Comments on: Brain Flows Like Water 001

By: larker

larker — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:54:18 +0000

Oh btw, the EV1 ran completely on electricity w/o any gasoline needed (just a regular/nightly recharging). So yeah, these hybrid vehicles you’re talking about are actually a step backwards (yes backwards) from the EV1. I actually think they’re a pretty stupid (but better than nothing) compromise to tide over automakers (i.e. the whining oil industry backing automakers). It’s funny, one of the people who were responsible for the discontinuation of the EV1 quit his day job and was hired by EXXON the next day. Hmm…

By: larker

larker — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:47:55 +0000

About the electric car, the only reason it’s not “popular” or widely successful wasn’t because of crappy design, or weak concept, or even poor public demand. I don’t know if you know, but there once was a line of electric vehicles called the EV1 by GM. If you don’t want to watch Sony Picture’s “Who Killed the Electric Car?” documentary on this obscure line of cars, basically what happened was GM came out with a f***ing rad car that ran completely on rechargeable batteries. There were actual waiting lists of people who wanted to buy this car to end all cars. It went fast and one charge was more than enough for a normal person’s daily needs (and that’s with the relatively crappy battery technology back then). This trend for looking out for the environment in California raised the issue about emissions laws for automakers. For some retarded reason, the government officials ended up passing the law but couldn’t make it stick when automakers started bitching about it. All the while, GM starts mysteriously taking the EV1s back and systematically impounding/destroying them. FTW, all signs point to where the money’s at (Big Oil, as my economics teacher calls it). Basically, people out to continue making in the range of the billions a year (EXON Mobile, I’m looking at you) started pressuring automakers into reverting to old, inefficient, polluting technologies. Greedy buggers. Go watch the documentary. It’s well-done (kinda like Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”) and informative.

By: blkmage

blkmage — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:01:26 +0000

You bring up good points in this post, but I have some beef with the minimum wage argument. Just because one of our dollars is worth so much in another country doesn’t change the fact that those who are on the lower end of the income stick in our country are struggling. It’s like saying that you shouldn’t have any problems with a high school diploma here because you’re super educated if you go to a less priveledged country.