Convenience über alles!...

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 12:28:59 PM UTC-4, Ed Lee wrote:
> Absolutely, oil and gas are too valuable to be burnt in cars. Better to save them for other industrial uses. EVs are only half of the solution, but better than none.

Yes, it\'s much more important to save oil and gas so we can make the shrink wrap for all the things we buy in Costco!

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 1:37:10 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 11:34 AM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 10:09:20 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

Sorry that you are not able to understand what I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything about prying cold, dead hands off steering wheels. I guess you have an ICE reaction like some people have when trying to discuss gun control. No one is trying to take your guns, but we want to have more controls over who can buy them.
I don\'t own any guns. But the gun control hoopla is something both
factions in the US tend to get wrapped up in while ignoring the entirely
more relevant point that the US has a peculiarly violent culture made up
of large numbers of peculiarly violent and self-centered people, and
that can\'t be changed in a day by legislation or the Supreme Court.

Most intelligent people can see that with estimated 400 million guns
already in circulation whether there are 300 or 500 or what the number
is precisely probably doesn\'t matter too much once you\'re into the nine
figures.

It\'s just something people like to squabble about & accomplishes nothing
but it feels good to squabble about after every mass shooting because it
feels like _some_ kind of song and dance needs to occur instead of
nothing, \"mission accomplished.\"

It is a bit humorous that you think there is no value to restricting the sale of guns. If it really does not matter if we restrict guns since there are multiple weapons for every man, woman and child in the US, then why do so many shooters buy the gun they shoot with rather than using one of the many, many already out there? Why do guns continue to be bought? Clearly, someone is hoarding all the guns and not letting everyone have their fair share! That\'s the cause of all the trouble. People aren\'t willing to share. Selfish bastards!

Likewise, with BEVs, no one is going to be forced to give up any vehicles. But we can\'t continue to keep making the same nasty, pollution machines that we\'ve driven for the last hundred years. So, at this time, everyone has full choices. Buy and drive what you want. In 15 or so years, some jurisdictions will, in the interest of the greater good (as is not at all uncommon), there will be restrictions on what is sold, but none on what is driven.. I don\'t personally see a reason to restrict what is driven, other than the typical safety based restrictions. ICE will surely fade out once the number of gas stations is a small fraction of today. You can\'t drive what you can\'t fuel.
If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

There\'s no need to buy them back. They will be scrapped soon enough. Beside, there aren\'t enough guns... I mean BEVs available for everyone to scrap their ICE right now. We can exchange ICE for BEVs 17,000,000 a year. But then, you know that. You just like being silly. A person would think you were on a late night talk show. Or maybe you\'ve bought Merv Griffin\'s set and are trying to boost ratings?

But the US government whether Democrat or Republican cares about
neither. Joe Biden has even been known to exclaim \"When in God\'s name
will we stand up to the gun lobby?\" like he forgets who the leader of
the so-called Free World is, sometimes. He probably does.
I think most of your rationale comes from the fact that we *have* been driving gas burners for over 100 years, and in spite of what the courts say about it being a \"privilege\", people like you seem to feel it is a \"right\".. The only difference between guns and cars is that cars were not mentioned in the Constitution. Other countries don\'t have that particular legal precedent, so they are not so fundamental in their objection to restrictions on things that are already restricted.
For most of US history a 2nd Amendment interpreted to mean \"a personal
right to bear arms\" was never codified, and that the \"shall not be
infringed\" part applied to anyone but the Federal government was not
clear either, these things were only clarified by the Supreme Court very
recently (and with a lot of work put in by the NRA etc. cajoling them in
that direction.)

That is to say that firearms were regularly restricted and this was
understood to be entirely congruent with the Constitution throughout the
bulk of US history is no big deal to these \"strict textualists\" and you
can rewrite that but that abortion was restricted for the bulk of US
history is somehow a matter of great importance that has to be respected
from a historical perspective. /shrug

Personally I think Supreme Court justices tend to be paid hoes, prove me
wrong.

Yeah, whatever.

Try driving a wood burning car. You won\'t get far before being pulled over and towed off the highways.

Cars are a pretty poor solution to getting large numbers of people where
they need to be in general, and the electrified self-driving kind are a
typically American over-complicated solution-looking-for-a-problem.

Nothing that can be shoved into a cell phone sized computer can be called \"complicated\", unless you are talking about virtually every appliance known to man. But BEVs don\'t need to be self driving. They just need to be BEVs..

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[rbowman]

On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 11:05 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2022 21:13:30 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of
entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly
poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and
suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without
regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned.
Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our
society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even
money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an
environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of
toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature
of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we
live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet,
so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In
particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for
our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam
the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most
poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing
regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very
importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this
century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can
resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery
electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply
because it is different, with different advantages and different
liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of
transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept
aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of
land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the
disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of
coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the
convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay
really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone
when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in the
area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday night
and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday afternoon.

 

[rbowman]

On 05/31/2022 11:37 AM, bitrex wrote:

If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

Cash for Clunkers? That worked so well. It was a windfall for people who
could afford a new car which they probably would have bought anyway. It
raised the price of used cars screwing the people who couldn\'t afford
going up-market and hurt the charitable donation programs. At the end of
the day there was a very minor increase in fuel economy.

As irony, my \'86 pickup which has a very rudimentary ECU and couldn\'t
pass a CA smog test on a bet wasn\'t eligible -- it was too old.

Would the firearms program mean I could trade in my 80 year old bolt
action rifle for a shiny new AR?

 

[Don Y]

On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon things
go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay really was a bay
and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone when they dammed the
Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in the area.
\'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday night and park the
car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday afternoon.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound. Moreso than many other metro areas.

And, the region is relatively dense. E.g., the core metro area would fit
*in* the city limits of Chicago.

 

[John Doe]

bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

That is to say that firearms were regularly restricted and this was
understood to be entirely congruent with the Constitution throughout the
bulk of US history

Nope. One of the fake arguments like that is about concealed carry being
restricted. What they don\'t tell you is that open carry was allowed at those
times.

Just like every other government, power is gradually taken away from the
people. That includes ever-increasing restrictions on firearms.

that abortion was restricted for the bulk of US
history is somehow a matter of great importance that has to be respected
from a historical perspective.

That\'s propaganda. The Supreme Court\'s recent decision does NOTHING to
restrict abortion.

 

[rbowman]

On 05/31/2022 09:27 PM, Don Y wrote:

On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then
decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

https://globecharting.com/borders/rose-park-missoula-behind-the-slant-street-neighborhood/

The full story is even juicier. Bickford and Stephens, two lawyers,
platted \'South Missoula\' parallel to the wagon road. Judge Knowles, who
had no love for either lawyer owned the land between their holding and
the river. In the west the land is divided into sections of 640 acres
and the Judge made the argument that it was more appropriate to lay out
the streets parallel to the section lines. The Higgins Ave. bridge, now
to be called the Bearpaws Bridge if they ever finish the project, needed
replacing. Higgins, another prime mover, sided with the judge so the
bridge connects directly to South Higgins, which is parallel to the
section line and is the eastern edge of the slants.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound. Moreso than many other metro areas.

If you\'re patient... The evening hours have sparse service. One company
I worked for was on Memorial Dr. near Western and I had an apartment in
Allston. Walking was faster than messing with public transportation.
Another time I lived in Somerville on Winter Hill and if I did anything
in the evening in Boston or Cambridge walking was much faster. I guess
the Green Line finally got there. Ditto when I lived on Beacon Hill and
was working at the old Schrafft factory in Sullivan Square.

Sometimes I\'d go exploring and take the Green Line out to Cleveland
Circle or another terminus and walk back but I never depended on it for
transportation.

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 10:20 PM, Ricky wrote:

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 1:37:10 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/31/2022 11:34 AM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 10:09:20 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

Sorry that you are not able to understand what I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything about prying cold, dead hands off steering wheels. I guess you have an ICE reaction like some people have when trying to discuss gun control. No one is trying to take your guns, but we want to have more controls over who can buy them.
I don\'t own any guns. But the gun control hoopla is something both
factions in the US tend to get wrapped up in while ignoring the entirely
more relevant point that the US has a peculiarly violent culture made up
of large numbers of peculiarly violent and self-centered people, and
that can\'t be changed in a day by legislation or the Supreme Court.

Most intelligent people can see that with estimated 400 million guns
already in circulation whether there are 300 or 500 or what the number
is precisely probably doesn\'t matter too much once you\'re into the nine
figures.

It\'s just something people like to squabble about & accomplishes nothing
but it feels good to squabble about after every mass shooting because it
feels like _some_ kind of song and dance needs to occur instead of
nothing, \"mission accomplished.\"

It is a bit humorous that you think there is no value to restricting the sale of guns. If it really does not matter if we restrict guns since there are multiple weapons for every man, woman and child in the US, then why do so many shooters buy the gun they shoot with rather than using one of the many, many already out there? Why do guns continue to be bought? Clearly, someone is hoarding all the guns and not letting everyone have their fair share! That\'s the cause of all the trouble. People aren\'t willing to share. Selfish bastards!

I didn\'t say there was no value. Gun sales are already restricted to
some degree or another everywhere in the US, but in many of those places
the laws that are on the books aren\'t enforced that well to begin with.
Gun owners seem to be pretty much universally in favor of universal
background checks and restricting sale to felons, people considered
dangerously mentally ill, etc.

But as for singling out certain guns for special treatment, with 400
million of all types in circulation, yeah, I think it\'s a bit late to
hope turning off a small part of the tap will help much.

And the mass shooter who buys their guns only a few days before their
shooting is somewhat uncommon, most have already owned guns or had them
available for months or years. These people aren\'t mass shooters until
they pull the trigger, if they acquired their guns legally they\'re just
\"legal gun owners\" before that, same as any other, and the guns they own
are just part of the set of \"the many out there\" same as anyone else\'s.

If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

There\'s no need to buy them back. They will be scrapped soon enough. Beside, there aren\'t enough guns... I mean BEVs available for everyone to scrap their ICE right now. We can exchange ICE for BEVs 17,000,000 a year. But then, you know that. You just like being silly. A person would think you were on a late night talk show. Or maybe you\'ve bought Merv Griffin\'s set and are trying to boost ratings?

Last I checked new cars are only getting more expensive and BEVs tend to
be more expensive than most. Is this a trend you foresee as changing? I
can\'t say I\'m confident this will change anytime soon. Meanwhile 50% of
the population is dead broke, 25% is afraid of ending up that way and
the other 25% doesn\'t have a big problem with paying for $5 gas.

<https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134702_americans-dont-want-ev-yet-half-wont-pay-extra-for-electrified>

5% saw their next vehicle being an EV, the financial incentives to pull
the trigger aren\'t that great.

Like being silly? No I think there\'s been a concerted effort by
government and industry to push climate change off on the individual and
make it one more bullshit Puritan personal-responsibility kind of thing,
like you\'d better go buy one now or you\'re a bad person, while those
guys fuck around like business-as-usual and the US military dumps more
CO2 into the atmosphere each year than all personal cars combined, and
we send $50 billion for guns to Ukraine for a war that can\'t be won,
like that\'s good for the planet.

So yeah a big \"fuck you\" from Joe Consumer in response to some guilt
trip about his personal car-buying choices is totally understandable.
Let some of the fat cats get off their fat asses and do something if
they care so much (they don\'t.)

 

[bitrex]

On 6/1/2022 2:47 AM, bitrex wrote:

5% saw their next vehicle being an EV, the financial incentives to pull
the trigger aren\'t that great.

Like being silly? No I think there\'s been a concerted effort by
government and industry to push climate change off on the individual and
make it one more bullshit Puritan personal-responsibility kind of thing,
like you\'d better go buy one now or you\'re a bad person, while those
guys fuck around like business-as-usual and the US military dumps more
CO2 into the atmosphere each year than all personal cars combined

Correction, that\'s too high. About 100 million metric tons for the
military vs 600 million metric tons for all _passenger_ vehicles
including light trucks and SUVs, IDK what it is if you exclude light
trucks and SUVs.

I bet the military does give just personal \"cars\" like all sedans in the
US a run for their money, though..

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 10:57 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 05/31/2022 11:37 AM, bitrex wrote:
If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

Cash for Clunkers? That worked so well. It was a windfall for people who
could afford a new car which they probably would have bought anyway. It
raised the price of used cars screwing the people who couldn\'t afford
going up-market and hurt the charitable donation programs. At the end of
the day there was a very minor increase in fuel economy.

It was to stimulate the economy by pulling ahead spending, not start
some green revolution. Obama the \"Droner-in-Chief\" was too busy blowing
up peasant families in the Middle East for much of his tenure to really
do much of substance on the environmental front:

<https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/4/28/15472508/obama-climate-change-legacy-overrated-clean-power>

As irony, my \'86 pickup which has a very rudimentary ECU and couldn\'t
pass a CA smog test on a bet wasn\'t eligible -- it was too old.

Would the firearms program mean I could trade in my 80 year old bolt
action rifle for a shiny new AR?

If you have an 80 year old rifle and an \'86 pickup you\'re not the type
to trade them in anyway, you are likely an old-junk hoarder like Sanford
& Son, saving rusty screws in a jar too.

<https://youtu.be/FUjWYm8bh8U>

 

[bitrex]

On 6/1/2022 3:26 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 10:57 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 11:37 AM, bitrex wrote:
If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

Cash for Clunkers? That worked so well. It was a windfall for people
who could afford a new car which they probably would have bought
anyway. It raised the price of used cars screwing the people who
couldn\'t afford going up-market and hurt the charitable donation
programs. At the end of the day there was a very minor increase in
fuel economy.

It was to stimulate the economy by pulling ahead spending, not start
some green revolution. Obama the \"Droner-in-Chief\" was too busy blowing
up peasant families in the Middle East for much of his tenure to really
do much of substance on the environmental front:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/4/28/15472508/obama-climate-change-legacy-overrated-clean-power

They gave him the Nobel Peace prize and then he went on to blow up
several thousand innocent peasants. \"Mission Accomplished!\"

 

[Ricky]

On Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 2:47:10 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 10:20 PM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 1:37:10 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/31/2022 11:34 AM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 10:09:20 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

Sorry that you are not able to understand what I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything about prying cold, dead hands off steering wheels. I guess you have an ICE reaction like some people have when trying to discuss gun control. No one is trying to take your guns, but we want to have more controls over who can buy them.
I don\'t own any guns. But the gun control hoopla is something both
factions in the US tend to get wrapped up in while ignoring the entirely
more relevant point that the US has a peculiarly violent culture made up
of large numbers of peculiarly violent and self-centered people, and
that can\'t be changed in a day by legislation or the Supreme Court.

Most intelligent people can see that with estimated 400 million guns
already in circulation whether there are 300 or 500 or what the number
is precisely probably doesn\'t matter too much once you\'re into the nine
figures.

It\'s just something people like to squabble about & accomplishes nothing
but it feels good to squabble about after every mass shooting because it
feels like _some_ kind of song and dance needs to occur instead of
nothing, \"mission accomplished.\"

It is a bit humorous that you think there is no value to restricting the sale of guns. If it really does not matter if we restrict guns since there are multiple weapons for every man, woman and child in the US, then why do so many shooters buy the gun they shoot with rather than using one of the many, many already out there? Why do guns continue to be bought? Clearly, someone is hoarding all the guns and not letting everyone have their fair share! That\'s the cause of all the trouble. People aren\'t willing to share. Selfish bastards!
I didn\'t say there was no value. Gun sales are already restricted to
some degree or another everywhere in the US, but in many of those places
the laws that are on the books aren\'t enforced that well to begin with.
Gun owners seem to be pretty much universally in favor of universal
background checks and restricting sale to felons, people considered
dangerously mentally ill, etc.

But as for singling out certain guns for special treatment, with 400
million of all types in circulation, yeah, I think it\'s a bit late to
hope turning off a small part of the tap will help much.

And the mass shooter who buys their guns only a few days before their
shooting is somewhat uncommon, most have already owned guns or had them
available for months or years. These people aren\'t mass shooters until
they pull the trigger, if they acquired their guns legally they\'re just
\"legal gun owners\" before that, same as any other, and the guns they own
are just part of the set of \"the many out there\" same as anyone else\'s.

No one is a mass shooter until the pull the trigger. You miss the point. They did not have any weapons until they bought them. So clearly, the point of purchasing a gun is a great opportunity to prevent potentially dangerous people from getting their hands on them. In many cases, these guys would set off alarm bells easily.

As an analogy, there are 250 million cars in the US, yet you can\'t get a drivers license without passing a test or below a certain age, having training. Is that too much to impose on people for having guns? Hell, in the waters of Washington, D.C. I can\'t paddle a kayak without a license.

You can throw up your hands and say \"we can\'t do it\", but that\'s just pure bullshit defeatism. We can have an impact and there\'s zero reason to not do it.

The idea of people \"buying their guns legally\" is the whole point. We need to be more strict about who can buy weapons. I think anyone of age to be in high school is too young.

If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

There\'s no need to buy them back. They will be scrapped soon enough. Beside, there aren\'t enough guns... I mean BEVs available for everyone to scrap their ICE right now. We can exchange ICE for BEVs 17,000,000 a year. But then, you know that. You just like being silly. A person would think you were on a late night talk show. Or maybe you\'ve bought Merv Griffin\'s set and are trying to boost ratings?
Last I checked new cars are only getting more expensive and BEVs tend to
be more expensive than most. Is this a trend you foresee as changing? I
can\'t say I\'m confident this will change anytime soon. Meanwhile 50% of
the population is dead broke, 25% is afraid of ending up that way and
the other 25% doesn\'t have a big problem with paying for $5 gas.

I\'ve heard that 87.4% of all statistics are made up! Yeah, when you make up your own statistics, you can prove anything you want.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134702_americans-dont-want-ev-yet-half-wont-pay-extra-for-electrified

5% saw their next vehicle being an EV, the financial incentives to pull
the trigger aren\'t that great.

You are ignorant of the facts. BEVs are selling, limited only by how fast they can make them, literally! Tesla has a months long waiting list. Instead of trying to promote BEVs by selling a lower end model, they\'ve dropped all the cheaper versions, yet people are pounding on their doors with cash in hand! There\'s nothing you can say about people not wanting to drive BEVs.

Like being silly? No I think there\'s been a concerted effort by
government and industry to push climate change off on the individual and
make it one more bullshit Puritan personal-responsibility kind of thing,
like you\'d better go buy one now or you\'re a bad person, while those
guys fuck around like business-as-usual and the US military dumps more
CO2 into the atmosphere each year than all personal cars combined, and
we send $50 billion for guns to Ukraine for a war that can\'t be won,
like that\'s good for the planet.

Funny you put it that way. That\'s not really thinking in any sense of the word. That\'s just you creating your own fantasy.

So yeah a big \"fuck you\" from Joe Consumer in response to some guilt
trip about his personal car-buying choices is totally understandable.
Let some of the fat cats get off their fat asses and do something if
they care so much (they don\'t.)

Nobody is laying a guilt trip on anyone else. Drive what you want. Give it a bit of time and your only choice will be BEV or drive 10 miles to find a gas station. Not too long after that, your gasoline will have a $5 a gallon tax, like in the EU. So it will be selling for $15 a gal. Drive all you want! I don\'t give a damn. You will be 1 in 100 and will be purely irrelevant.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 11:27 PM, Don Y wrote:

On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then
decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay
really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone
when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in
the area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday
night and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday
afternoon.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound.  Moreso than many other metro areas.

And, the region is relatively dense.  E.g., the core metro area would fit
*in* the city limits of Chicago.

The public transit in Boston is adequate-on-a-good-day at best, and a
nightmare when the system isn\'t having a good day

 

[Don Y]

On 5/31/2022 10:00 PM, rbowman wrote:

On 05/31/2022 09:27 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then
decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

https://globecharting.com/borders/rose-park-missoula-behind-the-slant-street-neighborhood/

The full story is even juicier. Bickford and Stephens, two lawyers, platted
\'South Missoula\' parallel to the wagon road. Judge Knowles, who had no love for
either lawyer owned the land between their holding and the river. In the west
the land is divided into sections of 640 acres and the Judge made the argument
that it was more appropriate to lay out the streets parallel to the section
lines. The Higgins Ave. bridge, now to be called the Bearpaws Bridge if they
ever finish the project, needed replacing. Higgins, another prime mover, sided
with the judge so the bridge connects directly to South Higgins, which is
parallel to the section line and is the eastern edge of the slants.

Roads in the west (and to a lesser extent, the midwest) at least tend to be
laid out to *some* sort of plan. And, often have *some* sort of naming
convention that can assist the driver/navigator.

[Of course, you have roads like Wacker Dr that exists with N, S, E & W
addresses. As well as \"upper\", \"lower\" and \"lower lower\" modifiers :-/ ]

And, tend to be considerably *longer* within a given domain (e.g., Western
Ave is ~30 miles *in* the city\'s limits).

OTOH, it was nice (East) to be able to get on TownB Rd, in TownA,
and know that it would get you *to* TownB (at which point, the road
would be renamed TownA Rd, curiously :> )

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound. Moreso than many other metro areas.

If you\'re patient... The evening hours have sparse service.

Patience is relative. Here (AZ), many routes run *hourly*. Heaven help
the fool who misses a connection! I\'m sure there\'s nothing after 11P
(which kinda puts a damper in using it after a night on the town!)

And, stops are relatively far apart and outside the residential
neighborhoods. So, a fair bit of walking to get *to* a stop
and then a fair bit to get *from* the stop.

One company I
worked for was on Memorial Dr. near Western and I had an apartment in Allston.
Walking was faster than messing with public transportation. Another time I
lived in Somerville on Winter Hill and if I did anything in the evening in
Boston or Cambridge walking was much faster. I guess the Green Line finally got
there. Ditto when I lived on Beacon Hill and was working at the old Schrafft
factory in Sullivan Square.

But the distances are relatively short. E.g., I could walk from The Zone to
Park St or Charles St stations in almost the same amount of time -- considering
a T at Park St would end up bringing me *to* Charles St whereas walking would
get me there directly. :<

Or, Central Sq to CSDL in about the same time as from Kendall Sq.

Sometimes I\'d go exploring and take the Green Line out to Cleveland Circle or
another terminus and walk back but I never depended on it for transportation.

I only found a car \"useful\" when driving out of the metro area... work in
Westwood, trips out to Maynard, Methuen, etc. Visiting a cousin at BC was
considerably less effort by car vs. T.

OTOH, *storing* a car was always tedious -- esp if you didn\'t have a driveway
or parking area set aside for your use (on both ends of the trip).

[I recall stashing the car in Stark Raving\'s garage the evening before the `78
blizzard; a truly fortuitous decision! :> ]

 

[Don Y]

On 6/1/2022 1:08 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 11:27 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay really
was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone when they
dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in the
area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday night and
park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday afternoon.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound. Moreso than many other metro areas.

And, the region is relatively dense. E.g., the core metro area would fit
*in* the city limits of Chicago.

The public transit in Boston is adequate-on-a-good-day at best, and a nightmare
when the system isn\'t having a good day

I don\'t think you understand how \"nightmarish\" public transit can be ALL
of the time!

E.g., my most common drive is to my volunteer gig. It\'s about 20 minnutes
in a private vehicle.

If I had to rely on public transit (busses, here), it would mean a 1.25 mile
walk to the bus stop -- hopefully timed to arrive just before a bus departs
on the route in which I\'m interested.

Then, a 22 minute (per their schedule) drive to another stop -- where I\'d
wait ~20 minutes (assuming all is going well!) for my connection. Then, a
5 minute drive to the final stop. And a half mile walk to the destination.

At my 4MPH walking pace, that\'s ~25 minutes on foot plus 27 minutes on wheels.
Almost three times longer than my \"drive WHEN it is convenient for me to do so\"
approach. And, having to deal with *sharing* the vehicle with \"others\"...

[And, who knows how I would drag any rescued kit home via the busline!]

Of course, I have no idea what the MTA is like, now as it\'s been decades
since I\'ve been there. And, I\'ve not a clue as to how Big Dig is mucking
with surface transportation...

 

[Ricky]

On Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 4:09:00 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 11:27 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then
decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular pentagon
things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the Back Bay
really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens got redone
when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in
the area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH Sunday
night and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home Friday
afternoon.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound. Moreso than many other metro areas.

And, the region is relatively dense. E.g., the core metro area would fit
*in* the city limits of Chicago.
The public transit in Boston is adequate-on-a-good-day at best, and a
nightmare when the system isn\'t having a good day

Isn\'t that true for all transportation in cities? I know DC traffic has no upper limit for ETA.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 6/1/2022 5:11 AM, Don Y wrote:

On 6/1/2022 1:08 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/31/2022 11:27 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 5/31/2022 7:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 12:00 PM, bitrex wrote:
The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

You could do like Denver -- lay out the *grid* along the Platte, then
decide
that a compass points orientation would be smarter!

When you start with a town square that really is an irregular
pentagon things go to hell in a hurry. Then you have to remember the
Back Bay really was a bay and the Fens a tidal marsh. Even the Fens
got redone when they dammed the Charles and it went from brackish to
fresh water.

It adds charm. I enjoyed walking around the town when I had work in
the area. \'Walking is the operant word. I\'d drive down from NH
Sunday night and park the car, only retrieving it to drive home
Friday afternoon.

There\'s really no need to drive *in* Boston as public transit and other
livery services abound.  Moreso than many other metro areas.

And, the region is relatively dense.  E.g., the core metro area would
fit
*in* the city limits of Chicago.

The public transit in Boston is adequate-on-a-good-day at best, and a
nightmare when the system isn\'t having a good day

I don\'t think you understand how \"nightmarish\" public transit can be ALL
of the time!

E.g., my most common drive is to my volunteer gig.  It\'s about 20 minnutes
in a private vehicle.

If I had to rely on public transit (busses, here), it would mean a 1.25
mile
walk to the bus stop -- hopefully timed to arrive just before a bus departs
on the route in which I\'m interested.

Then, a 22 minute (per their schedule) drive to another stop -- where I\'d
wait ~20 minutes (assuming all is going well!) for my connection.  Then, a
5 minute drive to the final stop.  And a half mile walk to the destination.

At my 4MPH walking pace, that\'s ~25 minutes on foot plus 27 minutes on
wheels.
Almost three times longer than my \"drive WHEN it is convenient for me to
do so\"
approach.  And, having to deal with *sharing* the vehicle with \"others\"...

[And, who knows how I would drag any rescued kit home via the busline!]

Yes, I live far enough from Boston proper that if I wanted to get to
South Station downtown as of 10 AM this morning without using a car or
taxi at all my adventure starts with a 20 minute walk to a bus stop,
then a 50 minute bus ride, then a 35 minute heavy rail train ride.

Google sometimes routes me a bit differently with a shorter bus ride and
longer train ride depending on the time of day, but it always ends up
suggesting a trip that takes over 2 hours. By car even in traffic the
same trip would take me 45 minutes tops, it\'s only about 25 miles away I
don\'t live _that_ far outside the city.

But housing closer in within easy striking distance of a light rail
station tends to command a premium price tag.

Of course, I have no idea what the MTA is like, now as it\'s been decades
since I\'ve been there.  And, I\'ve not a clue as to how Big Dig is mucking
with surface transportation...

The Big Dig has been done for pushing 20 years and made getting in and
out of town by car a _lot_ better, but mucked with public transit in
Boston a lot. A large amount of the debt for that got shoveled off onto
the MBTA, circa 2010 a quarter of the MBTA\'s operating budget was spent
on Big Dig debt service.

The system was running really threadbare for many years and it came to a
head in 2014-2015 when the exceptional snowfall of that winter regularly
ground the subway system to a halt, stuff was massively breaking down
every week. The average age of a trainset a decade ago was like 32 years
old or something.

The joke was the MBTA\'s general manager Beverly Scott had announced her
resignation \"before the snow had even stopped falling\" which wasn\'t far
from the truth.

As of a few years back they\'ve begun investing more money in track &
equipment upgrades and they\'ve got several hundred new trainsets built
in Springfield MA by Chinese state-owned CRRC (grumble grumble), however
they\'re having teething troubles as new trainsets tend to do:

<https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/05/20/orange-red-line-trains-out-of-service-mbta>

 

[bitrex]

On 6/1/2022 10:03 AM, bitrex wrote:

Yes, I live far enough from Boston proper that if I wanted to get to
South Station downtown as of 10 AM this morning without using a car or
taxi at all my adventure starts with a 20 minute walk to a bus stop,
then a 50 minute bus ride, then a 35 minute heavy rail train ride.

Google sometimes routes me a bit differently with a shorter bus ride and
longer train ride depending on the time of day, but it always ends up
suggesting a trip that takes over 2 hours. By car even in traffic the
same trip would take me 45 minutes tops

At the absolute peak of weekday rush hour it might take an hour.

 

[rbowman]

On 06/01/2022 01:26 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 10:57 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 11:37 AM, bitrex wrote:
If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

Cash for Clunkers? That worked so well. It was a windfall for people
who could afford a new car which they probably would have bought
anyway. It raised the price of used cars screwing the people who
couldn\'t afford going up-market and hurt the charitable donation
programs. At the end of the day there was a very minor increase in
fuel economy.

It was to stimulate the economy by pulling ahead spending, not start
some green revolution. Obama the \"Droner-in-Chief\" was too busy blowing
up peasant families in the Middle East for much of his tenure to really
do much of substance on the environmental front:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/4/28/15472508/obama-climate-change-legacy-overrated-clean-power


As irony, my \'86 pickup which has a very rudimentary ECU and couldn\'t
pass a CA smog test on a bet wasn\'t eligible -- it was too old.

Would the firearms program mean I could trade in my 80 year old bolt
action rifle for a shiny new AR?


If you have an 80 year old rifle and an \'86 pickup you\'re not the type
to trade them in anyway, you are likely an old-junk hoarder like Sanford
& Son, saving rusty screws in a jar too.

https://youtu.be/FUjWYm8bh8U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp7HYBMee00

Stuff that works... I still have the Gibson J-45 I bought in \'63. The
fretboard could use a little work but it sounds good. I didn\'t pay $3000
for it either.

The Mosin Nagant works too. Just ask Simo Hayha.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

The way the Finns are prodding the bear they may need a few guys like him.

I miss Red Green. That, Austin City Limits, and a few other programs on
PBS are about my only TV consumption.

 

[rbowman]

On 06/01/2022 01:29 AM, bitrex wrote:

On 6/1/2022 3:26 AM, bitrex wrote:
On 5/31/2022 10:57 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 05/31/2022 11:37 AM, bitrex wrote:
If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation
it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

Cash for Clunkers? That worked so well. It was a windfall for people
who could afford a new car which they probably would have bought
anyway. It raised the price of used cars screwing the people who
couldn\'t afford going up-market and hurt the charitable donation
programs. At the end of the day there was a very minor increase in
fuel economy.

It was to stimulate the economy by pulling ahead spending, not start
some green revolution. Obama the \"Droner-in-Chief\" was too busy
blowing up peasant families in the Middle East for much of his tenure
to really do much of substance on the environmental front:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/4/28/15472508/obama-climate-change-legacy-overrated-clean-power


They gave him the Nobel Peace prize and then he went on to blow up
several thousand innocent peasants. \"Mission Accomplished!\"

The was one of the most egregious examples of affirmative action in
history. Well, maybe since they gave one to Kissinger. It chafes me that
I finally agree with him on something.