Corporate Greed Killed the Electric Car

I watched a documentary last night called "who killed the electric car". It seemed rather obvious to me. Corporate Greed killed it. GM was forced into designing an electric car by a panel in California who were in charge of creating cleaner air. When GM fought back and *claimed* that they couldn't reasonably build an electric car that people would want - the panel gave into them. The head of this panel then went on to join a group that was working on a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Normally you would say "the jokes on you, a hydrogen fuel cell car will never be made affordable". But the whole project is made possible with funding from oil companies. Why would oil companies fund a project to create a cheaper alternative to their overpriced product? Because they are funding the impossible to string you along.

Oil companies want you to believe that they are working on finding alternatives to high priced fossil fuels.

* Hydrogen cars cost $1 million to produce
* Creating hydrogen fuel from water, takes 3 times the electricity that a battery would use to carry a car the same distance
* Ethanol is a waste of good corn, and requires so much corn that farmers will eventually damage their fields (draining the dirt of nutrition that the crops need)
* Sugar is a far better source than corn for fuel - but that comes from overseas

The best alternative to paying too much for gas, is to limit the profits allowed by the oil companies. But as long as the oil companies are lining the pockets of your politicians - that will never happen.

My Volkswagen is 40 years old (happy birthday). It gets 32 miles to the gallon. Shouldn't modern vehicles be getting better fuel economy than that?

Corporate Greed is Killing Your Cell Phone

I just un-boxed a new Palm Treo phone Monday so that I could activate it and synchronize it with our Exchange Server for a doctor. It was running Windows Mobile 2005. For those keeping track, Windows Mobile is up to version 6.1. This was a Verizon serviced phone but our other local cellular provider, Embarq, will also sell you a brand new phone with a three year old operating system.

Microsoft discontinued version 5.0 for several reasons. The primary reason was to create a new product with a few new features so that they could raise the cost of licensing. If you have used Windows Mobile 5.0, you all ready know the other reasons that they did away with it. It's slow as molasses and it's so loaded with bugs that you will find yourself soft-booting your phone at least once or twice a day.

So why do you have a brand new phone with a three year old operating system? Because cell phone companies and Microsoft both behave like greedy little children. In the end, it's you that is losing for having to carry around a failed product in your pocket.

If you are a victim, do yourself a favor and head over to http://www.PPCgeeks.com. You will find that many have resorted to downloading bootlegged and unsupported operating systems for their phones so that they can make simple phone calls.