Intermeccanica going all electric

Todd M posted:

IaM-Ray posted:

The only reason it takes government intervention at times, is that the marketplace is so competitive that we need a level playing field in an otherwise sometimes wild west economy.  

 

A competitive marketplace is the level playing field.  Equal opportunity does not mean equal results.

I agree, the game is always played where everyone starts at the starting line.. the outcomes are due to giftings (not earned) and hard work.

The issue in the end is your perception of how much total control you will allow if the monopoly of service no matter how good it is does not allow the common man to make a living and feed his family.

Hence the moral, dare I say it, responsibility to give others a leg up and prevent predatory behaviour....

Having said that, life isn’t fair and I really am a capitalist and I am always disturbed by those wanting equal outcomes without working but I am also frustratedly those who would vulture the weak.

All of this is drivel......   Really.  People are gonna buy what they want for all of their own reasons, even if/when it is regulated by Gum'Ment.  I used to drive a more-polluting diesel simply because it had more power (although the Urea-injection to lessen emissions I could have lived without).  It also ate me out of house and home.  Now I drive an IC car getting about 30mpg.  Meh.

I am truly sorry for the loss of your pup, @Michael Pickett.  I had to look that breed up and they are magnificent animals - Wicked smart, too.  We had full-size Collies for decades (we used them to herd the kids and their friends around the yard when they were small) and then a pair of the mellow-est, loving-est Jack Russells ever, anywhere.  

Every time I lost a dog to old age it was like tearing out my heart and trampling on it - We were losing a devoted family member and it hurt.  The hurt subsides after a while and you have some nice memories - old photos help - but it's not the same.  I can't do that anymore, so I'm dog-less for the first time in my whole life.   Sometimes I would like another, but then I remember the vet bills and boarding fees and the cost of special dog food because of Cushings disease in both of the Jacks and think it is OK to offer to be a dog-sitter for the neighbors and then see them go home.   

Still, we always carry dog treats with us when we walk the neighborhood in hopes of seeing any of the dozen or so being walked daily here.  Big or small, they all get treats from the Nichols' and they are all our special friends.

God Bless, Mike.  

Be strong.  gn

OK kids, I guess the fun's over-- dad told us to pipe down regarding the on-topic discussion of electric cars.

A couple hundred words on dogs we've loved is fine, however.

I have a golden retriever named Barney. He just turned 1 year old and he is a handful!!! I have had dogs my entire life and only have gone a few months without one.  Denise and I love every one of the dogs we have had but, this is the first one that she has said, "NO MORE PUPPIES!"  He has been the toughest to train, tame! He is still very love\able and he makes us laugh every day with his antics.

I have a golden retriever named Barney. He just turned 1 year old and he is a handful!!! I have had dogs my entire life and only have gone a few months without one.  Denise and I love every one of the dogs we have had but, this is the first one that she has said, "NO MORE PUPPIES!"  He has been the toughest to train, tame! He is still very love\able and he makes us laugh every day with his antics.

I wonder if it is age ?.... not the dogs

For sure, we had an Olde English sheepdog that was even wackier until he was about 3 years old.  This guy is still full of puppiness.... (I don't think it is a word, but it should be.) 

This sure went to the dogs!

To add to the dog thread drift, Our 5 y/o English Bulldog, Bentley. The term “stubborn” seems like an understatement. My wife sometimes will tell me that she thinks he’s going deaf, to which I just need to open the refrigerator. Within seconds, he’ll awake from a deep sleep and be right at my feet waiting. 

Not my Jack, but this is how they roll.  The Citroen(?) is pretty cool, too.

It’s a good thing we were rescued from the drivel of talking about electric cars by a love-in for dogs. 

When I was a 8 y/o kid I had a beagle / basset hound...strong dog that would take ME for a walk. My father set up a cable run for the dog from a tree 50' from the house to a heavy screw eye on the kitchen window frame. A rabbit runs across the yard, the dog takes notice and goes into a full pursuit mode turning 90 degrees from the cable and that move instantly pulled the kitchen window right out of the house ! 

Fast forward 6 decades I am seriously considering getting a "Pocket Beagle" these dogs remain the size of a puppy at about 4 - 5 lbs. 

Theo and Sami

Todd M posted:

Fusion is a dream.  Thorium is real.

I missed this sentence yesterday, but read it and did a little "YouTube Research" after church this morning. 

All I can say is wow. LFTR is the real deal.

Stan Galat posted:

Todd M posted:

Fusion is a dream.  Thorium is real.

I missed this sentence yesterday, but read it and did a little "YouTube Research" after church this morning. 

All I can say is wow. LFTR is the real deal.

Before I speculate, I research.  My research shows me that there will not be much money to made in this realm.  The technology will probably easy with no barrier to entry.  The great news is that the resulting electricity will be cheap and available enough that poorer countries and areas will have access.  The picture that keeps going through my mind is of people not having to use wood, charcoal, and dung for cooking and heating.  Maybe an inexpensive byproduct would be desalination?  How amazing would that be for those without access to clean water?  How much ill health could be brought to bay with clean energy and clean water? 

"When I was a 8 y/o kid I had a beagle / basset hound...strong dog that would take ME for a walk."

Ain't that the truth .... I still see grown ups being taken for a walk everyday  

One of my kids trains dogs and her Australian cattle dogs are just so well trained it is amazing to watch how attentive they are to her and how they actually seem to love having a job...something to do... 

The "You Tube Research" comment was meant to poke fun at myself, as I had never even heard of Thorium before your comment.

The thing is-- the fact that we're pursuing really imperfect and variable pie-in-the-sky semi-solutions (wind and solar), rather than look for something that offers constant and scaleable power reveals that we really aren't very serious about weaning off fossil fuels for electricity. Since we're not serious about a realistic solution to greatly increase the capacity of the grid, it makes me wonder why there is so much emphasis on electric cars, which simply moves the source of the pollution several steps upstream, with an attendant efficiency loss at every step.

If we really could generate all the power we might ever need, and do it without burning anything at all, and do it safely-- this might be the game-changer every pragmatic environmentalist should be looking for.

True Story, I was involved with an inventor who had created a dual fuel burner and incinerator that government scientist really thought were genius ideas but he got no traction.  Even when there was only two things produced by the incinerator output, CO2 and H2O.  How much more do you want...

Then he invented a generation system that could realistic double the output of a generator and another that would be able to use a 5mph stream to power up a village, again no traction.  The engineers were amazed at the logic and the simplistic but profound steps forward he had in his designs.  

He had a whole bunch of patents .... passed away sometime ago... many of his ideas in the patent office. 

We had lots of fun. 

I just showed my 10 year old neighbor how a solar panel works, from scratch. I gave him a radiometer and a gyroscope for his birthday. His radiometer sits on a window sill in his house where it takes light energy and spins away....  He comes over to my house to play in my workshop, mostly crushing stuff in vises ;-0..... but, every time he is here, we do or make something creative!   Power is all around us.. Harnessing it efficiently & safely is the key... The next generation can figure out how to make money from the sun, wind, geothermic, ocean waves and on and on and on.... there are lots of energy units in our world just waiting to be used....

   I have a daughter who is now a successful Phd in physics.  I like to think that she learned some stuff in my basement workshop too!  ;-) 

Jim, I can see she has the same smile