Cost of a Traffic Signal ??

Yeah - cars with big sails. Or a big wind-up key. :-)

Anybody doing research on artificial muscles? I read somewhere that if a car could be made to use fuel as efficiently ((pound*miles)/calories) that it'd get on the order of 900 MPG.

Cheers! Rich

Jim Thomps>

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 03:57:43 GMT, Rich Grise Gave us:

You ain't real bright, are ya, boy?

A moped is a considerably smaller mass than any car, and it only gets a couple hundred MPG at a maxed out speed of 30MPH.

You, and your mindset is in the stone age. You mentioned pounds miles... calories, but you seem to have ZERO grasp of what WORK costs to get done, or you would know that your figure is ludicrous.

No, both the human body and cars are in the general ballpark of being

25% efficient at converting chemical energy to mechanical energy. A well-trained cyclist's body may be a little more efficient - maybe in the ballpark of diesel cars (roughly 30% efficient).

Somehow I figure roughly 30 calories (actually kilocalories) to pedal a mile. A car that gets 30 MPG consumes something like 1100 of these calories per mile for almost 100 times as much weight. The car gets more pound-miles (moving steadily) per calorie by having less air resistance per pound than cyclists have.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Please, DM, do us the courtesy of reading the entire question as written before snapping your steel-trap mind shut.

A moped utilizes the calories available in gasoline almost as poorly as a car.

You body uses the calories that it gets from food.

There's obviously less energy in a loaf of bread than in a quart of gasoline; that's why you have to be ~50 times more effecient at extracting it.

I'd have to look it up, if I had to look it up, but there's a really really simple formula for figuring out how many calories of energy are in a gallon of gasoline. Or in a loaf of bread.

I saw Mr. Wizard burn some crackers once, and somehow figure out by the heat released how many calories were "in" the crackers. I don't recall how he measured the heat output.

And he used pure O2 - it burned through the tin can the crackers were in.

Mr. Wizard is Cool!

Cheers! Rich

DarkMatter wrote:

The

to

same

I pay

for

the

It would be nice if life were like that but I suspect your logic is a tad flawed.

Then again maybe not. I sometimes buy a train ticket to go places on a train, maybe this allows me to put my own engine on the lines and zoom up and down as I am obviously paying for the lines upkeep, no that doesn't seem to work either.

On Tue, 9 Dec 2003 08:58:31 -0000, "Mjolinor" Gave us:

BIG difference between taxpayer appropriated roadways, and Private railroads, which nearly ALL of them are in this country.

Our tax dollars DO generate the revenues to build the roads, as is the law.

Private rail fares serve as profit for the PRIVATE firm that runs the railway.

ALL rubber tired, wheeled vehicles are allowed on all public roadways. Vehicular status is a term given to describe the legal, "road worthy" "vehicle" Bicycles have this status in most states, and have for several decades.

No, dipshit, you cannot put your train engine on their private track.

When you pass a cyclist, MOVE THE FUCK OVER. STEER CLEAR, NOT NEAR!

No, you do NOT just SQUEEZE by, as that is actually SLEEZING by on the oath you took when you signed for your license.

You are still wrong- the railways are private, and when you buy a ticket, you are only buying a ride. The roads and highways are public, and your taxes pay for their construction and upkeep. You are mixing apples and oranges.

Cheers!

Chip Shults My robotics, space and CGI web page -

Your laws allow bicycles and mopeds on controlled-access highways?

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:13:25 GMT, Spehro Pefhany Gave us:

Yes. There are several highways that have a bike lane. But only those are allowed. Many are not. All else is surface streets only.

That depends where you live

I would have to agree that bicyling steadily, without strenuous excercise, does not consume large amounts of calories and the 30 calories per mile idea sounds about right. If we eat a typical candybar, that's 250 calories, which equates to about 8.3 miles if you wanted to "burn it off."

Same with treadmills, once I saw one that had an electronic calorometer. I jogged my ass off for 15 minutes and only burned like 50 calories... how dissapointing. :)

-- snip --

-- snip --

Hmmm... this is starting to get a bit nasty, the usual flaming between automobilists and bicyclists.

I would like to point though that at least in the US, automobilists do not actually pay for all the costs associated with using the roads. Fuel taxes (criminally low in the US IMHO) only pay for between 35% and 80% of the direct costs of roads. By direct costs I mean repairs, new construction, etc. The rest comes from other local, state, and federal taxes. Even people who never drive pay for "part" of the road. I give a varying range of percentages, because it depends on who's statistics you believe. I have never come across a report that claims fuel taxes pay for 100% of all road construction and repair.

If you include hidden costs like: police and emergency services (some states have laws preventing fuel taxes being used to pay for police); the effects of air pollution (autos are still the major source of air pollution in the US); the environmental costs of paving an ever growing percentage of urban and suburban areas (up to 50% of some urban areas are paved); and number of pedestrians and cyclists killed by autos; autos don't pay their fair share.

So please don't tell me to get my bicycle off "your" road. It is "our" road. We had better learn to share.

Mark Hahn

[snip] [snip]

"Criminally low"?? Why do you think that?

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

'cos we have to pay $6 per gallon and it's not fair, (stamps feet and shouts)

I think Mark is feeling the European's pain ;-)

Yeah...but Mark is from the Hudson Valley ;-)

He should move to Europe and get the full enjoyment ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

The joys of a socialist society ;-)

Do you really pay ** $6 *** per gallon?

I think we pay around 60-70¢ per gallon.

If that were to go up significantly there would be politicians hanging from every telephone pole ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

That *is* criminal (lived there for ~20 years - gack!).

--
  Keith