421–430 of 490 posts
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Because the debt is now due? "U.S. Debt: Visualizing the $31.4 Trillion Owed in 2023" - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-ow...
A few years ago we had an opportunity to borrow at a negative interest rate. Should have leaned into that opportunity. Also we’re under-taxing bajillionaires and politically-active but tax-exempt megachurches.
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Maybe someone should just buy up some lines and run steam at 120 MPH again. If it burned natural gas it probably wouldn’t even be that polluting and it would rock hard.
there's a research institute in minnesota that is improving the efficiency of steam engines and manufacturing wood "biocoal" (charcoal) for fuel. https://csrail.org/
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Mars is the least useful planetary body in the Solar System. Anybody that is trying to sell you on Mars colonization is selling you a children's cartoon, not a serious project.
What is a better candidate for colonization?
Also, we can actually get there. This Mars colony is in the realm of fantasy, when we don't have a means of getting astronauts there without dying of cosmic-ray cancer on the way. In contrast we've put a man on the moon. Multiple men. We know we can do it, which decreases the necessary scope dramatically.
I don't see a good reason to set up a colony in the first place, but the least-bad option is very clearly the moon.
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Because the debt is now due? "U.S. Debt: Visualizing the $31.4 Trillion Owed in 2023" - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-ow...
> Because the debt is now due? The so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) credibly posits that because the U.S. borrows in its own currency (dollars), it can simply "print money" as needed — as long as the U.S. economy has sufficient unused productive capacity to absorb the resulting increase in demand. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/business/economy/modern-m...
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Seattle has some underground light rail tunnels that are shared with buses
The Downtown transit tunnel (better known as the Bus tunnel). It was built for both buses and light rail, however it only hosted buses for the two decades of operation. Shared buses and trains only lasted for 10 years. A couple of years ago the buses were kicked out of the tunnel and it only services light rail now. To my knowledge it has never serviced freight, only transit. I aim to keep calling it the Bus tunnel—e…
Go through the Bus tunnel and Ride the SLUT.[1]
[1] South Lake Union Transit. I presume all the paraphernalia around 'ride the slut' is semi-official at best.
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The white paper at the very least wasn't. It contradicts itself in multiple places and it seems the author has some misunderstandings around basic physics.
What are those misunderstandings? Keep hearing comments that can't speak to anything in particular but confidently assert how unfeasible it is. Mag lev works: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCMaglev Nothing in the idea of a hyperloop precludes the use of a maglev propulsion system. The partial vacuum wouldn't even be necessary but might help with efficiency. Partial vacuums are just air pumps.
Maglevs are great. Why not build one of those instead?
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Maybe someone should just buy up some lines and run steam at 120 MPH again. If it burned natural gas it probably wouldn’t even be that polluting and it would rock hard.
there's a research institute in minnesota that is improving the efficiency of steam engines and manufacturing wood "biocoal" (charcoal) for fuel. https://csrail.org/
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Yes, and we have generations of people trained to think that walking further than a hundred feet is an extreme workout to be avoided and that transit systems are full of criminals. It seems like that culture is headed for a cliff, however, as the cost of cars continues to increase (the average sale last year was a year’s median pay!), budgets for road infrastructure become tighter, and climate change becomes harder t…
> we have generations of people trained to think that … transit systems are full of criminals Are they not? The BART Police Department's reports for 2022 show the following numbers for Part 1 UCR Crimes: Homicide: 3 Rape: 4 Robbery: 156 Aggravated Assault: 81 Burglary (Structural): 17 Larceny & Auto Burglary: 783 Auto Theft: 136 Arson: 10 Property Crime Subtotal: 946 Total: 1,190
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Add riding a bike (or electric bike) in most of Dutch cities. It can be even fun.
I have a car and a bike in the Netherlands. Most everyone I know has both. Both are nice to have at different times, and I've never experienced any of the nightmares GP is describing. I was curious so I just checked, and the number of cars is just shy of the number of people of driving age, even in the bicycle paradise of the Netherlands.
> I was curious so I just checked, and the number of cars is just shy of the number of people of driving age, even in the bicycle paradise of the Netherlands.
This might sound like a high amount of ownership, but if you compare it to some other countries then it’s not that bad (or impressive if that’s how you look at it).
The Netherlands has 588 cars per 100k inhabitants v. 908 in the US as an example[0].
If you go down the rabbit hole and look at the sources for these numbers, you’ll find that in the US only 8% of households don’t own a car[1] v. 26% of households in the Netherlands[2].
37.1% has two cars in the US and 21.9% has three or more in the US[1] v. 21% and 6% respectively in the Netherlands[2]
I think it’s safe to say that there’s less cars on the road in the Netherlands and thus less of that nightmare scenario that is described in GP.
That said, plenty of drivers in the Netherlands (not having the frame of reference of more busy countries) consider the Netherlands having “nightmares” for drivers. In particular when it comes to parking, where the main complaint is the price of parking and the lack of parking close to a destination.
Personally I don’t consider it a nightmare but a blessing that a lot of Dutch downtown areas force parking on the outer edge, leaving the shopping areas as pedestrian only areas. But that doesn’t mean that other people with other interests don’t consider it a nightmare.
Whenever, in the very rare instance, a city or town here in the US tries to marginally move towards such a situation, people start dusting off their pitchforks.
Just the other day I saw someone losing their shit on Threads because someone suggested that it would combat sedentary lifestyle somewhat if you’d have to walk 10 minutes from where you’d park every once in a while.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...
1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2023-car-ownership-statistics...
2: https://www.kimnet.nl/binaries/kimnet/documenten/publicaties... in Dutch
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The US freight rail network is in excellent shape. It's the passenger network that's in shambles.
The US has no passenger network. It's all freight rail. Passenger trains run on the freight network (and freight always get priority).