Thoughts - electric vs petrol and mobile phones

paul.skibum

It's 11.15pm, I've had a few beers but two things occurred to me based on Canadian/US ads I just saw:

New Nissan electric car - advert suggests what if everything ran on petrol and shows people with petrol powered coffee machines, mobile phones, PC's etc then says "what if nothing ran on petrol" and shows the nissan car. Now if everyone who owned a petrol car disposed of them and bought an electric car I suggest we would hit another form of energy problem in a day. Surely we need to rethink our transportation issues rather than just changing them to another form of power?

Second - smart phones - why does no one ever appear in phone ads using the phone to make a phone call?

Muttly1981

Wow after a few beers i think about boobs and lady gardens


Petrol powered goods
http://youtu.be/vDlMLqdvHzI
http://youtu.be/pJ9-yw6EgCQ

toastedone

After a few beers I think of more beers

El Capitano

After a beer, I collapse and am very, very ill.

Meanwhile, a petrol powered mobile phone sounds like a plan! Needs to be at least a V8... :twisted:

The Northern Monkey

[hub] the only replacement for petrol is the hydrogen fuel cell, electricity just doesn't and won't work... you still need fossil fuels to generate enough electricity so its a false economy [/hub]

[crudcatcher] only a few beers? MTFU. [/crudcatcher]

tom_howard

paul.skibum wrote:

It's 11.15pm, I've had a few beers but two things occurred to me based on Canadian/US ads I just saw:

New Nissan electric car - advert suggests what if everything ran on petrol and shows people with petrol powered coffee machines, mobile phones, PC's etc then says "what if nothing ran on petrol" and shows the nissan car. Now if everyone who owned a petrol car disposed of them and bought an electric car I suggest we would hit another form of energy problem in a day. Surely we need to rethink our transportation issues rather than just changing them to another form of power?

Second - smart phones - why does no one ever appear in phone ads using the phone to make a phone call?

The thing about powered transport is they all need to be erm, whats the word? oh yeah, powered. So that's all we'll always be doing, the question is whats the best one to change to?

*cough* hydrogen fuel cells *cough*

As for the smartphone thing Apple did it when they launched the iPhone, and i'm pretty sure Nokia do with their latest offering?

There, i've humoured you. now, why are you thinking about that sh!t while drunk, should you not be concentrating on finding a woman, or more beer, or bacons?

tom_howard

Damn, The Northern Monkey beat me to it!

sheepsteeth

can you get a kebab in canada? if so, my thoughts would be more oncetrated on that information than mobiles and vehicles.

Ryan Jones

I'd be thinking of Terrance and Philip, naturally

paul.skibum

No kebabs here. Well, not within 25km of me anyway.

Not that many boobs either.

Probably should have posted this in the Hub! Hydrogen fuel cells and a change in peoples attitude toward transportation needed. As for the phone thing it shocks me the waste of the technology we have these days - science should be looking to correct the problems of the world not invent a new phone which does whatever the hell phones do these days.

Right I am going cycling.

thekickingmule

Technology moves quickly, but small parts of technology can move slowly.

They're looking into technology where you can turn sound waves into energy. They're trying to make it small and effecient enough that you will be able to charge your phone rapidly when speaking into it, and it will charge itself when just near anything noisy ie traffic.

The reason phone ads don't show the person talking on it, is because that's so basic it isn't worth showing. Have you any idea how much it costs to show an advert on tv?

supersonic

Hydrogen doesn't solve any energy problems at the minute - still got to crack it using power from somewhere.

The Northern Monkey

The only problem with hydrogen is that its too expensive... as fossil fuels run out and prices increase, people will start to invest more in hydrogen and the technology will come I reckon.

IcarusGreen

I think electricity will be a major means of powering cars but only as part of a hybrid system and wouldn't be surprised is thats combined with hydrogen in the future. Personally with the prices of electricity going up i'm planning on having a self sufficient house (off the grid) in the future, getting power from solar panels, wind turbines, etc.

(But I am also planning on building my own house just before I finish my army career, building a car, running a marathon, taking part in an Iron man triathlon and lots of other fantasies that might not ever materialise)

The Northern Monkey

hybrid doesn't work either... you still need fossil fuels!

montevideoguy

The solution:

A hydrogen powered smartphone that only makes calls

Anonymous

The Northern Monkey wrote:

The only problem with hydrogen is that its too expensive... as fossil fuels run out and prices increase, people will start to invest more in hydrogen and the technology will come I reckon.

Hydrogen itself is no problem, being the most abundant element in the universe, but practical harnessing of it is. At least whilst oil is more profitable.

Fuel cells are the answer, but they're not going to happen any time soon. Batteries and charging are utterly impractical and are not going to replace burning oil based fuel any time soon.

And if phones just needed to make calls, Nokia would not have paid attention to the muppet CEO who slated the phones of what is still the biggest phone manufacturer in the world (not great smart phones, but they make good calls) and promised Microsoft's phone OS (bottom ranked) is the solution. Crap for calls, like iPhones, but yeah it's the solution, apparently.

montevideoguy

deadkenny wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

The only problem with hydrogen is that its too expensive... as fossil fuels run out and prices increase, people will start to invest more in hydrogen and the technology will come I reckon.

Hydrogen itself is no problem, being the most abundant element in the universe, but practical harnessing of it is. At least whilst oil is more profitable.

Fuel cells are the answer, but they're not going to happen any time soon. Batteries and charging are utterly impractical and are not going to replace burning oil based fuel any time soon.

And if phones just needed to make calls, Nokia would not have paid attention to the muppet CEO who slated the phones of what is still the biggest phone manufacturer in the world (not great smart phones, but they make good calls) and promised Microsoft's phone OS (bottom ranked) is the solution. Crap for calls, like iPhones, but yeah it's the solution, apparently.

The Nokia situation isn't as black and white as how you make it out to be. Nokia smartphones running on Symbian were years behind the other ecosystems in terms of being sluggish and lacking user friendliness. I'd agree that they were too hasty to drop Meego for WP7 but while the phones were good for calling, they were crap for most other things (try using the N8 for more than 20 mins without having the urge to smash it against a wall). In terms of changing to as new platform, they've probably made best choice as well. What else do they use? Go with Android and get lost in a sea of fragmentation? Go with WebOS and have an ecosystem no one wants to support? With the Microsoft deal they're going to be the top banana in the ecosystem (with a lot of money behind it) and will have a hand in R&D on the platform (something they'd never have gotten on Android...even before the Motorola deal). Add in things like Xbox live integration and an app store that is growing at a decent rate (without all the crapware/malware you get on Android marketplace).
Obviously not mentioning iOS as Apple wouldn't let it be released on anything non-Apple.
As for being crap to make calls on; have you actually used a WP7 device?

paul.skibum

Ecosystem?! WTF? You cannot describe the operating system or whatever as an ECOsystem since ECO implies life - phones are not life! Albeit that some seem to think they cant live without them.

As for phone user friendliness - I make phone calls and send texts - I could still use the one I had 15 years ago.

montevideoguy

An ecosystem in a technological context is a system where there is integration across multiple types of devices (either through programs or user experience). An example would be the Apple ecosystem where the user experience from iPhone to iPod to iPad to iMac is pretty similar.

If you've not heard the term then fair enough. It's commonly used though so I can describe it that way if I want :P

IcarusGreen

Montevideoguy wrote:

deadkenny wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

The only problem with hydrogen is that its too expensive... as fossil fuels run out and prices increase, people will start to invest more in hydrogen and the technology will come I reckon.

Hydrogen itself is no problem, being the most abundant element in the universe, but practical harnessing of it is. At least whilst oil is more profitable.

Fuel cells are the answer, but they're not going to happen any time soon. Batteries and charging are utterly impractical and are not going to replace burning oil based fuel any time soon.

And if phones just needed to make calls, Nokia would not have paid attention to the muppet CEO who slated the phones of what is still the biggest phone manufacturer in the world (not great smart phones, but they make good calls) and promised Microsoft's phone OS (bottom ranked) is the solution. Crap for calls, like iPhones, but yeah it's the solution, apparently.

The Nokia situation isn't as black and white as how you make it out to be. Nokia smartphones running on Symbian were years behind the other ecosystems in terms of being sluggish and lacking user friendliness. I'd agree that they were too hasty to drop Meego for WP7 but while the phones were good for calling, they were crap for most other things (try using the N8 for more than 20 mins without having the urge to smash it against a wall). In terms of changing to as new platform, they've probably made best choice as well. What else do they use? Go with Android and get lost in a sea of fragmentation? Go with WebOS and have an ecosystem no one wants to support? With the Microsoft deal they're going to be the top banana in the ecosystem (with a lot of money behind it) and will have a hand in R&D on the platform (something they'd never have gotten on Android...even before the Motorola deal). Add in things like Xbox live integration and an app store that is growing at a decent rate (without all the crapware/malware you get on Android marketplace).
Obviously not mentioning iOS as Apple wouldn't let it be released on anything non-Apple.
As for being crap to make calls on; have you actually used a WP7 device?

and SLEEP ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

montevideoguy

IcarusGreen wrote:

Montevideoguy wrote:

deadkenny wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

The only problem with hydrogen is that its too expensive... as fossil fuels run out and prices increase, people will start to invest more in hydrogen and the technology will come I reckon.

Hydrogen itself is no problem, being the most abundant element in the universe, but practical harnessing of it is. At least whilst oil is more profitable.

Fuel cells are the answer, but they're not going to happen any time soon. Batteries and charging are utterly impractical and are not going to replace burning oil based fuel any time soon.

And if phones just needed to make calls, Nokia would not have paid attention to the muppet CEO who slated the phones of what is still the biggest phone manufacturer in the world (not great smart phones, but they make good calls) and promised Microsoft's phone OS (bottom ranked) is the solution. Crap for calls, like iPhones, but yeah it's the solution, apparently.

The Nokia situation isn't as black and white as how you make it out to be. Nokia smartphones running on Symbian were years behind the other ecosystems in terms of being sluggish and lacking user friendliness. I'd agree that they were too hasty to drop Meego for WP7 but while the phones were good for calling, they were crap for most other things (try using the N8 for more than 20 mins without having the urge to smash it against a wall). In terms of changing to as new platform, they've probably made best choice as well. What else do they use? Go with Android and get lost in a sea of fragmentation? Go with WebOS and have an ecosystem no one wants to support? With the Microsoft deal they're going to be the top banana in the ecosystem (with a lot of money behind it) and will have a hand in R&D on the platform (something they'd never have gotten on Android...even before the Motorola deal). Add in things like Xbox live integration and an app store that is growing at a decent rate (without all the crapware/malware you get on Android marketplace).
Obviously not mentioning iOS as Apple wouldn't let it be released on anything non-Apple.
As for being crap to make calls on; have you actually used a WP7 device?

and SLEEP ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My brain also defaults to talking pish once alcohol has been consumed

Anonymous

sheepsteeth wrote:

can you get a kebab in canada?

Yes. They're called Canadian Kebabs, or "Cababs".


Hydrogen, and all the other "altervatives" are not an answer to any energy crisis. All they are is a cleaner way to propel vehicles.