to the life of a product you almost always do an accelerated life test. You want to test a part for corrosion? You don't put it in regular atmosphere for the useful life of the part. That would take years vastly lengthening the overall design time! You put it in some really nasty chemicals that cause corrosion for a much shorter time. You want to test an engine for 150kmi? You don't put it into a car and run it for 150kmi. At 60mph that would take 2500 hours, or almost 105 days of non-stop driving. To be more like the real world you would run the engine through cycles just as if you were driving it in your car. The average speed would probably be more like 40-45mph. Those engine dyno cells cost millions, so that's not a good use of the time. You do things to speed up the process, like run it at WOT, run it very cold and very hot. If yo do this right it simulates the stress that an engine would typically, or maybe worst case, see over 150kmi. http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2011/01/what-the-inside-of-a-torture-tested-ecoboost-v-6-looks-like.html

Weekly meetup at a park or trail to go running?

"Lincoln. Big guy, big reach. Skinny guys fight 'til they're burger.

This, support a local business. Really cool people in there.