From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 9:38 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Research Yeah, I know, the inter-settlement distance chart will be in AD. But is there any chance someone at Biohazard can tell me the distance from Haven to Kingston? See, I'm writing a story right now where a character takes a red-eye flight to Kingston, and I need top know roughly how long it's going to take him. I'm assuming a private charter, maybe a VTOL or jet-powered seaplane. Would it have to make stops for fuel on the way? Thanks, Kai Poh, Malaysian Lagomorph in the Philippines ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: BIOHZD@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 9:16 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Re: Humans and Ecological Destruction Hey Auberon, I wrote: For the first time a species has the ability to deliberatly effect its evolutionary future, albeit to an arguable degree. Then you wrote: Sadly, we don't use this ability, due to (IMHO) rediculous ideas involving tinkering with humans being "wrong." On the other hand, it might be ultimately good, when you consider who would be doing the deciding. >>>>My comment, and text preceeding it was not meant to imply that humans now have the technical ability to actually effect their genetic destiny. We may some day, but that is material for another discussion. The point I was trying to make is that we have built a technological (usually medical) and social (laws and ethics) buffer between ourselves and natural selection as it happens in the wild. We have sort of stepped out of the survival game as nature plays it, and now exercise a level of control over our own selection that no species has ever had before. Jeff Barber Biohazard Games *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 7:49 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > >Yeah, but Nuke plants could take over for coal and oil plants at the > drop of a hat. Look at France.< > > Only in the First World. True, but it hasn't been done here, outside France. > You still have carbon dioxide emissions. Not a lot, though. Better for us than gas, better for the companies than Hydrogen. Sound like the kind of deal they should be looking for, to me. > Actually, such a facility would make an excellent retirement home for > wealthy elderly, since there'd be no gravity (well, not enough to notice) to > weight down their aging systems. (It also solves the question of why the > kids never visit.) And question of the cost of getting up there multiple times. > Pro-pro-problems? Wh-wha — akh-akh, ungh — kind of problems? I'll give I meant mental/emotional problems. I think I've known maybe 5 women who graduated high school without needing a shrink. Badly. > school cliques some credit. They prepare students for the vicious politics > of the typical workplace. May not give them the skills to get into that > workplace, but if nepotism prevails, at least they'll know how to play the > game. There's the tiniest bit of politicing, but mostly there's a rigid social hierarchy. I learned two important things in high school, both of which I taught myself. 1) The graph says whatever you want the graph to say. Statistics even more so. 2) Go over their head. > Strip-mining in the west? Pittsburgh and its environs used to produce most > of this country's steel. We even named our pro football team after the > industry. I think you've got the halves of the state reversed. Sorry, that was a generalization. The cities had smog and industrial processing. The countryside was strip mined, barring Amish country. > The steel companies left because the unions had inflated the cost of labor > to rediculous levels while allowing worker productivity to drop at a > similarly precipitous rate. They found greener (well, greener then) pastures > in the Pacific Rim. I didn't know that. So in other words, the UAW knows exactly what it's doing? -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 7:56 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Society and Ecology "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > >But that's because the ability is gone, not the desire. Anyway, those > McJobs are part of the exploitation of workers that "doesn't happen"< > > Oh, no! Not Marxian theory! Aahh!! No, no, but you were saying that in modern times, companies can't afford to screw their employees too badly because of the media. I'm contending that they can, and do. I just phrased it that way in an attempt to get you riled up. > And while the taxpayers would have to eat the difference, I'll freely > admit that we pay for substantially more stupid things.< > > Ah. So we do agree on some things. :] Absolutely, but it's no fun to talk about those bitz. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 2:36 PM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Gene tampering "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > I don't recall BP mentioning weapon shortages anywhere. Unless the published > material says otherwise, I'd think weapons would be one of the few moderate > to high technologies actually available in quantity on Poseidon. It's an > untamed planet, and "peoples needs deys guns." Gus can be gotten, although I suspect that support weapons are in shorter supply. I was talking about transportation. You got a rifle, but how are you going to get to where people need shot? -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 10:22 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction >Yeah, but Nuke plants could take over for coal and oil plants at the drop of a hat. Look at France.< Only in the First World. >Which is why I was saying methanol. Still clean; you get one carbon dioxide and two waters from burning it, and it takes plants to make it.< You still have carbon dioxide emissions. Not a lot, though. >Depends. Only by about 35-40 years. That's not such a long time. Wouldn't even cost anything for the first 15 years. Just keep tabs on tech. Once it reaches a certain point, then you start investing. The payoff would be spectacular. Boost at 2 or 2.5g (this'd be expensive, but wouldn't kill the oldoes)< Actually, such a facility would make an excellent retirement home for wealthy elderly, since there'd be no gravity (well, not enough to notice) to weight down their aging systems. (It also solves the question of why the kids never visit.) >Speaking from personal experience, they're not dumb, they're screwed up. Not all of them. Maybe not even most. But school societies are sick things that tend to discourage the very traits that help you later on, and people with those traits can develop some real problems.< Pro-pro-problems? Wh-wha — akh-akh, ungh — kind of problems? I'll give school cliques some credit. They prepare students for the vicious politics of the typical workplace. May not give them the skills to get into that workplace, but if nepotism prevails, at least they'll know how to play the game. >As I understand it, it was smog and water pollution from the steel in the east, and huge machinery stripping the tops off all the hills in the west.< Strip-mining in the west? Pittsburgh and its environs used to produce most of this country's steel. We even named our pro football team after the industry. I think you've got the halves of the state reversed. >True, but again, the companies going out were busted, and some pretty impressive work was done, at least in the west.< The steel companies left because the unions had inflated the cost of labor to rediculous levels while allowing worker productivity to drop at a similarly precipitous rate. They found greener (well, greener then) pastures in the Pacific Rim. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 9:58 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Gene tampering >But the hardware simply doesn't exist. The ranchers could only buy it if it's for sale. I'm also suspecting that many of the ranchers would be native, and many more colonists. That would tend to indicate that their transportation would be more along the lines of trimarans. The one big advantage they might have is cetaceans. An orca could sink an interloper's jumpcraft just by ramming, to say nothing of what could be accomplished by "Cowboys" with Cetacean Weapon Harnesses or Cetacean Power Shells.< I don't recall BP mentioning weapon shortages anywhere. Unless the published material says otherwise, I'd think weapons would be one of the few moderate to high technologies actually available in quantity on Poseidon. It's an untamed planet, and "peoples needs deys guns." *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 9:54 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Society and Ecology >But that's because the ability is gone, not the desire. Anyway, those McJobs are part of the exploitation of workers that "doesn't happen"< Oh, no! Not Marxian theory! Aahh!! >I'm sorry, I should have made that more clear. As with any other behavioural training program, you positively reinforce positive behaviour, and negatively reinforce negative behaviour. Specificly, tax credits and preference for contracts if you meet certain requirements, and fines if you fail to meet minimums. Not only is there incentive not to screw up, but there's more than a pat on the head if you succeed. I was just focusing on fines becuase, at present, the government provides (probably inadequate) benefits for "good" behaviour, but the penalties for "bad" behaviour are basically nonexistant. And while the taxpayers would have to eat the difference, I'll freely admit that we pay for substantially more stupid things.< Ah. So we do agree on some things. :] *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Jerome DARMONT [darmont@libd1.univ-bpclermont.fr] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 3:33 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - websites At 12:26 02/02/99 -0500, Kintaro Oe wrote: >I don't have the url handy. It's linked off the Biohazard page though. I had already browsed it... and forgot about it, sorry. :) Has "the Trench" webring ever been finished? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerome DARMONT, LIMOS, Universite Blaise Pascal - Clermont-Ferrand II mailto:darmont@libd1.univ-bpclermont.fr http://altern.org/darmont/ ICQ:8759237 *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 2:29 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > >But they can, and do. Through dummy corporation, subsidiaries, and > bribed officials in third world contries. Moreover, people don't seem > to care. Mitsubishi was caught not that long ago, setting up companies in > Indonesia, doing very profitable and environmenally nasty things, and > bribing key officials to look the other way. When the officials could no > longer look, the companies were broke from selling their products to > Mitsubishi below cost, the executives long gone, and locality wrecked, and > Mitsubishi had plausable deniablility. Legally, the scheme was perfect. > The local governments could go after the companies, but as I said, they were > broke, or even severely in debt to local banks. The press could have had a > field day with this, but never did.< > > Japanese zaibatsu (despite what the history books tell you, they were not > all dismantled after WWII — Mitsubishi was one of them) are odd creatures. > They wield considerably more power in Japan than most Westerners understand. > They _negotiate_ with government agencies. This doesn't sound impressive > until you consider what the key word in that sentence really entails. Of > course the national media said nothing. They're one of the more cleverly > veiled propaganda devices in the modern world. But the American media could have picked it up. Or one of the European agencies. Hell, I didn't even see anything from Xinhua, and the Chinese HATE the Japanese. > That is it exactly. But so far the governments are still operating under the > pretense that only they can save people from themselves. (This is true for > more than just the environment.) But this way, the gov't is still doing it. They're just using a different tool. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 2:25 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > And then new organisms move in in a matter of a few years. Not even a full > decade. The sterilizing effects of the fireball and radiation fade rather > quickly. Look at Chernobyl. That meltdown was essentially an ongoing nuclear > explosion that irradiated a large chunk of Ukraine and Belarus, yet the area > is teeming with life (and not of the three-eyed fish variety, either). The > land wasn't scoured by a mushroom cloud (which would have only burned a > region about ten miles in radius), but it was exposed to huge amounts of > radiation. Life got along fine anyway . . . except for the people. The people were in the area when it happened. They'll die like everything else. That was just a baby, though. I was thinking something more along the lines of a modern "dirty" tactical or a small strategic warhead. > Fossil fuels power more than just automobiles. They power anything connected > to the hundreds of oil and coal burning power plants in the world. Yeah, but Nuke plants could take over for coal and oil plants at the drop of a hat. Look at France. > Hydrogen would be cleaner (the exhaust is water vapor) and fairly easy to > implement. The big problem with hydrogen is that it's rediculously easy to > make. Just run an electric current through water. Small companies could > market electrolysis machines for home use and suddenly giants like Exxon > would be in the gutter. Which is why I was saying methanol. Still clean; you get one carbon dioxide and two waters from burning it, and it takes plants to make it. By jumping in with methanol now, the large companies can prevent exactly that. There is one other problem -- splitting fresh water means you have less fresh water. Potable water is not that easy a thing to find. > There was no possible data set that could have predicted the Y2K bug. It was > something we literally stumbled across through tinkering with the software. Not true; you could have asked the programmers, "What happens at the turn of the century?" They would have looked confused and started programming things with four digit dates. Ask engineers that 5 years earlier, and you wouldn't have hardware problems, either. It wasn't really a suprise -- Macs are good well into the fourth millenium, and really, people should have been considering since at least Q4 1989. I mean, how big a leap is it to notice that there's only 10 years left before the assumptions you're making when you're using dating algorithms turn out not to be true. > There are always events that no one sees coming. Take the advent of the > personal computer, for example. Even after the development of transistors, > people still thought computers would be inaccessible to the average > household. They were wrong. And today we're arguing via a massive > information network that wouldn't be possible without PCs. Go figure. That is just a brain twister. But I wouldn't say Y2K falls into the same category. I mean, most people can count. It was just the result of short-sightedness. > The technology necessary for such a project was rather out of their league. Depends. Only by about 35-40 years. That's not such a long time. Wouldn't even cost anything for the first 15 years. Just keep tabs on tech. Once it reaches a certain point, then you start investing. The payoff would be spectacular. Boost at 2 or 2.5g (this'd be expensive, but wouldn't kill the oldoes), and you could charge phenominal amounts, have great service, and make money. Anyone can stay at the Waldorf for one night, or protest a convention wherever you hold it. The riff-raff wouldn't even be able to send a telegram to an orbital hotel. > Not really. Speeking from personal experience, most young adults only act > dumb. We're typically more sober (in the literal _and_ figurative sense) > than we're given credit for, and much less naive than our 'rents at the same > age. Speaking from personal experience, they're not dumb, they're screwed up. Not all of them. Maybe not even most. But school societies are sick things that tend to discourage the very traits that help you later on, and people with those traits can develop some real problems. > Microsoft is an odd case. It's one of the few companies I would target for a > trust bust if I had that kind of power. Normally I would not punish a > company for doing what Microsoft has done — make huge amounts of money and > dominate the market in a span of less than 15 years — but Microsoft does not > produce a quality enough product to sustain such a monopoly. If it's > software was so good that no one else could touch it, I'd say let it do what > it does better than anyone else. But it doesn't, so I don't. But they do make money. If people are stupid enough to fall for their garbage, don't they get what they deserve? I'm just taking the Devil's Advocate position. > Actually, the problem was steel, not mining. Pollutants from the mills > created smog and sterilized anything downwind for miles. My father was an [snip specifics] As I understand it, it was smog and water pollution from the steel in the east, and huge machinery stripping the tops off all the hills in the west. > Guiness, I think.) When the mines pulled out in the 70s the environment > began to recover. Now we have a mall sitting on an old coke (waste > impurities) pile and deer wondering through the suburbs. And everywhere > there's fields and woods. Not exactly a hell hole for all the industrial > activity of the past. True, but again, the companies going out were busted, and some pretty impressive work was done, at least in the west. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 1:53 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Gene tampering "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > As to where they'd get such hardware . . . that usually isn't a problem for > characters in a cyber/biopunk setting. They might even be able to buy them > directly from the GEO under strict license and with the understanding that > they'll be used against bandits and poachers. But the hardware simply doesn't exist. The ranchers could only buy it if it's for sale. I'm also suspecting that many of the ranchers would be native, and many more colonists. That would tend to indicate that their transportation would be more along the lines of trimarans. The one big advantage they might have is cetaceans. An orca could sink an interloper's jumpcraft just by ramming, to say nothing of what could be accomplished by "Cowboys" with Cetacean Weapon Harnesses or Cetacean Power Shells. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Auberon [fskln1@uaf.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 1:47 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Society and Ecology "Robert P. Stefko" wrote: > > >Business feeds of society. Currently, American society is emotionally > unfulfilled and status concious. Ergo, there are huge markets for self-help > *, as well as "luxury items" that one buys to keep up with the Jones'. This > is going to last as long as there's a profit there. I'm not saying it's > wrong (if people want to spend money on that, rather than just learning to > like themselves, I'll take some too), but it's > definitely profiting on others' misery.< > > Conspicuous consumption is quickly becoming obsolescent, simply because the > next generation of adult consumers can't afford that kind of garish display. > For those on the list with established careers, let me say that the modern > job market sucks. Low-paying "McJobs" with no real benefits are the future > for much of the 18-24 crowd, which pretty much kills this argument. But that's because the ability is gone, not the desire. Anyway, those McJobs are part of the exploitation of workers that "doesn't happen" :-> > Fines? Why not tax incentives? The major argument against that, I know, > would be: "Because the taxpayers would pick up the slack." To which I'd > reply: "At least those tax dollars we go to a program with definable goals > and tangible results." and "If you're serious about cleaning up the planet, > you're going to have to pay for it. No service comes free of charge." I'm sorry, I should have made that more clear. As with any other behavioural training program, you positively reinforce positive behaviour, and negatively reinforce negative behaviour. Specificly, tax credits and preference for contracts if you meet certain requirements, and fines if you fail to meet minimums. Not only is there incentive not to screw up, but there's more than a pat on the head if you succeed. I was just focusing on fines becuase, at present, the government provides (probably inadequate) benefits for "good" behaviour, but the penalties for "bad" behaviour are basically nonexistant. And while the taxpayers would have to eat the difference, I'll freely admit that we pay for substantially more stupid things. -- +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= "I never get involved in my own life. It's too much trouble" - Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 12:59 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction >But they can, and do. Through dummy corporation, subsidiaries, and bribed officials in third world contries. Moreover, people don't seem to care. Mitsubishi was caught not that long ago, setting up companies in Indonesia, doing very profitable and environmenally nasty things, and bribing key officials to look the other way. When the officials could no longer look, the companies were broke from selling their products to Mitsubishi below cost, the executives long gone, and locality wrecked, and Mitsubishi had plausable deniablility. Legally, the scheme was perfect. The local governments could go after the companies, but as I said, they were broke, or even severely in debt to local banks. The press could have had a field day with this, but never did.< Japanese zaibatsu (despite what the history books tell you, they were not all dismantled after WWII — Mitsubishi was one of them) are odd creatures. They wield considerably more power in Japan than most Westerners understand. They _negotiate_ with government agencies. This doesn't sound impressive until you consider what the key word in that sentence really entails. Of course the national media said nothing. They're one of the more cleverly veiled propaganda devices in the modern world. >But who pays the lobbyists? I think you've hit the nail on the head, tho. They *can* afford to do it, as long as they do it right. When that's no longer true, they wont. No corp is going to do something ultimately unprofitable, or even unprofitable in the short term, generally. Governments have to focus on making ecology more profitable than anything else, and then get out of the way.< That is it exactly. But so far the governments are still operating under the pretense that only they can save people from themselves. (This is true for more than just the environment.) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16@pop.pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 1999 12:45 AM To: blue_planet@MPGN.COM Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - Humans and Ecological Destruction >I'm sure, but you simply cannot argue that the ecosystem you drop the bomb on simply isn't there anymore, nor is any other for quite a while. They have a tendancy to scrub things to rock and sterilized or radioactive dirt.< And then new organisms move in in a matter of a few years. Not even a full decade. The sterilizing effects of the fireball and radiation fade rather quickly. Look at Chernobyl. That meltdown was essentially an ongoing nuclear explosion that irradiated a large chunk of Ukraine and Belarus, yet the area is teeming with life (and not of the three-eyed fish variety, either). The land wasn't scoured by a mushroom cloud (which would have only burned a region about ten miles in radius), but it was exposed to huge amounts of radiation. Life got along fine anyway . . . except for the people. >This I don't see (thought that doesn't really mean anything). With the advent of catalytic converters, you had to buy a new car. Gas stations had to buy new tanks, new pumps, to support the new variety of fuels in demand. Plants assembling cars had to make changes to their production lines. Engines had to be designed and built differently. Pretty major changes.< Fossil fuels power more than just automobiles. They power anything connected to the hundreds of oil and coal burning power plants in the world. >As I understand it, you can drop a methanol engine in current designs; what's lacking is: a) Plants to produce methanol (jobs in construction, and once the thing's open) b) Plants to produce the engines (more jobs. Others in design) >If, say, Exxon were to make a deal with, say, Ford Motor Company, where Exxon built fuel plants, and Ford built cars, in 3-5 years you could have them on showroom floors. The engines could simply be an option in standard designs. And they could market them aggressively, particularly if Exxon was willing to sell the fuel at or below cost for the first few years. It'd cost them, but they'd have the expertise by the time anyone else got into the game, and if unleaded really was on the way out, they wouldn't be making profits off of gas while they're learning, like the first guy in the door could.< Hydrogen would be cleaner (the exhaust is water vapor) and fairly easy to implement. The big problem with hydrogen is that it's rediculously easy to make. Just run an electric current through water. Small companies could market electrolysis machines for home use and suddenly giants like Exxon would be in the gutter. >If that's true, then why didn't they buy Y2K compliant computers 10 years ago, and save themselves massive repurchasing costs in a seller's market?< There was no possible data set that could have predicted the Y2K bug. It was something we literally stumbled across through tinkering with the software. There are always events that no one sees coming. Take the advent of the personal computer, for example. Even after the development of transistors, people still thought computers would be inaccessible to the average household. They were wrong. And today we're arguing via a massive information network that wouldn't be possible without PCs. Go figure. >But there aren't many long-term ventures. The last one I remember hearing about was Hilton and Pan-Am in the 60's agreeing to cooperative development of an orbital hotel. That was dropped less than 5 years later.< The technology necessary for such a project was rather out of their league. >The details are confidential, but I can guarentee you that Beavis and Butthead constitute at least 5% of the teenage population. Sometimes they make it as far as getting to a good shrink.< Not really. Speeking from personal experience, most young adults only act dumb. We're typically more sober (in the literal _and_ figurative sense) than we're given credit for, and much less naive than our 'rents at the same age. >But Microsoft, who consistantly dumps programs on the market that other companies wouldn't consider a public beta, in terms of quality, has run Netscape out of business. Even you don't expect Apple to ever be a serious contender. That doesn't argue for the kind of buyer that Adam Smith was expecting, or the kind of market you seem to be talking about. Again, it's only one example, but I'm a computer geek, and a gamer nerd. That's the examples I give, 'cause that's what I know. We could also go into the relative sales of good games, even C&S, or Neverworld, vs AD&D.< Microsoft is an odd case. It's one of the few companies I would target for a trust bust if I had that kind of power. Normally I would not punish a company for doing what Microsoft has done — make huge amounts of money and dominate the market in a span of less than 15 years — but Microsoft does not produce a quality enough product to sustain such a monopoly. If it's software was so good that no one else could touch it, I'd say let it do what it does better than anyone else. But it doesn't, so I don't. >But why is it clean? The Fed stepped in and threatened to come down on mining companies like a vengeful god, and only then did they plant a little grass. There are still coal fires burning there, as I remember.< Actually, the problem was steel, not mining. Pollutants from the mills created smog and sterilized anything downwind for miles. My father was an infant in Donora, PA, when that town was afflicted by the worst incident of smog on record (anywhere) back in 1948. Visibility was literally zero and a few asthmatics caught in the open suffocated. (You can look this up in Guiness, I think.) When the mines pulled out in the 70s the environment began to recover. Now we have a mall sitting on an old coke (waste impurities) pile and deer wondering through the suburbs. And everywhere there's fields and woods. Not exactly a hell hole for all the industrial activity of the past. >As an aside, where are you? My mother's family is from Sunbury.< University of Pittsburgh in Oakland right now. Family lives in Latrobe. >You have to motivate the companies -- faith isn't enough. I also simply don't believe that they'll do anything to ensure their own continued existance, if it gets in the way of a profit. Knowing what motivates them, you can manipulate them into doing good for the "wrong" reasons. (Wrong is in quotes, because it's not -- altruism would be right, but it ain't gonna happen)< Replace coercive fines with financial incentives. Make investments into the research, development, and implementation of ecologically safe technologies and manufacturing procedures tax deductible (give the accountants an option that's good for more than just the company coffers). Award government contracts to companies that consistently demonstrate an ability to implement environmentally sound policies (in whatever capacity they've been hired to fulfill). Companies like these do exist; many of them were founded by environmentalists. (Eco-capitalists?) *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.