Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 18:08:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Gaylaxicon gets a hotel
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Mike Bartman wrote:

> To take Metro one first has to get *to* Metro.  Then one has to
> park...and Metro parking is expensive and limited.

And to drive, you first must get *to* a road.  Motorists make sure
they live adjacent to roads.  Metro riders make sure they live within
walking distance of Metro, or at least of a bus line that will take
them to Metro.

> Concentrating things into small areas almost always makes them less
> convenient to use.

Cons are inherently concentrated.

> Which of us could get to Middleburg, VA quicker?

The next time I want to get to Middleburg, Virginia or Adamstown,
Maryland will be the first.  What is in those places?

> For instance, the people who want to show that airline travel is
> safest tend to use "passenger-miles" as their criteria, since most
> airline flights involve many people and long distances.  Look at it
> in other terms and the numbers aren't so good.

Most people want to get to a particular place, rather than to travel
for some particular number of hours or to take some particular number
of trips.  If I want to get from my home to, say, the Denver Worldcon,
and want to know the safest method, passenger miles are the appropriate
measure.

> When I'm driving I have more control over level of risk.  I can
> drive a large vehicle, or one with extra safety equipment.

It's true that, all else being equal, in a collision the people in the
larger vehicle tend to be safer.  Since not everyone can be in the
larger vehicle, this results in a sort of arms race, resulting in
ever-larger vehicles that make everyone else, especially cyclists and
pedestrians, less safe.  Like military arms races, the only limit is
bankruptcy.  How large a vehicle with how poor a gas mileage can you
afford?

A lot of so-called safety equipment doesn't so much increase safety as
takes it from others.  For instance brighter headlights let the people
in the vehicle see better at the expense of everyone else in the
vicinity seeing worse.

>> Come to PRSFS sometime.  You'll be surprised.

> When and where?

Unfortunately, you just missed two PRSFS events, back to back.  The
regular second Friday meeting was moved to first Friday to avoid
conflicts with some con.  And the semi-annual picnic was the next
day, yesterday.  So the next meeting will be in about five weeks, on
Friday, November 9th, at 8 p.m., at 811 Olive Drive, Silver Spring.

Being the November meeting, "turkeys" (bad books) will be reviewed.