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| Friday, April 29 | | · | Blogger Beware |
| Thursday, April 21 | | · | 'One' Load of Crap |
| Monday, April 18 | | · | 'Who the fsck cares?' or 'Disclaimer' |
| Sunday, April 17 | | · | Domain Name Changes... Life Changes |
| Wednesday, December 29 | | · | New Years Party! |
| Wednesday, December 01 | | · | Less Trial and Tribulations, more Peace and Freedom |
| Saturday, October 16 | | · | Care Bears Are Gay |
| Sunday, October 10 | | · | Who I'm Voting For |
| Thursday, September 30 | | · | Today is random post day, and I like Macha |
| Monday, September 13 | | · | C++ for Me++ |
| Tuesday, August 31 | | · | New Beginnings |
| Monday, August 23 | | · | FITES LAN Party |
| Wednesday, August 18 | | · | QuakeCon... I got fragged and went to heaven |
| Tuesday, July 27 | | · | Hurray for QuakeCon! |
| Monday, July 12 | | · | Politics is Dumb |
| Thursday, July 01 | | · | LAN Party Wrap Up |
| Tuesday, June 08 | | · | Summer Musings |
| Tuesday, May 11 | | · | Uber LAN Party! |
| · | So There _IS_ Life Out There After All |
| Monday, May 03 | | · | Why Counter-Strike SUCKS |
| Thursday, April 29 | | · | The tragedy of the commons vs. the triumph of will |
| · | Welcome neophyte, to all things new |
| Wednesday, April 21 | | · | The Choice of a GNU Generation |
| Saturday, April 17 | | · | Bork Bork Bork |
| Tuesday, April 13 | | · | I am a Geek |
| Thursday, April 08 | | · | Xbox Party Wrap Up |
| Wednesday, April 07 | | · | Demorgan Laws |
| Saturday, April 03 | | · | Music Rocks the Mind Body and Soul |
| · | South Korean Powa |
| · | Electronic Voting Machines |
Older Articles
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| Greg Surbey for New Hampshire State Representative |
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| The Economics of Hyping Hybrids |
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 Have you ever wondered if a Hybrid vehicle was worth it? For all the environmentalists out there the answer is of course a resounding yes. However everyone else seems to be a bit more down to earth pragmatic when it comes to saving money. To those regular folk it thus becomes more of a question of if the total long term benefits out weigh the total upfront cost. Alright, I wondered about the real benefits of owning a hybrid myself and couldn't come up with any satisfying answers on a web search so I complied my own data off of my own Honda Civic 2005 Hybrid. Take a look and see how the reality is that Hybrids do make an excellent case if you're in a tax bracket that could use a couple thousand dollar write off :-)
Let's start with the Kelly Blue Book Value comparison of what is at it's base and with similarly configured features very much the same car. Note that the prices on the Kelly site vary over time and mine below reflect the prices when this article was published. In reality I payed several thousand dollars less than list price for my car, but we're looking for a common ratio here.
A Honda Civic Regular Manual 2005 at 32/38MPG is $15,261.00
A Honda Civic Hybrid Manual 2005 at 46/51MPG is $20,041.00
The premium you pay for Hybrid technology is the difference in price: $4,780
Assume the Regular fills up for gas once a week
13.2 gal tank * $2.35 per gal * 52.177457 weeks in a year = $1,618.54 for gas per year
A Hybrid week fill up is every (46+51)/(32+38) = 1.385714286 weeks
13.2 gal tank * $2.35 per gal * 52.177457/1.385714286 fuel efficient week = $1,168.02 for gas per year
That's $1,618.54-$1,168.02 = $450.52 savings in gas a year for the Hybrid
Assume a car lifetime/battery lifetime of 8 years (because that is how long the battery is warranted by the manufacturer before you have to spend =< $2,000 to replace it). That's 8 * $450.52 = $3,604.16 in total gas savings. Alright at first glance that means you paid $4,780-$3,604.16 = $1175.84 more for your Hybrid car than your Regular car. Ah but that's what you would think at first, however not exactly! Also you have to factor in the time value of money because a hybrid is an investment that only pays off itself slowly over time. So let's do that.
Let's say that $4,780 (difference in car price) is the the initial borrowed principal for a time value of money "account" that must be payed off. According to my constants above you pay 13.2*2.35= $31.02 for Regular gas per a week and 31.02/1.385714286= $22.39 for Hybrid gas a week. That is (31.02-22.39)*1.385714286= $11.96 placed into your pocket every Hybrid week paying into that time value of money "account" that currently has a deficit. Assuming a 3% average yearly inflation rate we're going to see what the left over deficit of the "account" is after 8 years and 37.653834941*8= 301.230679528 payments of $11.96 have been made using a loan balance equation.
A= beginning deficit, i= interest, n= # of payments made, P = payment amount
3% inflation interest a year is 0.0796732% per a Hybrid week, so i = 0.000796732
Balance = A(1+i)^n - (P/i)[(1+i)^n 1]
Balance = 4780*1.000796732^301.230679528 - (11.96/0.000796732)*(1.000796732^301.230679528-1)
Balance = 4780*1.271127834 - 15011.321247295*0.271127834
Balance = 2006.004031263
Using this more accurate time value of money adjusted equation shows that after 8 years you really paid $2,006.00 more total for your Hybrid car than the Regular car. Ah, but what if we mess with the constants in a realistic way? For instance gas prices have been a bit higher than average adjusted for the consumer price index and also inflation is just now rising above the average (think the tail end of the 70's except not quite as bad). Let's set 4% inflation and $2.75 per a gallon of gas at the pump. That's now (36.3-26.20)*1.385714286 = $14.00 gas savings every Hybrid week.
Balance = 4780*1.001062309^301.230679528 - (14.00/0.001062309)*(1.001062309^301.230679528-1)
Balance = 1614.53
First it was $2,006.00 and now it's $1,614.53 for a difference of $391.47. Future gas prices do seem to have somewhat of an impact. Since I bought a new Hybrid car this year I'm eligible this year only for a one-time Federal tax deduction of $2,000. The law changes after this year so if I would have bought my hybrid car in 2006-2009 I'd get a $1,700 one-time Federal tax credit. See how close my above calculations are to those two tax break numbers, interesting no? The after 2005 credit is variable depending upon the fuel efficiency of the specific Hybrid vehicle. It's nice to note as long as incentive laws remain on the books I'm allowed to ride in the Virginia HOV lanes without any passengers. Not to mention the Hybrid Civic's engine is whisper quiet. In my example the car traveled a total of 176,318 miles in 8 years. If perhaps you believe that the Hybrid car and battery can last 10 years then it would travel 220,398 miles and using our first equation again this time would only cost $1202.13 more than the Regular car. Sooo now how about taking account of the tax credit... once more, with feeling:
Balance = 4780*1.000796732^37.653834941 - (11.96/0.000796732)*(1.000796732^37.653834941-1)
This leaves you with $4,468.54 of deficit left to pay after one year and then subtract $2,000 worth of tax credit and you only have $2,468.54 of deficit left to pay.
Number of payments left = -log(1−iA/P) / log(1+i)
Number of payments left = -log(1−0.000796732*2468.54/11.96) / log(1+0.000796732)
225.584875057 payments / 37.653834941 Hybrid weeks = about 6 more years for zero balance to equal a grand total of 7 years until parity. The last couple of months the hybrid makes you... *drum roll*
Your profit = (P*[(1+i)^n-1]) / i
Your profit = 11.96*(1.000796732^37.99196953-1) / 0.000796732
A gain of $461.14!!! Amazing!!! Now go buy one ;-)
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| Of Terrible Turkeys and Vindictive Venison |
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 I carpooled with my dad and my two brothers to Blacksburg this last weekend to see the highly touted Tech vs. Miami college football match-up. Oh, and also to have my bro who's currently in senior high school see if he liked the campus. There were tons of tailgate parties littered all throughout the Tech parking lots and many people were waaay drunk waaay before the afternoon game. Man, that stadium is huge and it happened to be fully packed and lit up that night. The people surrounding us were crazy enthused about the game and the after-market tickets were selling for up to $600 a piece. Yeah, but unfortunately it looked as if star quarterback Marcus Vick cracked under pressure and so consequently he played an awful game. Well, even though the score was hardly close, and Miami won by a large margin, it was an awesome experience just seeing the massive amount of die hard Tech fans. Especially funny was the drunk fellow behind us who kept yelling out "Miami sucks!! But their cheerleaders are hot!!" and other such favorites along those lines :-P I loved it, fireworks, drums, cannon fire, and the roar of the crowd. I can now understand those Hokies, how could you not get into that?
So anyway, about two weeks ago I get done doing my good deed in helping out my bud Scott with his CS project at GMU for which I know surely the karma gods will take good care of me for later. At this point I'm feel'n nice and tired at 11:00pm plus work tomorrow don't ja know. I drive that undeniably treacherous underbelly of Fox Mill road that is so ominously haunted at night by the likes of evil razor-teethed carnivorous deer. Suddenly out of nowhere I see one of these Frankenbambis dart over a steep downward embankment right toward where my car would be in a split second. I quickly engage the breaks and honk my horn as a deterrent so that I may not harm the impossibly stupid animal and also in hopes that this fiend would perhaps give my car the same courtesy in return. No such courtesy was applied at all! Right where I stopped seems to have left my front passenger fender unguarded to the deranged deer who thought it to be an excellent pillow for it's head when it decided to redirect it's forward momentum into the side of my car. After knocking what little brains this adolescent female had out, she now lay beside me twitching. Sadly this particular situation wasn't quite as pleasant as it sounds. So at first I considered running over the deer several times in a back and forth manner; purely for charity of course, just to be sure and take it out of it's misery. However after seeing only specific car body damage inflicted I decided it best to get my car out of the road lest another vehicle come around the corner to add insult to injury and rear end me. Looking back as I slowly began my way home, and to my utter disappointment... er... delight the devious deer tipsily got up at this point and stumbled off into the night. So I now sit here car-less waiting for the repair shop to finish hopefully soon after the weekend. Insurance was cool though, no rate increase since this was considered an act of God. Still, I don't really worry about the balance of karma; firearms are allowed for deer hunting season in 10 days. And since I voted for a republican yesterday I know two things: I can carry a gun and God is on my side *wink* *wink* (do you really take me seriously?)
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Posted by GunPlay on Wednesday, November 09 @ 18:07:19 PST (1401 reads)
(Read More... | Score: 0) |
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| Busy enough for a Summer cool down |
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Yeah, I have been extremely active/busy since last I posted and so I've decided that it is easiest for me to post a short list of things that have happened these passed few months. Although I'm sure there is yet more to add to the list that I can't immediately recall...
1. Bought a 802.11g wireless prism54 chipset along with a 1 watt amplifier in order steal all my neighbors' wireless bandwidth with, muhahaha. It has native Linux drivers and one of the few cards that can be used to hack WEP encryption. My build-it-yourself kit was composed of a Xterasys XG-600 miniPCI Wireless LAN Card (for NoteBook PC) from Coolerexpress.com at $57.26, a PCI to miniPCI adapter from ITuner Networks Corp. at $25.91, and a 1 Watt 802.11g Amplifier from Hyperlink Technologies at $200.80
2. Implemented a _ton_ of Linux services. I can now honestly say I am a true Linux expert. My most favorite mammoth accomplishment so far is the Microsoft Active Directory mimicry I compiled by utilizing Linux implementations of DCHP/DNS/LDAP/SASL/Kerberos and Samba. The synchronized implementations are so technically cool it would take too long to describe why in layman terms. Not only that but it will save my company so much money and doesn't ever need a reboot.
3. Figured out that Verizon's voice minutes and data minutes are billed the same. I bought a USB cable for my cell phone... a pleasant surprise, feels like about half cable modem speeds and is free after 9:00pm. My phone even has Linux drivers.
4. Made some sweet money in my Roth IRA with Natural Gas since I first started on April 14th, click the chart on this baby. Oh and the 401K is doing nicely too. Of course now that I say that... *crosses fingers*
5. Went to HFStival. Hell yes, it was awesome. I saw Garbage and the Foo Fighters live to name a few. It's sweetness how the best bands are actually even better live. The entirety of the day literally rocked. This event is a teen-twentysomething's paradise. Pretty girls were everywhere... the ones I didn't notice since I was with Ashley ;-) Since we had to stay on stadium grounds the food throughout the day alone cost more than admission. But who cares, the whole place was one ginormous party. Yeah sure beer, weed, and all that you'd expect (who cares) but the fun vibe was all-encompassing. Ashley and I went crowd surfing into the mosh pit, kick ass :-)
6. Bought a new 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid, light blue, with a manual transmission. I custom installed myself a new CD-player/receiver unit with an AUX input for my MP3 player. BTW, Crutchfield is great for that kind of thing.
7. Went with Ashley as my date to her high school prom. Tux, limo, the whole shebang. I had a spectacular time all because I was with her. She was amazingly beautiful that night. Also, this was the first and only prom I've been to.
Ashley left me last Wednesday to go off to college in Florida since she's starting on a summer semester... if I had mentioned that in an itemized list it would have severely downplayed how much this deeply affects me. There is simply no way to describe the ten months of heaven on earth I have experienced with her. I'm am so incredibly happy for her graduating high school and going on to attend her first choice university. I miss her very much and I have felt awkward and empty these passed few days...
Anyway, here are some links that are guaranteed to give you a laugh:
Random Star Wars Lego Symphony
What happens when you turn to the dark side :-P
Click this, you will
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