On Mon, 4 Nov 2024, Peter Flass wrote:

> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 1 Nov 2024 22:34:25 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> In summary, the US would have gotten there eventually, but as per my
>>>> original statement, relying on Mr. von Braun no doubt accelerated the
>>>> research.
>>>
>>> Yeah eventually. Sometimes it helps to get the information from the
>>> horse's mouth.
>>>
>>> During WWI Germany used Zepplins to attack Britain. They were susceptible
>>> to ground fire or being shot down by British aircraft. The answer was a
>>> new design called Height Climbers that could operate over 20,000 feet,
>>> well above the ceiling of the aircraft of the day. There were problems
>>> with the engines and breathing apparatus but overall they were successful.
>>> Design decisions had been made to allow them to operate at that altitude.
>>>
>>> The Allies managed to capture L-49 and the US made several attempts based
>>> on the L-49. The first was the ZR-1 Shenandoah. It worked for a while
>>> before breaking up in a squall.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shenandoah_(ZR-1)
>>>
>>> ZR-2 started as a British R.38 class. It didn't end well.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R38-class_airship
>>>
>>> ZR-3, the USS Los Angeles, managed to retire in on piece.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Los_Angeles_(ZR-3)
>>>
>>>
>>> ZRS-4, the USS Akron, was destroyed in a thunderstorm.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron
>>>
>>> ZRS-5, the USS Macon, broike up off Point Sur.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5)
>>>
>>> There wasn't a ZRS-6. The Navy had had enough.
>>>
>>> Many think most of the problems came from copying an ultralight design
>>> that wasn't meant to be durable. Even when they brought in German
>>> engineers they may have not been very forthcoming considering the screwing
>>> Germany got a Versailles.
>>>
>>>
>>> fwiw, Howard Hughes' 'Hell's Angels' features a Zepplin and aircraft duel.
>>> At one point when the Zepplin captain is trying to gain altitude and has
>>> jettisoned everything the crew lines up and jumps for the good of the
>>> Fatherland.
>>>
>>> No CGI in that movie, just a few dead stunt pilots and a lot of crashed
>>> planes.
>>
>> Fascinating!
>>
>> One of my visions is to start an airline company based on modern
>> zeppelins. Instead of sitting in a small metal/carbon fibre tube for 8 to
>> 14 hours, I'd like the experience of crossing the ocean to be more like a
>> cruise ship. It might take 1 to 3 days or so, but you could walk around,
>> and enjoy a Michelin star restaurant on board.
>>
>> I just need to reach Branson or Musk and the thing should be done! ;)
>>
>> After that, the space elevator!
>>
>
> I’d love it! The Zeppelin Gesellschaft is (or was) recently building LTA
> vehicles for tourism. I’d fly in one in a heartbeat.

Same here! I'm just waiting for the chain of coincidences that will put me
in touch with Richard Branson. Then I'll sweet talk him into starting
Virgin Atlantic Zeppelin Edition!

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024, Peter Flass wrote:

> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 1 Nov 2024 22:30:39 +0100, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a significant
>>>> demand for labor in plantations across the Americas and on islands such
>>>> as Mauritius and Réunion. This demand fueled a slave trade that affected
>>>> many African communities. While much of this trade involved individuals
>>>> from coastal regions or areas further north, it also extended into
>>>> southern Africa.
>>>
>>> With a whole continent full of indigenous labor they imported Africans.
>>> The truth is while the Cherokee didn't have a problem enslaving people
>>> from other tribes they saw the value of buying Africans instead. When they
>>> headed to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears they took their African slaves
>>> with them.
>>
>> Really? So indians bought negro slaves? Had no idea! In europe, indians
>> can do no wrong, and their history is held up as a paragon of eco-friendly
>> and just, which was crushed by the bad white man.
>>
>>
>
> They enslaved people from other tribes, too. Without plantation agriculture
> it wasn’t that common.

I'll never trust a democrat when it comes to US history again! What else
has been hidden from me? In europe, indians are these sweet little nature
people who can do no wrong, and who were abused by the white man. That's
the only story around the european mainstream.

On 04/11/2024 20:48, D wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 1 Nov 2024 22:30:39 +0100, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a significant
>>>>> demand for labor in plantations across the Americas and on islands
>>>>> such
>>>>> as Mauritius and Réunion. This demand fueled a slave trade that
>>>>> affected
>>>>> many African communities. While much of this trade involved
>>>>> individuals
>>>>> from coastal regions or areas further north, it also extended into
>>>>> southern Africa.
>>>>
>>>> With a whole continent full of indigenous labor they imported Africans.
>>>> The truth is while the Cherokee didn't have a problem enslaving people
>>>> from other tribes they saw the value of buying Africans instead.
>>>> When they
>>>> headed to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears they took their African slaves
>>>> with them.
>>>
>>> Really? So indians bought negro slaves? Had no idea! In europe, indians
>>> can do no wrong, and their history is held up as a paragon of
>>> eco-friendly
>>> and just, which was crushed by the bad white man.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> They enslaved people from other tribes, too. Without plantation
>> agriculture
>> it wasn’t that common.
>
> I'll never trust a democrat when it comes to US history again! What else
> has been hidden from me? In europe, indians are these sweet little
> nature people who can do no wrong, and who were abused by the white man.
> That's the only story around the european mainstream.

Not really. Indians are what Indians are.

No one is blameless.

--
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as
foolish, and by the rulers as useful.

(Seneca the Younger, 65 AD)

On 4 Nov 2024 18:27:56 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> Except for the baby mommas that see kids as a source of income...

The Government should be paying women to have children.

Where else are the children going to come from?

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:29:17 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Why would big money need workers when it has robots?

It needs consumers with sufficient income to buy its products.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:14 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> I’d love it! The Zeppelin Gesellschaft is (or was) recently building LTA
> vehicles for tourism. I’d fly in one in a heartbeat.

Only semirigid, last I heard -- half balloon and half old-style Zeppelin.

I think the full rigids are considered too fragile for safety. This in
spite of the fact that ex-Navy man Hugo Eckener had a 100% safety record
in piloting hydrogen-filled craft.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:17 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> Corruption is how things get done. To eliminate corruption government
> sets up a bunch of rules, audits, checks, etc. This is supposed to make
> sure no one gets away with anything, but also makes it hard to do
> anything at all.

The operative term is “checks and balances”. Regulatory authorities are
supposed to be free from political interference. Other countries look at
the “revolving door” in the US where the same people are working for a
regulatory authority one moment, and as a lobbyist on behalf of the very
companies being regulated another moment, and wonder why you let them get
away with it.

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 20:36:29 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:

> On 11/3/24 6:30 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 21:48:47 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>>
>>> MV = Multi-Valued = Data fields that can hold long lists of that KIND
>>> of information. If you have a fleet-tracking DB then there'd be ONE
>>> field saying "mileage" and likely another for "fuel-added" and they'd
>>> just be added-to over time.
>
>>> The record for that vehicle is read all-at-once, rather than there
>>> being dozens, hundreds, of records for said vehicle every time it was
>>> fueled-up.
>>
>> This is why you have joins: so that you can retrieve multiple related
>> records with a single query. This is the proper relational way of doing
>> it.
>
> Why join when the MV approach keeps yer data in an already-joined
> state ???

Because the MV approach makes that hard to maintain.

> Python, and to some extent FORTRAN, have very good string
> list-manipulation/reading/writing/insertion/deletion capabilities ...
> it'd be fairly easy to set up a MV DB in those languages.

Python is quite good at SQL database manipulations. This include
setting up complicated joins.

I have some basic tutorials here
<https://gitlab.com/ldo/python_topics_notebooks/-/blob/master/Databases,%20Iterators%20&%20Looping.ipynb?ref_type=heads>

> The old PICK-ish DB I spent a decade with used pure ASCII-delimited
> fields (this was pre-unicode, you could bring 'em up in a text editor
> and see all the old IBM-BIOS high-ascii symbols).

I know, it was crap. Probably scarred you for life, which is why you
think the way you do.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:19:25 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> But one has to ask what in fact a desktop OS is for these days.

The “desktop” OS originated back in the day when people couldn’t afford
“workstations”. Look at the Unix-based systems of the time (particularly
the RISC-based ones), and you see machines that did interactive “desktop”
stuff, with the added advantage of multitasking, but more than that, they
also offered “server”-style functionality in the same package.

That, in essence, was a “workstation”. Microsoft killed it off in favour
of a model where the server-style functionality is carefully crippled in
the “desktop” OS, so if you want that, you have to pay extra bucks (a lot
of extra bucks) for a “server” OS.

Well, Microsoft killed off the “Unix workstation”. But today we have the
“Linux workstation” in its place, doing everything its predecessor could
do back then, and more.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:19:25 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> But one has to ask what in fact a desktop OS is for these days.

Any damn thing you please, no walled gardens needed, thankyouverymuch.

> The 'home PC' is now a fondleslab, TV or smartphone.

People have been nattering about "the death of the PC" for upwards of
twelve years now - and they're still here.

On 2024-11-04, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> On 4 Nov 2024 18:27:56 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> Except for the baby mommas that see kids as a source of income...
>
> The Government should be paying women to have children.

Some do.

> Where else are the children going to come from?

Let's take care of the ones already here before we
worry about making more.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:14 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> I’d love it! The Zeppelin Gesellschaft is (or was) recently building LTA
> vehicles for tourism. I’d fly in one in a heartbeat.

I was never in the right place at the right time but I would settle for a
hot air balloon ride. A Zep would be even better without the periodic
noise of the torch. Being able to control where you're going would be a
plus, too.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:56:47 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> I think the full rigids are considered too fragile for safety. This in
> spite of the fact that ex-Navy man Hugo Eckener had a 100% safety record
> in piloting hydrogen-filled craft.

Ex-Navy? He did good work. LZ 126 was the only Zepplin to survive the US
Navy long enough to become a hangar queen.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:44:52 +0100, D wrote:

> Inherently, I think most people are able to live meaningful lives if
> they are only taught how and the tools to do it. Socialism, on the other
> hand,
> thrives on making people passive and dependent. Socialism doesn't even
> need automation and robots to collapse, it collapses just fine with
> regular humans. =)

The eternal optimist. I don't know if George Floyd or Michael Brown would
ever had lived meaningful lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Servile_State

Belloc wasn't far off. He also warned in 'The Great Heresies' that Islam,
a Christian heresy was only slumbering and shouldn't be written off as a
threat.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:41:30 +0100, D wrote:

> Today... many are not capable today. But give it a 100 years or two, and
> with the progress of psychology and the school system, I'm sure that
> focus will be to equip people to live meaningful lives, instead of just
> being compliant cogs.

I had a very brief career as a math and science teacher. The school system
used homogeneous grouping meaning the classes were broken up according to
the perceived potential of the students. A was the college bound, B
possibly would make it to college or a skilled trade, C most likely would
be unskilled labor, and D was for dummies.

Being the new hire I saw a lot of the D section. They were ineducable. To
put it plainly they didn't give a shit and their parents didn't give a
shit. They were marking time until they turned 16 and could get working
papers. To further clarify, there was one black kid. The rest were run of
the mill white trash. I did have to relieve the black kid of his straight
razor. The white kids knew better than to play with their toys in class.

The tranches were roughly equal, so that was 25% of the student body. The
C kids might have fared better but this was a mill town and the mills were
leaving.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:52:21 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On 4 Nov 2024 18:27:56 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> Except for the baby mommas that see kids as a source of income...
>
> The Government should be paying women to have children.
>
> Where else are the children going to come from?

Essentially the US government does pay women to have children.
Unfortunately they are the women you wish were sterile. They do have a
disproportionate number of abortions so that might be a plus. Margaret
Sanger focused on contraception until later in her life but she had a
particular interest in that group.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:17 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> Corruption is how things get done. To eliminate corruption government
> sets up a bunch of rules, audits, checks, etc. This is supposed to make
> sure no one gets away with anything, but also makes it hard to do
> anything at all. I’m perfectly happy with a legislator, for example, who
> bends the rules a bit, as long as he gets things done for his
> constituents. If a little cash finds it’s way into his pockets in the
> process, I’m OK with that too. (We had a guy like this, and the list of
> good stuff he accomplished would fill a book)

The county where I grew up was corrupt and apparently is still keeping the
traditions alive.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndny/pr/former-rensselaer-county-elections-
commissioner-pleads-guilty-identity-theft

Like your guy, Marty Burke held no elected office but ran the city back
then. If you needed something done, go see Marty assuming you weren't on
his shit list. It worked.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:59:55 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:17 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> Corruption is how things get done. To eliminate corruption government
>> sets up a bunch of rules, audits, checks, etc. This is supposed to make
>> sure no one gets away with anything, but also makes it hard to do
>> anything at all.
>
> The operative term is “checks and balances”. Regulatory authorities are
> supposed to be free from political interference. Other countries look at
> the “revolving door” in the US where the same people are working for a
> regulatory authority one moment, and as a lobbyist on behalf of the very
> companies being regulated another moment, and wonder why you let them
> get away with it.

Yes, in your eyes everything about the US is wrong.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292120300933

Get over it.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:18 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> I think in many cases it is. one stretch of I-40 parallels the BNSF(?)
> mainline, and we’d drive along seeing one VERY long train after another
> about 15 minutes apart. not high speed, but faster than cars on the
> interstate.

I-90 parallels the former Northern Pacific tracks. Montana Rail Link had
been leasing it from BNSF but BNSF took it back in January. The plan is to
run eastbound trains on that section and westbound in the former Great
Northern tracks. Anyway, there is a lot of traffic, with coal still going
west. If you are unlucky enough to not make it to the other side of a
crossing in time, you might as well turn the engine off and play with your
cell phone.

Anyway, outside of Missoula I-90 is 80 mph and the trains aren't going
quite that fast. I've paced them at closer to 65. Jst as well.

https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/montana-rail-link-reopens-rail-line-
following-derailment

The bears were upset. They love it when grain cars derail. Cans of Coors
are hard for a bear to efficiently open. That one people could laugh
about.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20230727.aspx

That was on the Great Northern section and all on BNSF. MRL often
complained the BNSF was skimping on maintenance for the track MRL leased
but it wasn't any worse that BNSF's own track.

> High speed rail requires a major investment to upgrade the track. There
> are still a lot of grade crossings out west that would need to be
> upgraded.

Being strictly freight the schedules are somewhat erratic but part of the
local knowledge is which streets have grade level crossings, which are
under or over passes, and how to route around Mr. Peabody's Coal Train.

Then there are the leftovers.

https://missoulacurrent.com/missoula-tracks-mrl-bitterroot/

The real consideration is if there are tracks buses have to stop prior to
crossing them. Label them out of service, pave over them, and the buses
have smooth sailing as does anyone behind the bus.

It was impressive to see miles of freight cars stashed on the Bitterroot
spur with a few gaps at crossings. There are a lot of commuters from the
Bitteroot into Missoula so in a better world a light passenger operation
would make sense.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:16 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> Cotton gin Mass prod of rifes with interchangeable parts Sewing machine
> Telegraph Telephone Transistor Banjo

That last one won't fly.

https://bittersoutherner.com/history-of-the-banjo

I play a banjo but I sort of subvert it further. Among other things, I
play the Irish flute / tin whistle, mostly Irish rebel tunes which tend to
be recycled traditional songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVpEu4fOMB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaS3vaNUYgs

There was a perfectly good melody just laying around...

Anyway most of the material is in D or G. The Irish dlute has both C and
C# so it works. The standard banjo tuning is G, so it's a natural.

The Micks do their own thing with banjos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk_hLTzppIU

On 5 Nov 2024 01:30:31 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:59:55 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:17 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>>
>>> Corruption is how things get done. To eliminate corruption government
>>> sets up a bunch of rules, audits, checks, etc. This is supposed to
>>> make sure no one gets away with anything, but also makes it hard to do
>>> anything at all.
>>
>> The operative term is “checks and balances”. Regulatory authorities are
>> supposed to be free from political interference. Other countries look
>> at the “revolving door” in the US where the same people are working for
>> a regulatory authority one moment, and as a lobbyist on behalf of the
>> very companies being regulated another moment, and wonder why you let
>> them get away with it.
>
> Yes, in your eyes everything about the US is wrong.

Typical passive-aggressive response. Again, your implicit assumption is
that the USA is better at everything than anybody else, so if it is doing
something badly, there’s no way anybody else could be doing it better.

Look at things like global indexes of corruption, democratic institutions,
press freedom and the like, and learn how other countries do in fact do
some things better. Why pretend you can’t learn from them?

On 5 Nov 2024 00:55:15 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 21:56:47 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> I think the full rigids are considered too fragile for safety. This in
>> spite of the fact that ex-Navy man Hugo Eckener had a 100% safety
>> record in piloting hydrogen-filled craft.
>
> Ex-Navy? He did good work.

He was legendary. His crew used to joke that the storms would see him
coming and turn aside. ;)

Trouble is, he wasn’t loyal enough to the Nazi regime. So he got replaced
by a less experienced captain on that fateful last voyage of the
Hindenburg. And the rest is (sadly) history ...

On 5 Nov 2024 01:05:16 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> Belloc wasn't far off. He also warned in 'The Great Heresies' that
> Islam, a Christian heresy was only slumbering and shouldn't be written
> off as a threat.

This planet ain’t big enough for two religions which both believe their
sky fairy is the only true sky fairy, all other sky fairies are heretical
falsehoods to be stamped out?

On Mon, 04 Nov 2024 22:55:35 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> Let's take care of the ones already here before we worry about making
> more.

All the countries with static or declining populations have discovered how
sad it is to be like that. Even Singapore and China are both trying to
encourage population growth now. Four million (or is it five million) on
that tiny island is not enough, they want more? Yep.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 13:21:15 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> They enslaved people from other tribes, too. Without plantation
> agriculture it wasn’t that common.

When I see some of the mound building projects in the southeast I have to
wonder if all the people hauling dirt in baskets were free.

The indigenous tribes were a lot like the Europeans. When Dublin was the
center of the slave trade in Europe the dealers would head to Wales,
Britain, Scotland, or the Irish hinterlands to restock. The slaves were
white but not Norse so they were fair game. If the Mohawks enslaved
Mohecans it was the same effect. There were no racial differences, only
ethnic.

African slavery put a different spin on it.