sneakeypete

Originally posted by: hym Which wouldn't necessarily be that difficult. The US is researching a bomb that is theoretically capable of defeating France in a single blast. (The US is currently researching weapons that make the US nuclear arsenal look weak.) quote> I'm sure everyone is reasearching one. and a fair few other superweapons too. However, history seems to show that gradual improvement of current ideas is the wy military technology will go, (with the excpetion perhaps of the nuclear bomb, yet even then that's just a bigger version of a regular bomb).

30 minutes for 80% charge, 5 hours for 100%. or somewhere around that. That said, i don't think one of those would ever become about making money. they'd be about making the electric cars more useful., eg sponsored by the manufacturers.

On the surface, it seems like a battery exchange station like that would be hard to implement, having to have a lot of extra batteries etc, however you have to remember that you'd only go into one if you drove more than 160km. The average person, on the average commute, would be able to get home and back on a single "charge" and plug the car in overnight. So it'd probably only be a smaller percentage of cars that would use the exchange (actually, the main problem could be weekends and holidays when lots of people travel long distances a lot)

I wouldn't exactly call what they put in dog food, perhaps even the 'luxury' dog food, "good" food.

Having them interchangeable would mean you could have lighter, smaller range batteries. So what if it only goes 50km, (so long as changeover is quick) and you can just go do another station? Originally posted by: Z77 And to sneakypete--I personally believe that they have done good in their cars. but then again, I am an avid GM supporter and always will. So much so, that if they ever would go out of buisness, i would only buy used after that, because i wouldnt buy anyhting else. But thats everyones prefrence. I do feel that Ford makes wonderful cars and i wouldnt mind driving a Renault, or any other european car. I just EXTREMELY dislike Asian cars. I really dont have words for those companies. i feel that they are ugly cars and that they are of poor quality. But again, its everyones preference. quote> Build quality is fine, performence is good. nissan makes one of the best v6 engines in the world for example. (yeah i may be a little biased towards a certain company aswell). Certainly not poor quality though.

Do they actually make any good cars yet? Last i hear the volt was an interesting concept, though some of the new prius's are starting to do the same thing, however its been in development a long time, and looks like it might be expensive. On the other hand, a fair few Japanese auto companies are about to release some pure electric vehicles with 160km (100mile) ranges. Very good cars, if people can get over the "oh but i can't drive more than 160km part", which is where the volt may shine through. its range is only something like 80km on batteries, but it can drive like a normal car constantly charging the batteries. I guess its upto Nissan and Mitsibitsi to change the hearts/minds of the average consumer to get their cars sold.

Indeed, you and a few others, have said things like "its great, i can really concentrate when i use it". Here's the thing: i can concentrate when i don't use it, and not using it is free and always available.

May i point out that the rest of the world also had more progress (depending on your definition of it) in the last 200 years than the 5000 before that. Somehow i do not think freedoms alone are the reason for it then.

Well what could it have been? allowing them to get any points with the overpriced team that they have now is unfair (infact you could claim even letting them play is unfair. they have 700000 worth of extra talent, anyone who plays against them and loses shouldn't be happy about it)

Seems like it depends greatly on what you call quality of life. Like NObody said, i could be earning a 6 figure salary here, live in an inner city house and be barely able to afford repayments/rent. Or i could go 15-20km out of town, buy a house for a third of the cost, and live more than comfortably with probably a lot of luxury extras. All the services, road, hospital, water etc. wouldn't be any different between the two, just the "desirability". And lets say inever go to hospital at all during the 2 years i'm here. Regardless of the hospitals being good or bad i'm going to say i have a good quality of life.

There was at one time never any smoking bans, and you could smoke in any bar. Yes, people might not like it, but unless the establishments are forced to take action, people will just put up with it.

Originally posted by: warrior After a while America and Europe would get their act together and build a transatlantic tunnel. High speed Rail networks across Europe are all linked up and the speeds increased as well as the capacity, maglev starts to link up the capital cities. Motorway speeds are increased and a new way of adding lanes is developed as well as having adjustable medians. One of the new channel tunnels is a motorway reducing times for waiting for ferries/trains and increasing capacity. The Broadband network is upgraded heavily with speeds rivalling South Korea across the whole of Europe. That would pretty much remove the need for planes. But without an ash cloud to stop flights that will never happen as it would damage the flight industry too much and nowadays destroying an industry for the sake of moving on is out of the question.quote> Yes yes, but how do you propose to do *any* of this? all seems a bit outlandish. Current HSR network in europe is kinda limited. Maglev is way way off, there isn't a cross channel tunnel for cars. and transatlantic tunnel? pretty much impossible right now.

Originally posted by: raja_indy14Expecting people to find work when jobs are simply not available is not a very effective strategy. Yes, some people are lazy or suffer from mental disabilities that prevent them from getting or keeping a job, but there are also many people that have lost their jobs recently for reasons that are beyond their control. Is it just that these people should be abandoned to the elements when a society possesses the resources to assist them? This is particularly relevant in a society that has largely abandoned traditional, non-state approaches to welfare (such as family and the church), or where these are much less capable of providing the necessary support to the numbers of people that need it.quote> I don't know if this is what he actually meant, but when people loose their jobs, just saying "ok here's a check" is a bit silly. they should, at least, be trying to improve their skills etc. with all the extra time that they have. Of course, setting up a fair and balanced system for that would be difficult (eg, people who don't live near a place of study).

Don't think this volcano is all that big actually, it just happens to be in a position to dump ash over one of the most dense (in terms of air travel) parts of the world. I mean, there's a huge ocean it could have put ash on, and it goes to europe, covering it almost perfectly.

Originally posted by: Duke87 That's the key problem with a welfare state. It encourages this sort of bheavior, and in doing so fails to actually produce money that can be used for anything. As the old saying about the Soviets goes, "We'll pretend to work and you'll pretend to pay us". quote> Actually, i'd disagree. Its a key problem with a badly regulated system, but a welfare state can exist without anything like that going on if the proper checks are done properly. For example, down here they'll watch you with (hidden) camera's if they suspect something is up. If they get the video evidence that your not actually disabled (one example was, guy who claimed he had a crook back who pushed a caravan into a shed), they'll make you pay all the money that they gave you back. That alone might be a bit of a turnoff for some people.

News here is saying that no flights will happen until sunday (however, if a flight leaves friday british time it wouldn't make it to europe until sunday our time), anyone confrim this?

I had a few LHD issues with my cities, installed both NAM and RHW as left hand drive, but roundabouts would still default to RHD or something. ended up just swiching to pure RHD in frustration.

Except for the 60 odd people killed.

Originally posted by: mightygoose now i'm pretty sure that the BNP foreign policy doesn't extend to genocide. lets not go too far in that comparison.quote> And Hitler outlined his plans back in the 30's? Don't get me wrong, i think it's a bit of a streach to say that the BNP are going to be anything like the Nazi party, however, they're not the kind of party i'd like in my country. (we had something similar in the 90's, but it died thankfully)

I'm not sure i'd vote for the UKIP either:

Some advice: maybe you should be basing your views of engineering on what your experience was from half a degree 30odd years ago. Admittedly, i'm only 3 years into a 4 year degree, but nothing of what your saying even begins to seem logical compared to what i've seen.

I'm loving the ramp on the right better: goes off to a dead end over the water. thought that kind of thing only happened in movies!

The term 'police state' is thrown around with abandon thesedays. However we experience nothing like the conditions that you might in a real police state. That being said, a news network here tried to run a "ohh they dont want us to homeschool, evil gubberment" kind of story here. Except there wasn't really any government oppositon to the people homeschooling their kids: the gov was just getting up those who hadn't registered their kids for homeschooling.

Interestingly, i learnt a lot more about the history of WW2 during my grade 11-12 english class than i ever did in a 'history' class. Had a good teacher though.

You can't make those sort of claims without a source mate. Seriously, its just bordering on the region of sensationalist crud there.