HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 24 Jul 92 10:04:56

After discussing how public transit decays when cities spread out
Paul Barter includes:

     It is easy to see the past choices and the effect they had
     on US cities versus different choices on European cities.
     The next question might be how can a US style city try to
     regain some of the qualities of transit based cities?  Not
     easy..but I think it has to be done.

I don't see that it has to be done.  Would Paul Barter consider
the following experiment?

Let a new modern, what he calls European style city be built and let a
modern spread out city be built at similar expense.  Let them be only
100 miles apart.  See which people move to.

The experiment is unlikely to be performed in its pure form.  However,
there are indications.  The population of New York declines, and the
population of Los Angeles and Houston increase.  Maybe people don't
have the same relative preferences as most intellectuals think they ought
to.

Well, maybe everything is in order.  New York is still a powerful magnet
for intellectuals, and other people move to Los Angeles and other
spread out cities.  Perhaps we're better off with not just one kind
of city.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 04:45:42 GMT

In article <4605@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>They avoided the decay by placing their tax structures at national levels 
>rather than local ones, so there is no incentive to move to an area of lower
>taxes.  It works for socialist countries, but those with pretentions to
>freedom have problems with it.

I don't know about real estate taxes in Europe, but I have heard that
an apartment in downtown (socialist) Stockholm runs about the same or
higher than a similar apt in Manhatten. Meanwhile housing in the
suburbs (of Stockholm) is very reasonable. I would guess housing in
downtown Paris is not cheap either.  It probably reflects demand more
than taxes, but either way, the economical argument is the same.



Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Organization: New Mexico Tech
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:43:24 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.160427.17369@cerberus.ulaval.ca> yergeau@cornu.phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes:

>One such design is not only ready for construction, but in actual
>operation in many places in the world.  It's the CANDU, which uses
>heavy water as both the coolant and the moderator.  This gives it two
>nice advantages:

	Actually,  I was reading a textbook on nuclear engineering that
had a section discussing the possibility of CANDU being used as a thermal
breeder with a Th/U233 fuel cycle with relatively minor modifications
(compared to the major difference between a PWR and a thermal breeder).
I suppose that if you really have to use nuclear power this might be
a reasonable way to go.  This still leaves me curious about the proliferation
hazards of U233 -- will it fast fission well,  and what percentage of it's
fast fissions are prompt?


-- 
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Restoring Wildlife as a Priority in Our Parks
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 09:57:05 GMT

In article <1992Jul19.032455.16982@pbhye.PacBell.COM> mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
>That money is needed to put portions 
>of those freeways underground, so that wildlife can cross
>them. There is no other solution!

Oh come on.  Which is more important? BILLIONS of dollars or a few dead
skunks and bunnies?  If YOU want subterranian roads, they YOU pay for them.


>We can't continue placing human whimsabove the needs 
>of wildlife, if we want to continue having wildlife at all.

Really?  If human beings don't change the natural condition of their
environment, they die.  If you think that leaving nature untouched is
more important than living, then I suggest that you demonstrate your sincerity.

--Brian

Xref: sparky sci.environment:10265 sci.geo.meteorology:2610 sci.skeptic:13362
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Lawyer's science vs. unbiased presentation of the facts
Date: 29 Jul 92 10:11:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul29.101143.5817
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 644-8135

In article <1992Jul27.163959.2414@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> orf@scrap.ssec.wisc.edu (Leigh Orf) writes:
 
>Increasing atmospheric CO2 will increase agricultural productivity? 

CO2 is indeed biolimiting for most plants.  Plants originally
evolved at CO2 levels up to 100 times present levels, so it is
no surprise that they are adapted to higher levels.  Higher CO2 levels 
increase the productivity of over 80% of agricultural plants, including 
most grains and legumes.

Furthermore, 2.5C warming in the northern lattitudes would increase 
agricultural productivity a net 10-30% on the planet, mostly from increasing 
the growing seasons and moving the fertile lands north.  Fertile 
habitats also move northward, so over the long run there would be a
net increase in biodiversity.  In the shorter run (decades to centuries), 
the new habitats provide a place to relocate endangered species.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81)
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:37:38 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul28.180636.7446@wdl.loral.com> mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
>In article <76453@ut-emx.uucp> johncobb@ut-emx.cc.utexas.edu (John W. Cobb) writes:
>>|>	Nothing succeeds like real data.  In LA the subway costs
>>|>	300 M$/mile, exclusive of maintenance charges. {...}
>
>The LA subway is a special case and should not be used for comparision to
>anywhere else.  The above quoted cost is correct bu is 3 to 4 times what 
>the cost almost anywhere esle would bee for two reasons:

The MARTA system has consumed >$90 billion dollars for the 62.5 miles
completed since construction started in 1969. That's $1.44 billion per
mile. Of course that's *inclusive* of maintenance, rolling stock purchase,
executive salaries, etc. It doesn't include energy purchases, or operator
salaries.

In *any* existing city, to serve peak transport areas, the system will
have to be routed through the most expensive commercial real estate. That
almost by definition means underground tunnels.

Gary
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9781 sci.physics:11388 sci.energy:3534
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:48:18 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Jul22.115848.26815@kth.se>, tpalm@nada.kth.se (Thomas Palm) writes:
>By having differentiated fees (as you suggest for roads in another posting) we
>may encourage staggered schedules.

And one real good way to do this with minimal impact on personal liberty and
with maximum enforcement would be to make all the employers in the area *bid*
on shift times.  Company X might bid $1,000,000 for 1000 employees 9 to 5 and
3000 employees 10 to 6 or 8 to 4.  Company Y might bid $10,000 for 100 emp-
loyees for 10 to 6, and so forth - any combination.  The company can re-bid
quarterly or at six or 12 month intervals, and cannot hire over the bid limit.
It can assign any employee to any shift slot it wins up to the limit, so groups
that work together can stay together.  Enforcement is now at the level of the
company, of which there are many fewer than there are employees, and no
traffic-flow-damaging toll booths are needed, no bar codes on cars, with all
the concommittent damage to personal liberty, etc.  Simple, straightforward,
profitable, and the scheme respects personal rights.  I'm sure someone will
flame me for it.

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Daily I'd go over to Congress - that grand old benevolent national asylum - and
report on the inmates there.  Never seen a body of men with tongues more handy,
or information more uncertain.  If one of those men had been present when the
Deity was on the point of saying "Let there be light" we never would've had it.
From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Electricity Efficiency
Date: 29 Jul 92 22:35:40 GMT
	<STEINLY.92Jul28155410@topaz.ucsc.edu>
	<1992Jul29.140712.798@vexcel.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: dean@vexcel.com's message of 29 Jul 92 14:07:12 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.140712.798@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:

   In article <STEINLY.92Jul28155410@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   >
   >No, the question was: is this 45GW less than current generation
   >capacity or 45GW less than we figure we'll need given demographic 
   >and industrial trends and no attempt at efficiency. The first case
   >allows you to retire your "worst" capacity, the second case allows
   >you to build less - that's a difference. Reason I ask, is that figures
   >like this are almost always compared to projected demand if... 
   >rather than current demand. It's sort of like government budgets,
   >savings are only relative to wildly optimistic projections, not
   >reality.

   Clearly, it is the second case, 45GW less than projected demand.  Your
   original point was that you didn't think efficiency could deliver on
   the scale of GW.  Here we see that savings of this magnitude are being
   made without a significant effort.  The EPRI report shows that if the
   conservative MTP efficiency were completely achieved, then efficiency
   savings would match expected demand increase between 1987 and 2000.
   The potential for savings is enormous, is far cheaper than building
   new plants, and should be explored before such plants are built.

I thought it was saving on projected demand - I agree that that is
possible - in fact, make a stupid enough a projection and you can save
as much as you like - I also consider it the scientific equivalent
of me saving $90,000 in the next six months because I'm not going to
buy a BMW 735i like I projected I'd do in 1982 ;-)   

What would really impress me is if efficiency savings would enable
current capacity to be retired without the need for replacement.
Still, every little bit helps...

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			 Lick Observatory     	  *
* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	  *
* But, oh, love is strange 					  *
* and you have to learn to take the crunchy with the smooth,      *
* I suppose 				              - B.B. 1983 *
From: billc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Bill Carpenter)
Subject: Re: "Global Warming", Statement by Atmospheric Scientists
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 21:47:16 GMT
	<1992Jul9.075227.10201@techbook.com> <1992Jul10.061042.26194@s1.gov>
	<616@tdat.teradata.COM> <1992Jul13.190607.310@acuson.com>

lawson> Washington, DC is hardly a coastal city.  It is near the
lawson> Chesapeak Bay (never could spell that), but is not by the
lawson> ocean.  I don't recall the altitude exactly but it is in the
lawson> neighborhood of either 200 or 900 feet above sea level.  The

The official FAA-published altitude for the runway at Washington
National Airport is 16 feet above mean sea level.
-- 
  Bill                      William_J_Carpenter@ATT.COM        or
  (908) 576-2932            attmail!bill   or   att!pegasus!billc
  AT&T Bell Labs / AT&T EasyLink Services               LZ 3C-207
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Followup-To: sci.environment
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Jul15170600@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>,<1992Jul20.163426.25940@kth.se>
	<1992Jul22.025219.25999@cco.caltech.edu>
	<1992Jul22.115848.26815@kth.se> <4569@balrog.ctron.com>
Date: 22 Jul 92 15:17:13

My own opinion is that we should build more freeways as necessary, that
measures to force people to work odd hours are oppressive.  They are
particularly harmful for families with children.  Also they restrict
people's social choices.  There are good reasons for suffering the
inefficiency of allowing almost everyone to work 9-5, Monday through
Friday.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Date: 29 Jul 92 14:42:48 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul28.204107.16302@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.172027.28257@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>:The only good thing about malls is that they're air conditioned. The
>:worst thing about malls is you have to walk through them to get to
>:the store you want to patronize. I prefer strip shopping centers 
>:where I can park close to the door of the store where I want to 
>:make a purchase.
>
>	IF you can find parking, that is.
>
>	If you have to park far away, then you have to walk as long as
>you would in a shopping mall -- probably longer -- and almost
>certainly across a street or two.

Not around here anyway. Strip centers have proportionately as much parking
lot space as enclosed malls with the advantage that the store doors open
directly on the lot instead of having to go to a Mall entrance and then
wend your way through a simulated downtown pedestrian way to the store
you want to patronize. 

>	And is walking inside a typical shopping mall REALLY that
>terrible a burden???

It is if your knees are shot and you're buying a heavy item. I will
admit that I do sometimes go over to the mall and sit and watch the
girls. (I'm not dead yet) :-) 

Gary
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10108 sci.psychology:3269
From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Whale rights - Science and sentimen
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:57:12 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Followup-To: sci.environment
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <1992Jul27.092653.21363@ke4zv.uucp>, gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>...we are truly inferior beings.  Many
>>of our "structures" which we think of as indicative of our superiority
>>become irrelevant when "complexity" is replaced by "quality" in the criteria
>>for being superior.  And doesn't that substition make sense?

>GACK! If playing, eating, and humping were all that there were to life,
>then I don't blame whales for beaching themselves. If that's all there
>were to my life, I'd suicide too. That's an animal existence with nothing
>worthwhile to accomplish, no way to make your mark on the world, leave it
>a better (or at least different) place. No thank you Lotus eater.

I have to agree 100%, Gary.  Lotus eater is MOST apt.

Look, folks, you don't have to accord cetaceans full civil rights nor with
a "higher" or "better" intelligence to be against exterminating them for
short-term gain.  It is demonstrably stupid to send an entire species to
extinction, we need no more justification than that.  In view of the fer-
ocious "efficiency" of the whale hunt in years past and accounting for the
number of whales left alive, and in view of the fact that a dead whale pro-
vides nothing that we can't get more of and better from cheaper sources,
I think we need look no further to decide the time has come to end the whaling
industry for at least a century.  Whether is it desirable to start it up
again then should be a question for our grandchildren, not us.

Why do we have to have this mystical nonsense when simple pragmatism will
suffice?  Environmentalism should not be a religion, and if you make it one,
you will find that people will oppose it on religious grounds and with
religious ferver.  What do want to accomplish?  Do you want to protect whales,
or do you want to smite the infidels?

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com) No, I don't speak for Cabletron.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Daily I'd go over to Congress - that grand old benevolent national asylum - and
report on the inmates there.  Never seen a body of men with tongues more handy,
or information more uncertain.  If one of those men had been present when the
Deity was on the point of saying "Let there be light" we never would've had it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10157 sci.physics:11795 sci.energy:3734
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 22 Jul 92 02:52:19 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Jul20.163426.25940@kth.se>, tpalm@nada.kth.se (Thomas Palm) writes:
>* The average car is used only a couple of hours a day. The rest of the
>  time it just wastes space. These vehicles would be working day round
>  (neglecting variations in traffic). Thus less capital cost, and parking
>  space.

Here you're assuming that we manage to stagger work schedules throughout the
entire day.  While some staggering is feasible (and was actually quite
effective in reducing freeway congestion when we hosted the Olympics; it's too
bad that so few companies kept the staggered work hours after the Olympics were
over), there are probably limits to how far you can take it.  There's always
some inefficiency when you change shifts.  With all workers at a place of
business working one of three well-defined shifts, you concentrate all that
inefficiency into the three shift changes.  You'd lose a lot of overall
efficiency if you had workers changing shifts on a production line all hours of
the day.  Even outside of production lines, there are situations in which
having all the workers there at the same time is useful:  When I'm developing a
piece of software, I need to get feedback from the users.  As it is, I can
usually walk down the hall and ask "Is this what you wanted it to do?" or say "I
can't reproduce the bug from your description.  Show me what you did."  If I
had to leave e-mail for them one day and get their responses the next, it would
slow things down enormously.

>* Even if you may travel alone it is not personal property, which may
>  annoy some. Some work left for the social engineers?

It probably would annoy many.  The interiors of many peoples' cars are
cluttered with all kinds of stuff;  some of it's useless, but some of it is
stuff that they carry because they sometimes need it at unexpected times. 
Having to carry all that stuff to and from the car every time you use it could
be a major inconvenience.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9835 sci.geo.meteorology:2544 sci.skeptic:13118
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 09:35:16 EDT
From: <RMG3@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Lawyer's science vs. unbiased presentation of the facts
 <1992Jul22.183704.10219@cs.tulane.edu>
 <1992Jul22.200402.13826@midway.uchicago.edu>
 <1992Jul22.202258.14769@midway.uchicago.edu>

In article <1992Jul22.202258.14769@midway.uchicago.edu>, rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu
(raymond thomas pierrehumbert) says:

>Following on my previous comments concerning Younger-Dryas:

>Does anybody know if there is any historical precedent for
>a 4-5 degree WARMING in a period of less than 1000 years?
>Especially for a warming of global mean temperatures (YD
>was a cooling of (I think) about this magnitude, but it
>is supposed to have been pretty localized).

  With respect to the Younger Dryas, the (mostly local) cooling
in 40 years or so (according to Lehman's work) was ended by
an equally rapid warming.

  I believe that some of the ice core work does show warmings
of about 5 degrees C in under 1000 years, but it is hard to tell
if this was local or global.  A problem here is that dating
in the Antarctic cores is difficult due to the low precipitation
rate there.  Conversely, though dating for Greenland can be good,
it is tremendously influenced by the local effects of the
North Atlantic (such as with the Younger Dryas).

  Free thought:  I think it is extremely important to distinguish
between global and local features in climate and climate change.
On the other hand, the thing that will affect the wheat crop
on the great plains of North America, or the desertification of
Africa, are going to be the local changes.  So, I'm not aware
of any general studies of the climate system which explore
multiple stable states of the climate system which would involve
local changes in climate with no change in the global average
fields (temperature, say).  There's a fair amount of this
done for the ocean alone, but I have yet to see a similar
analysis for the atmosphere.  (This may reflect my area of
study more than the state of the science.  I do know of
some work in this direction, but not quite there.)

Bob Grumbine
rmg3@grebyn.com
Xref: sparky sci.environment:9912 sci.skeptic:13156
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Ice ages ("Global Warming")
Date: 24 Jul 92 05:54:53 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul18.045250.140@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>
>I don't see any problem.  Every one of these observations, and the whole
>Ice Age itself can be explained away by simply assuming that it was the
>POLAR AXIS that was located south toward Greenland in this period.
>
>And that something caused the axis to be bumped up toward the present North
>Pole in a relatively short time in under 10 to 20 thousand years.

This seems highly unlikely on physical principles. The Earth's crust is
fairly rigid and the mass distribution of the mantle and core are fairly
well fixed. Changing the location of the rotational axis would require
an enormous energy input that would have catastrophic effects well beyond
the reputed dinosaur killer. There is no evidence for such an incident.
On the other hand, wanderings of the *magnetic* pole are well documented.

On the chance that you really meant a shift in the rotational axis with
respect to the ecliptic, I was about to write a sarcastic flame about the 
amount of energy that would be required for such an axial shift, then the 
terms "precession" and "chaotic attractors" collided in my brain. Perhaps
there is something to this idea. Anyone brave enough to attempt a calculation,
or perhaps to present evidence that this is also an impossible mechanism?

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.environment