I don't think things like big-screen TVs, ample room for the kids to play, two cars per family, and eating out are fundamentally untenable.
Outside of "two cars per family" I don't see any of those as fundamentally untenable either.
However, the kids might be playing in a park or shared townhouse yard. When you eat out, you might be eating locally grown produce, which means your selections would be limited to what is seasonally available in your area or other selections would be noticeably more expensive.
I'm starting to think that somehow my prior posts were interpreted to mean that we'd have to live like cavemen or something.
No offense, but your first few posts were sort of vague. It's sounding more and more like your "live simply" is other people's "live smartly". That is, we can do pretty much the same things we're doing now, we just have to do them more efficiently.
As to "two cars", that doesn't necessarily mean we drive them everywhere. But sometimes you have two adults that need to go to different places that aren't readily accessible by public transit. If we're talking near future here, that ain't changing.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I am serious. Big homes are built & sold because they're what people want. The quality of the construction is important, but beyond a certain level of "this won't fall down" no-one cares.
Read this, it goes into far more detail and with pictures, plans, and examples that I haven't the time to type out. It's a very easy book to go through.
The short answer, though, is simply the use of space. A Victorian era home could be twice the square footage of a Usonian home, but feel much smaller thanks to the plan of it.
Is that meant to be a small house on the cover? Because that is a really big house from a non-American POV.
A) Energy costs. Heating a large home is fucking expensive versus heating a small home.
Generally, the improvements made by increasing the size can be achieved by more intelligent design.
C) That aside, sure, larger is nicer. More space is always a plus. But there's a point past which more size is completely unnecessary.
Or from a perspective that looks beyond one's self, extravagant waste of every relevant resource.
Not necessarily. A larger house doesn't necessarily require a larger plot of land (if we assume that people still get to have yards, or if they can build vertically), so it's not a space issue. Smart use of materials can minimize the amount of wood, etc. used, or we can use alternative materials that are readily replenishable. Green design can mitigate energy costs. Sure, strictly speaking it necessarily takes more resources to build a larger house, but it also takes more resources to build a small house versus a one-room hovel. "Extravagant waste" is relative.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I don't think things like big-screen TVs, ample room for the kids to play, two cars per family, and eating out are fundamentally untenable.
Outside of "two cars per family" I don't see any of those as fundamentally untenable either.
However, the kids might be playing in a park or shared townhouse yard. When you eat out, you might be eating locally grown produce, which means your selections would be limited to what is seasonally available in your area or other selections would be noticeably more expensive.
I'm starting to think that somehow my prior posts were interpreted to mean that we'd have to live like cavemen or something.
Which is why you shouldn't use the term 'live simply.' Particularly as nothing that you are describing is actually a simpler life than we have now.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited December 2008
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Two cars wouldn't be a problem if they weren't both 6-tonne trucks getting 4 mpg.
If they're big enough, they obviate the need for a house.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I am serious. Big homes are built & sold because they're what people want. The quality of the construction is important, but beyond a certain level of "this won't fall down" no-one cares.
Read this, it goes into far more detail and with pictures, plans, and examples that I haven't the time to type out. It's a very easy book to go through.
The short answer, though, is simply the use of space. A Victorian era home could be twice the square footage of a Usonian home, but feel much smaller thanks to the plan of it.
Is that meant to be a small house on the cover? Because that is a really big house from a non-American POV.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
A) Energy costs. Heating a large home is fucking expensive versus heating a small home.
Generally, the improvements made by increasing the size can be achieved by more intelligent design.
C) That aside, sure, larger is nicer. More space is always a plus. But there's a point past which more size is completely unnecessary.
Or from a perspective that looks beyond one's self, extravagant waste of every relevant resource.
Not necessarily. A larger house doesn't necessarily require a larger plot of land (if we assume that people still get to have yards, or if they can build vertically), so it's not a space issue. Smart use of materials can minimize the amount of wood, etc. used, or we can use alternative materials that are readily replenishable. Green design can mitigate energy costs. Sure, strictly speaking it necessarily takes more resources to build a larger house, but it also takes more resources to build a small house versus a one-room hovel. "Extravagant waste" is relative.
We could do those things, sure, but the house would cost four times as much and so not very many people could actually do those things.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
You still have to put those cars someplace and plan your cities around them. Denser urban lifestyles are more economically and ecologically efficient but unfortunately very car-unfriendly. Ideally, nobody should be in a situation where two adults need two cars on the same day as at least one of them should be able to get anywhere they need to go by public transit, walking, or at the very least a carshare program.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
You still have to put those cars someplace and plan your cities around them. Denser urban lifestyles are more economically and ecologically efficient but unfortunately very car-unfriendly. Ideally, nobody should be in a situation where two adults need two cars on the same day as at least one of them should be able to get anywhere they need to go by public transit, walking, or at the very least a carshare program.
You don't really need a car unless you have to carry something.
Why not a smaller transport device?
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I am serious. Big homes are built & sold because they're what people want. The quality of the construction is important, but beyond a certain level of "this won't fall down" no-one cares.
Read this, it goes into far more detail and with pictures, plans, and examples that I haven't the time to type out. It's a very easy book to go through.
The short answer, though, is simply the use of space. A Victorian era home could be twice the square footage of a Usonian home, but feel much smaller thanks to the plan of it.
Is that meant to be a small house on the cover? Because that is a really big house from a non-American POV.
Guess the sqft.
Of the room? I dunno; I don't have the eye for that. The room is just a sitting room / lounge, right?
A) Energy costs. Heating a large home is fucking expensive versus heating a small home.
Generally, the improvements made by increasing the size can be achieved by more intelligent design.
C) That aside, sure, larger is nicer. More space is always a plus. But there's a point past which more size is completely unnecessary.
Or from a perspective that looks beyond one's self, extravagant waste of every relevant resource.
Not necessarily. A larger house doesn't necessarily require a larger plot of land (if we assume that people still get to have yards, or if they can build vertically), so it's not a space issue. Smart use of materials can minimize the amount of wood, etc. used, or we can use alternative materials that are readily replenishable. Green design can mitigate energy costs. Sure, strictly speaking it necessarily takes more resources to build a larger house, but it also takes more resources to build a small house versus a one-room hovel. "Extravagant waste" is relative.
We could do those things, sure, but the house would cost four times as much and so not very many people could actually do those things.
Actually it doesn't, assuming you live there rather than sell it as soon as the final nail is in. Within 5 years you'll have made the money back on all the 'green' aspects of it. Other than PV's, of course, since those are $20k and take decades to pay themselves off at the moment.
I am highly skeptical that new technology and new social policies alone are going to bridge the gap between our current common lifestyle and a sustainable economy. I don't believe that we're going to see a sudden catastrophe. We're not going to wake up one morning in an apocalypse movie. But energy will get more expensive, petroleum-based building supplies will get more expensive, food will get more expensive, while wages do not increase to compensate. Meanwhile people who are used to the lifestyles they've been living will try to use credit to maintain them, reasoning that the increase in prices are just temporary blips in the economy and everything will be fine once they get that yearly raise they were promised. The cost of living will continue to rise, though, and they'll find themselves with more open credit than they can afford and find it difficult to pay back...
...is this starting to sound familiar at all?
The current economic crisis has nothing to do with rising costs and everything to do with people buying things they couldn't afford in the first place, at least as far as the small players are concerned. It's also a regulatory clusterfuck etc etc and I think it's stunningly disingenuous to try and link it into our broader civilizational concerns.
As far as anyone else is concerned, the exact right things of capitalism happened in Australia when petrol prices were soaring - everyone bitched and moaned - but at the same time public transport ridership went way up, people complained about how they were driving less and walking more. In fact, despite the complaints, the price of petrol going up worked exactly as we wanted it to.
Hell - it's working right now on my family. We've sustained a 3x increase in our electricity costs recently (peak hours are 5x off peak and the like), which also involves a progressive billing element per kwH used and the net effect has been we've installed more efficient lightbulbs, turned off the extra fridge and put all our appliances on time-delay and energy saving modes.
As far as I'm concerned, barring some absurd and improbable extremities (or extreme government mismanagement) this could be the one problem that capitalism will solve perfectly despite everyone swearing that it's not working or bearable.
I'm going to give a shot-in-the-dark guess that the photograph shows a 400 square foot space, including the fireplace in the middle.
It's kind of a meaningless metric without knowing how many beds and baths the house holds. Yeah, I'd guess about 400 sq ft for that space, but so what? I don't really want to sleep on the couch and crap in the fireplace, ya know?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
Rotaries.
I am unfamiliar with the technology you are referencing (at least in regards to EVs - rotary engines were an awesome idea that turned out to be pretty unworkable).
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
It's a pathetically tiny one and if somebody can't get around taking a smaller device instead of a big car when they don't need to carry anything and are just themselves they can get fucked.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
The current economic crisis has nothing to do with rising costs and everything to do with people buying things they couldn't afford in the first place, at least as far as the small players are concerned. It's also a regulatory clusterfuck etc etc and I think it's stunningly disingenuous to try and link it into our broader civilizational concerns.
It shows the human tendency to try to maintain untenable lifestyle choices even in the face of obvious evidence that they can no longer afford them.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I am serious. Big homes are built & sold because they're what people want. The quality of the construction is important, but beyond a certain level of "this won't fall down" no-one cares.
Read this, it goes into far more detail and with pictures, plans, and examples that I haven't the time to type out. It's a very easy book to go through.
The short answer, though, is simply the use of space. A Victorian era home could be twice the square footage of a Usonian home, but feel much smaller thanks to the plan of it.
Is that meant to be a small house on the cover? Because that is a really big house from a non-American POV.
Guess the sqft.
Of the room? I dunno; I don't have the eye for that. The room is just a sitting room / lounge, right?
~700 sqft, and no. It's the 'great room' (living and family room combined), dining room, and kitchen. Aside from the mud room and a bedroom that's the first floor of the house.
Is it really? People don't use the full capabilities of SUVs very much - all they get you is room for more people (not used often) and a higher driving profile. Changing to a normal size car isn't much of a lifestyle change.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
Rotaries.
I am unfamiliar with the technology you are referencing (at least in regards to EVs - rotary engines were an awesome idea that turned out to be pretty unworkable).
Rotary combustion engines are plenty workable. The only drawback of the design is higher cost of manufacture. The rest of the drawbacks are all propaganda generated by the Big Three. Who are presently right fucked, incidentally.
Is it really? People don't use the full capabilities of SUVs very much - all they get you is room for more people (not used often) and a higher driving profile. Changing to a normal size car isn't much of a lifestyle change.
Kinda makes you wonder why people buy them, huh?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Is it really? People don't use the full capabilities of SUVs very much - all they get you is room for more people (not used often) and a higher driving profile. Changing to a normal size car isn't much of a lifestyle change.
Kinda makes you wonder why people buy them, huh?
Only if you operate on the assumption that it's not a lifestyle-choice. Which is your point, but it seems the sort that would go over heads.
I'm going to give a shot-in-the-dark guess that the photograph shows a 400 square foot space, including the fireplace in the middle.
It's kind of a meaningless metric without knowing how many beds and baths the house holds. Yeah, I'd guess about 400 sq ft for that space, but so what? I don't really want to sleep on the couch and crap in the fireplace, ya know?
4 bed, 3 bath, ~2,200 sqft. for a family of 5. Most people use more square footage than that for a family of 3. Plus it's one of the larger homes in the book actually. Like I said, it goes into a lot more detail about it and is a quick read. I got through it and took it back to the library in the same day.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
Rotaries.
I am unfamiliar with the technology you are referencing (at least in regards to EVs - rotary engines were an awesome idea that turned out to be pretty unworkable).
Rotary combustion engines are plenty workable. The only drawback of the design is higher cost of manufacture. The rest of the drawbacks are all propaganda generated by the Big Three. Who are presently right fucked, incidentally.
I demand sources!
I mean I know they work, but the basic issue as I understood it was that they turned out to be pretty inefficient hence why Mazda only chucks them in stuff like RX-8's and the like. Wiki seems to imply that they basically can give you more power in a smaller volume, but design considerations mean they will be less efficient with fuel overall.
Anyway, you can build Atkinson-cycle engines which are hells efficient but need hybrid motors to work in cars.
EDIT: Also uberlols anyway since we're both right - you can use the Atkinson-cycle in a rotary engine according to that wiki page. I totally didn't know that.
~700 sqft, and no. It's the 'great room' (living and family room combined), dining room, and kitchen. Aside from the mud room and a bedroom that's the first floor of the house.
700 for what? That one room? The downstairs? The whole house?
Also, big unified areas like that look kinda cool, but they're very difficult to plan around. Not all furniture works too well floated. I'd rather run a wall down the center and have two kinda-big rooms.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
What's the opinion on how bad I should feel if I build a house by excavating straight down to give me the extra floor space area? Coz I don't need much living space but I tend to need a lot of hobby space.
If solar power advances or nuclear power takes off and battery technology catches up would two electric cars be a problem?
Hell's no. Electric cars are the thing which so totally would be perfect if batteries didn't suck. They're mechanically simpler. Their components can be made more reliable. The material strain on an electric motor is far less then that on a conventional ICE. Made right, they will pretty much never break down beyond occasionally blowing up a controller or a motor contact at 10+ years.
Rotaries.
I am unfamiliar with the technology you are referencing (at least in regards to EVs - rotary engines were an awesome idea that turned out to be pretty unworkable).
Rotary combustion engines are plenty workable. The only drawback of the design is higher cost of manufacture. The rest of the drawbacks are all propaganda generated by the Big Three. Who are presently right fucked, incidentally.
I demand sources!
I mean I know they work, but the basic issue as I understood it was that they turned out to be pretty inefficient hence why Mazda only chucks them in stuff like RX-8's and the like. Wiki seems to imply that they basically can give you more power in a smaller volume, but design considerations mean they will be less efficient with fuel overall.
Anyway, you can build Atkinson-cycle engines which are hells efficient but need hybrid motors to work in cars.
EDIT: Also uberlols anyway since we're both right - you can use the Atkinson-cycle in a rotary engine according to that wiki page. I totally didn't know that.
They're no less fuel-efficient than piston-engines of comparable output, from my research. Of which I've done a lot because I'm eventually buying and restoring an RX-7. But I was referring to reliability, primarily. They run forever for the same reason as electric motors, parts only move in one direction.
4 bed, 3 bath, ~2,200 sqft. for a family of 5. Most people use more square footage than that for a family of 3. Plus it's one of the larger homes in the book actually. Like I said, it goes into a lot more detail about it and is a quick read. I got through it and took it back to the library in the same day.
Ah. That's... not that impressive. I'm unconvinced that "most people" use more than 2200 sq ft for a family of three given that I live in the heart of suburbia and don't see a whole lot of families of three living in houses that big.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
What's the opinion on how bad I should feel if I build a house by excavating straight down to give me the extra floor space area? Coz I don't need much living space but I tend to need a lot of hobby space.
Depends. Are there any spotted owls directly beneath your house?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Yes, but not as large a one as having no access to anything faster than your shoe leather.
Moving to a row house and calling a cab rather than living in the burbs with a car in the garage is a lifestyle change, but not a significantly different one. Certainly not one where your standard of living is at all impacted, unlike having to turn into a hipster subsisting off of soy and Girltalk CD's.
Yes, but not as large a one as having no access to anything faster than your shoe leather.
Moving to a row house and calling a cab rather than living in the burbs with a car in the garage is a lifestyle change, but not a significantly different one. Certainly not one where your standard of living is at all impacted, unlike having to turn into a hipster subsisting off of soy and Girltalk CD's.
Giving up personal transportation is a pretty huge lifestyle change, having done it. Granted I live in the midwest.
Rotary combustion engines are plenty workable. The only drawback of the design is higher cost of manufacture. The rest of the drawbacks are all propaganda generated by the Big Three. Who are presently right fucked, incidentally.
I demand sources!
I mean I know they work, but the basic issue as I understood it was that they turned out to be pretty inefficient hence why Mazda only chucks them in stuff like RX-8's and the like. Wiki seems to imply that they basically can give you more power in a smaller volume, but design considerations mean they will be less efficient with fuel overall.
Anyway, you can build Atkinson-cycle engines which are hells efficient but need hybrid motors to work in cars.
EDIT: Also uberlols anyway since we're both right - you can use the Atkinson-cycle in a rotary engine according to that wiki page. I totally didn't know that.
They're no less fuel-efficient than piston-engines of comparable output, from my research. Of which I've done a lot because I'm eventually buying and restoring an RX-7. But I was referring to reliability, primarily. They run forever for the same reason as electric motors, parts only move in one direction.
Ah, decent point - yeah that sounds reasonable (and is certainly not a listed disadvantage on anything I've looked at). Also GIS suggests that would be an awesome car (though in Need for Speed I hated it).
Posts
Or from a perspective that looks beyond one's self, extravagant waste of every relevant resource.
No offense, but your first few posts were sort of vague. It's sounding more and more like your "live simply" is other people's "live smartly". That is, we can do pretty much the same things we're doing now, we just have to do them more efficiently.
As to "two cars", that doesn't necessarily mean we drive them everywhere. But sometimes you have two adults that need to go to different places that aren't readily accessible by public transit. If we're talking near future here, that ain't changing.
Is that meant to be a small house on the cover? Because that is a really big house from a non-American POV.
The floorplan, perspective, and windows might make it look bigger than it actually is.
Which is kind of the point, that a good floorplan and lots of glass can make a home seem bigger.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Not necessarily. A larger house doesn't necessarily require a larger plot of land (if we assume that people still get to have yards, or if they can build vertically), so it's not a space issue. Smart use of materials can minimize the amount of wood, etc. used, or we can use alternative materials that are readily replenishable. Green design can mitigate energy costs. Sure, strictly speaking it necessarily takes more resources to build a larger house, but it also takes more resources to build a small house versus a one-room hovel. "Extravagant waste" is relative.
Which is why you shouldn't use the term 'live simply.' Particularly as nothing that you are describing is actually a simpler life than we have now.
If they're big enough, they obviate the need for a house.
Guess the sqft.
Okay.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm going to give a shot-in-the-dark guess that the photograph shows a 400 square foot space, including the fireplace in the middle.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
We could do those things, sure, but the house would cost four times as much and so not very many people could actually do those things.
Rotaries.
You still have to put those cars someplace and plan your cities around them. Denser urban lifestyles are more economically and ecologically efficient but unfortunately very car-unfriendly. Ideally, nobody should be in a situation where two adults need two cars on the same day as at least one of them should be able to get anywhere they need to go by public transit, walking, or at the very least a carshare program.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
You don't really need a car unless you have to carry something.
Why not a smaller transport device?
Of the room? I dunno; I don't have the eye for that. The room is just a sitting room / lounge, right?
Actually it doesn't, assuming you live there rather than sell it as soon as the final nail is in. Within 5 years you'll have made the money back on all the 'green' aspects of it. Other than PV's, of course, since those are $20k and take decades to pay themselves off at the moment.
The current economic crisis has nothing to do with rising costs and everything to do with people buying things they couldn't afford in the first place, at least as far as the small players are concerned. It's also a regulatory clusterfuck etc etc and I think it's stunningly disingenuous to try and link it into our broader civilizational concerns.
As far as anyone else is concerned, the exact right things of capitalism happened in Australia when petrol prices were soaring - everyone bitched and moaned - but at the same time public transport ridership went way up, people complained about how they were driving less and walking more. In fact, despite the complaints, the price of petrol going up worked exactly as we wanted it to.
Hell - it's working right now on my family. We've sustained a 3x increase in our electricity costs recently (peak hours are 5x off peak and the like), which also involves a progressive billing element per kwH used and the net effect has been we've installed more efficient lightbulbs, turned off the extra fridge and put all our appliances on time-delay and energy saving modes.
As far as I'm concerned, barring some absurd and improbable extremities (or extreme government mismanagement) this could be the one problem that capitalism will solve perfectly despite everyone swearing that it's not working or bearable.
that's a lifestyle change
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It's kind of a meaningless metric without knowing how many beds and baths the house holds. Yeah, I'd guess about 400 sq ft for that space, but so what? I don't really want to sleep on the couch and crap in the fireplace, ya know?
It's a pathetically tiny one and if somebody can't get around taking a smaller device instead of a big car when they don't need to carry anything and are just themselves they can get fucked.
It shows the human tendency to try to maintain untenable lifestyle choices even in the face of obvious evidence that they can no longer afford them.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
~700 sqft, and no. It's the 'great room' (living and family room combined), dining room, and kitchen. Aside from the mud room and a bedroom that's the first floor of the house.
Is it really? People don't use the full capabilities of SUVs very much - all they get you is room for more people (not used often) and a higher driving profile. Changing to a normal size car isn't much of a lifestyle change.
Rotary combustion engines are plenty workable. The only drawback of the design is higher cost of manufacture. The rest of the drawbacks are all propaganda generated by the Big Three. Who are presently right fucked, incidentally.
Kinda makes you wonder why people buy them, huh?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Only if you operate on the assumption that it's not a lifestyle-choice. Which is your point, but it seems the sort that would go over heads.
4 bed, 3 bath, ~2,200 sqft. for a family of 5. Most people use more square footage than that for a family of 3. Plus it's one of the larger homes in the book actually. Like I said, it goes into a lot more detail about it and is a quick read. I got through it and took it back to the library in the same day.
I mean I know they work, but the basic issue as I understood it was that they turned out to be pretty inefficient hence why Mazda only chucks them in stuff like RX-8's and the like. Wiki seems to imply that they basically can give you more power in a smaller volume, but design considerations mean they will be less efficient with fuel overall.
Anyway, you can build Atkinson-cycle engines which are hells efficient but need hybrid motors to work in cars.
EDIT: Also uberlols anyway since we're both right - you can use the Atkinson-cycle in a rotary engine according to that wiki page. I totally didn't know that.
700 for what? That one room? The downstairs? The whole house?
Also, big unified areas like that look kinda cool, but they're very difficult to plan around. Not all furniture works too well floated. I'd rather run a wall down the center and have two kinda-big rooms.
They're no less fuel-efficient than piston-engines of comparable output, from my research. Of which I've done a lot because I'm eventually buying and restoring an RX-7. But I was referring to reliability, primarily. They run forever for the same reason as electric motors, parts only move in one direction.
Ah. That's... not that impressive. I'm unconvinced that "most people" use more than 2200 sq ft for a family of three given that I live in the heart of suburbia and don't see a whole lot of families of three living in houses that big.
Depends. Are there any spotted owls directly beneath your house?
Yes, but not as large a one as having no access to anything faster than your shoe leather.
Moving to a row house and calling a cab rather than living in the burbs with a car in the garage is a lifestyle change, but not a significantly different one. Certainly not one where your standard of living is at all impacted, unlike having to turn into a hipster subsisting off of soy and Girltalk CD's.
Giving up personal transportation is a pretty huge lifestyle change, having done it. Granted I live in the midwest.