Have you ever made a map?

Any jackass with a D9 Cat & a scraper can build a road, but who's going to maintain it? 87k miles of new roads means you'll need a whole shitload of guys to run the snowplows, patch the cracks, and scrape up the dead possums, raccoons and deer. Seriously, can you imagine how many critterscrapers they'll need to maintain this road?

I'm sure this road system will get built, but it'll start sliding into disrepair within 15 minutes of the grand opening ribbon cutting.

Maybe they can call it the "Ozzymandias Expressway".

Well, just for underground dungeons and the like in my youth. Even then, found the making kinda tedious. An annoying necessity of the game.

Love the looking though. The colored elevations and woods and roads and such. Still like to walk into a map store near me. Also like those nautical maps. Sorta stark. Wouldn't mind building me a man's man study some day with some of those on the wall.

But, you've got a hundred billion gazillion chinese to do that.

Ace you rock. I'm a map nut and I've been following that project for a while now. I will take the Harley and run the whole thing.

They had better institute free enterprise economics real soon if they are to build and maintain this project. Otherwise, it's another source of deprivation for the average citizens of those countries.

I know nothing about this.

Except that I think it's doomed to fail.

Ditto comments above about maintaining it. On top of that, color me dubious that the thing will ever get completed.

North Korea? South Korea? India and Pakistan? Nations that are never more than a few hours away from killing each other are suddenly going to join hands and sing "Highways Across EuroAsia?"

Granted, this is just my uninformed opinion, but this thing is one of those "gather for lots of symposiums and photo-ops and summits so we can all sip champagne and congratulate each other on how cooperative we're all being as long as it never comes to any concrete obligation we'll ever have to honor" things.

Everyone loves that shit.

I signed up for a cartography class in college but dropped out because it was a bit too advance for me. Plus, there were all these military government types in it was a bit foreign to me at the time. I am sure if I stuck it out I would have flunked out though had a good time.

Later I took a surveying class. We had to map the quad. Fifteen students and fifteen maps that didn't even closely resemble each other. lol!

Then last year I was going to take a class in hand drawn calligraphic maps but couldn't make it. Someday, maybe.

I've heard of computer programs to make maps but I think the hand drawn are more fun and artistic

Looking around the internet for drafting tools, I found the best ones at these places that teach yacht design. That sounds sort of neat, huh? Ties in with ocean maps and you get to use all these neat really large drafting tools, too.

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't seen it before. Wouldn't it be fun to get a Hummer and drive from one end to the other.

While this is Reo's post, for the record, Ace is anti-hummer.

I signed up for a cartography...

Interesting. I wasn't sure to what extent a map making skill set still existed, got passed on in colleges and such. Just sort of thought it sort of went away with satellites and no 'great unexplored masses' left to map.

As a side note, and not to scold, but come on, please pick a name. Doesn't have to be your own. Doesn't even have to be your own sex. Matter of fact, you could pick a new one each thread.

You can always drop it and go incognito when want to say something sort of biting against a regular. But now I know you as the cartographer. A name kinda connects your comments togehter and allows a personality to accumulate behind them. And that's what makes commenting fun - the idea that kinds sorta (though not really) you know the other people here, when you read their comments you might go "Hey, that's an unusual thing for 'X' to say. I would't have guessed that they'd..."

If you're stumped, please choose Josie, even if not a girl. Always liked that name - "Josie and the Pussycats", that Steely Dan song... Just like it. Can go with another of course.

You too lurkers. Pick a name. Join in. Of course you'll be ridiculed here, but that's sorta the fun.

But-- But-- That'll take 50 years to build all that! Don't they realize that by then all the oil will be gone and cars will be obsolete and all that?

Okay, mockery aside, it does look pretty cool. And who knows. Where it does get built and properly maintained, it could actually work. But if it does, just think of the sheer volume of traffic that will be on it. Two and half billion people on one highway system...

Wouldn't it be fun to get a Hummer and drive from one end to the other.

Absolutely.

Fun for who? Not me. Just fun for the people who like to bash people by name. Anyway, I'll be the first to admit that nothing I post is profound enough to connect with anything else I have posted. Read it and forget about it.

Not just bash people by name, anonymous un-creative coward, we also like to praise people by name.

Oh, yeah, I can tell.

Just fun for the people who like to bash people by name...

Okay, I hear ya. People just have different criticism tolerance levels, and it is, somehow, strangley, it's slightly more irksome to have one's made up name's postion ridiculed than one's anonymous posting.

But, you discount that the pleasure other people get from talking to an identifiable personality. That the person who said X is "Josie, the cartographer" from the other post, the fake name that's kinda like a person I kinda know a little. Who knows who's behind an unsigned post? One of any number of people. It's just less... personable. Makes a difference.

No one says anything profound around here. Half the nonsense here is giant camels and highways. Not much infighting there. Why not a name for those posts, Josie? Just saying, think bout it.

I'll be your Josie, Dr. Symes, if you want.

Mr. no-name is too selfish to indulge the good doctor.

Thanks Bart, but you're more of a Rhonda- smart-mouth, gum snapping, hooker with a heart of gold. Josie's no name for a dirty girl like you. That's just be wrong.

Are your comments uninteresting? Unimportant? Do you feel so insignificant that you don't dare identify yourself for fear of reprisal? Is the Interwebs a big and scary place for you? Are you too unimaginative to make up a name for yourself?

For only $20, I can help you actualize your dreams. If you take the 30-day trial for my foolproof program you will be able to:

1) Shut up
2) Unplug your computer
3) Watch TV

The future is yours.

Damn, Sortelli, I'm kinda tempted. But $20 is a lot of scratch.

Well... Since you've already got a name, I'll give you my advice for half price.

My dear Dr. Symes, is it all about other people's pleasure? Why not accept a post at face value? And before singling out my social phobias, must I remind you that you're posting on a blog owned by a man who, for no apparent reason, breaks out in flop sweats, heart pounding, and thinks he is going to die? More importantly, sortelli proved my point.

for the record, Ace is anti-hummer

And I'd always pictured him as such a manly man.

I'm sorry, by what means were you able to refer to what I just said? Is it because I put a NAME ON MY POSTS?

Gosh, those are handy things.

I just thought of something. President Eisenhower commenced building the American Interstate Highway system to facilitate the rapid movement of troops and equipment across America. All the civilian traffic is considered to be a bonus. A characteristic shared by all interstate highway systems is limited access points so that all civilian traffic can be blocked if these roads are ever needed for rapid troop movements.

Now, which country on this proposed road would need a brand spankin' new road to help their troops move quickly? France? Do they have any cars LEFT after the latest riots? I'm thinking more easterly........China, perhaps?

One of the previous comments mentioned that they could use all the surplus Chinese to maintain the road, and I'll bet you that the Chinese government is going to bring up that idea eventually. "You call them Highway Helpers, but we refer to them as Pathfinders for our mechanized divisions."

On a "serious" note, if this thing ever gets built there are gonna be a whole shitload of burned goomba asses in Jersey if they don't get a taste of the cement subcontracts.

which country on this proposed road would need a brand spankin' new road to help their troops move quickly?

Thought of that, but on the western side it would be pure EU. Which means it will never happen.

My dear Dr. Symes, is it all about other people's pleasure?

No, actually, it's about your own pleasure. When you use a name, people remember stuff about you and respond to you as a person. Or, at least, they are responding to your on-line personality. Regardless, actual human connections are made, and a community forms that is unbounded by distance, time, or the social conventions that are expected of you in everyday life. It's cool, but you have to be a member to appreciate it.

You must have noticed how all the regulars here insult each other, often in very specific ways. In fact, you should have noticed that we relish these insults and blatantly set ourselves up to receive them ( for example, Lipstick recently trolling for foot jokes). And you must have noticed that, with a certain pride, we describe ourselves as geeks, morons, drunks and sexual perverts, even though in real life most of us are pretty normal middle-aged middle-class people, usually baby boomers with kids. Its all a socializing process by which the "insiders":

1. identify each other,
2. admit newcomers (e.g., Monty is a fairly recent arrival who was been warmly welcomed with numerous obscene insults),
3. label trolls (a few of whom nevertheless become insiders), and
4. exclude outsiders who are uninteresting, timid, thin-skinned, stupid, humorless, uninformed, disingenuous, or otherwise ineligible.

In a nice way, Reo is trying to tell you that you might be interesting enough to join the club, but you are excluding yourself by remaining nameless, and thereby missing out on most of the fun.

I have to second what my esteemed colleague, Mr. Cockbreath McPolesmoke, just said about becoming part of the big Scooby Gang called the AoSHQ comments section. It's not as if you need to use your SSN as your name here....but rest assured, if you DO decide to do that, you'll become very popular with our "Nigerian Chain-letter" division.

Russ:

Actually, the interstate highway sysem is officially named the Eisenhower Interstate System of Highways. It's an artifact of Cold War era politics. If you wanted to get a pork barrel project through Congress, you linked it to the Holy Grail of National Defense.

I'm very easily ignored. That you can't do so, is more your issue than mine. It's Saturday night, not much happening, so it's pile on me time. Why? Just because you can and you can do it en group. Hey, I can't stop you. You're going to do what you are going to do.

Josie: Not piling on. Sorry it feels that way. You obviously prefer your way. My suggestions were mostly for others to get a little more out of your posts, bring you into things more too. If you don't wanna, that's cool. Post however you feel comfortable.

For only $20, I can help you actualize your dreams. If you take the 30-day trial for my foolproof program you will be able to:

1) Shut up
2) Unplug your computer
3) Watch TV

does this come with a money-back guarentee?, cause there are a lot of people i'd like to see taking this program.

Yes, it was piling on. Ironically, if I had said nothing more than the usual "me, too" dribble, I would have been left alone. It was the getting too personal that made me the target du jour. But, you'll be pleased to know that it is the last I'll say on the subject.

Okay, fine. I'm a big fan of Clint Eastwood, particularly of his spaghetti westerns where he was the "Man with No Name". So I post as the man with no name. I figured you geeks would get it eventually, but no. Oh well. If you must refer to me by name you can always use "Blonde".

so it's pile on me time.

Pile on Who time?

Oh fuck it. From now on, you will be known as "Josie." Dr. Symes has planted the seed in my brain, and Josie is what I will call you.

Okay, Josie?

Yes, it was piling on.

Well, Blonde, my comment was not intended as "piling on." It was intended as an explanation, and an invitation.

Given any 48 hour period we (or "they," depending on where I am in the club roster) have a few people posting with no name. Some, I think, semi-regularly. It cuts down on the confusion if I can tell one from the other. Call yourself "Qwerty" or "No name" or even "I want to be called Loretta." Whatever you like, but it would sure help a brother out if you could help me separate the " " voices.

What's the deal with not offering even a fictional ID just so we know which voice just spoke? Every post is not "writ in water." You have a serious point of view and set of beliefs that come through (at least if you are one of -- or maybe THE -- nameless guy who has been passing through). Putting an identifier to your posts helps some of us to understand where you are coming from because of those past comments. Is there something wrong with wanting to know whether the person I am speaking with today about X is the one who said Y yesterday in a related topic? Doesn't that information enrich the dialog?

I've been reading Symes' terribly sensitive exchange with you about this as it went. Choose what you want. But I'd appreciate it if you would smarten me up about the advantages of not having something you said about a topic not recognized and incorporated in a dicscussion of a related topic.

Just asking you to put me some knowledge.

Well Michael, I never really intended to be such an object of scrutiny, I just post random thoughts here and there. I'm a blog-butterfly really and the poster-with-no-name kinda fits my modus operendi. Anyway, see ya.

I'm a blog-butterfly

But like a Viking. Right. I got it.

VRWC, yes a butterfly with viking helmet complete with horns. You nailed it exactly, thank you. Seriously though people, we've reached the limit of this discussion, no? Yes you have your little community but I'm not really a part of it, nor do I want to. Let it be.

"You must have noticed how all the regulars here insult each other, "

Well, not *all*.

Is that what it takes to finally get accepted into the Dork Squad?

Okay, fine. You're all piebald kallikaks with leaky sphincters and onion breath.

...

See, I'm just no good at this sort of thing.

It is true that without the occasional moonbat commenter to slap around we quickly turn on each other.

Well, lucky for you, Josie, Knemon has arrived and is quite used to being the punching bag.

Yes you have your little community but I'm not really a part of it

Right. The HOA dues are a real killer and don't get me started about the property taxes. All I can see from here is that you don't respect the people you are talking to enough to separate your voice out so they can know which anonymous voice you happen to be. But of course you're free to do that, bad manners and all. Via con dios.

You're all piebald kallikaks with leaky sphincters and onion breath.

Well, I'll cop to the onion breath but what is a kallikak? (And the leaky sphicter rumour only happened because compos mentis kept changing seats at the last meeting.)

Russ from Winterset, FYI there is medication available for your condition. Paranoia is much more enjoyable if you can concentrate on the real enemies.

The "Limited Access" feature of the Interstate highways simply means that it's only possible to get on and off at defined points. If the military wants to deny access to the road, they have much more effective ways of doing so than posting Pvt. Snuffy at the onramp. Especially since the limitation is more one of custom and usage than reality -- it's easy to join or leave the freeway almost anywhere, provided you don't mind getting your vehicle a bit dusty.

Those of you too young to remember when intercity speeds were held down by a myriad of small towns, all of which encroached on the highway in the hope of slowing people down long enough to spend money, have no idea what the impact of the Interstate System has been. We would be at half or less GDP if they weren't there. Good roads are the single simplest big multiplier for any economy. If the proposed highway system were to actually get built, I might start worrying about economic competition.

Regards,
Ric

"what is a kallikak?"

I think you're gonna like this one

Good night, virtual "community" of "people" who might for all I know be one person posting under many different names!

Oh, and Rudy Can't Fail. Just in case you forgot.

Well I must say this has turned into a surprisingly active discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with either the original post, or my first response. I had some idle curiosity about maps, and now it's morphed into this huge other thing. Why does everything around here turn into such an adversarial debate?

Given any 48 hour period we (or "they," depending on where I am in the club roster)

Oh, VRWC, an obviously "sensitive" and sexually confused sheep-fucker like you is clearly on the roster. No worries.

See, I'm just no good at this sort of thing.

OK Knemon, you're a sheep-fucker too. But you're on probation. You need to bring on some game.

*sigh*

It's a thankless task, enforcing the Ace O Spades Lifestyle™.

Among other things, you need a desk file where you keep silly stuff like how to do the trademark superscript thing in HTML.

I don't get paid for this.

I don't get paid for this.

Good.

I do like to think there is some rationality in our economic system.

Regards,
Ric

":":

Why does everything around here turn into such an adversarial debate?

"As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend." Psalms 27:17. Or we're just dicks. Take your pick.

The tinman:

Oh, VRWC, an obviously "sensitive" and sexually confused sheep-fucker like you is clearly on the roster. No worries.

Thank goodness! The dog was looking worried.

It's a thankless task

That's probably for a good reason too.

OK, I swear, I was about to go to bed, because I have to get up for church tomorrow, but I can't resist someone who starts flinging cool Bible quotes.

VRWC, for you:

(Mal 3:3-4 NIV) He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, {4} and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Good night.

Time for bed for me too, so I'll also leave some scripture: "Then Jethro, Moses' father in law, too Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back, and her two sons; of which the name of the on was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land".

Why does everything around here turn into such an adversarial debate?

It's a shame that you feel that way. Anonymous posting has been a source of contention for some time, especially when a simple moniker preserves your anonymity. It does allow people to develop a feel for your stance and personality, and in many cases can be the genesis of entertaining relationships (present company excluded).

You seem awfully threatened by people wanting to address *you* rather than your statements. That's a shame, since preserving the personality of the posters & commenters is something that most participants strive to achieve.

Bottom line: if you went to a party and interjected comments into various conversations without ever introducing yourself, would that be considered self-effacing or rude? I viewed it as the latter.

One gob-smackingly vile word sums this whole thread up:

Fags.

Waitaholdit! They haven't managed to build a decent road from the Far East to Europe yet? A road?! This really is kind of the basics. The Romans got that road thing down pat before they were nailing jews to sticks. It isn't a space elevator, people!

As for maps, as deeply suspicious I am of Google and all its works, I am so loving Google Earth. Lots of mapping programs will interface with my GPS unit, but it's that "hand of God" interface that makes Earth special. "Begone, Walpole Massachusetts! Thou has displeased me! Come, leave us fly to Elmira, New York!"

so it's pile on me time. Why? Just because you can and you can do it en group.

Somebody call a WAAAAAAMBULANCE!

"Interesting. I wasn't sure to what extent a map making skill set still existed, got passed on in colleges and such. Just sort of thought it sort of went away with satellites and no 'great unexplored masses' left to map."

Nope. You can major in cartography, and you'll end up managing huge masses of geographic data in geographically-enabled databases.

Now what would really be cool is if they added a stretch up to Siberia and a bridge across to Alaska. Then I could drive from Texas all the way to London.

Or if roads became obsolete and we all started using personal aircraft. Yeah, that would be way better.

Someone is going to have to build a lot of gas stations to fill up the vehicles that will ply these roads.

I knew frigging Halliburton and Cheney were behind this - its all a massive neo-con plot!

Velly iinterestingg speculation peeps, even the boo hoos fm snarkaphobic, but de debil is in the details.

It ain`t for nothing that the old USSR starved to death. Communes grew lotsa wheat, cabbage and potatoes for vodka but most of it rotted in place because a distribution avenue(roads) to market wasn`t possible. Reason: In Spring the dirt becomes diarreha to earth`s center, in Fall the dirt becomes watery diarreha. In Winter, okay, the dirt is froze enuff to hold up a car buried in 17 feet of snow (but the steering wheel material of 99.5% of vehicles, including Hummers shatter when the wind chill factor is -100!

And what about the engineering problems of designing a new type of freeway that has a speical lane just for camels and mongol ponies? Won`t road rage rear its ugly head when 150 bandits w AK-47`s camp in the rest stops for coffee and a piss?

On the plus side, 3/4ths of the world`s lawyers will open offices in the Mobi desert just to pro bono a bazillion eminent domain suits when the freeway bulldozes down scad`s of those "$750,000 straw huts"!

Oh, and Mickey Dee`s will surely make a slight alteration in menu for huge profit; like horsemeat burgers with a side of crispy-fried camel spiders...

And last but not least, alllll those Greenie environmental impact studies; it boogles the mind.

Got Felt Boots?

Velly iinterestingg speculation peeps, even the boo hoos fm snarkaphobic, but de debil is in the details.

Did you just do Chinese, German and negro dialects in a single sentence? That's like the ethnic accent trifecta.

Yo Wesee,

Since I am Australipithicus, shouldn`t I get credit for 5 instead of just 3? Add Paleface, that`s four and Internetin(snarkophobic), that`s five! The Great Intelligent Designer, peace be upon him, sayth bloggers are an ethniticity made in my image and MSM are Satan`s children.

The root for uncivil is uncivilized. No rules; it`s great. But like the chimp w a typewriter I managed at least to come up w a nom de plume for comments after only 10,000 tries. (Got that, no-name?)

"the chimp w"

Please. Show some respect. We call him Chimphitler. Or possibly Il Chimperalissimo.

F--k you guys, I just used the better part of half an hour to read through this thread, wasting my invaluable time. Am I a loser or what?

Remember, current highways (including those in the USA) have been hardened to permit the easy movement of troops and tanks. This is one reason they are so expensive.
If the UN is involved, be wary. Also remember that the Kyoto accord is simply a taxing scheme to generate revenue from the USA that can't be withheld like dues. The UN agenda is to be able to fund a standing army, and with an extensive highway system to move them around, imagine what mischief the Kofi Klatsch could be up to!

They get their kicks on route 66