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what is the efficiency of a gasoline engine

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The efficiency by which they do so is measured in terms of "thermal efficiency", and most gasoline combustion engines average around 20 percent thermal efficiency. Diesels are typically higher--approaching 40 percent in some cases.Apr 14, 2014

Yes, and what they measure for that is the energy going into the drivetrain, as against the heat of combustion available in the fuel. It's the same for power plants that make electricity instead, electrical energy into the grid vs heat of combustion.

All of steps are under 100%, duh, but you really do get to add the repeated outputs to the drivetrain together to check how much energy was going into the drivetrain, as against the energy taken from the grid (or in series, the original heat of combustion at a power plant).

And the amount of energy an electric vehicle can put into the drivetrain is greater than the amount of energy it takes from the grid (in some forms of city driving) because it also takes energy back from the drivetrain repeatedly.

So if you're concerned about the fuel efficiency of your fuel power plants running battery-electric vehicles mostly on short drives in congested cities, as against just burning that fuel in the cars, you need a number in there that it greater than 100% for the electric car, if you're comparing it to the same fucking number that is used for fuel cars, which is called fuel efficiency in a fuel car, but you all obviously have some weird fetish against calling it in an electric car. Cool. Whatever, have fun with your learning.

I hate you for being too stupid to realize how stupid you are.

Vehicular efficiency is not measured as a percentage. That is because if you measured vehicular efficiency as a percentage, it would always be 0%. Yes, really. If you don't believe me, put a bunch of gas in your car and drive it until the tank is empty and the car sputters to a stop. You put in a bunch of energy and now all of that energy is gone; no chemical energy in the tank, no kinetic energy in the vehicle. You think it was gremlins that stole it or some shit? No, dumbass, you've burnt away 100% of the energy that you put into the vehicle as waste energy (i.e. heat, light, and noise). But guess what? You don't fucking care that 100% of the energy you put into the vehicle ended up as waste energy, because before it ended up as waste energy it was kinetic energy and that kinetic energy took you to the places you wanted to go. Vehicular efficiency is expressed as the relationship between energy in and distance travelled. That is not a fucking percentage! Those are different fucking units! One is joules, and the other is meters!

Engine efficiency is often measured as a percentage. That is because when we consider an engine, we are considering a single process; the conversion of the input energy (chemical, electric, whatever) into output energy (kinetic, heat, light, noise). We define kinetic energy as a "useful output" and heat, light, and noise as "waste outputs" and since all of that shit is in joules you can express the useful output as a percentage of the input. But guess what? If you put electrical energy back into your engine through your regenerative braking system, you don't get to not fucking count that as an input while counting it as an output. That's not what engine efficiency is measuring, you stupid asshole. Engine efficiency is essentially a measure of how effective the device is at converting one form of energy into another; it tells you what percentage of the joules you dump into it are going to make it through to the other side. That value doesn't magically go up because you hook the engine up to a turbine so it can power itself. The engine efficiency is just a fucking constant (heat's effects on performance notwithstanding), and it tells you how many joules you're going to lose as waste energy on each "pass." That is it's purpose; to tell you how good the engine is at doing the thing engines do.

Why can't Australians make porn

I don't know about Australia, but I'm pretty sure Great Britain dosen't need to export explicit porn, at least according to my wife:

Her ovaries are exploded.

Why do advice column authors and correspondents invent stupid names for the correspondents? How did it start?

Starmaker wrote:Why do advice column authors and correspondents invent stupid names for the correspondents? How did it start?

Advice columnists answer 3-4 letters per column and sometimes have to refer back to previous columns. And everyone gets a pseudonym because every letter is anonymized. Giving each letter a unique stupid name is a functional necessity.

-Username17

Oh ffs....

So a couple of former classmates of mine have moved onto uni and are working at the uni's paper. The paper's board decided to run an ad from a church about praying the gay away.

This has lead to a lengthy argument on one of their facebooks about whether the ad is protected speech or not, and a new question has come up, or a couple- Is fraud protected speech (I'm thinking no, but don't know for certain), and do fraudulent claims gain protection if they are religious belief?

I have literally no idea whether we are a fucked up enough country for the answer to the latter to be "yes." Anyone know?

Prak wrote:Oh ffs....

So a couple of former classmates of mine have moved onto uni and are working at the uni's paper. The paper's board decided to run an ad from a church about praying the gay away.

This has lead to a lengthy argument on one of their facebooks about whether the ad is protected speech or not, and a new question has come up, or a couple- Is fraud protected speech (I'm thinking no, but don't know for certain), and do fraudulent claims gain protection if they are religious belief?

I have literally no idea whether we are a fucked up enough country for the answer to the latter to be "yes." Anyone know?

It's only fraud if they get something of value because of their deception. Otherwise, it's just lying.

So telling people they can cure their cancer by snorting ground up bark is totally not a crime so long as you're not selling them "special" bark for the purpose?

Prak wrote:So telling people they can cure their cancer by snorting ground up bark is totally not a crime so long as you're not selling them "special" bark for the purpose?

It depends on the exact circumstances. Selling them special bark could be okay. Encouraging them to snort bark could be criminal. It also depends on the exact jurisdiction, because laws vary.

It's perfectly legal to sell dietary suppliments of dubious efficiacity so long as you don't make strong claims about their effectiveness. Companies that deal in supplements are generally pretty good about navigating that minefield, only making vague claims and including caveats about results not being guaranteed.

On the other hand, someone in a position that creates a positive duty of care, like a doctor, can absolutely get smacked down for promoting quackery to the detriment of those they had a duty to care for.

Ok, so relevant to the question- Is an ad for a seminar advocating prayer as a "cure" for homosexuality quackery? Would it be protected speech, or could you mount a defense for telling them to go fuck themselves with their ad, saying that it is, at least, legally questionable?

Prak wrote:Ok, so relevant to the question- Is an ad for a seminar advocating prayer as a "cure" for homosexuality quackery? Would it be protected speech, or could you mount a defense for telling them to go fuck themselves with their ad, saying that it is, at least, legally questionable?

You can always tell them to go fuck themselves. You don't need a defense for that. Free Speech is a two-way street. All it means is that the government can't censor you. "Go fuck yourself " is just as free as everything else. You can tell it to anyone you want. Try it today, at home at work. on the bus. People might think that you're an asshole, but that's their right.

Free Speech also doesn't mean that you have to publish anything. And forcing you to publish something would be a free speech violation. The Great Fence Builder could ban me because I like cheese. I don't think he would, but he could. I do not have to demand that he publish my cheese critiques if he does not wish to do.


Your friends problem, likewise, has nothing to do with free speech. It is that their bosses have engaged in blatant jackassery for profit but calling them out on it would likely result in termination. The choice that they face now is to speak up and risk being fired or keep their heads down and grumble on. But this isn't a free speech issue. And it isn't a fraud issue. It's an at-will employment issue.


That being said, it's possible. It depends on the exact claims made, but it's possible, and it has been done.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... py/396953/

http://www.advocate.com/ex-gay-therapy/ ... ourt-rules

I have a question. I hear all sorts of crap about Himalayan salt lamps about negative ions and all that happy horseshit. I'm assuming it's all bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think that they're pretty and would like one in my house. My question is are salt lamps the kind of bullshit that does nothing or the kind of bullshit that actually does something harmful? I assume the former but I just want to make sure.

From this site:

Are Himalayan Salt Lamps Safe?

This is a very reasonable question. Is it safe to have a piece of wet salt so close to an electric source? Is it safe and hygienic to have a trap for dust and microparticles sitting on a desk?

If the lamps really do function as dust magnets, then how do you clean the lamp? What is the lifespan of a lamp? How do you safely dispose of the lamp once it past its expiry date? Great questions to which there are no good answers. There is nothing in the published literature on the safety (or lack thereof) of these lamps.

This is where it is difficult for people like us who want to make sound decisions which are evidence based. There is nothing to help us know if salt lamps are safe. Common sense would suggest that the lamps probably don’t do anything useful that would make them worth the hassle.

Yeah... They're pretty. They also use the most inefficient type of bulbs on the market because the lamps are made to generate heat, so if you plan on leaving it on for any period of time, you'll pay for it. You can probably sub in an LED bulb, but it's still salt. I think you might be better off going on a site like this one (crystalrivergems.com) and picking up a more stable crystal and using an LED bulb. I personally think the agate geode and selenite lamps are pretty cool (though they'll sell you a salt one, too).

There's actually a local geology place that sells what would pass for shitty salt lamps (they're just rocks with LEDs in them to light up), but would work for my purposes just fine.

Even better!

What exactly do you need a glowing rock for?

I'm pretty sure Count just wants it because they look pretty.

Quick question: is the fear of needles and injections called trypanophobia, or something else? Because I've always called it that, but I'm not 100% sure if that's right.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=phobia+of+needles+and+injections


[edit: sorry, sometimes cannot resist the passive aggressive way to help someone help themselves.]

Wouldn't it have been easier to just say "Yes, it is trypanophobia"?

It's a teaching moment. I dare say it would have been faster to google it than ask your question here. And response time is guaranteed.

And if you read the Wikipedia link it lists a few other names for fear of needles. I didn't actually know the answer earlier that when you asked but it took me 15 seconds to find out.

So, what Maj said. I think the proverb goes something like: Set a man on fire and he is warm the rest of his life.

Poo. Googles is boring, it doesn't give the same level of snark.