Comment Well..... (Score 4, Insightful) 762
Not if you buy a used hybrid.
Just One Out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back In Gas Savings 762
thecarchik writes with this snippet from GreenCarReports:
"One of the criticisms of hybrid cars has historically been that there's no payback, especially given the cheap gasoline prices in the US. The extra money you spend on a hybrid isn't returned in gas savings, say critics. Well, that may be true, especially when regular gasoline is averaging $2.77 a gallon this week. But as we often point out, most people don't buy hybrids for payback — they buy them to make a statement about wanting to drive green. Nevertheless, a Canadian study has now looked at the question of hybrid payback in a country whose gasoline is more expensive than ours (roughly $3.70 per gallon this week), with surprising results. The British Columbia Automobile Association projected the fuel costs of 16 hybrids over five years against their purchase price and financing fees. In a study released in late July, only a single one of the 16 hybrids cost less to buy and run than its gasoline counterpart."
The one car that would save you money, according the study, is the Mercedes S400 Hybrid sedan — and it will only cost you $105,000.
Comment Re:Here's your roundup (Score 2, Insightful) 568
If the industry follows suit then that's what the market is demanding. It sucks that the idea of an open platform isn't what people want, but that's the way economies work.
Comment Re:Multitasking as defined by Apple (Score 1) 253
Yes, the apps will do those things that you listed, but only if the developer enables them on the apps and pushes out an update. As of the launch of iOS 4.0 yesterday, there are very few apps that take advantage of those features.
Submission + - Republicans and Democrats do look different. (plosone.org)
quaith writes: It's not the way they dress, but the appearance of their face. A study published in PLoS One by Nicholas O. Rule and Nalini Ambady of Tufts University used closely cropped greyscale photos of people's faces, standardized for size. Undergrads were asked to categorize each person as either a Democrat or Republican. In the first study, students were able to different Republican from Democrat senate candidates. In the second, students were able to differentiate the political affiliation of other college students. Accuracy in both studies was about 60% — not perfect, but way better than chance.
Comment Nalgene (Score 5, Informative) 251
Nalgene, one of, if not the biggest producers of the 'indestructable' plastic bottles with BPA, still does not acknowledge the health detriments even though they stopped producing those bottles. Probably because of liability reasons...
http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/technical/bpaInfo.html
Submission + - Vista retreats as XP sales hold up
Kurtz'sKompund writes: "Microsoft expects Windows XP to make up a significantly larger part of sales than it had previously expected, at Vista's expense.
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?news id=9571"
Submission + - Moving away from VB6 to something better 1
greendevil writes: I'm a software developer currently still developing in VB6 (ignoring all the sniggers from you hard core folk). I've been looking to move away from it to something strongly typed and not managed. I've played with the .NET's C#, but to be honest, the whole idea of managed code doesn't make sense to me as a freelancer. Great for teams and all, but for the individual?? Not so sure. My problem is I don't know what is available out there that does not use managed code, and has c/c++ style. I find the syntax of C++/java/C# far better than VB or delphi. What do you folk think regarding the use of managed code languages? What would you consider as the better language all round to use in a business environment?
