Photography - HOYA SWALLOWS PENTAX !

PhotoBanter.com (http://www.photobanter.com/index.php)

- Digital Photography (http://www.photobanter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5)

- - HOYA SWALLOWS PENTAX ! (http://www.photobanter.com/showthread.php?t=74451)

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:45:45 GMT, Rebecca Ore
wrote:

In article ,
Bill Funk wrote:

What you said (and what I was responding to) was this:
"The problem with poverty in the US is that not only do you get to be
poor, you're forced to buy and maintain a car."
If you now want to say "most", fine.

Most people who are poor in the US, okay

You're doing what a lot of people do: you're overstating your case.

Who was it who took an average of murder rates without any high murder
rate southern states to compare against NYC without looking at
individual states with similar demographics?

Look again; your statement was that states with the death penalty all
have higher murder rates than states without. That is wrong.

Plus, you're being dishonest: hoiw much of that $5-10K you say the
poor must spend on a car are you paying for public transit (in total,
including taxes) as well as higher rent?

I'm paying a little under $1,000 for public trans a year and maybe
another $100 a year on taxis (if that). My housing costs are $520 a
month (including insurance and taxes, not counting utilities) for a two
bedroom, one bath row house with a stone walled back yard. I can walk
my dog to the vet's, can take the train to work (train station about two
blocks away). My car had been paid for, so all the out of pocket
expenses I had on that were insurance, gas, and maintenance, which on an
older car is considerable.

And taxes that subsidize your public transit?

If anything happened to my car, I was stranded.

It's been my experience that people who overstate their case, and are
dishonest about it, have an agenda.

Like the pro-capital punishment guy whose stats didn't match what I
found?

Where did I say I am pro-capital punishment?
See what I mean? You go overboard.
If your point is good, make it without adding other wrong claims.

What I don't like about cars is being forced to own one, so I live in a
city where I could buy a cheap house (compared to any number of places,
then) and would not have to have a car. Cars may be freedom for some
people, but for most, they're a requirement that's much more an economic
burden than anything else.

You're speaking for alot of people when you say "most."
Are you sure you can back that up?

We've been reading posts from someone whose night vision makes him a
dangerous driver, who doesn't feel that he has any choice other than to
put other people at risk to live his life. I've heard of people not
being able to get jobs because they didn't have cars, of having to
budget not just between housing and food, but housing, food, car
insurance, and car repairs.

You will always hear from the people outside "normal." That includes
yourself.
Building your case on such won't work.

I said the US was car-centric. The other person started yammering about
how we love cars because we love freedom. Most people have a car
because they can't live without one, because most jobs outside of cities
and certain small towns are not near work places. Driving a car in rush
hour traffic to get to work is not the ideal use of a car.

Again with the "most", which I doubt you can speak for.
I'm sure it seems to you that cars aren't for most people. That
doesn't mean it's true, though.

When I lived in Virginia, we had people who moved to rural Virginia to
get their kids away from drugs and crime. No amount of "we've got
14,000 people here and a murder or two every year" could get them to
think that one through. That's a murder rate per 100,000 well over
NY's. It looked idyllic. The drug kids didn't stop using drugs. Some
of the vacation home owners were burglarized multiple times in the years
that they owned their homes. But we only showed a couple of burglaries
a week in the local paper. Nobody ever burglarized an occupied building
because everyone had guns, but burglaries of unoccupied buildings were
quite common.

One of my students had been a NYC homocide cop. One of my other
students was telling her about a community that had a murder a week.
She laughed and said something about the murders in NYC. The other
student explained that the community was only 400 people.

The hysteria about large Northern Cities tends to look unrealistic.
Most murders are between people who know each other, who are often
involved in illegal activities, and who are often inadequately policed
(the poor often find that the police trivialize their complaints), and
were brought up in cultures that believe violence, lethal and otherwise,
is a way to solve problems (a legacy of slavery).

Just as I often snort whan I see the mother of a boy obviously killed
in a gang-related shooting cry, "He was such a good boy, never in
trouble; he wasn't in no gang."
Sure, that's why he was wearing gang colors, and shot on a street
corner by five other boys who all ran away after the shooting, and his
criminal record already includes, at 17 years, several arrests, two
convictions, and no high scool or fecord,
But we weren't brought up in that culture, IMO. Instead, society has
decided to blame someone else, anyone else, for the wrongdoing of trhe
"disadvantaged." "It can't be their fault, because they never had a
chance, see." Well, they had the same chance as all the other kids
growing up in the same neighborhoods who stayed inb school, got jobs,
and became productive citizens.

--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:58:22 GMT, Rebecca Ore
wrote:

In article ,
Bill Funk wrote:

On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:44:50 -0700, Pat O'Connell
wrote:

Funny, some of the cities are building new train lines, too.

I'm not aware of any.

Phoenix; they started from scratch.
http://www.valleymetro.org/METRO_light_rail/

St. Louis, Charlotte to Davidson, just to mention two that I've heard
about from friends and family. SEPTA has been talking about running a
new regional rail line out to York for a while, too. The suburban part
of SEPTA appears to be more profitable than the Center City part -- go
figure.

Is there actually a part of SEPTA that's profitable?
By profitable, I mean not only paying for the infrastructure, ongoing
costs, payroll, the whole bit, but having money left over to
distribute to the owners?
According to this:
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/...n/16279499.htm
SEPTA is not operating at a profit.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:01:09 GMT, Rebecca Ore
wrote:

In article ,
Bill Funk wrote:

Mass transit is paid for by the aera the system serves, usually
through taxes.
There's a very big difference between mass transit and the airline
companies.

This is a relatively new way of funding mass transit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport

is more like what I'm talking about.

That may be, but you did say, "mass transit."
Wikipedia is often fine, but when I look up the definition of "mass
transit", I get a different thing than "public transit."
For example, a Google query on "define: mass transit" gets:
========
Definitions of mass transit on the Web:

* Travel by public transportation system such as bus or subway.
commpres.env.state.ma.us/content/glossary.asp

* A term used to describe public transportation facilities and
vehicles such as rapid rail and buses.
http://www.co.fairfax.va.us/dpz/comp...glossary/m.htm

* Public transport comprises all transport systems in which the
passengers do not travel in their own vehicles. It is also called
public transit or mass transit. While it is generally taken to mean
rail and bus services, wider definitions would include scheduled
airline services, ferries, taxicab services etc. — any system that
transports members of the general public.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_transit
========

I know of no one myself who looks at airlines and railroads as mass
transit, though all would agree they are public transportation.
And, paying for mass transit by governments is hardly new; ever hear
of city trolleys?
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:10:49 GMT, Rebecca Ore
wrote:

In article ,
Bill Funk wrote:

Actually, railroads in the US were doing very well as an intra-urban
and inter-urban transportation system *until* the car came along.
Nobody "outsourced" personal transportation to the auto except the
people themselves.

People have to have cars because of decisions made in locating plants
and places of work that they didn't make.

You just keep on changing your tune; maybe you'll hit one that
resonates.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 13:51:06 -0800, "Frank ess"
wrote:

Bill Funk wrote:
On Wed, 27 Dec 2006 12:06:07 -0800, "Frank ess"
wrote:

Ron Hunter wrote:
Rebecca Ore wrote:
In article ,
"William Graham" wrote:

To believe such a thing shows lack of basic
reasoning ability........

The refusal to consider alternative means of transportation shows
that people use their brains for making excuses much more than
they
use them for making process.

Alternatives must satisfy the NEEDS of the person in question.
Telling an old person that he/she needs to get a bicycle to go 6
miles each way to get groceries is NOT an alternative. Providing
inexpensive transportation to such a person may be, even though it
seriously impacts their independence, and regiments their
lifestyle.
I would HATE to live in a city where I had to depend on the
schedules
of public transportation.

'Round here we got the Dial-A-Ride that picks you up in a short bus
or passenger van, takes you to your medical appointment or shopping
center, and comes back at at a specified time -- and waits if you
need it. No schedule, economical for the rider (not so much for the
community that supports it), but you have to qualify.

Does this cost less than cab fare?
Not to the rider, but to the city that pays for it?

$2-$5 for the rider; as I noted, it's community supported and not
economical per rider, but for riders. Taxis would be $25 and up. Close
to a wash, my conjecture.

I doubt it, considering he costs the very fact that it's a government
service adds to it.
Of course each system is different, but governments are, by and large,
very inefficient.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

Ron Hunter wrote:
Bill Funk wrote:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:50:17 -0600, Ron Hunter
wrote:

You would be better off in just about ANYTHING but a pickup truck! They
are notably 'squirrelly' in hard avoidance maneuvers.

I've put a lot of miles in pickups, and they aren't "squirrelly"; they
behave differently than cars, but predictably nonetheless.
If one attempts abrupt maneuvers in a pickup and expects it to behave
like a car, one is going to be surprised; that's not a function of the
vehicle, but of the driver. You can't blame ignorance on the vehicle.

I blame a weight distribution that puts very little weight on the
driving wheels as contributing to what I call 'squirrelly'
handling. Now, if you put 800lbs. in the bed, things look much better.

Unladen, my truck has about the same weight distribution as a fwd car,
but divides the steering and driving inputs between two sets of wheels.
When cornering, I have the option of benign understeer, or neutral
handling, or power-on oversteer in direct proportion to my steering and
throttle inputs. A fwd car does not offer the same precision or
handling characteristics. Current fwd cars are, for the most part and
for the masses, engineered for idiots who have no understanding of
vehicle dynamics, and thus are optimized for handling characteristics
that will minimize the danger to the operator and the occupants when
the operator blindly reacts to a bad situation with the most basic
panic reaction available to him or her. And that's a good thing. That
said, it's not necessary for anyone who actually knows how to control a
motor vehicle.

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:22:48 -0600, Ron Hunter
wrote:

Bill Funk wrote:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:38:33 -0600, Ron Hunter
wrote:

Why, you've designed it already! And inadequately tested it, and already put
the poorly designed and tested device out on the market! - Amazing! I can't
believe you're so far ahead of me on this thing.......

Hey, seat belts kill people, and air bags kill children, and they are
STILL on cars. A neck bracing airbag on a motorcycle helmet would
probably be much the same. I have little confidence in such devices.

Oh, please!
Police kill people. Do you think they should be gotten rid of, too?
Can you give any credible evidence that, on the whole, air bags have
killed more people than they've saved? Even children?
Same for seat belts?
It's easy to point out the exceptions, and ignore the rest. it even
looks good on bumper stickers.
Buit it has no place in serious discussion.

I only meant to suggest that there are more effective, safer, and
cheaper ways to restrain a person in a car than airbags.

Oh, yes.
But acceptable to the people who will be asked to use them?
Not yet.
I don't see a whole lot of people even considering wearing helmets in
cars, for example.
5-point restraints? "In THIS* dress??"
Maybe we need the system that was used in Demolition Man? :-)
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:38:48 -0500, Pudentame
wrote:

I'm looking now for a 10 - 20hp diesel engine for the on-board charging
system. I also need to figure how to run it on bio-diesel.

The way I understand it, it should run just fine on bio-diesel without
modification.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"