Brian,

no offense taken,

BUT

20 Trojan T 145 are 1400#, so the poor Jeep is probably grossly overloaded

20 T 145 are about 4000 USD

In that application (E-Jeep) the batteries may last about 500 cycles, that means that if you drive the Jeep every day, you have to replace the batteries every 16-17 months, that works out to about 8 bucks a day just for battery replacement.

The energy stored in 20 T 145 is about the same as that in 1.5 Gallons of diesel.
That is the simple way to look at it.
==
It gets much worse, if one looks at the lifecycle cost.

Batteries take a lot of energy to manufacture and a lot of energy to be "green" recycled.

==

JIMHO

Not yet ready for prime time.

Hi Rudi,

A couple of thoughts came to mind...

I dunno if I'd have picked the T-145 or not. I may have had a good look at the Sams Club deep cycles just to compare on price and anticipated output even if that meant adding more batteries. Not sure on weight. But I haven't explored it to the point where I've planned anything for me.

I wondered whether there wouldn't be a more aerodynamic vehicle to start out with as a Jeep wouldn't be my first choice. Something like an S-10 or a Ranger might appeal to me as a possibility, but there are others.

Also, given how I would intend to use such a vehicle, I don't think I'd be discharging to the depth that some of their tests did. Range is around 100 miles for them, and we could easily do with a daily driving pattern of about half or less most days, at least in our household. I would think shallower cycles would mean longer battery longevity, generally speaking.

These guys' conversion was more of a "this is what we can easily buy off the shelf" and "this is what we have to work with" kind of thing. What a Detroit or Tokyo type of manufacturer might be using is not likely to be lead acid batteries. So it would be hard to compare without knowing specifics.

It is certainly not a free lunch going with electric, and battery life cycle is probably the biggest drivetrain expense of all, both initially and recurring.

Maybe not ready for prime time, but I don't think it's as far out as many believe. And $4 to $5 /gal (+) fuel that keeps on rising continues to make moving away from petroleum based transportation more attractive.

I apprecaite your thoughts.



Brian

On the water injector, all you have to do is watch the military channel and watch some of the WW2 fighter planes in dog fights. The water injection is mentioned in several of them. On the cheap fuel car. Just watch the video of the now in production of the cheap little air car from India. The car is a price that almost anyone can afford and runs on air from four welding bottles filled at 4000 psi. It will run at 72 mph and go 125 miles. It comes with i'ts own air compressor to refill the tanks or is filled at service stations by exchanging the tanks. The power used to refill the tanks is $2.00 for a 125 trip. They are also working on a hybrid that has a small gas engine to run the compressor. As you can see, we are almost there.
Carl

I like that air powered car, Carl!! The problem is, I don't know where to buy an efficient air motor. (??) There's a guy in Australia that's made quite an awesome one but I don't know that I can buy one off the shelf anywhere or even order one online, price notwithstanding.

I'm not crazy about the designs that use the basic gasoline engine design converted to run on air as that wastes a lot of energy just to make itself run. The Australian dude's is something between a rotary engine and a turbine, if memory serves.

There's some awesome stuff out there, much of it created by people who just aren't willing to wait for the big three to bring it on.

Would love to have the skills to actually build something like that from scratch. (Would that be a "machinist"?)

:-)

Brian

Brian, this little car has the air engine in it when bought. I saw a picture of it this morning. It looks kind of like a small V-6 engine, but has none of the things that we would look for in a gas engine. The only way you can tell it is an engine is because that is what they say it is. http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4217016.html I have mentioned on this forum befor about the Swedish trolly car powered by a very high speed flywheel that is hooked up to a motor to spin the flywheel at 100,000 rpm at the end of the 10 mile run up to a ski lift lodge. The flywheel reaches it's operating speed in three min. The only real drawback is the fairly high cost of the flywheel that has to be real precisely made to reach such a high speed and not destroy the vehicle that it is in. This trolly car has been running about 40 years.
Carl

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Something to keep in mind with electric cars and the electric Jeep, is where does the electricity to charge them come from??? Hard to believe the Jeep could be driven 125 miles on 1100 amp hours of power.

I see "who killed the electric car" argument used again.

If your are going to use that point, then yes do the research and not just rely on the hatchet-job movie that was so full of holes that there should be law suits over it.

The EV1 worked somewhat okay in Southern California where its range almost was as far as people commuted and where you don't need to heat a car in the winter. (Maybe that is why ta Jeep was used for that home-built, no heater expected) One of the problems was a over $200,000 car that people were willing to spend $18,000 for (surveys of prospective buyers). Even the best build costs in volumes was still going to be in the $40,000 bracket.

The reason the cars were taken off the road (from all three manufacturers in the test, not just GM) was that the leased cars were at the end of their lease. If they had been sold, there was a liability for 7 years of custom parts for the vehicles and no Federal subsidy to pay for that like there was for the car leases.

For GM, the electric car started with the Electovair in 1963 and is still in progress with the Volt due out next year. The other companies are working just as hard.

Batteries are still the issue and there has been a whole lot of money spent by a lot of companies on that issue with no breakthroughs yet. And no, a Congressional mandate doesn't make science happen.

For the Big Oil Conspiracy folks, the biggest and baddest Mobil Oil that is supposed to be directing the activities of the auto companies is only the 14th largest oil company in the world. Or are the foreign oil companies directing the US auto manufactures?

Currently, if you do a life cycle (raw back to scrap), the environmental impact of the batteries in the hybrids and battery cars is far worse that those horrible gasoline power vehicles. It is just that the environmental problems are in Canada, Europe, and China, but not here.

And why is the belief that only foreign car companies can develop anything new. So far I have yet to see much that wasn't done in the US first. Fuels cells, first in the US. Hybrid car, 1964 in Ohio. Hydrogen as a fuel, so far back, can't remember. The CVCC engine of Honda was done by Ford in 1960 okay for little engines, doesn't work in bigger engines). The list goes on and on. Detroit develops a lot of things but they just are not practical to use. But a foreign car company releases the same thing and it is a miracle breakthrough.

Take an example, the Wankel rotary engine, a smooth running very efficient engine. GM has the manufacturing rights for the engine. Had then since NSU came out with the engine. Small problem, seals didn't last very long. Mazda could get away with paying for alternate seal jobs. If GM had put the rotary engine in cars, there would have been lawsuits over not reaching at least 150,000 miles on the seals(at the time Mazda was getting about 35,000-40,000 miles).

There is a serious difference of standards applied to foreign cars and US cars.

There are a lot of "neat" ideas running around for a more efficient transportation system. But straddled with regulations, most won't work.

Look ate the array of microcars available in Europe, India, and Asia. All illegal in the US.

There are no magic pills, just changes in attitudes. Using electricity for things is great but you need to generate it. Wind generators are coming on line, solar is available during the day, but we need a consistent 24 hours source and that is nuclear, which after 30+ years is finally getting reviewed again. But there are used fuel rods that need to taken care of and really need to be recycled (there isn't an unlimited amount of nuclear fuel either). But we can't have politicians saying maybe nuclear is okay but we don't want the Yucca Mountain storage facility where the used rods can't safely be stored and protected by soldiers and not night watchmen. Then we can have a recycling plant there, again protected by soldiers, so we can control the plutonium by-product. We need the package, reactors, storage and recycling. Today the politicians pretend by saying reactors are okay but no the rest.

We seriously need a National energy plan and base it on concepts. For example no electric power plants using liquid fuels after 2015. A National power grid (Ala Interstate Highway System) so that where ever and however electrical energy is produced, it is available everywhere.

We will need liquid fuels for a long time (semis, farm tractors, airplanes, etc.), we need to transfer as much energy usage to non-liquid sources. As long as we curtail development by specific action legislation, we will get nowhere. For example, we didn't get biofuel legislation, we got corn ethanol legislation. And as usual, the highly technical Congress of the US got it wrong. We didn't get a mandatory lumen per watt light source legislation, we got CFLs which are life cycle expensive and environmentally dangerous, again from the technocrats at Congress. We have to have a catalytic converter on gasoline engines by Congressional law. If the legislation had been for an emission output level, GM could be using their newly developed 2-cycle engines that have a much higher efficiency rating but had one problem. Their efficiency is so high, there is not enough unburnt gas to allow the catalytic converter to operate. We need to get legislation moved from lobby based specifics to directional concepts.

We didn't get to the moon because John Kennedy specified the rocket or the Lunar Lander. He just set the direction and goal and let the real engineers and scientists make the solution.

Hybrid's today are worse for the economy and environment than a 10 year old MB Diesel Sedan.

But the greenies like the feel good nature of burning less gas per vehicle. Forget that disposal and manufacturing impact can not be recovered even if the car lasts for 20 years.

The real soultion is a broad based macro energy plan, not a piece meal approach with targetted legislation.

The most efficient automobile that can actually be built today would be a small diesel turbine generator charging a smaller array of batteries with the option to plug in to recharge at destinations.

The transmission goes away. The system would use one motor per wheel with regenerational braking.

This would allow for a full drive by wire flat bottom sled chassis. Simplified manufacturing would allow for a full series of vehicles based on the same platform.

Can it be built toady, sure. Are we ready to give up our big detriot iron cars to really reform energy use. Probably not.

What Mark and DIYGuy have said!

Both Mark's hit the mark! You guys are absolutely correct, and your posts were very well thought out and presented. Thanks.

Of course, all the conspiracy gang will never agree, but they will never agree with anything......

Mark and Mark most excellent posts and I completely agree in substance.

The conspiracy theorists will always be around, as will those that say anything can't be done.

While I may seem against big oil, I am more frustrated by the big oil players in that they more than anyone have the distribution footprint and the money to have started the transition before now. Which in my opinion would put them in control of energy distribution for the early adopters and into the foreseeable future. As such also keep them in business for a profit be that from electric charging stations to hydrogen fueling, while still making money for their stockholders with the fossil fuels as well for decades. Additional profit for them at a minimal investment compared to the cost of each station for gas and diesel only.

I also agree that the engineers, not the legislators, are where it will come from all through the debate. While seemingly out of nowhere, they have already solved most of the problems, and are actually selling stage one alternatives now, and those same are already developing stages two and three.

The call for a better battery and the toxicity issues are already being addressed by Tesla.

Go here and scroll down:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=66

They are also already in final testing of engine 1.5 with a newer one speed tranny that maintains the output and range with some new tweaks.

Go here and scroll down:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=67

My point is not to advertise Tesla. I am a fan of theirs simply because while everybody is saying it can't be done, they have already done it, and I would bet that they will continue development and their designs and patents will provide additional revenue down the line when they are producing the lower priced family sedans.

BTW late breaking news. Tesla decided to locate the White Star (family sedan) plant in California rather than New Mexico, as originally planned, and I reported erroneously, for the following reasons:
From the CEO:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=60

Which brings me to the next point. That electric vehicles merely shift the pollution and fossil fuels to the fossil fueled electric plants. Which while appearing to be true superficially, really makes no sense; we can scrub the emissions from one large source much more cheaply than millions of small ones. Anybody priced a replacement catalytic converter lately? As well the solar power plant "night/cloudy/storage argument" has already been resolved on a small scale in the Hopewell project, where some of the solar is used to produce and store hydrogen to provide power off sun hours. The Solar thermal plants can do the same thing and use hydrogen to heat the oil up to heat the water, directly heat the water in the other design, to produce the steam to run the turbines at night. Just on a larger scale.

But the greenies and conspiracy folks by and large seem to think that the shift to any clean renewable energy will be a two year thing, once we get going, with no growing pains. In my opinion, the best priority would be solar thermal/hydrogen electrical generating plants, as any city dweller in an apartment of any income level will not have the ability to do their own solar/wind/nuclear. Also they can't go critical and blow up or irradiate. Fail yes, blow up no.

If any company came out with a $30k electric car today that went 250 miles and recharged in an hour, all it would take is one power pedestal and circular parking for five or ten vehicles to start, and cross country trips are a reality, plus, the power places (read oil company truck stops/gas stations) get to charge for the charge, as well as getting the food trade during a one hour lunch, and supper en route.

If that were reality today, it would still be 5-10 years before the lower income folks would be able to afford a used one. And the diehards would resist for at least that long. It will take at least a decade for economies of scale to kick in even if a perfect car were available today.

Hydrogen cars have been attacked because the naysayers claim that it too just transfers the energy production to fossil based production of hydrogen.

Do we have perfected Hydrogen engines?

A new fuel cell solution in the prototype stage, may be a hoax, we'll see, but ya never know today:
http://www.todayhotreport.com/genepax/

Direct hydrogen fueled engines:
http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=20332&make_id=trust

Here is the BMW hydrogen 7 which is in production:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/09/12/bmw-officially-...-the-bmw-hydrogen-7/

But on to the myths about hydrogen fueling needing fossil fuels, here is a compact solar powered electrolysis unit using power and water in Torrance California that has been in development and operating since 2001, and a 50%smaller more efficient unit has been in development since 2004.
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/station/

About the claims that direct internal combustion of hydrogen still produces some toxic elements. Umm . . . those elements were in the air/water it used for ignition/fuel to begin with, no?

But this is an RV forum, and so far nothing has been said about RV size alternatives. How about this:
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/index.php/hydrogen...with-hydrogen-buses/

Sure there is a lot of work to be done, and engineering to do, but when do we get serious about it here in the US as a national priority. Sure, let's let Europe do it before we take a chance?

I don't discount Nuclear as an alternative, but sunlight will last as long as we do. Nuclear ores are finite as well, as Mark already mentioned. But that is also a great transitional power source, and may be a primary for a couple hundred years. I am not afraid of nuclear, just contrasting the manpower to maintain it and the fact that solar thermal can't go critical mass.

How will it come to pass? Good old competition. Install a hydrogen and electric fueling recharge station in every truck stop around the country first, mandate that fueling nozzles and electric plugs be standardized across the nation, build up the scale as we go and the balance shifts, and let's see who drives what. I think there is room for all three in the foreseeable future. Hydrogen, electric, and much cheaper fossil fuels as the demand recedes, in all their variations.

The oil guys aren't the bad guys! But the writing is on the wall 30 years down the road IMO, and not because of pollution or greenie agendas, and certainly not because of a grand conspiracy. But simply because the price points are now holding us all hostage. But we don't complain because of a lack of belief, and fear of the unknown on the part of the general population.

Mark and Mark I am not answering you with a view that you guys are naysayers, but simply that I agree with most of your level headed thinking, but not necessarily a few of your premises. Lots of my post are aimed at the other readers. There is simply more out there than most are aware of already being done, and evolving as I type this diatribe!

On the energy input and energy gained arguments as well as for the can't be done folks here's a 14 min video interview with Mike Strizki, who answers a lot of those questions in less space than I can here, but the simple fact is that he has done it, and is doing it. This video is for the engineers in the crowd as well as those looking to see what is going on, and has already been done, this video is from several years ago!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt1uN38EcoQ

Future development needed? You bet! If no solar/wind/hydro/hydrogen/ alternatives were available we'd still be spending billions improving the fossil fueled only alternative. Hey we've been refining the gas powered and diesel engines every year for the last hundred years and are still at it, no? Now Technology doubles every couple of years give or take.

Like the TELCOs who refused to run fiber because of the expense back in the 90's, then fell behind in high speed again in wireless cell data in the early 2000s, ultimately losing a major portion of the stationary market to the cable companies, and finally only in the last couple of years getting serious about data for travelers thank goodness, I think the oil companies are in the same mode the TELCOs were in back then. That is all. Were I the head of the big oil companies, instead of seeing a possibility of losing revenues, I'd use some of our resources to speed up the transition now while the market is non-existent, to secure my company the patents and the monopoly in supplying future fuels and charges at a handsome profit. But that is just me, what do I know?

My concerns are for my country and our economy, (especially my own personal economy) because we have begun to get to critical mass. While it may not affect some of us here as critically, how does a 12 dollar an hour family of four afford childcare, groceries, AND the fuel, today, to get to work with both parents working? Those are my motives in doing the research for me. Not big oil jealousy, conspiracies, or tree hugger issues. We are already there for low income hard working Americans. As they increasingly cannot make ends meet, the answer is certainly not importing more workers that will work for less from the South/East/West or outsourcing.

Lastly, is solar affordable for those of us with a stix and brix? What is available? Here is just one of thousands of consumer possibilities.

Go here and look around:
http://www.solarcity.com/tabid/315/Default.aspx

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I think Mark and Mark and Derek all have well thought out posts. Thank you. With oil at the current price, many approaches that were once not justifiable now need to be reconsidered. Economically available power will be a necessity and, as always, necessity will be the mother of invention (and refinement of current inventions that may have been mothballed.)

As to business conspiracies, myself I don't think big oil is necessarily conspiring to hold things off, but having worked for a big company, I understand that R&D budgets get allocated in many ways. Clearly spending money on developing things that will reduce current profits is very hard to justify to management, and rightly so.

Now, as to government conspiracies, who knows what those guys do. I just know I don't want to go hunting with Dick Cheney.

From a scientific site:

ENERGY: HIGH FUEL PRICES BRING OUT THE VOODOO SCIENCE.The latest is something called the Hydro Assist Fuel Cell. It’s not a fuel cell as the rest of world uses the term; it’s a kit to modify your existing car. It extracts a hydrogen-oxygen mixture from water and adds it to your fuel, doubling your mpg. The same people are now offering the Pre-Ignition Catalytic Converter, PICC, to upgrade performance of the HAFC. Never mind the laws of thermodynamics, it’s "based on scientific observation." But this is another mom and pop operation; the big fish are still biting on BlackLight Power. Let’s take a look.

HYDRINO SCAM: IT COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT BIGGER.According to an article in Wednesday’s CNN Money.com, BlackLight Power has raised $60 million from investors "in its 19-year history." Nineteen years would take it back to its cold fusion roots. WN has followed Randy Mills since 1991 http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN91/wn042691.html when he held a press conference in Lancaster, PA. The full history can be found in the What’s New archives, http://www.bobpark.org , click on Search and type in “hydrino.” Some estimates were that Mills could raise $1 billion with an IPO, but he was unable to protect his intellectual property, if any, with a US patent http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn090602.html . He then sought to patent the process abroad. In April 2008 he was denied 4 patents in the UK.

Mike, you got it. I agree with you about big business decisions. Their view IS that it will reduce "current profits" and can't see that these changes are already ocurring, granted for those with the discretionary income to be early adopters. That was my point and you restated it perfectly. The problem is that current profits aren't even affected at all, nor those for the next five years at least. We have no hydrogen highways with fueling stations as Europe is doing. My thinking is that if they don't use their huge resources to start early even before there are those cars and trucks and RVs out there, using electric and hydrogen generated by solar power and water, at some point they will cease to be the mobile fueling stops of the mid future 5-10 years, and start losing a significant portion of their revenues in the near future 0-5 years.

In fact we have what we need already developed to make a significant start right now.

I have been looking into home energy independence for the last twenty years or so.

Oil and gasoline have gone up 50% this year alone and crude is at 145 bucks a barrel.

For the past ten years I have continually heard that when the price of fuel doubles then alternatives will be viable. From a buck a gallon to two, then if it goes up to three bucks, then if it goes to 3.50, then 4 bucks a gallon, and now at almost $4.10 a gallon, what is the next figure we'll sit on our hands for? $8 bucks a gallon? Because it will surely go there, and at 50-75% increases per year, as we have seen this year, that time is sooner than later.

What may happen is that big oil not only loses in the long term, but is shut out from all but heating oil until all homes are retrofitted, and jet fuel, as well as lubricants, but we can synthesize those as well. Because left to our own devices, we can do the original dream of neighborhood charging or hydrogen refueling stations where there are houses not cities. Then their national strategically spaced refueling real estate presence is for naught.

Solar cells are still high because demand has exceeded supply in the past three years, and those are the old low 14% give or take technologies. I always heard that if they doubled or tripled the 14% efficiency of the photovoltaic cells, that they would then be a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Seemingly with no one paying attention, the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) began a project to eliminate batteries for soldiers in the field and have portable solar energy that works. The newer 50% efficiency cells are still under development, they have already reached 42% efficiency photovoltaic technology. The next link is from one year ago!!!
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Consortium_Achieves_Re..._Efficiency_999.html

Not to mention the large electric generating solar thermal plants that simply generate steam from solar concentrating mirrors in a closed loop to generate power, and cost the same to build as the coal fired plants with scrubbers per megawatt!

Here's a link to the thirteen largest solar thermal projects, several of which are already in operation one here in the US! One in the Mojave desert is operational with several more under construction there! Remember that these are simply the largest thirteen, there are hundreds more much smaller ones worldwide already in operation or about to go online. Check out the locations and the status of each. Most will be operational in the next three years!
http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/12/mega-solar-the-worlds-...mal-energy-projects/

Here are the 13 largest PV (photovoltaic) projects, and they aren't even using the technology being developed by the consortium on the DARPA project!
http://ecoworldly.com/2008/03/05/worlds-7-biggest-solar-energy-plants/

If you read the comments under each article you'll see that even compiling the list was a long term research project. It is as if we are all keeping it a secret. No not a conspiracy theory, simply that for most of the world's population, and I just heard the phrase again just now on FOX news, they don't even see them because any mention of solar makes their eyes roll up and the phrase "pipe dream" come out.

The talking heads, as well as the lawmakers are woefully ignorant. As are the majority of greenies. And especially middle of the road conservatives, like me, without a lot of time keeping up.

Most relegate any conversation or post that mentions alternative energy, or the words sustainable, solar, hydrogen, fuel cells, electric vehicles, to the category of these words; hippy dippy, pipe dreams, impossible, left wing, etc.

What I think we need to do is spread the word, and email our representatives.

I remember when CD players were $1000.00 if they recorded too, and now they are 25 bucks if that. But I mention them for a significant reason. How fast did they replace vinyl and tape as an industry and source of music? It was just a couple of years! Like oil, we used vinyl since edison's wax cylinders, refined it, added speeds, changed material, developed stereo, then surround, then poof, gone and replaced with better cheaper longer lasting technology.

That is why I think it is critical to see the fueling stations take the lead. Then they just might stay in business past the initial manufacturing stage, when we use the old energy sources for initial manufacturing. They already have the fueling real estate and strength in numbers and capital to insure their future.

I'm not arguing with you Mike, just adding to the transition all of us must make first. We have to wake up and take off the blinders. Then get to work like a Manhatten Project as a nation, not to save the planet, but to maintain our way of life!

But first we have to acknowledge that none of it is currently a pipe dream. I don't care if global warming is real or not because no one seems to know, but I do care about my/our lifestyle and doing what seems obvious to me, with what we already have off the shelf, would make all those who believe in global warming happy too. Not to mention what it would do for our economy.

And Mike there will always be naysayers, even with irrefutable working examples placed before them.

Let's remember that there are still people around who think the lunar landings were a hoax. What is sadder, is that many more think alternative energies are still in the drawing board stage, while the forward thinkers go quietly about simply doing it.

And let's remember, the forward thinkers expect to make money, and they will. In addition to breaking our dependence on foreign oil, and providing cheap, safe, and clean energy for our nation, they will create jobs, clean up smog over time without investing a cent in scrubbers, catalytic converters, waste storage, toxic dumps, pollution controls, or medical treatment for the results of all the carcinogens we generate.

I'll close by quoting the old Pogo line.

I have seen the enemy, and it is us!

The majority of Americans, especially my fellow conservatives, don't know what is going on! In the 80's we called it paradigm blindness. Even when shown in person, they can't see it. It does not fit their rules of how the world works, and what has worked for them in the past.

If I were a GM worker afraid of layoffs I'd pass along to management that we better get our electric and hydrogen projects on the fast track. So I'd have a job for the foreseeable future.

Against the war? Pro war and want to win it without spending one penny on prosecuting a war? Remove their funding sources.

I know it's scary getting in bed with the opposition. The left and right agendas of greenies vs capitalists is long past. But old ways always seem to die hard.

What will bring us all together? These words: cheap energy, cheap transportation, no foreign energy dependence, strong economy, manufacturing back here in the US because we can afford to pay better wages with cheap energy.

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Duke you posted while I was composing.

Sure there are scams. There are many more for gasoline engines as well. The magic pill you drop in the fuel tank, the magic lubricants that make your engine violate the priciples of entropy as it lasts forever, and the 150 mpg gallon carburetor that the automakers/oil companies suppressed to name a tiny fraction of the millions out there.

But the scams can't survive informed scrutiny. Informed being the operative term here.

There will always be those who buy a new roof at an amazing price and never get it, who help a Nigerian president to take his millions out of the country for a cut if they send their banking information, and folks who truly believe that you'll get paid for your websurfing by Microsoft and AOL, an internet hoax that is ten years old, and I got again a few days ago.

But at this point, the folks doing things are not scamming, just building and perfecting.

An old truism:
There are three kinds of people in the world:
Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those that don't know what's happening.

We can never save the third group from themselves bud.

However, we are all in all three groups at any given time. It depends on our job, education, exposure sure! But it is even more dependent on our interests. Personal interests. I am in group three on many subjects. Put another way, we are all ignorant, just on different subjects.

Nothing wrong with that. We've all made mistakes in our lives and been conned, at one time or another.

What I find unforgiveable is willfull ignorance.

I don't have all the answers, but I am looking for the ones I can find. At least for me.

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