Starbucks and water and gas! Oh my!

I just wish Americans would stop complaining about gas prices. .

The situation you described is not that far from reality. Have you heard of teleradiology yet? I kid you not. It's a reality. X-Rays, CT Scans and MRI images are being digitally transmitted to doctors in India for evaluation.

I'll dig up the article if you're interested.

Netmeeting works pretty well for teleconferencing. My former company uses it. Webcams are cheap now, so people could easily teleconference from home with a high speed connection.

Regarding solar, I've been very tempted. The NJ Energy Saver program will actually pay 70% of the cost of the system. I could get a $50K system for $17K that would reduce my electric bill by about $200 per month, making the system pay for itself in only 7-8 years because of the huge rebate.

$4 a gallon for regular can't be far off from what you guys are paying, no? I realize many European countries are much higher than that, but I thought Australia and New Zealand were around $4-5 per gallon.

I first started dealing professionally with the technology issues of videoconferencing and tele-medicine back in 1990, so I'm aware.

Ahhh, I've been down that road also. New Jersey is kind of far north, but not too bad. Here is the trick to it:
1) You've got three homeowners, A, B, and C, and each of you wants a solar system that is partly subsidized by the state.
2) Homeowner A puts up his system, and he hires B and C as the contractors on the job. He arranges to pay each of them, say $20,000 for their work.
3) Homeowner B puts up his system, and he hires A and C as the contractors. Same deal.
4) Homeowner C puts up his system, and he hires A and B as the contractors. Same deal.
5) The amount of payments between A, B, and C will wash out.
6) The amount of the state subsidy is huge, and it ends up paying for nearly all of the real equipment costs.

Think about it.

---Bob Gross---

I saw on the news tonight that a station in Atlanta, Ga. has gas at a little over $6.00 a gallon today! I don't know if it was a joke but if it was it wasn't very funny.

How many liters is a gallon?

In Denmark we pay $1,7 per LITER ! And the price goes up today. So $4 is very cheap.

Roughly 3.5 liters per gallon I think.

But don't forget, Europeans pay a lot of tax on gas. It's how they try to control oil consumption. We don't pay a lot of gasoline tax here, but they get it from us in other ways, like just bumping my property taxes to $12,000 a year. I'd rather pay $6 a gallon for gas and $5,000 in property taxes any day. How are the property taxes in Denmark? I have no idea.

Why don't you two guys exchange house keys for a month or two? One in New Jersey for one in Denmark. Even if it didn't prove anything, you would each appreciate the other guy's position better.

Just remember: Walk a mile in the other guy's shoes. Besides, then you will be a mile away and you will have his shoes.

---Bob Gross---

One word... OPEC.

Why do our oil prices have to be linked to OPEC. I was told be a reliable source a few years back that Australia can be self reliant on petrol. We only need to import crude for the production of lubricants.

So why is our petrol price so high?
No. 1 Reason is OPEC holding the West to ransom daily.
No. 2 Australia's petrol price is better than 50 cent per litre Gov Tax.

Don't know exactly since I personally don't pay property tax since I rent my apartment. But house owners are ripped off in taxes. We are all ripped off in tax and vat. And there are huges taxes on cars too. Put 300-500% on the price You pay in US and You have the amount of tax we have to pay on top of the price for the car.

You see, everybody is thinking in terms of how much tax there is per gallon or litre of gasoline.

Just think, if you had a solar powered car, you wouldn't find the government trying to tax the light hitting your solar panels, would you?

I know. I know. Pure-solar cars are not practical today. But that is what they said about gasoline powered cars about a hundred years ago.

---Bob Gross---

I agree that governments should focus more on alternative energy sources.

Denmark is in fact leading in the windmill energy but the government is not supporting this enough.


I know windmills would not be the best for powering cars

Wind and solar and geothermal and hydro are all good sources of power. Now we just have to develop better energy storage systems for the power. By that, I mean something a little better than a BP-511A battery.

If you've got plenty of electrical power, then convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, and you've got yourself a fuel cell. Use the fuel cell, and all you get out is energy and some water vapor.

Maybe one of these days we will be plugging a small fuel cell into the bottom of our cameras.

---Bob Gross---

I'll chime in with a phenomenon which may be history soon - my friend is flying economy from Sydney to London for a visit to dustant family etc. A 9 day break air in total incl the return flight. Not business related.

And there's a load people do that. In years to come...

I recently saw a list on CNN with gas prices around the world.
Here it is: http://money.cnn.com …s/lists/global_​gasprices/

And who is the winner: The Netherlands. We have the most expensive gas of the world!
It costs about US$ 6.50 per gallon here.
So don't complain...