According to some recent publications, the level of CO2 emissions for the cars of a European country is not evolving since 2001, while there have been huge improvements with car engines. In fact, the problem is people just care about the diesel or gasoline consumption, since it is what directly impacts them.
But what about CO2 emissions? And how to check them?
This information is easily accessible for new models, since it is becoming a criterion for adding extra taxes, with the upcoming CO2 sticker in 2008 in France, or lower some in Belgium with lower taxes for cars under 120g/km.
But for older cars, how can you figure out if your car is somewhat green, or confront it with more recent models performances?
I have found a nice website: Ademe, a French site that allows you to get your car emissions level.
What I was able to seen there is, even if my car is a 8 years old Saxo VTS 1.4i, it is just as good as any similar new car with a similar engine: variation is only 1-2 g CO2/km and 0.1-0.2 l/100km.
Did really car running on unleaded gasoline evolved during the last 8 years? The only explanation I can find to this ridiculous difference is a change in electronic settings, running engines with poorer air/gasoline mix and so unsatisfying performances.
I think I will stick to my Saxo VTS for some more years...
Indeed some new technologies will soon become available, on the market, since gasoline hybrids are not very interesting, around 120 g/km, it is nice, but the overall consumption exceeds the one of diesel for the same car, and those are achieving far better performances!
Something interesting will come from hybrid diesel, that could reach 90g/km, but current hybrids are still missing some interesting improvements already used on electric public transportation systems, like super capacitors, that can absorb large amount of electric currents without the memory effects of the batteries.
Replacing part of the batteries with super capacitor, in sufficient capacity to store 70% of the car maximum cynetic energy (1/2*M*Vmax^2), would allow to store all the possible energy recovered when braking, and deliver it directly for the next acceleration phase, the rest would come from the batteries, that would only recharge when the car is cruising at a stable pace, avoiding too many charge/discharge cycles.
For the moment, I only see one usage for hybrids: gangstas, who want to cruise at low speed, without noise, running on electricity, to shoot other gangstas, and then accelerate on the electric+thermic engines to get a quick getaway...
jeudi 22 novembre 2007
lundi 19 novembre 2007
Facebook: challenge your friends...publicly?
Facebook is cool! You just hang around, find friends you have not seen for years, everyone leaves happily in the better world!
That was my first impression with Facebook. When you have found everyone you had lost, what do you do? Nothing?
WRONG!
If you are on Facebook, one of your friends should try to turn you into a vampire, a zombie a werewolf or a slayer! OK, right here, as a newbie you think for yourself: fine, I found him and he turned me into a Vampire... Friendship on Facebook is not as friendly in real life.
And then you try to earn points to become a really nasty Vampire, with an army of vampires, and you try to beat your friends. Starting a war on any subject, a competition on every single issue. Dealing with virtual living deads is OK, but I feel somewhat unhappy with some other tests: likeness or worse the IQ test!
What is it for?? Passing an IQ test in English on Facebook, is not very interesting, especially since English is not my mother tongue, I managed to score well, but felt disgusted because it looked like an old competition I did not have since primary school.
How social is it to walk in the city with everyone wearing a tee shirt displaying he IQ score??
Facebook, and globally "social networks" are missing something important: social networking is not about exhibitionism, you shoud be able to share your information relatively to the level of trust, confidence you have with the others: I don't want someone to be able to find me through my IQ score: what if someone you don't know tells you "He you, you are as stupid as my cat!" or worse "I want to be your friend because my IQ is lower, and you should be able to give me good advices!".
Come on, shame on this!
Societies are far more complex: human interactions are made from what we say, and more important: what we don't say!
Friends or not friend, is not enough!
Even if people were able to make groups, that would not be enough: some people should be able to earn the right to get access to your information, even if you don't know them, while some of your friends should not be able to learn too much about you!
I would like a self organizing social network, anyway the social network itself should be evaluated:
That was my first impression with Facebook. When you have found everyone you had lost, what do you do? Nothing?
WRONG!
If you are on Facebook, one of your friends should try to turn you into a vampire, a zombie a werewolf or a slayer! OK, right here, as a newbie you think for yourself: fine, I found him and he turned me into a Vampire... Friendship on Facebook is not as friendly in real life.
And then you try to earn points to become a really nasty Vampire, with an army of vampires, and you try to beat your friends. Starting a war on any subject, a competition on every single issue. Dealing with virtual living deads is OK, but I feel somewhat unhappy with some other tests: likeness or worse the IQ test!
What is it for?? Passing an IQ test in English on Facebook, is not very interesting, especially since English is not my mother tongue, I managed to score well, but felt disgusted because it looked like an old competition I did not have since primary school.
How social is it to walk in the city with everyone wearing a tee shirt displaying he IQ score??
Facebook, and globally "social networks" are missing something important: social networking is not about exhibitionism, you shoud be able to share your information relatively to the level of trust, confidence you have with the others: I don't want someone to be able to find me through my IQ score: what if someone you don't know tells you "He you, you are as stupid as my cat!" or worse "I want to be your friend because my IQ is lower, and you should be able to give me good advices!".
Come on, shame on this!
Societies are far more complex: human interactions are made from what we say, and more important: what we don't say!
Friends or not friend, is not enough!
Even if people were able to make groups, that would not be enough: some people should be able to earn the right to get access to your information, even if you don't know them, while some of your friends should not be able to learn too much about you!
I would like a self organizing social network, anyway the social network itself should be evaluated:
is it really a friend to you?
Misconceptions in electric appliances
Last week, I came back to my 3 in 1 waffles/grill/croque-monsieur maker, that was in fully non-working condition for 2 years.
I barely made two sessions of waffles, 3 times did I had the chance to use the croque-monsieur functionality and once, and to the device dead, the grill function.
My first diagnostic, years ago was a problem with the juice coming from the meat, that could have short-circuited the device to its defective state.
OK, it was assembled with strange screws and I did not have enough motivation to go further.
Last week end, I was sleepy and was suddenly in the mood of understanding the internals of my dead 3 in 1 WGC-M.
Here I go, first, transform the strange screws in effective ones, thanks to a circular saw, the hardest part is not understanding, just opening it without destroying the whole case: apparently, manufacturers are using more engineers to design a device that you can only open by almost destroying it, than to conceive the way it operates: it is just like if you bought a pair of nice looking shoes and needed to get rid of one of your toes when you want to remove them!
I paid for the device, i want to be able to open it, removing a sticker voiding the warranty has never been a problem for me, but destroying the device to solely reach its internal parts does not sound very normal to me.
The more expensive and well designed a device is, the more serviceable it is too!
That said, I managed to open the device, tested the thermostat, and after opening the full shell, I found a nasty component: a thermofuse!
What is it: a 10A fuse, that mold if there is a short-cut and also if it is too warm. It should have melt if the thermostat was not working anymore or a stupid guy just heated this side with a lighter, the problem is that the thermostat was on the bottom side, while the thermofuse was on the upper one, so with some meat, the bottom gets cold, and the thermostat just rises the temperature of both sides while the upper one may be further of the meat, and then becomes hotter than the normal usage.
A thermostat on one side and a thermofuse on the other, nice try, but with this kind of engineering the device is a one time grill since a thermofuse turn the complete device out of order for good.
I fixed it just by removing the thermofuse, as a quick workaround, my next tweak will be to add a second thermostat to the upper part, and have 2 independent plates for a more environmentally friendly device, and also had a thermofuse on each side, with a higher temperature on the upper side. That should be good enough and fairly inexpensive customization.
The only problem is the overall design of this SBIHTOTWGC-M (Sorry But I Had To Open The WGC-M)!
May I now eat my Waffles?
I barely made two sessions of waffles, 3 times did I had the chance to use the croque-monsieur functionality and once, and to the device dead, the grill function.
My first diagnostic, years ago was a problem with the juice coming from the meat, that could have short-circuited the device to its defective state.
OK, it was assembled with strange screws and I did not have enough motivation to go further.
Last week end, I was sleepy and was suddenly in the mood of understanding the internals of my dead 3 in 1 WGC-M.
Here I go, first, transform the strange screws in effective ones, thanks to a circular saw, the hardest part is not understanding, just opening it without destroying the whole case: apparently, manufacturers are using more engineers to design a device that you can only open by almost destroying it, than to conceive the way it operates: it is just like if you bought a pair of nice looking shoes and needed to get rid of one of your toes when you want to remove them!
I paid for the device, i want to be able to open it, removing a sticker voiding the warranty has never been a problem for me, but destroying the device to solely reach its internal parts does not sound very normal to me.
The more expensive and well designed a device is, the more serviceable it is too!
That said, I managed to open the device, tested the thermostat, and after opening the full shell, I found a nasty component: a thermofuse!
What is it: a 10A fuse, that mold if there is a short-cut and also if it is too warm. It should have melt if the thermostat was not working anymore or a stupid guy just heated this side with a lighter, the problem is that the thermostat was on the bottom side, while the thermofuse was on the upper one, so with some meat, the bottom gets cold, and the thermostat just rises the temperature of both sides while the upper one may be further of the meat, and then becomes hotter than the normal usage.
A thermostat on one side and a thermofuse on the other, nice try, but with this kind of engineering the device is a one time grill since a thermofuse turn the complete device out of order for good.
I fixed it just by removing the thermofuse, as a quick workaround, my next tweak will be to add a second thermostat to the upper part, and have 2 independent plates for a more environmentally friendly device, and also had a thermofuse on each side, with a higher temperature on the upper side. That should be good enough and fairly inexpensive customization.
The only problem is the overall design of this SBIHTOTWGC-M (Sorry But I Had To Open The WGC-M)!
May I now eat my Waffles?
mardi 5 juin 2007
Icechallenge
Here you can find monre information about Ice challenge that takes place in Belgium. I think the first place was in Brussels, the link above points to the results (in French, Flamish is also available here but nothing in English). For an interesting project like this one, English language should have been an option, but I'll try to do my best to explain it.
At the same start date, 2 block of ice weighting 1 ton each were put in 2 different cases, with the symbolic shape of 2 houses, one is well insulated and the other one is pretty basic, and both of them are passive: there is no electric device inside to keep them cool.
After 11 days the block of is completely melt in the red house (the one which is badly isolated), and at day 0 + 44 the second house, the green well isolated one, is openned to weight the amount of remaining ice: 456,673 kg of remaining ice, so 45% remaining after 44 days! Pretty good deal for your house.
I think this was an interesting project in Brussels, because obviously, if you were in Brussels during those 44 days, you must have see those 2 blocks: flashy red and green, and should have read about it thanks to the information available on site. The conclusion, is that a well insolated house is something like 7-8 times more efficient at keeping its energy than a standard one, only with passive isolation! There are many more active means to improve your house energetic autonomy. Interesting, to see how big is the gap!
At the same start date, 2 block of ice weighting 1 ton each were put in 2 different cases, with the symbolic shape of 2 houses, one is well insulated and the other one is pretty basic, and both of them are passive: there is no electric device inside to keep them cool.
After 11 days the block of is completely melt in the red house (the one which is badly isolated), and at day 0 + 44 the second house, the green well isolated one, is openned to weight the amount of remaining ice: 456,673 kg of remaining ice, so 45% remaining after 44 days! Pretty good deal for your house.
I think this was an interesting project in Brussels, because obviously, if you were in Brussels during those 44 days, you must have see those 2 blocks: flashy red and green, and should have read about it thanks to the information available on site. The conclusion, is that a well insolated house is something like 7-8 times more efficient at keeping its energy than a standard one, only with passive isolation! There are many more active means to improve your house energetic autonomy. Interesting, to see how big is the gap!
mercredi 23 mai 2007
Speculations about Iphone Europe carrier
There is a lot of buzz around apple Iphone: Apple wants a single operator on every continent, and this can effectively work in the US, since, iphone is a GSM phone and so only available through cingular/AT&T, all the others relying on CDMA.
In Europe, this will be more difficult, since every operator is using GSM standard: there are some talks between Apple - Orange and Apple - Vodaphone and some other.
So, who will be chosen by Apple?
Orange ? Vodaphone ? another one ?
Vodaphone is present worldwide, as Verizon in the US.
Orange has strong links with Cingular since 2005, to buy large amont of phones and drop the prices for the 2 companies. This is already a small clue.
Another aspect is technical: as iphone targets travellers (Google map and GPS), it should be easy for Iphone users to travel with their iphone. Obviously if you buy an iphone in Europe you would like it to work in... the US for example. So Apple chosen carrier in Europe should be able to use iphone in the US.
Let's make an assumption: Vodaphone is chosen by Apple. Vodaphone's partner carrier in the US is Verizon, since, it is the same company. So iphones purchased in Europe should be able to work on Verizon network in the US, this means that European Iphones should be able to work on CDMA networks, and so anyone living in the US could be able to by a European Iphone to operate on any network in the US. Apple would noot like it, and moreover, this infringes the deal between Cingular and Apple: there would be no exclusivity anymore. If Vodaphone wants to be chosen by Apple in Europe, it should negociate with Cingular to use their GSM network in the US. Do you really think Cingular will help Vodaphone, and so Verizon in the US market, to gain more money in Europe and be able to be more agressive in the US market?
That is why I think Vodaphone has no chance to be chosen by Apple in Europe.
On the other hand Orange has a partnership with Cingular, I don't think Orange threatens Cingular on the US market (or there would be no partnership between them). But in Europe, Apple can choose any carrier (except Vodaphone): all the networks can interoperate, since they all comply, at least, with GSM standard. Moreover, if you buy a locked GSM phone in a European country you can use it in another country with another SIM card.
The only possible mean to refrain cross European traffic of Iphones would be to limit access to some software functionalities by forbidding their implementation on concurrent European GSM networks, and this lead to a problem for frequent travelers...
Apple recently told that the Iphone won't be able to use CDMA for the next 5 years, it looks like a confirmation of my speculations.
In Europe, this will be more difficult, since every operator is using GSM standard: there are some talks between Apple - Orange and Apple - Vodaphone and some other.
So, who will be chosen by Apple?
Orange ? Vodaphone ? another one ?
Vodaphone is present worldwide, as Verizon in the US.
Orange has strong links with Cingular since 2005, to buy large amont of phones and drop the prices for the 2 companies. This is already a small clue.
Another aspect is technical: as iphone targets travellers (Google map and GPS), it should be easy for Iphone users to travel with their iphone. Obviously if you buy an iphone in Europe you would like it to work in... the US for example. So Apple chosen carrier in Europe should be able to use iphone in the US.
Let's make an assumption: Vodaphone is chosen by Apple. Vodaphone's partner carrier in the US is Verizon, since, it is the same company. So iphones purchased in Europe should be able to work on Verizon network in the US, this means that European Iphones should be able to work on CDMA networks, and so anyone living in the US could be able to by a European Iphone to operate on any network in the US. Apple would noot like it, and moreover, this infringes the deal between Cingular and Apple: there would be no exclusivity anymore. If Vodaphone wants to be chosen by Apple in Europe, it should negociate with Cingular to use their GSM network in the US. Do you really think Cingular will help Vodaphone, and so Verizon in the US market, to gain more money in Europe and be able to be more agressive in the US market?
That is why I think Vodaphone has no chance to be chosen by Apple in Europe.
On the other hand Orange has a partnership with Cingular, I don't think Orange threatens Cingular on the US market (or there would be no partnership between them). But in Europe, Apple can choose any carrier (except Vodaphone): all the networks can interoperate, since they all comply, at least, with GSM standard. Moreover, if you buy a locked GSM phone in a European country you can use it in another country with another SIM card.
The only possible mean to refrain cross European traffic of Iphones would be to limit access to some software functionalities by forbidding their implementation on concurrent European GSM networks, and this lead to a problem for frequent travelers...
Apple recently told that the Iphone won't be able to use CDMA for the next 5 years, it looks like a confirmation of my speculations.
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