Balta1701

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) If anyone wants to know why some people didn't want to give up Asik, just look at last nights game, we just don't win that with out him, period. Correct.

Finally an excuse to suspend him.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) I'd also like to take the time to point out how childish and selfish Dwight Howard is... every shot attempt "should have been a foul" and he's never actually committed a foul... at least that's the perception when watching. He clearly doesn't care too much about his team since he racks up technical fouls every season and is facing yet another one game suspension for his antics. What a crybaby. Honestly, I'd want him nowhere near the Bulls' roster. I don't know if I'd call that selfish. In fact, he probably isn't selfish enough. Dude didn't miss a shot from the field last night and every time he got the ball he either scored or forced hte Bulls to foul. He's got some of that Yankee "everything's a foul" look in him, you're right, but hell, if it works...

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) Sorry, I left out a key word there... they have the 6th easiest REMAINING schedule. They've already gotten past the tough stretch the Heat are entering. Technically, this is a pretty tough stretch right here. The Magic, Heat, and Hawks on the road, the Spurs visited just before the AS break, then Monday is night 2 of a B2B with CP3 visiting.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) No, I had no idea they had big hybrids...I'll have to look at some. At least with the present situation, that's where the real savings are. Everyone's used to looking at miles per gallon, but if you want to understand the savings, you have to look at gallons per mile (Or gallons per 1000 miles, something like that). A Prius might average 40 mpg, which puts it at 25 gallons per 1000 miles. Without the hybrid system, it might average 30 mpg, which would put it at 33 gallons per 1000 miles. Saves 8 gallons for a 10 mpg increase. A normal SUV might average 13 MPG, which would put it at 77 gallons per 1000 miles. But if you push that to 18 mpg, you drop to 56 gallons per 1000 miles, so you save 21 gallons for a 5 mpg increase. Project each of those up to 10,000 miles/full year, and while the Prius might save 80 gallons of gas over the year, the SUV would save 200+. At $4 a gallon, that's $800 a year for a small decrease in mpg. The GMC Yukon Hybrid is rated at 20/23 (city/highway), compared to 15/20 for the regular Yukon. The Toyota Highlander hybrid is rated at 28/28, compared to 20/25 in the regular version.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 10:42 AM) The Bulls have the 6th easiest schedule in terms of opponent winning percentage in the NBA. Keep in mind though, all this tells you is that the Bulls are in a terrible, terrible division. There is 1 team with a winning record in the Bulls division. It doesn't mean the Bulls are particularly vulnerable to good teams or that the Bulls's schedule will get harder, it means that they play the Pistons, Cavs, Bucks, and Pacers a lot.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 03:05 AM) I didnt get to see the game, but I guess people are finally starting to recognize the Asik. You gotta give it up for the emphatic dunk he had down the stretch.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 06:45 PM) I hope they get some hybrids that have some actual space in them for long road tripping, right now this is one of the problems with these cars...too small for what I need...otherwise I'd get one. All electric for me is out of the question...not enough miles, I take 1000+ mile trips all the time during the summer, so all electric is a no go for me...but a hybrid of significant size that can haul my canoe + camping equipment + 3 people would be awesome. Well, you do realize they currently have plenty of long road-tripping hybrids right? The hybrid system does its best jobs on large SUV's; they get the largest percentage decrease in gas savings. A highlander hybrid, for example. Eventually they're going to have all-electric SUV's & vans, that'll take a bit of time. They've got to get the lines up and running, just like how the Prius came out. They roll it out in the small car format to get the lines up and running, then move on to luxury vehicles and SUV's in the next step. The time it takes for them to get to that next step, IMO, is going to depend a lot on gas prices. If this spike continues going up and doesn't stabilize or recede, you'll see a flood of all-electric or volt-style partial electric vehicles in the coming year or two.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 01:20 PM) The memory isn't really a concern, rechargeables haven't had memory since the nickle cadmium days, modern cell phone/laptop Li-Ion's don't have memory, either. It's the performance degradation I was concerned with, moreso than anything else. Here's my take. Nissan is first on the market with an all-electric. They've had prototypes on the road for a few years, but they have a major advantage being the first all-electric, especially if there's $5 a gallon gas in a year or two. If Nissan's batteries degrade in performance too fast, lasting only a couple years instead of 10-20, they're going to harm their image for a long time and they're going to blow a golden opportunity to be the first all-electric. I will say, they are taking a gamble. The basic principles behind everyone's battery design is the same (Li-metal battery; note, this is quite different from the Lithium Ion battery in your laptop), but Nissan runs theirs in a different way. They air-cool it, rather than having a heating/insulation system like Tesla does, which Tesla says will cut their battery life. They also run the battery much lower than Chevy does in the Volt; the Volt only takes slices out of the battery, Nissan blows through much of it. I'm not wealthy enough to be an early-adopter, so by the time I can pull one of these off, we'll have at least a few years years of usable, real world data on all of them, and we'll probably have a similar drive system appearing in a number of other vehicles. If I had the cash available, I'd strongly consider being an early adopter, but I don't. However, if we start talking about >$5 a gallon gas, it won't take long for everyone to figure out the electric car math.

Awesome. He made a zillion dollars?

Ya think so?

Well, you'd know.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) Yeah we have the #3 team (Merrillville) in the state in our sectional, plus the #1 team (Munster)in our regional. The Region is loaded this year, and will be again next year. The crazy thing is we could have won three games against those two teams this year. How many of them does Crean have committed?

Until it stops.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 12:44 PM) Eh, I can't keep up with all of the ways to poison yourself anymore. Just wait until your kids become teenagers. You'll have a list of the drug schedules in your nightstand.

Stop.

Quit helping him out.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) I have no idea either, I was just curious...since I work in the tech field and I know rechargeable (even the BEST rechargeables) have VERY finite recharge numbers...and if you're recharging your car everyday, I don't see those lasting more than 3 years without needing full replacements. Not to mention, the amount of power they can store dwindles on every charge. The explicit statement from Nissan and Chevrolet is that this generation of batteries does not have a memory. They expect, as others have noted, a small deterioration in performance over the space of a decade, but they literally told me in person that they have built next-gen batteries that have no memory. It shouldn't matter if you drive it to 20% power and then charge it versus recharging it every night at 80% power. The amount of power should not dwindle on every charge. Worth noting a comparison here...the Prius has been on the road for more than a decade, and I think in general people have been suprised that the batteries have lasted longer than expected, not shorter.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 11:45 AM) The Volt doesn't recharge the battery via an alternator*. The alternator isn't the main difference between the Volt's (or my Makita power tools') battery charging technology and your standard laptop battery. You're showing that you don't understand why standard PB-acid car batteries are different from laptop Li-ion batteries which are different from advanced Li-Ion batteries that monitor battery properties such as temperature to maximize life and minimize charge time. Alternators have absolutely nothing to do with this and I'm still not sure why you brought them up. For standard charging from a wall. I'm sure the on-board gasoline generator has an alternator, but it still has smart charging technology controlling the charing and not just some metal brushes on an alternator. Actually, if I understand my Leaf correctly, both the Leaf and the Volt will have a standard Pb battery, which charges off of an alternator in the case of the Volt when it is running in gasoline mode. That Pb battery is used to power all of the electronics. The big battery pack is running at several hundred volts. That is high enough to fry the basic electronics if you try to use the same power source. In electric mode, there is a DC current stepdown to get it to a voltage that will allow you to run standard 12 volt items.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 12:12 PM) So let me get this straight...things are great so long as we ignore all the things that are bad? Worked great for housing in 2004-2007.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 4, 2011 -> 09:46 AM) Getting back to the financial aspect of the thread, anyone read any studies about the cost of these electric vehicles? Obviously you're not paying gas, but what's the cost in electricity you're going to use to charge the car? How much do those charging stations cost (and how long does it take?) I feel like in this respect the industry really put the cart before the horse. The in-house 240 V charging stations which can charge the Volt in about 3 hours and the Leaf in about 8 hours cost on the order of $1000-2000 if you need to have them fully installed. If you happen to already have 240 V wiring available near your garage, for example, to run your dishwasher, the price goes down a lot. The Leaf also comes with a cable that can plug into a standard 120 V outlet, but it takes about 18 hours for a full charge. However, if you don't deplete the battery fully, this will work just fine. I could run this from my outlet right now and use a Leaf as my standard transportation and this cable would be able to charge my battery fully every day. The 480V, 30 minute Leaf fast chargers are considerably more expensive and are only available to commercial operators. However, governments and private businesses are starting to buy these (and they'll clearly buy more as more EV's get on the road). The reason to buy one is...you've got me at your shop for a guaranteed 30 minutes. I'm at your McDonalds, or your Kroger, or your Truck Stop, for 30 minutes. With current electricity rates, you're effectively paying somewhere in the range of $.50 to $1.00 a gallon, depending on how you drive. Could be less if you owned your own solar panels or wind generator as well. The Leaf's eco-mode would probably cut that even farther.

Link

OMG, the overs win one!!!!

QUOTE (onedude @ Mar 2, 2011 -> 09:13 PM) ok...so Bobby Farrelly and his bro are planning on revisiting a sequel to Dumb and Dumber with the original actors. http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/19669/ano...er-film-coming/ I can think of a movie title that describes this idea.

Obviously it's your fault, you keep bumping it.