Regarding the Babylonian Talmud, there are editions in both Hebrew and English. A very good bookstore is Levine's on the north side of W. 30th Street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
In most parts of the USA there are Chabad or Habad centers, often on or near college and University campuses, and their Rabbis are usually excellent teachers, teaching in English from an Orthodox perspective. Hillel houses on college and universities have classes usually from a non-Orthodox or inclusive perspective.
Reading the Talmud in original Hebrew or in English translation can be dificult at times, and having a teacher is recommended.
But the Babylonian Talmud remains the main source of interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call "The Old Testament," for us Orthodox Jews in living our daily lives.
I hope this isn't straying to far into religion. I'm not trying to present dogma or belief, just answering a question.
I took three courses with Leo Beranek: Basic Acoustics, Electroacoustics, and Architectural Acoustics. Noise control was nominally under him but actually taught by Jordan Barusch and Norman Doling (Sp?). I was a Bolt Beranek and Newman employee May 1 1957 - June 1 1971. My name is in all three of his concert-hall books as one obtaining data and in the latter two referenced paper or papers. My thesis advisor for my Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator paper was Karl Wildes. My thesis advisor for my Concert Hall Evaluation Recording System paper was Ken (Kenneth?) Stevens, with Harvard's Ted Hunt as an unofficial advisor, since I used Harvard's Acoustics Laboratory for tests that were not actually performed in Boston Symphony Hall.
From July 1971 to June 1996 I was President of the White Plains, NY firm Klepper Marshall King. However, in the Spring 1992, Leo Beranek contributed financially to my vacation Israel trip for data for his 1996 and 2003 concert-hall books.
The title Professor should be inserted before all the above names.
Thank you.
charlie hebdoAs someone with at least a passing interest in biblical scholarship I'd also like more info on the Babylonian Talmud.
In my opinion, there is no better reference in English than the Schottenstein Edition; the basic link to which is here.
Depending on your interest you can get this volume by volume; it's probably in major libraries for reference (and if not, it should surely be).
Erik_MagOvermod: I think you and I need to sit down with Dave sometime and get him started on telling stories.
Yesterday!
And every one of them would be reason to ask him to tell 50 more...
Overmod daveklepper Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations. It's ominous that Barton can't figure out where your undergraduate thesis is. Graduate thesis (1957) is here. You had Leo Beranek as your thesis advisor!
daveklepper
Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations.
It's ominous that Barton can't figure out where your undergraduate thesis is.
Graduate thesis (1957) is here.
You had Leo Beranek as your thesis advisor!
Leo Beranek was quite the slacker, after all he was only 101 when his last paper was published. (Saw that in the Acoustical Society magazine)
Overmod: I think you and I need to sit down with Dave sometime and get him started on telling stories.
Dave: As someone with at least a passing interest in biblical scholarship I'd also like more info on the Babylonian Talmud.
daveklepper Greyhounds: Can I have a copy of your Masters Thesis? Either as an attachment to an email, pdf or word or text with jpg, gif, or whatever figures, or photocopy via snail-mail? I think it will be very useful to me for discussions here in Israel. Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations. Email: daveklepper@yahoo.com Mailing address: David Lloyd Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Jerusalem 97400, Israel The importrant Babylonian Talmud had a great deal of economic law that is directly related to this regulation issue, involving transportation of goods.
Greyhounds: Can I have a copy of your Masters Thesis? Either as an attachment to an email, pdf or word or text with jpg, gif, or whatever figures, or photocopy via snail-mail? I think it will be very useful to me for discussions here in Israel.
Email: daveklepper@yahoo.com
Mailing address:
David Lloyd Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot
Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Jerusalem 97400, Israel
The importrant Babylonian Talmud had a great deal of economic law that is directly related to this regulation issue, involving transportation of goods.
Dave, thank you for the request.
I THINK I have one extra hard copy left. It's just print. If I can find it after several moves, a divorce and two girlfriends, I'll send it to you. Snail mail. Got to keep one copy for myself although I know it will go in to a landfill after my Earthly Demise. Other copies are at Northwestern U and one with my thesis advisor. I've never mailed anything to Israel or anywhere else overseas except for some lottery tickets that I'd send anonymously to a soldier serving in the 1991 Gulf War. (Yes, I sent them before the drawing. Then I'd send him the results. I don't know if any of them won.) You're a fellow former US Army officer and If I can find it I'll send it to you.
As a Believing Christian I'm not familiar with the Babylonian Talmud. Maybe I shoud be, but I'm not. It's very interesting that it dealt with transportation. Will you please say more?
daveklepperUnfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations.
The reason I say 'ominous' is that I don't find either reference in DSpace; 'requesting a thesis' involves it being scanned, and the rules for getting a thesis scanned involve sending them a paper copy or a PDF (!) So it may be important that we either track down a copy of the 'load regulator' thesis (through better MIT search, hopefully), or have you re-create as much of the argument and discussion as you can.
Some of you are probably old enough to recall Nader v. General Motors.
As I understand it, when Ralph realized he was being spied on he went to all the big automakers and asked them what was going on. He got the following responses:
Ford: What? That's crazy, we're not spying on you!
Chrysler: What? That's crazy, we're not spying on you!
AMC: What? That's crazy, we're not big enough to spy on you!
GM: We can neither confirm or deny the validity of your question.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
charlie hebdoWhy would the GM execs be credible sources?
Institutional knowledge and memory and at this point with all the lawsuits filed and settled they have no reason to cover up the past.
Thanks for the compliment. I know an opinion piece. Even great researchers write them and they are OK in their place.
You dismiss many valid concepts. I will not speculate as to motivation.
charlie hebdo Yes, yes. But you miss the point because of an overly restrictive focus. Under pressure from the railroads, in1935 the lCC began to regulate trucking. But that does not mean that it did not make decisions to protect the growth of incipient trucking lines from being nipped in the bud by the railroads in the 1920s. Their decision may well have been wrong, as in your thesis. However, those lower container rates might well have been raised once competition was reduced or eliminated. You do not take that into account as a potential outcome.
Yes, yes. But you miss the point because of an overly restrictive focus. Under pressure from the railroads, in1935 the lCC began to regulate trucking. But that does not mean that it did not make decisions to protect the growth of incipient trucking lines from being nipped in the bud by the railroads in the 1920s.
Their decision may well have been wrong, as in your thesis. However, those lower container rates might well have been raised once competition was reduced or eliminated. You do not take that into account as a potential outcome.
Oh, I didn't miss any point. I just was tired and wanted to go to sleep. One of those, "I'll get to it tomorrow things." It seems you believe the regulators had to prevent competition in order to promote competition. This makes zero sense.
You pose a most implausible hypothesis. You're tying to justify the unjustifiable in an effort to support government regulation. You're imagining "Predatory Pricing". That's a fantasy concept wherein one firm drives the price down to reduce or eliminate its competition. Then it kicks the price back up and enjoys monopoly profits. It never has worked because it can't work. (At least without government helping it work.)
To make this work would require barriers to the entry of competitors. The high prices and profits will draw in new or revitalized old competitors unless the government establishes barriers to their market entry. The railroads could not, on their own, stop a truck line from operating.
Your predatory pricing fantasy flat out ignores the essence of motor freight. It's main assets, the trucks, are mobile. They can go here, there, and everywhere. Truckers do chase the money. If a railroad were to raise its prices truck assets would be diverted to, and created for, that market and the frieght would go back to the highway. That's just the way it works.
Additionally, since the ICC had control over rail rates it could have simply disallowed any increase. I don't see that control as having been beneficial to the American people, but it did exist.
You have no substantiation for any of your claims. You're just creating straw men to cover for a really destructive bad government action.
This is the first time I've read anyone claim that the ICC involvement with motor carriers was the result of pressure from the railroads. Actually, the motor freight industry sought regulation so as to limit competition amongst themselves. The ICC couldn't just regulate motor carriers. Congress had to pass legislation to give it that power. That happened and competition was greatly reduced. To the great harm of the American people. Anytime an industry actually seeks economic regulation, as the truckers did, it's very suspicious as to their motives.
BTW, my quote from Gallamore is from a book, not an "Opinion Piece." The book, which you should read, was started by John R. Meyer who was a faculty member at Harvard. Unfortunately, Meyer died before completing the book. Gallamore took it over and finished the book. Meyer had been Gallamore's advisor as Gallamore wrote his PhD disertation on the economic results of parallel railroad mergers. But you simply dismiss their book as an "Opinion Piece." If I had a vegetable garden I'd hire you to build a scarecrow. You're really good at straw men.
charlie hebdo Paul of Covington tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line? I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business? I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit. Paul, I think you are on to a key point. Since the ICC regulated the rails and the incipient trucking industry in the 20s onward, protecting them from temporary, artificially low prices by the rails designed to bankrupt the truckers and nip competition in the bud, seemed a possible and worthy motivation. So rather than hobbling the rails, it's protecting a new industry that lacked deep pockets. Enhancing competition is a proper goal of regulation designed to preserve capitalism in the long term.
Paul of Covington tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line? I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business? I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit.
tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business?
I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit.
Paul, I think you are on to a key point. Since the ICC regulated the rails and the incipient trucking industry in the 20s onward, protecting them from temporary, artificially low prices by the rails designed to bankrupt the truckers and nip competition in the bud, seemed a possible and worthy motivation. So rather than hobbling the rails, it's protecting a new industry that lacked deep pockets. Enhancing competition is a proper goal of regulation designed to preserve capitalism in the long term.
Sorry Charlie..
The ICC did not regulate trucking in the 1920's. Not until 1935 did they get involved in trucking. Well after the container fiasco. And then they screwed it up royaly. They didn't understand trucking either.
Let's keep the facts straight.
Paul of Covington I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business?
Hence my reference to dinner. Trucking industry to regulators: "Hey, give a guy a break..."
I would opine that the mutual synergy of trucking plus railroads wasn't on anyone's radar.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Value of service pricing, sets price primarily but not exclusively, on the value perceived by customers rather than cost. In other words, value of service pricing is based on the utility factor of the service, which is estimated by customers.
greyhoundsIf you've got some other hard informatiion let's see it.
I suspect that would be the bill from the restaurant where the lobbyists took the regulators for dinner.
What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
Primary sources are what matters, not just citing an opinion piece by Prof. Gallamore.
charlie hebdo greyhounds I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance." Exercising influence on regulators, the government and the economy can be obtained in many other, more subtle means than direct payoffs, bibes, etc. The auto industry, especially GM, was extremely powerful during that time period.
greyhounds I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance."
Exercising influence on regulators, the government and the economy can be obtained in many other, more subtle means than direct payoffs, bibes, etc. The auto industry, especially GM, was extremely powerful during that time period.
If you've got some information on GM's involvement in this issue I'll be glad to look at it. But right now, I think you're setting up a Straw Man to divert responsibility for this regulatory malfeasance from the regulators to another entity. The regulators should never have had the power to stop the adoption of intermodal container service, but they did. They used that power to great and lasting harm.
Here's a quote. (Note: VOS = Value of Service.)
"The problem with the VOS rate system developed by the Progressives was not that their system was demand-based, but that it was rigid. It could not recognize or accommodate the rise of rival modes, and it did not allow railroads the flexibility to meet local market imperatives. The classification tables might have originated from a basis of charging what the traffic would bear, but they had become ossified and so no longer reflected actual market circumstances. The Progressives wanted a system with surpluses over cost, but without differentiation, and thus without freedom to meet let alone undercut prices charged by competitors."
Gallamore, Robert E.. American Railroads (Kindle Locations 912-917). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
The regulators, lead by an attorney named Harry C. Ames, were determined to keep in place a railroad rate structure that was untenable given the advent of motor freight. They were "Rigid". And "Rigid" just won't work when creative destructiion is upon you.
So the innovative container service, with its new pricing, was shut down by government edict. And the government kept its foot on the neck of intermodal development for the following 50 years.
If you've got some other hard informatiion let's see it.
tree68 greyhounds In 1931 they ordered the railroads to increase their rates on container services to non competitive levels. One might also wonder if there was a certain amount of lobbying by the truck industry...
greyhounds In 1931 they ordered the railroads to increase their rates on container services to non competitive levels.
One might also wonder if there was a certain amount of lobbying by the truck industry...
I first researched this subject around 1975 for my masters thesis at Northwestern University. The completed thesis is titled "The Transportation of LCL/LTL Freight by Railroad." (I got the MS in transportation.) I have maintained an interest in the subject ever since. I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance."
The regulators didn't have a clue. But they had power they never should have had. They used that power badly. And we're still paying for that.
The regulators tried, foolish as it was, to assign fixed and joint costs to specific "Classifications" of freight. No one can possibly make such assignments with any degree of accuracy or authenticity. It cannot be done. This didn't deter the regulators one little bit. They just made the assignments and said the Hell with accuracy and authenticity. They had no idea it was a fool's errand. They just didn't understand they were trying to do something that can't be done.
That's a recipe for failure, and that's what we got. Courtesy of the US Government.
Why would the GM execs be credible sources? GM was also convicted of criminal charges, but was fined, at least in one case, only $1.00.
As to the Milwaukee Electric resusication attempt, was that Jay Maeder? My memory is a little rusty on that. As I recal,l the man behind the attempt was was at the controls when the crash came.
Johnny
CMStPnPThe part of the Milwaukee Electric Lines that my father told me about was the massive trestle the firm constructed over the Milwaukee Road tracks as they curved out of the Menominee Valley (West of Muskego Yard) and headed for Wauwatosa, WI. He stated the trolley used to go across that bridge and you could feel the bridge shake on board the trolley car. They still have bridges at that point for the roads but the steel trestle is long gone. Picture is below of the former Trestle called the Wells Street Bridge.....check it out!!! https://bridgehunter.com/wi/milwaukee/bh64314/
https://bridgehunter.com/wi/milwaukee/bh64314/
If you are stopped on a bridge - any significant bridge - you can feel it shake under the movement of other traffic.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
SD70DudeSeriously though, all the companies mentioned actually were behind National City Lines and its activity of replacing streetcars and interurbans with rubber-tired, fuel-burning buses on paved roads.
When I worked at GM supporting the Senior Executives there for EDS. They all said that was a mass conspiracy theory and GM only settled the lawsuits in order to get them out of the way as they were blocking other deals that made the lawsuit settlement paltry in comparison. It was not an admission of guilt on their part.
They stated GM bought the lines long after they were so far run down that scrapping them was cheaper than rebuilding them and had GM not intervened they would have been scrapped anyways with no replacement. The GM plan did save some jobs that would have been lost entirely if it did not intervene.
In the case of Milwaukee Electric lines. The line signalling and other safety measures were years past their serviceable life and the Feds were after the company to upgrade or shut down. A private individual took over the core of the remaining system and renamed it Speed Rail. Even so and after a disasterous crash near Miller Park stadium in which people died. He admitted he could not attract enough ridership to make the necessary modifications the Feds wanted and had to abandon the line. Part of the reason for the crash was blamed on the very old signalling system and it is ironic that the crash involved a "railfan" special during a "railfan" convention.
I think the other part of the blame was the owner was inexperienced in line operations as he was wanted to be at the throttle of the railfan special to narrate parts of the line. He escaped injury in the crash I believe but I don't remember the whole story. Those that died ironically were "railfans" that wanted to see the line live on but only hastened it's closure via the accident and some of their deaths.
The part of the Milwaukee Electric Lines that my father told me about was the massive trestle the firm constructed over the Milwaukee Road tracks as they curved out of the Menominee Valley (West of Muskego Yard) and headed for Wauwatosa, WI. He stated the trolley used to go across that bridge and you could feel the bridge shake on board the trolley car. They still have bridges at that point for the roads but the steel trestle is long gone. Picture is below of the former Trestle called the Wells Street Bridge.....check it out!!!
Don't forget about Judge Doom and his 'dip'!
Seriously though, all the companies mentioned actually were behind National City Lines and its activity of replacing streetcars and interurbans with rubber-tired, fuel-burning buses on paved roads.
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