🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <l37m05INN6aj@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>, dlp@zule.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Pritchett - SunSoft Engineer) writes:
> In article <1992Jun8.173622.4035@clipper.ingr.com>, fenwick@clipper.ingr.com (Stephen Fenwick) writes:
> |> Sorry, folks; I'll buy an electric car, but cycling isn't an option.
> |> Public transit could be, but the bus system in this part of Palo Alto
> |> is a mess.
> |> 
> While I support public transportation, I would not use it to argue as
> a time savings versus cycling. I shower twice/day when I drive to work or
> when I ride. So bathing time is mute. The bus averages somewhere around
> 13 mph over most commuter paths. I average better than 15 mph on my bike.
> That is real end to end elapsed time, not what the speedometer rides at
> some instance. So in most cases a fit cyclist can arrive sooner. An unfit
> rider can probably equal or only do slightly worse.

I'm one of those odd ducks in this groups who believes it is possible
to get something done (usually reading the paper) on public transit.
I can't do that while biking. I can while driving; I carpool.
Last time I biked, I got about 8mph, 90% along N.California in Palo Alto.
I'd be interested in hearing about safe bike routes from Castro & Central
in Mountain View to the Palo Alto Airport area.

[thread about showering deleted; it seems to be a personal issue,
and not too germaine to the conversation.]

> |> I'll add some fuel to the fire, although a bit of a leap from the
> |> charter of ba.transportation: what is the expected lifespan of the
> |> human conciousness; that is, how many years of mental clarity can one
> |> expect to have? It's not affected by diet, as far as I can tell
> |> (except for extremes of drug consumption), although the mother's
> |> diet may affect the formation of the myelin sheath over the nerves.
> |> Exercise certainly doesn't seem to be a factor. So the question is,
> |> if everyone in the country started a healthy diet and exercise regimen
> |> that enabled them to live to 100, would they cease to be concious
> |> humans at 75/85/95? What does that do to our burden on limited
> |> planetary resources?
> |> 
> Well there are lots of people that are perfectly coherent in the ages
> you use as examples, and there are plenty that are incoherent at 31
> (and some of them are licensed to drive). I'm not sure I'm following
> the point or that there are even sufficient facts to support the point.

Just adding fuel to the fire. I've been listening to NPR's reporting
on the Earth Summit; *the* big issue that all the players seem to be
dancing around is population control. I know I've seen articles in
U.S. News in the last year about the future costs of having a large
aged population (in this country, anyway) compared to the population
of their descendants. The comment was made yesterday (again, on NPR)
that the U.S. has been in a negative growth rate--that is, the population
is not replacing itself--for the last two decades.

This is getting far from ba.transportation--followups to email
(suggestions of an appropriate group would be helpful.)

Steve
-- 
Stephen C. Fenwick /Sr. Systems Engineer |  fenwick@clipper.ingr.com (work)
Intergraph APD, 2400 Geng Road           |  scf@btr.com or w0x0f on AOL (home)
Palo Alto, California  94303    +-----------------------------------------------
(415) 852-2325/494-8800         | PP-ASEL-IA (and still looking for cheap wings)