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I ain’t taking two U‐turns to save five cents. There’s a price spread where I would do that, but never underestimate the importance of location for doing business.
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Jan 5, 2023 04:03
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Hyrax Attack! posted:There are gas stations in my town next to each other and one has gas for $4 a gallon while the other is $5.50. Here's another example of gas station price nonsense: The Story Behind Those Expensive Exxon Gas Stations Wolf Blitzer Loves To Tweet About No surprise it doesn't really have much to do with actually selling gas.
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Jan 5, 2023 04:06
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someone once told me the quality of gas differs per gas station provider. like, i think they explicitly said bp and chevron offer 'better' gas than others, like circle k or what not. i always thought it was nonsense, but it might be sort of true, hence the increased price? i don't know, i only drive cheap, old cars and have always just given them whatever gas's cheapest.
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Jan 5, 2023 04:08
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The fuel all comes out of the same refineries and the same pipelines to the same specification. To the extent differences exist, they’re in age and additives.
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Jan 5, 2023 04:14
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abelwingnut posted:someone once told me the quality of gas differs per gas station provider. like, i think they explicitly said bp and chevron offer 'better' gas than others, like circle k or what not. gas is all the same but the big chains try their hardest to lie to consumers that theirs is 'special' and has unique proprietary additives that clean your engine better than the competition or whatever
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Jan 5, 2023 04:55
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I have to imagine that some of these stations also offer loyalty rewards and bonuses when you spend at other partners. For example, where I live, if you buy X amount of groceries at one chain, you can save $.25/gallon at this specific gas chain. The market on the other side of town and the other gas station have a similar deal. If you use the gas station credit card you might be able to save more. I don't know if it's enough to make up for the base price difference, but it might be for some people.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:05
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There is a difference in gas, ones that have more detergents have an official industry labeling of Top Tier. I think Project Farm or someone similar did tests and showed that it did prevent carbon build up to some degree.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:07
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A lot of regular credit cards will also offer extra perks at some chains, like bonus points or increased cash back for a period of time. I have one that will frequently offer extra cash back (Like between 5% and 15%) at certain chains and it’ll rotate every month or two.
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Jan 5, 2023 05:10
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Tesseraction posted:It's the most popular brand, but in the UK we tend not to use the most popular brand to mean a particular product. We say tissues for the thing we blow our noses on, and... I forget if Xerox meant more but we just use the term (photo)copy for the act of duplicating one piece of paper to another (multiple times if needed). This is only partly true, you can say hoover for a vacuum cleaner and Mackintosh for a raincoat.
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Jan 5, 2023 07:44
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regulargonzalez posted:There is a difference in gas, ones that have more detergents have an official industry labeling of Top Tier. I think Project Farm or someone similar did tests and showed that it did prevent carbon build up to some degree. My mechanic friends basically swear by this and claim Chevron is the best. I still just gas up at Costco, cause sometimes it’s a sixty cent difference.
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Jan 5, 2023 08:02
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There’s this video, but all they really tested was “is ethanol bad for small engines?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uIsbRaArvk
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Jan 5, 2023 09:34
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BonHair posted:This is only partly true, you can say hoover for a vacuum cleaner and Mackintosh for a raincoat. I did say *tend* not to! Besides, our most popular vacuum cleaner is the beloved Henry (no relation to Mr Hoover).
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Jan 5, 2023 10:35
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I couldn't find a thread in the SAL forum so I'll try here for now: I still don't understand the difference between Amps and Watts. Amps is the amount of current flowing through a wire, but I don't see how that is different from what I understand a Watt to be - Joules per second. When we're talking about what an appliance "draws", or uses, I don't get why there would be those two seperate units. I get that Volts is the push behind it, I guess, and I know that volts X amps = watts, but conceptually I still don't get the difference. And yes I've tried watching several youtube videos that seemed to explain it pretty well, but I still don't get it. Can anyone help me understand?
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Jan 5, 2023 11:13
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Bucky Fullminster posted:I couldn't find a thread in the SAL forum
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Jan 5, 2023 12:30
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Bucky Fullminster posted:I couldn't find a thread in the SAL forum so I'll try here for now: The way that helped me conceptualise it is just like force = mass * acceleration, power (watts) is the force (volts) * acceleration (amps), the voltage is the pushing power and the amps is the speed at which that pushing power arrives. (And yes physics smartypants I know that current is more akin to velocity than acceleration but shhh.)
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Jan 5, 2023 12:48
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Bucky Fullminster posted:I get that Volts is the push behind it Let's say we have a really simple circuit with just a battery and a lightbulb. The battery provides 10V, which is the 'push' you're thinking of, which means (very simplified) that every electron leaving the battery will have 10 Joules of energy. Since the lightbulb is the only thing attached to the battery, the entire 10V will be 'spent' by the lightbulb. So every electron going through the lightbulb will 'give' the lightbulb 10 Joules, before continuing on to the other side of the battery. If you have one electron passing through the lightbulb every second, you're giving 10 Joules of energy every second to the lightbulb, so your power is 10 Watts. If you double the current, every second you have two electrons leaving the battery and passing through the lightbulb. There's still a total voltage drop of 10V, so each electron is still carrying 10 Joules of energy, which it will give to the lightbulb as it passes through it. So you have 2 electrons per second, each carrying 10 Joules, each giving the lightbulb all 10 Joules, for a total of 20 Joules given to the lightbulb every second meaning your power has doubled to 20 Watts. Amps are the number of electrons passing by (per second), Voltage is how much energy each of those electrons is carrying (how much can be given away to an appliance), and power is the total amount of energy that was given away to the appliance by all of the electrons (per second).
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Jan 5, 2023 13:43
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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Ah ok maybe that's the part that I was missing, that electrons could actually carry varying amounts of energy. Thanks. And yeah I might drop into the physics thread soon too, cheers.
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Jan 5, 2023 13:59
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Bucky Fullminster posted:I couldn't find a thread in the SAL forum so I'll try here for now: Current is (like) the amount of electricity a thing can draw. It’s useful for knowing whether a device will overload a circuit. Wattage is a measure of work. It tells you how much electrical energy gets converted into whatever type the device outputs. A 400W blender and a 400W computer power supply will consume a similar amount of energy* when doing their maximum amount of work, but one uses that energy to make a smoothie. They’re related in electronic devices but you can measure the wattage of anything from a car’s engine to a clap. *this depends on the efficiency of the device as well. A 400W heater is probably using close to 100% of its current to create heat, but a 400W PC is probably only 80% efficient depending on power supply. So 400W goes to the operation of the pc while 80W gets output as heat, noise, and light.
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Jan 5, 2023 14:14
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tuyop posted:This is how I understood it when I was learning: Right but when I’m dealing with an electrical system in a caravan at least for example, I hear about the Amps a fridge or appliance uses, or that solar panels put in.. Which is how I understood Watts to work, kind of how you described. I think I need to sleep on it and then go ask some more experts. But if electrons can really different amounts of energy then that’s a revelation.
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Jan 5, 2023 14:32
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regulargonzalez posted:There is a difference in gas, ones that have more detergents have an official industry labeling of Top Tier….prevent carbon build up… Couple things everyone should understand about their gas: Virtually all major name-brand gasolines incorporate a nitrogen-based detergent. Chevron’s brand-name Techron is the best-known example. Nitrogen detergents (and only nitrogen-based) actually clean away existing carbon deposits, and that’s what you should seek. Non-nitrogen gasoline “treatments” only prevent more buildup from occurring as long as they’re in your gas tank. Short version: only nitrogen-based cleaners are worth a poo poo. You should never use anything else. Second, octane is added to gasoline to prevent premature combustion. Modern engines have higher compression than they did 20 years ago, and those high pressures can result in premature detonation inside each piston chamber. Adding octane to gasoline prevents that premature combustion, assuming you add enough. Octane does NOT improve the performance of your engine, it merely prevents a problem from occurring. If the sticker on your gas cap says to use 91 octane, then use 91 octane. More will not help, but 91 will prevent backfiring.
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Jan 5, 2023 15:03
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obi_ant posted:My mechanic friends basically swear by this and claim Chevron is the best. I still just gas up at Costco, cause sometimes it’s a sixty cent difference. When I worked at a gas station learned the tanker trucks are sometimes filled with Chevron Techron and those loads are worth millions, and that apparently one driver accidentally put a whole shipment of Techron into the regular gas underground storage tank, I think he was just supposed to add a little bit to the mixture then go to other Chevron stations. His coverup attempt failed and I think they had to empty the whole underground tank and probably dispose of the unusable mixture.
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Jan 5, 2023 15:18
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Hyrax Attack! posted:When I worked at a gas station learned the tanker trucks are sometimes filled with Chevron Techron and those loads are worth millions, and that apparently one driver accidentally put a whole shipment of Techron into the regular gas underground storage tank, I think he was just supposed to add a little bit to the mixture then go to other Chevron stations. His coverup attempt failed and I think they had to empty the whole underground tank and probably dispose of the unusable mixture. This made me curious, so I looked up the volume of your average gas tanker truck: 5500 to 11600 gallons. At current gas prices, that means their regular cargos are worth roughly $20k-$40k. The disparity between that and a tank full of just Techron is, uh, substantial.
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Jan 5, 2023 15:35
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:This made me curious, so I looked up the volume of your average gas tanker truck: 5500 to 11600 gallons. At current gas prices, that means their regular cargos are worth roughly $20k-$40k. The disparity between that and a tank full of just Techron is, uh, substantial. Yeah the delivery drivers we got were nice but always triple checked that we understood if they were delivering regular or premium and that the correct underground tank was unlocked, with the caps color coded for our convenience. It’s been a while since I was there and we didn’t have any mix ups, i think there would have been a big issue if regular went in the premium tank and was sold as premium as it’s tightly regulated and that would be defrauding the consumer.
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Jan 5, 2023 15:45
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Watts are a more direct measure of how much electricity (in common parlance) you are using. Every shovel full of coal, or every second of sunshine or second of 60 knot wind in a given spot, contains a certain amount of energy in Joules. A power plant can convert 100 of those joules to anywhere from roughly 0-50 joules of electricity depending on how efficient it is. And joules per second is watts. So an appliance being 100 W tells you how many shovels full of coal it is demanding per second. This is also why you pay by the watt-hour (a measure of energy like joule) and not by the amp. Whether your 100 W coal or solar or wind generator gets broken down into 100 A at 1 V, or 50 A at 2 V, or etc, is a purely electrical question (though still a very important one). But ultimately watts are the measure of energy produced, or later used, per second. Part of your confusion might be from how a lot of appliances and electrical stuff will make assumptions when reporting a value. A 40W light bulb is called that because the wattage directly relates to the amount of light as well as the cost of running it. But ultimately the only thing defined about the bulb is its resistance, and when they call it 40W they are assuming you are using a certain voltage, which tbf is usually a fair assumption for 99% of people, unless you take it to another country or try to plug it into a car battery. In a 120V system (US) it could just as easily be called a 0.333A bulb. And in a 12V battery system, it would be a very dim bulb and only run at 0.4W, because the actual filament in the bulb was intended for 120V of push. To get the same light on a 12V line you'd want to look for a bulb labeled for 12V use. Similarly (and less commonly) some things might be labeled as drawing some number of amps but they too are assuming a certain system voltage. (e: A practical reason for reporting amperage might be because a breaker/fuse on a circuit is rated for a certain number of amps before it trips, to protect the wires that can only carry so much, so if you're kitting out a caravan like you said, I'm sure that's a pretty relevant concern) Amperage is also important because the wires that carry current can only carry so much safely. Higher current needs beefier wires. All in all watts are the most practical measurement when thinking about energy, but you need to think about volts and amps when designing the electrical system. alnilam fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 15:50
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Hyrax Attack! posted:...one driver accidentally put a whole shipment of Techron into the regular gas underground storage tank, I think he was just supposed to add a little bit to the mixture then go to other Chevron stations... Ha ha holy poo poo. So, this one bottle of Goldschlager ended up being all gold flakes. Anyway, the guy got fired."
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Jan 5, 2023 16:02
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Right but when I’m dealing with an electrical system in a caravan at least for example, I hear about the Amps a fridge or appliance uses, or that solar panels put in.. Which is how I understood Watts to work, kind of how you described. I think I need to sleep on it and then go ask some more experts. Amps and Watts are measuring two related but different things and the problem you're having it not splitting the difference. Amps is an instantaneous measurement of electrical current through a circuit, but Watts is measuring the power that is consumed within that circuit. In mechanical physics, power is force over distance, so the analogy is something like pushing (applying force to) a box over a distance, where watts is the energy you expend (joules = force * distance) in the push. To compare it to electricity, the volts of the circuit roughly correlates to your pushing force, and amps derives from the resistances within the circuit kinda sorta if you squint similar to the forces that resist you pushing the box. That said, watts is usually more useful for consumers because: alnilam posted:All in all watts are the most practical measurement when thinking about energy, but you need to think about volts and amps when designing the electrical system. With some caveats: - Wires in your walls and in extension cords are rated in amps, so when figuring out if you can safely plug something in you need to know how many amps it will pull - Batteries in phones and computers and stuff are usually publicly measured in amp-hours which is useful for the people building the device but doesn't really make sense on the consumer side dupersaurus fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 16:14
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alnilam posted:This is also why you pay by the watt-hour (a measure of energy like joule) and not by the amp. But then why do we talk about amp hours for batteries. e: like, i feel like I'm buying a container of energy, not of charge. I certainly care more about how much work my battery lets me do. Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 19:28
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Why do so many posters get bent out of shape about being the first post on a new page?
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Jan 5, 2023 19:39
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Dr. Stab posted:But then why do we talk about amp hours for batteries. Amp hours are defined at a certain operating voltage. Which also varies by battery lol. But for a given battery architecture, you can compare amp-hours to amp-hours between batteries. They really should state what voltage it's defined at but you usually have to go digging for that info. Anyway if you multiply amp-hours by the voltage at which it's defined you get watt-hours. With batteries you have to define the operating voltage to go along with the capacity because the number of watt-hours will vary depending on what operating voltage you choose. You can run a battery harder and it will be less efficient and you'll get fewer watt-hours out of it total. But if you choose some standard voltage, you can say "at X volts, this battery will give 1 A for 100 hrs." If I had my druthers they would use watt-hours, which would still require stating the voltage at which you're defining it but at least it more directly tells you how much usable energy it has.
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Jan 5, 2023 19:48
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Lincoln posted:Why do so many posters get bent out of shape about being the first post on a new page? Because then you get to use the cool snyper emotes 
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Jan 5, 2023 21:20
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Bucky Fullminster posted:Right but when I’m dealing with an electrical system in a caravan at least for example, I hear about the Amps a fridge or appliance uses, or that solar panels put in.. Which is how I understood Watts to work, kind of how you described. I think I need to sleep on it and then go ask some more experts. Nobodys mentioned the water analogy which though flawed in some ways, might help. If you compare this trash pump with this pressure washer which both use the same engine so lets assume roughly equal wattage the trash pump puts out 42psi but 211 gpm which would be high amperage but low voltage like a starter on a car. While the pressure washer puts out 2100psi but only 2.5 gpm which would be something like a stun gun.
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Jan 6, 2023 00:52
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Let's say you had a friend named Sharon, but you had a shortened version of her name. It sounds like Cher, but... if it's short for Sharon, and you were writing this, how would you write it? Cher? Share? Share seems so weird but it's not the same name as Cher.
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Jan 6, 2023 02:38
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Lincoln posted:Why do so many posters get bent out of shape about being the first post on a new page? Because if it’s a new page and you’re replying to someone you probably should quote them which can be a pain to go back and fix.
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Jan 6, 2023 02:47
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credburn posted:Let's say you had a friend named Sharon, but you had a shortened version of her name. It sounds like Cher, but... if it's short for Sharon, and you were writing this, how would you write it? Why not Shar?
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Jan 6, 2023 02:57
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Rename her Shazza.
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Jan 6, 2023 03:12
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Shazza. e: f! b  
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Jan 6, 2023 03:18
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Could I snort my sublingual melatonin
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Jan 6, 2023 03:52
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You can snort just about anything if you put in the work. Probably shouldn't.
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Jan 6, 2023 03:56
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credburn posted:Let's say you had a friend named Sharon, but you had a shortened version of her name. It sounds like Cher, but... if it's short for Sharon, and you were writing this, how would you write it? Shār?
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Jan 6, 2023 03:59
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Share, most likely. Shār would be better in the sense that it's not another noun already but in english we don't really use macrons so generally nobody would bother. A lot of people would just type "Shar" and be okay with the fact that it reads differently from how it sounds though.
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Jan 6, 2023 04:06
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