Tags for this video have been changed from 'steve, martin' to 'Steve Martin, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, Dusty Bottoms, Ned Nederlander, Lucky Day' - edited by Throbbin

Chevy Cavalier: Asexual car of the year

Well, the decay of power is one thing that makes the current grid bad. There are others, I'm sure, but I can't name any. The point is, though, that this solution won't necessarily come from the power company. It'll come from consumers who will see this as a way to reduce their energy costs, with a one-time investment that will pay for itself over time.

Once they have power generating capabilities in their own home, and they see they can make as much as they need and then some, the next logical step is to try to sell the excess back to the grid. There are ways of doing that today with solar and wind, but they usually require installing an expensive replacement to your current electricity counter (the exact name of the device escapes me at the moment .

The power companies themselves might see this as a more economic way of producing power than building a nuclear power plant, or a coal one. Distributing these in neighborhoods across a city lets you avoid massive blackouts by one power plant going down, like what happened in New York a while back, increasing the survivability of the grid as a whole. I'm in IT, so we're always thinking about Single Points of Failure in a network

The battery ownership approach reduces the price of the car, because you don't need to buy a battery with the car. Electric cars and plug-in hybrids cost as much as they do because of the battery, not because the car is infused with gold. Buying just a car and a subscription for monthly "eMiles", to use Agassi's term, gives you the benefits of the electric car without the cost of buying a battery. Batteries also decay over time, meaning buying the battery with the car (like in the Chevy Volt) would either require replacing the battery every few years, or driving less and less on the pure electric mode.

The smart grid is necessary. It will save money, it will give power companies options they never had before in terms of power management, and it will let end users generate power and reduce their bills by installing green energy producing equipment on and in their homes. It's the only thing that will let us move away from coal burning plants, nuclear plants and the rest of the deal-with-the-devil type of power generation we have today.

I'm sort of enjoying this too... It's not often that I get a chance to actually discuss this topic and articulate my point of view. Keep it going!
>> ^Stormsinger:
This is getting interesting now. I'd rate this discussion quite a bit higher than the video.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the decay during transmission was estimated at 7.2% back in 1995 (and unlikely to have gotten worse). That's a lot better than when I had expected, and doesn't supply much reason to convert to a new technology.
I've heard a bit about the battery ownership approach (undoubtedly from one of the sifted vids), and that may well offer a solution for the first two issues. It doesn't strike me as helping price, though. We'll see.
I'm far less enthusiastic about using car batteries for grid storage. That sort of aggregated solution has been proposed in other areas. The ones I'm familiar with were mainly IT-related, like using local hard-drives in a company's workstations to store backups. So far, I haven't heard of one example that didn't have serious issues. Admittedly, electricity is fungible, while data is not. But I still think control and coordination is likely to make it unfeasible. Think about the start of rush hour...all those cars that were making up a shortage get pulled off the grid in a very short time. That sort of scenario would make temporary shortages even worse, not better.
It probably -can- be done. I'm less sure it can be done efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. My own prediction is that the approach won't account for more than a miniscule fraction of storage. I'd put my money on non-battery storage, either gravitational or thermal.

Pretty sure this is a dupe: http://www.videosift.com/video/SMASH-Crash-test-1959-Chevy-Bel-Air

Tags for this video have been changed from 'song, martin, short, chase, amigos' to 'three amigos, steve martin, chevy chase, martin short, john landis' - edited by gwiz665

They trashed Chevy so bad that they wouldn't let them test their new Camaro or whatever it was when they went to America. Hammond had to go to a dealer and buy one so they could test it. Also yeah sometimes they praise cars, it's lovely when they're praising a car I'll never afford in my lifetime. A lot of the time they just shit on cars the X6 was a particularly funny one, they also shit on the X5 so I guess BMW should stick to cars.

I don't watch Top Gear for it's buying advice unless it's testing a car I can afford. I watch it for it's entertainment value, and it really is one of the best shows on television in my opinion.

Hmmm, something strange is happenin,';dsj'kjdsf

<monotone>

must. get. chevy. volt.

Love this movie. Chevy Chase was the man.

>> ^rychan:
The creator seems like a Bill Murray fan, yet no Caddyshack?


Definitely needed a clip with Chevy Chase making Six Million Dollar Man sounds while putting.

nuuuuu-nuuuu-nuuu-nuu-nu... duuuuu-duuuu-duuu-duu-du... nuuuuu-nuuuu-nuuu-nuu-nu...

I think the dudes in the '57 Chevy dieded.

*dupe

http://www.videosift.com/video/SMASH-Crash-test-1959-Chevy-Bel-Air

*discard

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Crash, test, 1959, chevy, bel air, timeshift, smash' to 'Crash, test, 1959, chevy, bel air, timeshift, chevrolet, collision, malibu, 2009' - edited by wingnut

Listening to 'Salem's Lot on audiobook when I exercise, but am reading textbooks from school.

If you want a good read, track down a copy of Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F.Saint. Good read and not like the Chevy Chase movie.

Will be doing Jeffrey Archer's Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less next.

I've got caught in water much deeper then expected a couple of times when the street unexpectedly dipped down in an area. One of those times I did end up getting towed (Chevy Cavalier, ugh) It is quite possible he moving and in too deep when he realized he was screwed, so he just went for it.

Reminds me of the Chevy Chase "Vacation" movie.