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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| Here's why: If you don't, all your information is exchanged as plain text for anyone sufficiently interested to read—including passwords.
Actually, no matter what Web site you are using to exchange personal or sensitive information—and especially for e-mail services like Gmail—you should check to make sure it has Secure Socket Layers (SSL) enabled. You can tell by looking for the https prefix to the URL, known as a URI scheme.
But if you use Gmail's Web interface, you really should turn on SSL right now, because according to the folks over at Hacking Truths, a reverse engineer in the Bay Area will be releasing to the public in two weeks a Gmail hacking tool that takes advantage of accounts that do not have SSL enabled.
Here are instructions to turn on Gmail's SSL feature, courtesy of Vincent Mo.1. Click "Settings" in the top right corner of Gmail
2. Scroll to the bottom and select "Always use https"
3. Click "Save Changes" | | |
| The Chinese government has notoriously looked the other way while Chinese companies knock-off designs for all kinds of things from foreign companies. Everything from cars and trucks to clothes and accessories are copied and slightly modified for sale as a Chinese alternative to the genuine article. So somehow it's not all that surprising to find a certain familiarity to the Chinese National Space Administration's logo...
I don't suppose someone working for the CNSA watches Star Trek, do you? For the benefit of those who don't, here are the seal and emblem for the fictional United Federation of Planets, and Starfleet, the Federation's military and space exploration arm.
 
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You may have noticed this seal on the gas pump the last time you bought gas.
In a certain sense the fuel that you buy at the gas station is all pretty much the same. Whether it comes from Chevron, Shell, or 7-11, the fuel all originates from the same refineries. What is different between gasoline brands is not the gasoline, but the "additive package." Every gasoline is required to have additives. Among these additives are chemicals which help the gasoline burn cleaner to meet Federal and State emissions standards (e.g., Ethanol), and detergents which help reduce carbon deposits from your engine's fuel injectors and valves. This additive package changes from one season to another, and from one region of the country to another, because weather significantly affects how completely gasoline burns.
The type and amount of additives added to a particular mixture of gasoline varies significantly from one brand to another. And in that sense, the fuel you buy at the gas station is very different from one brand to another. In fact, in 2004, several major automakers decided that the minimum Federal detergency standards for gasoline were insufficient. They had noticed that fuel system warranty problems were clustered in certain regions and during certain times of the year, and they traced the problem back to fuel quality. You see, insufficient amounts of detergent in gasoline leads to carbon build-up on fuel injectors and valves, which in turn results in poor fuel economy and emissions. But too much detergent or poor quality additives lead to those chemicals sticking to the valves and injectors. So GM, BMW, Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota got together to define a new standard for gasoline detergency and additive quality. The standard they came up with is called TOP TIER Detergent Gasoline. They believe this standard for higher quality fuel will contribute to greater longevity and reliability. Unlike Federal and State standards for gasoline detergency, however, the TOP TIER standard is a voluntary one. Gas companies are free to conform to the standard or not. But those which do are required to certify all grades of gas that they sell (not just Premium) as meeting the standard.
Some gas stations which meet the standard will display the TOP TIER seal (above) on their gas pumps. Others may not. So how do you know which stations meet the TOP TIER standard? There is a list of certified retailers that is kept up to date on the TOP TIER Gas website. Here is the list as it stands today:QuikTrip
Chevron
Texaco
MFA Oil Co.
Conoco
Phillips 66
Union 76
Entec Stations
Shell
The Somerset Refinery, Inc.
Kwik Trip / Kwik Star
Aloha Petroleum
Tri-Par Oil Co.
Turkey Hill Minit Markets
Mileage Stations There are some Canadian counterparts to some of the brands that are also on the list. It's interesting that several small-name brands that you would not expect to be on the list, actually are. And several big-name brands, like Exxon and Mobil, which you would expect to be on the list actually are not. In the four years that I've been tracking this list, the list has grown significantly. But interestingly enough, some stations will be on the list for a while and then disappear. So check back every now and then. The most consistent brands have been Chevron, Texaco, Conoco, Phillips 66, Union 76, and Shell. Maybe it's coincidental, but those brands also happen to be the ones that stand-out in my mind as heavily advertising the detergency of their gasolines—Techron (Chevron-Texaco), PROclean (Conoco-Phillips), and V-Power (Royal Dutch Shell).
*Conoco-Phillips owns the Phillips 66 and Union 76 brands; and although Shell only labels its Premium and Diesel fuels as "V-Power," the detergency of all grades of Shell gasoline are the same.
For more information about TOP TIER Detergent Gasoline, check out the following articles:Car and Driver
CarTalk Column
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| Today, a Japanese newspaper is reporting Toyota will begin including solar panels on the roofs of some Prius models to run the A/C while the car is off and provide extra charging assist. That sounded suspiciously similar to a system that Aptera, a California based alternative-fuel-vehicle company, proposed a couple of years ago. But, of course, since Toyota is already on the market in volume, this is all most people will hear about. Toyota will once again get lauded, while Aptera will get no mention or credit at all. It frustrates me to no end that Toyota is perceived as the "green technology" leader when in reality their products are no more technologically advanced or "green" than anyone else's--and their product line includes as many gas-guzzling large trucks and SUVs as any American manufacturer. They are a "green tech" leader only in the sense that they know how to market a product better than anyone else.
The "green technology" saga has been this way since the beginning of the hybrid car, actually. GM, Ford, Honda, and Toyota all saw the need for hybrid vehicle development in the 1990's and all three began working on solutions.
Ford and Toyota ended up taking very similar approaches and producing very similar packages: the Ford Escape Hybrid and Toyota Prius. Unfortunately, Toyota was first to market, which means they got to build a reputation for being a hybrid leader. More important, Toyota was first to the Patent Office on about 20 key components to the series-parallel hybrid drivetrain (a.k.a. "full hybrid" or "strong hybrid"). Ford won a few important patents too, and to make sure everything was on the up-and-up Ford and Toyota paid each other for use of one another's patents, even though both companies developed their entire systems in-house and independently. The press got wind of this and painted it as "Ford Buys Toyota Hybrid Technology." This, of course, makes it seem like Toyota is a technological marvel, while Ford can't keep up and so it buys the technology from the competition instead. Despite a press release that tried to clear things up, people in the press (even folks like MotorTrend, Car and Driver, and Consumer Reports) still report that the hybrid system in the Ford Escape is "licensed" from Toyota. That may be technically correct, but completely fails to convey the true story behind the situation.
GM and Honda also took remarkably similar approaches to their hybrid systems, but with vastly different applications: GM's early large pick-up truck hybrids and Honda's Insight, Civic, and Accord hybrids. Both are parallel hybrid systems (a.k.a. "mild hybrids") which use a small electric motor to assist the gas engine and recharge the batteries. Because they use smaller electric motors and smaller battery packs, these systems cannot drive the car on electric power alone and do not return as high fuel mileage as series-parallel hybrids. However, since Honda's are installed in smaller, lighter cars, and because again they were first-to-market, Honda's hybrid systems are thought of as competitive with Toyotas despite the vast technological differences. Meanwhile, GM's hybrid systems are not seen as credible because they are installed on large SUVs and trucks, where the same percentage-increase in fuel economy yields much less impressive mileage numbers. I've even heard someone refer to them as "fake hybrids" refuse to drop the moniker even after I explained the situation. To make things even more frustrating, however, GM has actually been on the leading edge of "dual-mode" series-parallel hybrids for as long as Ford and Toyota have, and has better power control systems than either. The only problem is one of perception, since GM's "dual-mode" hybrids have been in operation mostly on municipal city buses (Seattle, Las Vegas, Dresden [Germany], and 33 other cities worldwide) and only recently have been installed in passenger vehicles (Chevy Tahoe, GMC Yukon).
If anything, GM's two pronged approach of making milder hybrids available to more people at lower price points, and to putting the strongest hybrid assistance into the largest vehicles first, is probably the more environmentally friendly. Just think about it. A parallel-series hybrid system will improve a vehicle's gas mileage by about 25-40%. Is it better for the environment for a small car like the Toyota Prius to go from roughly 35 MPG to 50 MPG, or for an SUV like the Chevy Tahoe to go from 17 MPG to 24 MPG? It may look more impressive to be getting 50 MPG, but in the long run savings resulting from improving the fuel mileage of the Tahoe will be nearly double that of the Prius (see below for calculations). The same can be said on an even larger scale with hybrid buses. Over the service life of King County Metro's 235 hybrid buses, they will reduces fuel consumption equivalent to over 500,000 small hybrid cars. (To put this into perspective, Toyota announced in November of 2007 that it had sold it's 510,000th Prius in the U.S., after 7 years on the market. In May of 2008 Toyota announced it had sold its 1 millionth Prius worldwide, after 11 years of worldwide availability. At about the same time, GM announced it had sold it's 1,000th hybrid bus after 5 years on the market... the equivalent in reduction of gas consumption of 2.1 million small hybrid cars.)
And all of that says nothing about technologies to reduce gas consumption on more widely available non-hybrid vehicles through things like gasoline direct injection technology; the availability of a wider range of alternative fuel options, like diesel and E85/ethanol; or the pioneering work that GM has done on hydrogen fuel cell technology. I will be sad and frustrated, but not the least bit surprised, if I discover in a few years that Honda gets all the credit for being a hydrogen fuel cell leader while GM gets little if any mention, despite the fact that today the two companies are neck and neck when it comes to the hydrogen front--each with different strengths and weaknesses. The Japanese risk very little and therefore invent very little. But they wait for others to shoulder the risk, then refine and market the new technologies, getting the credit for being technology leaders. It's frustrating to no end. If time permits, I may start a series of posts highlighting American green technology leadership... but even if I can't do that, I hope this post will cause some of you to take off the green-colored lenses when you look at Toyota.
[edit - 7/8/08 10:51 AM] I knew this had to be the case! Someone else has been offering solar panels on the roof of their cars since 1999! The Audi A8 Solar Panel Sunroof is an option that runs the interior fan while the car is parked to keep it cool. I wonder why no one bothered to mention this in their news articles touting Toyota's "greenness"? Incidentally, it is worth noting that a solar panel small enough to fit on the roof of a car would not provide more than about 10% of the energy needed to run an air conditioning compressor. So it seems like the best it can do is either run the fan or trickle-charge the battery while the car is parked. | | |
| In case you were doubtful about the claim in the above post that a hybrid SUV would save more fuel than a hybrid compact car, here are the numbers. This is based on the assumption that the driver will drive the same number of miles every year regardless of which vehicle he is driving. The calculations are based on 10,000 miles per year.A Compact Car getting 35 MPG average will consume 285.7 gallons of gas.
A Prius Hybrid getting 50 MPG average will consumer 200.0 gallons of gas.
That's a total savings of 85.7 gallons of gas over 1 year. Not bad.
A normal Chevy Tahoe getting 17 MPG average will consume 588.2 gallons of gas.
A Chevy Tahoe Hybrid getting 24 MPG average will consume 416.7 gallons of gas.
That's a total savings of 171.5 gallons of gas over 1 year. More than double the savings of the compact hybrid. Lest you be tempted to compare the Prius to a normal Tahoe, consider that a person who buys a Tahoe is very unlikely to buy a Prius and vice versa. If you could convince a large SUV driver to step down to a compact car, you could save tons of fuel even without a hybrid system. | | |
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