HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
From: cornell@sc2a.unige.ch
Date: 30 Jul 92 13:47:01 +0200
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland

In article <1992Jul29.073106.18630@leland.Stanford.EDU>, ledwards@leland.Stanford.EDU (Laurence James Edwards) writes:
 Also, I'd just like to point
> out that convenience is in the eye of the beholder, if you like to read the
> paper on the way to work then a car is not very convenient unless you have
> a chauffeur. Last time I was in Europe (1988) I didn't notice any lack of
> people riding the mass-transit systems although their automobiles are just
> as fast as ours, and certainly faster than trolleys. 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
This isn't a flame, but I always find the type of comment "in europe they're
(almost) as advanced as us" to be amusing (I also realize that your posting 
in particular was not intended to be patronizing).  I agree entirely with 
the sympathies of your posting.

On Sunday, I'm going to take the 12-hour-or-so train journey to Berlin
(to a physics conference), even though I have a car that is capable of 
taking me there LEGALLY at faster than 110mph.  The stress involved in 
driving that distance is only part of the reason.

> Larry Edwards
> edwards@sunrise.stanford.edu
> 
Stephen Cornell.
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Jul25193152@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <50956@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 92 16:31:10

In article <50956@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:

   In article <JMC.92Jul25193152@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
   >Well, I didn't think I would be in agreement with Victor Yodaiken
   >for very long.  According to what I read in _Nuclear News_, the
   >French breeder program is not considered by them an abysmal failure,
   >although it has had many more difficulties than expected.
   >
   >Anyway, what's the point.  Does Victor Yodaiken think that breeder
   >reactors cannot be made to work?

   No. I think, rather, that arguments of the form "the technical problems with
   the nuclear fuel cycle are solved, only crazy environmental extremists
   think otherwise", are not supported by the facts. The French experience
   shows that the engineering of large scale nuclear power systems remains
   an experimental project, and that even though simple arithmetic may "prove"
   that an engineering technique works, the universe does not have to care.

   -- 
   yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Let's pursue this question a little further.  The breeders were
frankly experimental, but how about the regular non-breeder French
nuclear program that produces 75 percent of French electricity?
Do you consider them still experimental?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Xref: sparky sci.environment:9749 sci.physics:11352
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:04:20 GMT
Organization: LLNL
Originator: lip@s1.gov


In article <1992Jul22.085514.4631@cco.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
:In article <1992Jul21.093756.5392@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
:>	BART car cost? Most of the current fleet is the original fleet
:>of about 500 Rohr cars, delivered when BART was first started up 20
:>years ago. There are 150 cars acquired in the mid 1980's, also. This
:>gives an average age of 16 years. Furthermore, most of the BART cars
:>appear to be in good running order, and can expect to have at least
:>10-20 years ahead, almost certainly with some rebuilding on the way.
:>Each one cost about $1.5-$2 million, which amounts to $7000 to $10,000
:>per rider over 16 years, about $8 to $12/week. This is about the same
:>as a low-end private car.

:Er, just where did the government get the interest-free financing to buy these
:cars?  It seems you've neglected to add interest payments on the financing.

	And car financing is interest-free, right?

:Please remember jmc's sig:
:>>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

	Same to you, buster.

/Loren
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10241 sci.physics:11934 sci.energy:3772
From: kwyatt@ccscola.Columbia (Kershner Wyatt)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 29 Jul 92 12:03:24 GMT
Organization: NCR Corp, E&M-Columbia, Columbia, SC

In article <PD.92Jul28181027@herts.x.co.uk> pd@x.co.uk (Paul Davey) writes:
>>>>>> On 27 Jul 92 14:12:18 GMT, kwyatt@ccscola.Columbia (Kershner Wyatt) said:

>-> Pure economics here.  Most people buy their cars with the hope of someday
>-> reselling it.  In my experience of selling cars with manual transmissions,
>-> they don't sell fast. 
 
>This works the other way around in the UK (and the rest of Europe?).
>Automatics tend to be harder to get rid off, especially as they get
>older and more troublesome.

Which of course was the pure beauty of reselling an automatic in Germany.
Germans didn't want it, but the Americans did.  Actually, that is too
much of a generalization.  My one German cousin secretly liked our automatic
cars, but for some reason (male ego/society??) would only drive manuals.
You may of hit it there with the auto. being harder to get rid of in the
resale market.  But that didn't stop him from trying to drive my cars
every chance he got...

>In both cases it's what is perceived as the market norm which
>influences resale value.

Very true.  I asked a ridicously high price for the car, got a very weak
"attempt" at negotiation, but there is no way that this fellow was going to
let this car go (his wife refused to even consider learning how to drive a
manual).  No one had bothered to mention to this fellow that automatics 
were not exactly plentiful in Europe.  After all the problems I have had
selling the manuals, I felt absolutely no guilt.

>-> Both Toyota and Mercedes have run numerous tests and have declared the fuel
>-> efficiency of a manual vs automatic to be a moot point on a "properly-
>
>Newer CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) automatics are claimed
>to be even better than manual.

I really am looking forward to seeing what happens with these.  Wasn't it
DAF that had one in the '60s?  Anyhow, beautiful combination of torque,
fuel efficiency, and power from what I've heard - if they can work out the
bugs of excess slippage and power transmission.  If I remember right, they
were somewhat limited on the amount of power they could put through early
versions.

-- 
Kershner Wyatt
kwyatt@ccscola.ColumbiaSC.ncr.com

My opinions are my own and aren't necessarily my employer's.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.skeptic
From: blagdon@engin.umich.edu (Kenneth James Clark )
Subject: Re: ZERO Nuclear impact (was: Is car pooling for real? etc)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 10:08:20 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Followup-To: talk.environment

In article <BruLBA.KCp@watserv1.waterloo.edu> Richard Bell wrote:
>When you ecoterrorists (people who oppose what we have without offering
>viable alternatives) tell us how to run an aluminum smelter off of photo-
>voltaics, or wind generators.

Ie, ecoterrorist = people who oppose what we have without offering viable
alternatives.

In article <1992Jul23.171618.9386@vexcel.com> Dean Alaska wrote:
>Wow.  I tought a terrorist was someone who killed people in order to create
>fear.

Ie, terrorist = person who kills people in order to create fear.

In article <1992Jul23.224139.26167@cco.caltech.edu> Carl Lydick wrote:
>No, a terrorist is someone who engages in the systematic use of terror,
>especially as a means to coercion. 
>In each of these examples, ecoterrorists misrepresent things in order to scare
>the uninformed, in order to force their policies through.  Sure sounds like a
>systematic use of terror to me.
>
>He didn't redefine it.  You did.

Ie, terrorist = person who engages in the systematic use of terror,
especially as a means to coercion.

According to your definition (which I accept, including your examples as
examples of ecoterrorism), Dean's idea of a terrorist is indeed a terrorist.
As you point out, death isn't necessary to terrorize.  Mr. Bell's definition
contains no mention of terror however, and therefore is incorrect 
according to your definition.

They both redefined "it".  Richard's definition more appropriately 
constituted a redefinition.  You are incorrect.

Ken
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Clinton, Gore, and the End of the Automobile Age
Date: 25 Jul 92 06:03:58 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul23.230804.1294@ccu.umanitoba.ca> ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes:
>
>In a densely populated area, everyone benefits from public
>transportation.  Witness Paris, London or NYC. Drivers would certainly
>suffer in NYC if the subway shut down. Beyond the question of
>congestion, electric trains produce less polution and everyone
>benefits from that too. Similar justification (arguable, perhaps) is
>used for diesel buses.
>
>I'm not familiar with LA but there are cities where public transportation
>is not just safer and cleaner, but necessary, and for many purposes, simpler
>faster, more convenient, and if you like reading, more comfortable.

In NYC the subway is a necessity, but in cities like Los Angles, Atlanta,
Houston, and a host of others the density is not high enough across broad
areas of the city and population originations and destinations are too widely
spread in all directions to be served by fixed rail. Diesel bus systems are
only superior on limited routes at limited times. Thus they don't meet the
diverse needs of many people.

BART has the advantage of serving a small inner city core and a geographically
constrained bedroom population along the Bay penninsula. This "strip city"
approach is well suited to rail transit. Los Angles, and Atlanta, have
multiple cores dispersed about the area and bedroom populations scattered
widely in all directions. The hub and spoke systems that try to serve their
transit needs are woefully inefficient in travel time and energy efficiency.
Note that MARTA was designed by the same engineering firm that did BART.
Their failure here should show that one size does not fit all. 

Gary
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Cars, Cities and Choices
Keywords: Cars Transit Cities
Date: 29 Jul 92 22:22:32 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Jul29.144248.2912@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>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. 

	That would be a good objection _only_ if one was guaranteed
parking just in front of whatever store you wanted to shop in. C'mon,
Gary Coffman, what makes you so sure you won't have any competition?

::	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) :-) 

	And I thought that you were a blue-collar worker :-)

	And what are shopping carts for, anyway? :-)

	Try visiting a shopping mall or two sometime.

/Loren
From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Is car pooling for real? (was Re: Are bikes really less polluting?)
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:21:56 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Jul27.152430.9460@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <4593@balrog.ctron.com>, smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith) writes:
>>
>>"Taxes" are the answer only if the question was "how do we louse things up?"
>>"Taxes" aren't used to address the problems, they are used to support the
>>welfare state, the national debt or that corporate welfare system called the
>>national defense industry, which between them account for something like 90%
>>of the Federal budget.  The only real "solutions" that have come out of gov't
>>regulation come in the form of legal requirements, such as emissions require-
>>ments.
>
>So tell us, Larry, what means other than taxation do you propose to use to
>internalize the externalities?  If you can come up with something novel and
>substantive instead of simply your usual rantings, you ought to be able to get
>a Ph.D. in economics out of it.

If you had *read* the paragraph you quoted instead of knee jerk flaming,
you would have seen Larry's proposed solution. That's strict emissions
requirements. The advantage of this scheme over taxation is that the 
government doesn't profit from it. Larry seems very determined to limit
the amount of money the government coerces from his pocket, an admirable
trait. This sometimes leads to other problems such as the fact that 
regulations tend to have hidden costs that are often poorly understood.
The carbon tax idea is better at getting the costs out in the open, but
is subject to abuse as a revenue raising measure for the government. 

Allowing the government to get it's hands on too much money is
a bad thing(tm) because they'll spend it on silly pork to get themselves
re-elected, achieving a social good should be done at the expense of
*all* the people who benefit, and at no expense to those who don't.
That means the carbon tax is flawed since many of those who benefit
from reduced pollution don't pay. This brings up the idea of a market
in tradeable pollution permits. The government could issue a set number
of permits each year, at no cost, to every citizen. The citizens could
engage in free trade in these permits. This way the government receives
no revenue from pollution. Yet the total amount of pollution is reduced
to the level of the number of permits. A built in safeguard against
overly strict regulation could be a price trigger on permit trades such 
that if permit bidding drove the price above a certain limit, the government 
would be obligated to issue additional permits.

Gary
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics
From: ledwards@leland.Stanford.EDU (Laurence James Edwards)
Subject: Re: Cost of public vs. private transportation
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 01:49:39 GMT

In article <JMC.92Jul29030830@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
[....]
|> 
|>    I used to live in LA and if you are going with traffic during commuting
|>    hours it is indeed a parking lot (this was 8 years ago and it is worse now ...
|>    I was down there a couple of months ago) If you want to experience traffic
|>    moving at the speed limit during the week on a fairly consistent basis you'd
|>    probably have to restrict your travel to be between 10am and 3pm or between
|>    10pm and 7am. Even during those times you are bound to hit a small jam or two,
|>    when I was down there in June, on only one occasion (on a Sunday) did
|>    I actually make it from on-ramp to off-ramp without coming to a complete stop
|>    somewhere in between. Granted that my travel time was not affected that
|>    much (maybe 10-15mins or so) but driving bumber to bumper is not my idea
|>    of fun ...
|> 
|>    Larry Edwards
|>    edwards@sunrise.stanford.edu
|> 
|> 
|> Evidently the trouble with freeways is that they lead to excessive
|> expectations.  To lose 10-15 minutes from travelling at the speed
|> limit for any substantial distance suggests the freeways are working
|> ok, certainly better than any large fraction of commuters are likely
|> to do with the new light rail lines.  Lawyers technology.

The 10-15 minutes lost I was talking about was for non-peak travel on
trips of 30-40 freeway miles. During commute hours it's worse.
For example, a friend of mine who lived down south until last year told me
that the commute from Laguna Niguel to Hawthorne took about
1.5-2 hours ... this is a trip that would take about one hour max travelling
at the speed limit. The time lost is only part of the story ... go out
and drive in bumper to bumper for 1/2 hour and tell me how you feel ...
now try doing it with a stick shift ... now do it five days a week in the
morning and afternoon. When I lived in LA I would often take surface streets
instead of freeways, not because they would get me there faster, but because
they were more predictable and therefor easier to drive.

Larry Edwards
edwards@sunrise.stanford.edu
From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 28 Jul 92 20:55:31 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <Bs47Kz.85y@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com> wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage) writes:
>In article <1992Jul28.163531.13149@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
::... Successful
::automatically-controlled vehicles to date have usually avoided this
::problem by using simplified version of other-vehicle detection;
::airplanes have collision detectors that respond to any large object in
::the airplane's path, for example.
:
:The hell they do.
:
:Even the latest-and-greatest collision avoidance concept
:that the FAA deigns to endorse, TCAS II, requires active
:participation from the object to be avoided, specifically
:an altitude encoding radar transponder.  Nothing on the
:aircraft, except the eyeballs of the crew, has any ability
:to detect passive objects, large or otherwise, with the
:technical exception of radar altimeters and weather radars.

	I wasn't aware that airplane anti-collision radar needed a
transponder. Even in that case, one neatly short-circuts any need for
interpreting a visual image; one gets the equivalent of a line of text
on a screen describing the aircraft interrogated.

	Air-traffic-control radars also use airplane transponders,
greatly simplifying the airplane-detection task. In the absence of
good artificial vision, it is probably necessary, because radars see a
lot more than airplanes -- birds, clouds, objects on the ground, etc.
In WWII, one British air-defense radar detected what looked like a
squadron of German aircraft approaching from -- the west. At the time,
the Sun was setting, so the radar had picked up the Sun. The BMEWS
surveillance radar occasionally picked up the Moon in the 1950's.
"Bogies" or "false targets" have been a problem since the invention of
radar, though airplanes can be pointed out, after a fashion, with
simple image-processing steps like enhancing point objects and
anything seen in more than one frequency band.

	So my essential point is unchanged. Existing automatic-control
systems all bypass any serious visual-recognition steps, whether used
on optical or radar images.
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10053 sci.geo.meteorology:2586 sci.skeptic:13245
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Subject: Re: Whale rights - Science and sentimen
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 10:17:07 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.045816.7331@reed.edu>, sharvy@reed.edu (V Headshape) writes:
>In article <1992Jul26.220120.19469@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul26.070132.13837@reed.edu> sharvy@reed.edu (V Headshape) writes:
>
>>>I've been thinking more about the argument that whales lack a complex
>>>social structure, and therefore lack higher intelligence.  A better criterion
>>>than complexity, however, is quality: do some whale species have a social
>>>structure more desirable than our own?  One that leads to a better life?  I
>>>have only an interested layman's knowledge of whales, but my
>>>impression is that the social activities of some whale species
>>>consists primarily of: playing, eating and humping.
>>
>>You forgot one thing.  Dying.  Personally, I think that any social
>>structure that leaves the question of the continuing existence of your
>>entire species up to the whims of a totally different species is quite
>>inferior to one that does not no matter what other benefits it may
>>have.
>
>Declarations which begin "Personally, I think...." are irrelevant.
>
>But, suppose whales were highly intelligent creatures: what would you have 
>them do?  Invent nuclear weapons?

Avoiding the tuna fleet would suffice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:55:12 GMT
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <1992Jul24.102042.28972@s1.gov>, lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.042401.23718@pta.pyramid.com.au>, bgg@pta.pyramid.com.au (Ben Golding) writes:
>:But the commercial airlines are just mass transit, and a very
>:successful successful transit system it is too.  The posters that
>:continually assert that the American public doesn't like mass transit
>:seems to forget this.
>
>	And heavily subsidized mass transit at that. The subsidies
>come in forms both direct and indirect:
>
>	Air traffic control.

No argument here.  Air traffic control would be vastly simpler if it only had
to deal with cargo planes and general aviation.

>	The military training of many pilots.

>	Airliner development -- both Boeing and Airbus Industrie have
>charged each other with receiving big subsidies, and correctly -- and
>spinoffs from military aviation.

These two are hard to figure.  It's the standard problem of allocating costs to
two products that are inherently both produced by any process that produces
either:  How much cost do you charge to each product?  You can easily compute
the joint cost, but dividing it up is problematical.  As of 10 years ago,
microeconomists didn't have any good answer to the question.

>	The construction and maintenance of airports.

True.  Airports could be much smaller if they only had to deal with cargo and
general aviation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Newsgroups: sci.environment