LA Times: U.S. Love Affair With The Car Ending

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:41:22 GMT, meammrmustard wrote:


vehicle", bus, airplane or in a private automobile.

But I have taken a dump on a train.

Funny. If I were to put together a top ten list of important features for
transportation, that one wouldn't make the list. Do you wear diapers so
that you can take a dump while are walking out of the house?

It seems to me I heard somewhere that David Nebenzahl wrote in article
m:

Jack May spake thus:

The highways are an inherent result of technology evolution, society needs,
and normal progress. Trying to hold on to past with obsolete technology
always fails in a free society.

So, Jack, you're saying that our highway system just sort of, naturally,
evolved? Is that right?

And here I always thought it (specifically, the interstate highway
system) came about because *people planned it*. And not just people, but
big, powerful, famous, influential people, like Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Silly me! They're just an "inherent result" of evolution. Technology
evolved, and then one day, *Poof!* there were highways.

Just what part did big, powerful, famous influential DDE play in
planning the highway systems from 1910 to the latter half of the 20th
century when he motivated the design of one system of probably hundreds
that we have had or have now in the US? The interstate system was
essentially an addendum to the existing systems, with national defense
capability as the major driving force.

So was it some sort of intelligent design that evolved the highway system?

Many roads and highways followed preexisting cart or horse trails (as is
often clear from the names) or followed the shortest route between land
holdings (ranches in the West, again shown by names) or between the
flood of small towns every 20 or 30 miles apart along the railroads or
scattered over the homesteaded plains states. Call it evolution or call
it local planning, but it really couldn't be considered a system till
much of it already existed.
--
Don Kirkman

AZ Nomad spake thus:

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:41:22 GMT, meammrmustard wrote:

vehicle", bus, airplane or in a private automobile.

But I have taken a dump on a train.

Funny. If I were to put together a top ten list of important features for
transportation, that one wouldn't make the list. Do you wear diapers so
that you can take a dump while are walking out of the house?

Er, I think at least *some* trains have receptacles for just that very
purpose.


--
Don't talk to me, those of you who must need to be slammed in the
forehead with a maul before you'll GET IT that Wikipedia is a
time-wasting, totality of CRAP...don't talk to me, don't keep bleating
like naifs, that we should somehow waste MORE of our lives writing a
variorum text that would be put up on that site.

It is a WASTE OF TIME.

- Harlan Ellison, writing on the "talk page" of his Wikipedia article
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harlan_Ellison)

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:20:07 -0800, David Nebenzahl wrote:


AZ Nomad spake thus:

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:41:22 GMT, meammrmustard wrote:

vehicle", bus, airplane or in a private automobile.

But I have taken a dump on a train.

Funny. If I were to put together a top ten list of important features for
transportation, that one wouldn't make the list. Do you wear diapers so
that you can take a dump while are walking out of the house?

Er, I think at least *some* trains have receptacles for just that very
purpose.

Whatever. It's just not a top criteria for me for choosing a form of
transportation. "Oh, boy! A ****ter! That makes me want to go travel
that way!" Sorry. I don't see ****ting in a booth in a train all that
superior to driving and pulling over to a rest area to poo.

-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free software - Baxter Codeworks www.baxcode.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


"AZ Nomad" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:20:07 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

Er, I think at least *some* trains have receptacles for just that very
purpose.

Whatever. It's just not a top criteria for me for choosing a form of
transportation. "Oh, boy! A ****ter! That makes me want to go travel
that way!" Sorry. I don't see ****ting in a booth in a train all that
superior to driving and pulling over to a rest area to poo.

Long-distance buses have toilets. As do privately-owned RVs.

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
Jack May spake thus:
So, Jack, you're saying that our highway system just sort of, naturally,
evolved? Is that right?

Technology is always an evolution of people building on the work of others
and companiest trying to find a way to make more money or die. Just like
evolution.. There are millions of people involved with no single leader.

And here I always thought it (specifically, the interstate highway system)
came about because *people planned it*. And not just people, but big,
powerful, famous, influential people, like Dwight D. Eisenhower. Silly me!
They're just an "inherent result" of evolution. Technology evolved, and
then one day, *Poof!* there were highways.

Eisenhower was obviously a key leader, but there were a lot of people that
agreed that it needed to be done. I doubt Eisenhower designed and built a
single mile of highway. A lot of idea die and never produce anything.
The evolution of society is the result of many tries, many failures, and a
small number of successes that go on to change to society.

As a person living their life in this process, my day to day life is trying
to develop a winner, but never knowing how things will turn out.

Venture Capitalist fund lots of technology development knowing that 80% of
the companies they companies they start will never make a dime. Most of
the other 20% will never really take off very well. The returns for a
large success like Google , Amazon, etc make it all worth while in the
amount of money they generate.

By the way the Poof was more than 40 years and Eisenhoser was not even alive
at the end to make it all happen.


So was it some sort of intelligent design that evolved the highway system?

Intelligent design assumes some God type knows how to do the complete design
at the start. In technology, the design evolves over time with nobody
knowing how to build the eventual final product.

If you are looking for somebody to blame for cars and roads, than you will
find a lot of people evolving the technology with some key players, but not
a single person to hate.

"Bolwerk" wrote in message
...
David Nebenzahl wrote:
Jack May spake thus:

"Bolwerk" wrote in message
...

Jack May wrote:


You forgot to mention that everyone who takes a train is a pea-brained
laggard with a welfare check. Upstanding white folk such as yourself
should never stoop to such lows!

The British government did the latest work on trying to understand
technology laggards

http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/...%20laggards%22

Its not trains, it is all technologies. The British were trying to
understand technology laggards in their process to move towards digital TV.
Every technology transition I have ever followed had technology laggards
holding on the past and exclaiming loudly the inferiority the new
technology.

It has been Laser Disks vs DVD, records vs CD vs MP3, and so on.

I think it is genetic since it is so wide spread and so certain. The 16% of
people being technology laggards and their characteristics in society are
from the study. The study was trying to find out if there were any reasons
for the attitudes of the laggards.

So you are not special in supporting trains, you are just one of many
laggards in many fields. with laggards probably tending to reject any change
they encounter.

The other 16% are at the start of the technology and early adoption. That
is my category which makes my view is at the extreme opposite of laggards
which is why there is conflict.

The remaining 68% is the many users that decide they like the new technology
better than the old technology and switch to that new technology.

"Anonymous" wrote in message
...
Wow! Then I am sure glad that I bought a Corolla and didn't spend the
extra $8K - $10 K for a Prius.

There are no car pool lanes within 150 miles of where I live, so being
able to drive in them is no advantage to me.

Use of he car pool lane for hybrids has become the primary reason for people
to buy a hybrid. That is actually good because the last census I saw says
the diamond lane did nothing to increase the percentage of people car
pooling. It is definitely increasing the sales of hybrids.

I bought a new motorcycle as soon as the car pool lanes put up a sign that
said "Motorcycles OK" It had been some time since I had ridden a motorcycle
before then. Maybe it increased motorcycle use.

Jack May spake thus:

"Bolwerk" wrote in message
...

David Nebenzahl wrote:

Jack May spake thus:

"Bolwerk" wrote in message
...

Jack May wrote:

You forgot to mention that everyone who takes a train is a pea-brained
laggard with a welfare check. Upstanding white folk such as yourself
should never stoop to such lows!

The British government did the latest work on trying to understand
technology laggards

http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/...%20laggards%22

Its not trains, it is all technologies. The British were trying to
understand technology laggards in their process to move towards digital TV.
Every technology transition I have ever followed had technology laggards
holding on the past and exclaiming loudly the inferiority the new
technology.

It has been Laser Disks vs DVD, records vs CD vs MP3, and so on.

I think it is genetic since it is so wide spread and so certain. The 16% of
people being technology laggards and their characteristics in society are
from the study. The study was trying to find out if there were any reasons
for the attitudes of the laggards.

So you are not special in supporting trains, you are just one of many
laggards in many fields. with laggards probably tending to reject any change
they encounter.

The other 16% are at the start of the technology and early adoption. That
is my category which makes my view is at the extreme opposite of laggards
which is why there is conflict.

The remaining 68% is the many users that decide they like the new technology
better than the old technology and switch to that new technology.

And of course, to Randian/Panglossian technophiles like Jack, the new
technology is *always*--a priori--better than the old technology, right,
Jack?

So tell, me, Jack, how is it then that, just to take one small example,
digital photography is still *nowhere near* the optical resolution
possible with film in larger formats (say, 6x6cm upwards)? How could
that be, if the new technology is *always* better than the old
technology? (Not only that, but digital isn't expected to come anywhere
near that resolution in the forseeable future. Moore's law and all that
doesn't apply in all cases.)


--
Don't talk to me, those of you who must need to be slammed in the
forehead with a maul before you'll GET IT that Wikipedia is a
time-wasting, totality of CRAP...don't talk to me, don't keep bleating
like naifs, that we should somehow waste MORE of our lives writing a
variorum text that would be put up on that site.

It is a WASTE OF TIME.

- Harlan Ellison, writing on the "talk page" of his Wikipedia article
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harlan_Ellison)

"Jack May" wrote in message
. ..

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
Jack May spake thus:
So, Jack, you're saying that our highway system just sort of, naturally,
evolved? Is that right?

Technology is always an evolution of people building on the work of others
and companiest trying to find a way to make more money or die. Just like
evolution.. There are millions of people involved with no single leader.

And here I always thought it (specifically, the interstate highway
system) came about because *people planned it*. And not just people, but
big, powerful, famous, influential people, like Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Silly me! They're just an "inherent result" of evolution. Technology
evolved, and then one day, *Poof!* there were highways.

Eisenhower was obviously a key leader, but there were a lot of people that
agreed that it needed to be done. I doubt Eisenhower designed and built a
single mile of highway. A lot of idea die and never produce anything.
The evolution of society is the result of many tries, many failures, and a
small number of successes that go on to change to society.

As a person living their life in this process, my day to day life is
trying to develop a winner, but never knowing how things will turn out.

Venture Capitalist fund lots of technology development knowing that 80% of
the companies they companies they start will never make a dime. Most of
the other 20% will never really take off very well. The returns for a
large success like Google , Amazon, etc make it all worth while in the
amount of money they generate.

By the way the Poof was more than 40 years and Eisenhoser was not even
alive at the end to make it all happen.


So was it some sort of intelligent design that evolved the highway
system?

Intelligent design assumes some God type knows how to do the complete
design at the start. In technology, the design evolves over time with
nobody knowing how to build the eventual final product.

If you are looking for somebody to blame for cars and roads, than you will
find a lot of people evolving the technology with some key players, but
not a single person to hate.


Ike pushed for the Interstate system for 2 reasons. He was the main mover
behind the action causing it to happen. When he was a lowly Captain in the
service he had to take a convoy across the country. Took about 2 months.
When he saw the Autobahn in Germany and the efficiency of moving people and
materials, he pushed hard for the same here. Was a defense build. At one
time something like every 20 miles was a stretch that could be used as an
airfield.