David Both

My Toyota Prius is getting even better gas mileage than it has in the past. This is a bit of a story but I think it is very interesting.

About a month ago I had to have the main battery replaced. This was with about 91,000 miles on my car, which I would think would make it officially beyond the 8 year/80,000 mile hybrid power train warranty. I have had the car for a little over seven years. My dealership, Leith Toyota in Raleigh, North Carolina, replaced the battery under warranty and provided me a rental car at no charge while we waited for the new battery to come in.

I have to say that this is incredible service and far beyond what I would expect. Needless to say I will be going back there for my next Prius or whatever might be even better when the time comes.

Getting 55.4 MPG for the first 67 miles after my last fill-up.

However I have noticed that with the new battery I am now getting in the low 50′s for gas mileage instead of the high 40′s. How great is that! I can only surmise that the new battery, while the same basic technology as before, must have been tweaked a bit. I have noticed that my Prius now is more aggressive about turning off the gasoline engine when the vehicle is coasting to a stop or stopped. That will make a great difference right there.

After my last fill-up I actually was getting 55.4 MPG. It is currently at 53.6 MPG. I cannot complain about that a bit. Although I suppose if it ever does drop back down below 50MPG I will be somewhat disappointed.

Going to the grocery store? Beware of the amounts you are paying for.

One thing I have noticed recently is that ice cream is now a 1.5 quart container for the same price as 1 – 2 years ago when it was 2 quarts. Noticed last week that 2 of the 5 sugar choices were now 4 pound bags when 5 used to be the standard. I also bought a box of cereal, which I don’t do very often as I usually get bulk granola. The box was smaller for the same amount of money and I only got four days out of it instead of six or seven.

Be sure to check your canned goods. A can of tuna-fish has only 75% as much tuna in it as it did 10 years ago in roughly the same size can.

This is like only purchasing a half-tank of gas because you don’t notice the pain as much when it comes in smaller amounts. You just do it more often. At least with gasoline you are making your own choice to stick your head in the sand; with the packaging sizes someone else has decided for you and you have to be aware.

Not that downsizing serving sizes is bad because many people — myself included — need to do that, so smaller portions in restaurants can be a good thing. They were getting truly out of hand because I could get a doggy bag and get one or even two more meals out of a single restaurant portion. And for the meat course at least, they sometimes tell you how many ounces you are paying for but never the veggies.

I have added some very important new links to the link categories section on this page.

These links are mostly to various non-partisan web sites that do one of two things. Some sites directly compare the candidates on the issues, biographies, what they have said and done, and many other aspects. Sites that are of this type are:

• http://www.obama-mccain.info/index-obama-mccain.php
• http://www.votesmart.org/

The other type of web site debunks myths and lies for all types of things including the political kind we hear so frequently these days. zFacts.com is especially interesting; be sure to check out the real-time counters, National Debt, Cost of foreign oil, and the Carbon counter. It is truly scary to watch these numbers grow in real-time and unbelievable how large they are.

These sites are:

• http://www.factcheck.org/
• http://zfacts.com/
• http://www.snopes.com/

There is one partisan web site; that of Barack Obama and his New Strategy for a New World video clip.

• http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newstrategy

And last but certainly not least is a link to a powerful essay, “Listen, Research, Vote”, on the web site of the Raleigh Council for MoveOn.org.

• http://www.moveon-ral.org/?page_id=38

Although some of these links appear under multiple headings, they all appear under the Research heading.

Last week I finally gave up totally on Fedora 9. Even after switching from KDE to GNOME I was constantly fighting with KDE applications which used to do the things I needed. Most of the applications were there, but they were either unfinished with many features missing, or the features worked poorly or were totally broken.

This is not a good state of affairs. Even though I am a super user and enjoy being on the bleeding edge, this was a hemorrhage, and I do still need to get work (and play) done and not fight the system constantly. I reinstalled Fedora 8 and am now much more productive and happy.

We can only hope that KDE returns to its former state of excellence.

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”

- Mark Twain

It’s Also Good Reading Any Other Time. These articles were originally published in 2003 but they are just as important today, if not more so.

Concerned about global warming? Check out a new web site, 350.org. The name refers to the fact that 350 parts per million (ppm) of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the maximum concentration for a sustainable climate. We are currently at 387 ppm and rising.

A really cool site called engadget has a post about Mercedes-Benz’ attempt to stop producing petroleum fuelled cars by the year 2015. This would be really fantastic. I would buy an all-electric Smart car for tooling around town and commuting to work.

Read the article here.