I think I feel your frustration @Bing . There’s a lot we could discuss about the world situation except for 1. We’d be off-topic and 2. Some folks would take offense. One of my closest friends has distanced himself from me somewhat after it became clear we hold greatly different political views. Every time I bring it up he says, “No, no, you know stuff like that doesn’t matter to me” but I can see it on his face.
I find it frustrating some of the fringe lunatic conspiracy theories some people take for absolute facts. But then, those people probably look at me and consider my facts to be fringe lunatic conspiracy theories. Sometimes it seems like the world is a hopeless mess. You cannot solve any problems if you can’t even get enough people on the same page.
So I’ll say this again, I guess I’m getting old at the right time.
Egads ED ,I feel the same way ,I am not welcoming a lot of this "brave new world " having lived through what I consider some of the best in Human history .the decline makes me sad and sad for the Children.
Cars will be cars ,but what form twenty years from now is anyones guess ,the paradigm is set to change .
Its no surprise people are confused about the “Truth” especially when so many things exist just to make money for private parties…so of course facts will be left out…obfuscated (a nod to Ray) or outright dis-information is released to intentionally confuse people.
Whenever you have a situation where money is being made…people will try to control your perceptions…and they do just that. It has reached epidemic proportions these days for sure…and now its difficult if not impossible to know the true nature of anything…this is intentional.
Then you mix up facts and fictions…and lies…and lies about lies, lies about debunked information…lies about dis-information, and its no wonder there are conspiracy theories, wildly differing viewpoints and all the subsequent mayhem that should rightly ensue…
The Root of all of this …Is Money and Power and Control. If you think otherwise, you need to take a few steps back and try to see the Forest for the Trees… Or something like that…
Consumer Reports devotes considerable time to debunking myths, lies and distortions of the facts.I have a book in my office called “The Truth About Superfoods”. It debunks all the hype that TV and magazine food writers dump on you.
One of the biggest frauds is Dr. Oz. Every time he hypes up a food ingredient, he conveniently also shows a brand of supplement that contains it. His complete lack of objectivity must bother the American Medical Association, but so far no attempt has been made to get him off the air.
I’m not saying the stuff he promotes is not good for you, but eating a balanced diet does all that for you at much lower cost.
Needless to say oil and other automotive additives stretch the truth to the breaking points with their claims. Race car drivers who “endorsed” STP used a few drops of it in their engines. Its use bore no resemblance to anything a real world daily commuter would experience.
On a personal note, an Asian family without gardening experience moved into the house across the street. They were well to do and saw me fertilizing my lawn. They figured a lot of fertilizer would be better than a little, so they really dumped it on. Then they neglected to water the grass, and the result was predictably a scorched lawn.
Hyper loop: no, I live on the Right Coast. High speed rail transit between LA and SF doesn’t mean much to me.
I’m not too worried about my children, even if they aren’t well paid engineers. They are smart, adaptable, and can take care of themselves. Except for the idiot politicians that refuse to make a serious effort to fix the US Government deficit and national debt, the USA is in pretty good shape. Some manufacturing is gone, like steel, textiles and clothing, but stuff like that happens. We don’t make many buggy whips or covered wagons anymore either. I used to work in a steel mill, which is now shut down. I changed careers when I decided that the mill would not support me until retirement. It wasn’t easy, but I had a family to support and had to work as hard as I could to support them. Fortunately, things worked out, despite a few bumps along the way. A guy I used to work with moved to Akron after grad school. He met his wife there. She was so smart that she was voted most likely to leave the county as a high school senior, and eventually they did. Maybe everyone doesn’t have those opportunities, but there are a lot of people that let the world happen to them. When you do that, you get whatever is given to you, not necessarily what you deserve.
@jtsanders If Trump were able to “bring back all those jobs “lost” to China and Mexico”, there would not be enough workers to man them.
In a Town Hall meeting in Wisconsin, one questioner said his biggest problem was getting workers. When asked what he did he said he owned a meat processing plant (sausage, etc), and apparently all those so-called out of work citizen were not interested in working for him.
Overall unemployment in the US is moderate and as pointed out the country is going through a transition phase.
Hyperloop? California? What happens when . . . oh wait nevermind they’re talking about it on the tv now. Gonna be in a giant vacuum tube. Sounds pretty cool, probably cost so much to set it up it’ll take decades. . .
@Docnick , so what kind of wages is that meat processor paying? I can’t get too personal about my current work situation, but these companies, they threaten to shut down unless you accept a package of wage & benefit cuts which would leave you working like a Hebrew slave for what would effectively be less than minimum wage after they take out your insurance co-pays. And then they cry everybody wants a job but nobody wants to work.
I know this one is off-topic and I apologize in advance, but I’ve just gotta post this somewhere!
Have any of you seen that GE commercial where the guy comes in dressed up in pointy ears and a furry vest delivering an “Ork-a-gram”? And then the other guy comes in dressed up like an elf? “I’m a wise elf from a far off shire - Sanjay Patel is who you should hire!” Those are the kinds of jobs those of us without advanced degrees in computer engineering, etc are going to be left with soon. Its truly sad what this country’s being reduced to. . .
@jtsanders I guess we can’t talk about it 'cause its not about cars, but I’m on the cusp of what you went through when your steel mill closed down, although it sounds like you got out before the end. I’ve got to go down with the proverbial ship because I’m hoping for a severance package. Greedy greedy they do presentation to Wall Street investors bragging about increasing profit margins and 3 weeks later demand to cut Union pay in half 'cause they can’t afford to pay next month’s light bill, but the Union already has the transcript from the Wall street presentation. . . .
On the G2 site,I have a Elon supporter (admire Elon myself )who must either be very well off or have stock in the company ,I was hoping that Elon would have completely changed the auto buying paradigm ,but this Guy thinks more of the same is good ,so it goes .I will shortly let Him win the debate and that will be that.(it started as a comment for petes sake ,momma always said there are people too ignorant to talk to .)
I can be a staunch supporter of something and yet be one of the biggest critics( no one or no thing is infallible)some think Mr Musk has never received any govt help at the taxpayers expense.
People, get a handle ,the govt produces nothing on its on ,it can only take what is produced by productive citizens .
This is the era of" too big to fail" as someone pointed out if the money given away to the mismanaged investment firms had been given to the public ,it would have generated an economic recovery of sorts (think of the auto sales ) instead of languishing in offshore bank accounts
The country is probably going to see more of a down turn,with all its related events ,decline in the auto industry ,etc .Gas is headed up of course so maybe people can buy that SUV they have been drooling over (I am frankly amazed at the numbers of CUVs and SUVs ,I see on the road ,on a bypass yesterday I met a string of vehicles and they were all SUVs ,probably carrying one person.
Yeah I put on about 130 miles yesterday on the freeway, much of it with the HOV lanes. Hardly anyone in the HOV lanes and the other lanes pretty busy. So does this mean that people just aren’t doing the right thing and packing their cars full or does it mean that the government is just not living in reality. Should I have stopped and picked up a stranger somewhere to give him a ride just to be able to car pool? Let’s face it folks, we’ve been pushing car pools, van pools, mass transit, and so on for years, and really not much changes. Doesn’t that mean if you really look at it, that our transportation needs largely are with one or two people in a car?? That’s just a fact so why continue to rail against cars not packed full?
A 700 mile per hour hyperloop? Great if you want to go to SF or Chicago. Maybe someday we’ll have hyperloops all over the place and I can use one to go to the grocery store. I’m gonna keep my car for a while though. I remember when they put the train in from downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America and airport. One thing social scientists did not consider was that it allowed thugs easy transport from downtown and crime became a problem. So ya think maybe SF is ready for it?
Both for the fare AND the losses the taxpayers cover… Most public transport runs at a large loss.
As great as I think trains are, AMTRAK has never run in the black. The rail companies at the time were getting out of passenger routes because they weren’t profitable… so the government takes them over, forms AMTRAK… and loses money. They could be profitable if they’d drop the low ridership routes and concentrate on the ones that are profitable. But Congress won’t let that happen. No legislator can let a line get dropped in their district, nooo.
Arriving at the true cost of public transit is difficult. Most analysts do not count the credit given to AVOIDED COST. If no one has access to transit and everyone drives, the cost of additional roads and infrastructure has to be calculated in. Add as well the lost productivity due to traffic jams.
The famous Japanese Bullet Trains incur a $1.5 Billion deficit per year.
However, the Tokyo-Osaka region would be a complete gridlock without them if every one had to drive.
There is the additional lost productivity incurred by all those traffic jams.
Imagine New York City without any public transit.
Urban planners have to balance quality of life, traffic flow, access to transit by those who cannot drive, and many other factors.
Years ago the city of Rochester NY let people ride free on the busses in order to relieve traffic congestion. It was cheaper than building evermore freeways through the downtown.
The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco was never finished; the city realized it was on the wrong track (no pun intended) and built the BART system instead.
If you stop building Freeways, however, you have to commit to an extensive network of rapid transit. The City of Vancouver, Canada has one transit line and is a pain to get around.
Imagine the energy released if one of those things got loose and manged to crash into something,I know its improbable .but spectacular things ,can have spectacular failures .
@Docnik my father was in transportation planning within the State of Ohio for most of his career. He struggled with that very problem as well as the conventional paradigm of the “wheel and spoke” style of mass transport. Works for cities like NY, San Francisco or Chicago not so much for LA, Atlanta or Phoenix. People no longer work “downtown” and live in the 'burbs. They work in one 'burb and live in another. Makes riding downtown to transfer to an outbound bus/train/trolley a long trek. So people don’t. Even free transport won’t help that. Most municipalities (counties with city center) don’t have full control over their planning and many would argue they shouldn’t.
Cities think they are the counties powerbase and increasingly that is wrong as the city declines while the suburbs thrive. (Detroit and Dayton, Ohio) Power struggles benefit the power brokers and few others.
I see maglev high speed trains as a massive public works project that benefits very, very few citizens. A bit like a carbon fiber buggy whip.
One of the big issues with the hyperloop in California is the cost of right of ways. Land is very expensive out there. I wonder if they have considered using the ocean instead, run the tube off shore and underwater. It would be even more efficient as the down hill part, going underwater will add energy to the system and going back uphill at the end would save on breaking costs.
I was thinking - what happens if a massive earthquake shakes one of these things loose at 800 mph? It IS California right?
Isn’t another problem with trains - you want to make stops along the way to pick up and discharge people - every time you do so you increase travel time.
There was this concept 30 or so years ago called the "Planetrain "it ran in evacuated tubes or tunnels and wa s even faster then the "Hyperloop " C2C in a bit over an hour.So the idea is nothing new Ol’ Nikola himself had this idea for a global highway that was levitated (I forget how) so these ideas are nothing new .(wonder what would happen if you lost cabin pressure in one of these coaches ,would you smother or asphyxiate ?