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Posted by Flintlock76 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 8:15 PM

 

 

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PJS1

 

 
BaltACD
 In the 50 years since the Moon landing, the USA has morphed from a 'CAN DO' mind set to a 'NO F'N WAY' mind set.  Pathetic! 

 

Presumably you wrote your message on a PC that was developed in the United States and uses software put together by Microsoft, Apple, etc.  Just one small example of the USA no can do mind set.

Here is another example: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZRKm6PG918 

For someone that holds every license issued by the FAA, this is poetry in motion.  Don't know how it came together in the U.S.?  Maybe the Russians put it together at night when no one was looking.  

 

"Poetry in motion"  all right!  "If it looks good, it'll fly good!"

But it'll never hold a place in my heart like these birds do...

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

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, March 8, 2020 7:57 PM

PJS1
"In the 50 years since the Moon landing, the USA has morphed from a 'CAN DO' mind set to a 'NO F'N WAY' mind set.  Pathetic!"  

Ignoring the context for a moment, it is a broad brush indictment. 

Go big or go home.

Remember at the time Kennedy made his by the end of the decade speech - the USA was trailing the USSR in space accomplishments.

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Posted by PJS1 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 5:09 PM

"In the 50 years since the Moon landing, the USA has morphed from a 'CAN DO' mind set to a 'NO F'N WAY' mind set.  Pathetic!"  

Ignoring the context for a moment, it is a broad brush indictment. 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Sunday, March 8, 2020 4:39 PM

Without war,  no Manhattan Project (I'm disregarding the controversy) and no nuclear energy perhaps and a lot of side developments. 

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, March 8, 2020 4:12 PM

I'm always willing with open mindset to see the flip side but sometimes there is a third dimension to things , in fact most times.

As Kathy Shadlie wrote " My hostility to NASA and all its works and pomps is longstanding and unshakable. The space program was a shameful waste of extorted tax dollars, all to fly to a rock in the sky that doesn't even have any cool animals.

Defenders retort that the space program has spun off a host of indispensable inventions, but such wonders, if truly crucial, would have been developed anyhow — perhaps even faster, and more cheaply, had the government left trillions in stolen cash in the hands of private enterprise.

In fact, a fictional "space program" has arguably inspired as many innovations as the real one, and as its sets — dressed with papier mâché boulders and (probably) Christmas lights behind cardboard — can attest, was far more cost-efficient."

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, March 8, 2020 3:52 PM

PJS1
Just one small example of the USA no can do mind set.

I think he was referring more to orbital and space travel than to incompetence in tech...

Here is another example ... For someone that holds every license issued by the FAA, this is poetry in motion.  Maybe the Russians put it together at night when no one was looking.

The better comparison with what Balt was saying is where development of the 2707 line would have been at a similar number of years of evolution.  Let alone VentureStar or the wide variety of technologies for semiballistic flight.  (Or the things Avro Canada might have developed -- but that's another story, best told by real and not honorary Canadians).  How long have you had your Mach rating?   Your Mach 25 patch?  Those might have been almost commonplace by now.

Of course the debt to the Russians does need to be recognized -- both as a competitor in space and as an excuse to spend trillions in the aggregate on rocket science and hardware.  Who in America would have privately financed a push to space without government support of the whole slew of enabling technologies ... through several generations of process, many of which became essentially worthless when superseded?  We have a long and checkered history of can-don't until pushed or threatened beyond complacency, including so many of our corporations that were worldwide household names years ago but now gone (or swallowed or replaced by foreigners with more can-do where their mouth is).

  

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Posted by Convicted One on Sunday, March 8, 2020 1:23 PM

Wow, a land development scheme in south Florida turns to questionable tactics. Who would have ever seen this coming?  Dead

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Posted by PJS1 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 11:48 AM

BaltACD
 In the 50 years since the Moon landing, the USA has morphed from a 'CAN DO' mind set to a 'NO F'N WAY' mind set.  Pathetic! 

Presumably you wrote your message on a PC that was developed in the United States and uses software put together by Microsoft, Apple, etc.  Just one small example of the USA no can do mind set.

Here is another example: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZRKm6PG918 

For someone that holds every license issued by the FAA, this is poetry in motion.  Don't know how it came together in the U.S.?  Maybe the Russians put it together at night when no one was looking.  

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Sunday, March 8, 2020 11:30 AM

Yeah, "Star Trek's" been all downhill after "Voyager" anyway.  

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, March 8, 2020 10:57 AM

You been reading Popular Mechanics from the 50's again? 

Also I suggest cutting down on your Star Trek viewing. 

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, March 8, 2020 9:13 AM

Miningman
Not true.

I call crock.

Where is the large-scale manufacturing and vehicle-assembly capability in the higher range of LEO, outside the trace atmosphere but inside the radiation belts? the nickel-iron asteroid mining? the single-crystal manufacturing by the kiloton?  Where are the powersats?  Where are the space habs?  Where is colonization at L5 or other Lagrange points in various systems?  Where are the lunar colonies?

A few shoestring-financed slingshot-orbited probes, wonderful though their results be, only amount to a fractional percent of 'what could have been'.

(Although I've said before, and I'll say again, it is a VERY good thing we got no functional Almaz ... and that was more on the way to being built than any of the things I mentioned.)

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, March 8, 2020 8:01 AM

Miningman
Scientific discoveries really can bend your mind into facing truths and the simple beauty of the cosmos. 

After decades of science fiction stories and novels, true science reveals the that same chemistry and physics that exist on Earth - exist everywhere else in the Universe.  

Unless and until Man creates a transportation method that can take human beings at faster than light speed - we will forever be restricted to personally exploring planets in our own Solar system.

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, March 8, 2020 1:46 AM

Well they were their own NIMBYs -- they were going to crash Cassini on Enceladus as it's last mission flyby but once they found salt water geysers, and lots of them, they did not want to chance there could be life there and contaminate the whole place with microbes from Earth (Earth cooties) so they burned it up in the atmosphere of Saturn ... and it sent back 30 years worth of data to interpret as it did until the signal stopped transmitting... imagine that! They didn't expect that either. 

Enceladus is very close to Saturns rings and that is one of the reasons they reflect so brightly.. those geysers shoot into space and the saltwater/ice falls on them replenishing their shiny surface with a fresh shine. Nobody knew that, not even in a wild crazy guess. 

If it wasn't for steam locomotives and trying to figure out how to make them better we would never even have come up with the Laws of Thermodynamics when we did. 

Scientific discoveries really can bend your mind into facing truths and the simple beauty of the cosmos. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Saturday, March 7, 2020 6:14 PM

Of course, NASA doesn't have the problem of having to deal with NIMBY's or BANANA's in space.  At least not yet.

Hey, sounds like a great idea for a sci-fi film, "NIMBY's In Space!"

I wonder what J.J. Abrams could do with it?

 

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, March 7, 2020 11:12 AM

Not true. They've been very busy exploring every single planet in the Solar System, including New Horizons to Pluto and the Kyper Belt and also including landing a probe on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. 

Imagine having pictures sent back on approach and from landing on an ice moon of Saturn, 8x the distance from our own sun, call it a billion miles. 

The salty sulphide laden seawater geysers they bravely passed through from orbit, collecting samples,  on Enceladus alone has changed science. 

Just getting into an orbit around Mercury with Messenger was a remarkable accomplishment. That's not easy. Took 7 years with precision timing every step of the way. 

The sheer volume of data they have collected from all of this has expanded our knowledge of all science and our origins with many surprises along the way. 

Just because the media does not hype up and go ga ga over acquiring exceptional and ground breaking knowledge certainly does not mean they have a poor mindset. 

https://i.imgur.com/KRSN7at.mp4

 

 

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Posted by BaltACD on Saturday, March 7, 2020 10:51 AM

In the 50 years since the Moon landing, the USA has morphed from a 'CAN DO' mind set to a 'NO F'N WAY' mind set.  Pathetic!

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by PJS1 on Saturday, March 7, 2020 8:53 AM

alphas
 People keep talking about the DFW to San Antonio corridor and existing RR rights-of-way.     But I remember reading that Amtrak's bigest problem operating over it was the directional freight running on the 2 lines between these end points that caused much of the delays.   It sounds to me like it would still be a very major expense for something like Brightline to operate between the 2 end points due to this directional freight set-up. 

The corridor would have to be upgraded.  The best option would be to double track the former MKT line, which passes through Waco, a city of more than 135,000 people, for most of the route.  It would be costly, but it probably would cost less than building a new railroad from scratch.

The I-35 corridor, especially between Georgetown and San Antonio, is one of the most congested in the U.S.  So, where are we improving passenger rail in Texas?  Between Dallas and Houston, which is an ideal air corridor.  Why?  Because it is suitable for the Japanese to export their high speed rail technology to North America.  

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Posted by alphas on Friday, March 6, 2020 10:56 PM

People keep talking about the DFW to San Antonio corridor and existing RR rights-of-way.     But I remember reading that Amtrak's bigest problem operating over it was the directional freight running on the 2 lines between these end points that caused much of the delays.   It sounds to me like it would still be a very major expense for something like Brightline to operate between the 2 end points due to this directional freight set-up.

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Posted by PJS1 on Thursday, March 5, 2020 9:32 PM
I rode the Brightline from Miami to West Palm Beach and back on Monday.  It was great.
 
The stations, equipment, and personnel are unlike any railroad service that I have had.  It was a positive experience from the get go.
 
 
I had a Select class seat.  The on-board service was superb.  The car attendants, who were dressed in blazers and gray slacks looked neat.  Most importantly, however, they offered first class service.  It was obvious that they have been trained well.  They take pride in their work.  
 
The trains departed and arrived on time to the minute. 
 
The Brightline model would be a practicable alternative to driving in the I-35 corridor between DFW and San Antonio.  It could be implemented along existing railway rights-of-way without the need to take much if any property. 

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Posted by CMStPnP on Saturday, February 29, 2020 6:30 AM

Overmod
Iger wasn't 'fired' - he's becoming executive Chairman, something I doubt would happen from any sort of forced retirement.  

At many large companies your prohibited via company policy from holding both the position of CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors which makes it necessary to resign from one to serve in the other.    This is done because at those same companies the Board sets the CEO's compensation and supervises his job performance.    At companies where the CEO is combined with Chairman I am not sure how those duties work out but stockholders generally do not like a combined CEO and Chairman of the Board position as they view it as eliminating a fundamental check and balance in good Corporate governance.    Not an expert in the area by any means just mentioning it as probably also the reason the resignation took place if the guy assumed the role of Chairman of the Board.

Would be interesting to go over the railroads in the United States and see which ones had a combined CEO / Chairperson position (if any) and which had those positions seperate and independent.    Just as an exercise in curiousity.

I have also seen it but rarely where CEO and Chairperson were seperate but the two were close personal friends and somewhat "chummy".    Which kind of fails the part where they should be independent of one another.

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Friday, February 28, 2020 7:41 PM

Comments redacted to prevent more political meddling.

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Posted by rdamon on Friday, February 28, 2020 2:50 PM

I going to assume he meant back pockets ....

Here is a opinion piece photos and stories of people getting upset about chainsaws.

Annoyed Virgin Trains tore up trees, vegetation along rail line? Just wait

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/opinion/columnists/gil-smart/2020/02/26/virgin-trains-expansion-kicks-into-high-gear-get-ready-disruptions/4862443002/

 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, February 27, 2020 8:22 PM

Looks like with Bob Iger's lateral move at Disney things are going to hell in a handbasket already.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/jungle-cruise-boat-sinks-disney-magic-kingdom  

Maybe he should move back?  Wink

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Thursday, February 27, 2020 7:41 PM

blue streak 1

The Nimbys are still trying to derail Brightline. Now they are getting the Florida transportation commission to investigate..  Investigate what ?  Just more waste of taxpayers money.  Maybe some of that taxpayer money needs to find some black  pockets ? 

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/shaping-our-future/all-aboard-florida/2020/02/24/virgin-trains-discussed-florida-transportation-commission-rail-safety/4855518002/ 

 

And just what do you mean by your last sentence, where a statement is hiding behind a question mark? 

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Thursday, February 27, 2020 3:26 PM

The Nimbys are still trying to derail Brightline. Now they are getting the Florida transportation commission to investigate..  Investigate what ?  Just more waste of taxpayers money.  Maybe some of that taxpayer money needs to find some black  pockets ? 

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/shaping-our-future/all-aboard-florida/2020/02/24/virgin-trains-discussed-florida-transportation-commission-rail-safety/4855518002/ 

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Posted by charlie hebdo on Thursday, February 27, 2020 2:52 PM

And some on here complain about news organizations!!  On here we get the worst sort of speculation and innuendo without substance to back it up, all hiding behind his usual question marks. 

Here's the story on Bob Iger.  It is not very long.  

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-02-25/disney-ceo-bob-iger-bob-chapek

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Posted by n012944 on Thursday, February 27, 2020 2:51 PM

blue streak 1

Not always but a quick resignation usually is because asked to resign immediately.  Without any underlying reason does appear unusual ?  Could be no reason is because of some clause in employment contract. 

 

 

People that are fired don't stick around as the Executive Chairman.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/disney-bob-iger-explains-why-hes-staying-at-disney.html

An "expensive model collector"

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Thursday, February 27, 2020 1:04 PM

Not always but a quick resignation usually is because asked to resign immediately.  Without any underlying reason does appear unusual ?  Could be no reason is because of some clause in employment contract. 

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Posted by divebardave on Thursday, February 27, 2020 11:28 AM

At every level of a major public works project like building a subway or a sewer system,,There are layers of project builders,engineering firm,planning firms,acountants and unions that a savvy politician could hit and has every right to shake down for political contributions and favors. The problem with Brightline is that they did not ask for or needed the permisiom of the local politicos to exist. S Florida is basicaly New York Politics Tammery Hall South. Had the project been funded and planned with public dollers it would have take 15 years min to have the first shovel of dirt and have gone into hundreds of millions of cost overuns and when complete would have had to bee shut down for months do to some planned engineering failure see the Big Dighttps://www.amazon.com/Big-Dig-Reshaping-American-City/dp/0316605980/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_0/142-7426524-3612967?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0316605980&pd_rd_r=9072fddd-8fa2-4c48-9617-b27e78aebdee&pd_rd_w=A7TQS&pd_rd_wg=Swe7K&pf_rd_p=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pf_rd_r=71M91CSRA0JDA1X5BJ3Y&psc=1&refRID=71M91CSRA0JDA1X5BJ3Y

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, February 27, 2020 10:27 AM

I can't speak for "blue streak," but several days ago I saw a "pop-up" headline from an on-line news service that said, if I remember correctly, "Bob Iger Out As Disney CEO," or some such. Now if one just read the headline and nothing else it does give the impression Mr. Iger was out on his butt, which is hardly the case.  

I didn't bother to read the story myself because I just didn't care.  I'm not connected with Disney in any way. 

Bob Iger's status at Disney wasn't mentioned on this thread until "blue streak" brought it up. 

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