Am 12/12/19 1:59 PM, also sprach jr:

> 
> (very US of A.  you enter an empty house and find the TV is on.  :-))


One of my defining moments:

I was living in Zürich.  One night my native buddy and I were out.  We 
stopped at Wang Labs, his old job, where apparently the janitor was the 
big hash dealer.  He left me in the car and proceeded to wander around a 
14 story building looking for the dude.  After, oh, 45 minutes, I was 
cold and I turned on the car for some heat (Zürich in winter).  About 
that time he came out and started yelling at me.

Markus: "Only an *American* would run a car when it's not going anywhere!"
Me: "It's fucking cold!"
Him: "That's why there's a blanket in the back!  They're not making any 
more dinosaurs. And you're polluting the air for no reason!"

So, "they're not making any more dinosaurs" became one of my mantras.  I 
turn my car off in line at the McDonald's drive-thru.

-- 
dik
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hi,

Dick Balaska <dic### [at] buckosoftcom> wrote:
> Am 12/12/19 1:59 PM, also sprach jr:
> > ...
> One of my defining moments:
>
> I was living in Zürich.  One night my native buddy and I were out.  We
> stopped at Wang Labs, his old job, where apparently the janitor was the
> big hash dealer.  He left me in the car and proceeded to wander around a
> 14 story building looking for the dude.  After, oh, 45 minutes, I was
> cold and I turned on the car for some heat (Zürich in winter).  About
> that time he came out and started yelling at me.
>
> Markus: "Only an *American* would run a car when it's not going anywhere!"
> Me: "It's fucking cold!"
> Him: "That's why there's a blanket in the back!  They're not making any
> more dinosaurs. And you're polluting the air for no reason!"

:-)


> So, "they're not making any more dinosaurs" became one of my mantras.

too like it.


> I turn my car off in line at the McDonald's drive-thru.

you have to manually turn off/on the engine?  here, over the past few years,
more and more vehicles switch off the motor automatically when halting (eg when
waiting at lights, etc).  (nonsense I think because emissions when starting are
high, so a few sec's idling probably pollutes less than constant off/on cycling)


regards, jr.

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Am 12/13/19 6:12 AM, also sprach jr:
> hi,

ahoy.

> 
> you have to manually turn off/on the engine?  here, over the past few years,
> more and more vehicles switch off the motor automatically when halting (eg when
> waiting at lights, etc).  (nonsense I think because emissions when starting are
> high, so a few sec's idling probably pollutes less than constant off/on cycling)
> 

I have not seen any car do this.  I think, if you start the car without 
stepping on the gas, the extra emissions are nominal.

-- 
dik
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"jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> hi,
>
> Dick Balaska <dic### [at] buckosoftcom> wrote:

> > Markus: "Only an *American* would run a car when it's not going anywhere!"
> > Me: "It's fucking cold!"
> > Him: "That's why there's a blanket in the back!  They're not making any
> > more dinosaurs. And you're polluting the air for no reason!"
>
> :-)
>
>
> > So, "they're not making any more dinosaurs" became one of my mantras.
>
> too like it.
>
>
> > I turn my car off in line at the McDonald's drive-thru.

https://www.thoughtco.com/oil-comes-from-dinosaurs-fact-or-fiction-3980636
https://www.thoughtco.com/does-oil-come-from-dinosaurs-1092003

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-oil-we-are-burning-today-the-corpses-of-dinosaurs

So, it's likely plankton, algae, whatever that was the source.

There are also claims that oil isn't from biological sources at all, but is
truly a mineral deposit of sorts.

https://rense.com/general67/oils.htm

Given that they've determined that there's a VAST amount of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons out there in space, that seems less far fetched than I thought it
was when I initially read about it.


There's also biodiesel, synthetic photosynthesis, and lots of other technologies
to provide us with fuel.


The biggest driving force I see in destroying - anything - is taxes.   If you
could own your own property, create real wealth, and purchase durable goods and
hand down the things accumulated over one's life to the next generation, you
wouldn't have to constantly be driving all over creation to work.

You could have time to cultivate your own land and eat real healthy food - from
plants that - hey - absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as their food source.

You could build really good quality well insulated houses that "net zero" and
need minimal to no heating, because --- you wouldn't have property taxes when
you built something like that.   And you wouldn't be any disincentive to build
such a thing because you wouldn't be in any danger of losing your property
because you'd OWN it.

If people weren't perpetually in need of making MORE money to pay de facto rent
and tribute to the real criminals on the planet, we could invest in making good
quality durable goods instead of cheap disposable plastic crap that's part of
the planned obsolescence program.  No one makes anything GOOD anymore, because
where's the profit?   Why doe I constantly have to make more profit?   To pay my
damned taxes - because those NEVER end.

and on and on and on.

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> Am 12/13/19 6:12 AM, also sprach jr:
>> hi,
>
> ahoy.
>
>>
>> you have to manually turn off/on the engine?  here, over the past few
>> years,
>> more and more vehicles switch off the motor automatically when halting
>> (eg when
>> waiting at lights, etc).  (nonsense I think because emissions when
>> starting are
>> high, so a few sec's idling probably pollutes less than constant
>> off/on cycling)
>>
>
> I have not seen any car do this.

It's mostly luxury cars, because they tend to have gas-guzzling V8s (or 
even V12s!), or hybrids, because... hybrids.



I think, if you start the car without
> stepping on the gas, the extra emissions are nominal.
>

If the engine is warm, there's no big difference in emissions.

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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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Am 12/13/19 1:49 PM, also sprach Bald Eagle:

> 
> If people weren't perpetually in need of making MORE money to pay de facto rent
> and tribute to the real criminals on the planet, we could invest in making good
> quality durable goods instead of cheap disposable plastic crap that's part of
> the planned obsolescence program.  No one makes anything GOOD anymore, because
> where's the profit?   Why doe I constantly have to make more profit?   To pay my
> damned taxes - because those NEVER end.
> 

"Only the little people pay taxes"  -- Leona Helmsley

I think greed plays a much bigger role.  There is a breakaway point 
around $300K/yr where your taxes start to become a smaller and smaller 
part of your income. (Especially after Reagan/Bush/Trump's tax breaks 
for the rich).

But enough is never enough.  Take Jeff Bezos, richest man on the planet, 
and that actually gives him *more* license to treat his employees like 
shit.  He could double his employees' salaries, make 40,000 people real 
happy, and never notice it.  But, all those pennies are *his* and he 
wants them.  We've all read the stories about how Amazon employees don't 
even have time to pee.

Fairfield County CT has the highest per capita income in the country. 
Being just outside NYC it also has high population density and very high 
real estate prices[1].  Bridgeport Hydraulic was the quasi-public water 
company serving it.  In the 80s, they decided they had "excess capacity" 
and sold off several 1000 acre reservoirs for serious coin.  So here we 
are 35 years later, and those people are on water restrictions.  But 
man, those were some large stockholder dividend checks.

How was that even legal?

[1] In 1982, a house in Norwalk came on the market in my price range at 
8:00. At 10:00 I put an offer on it without even seeing it.  I was 5th, 
did not get the house.

-- 
dik
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