PrezKennedy's Soapbox
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Honey don't forget to plug in the car!
It looks like the crazy automobile fanatics are trying to find ways of making their cars more efficient. I was just reading an article on the New York Times regarding "hybrid-car owners" (registration required) and it seems they've found a way to do it... seemingly. A few owners of the Toyota Prius have gone ahead and modified the car so it can be plugged into the wall to charge its batteries. Doing this, they claim, has made it so it can get upwards of 100 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Pretty crazy isn't it? What's funny is that Toyota and Honda, two of the premiere manufacturers of hybrid-cars, have made the assertion that the cars don't need to be plugged in--and they really don't want you to do it, even going so far as to make a commercial about it.
I'm all for clean, efficient propulsion, but I want to mention--like others have, that when you plug your car into the wall outlet, it's being charged by a power plant somewhere, and 60% of the power plants here in the United States burn coal, which is far more polluting than gasoline. Clearly a trade-off isn't it? You can have higher gas mileage if you modify your already expensive hybrid-car and charge it with electricity from a source that's probably very polluting, or just go with the hybrid-car and skip the wall outlet option--getting less miles to the gallon in the process. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still a few years away, and most of the other "green car" options just aren't as robust as a normal car or a hybrid-car.
At least we're making some progress in that area. I'm really looking forward to the day when we don't depend on the Middle East for anything. :-) ¶ 4:22 AM 0 comments
It looks like the crazy automobile fanatics are trying to find ways of making their cars more efficient. I was just reading an article on the New York Times regarding "hybrid-car owners" (registration required) and it seems they've found a way to do it... seemingly. A few owners of the Toyota Prius have gone ahead and modified the car so it can be plugged into the wall to charge its batteries. Doing this, they claim, has made it so it can get upwards of 100 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Pretty crazy isn't it? What's funny is that Toyota and Honda, two of the premiere manufacturers of hybrid-cars, have made the assertion that the cars don't need to be plugged in--and they really don't want you to do it, even going so far as to make a commercial about it.
I'm all for clean, efficient propulsion, but I want to mention--like others have, that when you plug your car into the wall outlet, it's being charged by a power plant somewhere, and 60% of the power plants here in the United States burn coal, which is far more polluting than gasoline. Clearly a trade-off isn't it? You can have higher gas mileage if you modify your already expensive hybrid-car and charge it with electricity from a source that's probably very polluting, or just go with the hybrid-car and skip the wall outlet option--getting less miles to the gallon in the process. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still a few years away, and most of the other "green car" options just aren't as robust as a normal car or a hybrid-car.
At least we're making some progress in that area. I'm really looking forward to the day when we don't depend on the Middle East for anything. :-) ¶ 4:22 AM 0 comments
One Crime doesn't Deserve Another
I was surfing Kuro5hin and was attracted to a story written by a pretty shameless troll there about a girl who was caught plagiarising when she asked some guy online to write a paper about Hinduism. Unfortunately, she asked the wrong guy and her act of plagiarism has made her famous on the Internet... I've always told people that if they want something to be kept private, to communicate through a secure channel... definitely not online! Course, no one ever believes me, and then stuff like this happens. On the other side of the story, I'll give you a quote about this blogger's website, just so you know what type of person she was busted by.
Quote:
A Week of Kindness, New York’s only sketch comedy group, until recently was a bad handball team, with a bad handball team name and a bad handball game. We began to dabble in sketch comedy when a grizzled kinesiologist with a magnificent collection of beards and osteoporotic strength told us on his deathbed that it would be good cross-training for handball. The rest is glorious legend.
You know they have to be good with a story like that right? :-o Anyways, I'm not really interested in the aspect of this story regarding the plagiarism as it's clearly wrong without any doubt and if you want to read about that, you can check out the guy's website, A Week of Kindness. I went ahead and used Google's method for preventing the link from being spidered since I really have no desire to reward someone who has performed that type of cruelty on another person with any type of PageRank boost.. Back to the story, I'm not interested in the plagiarism, but instead the privacy violations this blogger has committed.
I have to take a strong stance against such privacy violations, as I have always taken a benevolent stance with people I know on my own website. I don't mention names because I feel as though I'd be violating their right to privacy, although I do have some pictures up. Your privacy is safe here, I have never had any desire to embarrass anyone I know on this website... that would be evilness far beyond my league. I had to bring this up because it isn't anyone else's business about what goes on in an instant message, or in a conversation, or even what happened that day. The right thing to do was alert school officials of the conversation, send them a transcript, and then wash his hands of the matter instead of blowing it up into a big farce and publicity stunt for himself. The blogger, Nate Kushner, went out of his way to humiliate this girl online, and now people are harassing her and he's made a name of him and his website that way. Is this the type of treatment you would appreciate from someone online? I would most certainly would not!!
In the end, one crime has been matched with another. A student was caught plagiarisng, but in the process, the person who caught her violated her right to privacy online for personal gain and has done nothing to protect it after the whole matter was resolved. Sure, you can't erase everything on the Internet, but you can remove the damning evidence and respect someone's privacy. It's just simple courtesy afterall. ¶ 4:18 AM 0 comments
I was surfing Kuro5hin and was attracted to a story written by a pretty shameless troll there about a girl who was caught plagiarising when she asked some guy online to write a paper about Hinduism. Unfortunately, she asked the wrong guy and her act of plagiarism has made her famous on the Internet... I've always told people that if they want something to be kept private, to communicate through a secure channel... definitely not online! Course, no one ever believes me, and then stuff like this happens. On the other side of the story, I'll give you a quote about this blogger's website, just so you know what type of person she was busted by.
Quote:
A Week of Kindness, New York’s only sketch comedy group, until recently was a bad handball team, with a bad handball team name and a bad handball game. We began to dabble in sketch comedy when a grizzled kinesiologist with a magnificent collection of beards and osteoporotic strength told us on his deathbed that it would be good cross-training for handball. The rest is glorious legend.
You know they have to be good with a story like that right? :-o Anyways, I'm not really interested in the aspect of this story regarding the plagiarism as it's clearly wrong without any doubt and if you want to read about that, you can check out the guy's website, A Week of Kindness. I went ahead and used Google's method for preventing the link from being spidered since I really have no desire to reward someone who has performed that type of cruelty on another person with any type of PageRank boost.. Back to the story, I'm not interested in the plagiarism, but instead the privacy violations this blogger has committed.
I have to take a strong stance against such privacy violations, as I have always taken a benevolent stance with people I know on my own website. I don't mention names because I feel as though I'd be violating their right to privacy, although I do have some pictures up. Your privacy is safe here, I have never had any desire to embarrass anyone I know on this website... that would be evilness far beyond my league. I had to bring this up because it isn't anyone else's business about what goes on in an instant message, or in a conversation, or even what happened that day. The right thing to do was alert school officials of the conversation, send them a transcript, and then wash his hands of the matter instead of blowing it up into a big farce and publicity stunt for himself. The blogger, Nate Kushner, went out of his way to humiliate this girl online, and now people are harassing her and he's made a name of him and his website that way. Is this the type of treatment you would appreciate from someone online? I would most certainly would not!!
In the end, one crime has been matched with another. A student was caught plagiarisng, but in the process, the person who caught her violated her right to privacy online for personal gain and has done nothing to protect it after the whole matter was resolved. Sure, you can't erase everything on the Internet, but you can remove the damning evidence and respect someone's privacy. It's just simple courtesy afterall. ¶ 4:18 AM 0 comments
