CAJ conclusion:


I have to say that I started my CAJ with a very optimistic view towards HEVs and EVs even though I didn't like them. There a many benefits for the average hybrid or electric car driver, such as lower "fuel" cost, less pollution and a very pushed ego because of his "green" attitude. I knew that EVs and HEVs had certain drawbacks, such as a relatively short range, a limited choice of cars, high prices, cheap looking interior/exterior and bad performance compared to cars fitted with internal combustion engines (although there are some good ones). But through my research I discovered the ethical problem behind EVs or plug-in HEVs charged by electricity generated in nuclear power plants. I further decided to do some math and proved that it would be almost impossible to produce enough electricity to supply an EV per citizen. I looked into the production of EVs/HEVs and read articles that explained why these cars were anything but "green". Lithium from China and Nickel (for example) from Canada have to be transported around the globe to build the necessary batteries. I never was a fan of HEVs and HEVs but I always thought it was the way to go. But as I finished my research project, I was convinced that we had just begun to walk a very difficult and long road.

PS. I still hate the Prius.

Are HEV's and EV's really using renewable energy? And is it possible to have a whole country with nothing but electric cars?

Well, this question is quite easy to answer: It depends on your location. Your car may be running largely on electricity and there won't be as many emissions coming directly from the exhausst of your car, but that doesn't mean that there are none. If you live in a region where most of your eletricity is produced by coal or nuclear power plants then your HEV or electric car might pollute the environment even more than a car fitted with a internal combustion engine would.

Therefore, people in heavily indutrialized regions with little or no solar, wind or water power plants should avoid using regular "plug-in" HEV's or electric cars, if they really want to drive "green".
Right now, most countries try to shift their electricity production from coal/oil/nuclear power to solar/wind/water etc. In theory this is a great idea, but its relisation will that decades and all nations will have conserve energy to shorten the time. If our demand for electricity rises as fast as new electricity can be produced by using renewable energy sources, we won't be able to close down any plant at all. If you think about the enormous amount of energy needed for personal and public transport you will realise that there is a giant flaw in "buying many HEV's and eletric cars to become green". Our demand for energy, especially electricity for homes (heating, cooling etc.) is rising, even without counting the car industry. Normally, the government would build a more "green" plants and a few storage power stations to deal with the demand. However, the increasing number of electric cars might soon be seen as a problem for this system.
An example:
Let's think about the United States of America. A huge country with more than 300 million people. What would happen if you were to give each one of them an electric car with unlimited range?
A normal electric car needs around 30 kWh per 100 miles. The average American drives 15000 mile per year. That means, each American would use 4500 kWh just for transportation. Multiply this by the number of US-citizens and you will end with a demand for 1350 billion kWh per year. As a comparison, an average US-power plant generates 11,8 kWh billion per year. That would amount to 115 new nuclear power plants. If you are not a fan of nuclear power, let me translate this for you: The hydropower plant at Hoover Dam is one of the country's largest hydroelectric installations and it produces a "mere" 4 billion kWh per year. To satisfy the demand for eletricity, the government would have to build more than 300 installations the size of Hoover Dam.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=104&t=3
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/powerfaq.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_national_average_of_miles_each_American_driver_drives_per_year?#slide=2
http://activeemobility.blogspot.co.at/2012/05/how-much-electric-does-ev-use.html

Update on some of the most common types of hybrid arrangements in personal cars

 Update on some of the most common types of hybrid arrangements in personal cars

I know the following paragraphs are based on information from wikipedia, but I read through quite a few scientific papers and couldn't find one that anybody woud understand. Still, I tried to convert the scientific "language" into something anyone could "decipher". To be honest, I couldn't do it as good as wikipedia. I thought that giving a worse explanation than the one given on the first side that google would come up with is unacceptable. Therefore, my explanation is based on the research I did using scientific papers as a source for rewriting the stuff I found on wikipedia.

Parallel hybrid

In a parallel hybrid vehicle, the single electric motor and the internal combustion engine are installed so that they can power the vehicle either individually or together. In contrast to the power split configuration typically only one electric motor is installed.
Modern versions have a second electric motor/generatorconnected to the wheels for a faster transmission.

Mild parallel hybrid

These types use a generally compact electric motor

to provide auto-stop/start features and to provide extra power assist during the acceleration, and to generate on the deceleration phase. Just a hybrid in name: sporty cars , to be sold as „hybrids“

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV)

Another subtype of hybrid vehicles is the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). It is basically a Hybrid with increased energy storage capacity. Which enables people to drive in an „all-electric mode“ before switching to the internal combustion engine when the battery runs low. 

Sources: (especially the last one gave me a lot of different 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775303009753

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=855188&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D855188

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=6902

My CAJ-Talk hybrid/electric car

My CAJ Talk

I decided to inform my brother, Christian, about my CAJ, concerning hybrid and electric cars. At first, I thought that it would be a bad idea to talk to him, because everyone around my age has some knowledge of hybrid and electric cars. But my brother turned out to be a complete stranger to the topic. I mean he knew that they existed, but that was it. So, I decided to start our conversation by explaining the functioning of a hybrid and an electric engine. 

I then continued to talk about some well-known hybrid car models and about the sale statistics in the US. My brother wanted to know why I had none from the EU, especially from Austria. This led me to another part of my CAJ, the fuel consumption. I described the current car-related situation in Northern America and why many US citizens decided to buy a green car. Then Christian asked me why there were only so few hybrid cars in Europe. To answer this, I had to explain the conventional combustion engine, the diesel engine and why one of them used less fuel than the other. 
Although, I understood it myself, it was a completely different thing, to explain it to someone who was never interested in engines. I decided to change the topic of our discussion to the ethical aspect of hybrid and electric cars. As I explained the reasons why someone would buy a green car, despite its obvious drawbacks, I was sure my brother would not believe me. 

As it turned out, I was wrong. As a student of psychology, he very well understood that people wanted to be considered “environmentally aware” by their peers. Then, it was me who wanted to know more about it, because I considered buying a hybrid complete madness. But my brother had no interest in continuing our conversation and so he just mentioned some psychological theories, none of which I knew or could remember and left.

CAJ- Abstract

This CAJ tries to compare hybrid and electric cars to their fossil fueled counterparts. Its aim is to inform about the current technology behind these "green" cars. Furthermore, it intends to find out, if hybrid and electric cars are acceptable replacements for conventional cars when it comes to personal transport.  I gathered information, by reading different academic papers, both in favor of and against those new types of cars, in order to write a series of blogposts, each dedicated to a different aspect of my research. So far, my work led to one conclusion: As it is today, the hybrid technology offers no significant advantages over a modern internal combustion engine (diesel or petrol powered) and suffers from a lot of drawbacks, such as a higher price. The only explanation for the success of hybrid cars, especially in the United States of America, is the ideal they stand for, the environmental consciousness. The electric car, however, will, thanks to continuous development, eventually surpass the capabilities of a conventional car. Even if they are still too expensive to produce and their batteries are too weak. As a result,  the electric car will be capable of replacing the fossil fueled car as our primary mean of personal transport.

Hybrid cars in real life

I thought that it was time to do something about my "Anti-Prius attitude". This is not supposed to be a car review, even if it might seem like one.
I asked an aquaintance of mine, a local car dealer, if I he was selling hybrid cars and if I could borrow a Prius for an afternoon drive. Fortunately, he had a Prius among his vast sortiment of one hybrid car. Compared to the US the hybrid market in Europe is still undeveloped because of the strong performing European diesel powered cars.  It was an unused Toyota Prius V from 2013 and ready to drive. So I had a go. It is said to do around 42 mpg (overall), g
et from 0 to 60 (mph with 138 hp) in 10 seconds and on to a top speed of 115 (mph). Well, it doesn't. As most cars don't live up to one or to things in their description, the Prius is just a liar. I really tried to drive economically but only managed to get 40 mpg , which is weak for a Hybrid. In terms of speed the Prius is lacking too. It took me more than 11 seconds to get from 0 to 60 mpg. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to try to reach its top speed due to Austria's 80 mile speed limit on the motorway. Unofficially, I have to say that I couldn't reach it because the car would only go 109 mph.
Although those statistics don't matter they give you the general impression that the car is just not as good as you thought it would be.

The hybrid car engineers, especially at Toyota, really need to think about developing better engines. As it is now, they produce relatively weak engines that use too much fuel to be called "efficient".
Personally, I would never change my petrol engine (159 horsepower, 40mpg) for an engine that is not only more expensive, but also worse, for just a little bit of fuel economy.
I think that the most relevant reason for the development of a hybrid market was the attitude of the American car byers. And it still is. Americans tend to buy cars based on performance rather than fuel economy or practicality. For years the Ford F-150 (a large Pick-Up truck) was one of the best selling cars in the whole US. Those unnecessarily big cars used an astronomic amount of fuel and therefore, it was only a matter of time until the public opinion shifted. Whereas, in Europe the diesel car market flourished, Toyota introduced the hybrid car in the US. The problem I see is not the hybrid technology itself but the attitude of the hybrid byers. Instead of choosing the most economical hybrid, built in the US (less pollution because it is engineered and built without unnecessary transport) they choose the Prius because of its symbolic value.

Source:
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/test-drive-ford-c-max-hybrid-vs-toyota-prius-v.html

Abstact-WHEN ZOMBIES ATTACK!:! MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF AN OUTBREAK OF ZOMBIE INFECTION! !

WHEN ZOMBIES ATTACK!:!

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF AN OUTBREAK OF

ZOMBIE INFECTION! !

Abstact:

This paper intends to demonstrate the flexibility of mathematical modelling by theoretically analysing an outbreak of a pandemic, in this case a zombie infection. The focus lies on the classical zombies, being slow and imbecilic, instead of the more autonomous ones, which were introduced by the film industry in the 21st century. At first, the paper treats the origin of the word zombie and the different cultural beliefs related to zombification around the world. The paper describes different possible scenarios of an an outbreak of a zombie infection, using mathematical theories and formulae, such as Euler's Method. Using mathematical modelling the author(s) show(s) that in any case, an outbreak of zombies infecting humans would have disatrous results for the human civilisation. Even a quarantine or a cure would, not suffice to eradicate all zombies. Furthermore the paper states that human births and deaths would provide the infected with limitless reinforcements. The paper concludes by advising the only strategy with a high chance of success: A series of attacks, with increasing force, which are carried out as fast as possible.

Your personal guide to kill the leader of the Third Reich in 9 simple steps

Your personal guide to kill the leader of the

Third Reich in 9 simple steps:

Step 1.

First you need to acquire a time-machine of some sort that enables you to go back in time and learn how to operate it.

Step 2.

Now, you’ll have to decide on wheter you would like to kill that bastard in ranged or melee combat.

For the first type we would advise you to use some sort of high-powered sniper rifle with explosive ammunition, to ensure a quick and definit end for the future leader of the Third Reich. Be sure to also purchase a nigth--vision scope.

If you prefer the “getting your hands dirty” method, the internet offers an unimaginable amount of possible tools for killing, which can almost all be acquired legally. So take a few hours to browse through the net and find the weapon that suits you best (knife, sword, morningstar etc.)

Step 3.

Whatever weapon you chose, learn to handle it properly.

Step 4.

Now it is time to choose the exact time period and location you want to go back to. You wouldn’t want to kill a helpless child in some Austrian village, so your best shot is the time when he was already an antisemite, but was still “preaching” to his followers in Bavarian pubs.

Step 5.

Depending on your choice of time-machine, it might not enable you to travel back in time AND space. If you have one that does not allow both, get to Munich first.

 Step 6.

Ready your weapon and enter your time-machine, set the date, hour and if possible location you researched and hit the “start” button.

Step 7.

Guten Tag, you have reached Germany in the 1920’s.

• If you chose the rifle we suggested, just climb onto the roof of a building nearby.

• If you chose the melee weapon, position yourself behind some dumpsters or around a dark corner.

In both cases it is necessary that you watch the pub’s exit closely.

Step 8.

Sitting on the roof of a building, wait for Hitler to get out of the door and aim right for the moustache in his face.

As a marksman you have two options :

• Take your time and wait until no one is blocking the path of your bullet, take a deep breath and shoot like a real sniper.

• Do not wait for anything and shoot as soon as you are certain that you will hit Hitler. Do not be afraid that your target might survive. Your bullet will travel through other people as if they were made of straw. You might kill bystanders, but they are standing close to Hitler and therefore, they are nazis who deserve death.

As a melee assassin:

• Wait behind the dumpster/corner until Hitler leaves the building, jump out and beat him to death/slice him up. We would advise you to kill all bystanders as well, just to be on the safe side. (someone could try to save him or take revenge). To justify this action, just look at option 2 of the sniper instruction.

Step 9.  Got back to your time machine and travel back to a future you might not recognize anymore.

Congratulations, you have now changed the world's history.

The Napalm Girl

The Napalm Girl

Photo description 

The photograph shows a flat scenery where only grass and small shrubs and bushes grow. Right through this flat wasteland runs a broad street and a small house can be seen in the background. The background is filled by an enormous wall of smoke, like the ones caused by huge explosions. In the foreground you can see 5 children, of which three seem to be crying, one completely naked, one dressed in a shirt and underpants, one dressed in what seems to be pyjamas, one dressed in a shirt and what seems to be either long, airy pants or a skirt and one smaller child apparently in just a shirt. Behind them, there are five American soldiers in full Vietnam war gear, seemingly completely unfazed by the suffering children as they do not seem to have any intention of intervening or helping them. The soldiers also do not expect any attacks as three of them carry their weapons at least partly concealed.

Group Instructional Feedback/Criticism

 Group Instructional Feedback/Criticism

Our group agreed that the instruction is helpful, yet there were several things that would need improvement to turn this into a good instruction sheet. First of all, there should be a short explanation on what a camera lucida actually is and what it can be used for. At the top, a list of all the materials needed to build the camera would be useful, otherwise people who start reading the text before having a close look at the pictures might encounter problems. Moreover, the units of length are illegible, therefore it is hard to find out if the author meant centimeters, millimeters, or a completely different unit. Another thing our group would change is the structure of the two paragraphs as we would rather use bullet points to describe the building process. While we think that the pictures are very helpful and that the author obviously put a lot of effort into these instructions, we are convinced that the individual steps could be structured better.

Group: Nitsche Fabio, Pelich Katharina, Tieber Martin

Hybrid cars and their semiotics

Hybrid cars and their semiotics

As some people might know semiotics is the study of symbols and symbol systems. This post focuses on the symbolic meaning of hybrid cars, and explores why this meaning is important to consumers. In short, people buy Hybrid cars because of their image.
Different vehicles send radically different messages to our peers. A Rolls-Royce for example defines its owner as sophisticated and wealthy, while a HEV owner might appear to be more socially responsible. There are quite a few studies showing that the average HEV owner/buyer see themselves as more "socially responsible" and "green" than others, which leads to a feeling of moral superiority. In fact, over half of all HEV purchases are motivated by the symbolic meaning of HEVs, rather than the actual performance of the car.
Its all about connotations:
Many car companies have a certain reputation that is unique to their range of vehicles creating stereotypes. For example "all Volvos are very safe cars". However, this creates a very dangerous phenomenon. We tend to transfer the properties of a car onto its owner extending the sterotype. "All Volvos are safe cars, therefore all Volvo owners mustbe very interested in safety". As a result many people decide to buy hybrids, just to be considered "responsible" and "green" even if they did not believe in any of those values.

In 2005 a study conducted on HEV owners yielded the following connotations for the Toyota Prius:

-Prius-Hybrid
-Future Technology
-Good for the World
-I care about the World
-I am a moral person
-I am a good parent

A supporting factor for these ridiculous connotations is the fact that almost every celebrity in the US owns a Toyota Prius to prove their climate awareness etc. Personally, I think that there are much better HEV cars on the market, but the Prius was the first of its kind.
A study on car buyers decisions from the year 2004 showed that many HEV buyers knew very well that they were buying an expensive, bad performing car that would, even on the long term, cost them more than its petrol powered version. Yet, they still chose the HEV (in most cases the Prius) to be seen as their idols, popular singers or Hollywood stars.

Hybrid cars- stupid trend or real alternative? Part 2

Hybrid cars- stupid trend or real alternative? Part 2


Last time I wrote about reducing fuel consumption with Hybrid elcetric vehicles as a part of economic reasons for buying a Hybrid. This post will elaborate another aspect of those reasons: vehicle emissions

This seems to be closely related to the last post, as more consumed fuel results in more emissions.
But CO2 is not only produced by the engines of our cars, but also by their construction and the transport of resources. Well, one might argue that all cars need to be assembled and the materials for all vehicles have to be delivered to a factory from some distant country.

 

While this is true for all conventional cars, the different parts needed for a Hybrid travel longer and much farther. Especially the production of battery cells for Japanese HEVs, not built in the EU,
takes such a huge toll on our environment that some studies proved it to be more "green" to buy a conventional, locally produced/assembled car instead of a Hybrid that had to voyage across the seven seas.
If you really want to own a hybrid an alternative would be to buy one that was completely manufactured in your own or a neighbouring country, which of course limits the range of cars to chose from.

Hybrid cars- stupid trend or real alternative?

Hybrid cars- stupid trend or real alternative?

Motor vehicles are a core technology of our modern life and economy. Unfortunately, they pollute our air, soil and water, depend on oil supplies and are to some extend responsible for global warming.
In response, some car companies have introduced a range of Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) to reduce emissions and fuel use. The world's biggest car manufacturer Toyota introduced the first HEV for the common man, the Toyota Prius, in 1997/98. After 16 years on the market the HEV car has conquered almost 2 percent of the US market. If the recent development continues the HEV car will replace the conventional engine in about 40 to 50 years. At first this might seem remarkable but this rise has a number of reasons and only a few of them are actually thanks to the hybrid car itself.

Manufacturers like Toyota boast with their superior technology, the better fuel consumption and less pollution of HEV cars. Hybrid opponents however, claim that the figures are unrealistic and could never be achieved in real situations. There are in fact, about as many studies proving the superiority of HEVs in terms of pollution and fuel economy as there are studies displaying the opposite.

The reasons for buying a HEV can be separated into two types:

• Economy related 

• Image related (Semiotics)

This post is focused on one aspect of the first type -> fuel economy.

The most important argument for an HEV is fuel economy. By assisting the petrol engine with an electric one, fuel consumption can be reduced to up to 40%. When the Prius was introduced, in 1997, this was true, but in recent years there have been quite a few remarkable diesel engines that could match the reduction of HEV cars.
Additionally, a "normal" driver (someone who doesn't look at the revolution counter) will always ruin an HEV's fuel consumption, because they would use the petrol engine 80% of the time. I think current HEV cars excel at only one thing: commuting (in cities). No petrol or diesel powered car can match a Hybrid on a congested road. Slowly advancing at around 10 to 20 mph will allow the HEV to use its electric motor efficiently.

The general description of my CAJ: Non Fossil fueled cars (hybrids and electric cars)

The general description of my CAJ: Non Fossil fueled cars (hybrids and electric cars)


My CAJ intends to show the incredible advance in the development of non fossil fueled cars. The focus is set on electric cars and electric hybrids.
In the 21st century the technology behind cars using electricity in addition to fossil fuel, so called hybdrids, is almost considered general knowledge. Or so I thought, until I talked to some of my female colleagues (not sexist, but my few male colleagues are petrolheads) who had literally no idea how a hybrid or even a conventional engine works. Therefore I inserted this definition:

"A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle.
The term most commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), which combine an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors. However, other mechanisms to capture and utilize energy are included."(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle)

Over the next few weeks I intend to look past your everyday Hollywood star driving his new Prius in Beverly Hills to show off his climate awareness. I do not want to ridicule a person who is aware of man-made pollution and tries to reduce his own ecological footprint, but I will show that hybrids, as well made as they can be, only form one step on the journey to the goal of complete independence from fossil fuels for personal transport.
 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Bu5GMIp4U -> simpsons extract

Little History of Photography

FEEDBACK:

I genuinely do not like writing short narratives, because, in my case, it always comes at the cost of quality (as you can see in the following text). My peers liked my unconventional idea and style because it really did hold their interest, even if my narrative did not include a lot of historic information.

Little History of Photography

Tieber Martin

I felt old. Well, I guess after 20 years of solitary confinement in the attic of a manor I should have been glad that being locked in a glass cabinet for so long did not make me lose my mind. One after another my fellow prisoners had disappeared. Nothing had happened to their physical shells, but their core had vanished. They were no longer functioning. I was the last of my kind to consist of more than metal, plastic and wood. For years I felt my conscience gradually fading away, drifting further into the darkness that awaits all of us. But I could not let go. I had to last until I could meet the next generation, to pass down the history of our kind.

Steps, steps in the darkness I knew those steps and the feet they belonged to. The door opened, the glass cabinet was unlocked and something small was put right next to me. Moments later everything was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. “Hey, you there, what’s your name?” a high-pitched voice with a very strong Japanese accent asked. A little depressed, but hardly surprised that the common courtesy of introducing yourself before asking someone’s name has not survived the turn of the millennium and that further social niceties were unnecessary, I answered “Hello, my name is Martin.” “Toshi,” the voice answered. “I haven’t got much time, so just listen to what I have to say and carve every word into your very core,” I whispered hastily.

I searched in my mind for the knowledge I had acquired from my ancestors. I told him about the 1830s when Niepce and Daguerre simultaneously succeeded in creating one of the most miraculous things that had ever come into existence. I explained the resistance our forefathers faced from the church and the conservative society. I went on about the evolution from art-like photographs taken by enormous and expensive cameras, to the smaller, more affordable types in the second half of the 19th century. I described the work of master photographers like Hill, Krone or Blossfeldt. I did my best to depict the rise and fall of photography from its beginnings as a method of enhancing different forms of art, until it is reincarnation as a form of art itself.

And then silence. “Will you remember our story and pass it on when your time has come?” I asked. “Not a word shall be lost,” he answered, obviously realizing the purpose of my words. Finally, I had been able to deliver my message to the next generation. Now I could go, without regret because our legacy would not fall into oblivion.