ToaKraka
Dislikes you
No bio...
User ID: 108
Your statement is not supported by your link. The article says:
Barges are less efficient than rail with any appreciable speed.
The graph in the article says that barges still are more efficient than trains below around 10 km/h (6 mi/h).
In Railroads and American Economic Growth, an economist estimated that, if 12-mi/h (19-km/h) railroads had never been invented and instead the Midwest had been connected to oceanic trade with an extensive 7-mi/h (11-km/h) canal network during the late 19th century, the cost of the resulting increased inventory requirements would have been essentially negligible. Most freight transportation does not need to be fast.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
5d ago
A friend of mine, who is a retired engineer from PennDOT, said of speed limits that "they aren't suggestions; they're requirements".
As a civil engineer: LOL.
-
If a road has a posted speed of X mi/h (Y km/h), its actual design speed on which the civil engineers base all their designs is (X + 5) mi/h ((Y + 10) km/h).
-
When a civil engineer designs a curve, he can't make the curve too tight, because the "side friction factor" between the pavement and a car's tires will be too small to provide the required centripetal force, resulting in skidding and loss of control. But the side friction factor that's used in design is based on poor weather conditions—ice, rain, et cetera. I don't have the AASHTO Policy on Design in front of me at the moment for the exact numbers, but friction obviously is a lot higher on a dry road than on a wet road, and therefore you can go a lot faster quite safely.
-
A hill, or a roadside forest on a curve, may block your view of an upcoming intersection or crosswalk. You probably learned in your high-school driving class that your "stopping sight distance" increases with the square of speed, so you do want to slow down at these locations. But these claustrophobia-inducing segments don't really have anything to do with your speed on segments of the road that have good visibility.
-
Obviously, at high speeds it's harder to keep your car going where you want it to go. I personally don't feel comfortable driving faster than 75 mi/h (120 km/h), or 80 mi/h (130 km/h) if I'm in the left lane of a three-lane freeway and there's somebody right behind me. But I don't bear much ill will toward people who flash past me at 90 mi/h (145 km/h) in the left lane when I'm in the middle lane (of three).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
Personally, I don't even remotely enjoy juggling around a zillion different names (IRL, ToaKraka, a single-purpose name that needs to be active only on certain rare occasions, a single-purpose name that used to be active but now is inactive due to my lack of energy/willpower, a few single-purpose names that are inactive but can be used if necessary…), and I wish that I could just operate under a single unified identity. But I feel like your analysis goes too far. None of my pseudonyms tries to project a unique personality. They speak with exactly the same personality—just on different topics. Your analysis applies, not to "everyone", but only to those public figures who actually try to project unique personalities on social media.
Also, you forgot to link to the definition of "becoming a deranged parody of oneself", flanderization.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
To be fair, a large part of stopping sight distance is the built-in full second of driver reaction time, which is independent of car technology.
More options
Context Copy link