Traveller-digest      Tuesday, October 5 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1159



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: Annic Nova...
RE: Downport trouble...
RE: Downport trouble...
Re: Annic Nova...
Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Shiont(h)y Belt
Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit
Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: Downport trouble...
Re: MT and TNE designs
Re: MT and TNE designs
RE: Re TNE/Nth RFW
Re: MT and TNE designs
Democracy and Traveller
RE: Traveller Versions
Re: Downport trouble...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 21:13:12 PDT
From: "Paul Zumstein" <pzumstein@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Annic Nova...

I'm not sure I agree with the pleasure craft idea.  It did have reasonable 
cargo space (150 tons).  It was armed with two single lasers slightly more 
powerful than a pulse laser.  Not a war ship by any means, but capable of 
defending itself in the early CT days.  Orbit to surface missles "fitted 
with audio, visual, and telemetric devices" for use in world surface 
exploration could be launched from an observation deck.  And if that wasn't 
enough, it contained a machine shop, metallurgical shop and electronic shop 
that would impress even Tim (the tool man) Taylor.

The ship seems to be designed specifically to provide a group of players 
with a fully capable, low maintenance ship capable of providing years of 
adventure transportation.  One of the truely cool ships of CT.

PZ

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:06:57 -0700
From: "Jesse DeGraff" <fenris@slip.net>
Subject: RE: Downport trouble...

Same thing happened in San Jose a week or two ago.  Somebody was digging
with a backhoe and cut Pac Bell's fiber.  Killed access for a LOT of
companies.

Jesse



> There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
> have done it?
>
> --
> Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
>  shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
> leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort
>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:11:16 -0700
From: "Jesse DeGraff" <fenris@slip.net>
Subject: RE: Downport trouble...

Ya' mean a bucket o' shit?  Yup.

Sorry, I've never watched my mouth ;)

Jesse




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> [mailto:owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com]On Behalf Of Robert Prior
> Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 6:12 PM
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: Re: Downport trouble...
> 
> 
> >There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
> >have done it?
> 
> So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links 
> business is a
> vessel of excrement?
> 
> 
> 
> 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 15:53:59 +1000
From: david.d.jaques-watson@centrelink.gov.au
Subject: Re: Annic Nova...

Dear Folks -

Gee, un-sub for a weekend and look what happens! The Nth Traveller Version
Flamewar is resurrected (probably my fault, sorry), and a whole lot of
smart suggestions and cool ideas appear in order to shoehorn the Annic Nova
into later canon!

Y'know, on my website I have "Canon Problem 3: The Kinunir" but I have
forgotten what the other two problems were?!!? Maybe the 'Nova was one of
them!  ;-)

When I posted my reply about it being a Droyne ship, I probably should have
said "with modifications" - ie. where did the ship's boats come from - a
human ship that pranged into a world? Maybe! Not having data about Victoria
at the time, I thought maybe Victoria was populated by Droyne (I think its
actually a minor human race, BTW - with info coming from the RSB, since I
don't own JTAS #2, sigh). However, maybe THAT is a better idea as the
ship's origin - you could tie in a whole mini-campaign around finding the
ship and tracking it back to its origin!

Kudos to whoever it was for realising there are no perches (or
Droyne-shaped beds - how do they sleep, anyway? The Droyne PCs in my
campaign were forever getting locked in the 'fresher!).

You realise a lot of the "problems" simply come from it being a very early
design by Marc (prior to a lot of the canon/design rules). Basically, it is
a dungeon crawl in space, designed at the time (late '70's/very early 80's)
to attract the attention of the average fantasy gamer.  ;-)
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson        Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw                       davidjw@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 01:11:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: jmaclean@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit

On 10/04/99 09:01:09 Brandon Cope wrote:
>
>>From: jmaclean@ix.netcom.com
>>*ObTrav:  If we want to eliminate mecha-like battledress from GURPS 
>>Traveller,
>>	all we need to do is use realistic figures for the performance of legged
>>	suspensions.  I suggest dividing the GURPS Vehicle Speed Factors
>>	(pg.128) for legged suspensions by ten.
>
>Why do we want to delete them? The problem (at higher TLs) is more a matter 
>of armor than speed (the infamous high-DR battlesuits I've heard about in 
>Star Mercs).

We want to delete them because they don't appear in any previous version of
Traveller and are therefore not "canonical."  Trav fans tend to be a conservative
bunch when it comes to messing with the background.  Since BD has been 
vulnerable small arms in previous versions of Traveller, it should be in GT, also.
You're free to do whatever you want IYTU, of course.  It's the OTU people
worry about.


- ------------------
Jim MacLean
Economist, Traveller Fan
Co-Author GT: Far Trader

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 15:11:56 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

In mail you write:

>>My problem was that I went to an Atari 1040ST (for financial reasons) when
>>the C64 slowly perished and everything I had to transcript was from
>>hardcopy.  Heheheheheh... then the diskdrive of the 1040ST died and I
>>shifted to a PC some *months* later and again, had to transcribe from
>>hardcopies!  Sheesh!!  LOL

You are *really* gonna hate yourself. There's a simple driver that
lets a PC access Atari ST disks. And it's been available for a *long*
time.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 15:14:14 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Shiont(h)y Belt

In mail you write:

> Peter Trevor writes:
> <snipped>
>>(a) whatever created the  antimatter  is  more  recent  than  the
>>    Ancient War, or ...
>>(b) something is creating fresh 'supplies' or  antimatter  in  an
>>    ongoing process, or ...
>>(c) the destroyed planet was in the outer system, or ...
>>(d) something else.
>
>         Has anyone worked out the potential consequences of the star
>         itself being antimatter?

If it's got a stellar wind, the <????>pause (the place the wind quits
displacing the interstellar medium) will be giving off a lot of hard
radiation. 

Explaining how an antimatter star can have *normal* matter planets gets
*really* ugly. And the stellar wind would react with them or their
atmospheres. 

In short, it ain't gonna fly.

An isolated system like Niven's "Cannonball Express" in "Flatlander",
where star *and* planet(s) are antimatter is much "simpler". 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 01:54:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: jmaclean@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Re: TL8 Light Battlesuit

On 10/04/99 09:43:22 Anthony Jackson wrote:
>
>jmaclean@ix.netcom.com writes:
>> I decided to try to answer my own question using the wonders of the web.  
>> According to the American Heart Association, a 150lb. person running 10mph 
>> burns 1280 Calories/hour, or .356Calories/sec.  Big "C" calories are
>> actually  kilocalories, so let's rewrite that as 356calories/sec.  One
>> calorie equals  4.19joules, so that's 1,490joules/sec or ~1.5kW.  This
>> figure is for a 150lb. person, for a 600lb. robot we multiply by 4 and that
>> figure rises to ~6kW.   That's _10_times_ what the GURPS battlesuit uses!
>
>Hm.  That seems high on the calories/hour figure.  Most sustained moderate-heavy exercise is in 
>the 600 calories/hour range.  In any case, bear in mind that calories/hour is the fuel _input_, 
>not output, and that humans are not particularly efficient at 
>turning fuel into energy (<20% as I recall).  As such, the 600 lb human has closer to a 1 kW 
>power plant than a 6 kW power plant, as power plants are rated by energy output, not fuel 
>input.  An additional factor of two improvement through various sorts of 
>leg optimizations isn't unreasonable.

Patrick Holmstrom made similar points in his post.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that the body is an inefficient power plant and that
power consumption should therefore be reduced in a legged suspension.  However, I
disagree that the efficiency of legged transmissions can be noticeably improved over
human locomotion for *battlesuits*.  After all, the wearer has to fit inside the legs
and they have to match the motions his limbs are capable of.  

You've conviced me it's not a factor of 10, but I'm holding out on that 
last factor of 2.  As it stands, legged suspensions have the same efficiency in GURPS
as wheeled suspensions. 


- ------------------
Jim MacLean
Economist, Traveller Fan
Co-Author GT: Far Trader

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 00:12:11 -0700
From: "Jason T. Barnabas" <cybernaut@netzero.net>
Subject: Re: BRS Class Emergency lifeboat - THUDDD 10 non-Entry

Phil Kitching <postmark.design@btinternet.com> wrote:
>On 02 Oct, Jason T. Barnabas <cybernaut@netzero.net> wrote:
>> I don't believe that you have sent a good description of Postmark Design
>> Bureau (or any description for that matter); however, you may use the
>> Key-code PDB.  I'm looking forward to reading that write-up (hint, hint).
>> --
>Bother - I've just submitted my design under the full name option.
>
>As noted, the BRS class is not my submission. I think in the Darling
>class, I have an angle on lifeboat design that reflects the PDB history.
>The BRS is too much like an escape pod from the end of a James Bond
>movie.

Uhmm, that was pretty much my understanding.  You
will notice that I asked for a description of the
Postmark Design Bureau.  That's why the Key-code I
gave you was PDB instead of BRS.

>Without THUDDD10, the BRS would never have existed (it has the performance
>that I wanted a lifeboat to have) but a lifeboat that size needs to carry
>30 people, not one and a half. The other problem with the BRS is that it
>isn't finished. It needs several days playing around with the thrust/power
>options to find a compromise that is significantly smaller. Finally, it
>really ought to be 100MCr but I can't tink how to make it that expensive.

Ok, if you want to send me a write up on BRS, I'll be
happy to issue you two Key-codes.  I don't mind, it's
no big deal to add another line of code to the
database in the robot program.

>btw - your submission form broke my browser - fortunately I had another to
>use. Don't worry - I think that particular browser (Fresco for those of
>you who know Acorn's RicsPC) has long been the cause of my system
>instabilities.

Sure, sure, blame it on the browser.  :-)  Ok, seriously,
the entry I got had several irregularities which I cannot
even explain.  For example, instead of the section
symbol that is supposed to precede each line of the
entry, some of them had the HTML code (&sect;).
Perhaps I should change the section symbol to
something else.  Maybe the  vertical bar ("|") or
maybe not.

For those of you who have not yet submitted your
designs, I've taken the submission form off-line for
debugging again and I will get it back up as soon as
possible.  I know this is a bit annoying, but look at it
this way when I get it finished, the turn around time
on THUDDDs could be as little as two weeks and we
could run THUDDDs concurrently (not that we likely
will, but...).

There have also been some problems with the
servers at homepage.com.  When I get it finished, I'll
let you know how you can get it without connecting to
thuddd.homepage.com.  I may have another server to
act as a mirror site, maybe I can even get one that
allows cgi and/or javascripts.  I'm looking into the
possibilities.

BTW, if you are good with javascript, is there a way to
pass information from one script page to another?

Oops, I just realized that this was a private
communication.  Oh well, I can fix that, I'll just send it
out to the lists.  I hope that Phil Kitching doesn't mind
too much.

I've got to get back to the debugging, I'm burning
starlight.
- --
Sincerely,

Jason Barnabas






__________________________________________
NetZero - Defenders of the Free World
Get your FREE Internet Access and Email at
http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:54:20 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

Leonard wrote:
>>Ask around, or hit a flea market, and you should be able to find
>>another drive, cheap.

J-Man wrote:
>Not exactly, Leonard.  :)   I been searching for months now and the only I
>been able to find is people who still sell Commodore stuff want an
"antique"
>price for them.  The best deals I've seen yet are on Ebay.


You're not travelling to the UK soon are you?  I'd sell you mine but
suspect that transport costs/damage would be too much.  I'd love to get my
C-64 out of the attic but the power supply blew up and I've not been able
to find a new one.


tc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:04:48 +0100
From: Timothy.Collinson@solent.ac.uk
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

>>1541 disks aren't readable in PC drives without extra hardware. They
>>use GCR format, which standard FDC chips can't handle. The same goes
>>for older Mac floppies.


ISTR transferring all my C-64 material (essays, letters, Traveller sectors
etc) via the Amiga.  A handy little gadget allowed you to plug the 1541
into the Amiga and use it as a drive on that platform.  Slow but it worked
to get the stuff off.  IIRC, it took an entire day to transfer 20 disks.
They then fitted onto three Amiga disks!  (If anyone wants to buy the
connector box for postage and a small consideration, I could probably still
dig it out of the attic.)

Occasionally I still refer to files on an archive CD (written of course,
off a PC having subsequently transferred everything from the Amiga to an
IBM compatible machine) that I realize with nostalgia were originally
written on the 64 in EasyScript.  Does anyone else remember training
themselves to look at two wrapped 40 column lines and 'seeing' it as an 80
column page?


OB Trav: Well, there must be a million but the most obvious is the PCs
finding some old data storage format and knowing/suspecting that it
contains valuable information and having to track down a means of reading
the information.

I ran one adventure where the PCs had to courier an old (unreadable) disk
of information that was so valuable the patron thought this would be
another good security measure.  In fact, the PCs were actually a decoy and
the real data was travelling by a different route.  They also managed to
resist the temptation to abscond with the disk and profit from it
themselves (good job too as it was worthless!).



tc

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 01:18:31 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

In mail you write:

> Robert Prior wrote:
>> 
>> >There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
>> >have done it?
>> 
>> So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links business is a
>> vessel of excrement?
>
> It is, indeed, a container of that which promotes growth.... ;-)

It's an *old* problem. Trying to get the communications company
providing your hi-capacity links to provide *physically* seperate links
as opposed to *logically* seperate ones.

That is, you may bask for and be paying for a link, and a "seperately
routed backup link", but far too often, it'll turn out that "seperately
routed" means "next cable over in the bundle" rather than the
*intended* "cable run via a different *physical* route".

BTW, this was cut of *four* OC-192 cables linking East & West coast
systems. That's one *hell* of a lot of bandwidth. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 01:25:35 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

In mail you write:

>>1541 disks aren't readable in PC drives without extra hardware. They
>>use GCR format, which standard FDC chips can't handle. The same goes
>>for older Mac floppies.
>
> You are half right.  I have myself, successfully read several 1581
> disks in my regular old floppy drive on my Dell Dimension PC.  It
> reads the disks WITHOUT extra hardware and creates a disk image on my
> PC's hard drive.

The 1581 is *very* different. Among other things, it could and did use
normal formatting (FM, MFM) as well as GCR.

<snip of stuff read from a 1581 disk>

> There is a program called read81 that does this even better.  what I
> used to cut n paste this was wordpad.

I specoifically mentioned the 1541 because the 1581 *can* produce PC
readable disks. The 1541 can't.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 01:28:43 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

In mail you write:

>>Ask around, or hit a flea market, and you should be able to find
>>another drive, cheap.
>
> Not exactly, Leonard.  :)   I been searching for months now and the only I
> been able to find is people who still sell Commodore stuff want an "antique"
> price for them.  The best deals I've seen yet are on Ebay.

I know several people that still have their old C-64 stuff. Some are
willing to sell.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:21:47 +0100 
From: "Trevor, Peter" <Peter.Trevor@rb.cwplc.com>
Subject: RE: Re TNE/Nth RFW

Chris Seamans wrote:
> Ah, but perhaps Dulinor made his move when he felt that public
> support would be in his favor... and the assassination of
> Strephon was seen as an act of liberation.

No matter what Dulinor *thought* the  public  support  would  be,
analysing how the other factions behaved indicates  that  he  did
*not* have it.  Each faction was (in general) controlled  by  the
local nobility who  continued  to  have  overall  public  support
within their territories.  There was no popular 3I-wide  uprising
in support of Dulinor, nor was the bulk  of  the  local  nobility
pressurised into moving their faction into a pro-Dulinor  stance.
And the assassination itself was handled  incompetantly:  Dulinor
should have stayed on Capital and awaited either ratification  by
the Moot or execution for high treason (regardless of which there
would have been no destructive Rebellion).

- - Dulinor's faction wanted democracy ... but started to  squabble
  internally.
- - Lucan's Imperium wanted revenge.
- - Margret's faction and Norris's domain  tried  to  maintain  the
  status quo.
- - The Vland faction was opportunistic/separetist.
- - Strephon's Imperium challenged Lucan.
- - All the other factions came into being  and  defied  Lucan  for
  reasons of self-presevation.



> Besides, the Rebellion itself can be largely characterized as
> the petty squabbling of nobles, which would further support
> Dulinor's position.

No, if that were so then the Rebellion would be like the  earlier
Civil War.  It may have been led by  squabbling  nobles  but  the
general public got intimately involved as well.



> Except for Daibei. If I could be anywhere  when  the  Rebellion
> hit, it would be Daibei. ;)

Although my heart will always be in the Solomani  Sphere,  'home'
for me is the Regina subsector of the Spinward Marches.



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:03:07 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: Re: MT and TNE designs

>>Ask around, or hit a flea market, and you should be able to find
>>another drive, cheap.

>Not exactly, Leonard.  :)   I been searching for months now and the only I
>been able to find is people who still sell Commodore stuff want an
"antique"
>price for them.  The best deals I've seen yet are on Ebay.

Have you tried pawn shops? The pawn shops around here have scads of obsolete
computer equipment. If you can prove to them that they'll never get the
price they put out for it (they almost always lack a sense of what they've
got is really worth) you can sometimes get a real deal.

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:13:15 -0400
From: "Terry Carlino" <carlino@home.com>
Subject: Democracy and Traveller

>How can you have a democracy when communication times are so long that it
>give Romans the shivers?
>
>People complaign of the alienation they feel from their elected oficials
>even in their own state/city. What about the level of remoteness percieved
>from national polaticians from Canberra/Washington/London/Berlin/Otowa?
>

I'm not taking the democracy side in the debate. I don't like the
Regency/TNE setting. But historically the United States from the time of its
beginning to the 1850's was in the same position. California became a state
at a time when months were required to reach Washington from there. Some
interior states required even higher travel times, especially early in the
century, prior to the railroad. Technically republic is the operative word
here. I'm not fully cognizant of the Regency Democracy data, but I would bet
that it's really a republic. Athens was indeed the last "true" democracy, in
that all citizens voted on each issue, vice voting for a representative to
vote on issues.

Terry C

All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:19:55 +0100 
From: "Trevor, Peter" <Peter.Trevor@rb.cwplc.com>
Subject: RE: Traveller Versions

In the beginning there was CT and it was good.

After 10 years it needed an overhaul and so MT was evolved out of
it.

Some time after that GDW thought converting to  the  house  rules
was a good idea  and  we  got  TNE.  It  doesn't  matter  if  you
disagree with them you can still see  the  reasoning  from  their
point of view.

GDW folded and along came IG with the rights to  Traveller.  They
produced T4.  Why?  Why didn't they just reprint MT  rules  (with
errata fixed) and M:0 background. This is not a critisism  of  T4
itself, just that T4 seems to be evolved from CT  too  (and  less
so).  I never did understand that.



(following in non-proportional font, eg Courier)

    Expected evolutionary path of  Traveller  rulesets  based  on
    analysis of systems:

    Timeline    Evolution of Traveller rulesets (and others)

      1980             CT
                    ...:...     T2K
                    :     :      :      T:2300
      1985          :     T4    T2K2       :      GURPS/G:T
                    :            :      2300AD
                    :            :.... ....:
      1990          MT               : :
                                     TNE



    Actual evolutionary path of Traveller rulesets:

    Timeline    Evolution of Traveller rulesets (and others)

      1977                      CT
                                :
      1984                      :        T2K
                           .....:......   :
      1986      GURPS      :    :     :   :     T:2300
      1987        :        :    :    MT   :        :
      1988        :        :    :     :   :     2300AD
                  :        :    :     :   :
      1990        :        :    :     : T2K2
                  :        :    :     : :
      1993        :        :    :     TNE
                  :        :    :
      1996        :....... :    T4
                         : :
      1998               G:T



    What should have happened:

    Timeline    Evolution of Traveller rulesets (and others)

      1980           CT
                     :     T2K
                     :      :      T:2300
      1985           :      :         :         GURPS
                     :      :      2300AD         :
                     :     T2K2       :           :
      1990           MT     :.....    :           :
                     :          23C-house    (GURPS dies)
                     :              :
      1995           MT+            :
                     :              :
                     :              :
      2000           ?              ?



Regards PLST
"Rome wasn't burned in a day."

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 09:35:52 -0400
From: Ethan Henry <egh@klg.com>
Subject: Re: Downport trouble...

> >There was a *major* break in the Internet Backbone in Ohio. Could that
> >have done it?
> 
> So all this fault-tolerant, able-to-route-around-broken-links business is a
> vessel of excrement?

Nope. Apparently the major ISPs affected first noticed the problem when they
saw all their traffic re-routed through Europe.

The problem is not one of routing ability, it's the fact that a lot of major
links operate very near full capacity most of the time, especially during
"peak" (usually daytime) hours. Once major links go down, the traffic gets
rerouted, sure, but there often isn't enough bandwidth for it. Imagine (since
you're in Toronto, all you non-Torontonians can pick local highways wherever
you are) if the DVP got shut down. Sure, cars can drive anywhere, but where
are they going to go? Everywhere else is _already full_.

ObTrav: (Sort of) So, yesterday, a fine Canadian PhD researcher got the
IgNobel prize for his work studying the role of the dunut in the Canadian
psyche (or somesuch). Now, that may sound funny to you non-Canucks, but to me
it really seems to make sense. After all, the donut-store-to-resident ratio in
some small Ontario towns is something like 1-to-100. There are more donut
stores than grocery stores in parts of southern Ontario. One of this country's
finest, most cherished public institutions is... Tim Hortons, a donut store
named after a hockey player. I mean, what could be more Canadian? 

No doubt residents of various Imeprial worlds will feel that the peculiar,
well, peculiarities, of their neighbouring worlds are laughable, leading no
doubt to the occassional use of armed mercenary force to make the other guys
stop laughing, if only for a moment.
- --
Ethan Henry                                            egh@klg.com
Java Evangelist, KL Group                       http://www.klg.com

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1159
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