March 31, 20233 yr There is literally only one stop sign between my house and where I work. Only three turns to get to work and one of them is at the end of my driveway.
April 2, 20233 yr On 5/22/2021 at 11:31 AM, UCyborg said: 2001 Volkswagen Polo with 1.0 petrol engine. On 5/22/2021 at 11:31 AM, UCyborg said: Mine is about 6.3 liters I eventually picked up the habit of cruising at 110 km/h rather than 130 km/h on the motorway and that reduced the fuel consumption to little over 5.7 l/100km on that model. That 4.5 l/100km figure is on the current 2022 model, after recently experimenting with cruising in 90 - 100 km/h range. Slower indeed gets you further. Some time ago I stumbled upon this comment on YouTube, forgot which video: Quote A much better idea that has been proven to work (about 10% better gas mileage) in a regular gasoline engine car, is to accelerate briskly and then coast for a reasonable amount of time and repeat (if traffic allows). This is especially beneficial in low traffic conditions. Ok now for the details... Suppose the speed limit on a road is 50 MPH and you are at a red light with light traffic, instead of accelerating gently, which many people tend to think if fuel efficient (but really it is not), accelerate briskly and even 5 MPH over the speed limit (cuz it will only be briefly), then let the car coast down to 5 MPH under the speed limit and repeat (provided conditions allow). So basically you will be "bouncing" between 45 MPH and 55 MPH in this example. That is about 10% more fuel efficient to do that (especially is low traffic conditions) than if you went a constant 50 MPH. Since u r a mechanic, you probably already know what I am about to say next but I will mention here for your other readers... a typical gasoline internal combustion engine is MOST efficient (power output to fuel consumption ratio) at about 75% of it's maximum output power. For example, a car with 200 peak HP is most efficient when it is outputting about 150 HP. That is one reason why accelerating briskly helps save fuel. The other necessary piece for save fuel is the coastdown. Notice on cars with instantaneous fuel MPG displays that when you get off the throttle completely, the instantaneous MPG goes up to about 99 MPG. So think about it, if you accelerate briskly and get 10 MPG or less but then coast and get 99 MPG, it helps the overall mileage vs. driving at a constant speed. The best way to prove this is try it on a car that shows average MPG. Drive the same path using both techniques, the "standard" technique and the fuel efficient technique described here. You should see about a 10% improvement. Make the path more than about 5 miles otherwise it might not be enough to get an accurate reading. That, I haven't experimented with. Those that encounter me on the road must already think I'm insane as it is. But, I get to listen to the music longer!
April 2, 20233 yr I learned the speed-up-then-coast back when "hypermiling" was a big thing. One of my "favorite" things to do is see a RED LIGHT over half a mile up the road and take my foot off the gas and coast the entire half mile.
April 30, 20233 yr Something I've been wondering about, this car has EFB+ battery installed. There's not much written about the plus part, seems to be a Volkswagen thing, they only have written on one of their sites that it has surface-active carbon additives for more effective power consumption and charging capacity. But carbon additives are mentioned at other places for EFB (without plus)... The main part, the car keeps the battery charged at 80% max, supposedly to save fuel and reduce emissions, something about alternator not being run all the time by the usual means, but engaging when using engine for braking and using kinetic energy to run the alternator. I've noticed with the help of diagnostic interface that when the car is sitting for a day, battery discharges from 80% to 72%. That's a whooping 8%! The manual does mention something about shutting electronics down if it goes too low, but nothing specific, just that it can't prevent battery from going empty if you do something stupid like leaving the ignition on with the engine off. So about EFB's longevity, while it's designed to operate better at reduced state of charge, I wonder if it would still be beneficial long-term to charge it every once in a while, given that the car is mostly sitting in garage for weekends and a week at a time few times per year. Edit: Higher state-of-charge should still be the better state to be in. https://microtexindia.com/efb-battery/ Edited May 2, 20233 yr by UCyborg
May 11, 20233 yr On 4/30/2023 at 9:17 AM, UCyborg said: seems to be a Volkswagen thing Actually VARTA. I guess they make some batteries for automotive assembly plants to be fitted to newly manufactured cars. The picture above may eventually disappear, along with the source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/234924280418
June 25, 20233 yr https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160612-heres-the-truth-about-the-planned-obsolescence-of-tech https://cellularnews.com/mobile-phone/planned-obsolescence/ https://www.androidauthority.com/yearly-smartphone-model-obsolete-3097285/ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140218-why-your-old-tech-holds-treasure
December 28, 20232 yr If you ask me, it's all in the hands of the few very rich individuals owning large corporations, private jets, yachts, whatever. You holding onto that ancient Windows XP computer? Please... Get this, our so called president preaches to us common folks that we should get by with less while she herself is using a private yet. I won't go out of the way to save the environment, but I won't feel guilty buying something new every once in a while either.
December 28, 20232 yr 51 minutes ago, UCyborg said: few very rich The very rich are very few; the hoi polloi are ~8 billion. 54 minutes ago, UCyborg said: holding onto that ancient Windows XP computer [,,,] us common folks Common folks who run Windows run Windows 10. Less than half a percent of Windows users run XP, and [just guessing here] a much smaller fraction still does it out of necessity.
December 28, 20232 yr https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/17/business/rich-americans-climate-footprint-emissions/index.html
December 28, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, UCyborg said: ...You holding onto that ancient Windows XP computer? Please... Yeah, I haven't figured out what I'm gonna do once my (ancient and failing) machines crap out but the association (I'm a client) with likely set me up with a laptop with Linux. Ugh .. I just really like XP Edited December 28, 20232 yr by XPerceniol
December 28, 20232 yr Surprised my current PC still works, the ones that were at the house in late nineties and early 2000s were nothing like it quality wise. I'm only looking at one bad data disk, bought in 2010. It's not too urgent as I have two other external disks. Even got 2 extra GB of RAM this year for the PC, but only because I found the stick at some company that takes used hardware and sells it. Generally really not comfortable with the idea of buying used stuff from random people online... Edited December 28, 20232 yr by UCyborg
January 1, 20242 yr https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsofts-draconian-windows-11-restrictions-will-send-an-estimated-240-million-pcs-to-the-landfill-when-windows-10-hits-end-of-life-in-2025
January 1, 20242 yr 2 hours ago, UCyborg said: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsofts-draconian-windows-11-restrictions-will-send-an-estimated-240-million-pcs-to-the-landfill-when-windows-10-hits-end-of-life-in-2025 Corporations don't really care about saving the planet, it's all about the money, always been, so it's no surprise. Maybe Linux Distros will grow in popularity again?
January 2, 20242 yr Those laughable "Multiple key barriers" looks more like a requirement from 2007 to run Windows Vista. That's exactly what I bought in 2007, so nothing outrageous to ask for at the end of 2025!
January 2, 20242 yr 1- 64-bit processor - so? Are there non 64 even left? 2- 4 GB of RAM - so? - is this a joke? 3 - a minimum of 64GB storage - is this a joke? My 2003 laptop had a 120GB Fujitsu HDD (over two decades ago!) 4 - UEFI is about fifteen years around us. Goodbye BIOS, hello UEFI https://www.computerworld.com/article/2826910/goodbye-bios--hello-uefi.html 5 - DirectX 12-compatible GPU, doesn't mean Feature 12_0, you can still use ancient crap with DX10/11.
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