I don't think anyone wants to mix high-speed rail on freight rail networks. That's just a waste, and is only the half-assed solution that Amtrak uses because Acela was underfunded.
A real high-speed rail network would involve separate lines.
A true transportation infrastructure change in the US would involve several trillion dollars, which would be totally worth it.
And, that's actually not a lot of money.
Remember, the US went ahead and pissed away $4 trillion already on a useless war in Iraq. "Oh great. Whoop-de-doo. Saddam Hussein is gone. I'm glad every single person in America spent $13k each to get rid of some random third-world dictator dude halfway around the world.."
It is economically feasible in every other country.
It will work in the US.
The best way to do it is for government to pay for it, through taxes.
We do NOT want a private, profit-making rail system. I do NOT want to pay a monopoly corporation for the services of transportation. THAT is the worst possible scenario.
A big-government rail system, like what they have in Europe and Japan, is the best rail system.
It is time for government to take a commanding role in transportation, and remove it from the hands of inefficient profit-making private enterprises that we have today.
The major personal cost associated with driving is your own time.
If you consider yourself a worthless person, then by all means, drive. In fact, in many countries around the world, driving is left to your poor servants, since driving is considered low-class manual labor that everyone hates doing.
Meanwhile, for more valuable people, they can save their time by utilizing the free time on a train to catch up on work, read a book, or take a nap.
How much do you think that's worth to an executive?
There is no such thing as stress in a public transportation system, except for the most clueless morons. Everyone likes rail more than they do driving.
Rural areas don't create food. FARMERS create food. Farmers and ranchers are the only people that need to be in rural areas for society to function.
Only about 1-2% of the US population are farmers, yet 30% or so live in rural areas.
There's a lot of people in rural areas that don't need to be in rural areas, those are the people the city dwellers are subsidizing.
They want the city dwellers to pay for their handouts, like roads, schools, communications, etc.
If cities stopped funding rural areas and give the rural residents these free handouts, they'd disappear. Very few rural residents are capable of sustaining themselves.
Buses suck; they spew out tons of pollution, travel at inconvenient times, and are much too slow because they stop too much. It also sucks having to deal with the other people on them.
Then get buses that don't suck, run on clean natural gas, increase their availability, and use bus-rapid-transit so they're fast and don't stop too much.
And, if you don't want to deal with other people, why would you expect the public to deal with you?
I'm glad we addressed all of your concerns to satisfaction.
Yes I always wondered why those on the right were so soft in the head.
Since increased government spending and higher taxes helps an economy grow, we have to wonder why the right keep insisting on a smaller government and lower taxes. I am not sure why the right wants to keep destroying the economy by lowering taxes and cutting government.
America needs a big government to be successful.
We need a small government like we need to be Somalia.
Let's at least try to teach future generations that, to be successful, we need a bigger. Somewhere in their education system, they received the mistaken idea that a small government and lower taxes was somehow better. We need to find out where they get this mistaken ideology, and fix it.
Let's make sure to teach everyone the lessons learned by Greece, who did the "austerity" thing and are now seeing a collapse of their nation.
And the first complaint we're going to send to the FCC is about the random unpronounceable symbols in the show title instead of using the more appropriate word "shit".
Looking for the MSFT agenda here. Are salesforce.com people going after microsoft sales reps? Has the saleforce.com people brought too much competition to MSFT? What gives?
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think anyone wants to mix high-speed rail on freight rail networks. That's just a waste, and is only the half-assed solution that Amtrak uses because Acela was underfunded.
A real high-speed rail network would involve separate lines.
This is just a kick-start round.
A true transportation infrastructure change in the US would involve several trillion dollars, which would be totally worth it.
And, that's actually not a lot of money.
Remember, the US went ahead and pissed away $4 trillion already on a useless war in Iraq. "Oh great. Whoop-de-doo. Saddam Hussein is gone. I'm glad every single person in America spent $13k each to get rid of some random third-world dictator dude halfway around the world.."
It is economically feasible in every other country.
It will work in the US.
The best way to do it is for government to pay for it, through taxes.
We do NOT want a private, profit-making rail system. I do NOT want to pay a monopoly corporation for the services of transportation. THAT is the worst possible scenario.
A big-government rail system, like what they have in Europe and Japan, is the best rail system.
It is time for government to take a commanding role in transportation, and remove it from the hands of inefficient profit-making private enterprises that we have today.
Government subsidized rail is the most economically feasible solution.
Privatized rail is a waste of money, and has been proven not to work.
For the clueless that haven't figured it out yet, here is why:
1. There is no such thing as a competitive free market.
2. In capitalism, the whole point of "competition" is to eliminate competitors, and achieve a monopoly.
3. Why would you want a private monopoly to run your rail system?
We get to have our ways because we're more powerful.
This isn't about what you can do for you, this is about what you can do for us.
Let's not allow people the freedom to give other people lung cancer caused by cigarettes. I'm sure you agree with that statement.
All the things you mentioned, the train gives more freedom, since it costs less, and you aren't forced into low-wage manual labor by driving.
Measure everything in costs.
We need to make sure everyone understands that the automobile is a freedom destroyer.
The major personal cost associated with driving is your own time.
If you consider yourself a worthless person, then by all means, drive. In fact, in many countries around the world, driving is left to your poor servants, since driving is considered low-class manual labor that everyone hates doing.
Meanwhile, for more valuable people, they can save their time by utilizing the free time on a train to catch up on work, read a book, or take a nap.
How much do you think that's worth to an executive?
There is no such thing as stress in a public transportation system, except for the most clueless morons. Everyone likes rail more than they do driving.
Every state has farms that employ illegals. Even in farms way up north, like in Vermont.
You're not looking hard enough.
Rural areas don't create food. FARMERS create food. Farmers and ranchers are the only people that need to be in rural areas for society to function.
Only about 1-2% of the US population are farmers, yet 30% or so live in rural areas.
There's a lot of people in rural areas that don't need to be in rural areas, those are the people the city dwellers are subsidizing.
They want the city dwellers to pay for their handouts, like roads, schools, communications, etc.
If cities stopped funding rural areas and give the rural residents these free handouts, they'd disappear. Very few rural residents are capable of sustaining themselves.
You seem to be implying that the current automobile-based system is cheaper than any theoretical rail system for Texas.
How much does building and maintaining roads every in Texas cost?
Buses suck; they spew out tons of pollution, travel at inconvenient times, and are much too slow because they stop too much. It also sucks having to deal with the other people on them.
Then get buses that don't suck, run on clean natural gas, increase their availability, and use bus-rapid-transit so they're fast and don't stop too much.
And, if you don't want to deal with other people, why would you expect the public to deal with you?
I'm glad we addressed all of your concerns to satisfaction.
Yes I always wondered why those on the right were so soft in the head.
Since increased government spending and higher taxes helps an economy grow, we have to wonder why the right keep insisting on a smaller government and lower taxes. I am not sure why the right wants to keep destroying the economy by lowering taxes and cutting government.
America needs a big government to be successful.
We need a small government like we need to be Somalia.
Let's at least try to teach future generations that, to be successful, we need a bigger. Somewhere in their education system, they received the mistaken idea that a small government and lower taxes was somehow better. We need to find out where they get this mistaken ideology, and fix it.
Let's make sure to teach everyone the lessons learned by Greece, who did the "austerity" thing and are now seeing a collapse of their nation.
If what you said is true, newspapers would all end up being one long scroll.
It is easier to scan across several short columns, than to go down one long column.
Indeed.
Users are the least capable of determining the quality of their own experience.
Multi-column can actually prevent scrolling entirely, by using the horizontal space instead of forcing you to scroll vertically.
It's because page-width is variable that multi-columns are needed. There is a visual usability limit to column sizes, about 5-10 words or so.
It is a mistake to think that print properties do not apply to web. The same visual rules apply to web, or anywhere.
Multi-column (even with basic support), and full support of font-face, is going to go finally enable real layout.
Can you imagine inDesign, or Quark (or Pagemaker, etc..) without multi-column support?
Are there ANY newspapers that don't support multi-column layout?
Meanwhile, I'd like to see varying width/varying shape columns, with reflows, and proper column break hints.
The current support in Firefox/Safari/Chrome is much appreciated, though. (IE doesn't have it at all!)
Example multi-column layout with font-faces: http://www.futureclaw.com/articles/visionary-futurist-syd-mead.html
I see what you did there.. =^)
No. I only read PDFs, or HTML.
No need for any other format to exist.
Duh?
No.
And the first complaint we're going to send to the FCC is about the random unpronounceable symbols in the show title instead of using the more appropriate word "shit".
Let me guess: cosmic ray. Is it really that hard? What else causes a single bit-flip error in space?
Incredibly annoying alien hackers?
Looking for the MSFT agenda here. Are salesforce.com people going after microsoft sales reps? Has the saleforce.com people brought too much competition to MSFT? What gives?
They have a great viewer as well.