to your HTML Add class="sortable" to any table you'd like to make sortable Click on the headers to sort Thanks to many, many people for contributions and suggestions. Licenced as X11: http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/licence.html This basically means: do what you want with it. */ var stIsIE = /*@cc_on!@*/false; sorttable = { init: function() { // quit if this function has already been called if (arguments.callee.done) return; // flag this function so we don't do the same thing twice arguments.callee.done = true; // kill the timer if (_timer) clearInterval(_timer); if (!document.createElement || !document.getElementsByTagName) return; sorttable.DATE_RE = /^(\d\d?)[\/\.-](\d\d?)[\/\.-]((\d\d)?\d\d)$/; forEach(document.getElementsByTagName('table'), function(table) { if (table.className.search(/\bsortable\b/) != -1) { sorttable.makeSortable(table); } }); }, makeSortable: function(table) { if (table.getElementsByTagName('thead').length == 0) { // table doesn't have a tHead. Since it should have, create one and // put the first table row in it. the = document.createElement('thead'); the.appendChild(table.rows[0]); table.insertBefore(the,table.firstChild); } // Safari doesn't support table.tHead, sigh if (table.tHead == null) table.tHead = table.getElementsByTagName('thead')[0]; if (table.tHead.rows.length != 1) return; // can't cope with two header rows // Sorttable v1 put rows with a class of "sortbottom" at the bottom (as // "total" rows, for example). This is B&R, since what you're supposed // to do is put them in a tfoot. So, if there are sortbottom rows, // for backwards compatibility, move them to tfoot (creating it if needed). sortbottomrows = []; for (var i=0; i
We're stealing part of our post title from Jim Hamilton, as he unofficially commissioned this tool in the comments section of his blog post!
In his post, Jim ran very convincing numbers that fly in the face of what Tim "Drive Less" Haab might prefer as a course of action and in doing so, provided a workable solution for those for whom less driving may not be a viable option.
Drawing on a 1998 study by the U.S. Department of Energy, Jim recognized that most gasoline-powered vehicles in the U.S. are operated at speeds at which they do achieve their peak level of fuel efficiency. At highway speeds, for instance, the forces of aerodynamic drag can substantially increase the amount of fuel an automobile engine has to burn in order to sustain a high velocity. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that the amount of drag force that a car being driven at 75 miles per hour sees is some 33% higher than the same car being driven at 65 miles per hour would see.
Meanwhile, as Jim notes, your car will burn more fuel at slower speeds compared to higher speeds, as automakers have optimized your car's engine to operate most efficiently at higher speeds.
Somewhere in between lies a sweet spot into which you can get the most distance driving out for your fuel consumption dollar. And you can do so all without having to spend any extra out-of-pocket money. As an added bonus, if you do it right, you would even come out ahead of where you do today!
And that's where the tool we're introducing today comes in! We've reverse-engineered the Fuel Economy vs Speed average vehicle profile developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and combined it Jim's math to demonstrate how you can either positively or negatively affect your pocketbook by driving either faster or slower than you do today.
Just enter your driving data into the tool below. We'll assume that your standard (non-hybrid) automobile shares the same fuel economy vs speed profile as the DOE's average vehicle, and then show how driving at a different speed than you do today for a given trip might affect your personal finances:
The cool thing about this tool is that you now have more weapons in your arsenal to help fend off the effects of higher gasoline prices! Armed with this information, you can now make whatever trade-offs you might need to your greatest advantage. For example, if getting the greatest possible savings is most important to you, you'll want to drive at speeds that produce the lowest equivalent cost per gallon of gas compared to your normal driving speeds. If you want to save gas money and time, you'll want to drive at speeds that give you the greatest equivalent "tax free" income compared to how you drive today.
Speaking of which, if you want to find out what fuel saving tips really work, Edmunds.com has done a number of real world tests to find out. Here's the short list of what really works, with our brief comments:
And here's what doesn't work:
And that concludes our contribution to Jim's public service announcement. And Art Carden's. And Brian Caplan's. Etc....
Update 9 July 2008: Added a new results field to provide our approximation of your vehicle's mileage for driving at the alternate speed you entered!
Labels: economics, gas consumption, personal finance, tool
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
The S&P 500 at Your Fingertips
Mapping S&P 500 Performance, Since 1871
Should You Trade In Your Gas Guzzler?
What Are the Chances Your Marriage Will Last?
Reckoning the Odds of Recession
Your 2009 Paycheck
Tipping Around the World
Revisiting the Lottery
Estimating Your Life Expectancy
Connecting the Dots for Personal Income Taxes
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A Lot, But Not All, of Our Tools
Political Calculations' Recession Probability Track shows the probability that the U.S. economy will be in recession 12 months from the indicated date (shown in red) while revealing the probability trend over the past four years.
Previously, the probability of recession peaked at 50% on 4 April 2007, which means that March-April 2008 was the most likely period in which the NBER would have found the U.S. to be in recession.
As it happens, they almost did. The NBER instead chose December 2007 as the beginning month of the most recent recession (we had found a 46% probability for a recession beginning in that month!)
Political Calculations is also the online home of On the Moneyed Midways (aka OMM), a review of the best posts contributed to the week's best business and money-related blog carnivals. More than that, we also name one post in each edition as being The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere! and at the end of each year, we name The Best Post of the Year, Anywhere! as well as identifying the best blogs we found during the course of the year!
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