Since it's quiet... (off-topic, more SF stuff)

[happyheathen]

Since the Q was asked...

http://www.cablecarmuseum.com/

[Narfpinky]

...yeah, is rather quiet tonight.

That was interesting. I've wondered from time to time how gripping the cable is managed when two cable lines cross each other. Now I know, poit.

Chicago used to have an extensive cable car system a little over a hundred years ago.


Narfpinky

[Jack]

I enjoyed the cable car link, I love streetcars of all types. Thanks heathen!

Not really cable cars, but here are the streetcars of Kenosha Wisconsin: http://www.kenoshawis.com/Frames.htm
If only he had taken pictures of the protesters who called it the "Trolley Folly" and "The streetcar to nowhere." I loved their public access program declaring the streetcars to be the government's attemp at creating a communist society.

It aslo turns out there's a
"Drain Club" (http://www.crosswinds.net/~wetdog/draining/drainmain.html), I never knew people spent their days exploring those nasty old drains that jut out from the lake everywhere, sounds cool.



Jack:p

[happyheathen]

Another Commie plot uncovered in the midwest! How unusual!

Just for you, Jack, SF is also running those models of streetcars on the Market St lines - it was begun years ago as a temp. replacement for the tourists (while the cables were being rebuilt), but proved too popular to shut down.

Now for a real conspiracy:

GM, Standard Oil, and Goodyear (I think, I confuse year/rich easily) were convicted in 1949 of conspiracy. The deal:

They formed a company to do nothing but buy up streetcar companies and shut them down - they even removed tracks, and I believe, sold off the rights-of-way, so it would be impossibly expensive for anyone to re-start the business.

Motive: if there were no streetcars, people would have to buy cars, gas, and tires...

Ah, America!

[happyheathen]

http://www.movietours.com/harry/streetcar/

[Danielle]

It's too quiet?

[F/X SOUND: FINGERS ON A BLACKBOARD]
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH

There.

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Danielle
It's too quiet?

[F/X SOUND: FINGERS ON A BLACKBOARD]
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH

There.

'Thank you for sharing... Enjoy RI (w/ winter coming...:D)

[Jack]

I guess it's good San Fransisco tried to reinstall streetcars for when the cable cars were being redone, when my parents vitited San Fransisco, they wanted to rade the cable cars, but they were being redone at the time.

I've heard about what GM, Standard Oil, and Goodyear were doing, I also heard that they wanted to replace the streetcars with busses, not just cars.

That site I gave probably isn't the best one to show off the streetcars, I think they only had pictures of four of the five. At the moment, the cars aren't all that useful, they start at the new streetcar/bus station, go to the train station, pass behind the giant police station, then down a boulevard past the couthouse, museum, park, school, and post office, then past the dead (very dead) downtown that was killed in the 60s or 70s by the city, and finally it loops through harborpark, an unbilt developement. So. at the moment, it really serves as a senic shuttle from the train station to the bus station. That should change when Harborpark gets finished and they expand the line, though.



Jack:D

[The Mad Hatter]

*BUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPP*

There, not so quiet anymore.

Actually, things would have been slightly louder if my rassa frackin' cable modem would have let me connect to this site yesterday, but oh well.

San Francisco. I would love to go there... it's got loads of counter-culturish arty ambience I would eat with a spoon. A friend of mine has been there several times and frequently pines that she's not there. One day I'll go there, but till then, I only have the SF level of Sonic Adventure 2, where you street-surf down the hilly streets, then run like mad to avoid getting squished by a huge 18-wheeler.

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter

San Francisco. I would love to go there...

Think: I-80 west...:)

[Jack]

I once had a science teacher who wanted to visit San Fransisco just to experience an earthquake. I'm assuming she meant a little earthquake, not a big one where building fall down and go BOOM!

BTW, how often do you have earthquakes there? How do people keep from having all their dishes break?



Jack:D

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Jack
I once had a science teacher who wanted to visit San Fransisco just to experience an earthquake. I'm assuming she meant a little earthquake, not a big one where building fall down and go BOOM!

BTW, how often do you have earthquakes there? How do people keep from having all their dishes break?



Jack:D

Your teacher was a bit confused (a common condition in the midwest, as I recall...) - quakes are pretty much random - a few jiggles every 5 yrs or so (sorry, teach - we're not going to be scheduling them).

the last biggie was, for those too young, was the 1989 Loma Prieta 7.1 (the Richter scale is WAY obsolete, but the public is used to it, so the seismologists dust it off for reporters).
Since then, nothing to mention.

As far as damage - liquor stores (booze is expensive, and the insurance companies pretty much insist) have small wire running about 2" above the shelf to prevent the bottles from 'walking' off the edge, but generally, there are no precautions taken (except for masonry structures - a whole chapter is needed (they explode if shaken enough))

The Exploritorium (hands-on science museum for kids - ever play with an electron microscope?) used to have a room that would demonstrate a quake, don't know if that exhibit is still there.

For a good simulation of a moderate quake, drive with one flat tire (except with a Ford Explorer :D )

[Nftnat]

I remember that, during the World Series yet, the Bay Area Series. A's & Giants. A day or two before it started there was a guy wrote a sports column for USA Today, said the only thing missing was an earthquake. Next column he wrote, after the quake, not word one about it. I have an uncle in Concord, been doing some work for the Navy since he retired from same; good thing he'd just been promoted or he'd've been on the lower highway. Scary thing, that.

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Nftnat
I remember that, during the World Series yet, the Bay Area Series. A's & Giants. A day or two before it started there was a guy wrote a sports column for USA Today, said the only thing missing was an earthquake. Next column he wrote, after the quake, not word one about it. I have an uncle in Concord, been doing some work for the Navy since he retired from same; good thing he'd just been promoted or he'd've been on the lower highway. Scary thing, that.

The reference:

during the Loma Prieta. the Nimitz Freeway (I-580?) in Oakland partially collasped.

As it was a double-decker (one over the other), the upper level collasped onto the lower - this was the major cause of death.

Yeah, I was working with a guy who was supposed to be on it at 5:08, but stayed late. Carpe Diem!

[Jack]

Actually, I used to play with a pair of kids from Iran when I was in third grade. The family had come over to the US and lived in San Fransisco, but they moved to Ohio after the earthquake.


Jack:D

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Jack
Actually, I used to play with a pair of kids from Iran when I was in third grade. The family had come over to the US and lived in San Fransisco, but they moved to Ohio after the earthquake.


Jack:D

every country produces snivelling cowards...

[Danielle]

Originally posted by happyheathen


every country produces snivelling cowards...

Ooh, yeah, I can think of a few examples...

[Danielle]

...I'm one...

[Jack]

Me too...


Jack:D
"What was that thump!????"

[DR. BELCH]

On a crisp fall day in 1997, at seventeen past one in the afternoon, a 3.8 hit the Trumann area. Folks on the ground floor of The Twin Towers, Kays Hall, and the Chickasaw Building reported feeling the tremor, as did students and teachers at Nettleton High; most didn't feel a thng. My then-girlfriend, who lived in that small town about 15 miles from ASU, phoned me to ask if I'd felt it. I hadn't, being (a) asleep and (b) living on the seventh floor.
Most people here are scared out of their gourds because of the New Madrid Line right under our feet. We've had a couple of 6.0 dish-rattlers over the last few years...and in 1812 one event was so strong it caused the Mississippi River to run backwards!

[Nftnat]

Living @ literally the other end of Arkansas from there tho I do, I've heard plenty on the New Madrid quakes from the DemoZette & KATV. It's put such ideas in my mind re. fiction schtuff. Like a tidal wave or an antimatter explosion (from a certain Buck Rogers ep), an earthquake generates immense amounts of energy; suppose some technologically advanced people had existed back in 1811 (hey, there was machinery, gears & successful brain surgery 3 millennia B.C.; but for the Flood it could've happened) who could've harnessed the Great New Madrid quake --- so great it caused the mighty Mississippi to run backwards, as Belchie said. Why, that could've been enough power to launch a rocket, I think. Granted, I don't know exactly how much power we're talking here, on either front. But still, it's interesting speculation, doncha think?

[happyheathen]

well, so much for cables/antique streetcars/quakes...

now for the weather (you may now eat your hearts out...)

http://www.sfgate.com/weather/

[Danielle]

Is it ever a clear day by the Golden Gate? Heck, is it ever a clear day in SF itself?!

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Danielle
Is it ever a clear day by the Golden Gate? Heck, is it ever a clear day in SF itself?!

yep!