Fallacy; The Troll's True Vulnerability

It's probably because you are the last to not ignore him.

 

I see several newbies getting caught by his threads.

 

I'm not his friend, I don't agree with his behavior, so I ignore him. I don't ignore you because you continue to make public assumptions about me and have yet to act like a mature adult and apologize. Simple as that. If anyone is curious they can look at my post history. If that shows I'm a troll and/or TH then fine, but I doubt anyone with a rational mind would come to that conclusion.

 

Is your earlier invitation (copied below) still open? To everyone, or just to me? Or did it expire because of some subsequent 'maturity'?:

 

I wonder about TH's logic difficulties. E.g, "cute" and "smart" are both complimentary name-calling, and while I might call Fuzzy1 smart, I would *never* call him cute.

 

A minor style observation but if the original username were kept in the QUOTE tag instead of the initials,"TH", the software could have handled the ignore setting. No, I am not washing my raw eyeballs with lye soap as much as confirming the operation of the setting.

Memories are a funny thing which is why after a pause I'll do another quality check. Past experience has been one of these results:

1. the noise generator goes away
2. they become Kabuki-like, posting fun toys
3. they silently go back on the IGNORE list

Bob Wilson

 

I'd rather be called "hole" or "dumb" then troll since it displays more honesty (and reveals your true thoughts about a person). Of course the "ideal" is no name-calling of any kind, unless you're still in high school (and therefore immaturity is understandable).

 

He keeps saying KhaPhoRa == troy in order to BAIT you into an argument..... it would be better to ignore Chuck
.

 

I'm only replying to you because you're addressing me specifically, and unlike chuck I don't hide in the corner... I think it's sad he will reply to you directly but won't ever address me like an adult, it's obvious he knows he was wrong and can't admit it. But don't for one second assume we are allies or I agree with anything you say or do just because we have a commonality in chuck.

I ignore him on any topic I'm not interested in or not involved with. I don't go to his cat video threads and call him out, I don't stalk him or interfere in any way with him unless it's a relevant thread (such as this one) or he pokes his head into a thread I'm participating in to bring up his accusations. If he apologizes as publicly as he made his accusations I stop and it's water under the bridge.

 

So, this is a thread about ignoring someone, but nobody can seem to do it ..... As the Dragons say "and for that reason I'm out"!

 

Chuck and hmbk have my thanks for letting me know my ignore user list is working . . . and still needed.

Bob Wilson

 

And thanks to those that stopped feeding the troll.

Why not start a new thead for min/max limits free from the nonsense?

 

Sorry Chuck, I don't understand this question. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't understand. PM works for me.

Bob Wilson

 

^ no problem. Suggesting an alt thread to the pulled over for doing 40 - less the fictious pullover, etc.

 

Using the "Ignore user" often leads to reading a Gestalt thread where part has to be 'filled in":

Sensible people are easily read but the troll's nonsense is gone. This can lead to what appears to be disjointed paragraphs, like the optical illusion above. But it is easy to 'fill in the blanks' because trolls are Kabuki-like in what they do . . . and just as boring.

Still, the sensible posts often have gems, a Captain Obvious observation, so useful in future discussions. My shout out is to "austingreen" who pointed out:

• 10**6 of hybrids
• 10**4 plug-ins
• < 10**2 of fuel-cell vehicles

Even today's announced plans for fuel-cell vehicles sounds like 'lease only' along the EV1 fiasco business plan. It may change in a decade but for now, in spite of all the FUD, they just don't make sense for so many reasons. So I may take one or more users off the 'ignore' list just to have fun with the trolls.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,

I hear you. One part of me wants badly to start a thread on responsible hypermiling - to dispel myths, how it can be done without annoying other driers. Problem is with recent threads on road harassment, intentional bickering over minimum speed limits that vary locally, etc., I expect it would be overcome by hijacking. It may be awhile before I start such a thread, but be assured any threads attempting to portray hypermiling as going waaay below traffic is a misrepresentation.

 

It might be easier to just recommend the hypermiling site to those interested. I scanned the site a couple of weeks ago and some of the 'frantic' seems to have moderated. But I remain concerned that basic physics, Newtonian physics, are seldom included in hypermiling advocacy.

A presentation style of "do this" without the physics of "why it works" turns me off because it is too dictatorial. It comes across as "DO AS I TELL YOU," versus tied to engineering, "this works because the average speed is now xx% slower." In particular, I remember a SAE paper about P&G that claimed extreme efficiency in one of three tests while acknowledging a decrease but not measuring the traction battery energy loss. The other two test cases were within experimental variance what I've been able to measure. But failing to measure the traction battery energy loss, one might as well report a Plug-In Prius mileage as if it were typical of all Prius (as was done about six weeks ago in a PriusChat thread.)

BTW, this is the same lack of engineering data I have with the Consumer Reports 'mileage' claims. The CU highway mileage is OK but their vehicle review number has a problem. Then there is the CU vehicle 'score' which appears to be: biased towards the reviewer's creature comforts; an undocumented PASS/FAIL acceleration, and; no detectable MPG criteria.

All of these shortcomings are easily solved by providing engineering data which today is all but trivial to get and share. It is not that hard and completely clears up the fuzzy but dictatorial 'you must do this.'

Bob Wilson

 

^ Bob,

I'm not active at that site anymore, in part because it's founder as you suggested is too much "my way or the highway" (hypermiling of course)

Won't go public on other things concerning him, but in 2006-2008 he could have written a book and a number or things to grow that movement such as write a book, start a business, etc. He did not, and after his site was hot in 2006, ran off lots of members that were open, but not quite into hypermiling. People like me could not bring them back and realized he did not know how to sustain his movement in a positive way or running off people within his site and beyond.

Gas prices have been cyclical since at least the 1st gas shortage in 1973...it's high and people watch their bills, after awhile it's plentyful and waste it and it starts all over again. Gas has not been painfully high since 2008...it will again but it could be awhile. Prices have not hurt Wayne's activity - it's the stuff I mentioned. And questionable techniques such as drafting, hairpin turns without braking, etc. that replicated into countless hypermiling articles.

Hypermiling is OK - it's how it was (mis)promoted. Like politics, I'd like a 1,000 doing a few things over 10 extremists all alone.

But back to the original point - I don't want to open a thread now. Some will have honestly strong opinions - that's one thing. Trolling it will turn it into a three ring circus.

 

Wayne writes very good reviews of cars at cleanmpg.com.
He also does the best fuel economy challenges between cars I have ever read.

I'll also say that most people want a recipe for fuel economy and are not interested in engineering or physics. It also seems fair to point out that Wayne is neither an engineer or physicist. I think that most of what he knows (and he knows a LOT) is through trial and error and an abiding passion for fuel economy.

I would never drive like Wayne, but I feel very welcome in that forum. I bet he would very much welcome an engineering anchored analysis of the relative benefit of each hypermiling trick.