Comments by "MacAdvisor" (@MacAdvisor) on "DownieLive" channel.

  1. Not to be rude, but Amtrak does not service San Francisco by train. It does run a bus from San Francisco to Emeryville, which is where you clearly departed from. I do think the route you road in this video is one of the most beautiful in the world. "Sacramento and other small towns"? Sacramento has a half million people in it and that is the City alone.If the side-to-side rocking motion bothers you, sit in the lower level, it is far less down there.
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  2. You know, when I find a good person to watch my house while I am away, I ask them year after year. My last one took care of my house and dogs every year for 23 years. She passed away a few months ago and I so miss her, but I will miss her even more this Labor Day when I go away and have to try out a new house sitter. If I lived someplace cool, like in the middle of a great park, I'd ask you, Mike, but I have a rather ordinary townhouse in an ordinary part of Sacrament, which is a rather ordinary town (and, right now, not at all cool, it will be over 100°F today). On the other hand, those nice folks living in the park may well invite you back next year. They can take vacations without any fears about their beloved home with your around (or both of you). Love Tru Earth, thanks for the discount code. It is SO HARD to remember!
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  3. My problem is I would have to bust into Canada first. I would feel very safe traveling there as you folks seem to be taken COVID seriously and doing what is necessary. Here in the states, where I am, people are sanitizing their hands, wearing their masks, or observing social distancing. Here I would not feel safe. So, I stay home and watch DownieLive.
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  4. Mike, as medical doctor and well-known TV and Radio personality, Dr. Dean Edell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Edell ) said repeatedly, "Vitamins make for expensive pee." His father vitamin manufacturer in the 1940s and 50s, so he was very familiar with the game. If you have a specific vitamin deficiency, your doctor can tell from a blood test and proscribe accordingly. If you feel still the need for supplements, a cheap, simple multivitamin will give you everything you need for around $10 for a three-month supply versus Athletic Greens price of $300 for the same. Multivitamins are cheap. My point is your sponsor is a scam. You've had some great sponsors. I swear by Tru Earth. Drop this sponsor like a hot rock on a hot summer's day. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
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  5. There is something funny about a commercial for Downy Wrinkleguard Liquid Fabric Conditioner in the middle of a DownieLive video. Good match between artist and sponsor. Of course, I also like a travel blogger who can't now travel so covers his hometown. I just love these stories about Vancouver. When I was in 7th grade, which was shortly after the letter Q had been invented, we took a class trip to Vancouver, BC. I thought it so magical and so unbelievably clean. Even the streets were clean.
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  6. Just want to brag for a moment, my friend Rob lives in the white building in the middle of the row of tall buildings at 2:46 on Hyde Street at Lombard.
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  7.  @noseboop4354  A battery based on sodium chloride, basic table salt, replacing lithium is already getting ready to into production. We have nuclear power already, just not a specific type, while battery technology is beginning to move forward in leaps and bounds. There is much money to made in improving batteries, not so much nuclear power production.
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  8. I don't know if I believe in reincarnation or not, but if I do come back, I want to live a Mike Downey life and go on adventures like these. You live, the life, Mike, you really do, from living in the only house in a park, to now traveling by train the beautiful Canada. I don't know what you will do after this, but I want to follow along.
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  9. It doesn't beg the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy where the conclusion is assumed in the question. For example, chocolate is the best ice cream because the best ice cream is chocolate. That is begging the question. What you did was avoid answering the question.
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  10. Pubs are great, but they have great trouble taking one from London to Calgary.
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  11. As Bilbo Baggins says, "“We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures." As his book makes clear, adventures are rarely actually fun or in the least bit comfortable, BUT a train ride IS an adventure, with all the beauty, excitement, mishaps, and trials along the way, yet it is safe, comfortable, pleasant, and a joy. You are so right, Mike, it is what is between A and B that is fun. That is true for one's whole life. It isn't getting there to the end, we will all get to the end soon enough (perhaps too soon for some), but the measure of one's life isn't the end, but what happened along the way, what was between A and B. Thank you so much for these videos. I know you are looking for merch ideas, so how about a DownieLive face mask with your smile on it. That way, we could see you great smile even when you aren't eating. BTW, I used to take the train from SF to Sacramento to visit my parents. It is about three hour trip and the train was once 26-hours late pulling in. I left Friday after work and didn't get to my parent's house until late Saturday night.
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  12.  @DownieLive  I'd buy one, at least, and likely two more Christmas gifts. I think gifts of DownieLive merch make the best gifts, don't you?
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  13. Dome Car: as I always say, "the closed mouth don't get fed." Always ask, if you don't speak up for yourself and state what you really want, no one is likely to do it for ya.
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  14. This whole time you've been saying, "ChekTV," I've been hearing, "CzechTV" as in Czech Television from the Czech Republic. I've wondering why the former Bohemia was so interested in Canada. Prelude to an invasion? Envy of the vast, spectacular Canadian landscape? Just wanted to work with Mike? Can't wait to watch the series and also to have you back. Great work, Michael.
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  15. As a native California and regular user of the Amtrak Capitol Corridor train, I must let everyone know you absolutely, positively DO NOT get to San Francisco on the Zephyr. The closest you do come is Emeryville, which is across the bay in a different county from The City (our nickname for San Francisco). You can take an Amtrak bus across, but the train doesn't get there. Personally, I get off in Richmond (and the Zephyr also stops there), which is a combined BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)/Amtrak station. One can depart the train and then take a short walk to the BART platform and take BART directly into The City. It is nicer than the bus and one has a choice of several BART stations in San Francisco. The Amtrak bus will only let you out at the Transbay Transit Terminal, though the Terminal is directly across from the leaning Millennium Tower (The 58-story, 645-foot tall Millennium Tower is now tilting 26 inches north and west). Welcome to my state and, if you need anything -- rides, advice, home-cooked meal -- please call on me.
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  16. Here is a great video on why hydrogen cars are not the cars of the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b88v-WvqzeQ
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  17. OK, the voice of my mother, the English teacher, is making me post this. "Unique" does not take superlatives. Something isn't "very unique," it is just "unique." "Unique" means, "one of a kind." Something can't be very one of a kind. Second, if there are two elevators with the open top design, one of them isn't unique. There are two and, remember, "unique" means "ONE of a kind." Whew, the voices in my head are quite now.
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  18. Things are not "very unique." "Unique" is digital, either it is unique, that is one of kind, or it is not, meaning there two or more alike. As for Netflix recommendations, I really like Ozarks and a new season was recently released. It is really old now, but I loved Merlin. Pay extra, stay on the boat, you look so happy there.
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  19.  @liamz.6245  HSR may well be the fastest option, but fastest isn't the sole criterion. The SST was the fastest plane, but it wasn't economical. There just weren't enough people willing to pay the greater cost to go that fast. Same here. HSR simply costs too much now. I strongly supported the HSR project here in my home state of California, but it now runs from Bakersfield to Modesto, rather than SF to LA and is triple the original estimates. The line will never be completed to reach SF or LA, let alone San Diego and Sacramento. We Californians are throwing money at it and we can't get it done. Now try this between two different states!
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  20.  @moartrainz4242  I don't think G-d cares. He is everywhere at all times, so thus, doesn't need to travel.
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  21.  @bubbledoubletrouble  The government of Shanghai already owns the right of way. The right of way is the single most expensive item and is what makes most HSR prohibitively expensive.
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  22.  @yaash4123  I don't believe they are "suddenly" going to be a thing. I think they will benefit from competition and iteration like most engineering. Five years ago, the cars were terrible, today they work in controlled environments, in ten years, we will take them for granted like smart phones.
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  23.  @TohaBgood2  The land being purchased so far is in some of the cheapest places to buy land in California and it is already way over budget. The average home price in Bakersfield is $384,077 while the average home price in Santa Clara is $1,728,670. In San Francisco, it is $1,633,651 and for LA the price is $1,004,807. The average lot size in Bakersfield is a little less than half an acre, about 21,070 square feet, while in San Francisco, it is 2,713 square feet. So, CAHSR is now buying 8 times the land for a quarter of the price. Government doesn't own the tracks between Seattle and Portland. It would be improving the tracks belonging to someone else, who may very well not want them "improved." The tracks are for freight traffic and engineered for such, not faster, lighter passenger trains. Even getting to higher speed rail is impractical. Seattle land is TWICE the national average. How does the government buy all this land for a new system or acquire the tracks from the existing railroad that needs them for a vital shipping route? How?
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  24.  @TohaBgood2  So, we are going to build a new track from Seattle to Portland avoiding urban areas? Have you looked at a map how far the urban and suburban areas of Seattle and Portland extend from their downtown?!? One almost to Olympia from Seattle before leaving behind expensive urban and suburban homes and assuming the tracks avoid intervening towns, which greatly limits the utility, one starts up again around Vancouver. Also, that assumes the intervening farm land is cheap, which is hardly the case. All of this to create a workaround I5 that is a very good alternative for autonomous cars.
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  25.  @xxTheminemanxx  Yes, we went down different paths. Frankly, despite the charm of trains, I think we ultimately made the right choice. Auto, particularly autonomous ones, provide a flexibility and comfort unmatched by any other form of transportation. Unless one stays at the Hotel Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, a train ride typical ends with a car ride. If I take the Capitol Corridor train to SF, the trip ends on a bus from Emeryville to SF. I drive to the Sacramento train station to depart. The main fault with cars, having to drive them, is going away.
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  26.  @roboko6618  The Venice-Simplon-Orient-Express has a $5,000 ticket and tickets that cost even more. Second, as I have noted before, the Europeans and the rest of the world have a legacy passenger rail service to build on. We really don't. They own the right-of-ways, we do not. Our rail system is set up for freight transport.
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  27.  @Kevbot6000  I didn't in any way suggest it was representative. You wrote flatly there wasn't any train with such a ticket price. That was wrong. There is such a train. This is exactly the problem I have with people who advocate for HSR in the US, you don't think things through. You wave you magic metaphor and everything works out. Except, of course, it doesn't. HSR isn't economic feasible here.
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  28.  @Kevbot6000  Another straw man argument. I never suggested HSR had to be profitable. Over all, airlines aren't. Public services, however, should be cost effective. Vaccines don't have to make money, but they should be cheaper and save more lives than without them (and they are WILDLY cost effective, aside from public sanitation, they are the single most effective medical expenditure we can make). Autonomous vehicles on I5 between Seattle and Portland will carry EIGHT times the number of people for FAR less money. I love trains. I'd rather take a train than drive or fly. I often DO take a train rather than drive or fly. However, I don't confuse my person preferences with good public policy.
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  29.  @mondoman712  Except, of course, the owner of those tracks doesn't want them with tilting tracks because they use them for freight. The only way really good passenger rail works is to own the tracks and that is impossibly expensive. Again we get the wave the magic wand to make it work line of expanded passenger rail.
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  30.  @mondoman712  The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution forbids the government just taking it. The government is required to pay fair market value and the right-of-way are worth billions. While tilting freight trains do exist, they are not common and cost real money. They also impose real restriction on the way freight must be loaded. The US companies don't want to go the extra expense for something that doesn't benefit them. Again, HSR isn't going to happen in the US. Get used to it. There are just too many real-world impracticalities.
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  31.  @loljewlol  Exaggerated construction costs? How much do you think acquiring right-of-way from Seattle to Portland is going to cost?!? The HSR in California was going to be $9 billion when we voters approved it. The latest estimate is $105 billion. Do you think Seattle to Portland is going to magically be way cheaper?
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  32.  @davecooper3238  Trying reading the comments. We can't do it here because the expense of acquiring the right-of-ways is too expensive. The right-of-ways in Europe and Asia were acquired decades ago and not always with compensation. The time for trains has past in the US. We will use autonomous vehicles for shorter trips and jets for longer ones.
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  33.  @davecooper3238  No, that isn't what I wrote. I wrote we can't acquire right-of-way cost effectively here in the US. The right-of-ways in Europe and Asia were acquired decades ago at reasonable cost or without any cost. That isn't possible in the US. The land costs through major metro areas are wildly expensive.
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  34.  @davecooper3238  With very rare exceptions, the high-speed rail lines are built parallel to ordinary lines in Europe and Asia. If you look at photos of the HSR tracks, you can see the older tracks a few meters away. There are times when the HSR tracks are elevated along the right-of-ways to prevent them from crossing over streets or farm areas. The high speed of the trains make them dangerous at ground level along certain routes. HOWEVER, the HSR tracks are still running in the pre-established right-of-way. The British tracks were nationalized in 1948 when they were in the worst shape and greatly in need of repair, thus cheap to buy. French rail lines were national ten years previously in 1938. Japans were about the earliest in 1908. Most of these happened when the private companies were on the verge of collapse and needed funding. Had the US acted in 1970 when Penn Central filed bankruptcy, we would have HSR today. Instead, we split off the unprofitable passenger lines and let the profitable freight business AND THE tracks stay with the private companies. We'd have been even better picking up all the major railroads in 1893 during that financial panic. Nevertheless, your thesis that HSR trains in Asia and Europe travel mainly on completely new right-of-ways is erroneous. There are a few, but not many. There are new tracks, but not new right-of-ways.
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  35.  @davecooper3238  Given I am a gay man, no, I do not have a wife, but my longest relationship was with a wonderful man who worked for VIA Rail. I have also travelled extensively and try to do so by train. I like trains. I have commuted by train. I watch DownieLive because of trains. All you need to do is look at the photos of HSR and you will see the track next to older lines. Do they diverge at times? Yes, but not often and typically not by much. I am not going to bother discussing this further. Neither of us will persuade the other and I can't find any reliable data online either way to provide. From my own experience, rail lines travel through well-establish and long standing corridors with the HSR lines added along side. On many of my trips I've looked over at the banked HSR tracks from my local train and vice versa. If you can find the budgets for these new HSR lines being contemplated, you can see how little money is allocated toward acquiring right-of-ways in Europe and Asia. I will simply say there will not be a LSR or even faster speed rail between Seattle and Portland in the lifetime of your children, if ever. Should we each last 100 years, I will be the one to post, "I told you so." That is about as far as this discussion can go for now.
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  36.  @davecooper3238  I didn't write you physically couldn't do HSR on totally new alinements. I wrote you didn't because of the huge expense. You used existing corridors for the new tracks, tracks that met the needs of HSR. I have very specifically wrote new infrastructure was built to accommodate the needs of HSR. What you don't do and you just wrote the same thing, is acquire entirely new right-of-ways. You piggy back on existing ones. Your examples support exactly what I wrote. We in the US don't have those existing right-of-ways and would have to acquire them now at a unsupportable expense. THAT is why HSR is doable in Europe and not here in the US.
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  37.  @davecooper3238  Other than the US, I have ridden trains more in the UK than any other country in the world. I love the UK. I love the people, the food (yes, I love British cooking), and the country side. I don't drink coffee, even, but tea (Constant Comment is my favorite) and I have Brown Betty under a tea cozy on my desk. Most of the HSR rail tracks I've observed in the UK travel along already established corridors. Some have replaced the tracks entirely, some have not. Given how well established British trains are, I wouldn't be surprised if there are now entirely new and previously unestablished right-of-ways being created as you have likely used up reasonable existing paths. However, they would be the exception not the rule. However, GB is only some 700 miles long and my state of California is 760. No part of GB is more than 75 miles from the sea (or the Channel). We have cities longer than 75 miles. California is only one of fifty states and not even the largest geographically. There are some 10,000 miles of rail track in the UK and it provides for extensive coverage (at the systems height in 1914, there were 20,000 miles, so there may well be right-of-ways without tracks available for expansion all over the place). That would allow for two sets of tracks from Juneau, Alaska, to Miami, Florida, but not much else. The distances in the US are much more suitable to private cars and planes than in the UK (private cars are common there, too, but the majority of your cities were really built with them in mind as are many American cities). The UK nationalized the railway system in 1948 and took over all rail right-of-ways through an act of Parliament in 1947 after having taken physical control in 1939 as a war measure. The best the US managed was to take over passenger service without the right-of-ways in 1970 after the system had mostly fallen apart.  What I am trying to make clear is your extraordinary and wonderful system is due in large part to decisive actions taken early and created circumstances that are not reproducible here. Not at all. We couldn't pass a nationalize the military bill through our Congress even though the Federal government already owns the military because the word, "nationalize" is in it. You DID nationalize the railroads (though it was a Labour government). Suggesting the US could use GB as a model is like suggesting I follow in Pavarotti's footsteps for a singer career though I sing like a wounded duck. Can you find some similarities? Yes, he and I were/are fat. There are many similarities between the GB and the US, but none that matter here. I don't think you are lying, but I think you are wrong about the central question in this very, very long debate. There cannot and will not be a HSR train between Seattle and Portland. There are a couple of good spots for them in the US, but not many and not out here in the West. Look at California's HSR and tell me if you and I will EVER be able to board a HSR train in San Francisco and ride it to LA, though that is the plan (you can't even board a slow train from SF to LA, but must cross The Bay to Emeryville to get to LA). We won't. China does not need to worry about paying for existing right-of-ways as they are not required to pay compensation nor do they in most circumstances. That is not an option here in the US or the UK.
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  38.  @frafraplanner9277  Yeah, labeling something. That's a good counter argument. Calling national health care "socialist" doesn't make it bad.
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  39.  @davecooper3238  HS1 was built in two parts, section 1 and then section 2. I road them at different times so my experience of them is as two different trains. They really aren't, but they were very different rides in my life.
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  40.  @davecooper3238  Yes, but Compulsory Purchase is the same eminent domain and works the same in the UK. The Government takes the land, but it must compensate the owners for the fair market value. What is "fair market value" is subject to substantial disagreement depending on the view point and, therefore, subject to much litigation. I assume the average Brit is about as happy having his home taken as the average American.
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  41.  @davecooper3238  The Wiki article, under route, specifically says there were two sections that opened at different time. How am I mistake?
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  42.  @davecooper3238  Compared to the Chester to Liverpool Central ride, it is faster than Stargate travel.
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  43.  @consisepepper73  Why? For what? Your comment is out of left field.
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  44.  @consisepepper73  Well, he isn't the first and won't be the last. Nothing upsets people like speaking the truth.
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  45.  @WhereWeRoll  You clearly haven't taken a bus if you think the experience of riding one is in way comparable to traveling in your own automobile.
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  46.  @meebie  Those other countries heavily subsidize their train ticket prices. Also, the cost to obtain the necessary right-of-ways would be astronomical. Moreover, there isn't any evidence the train would have a significant number of passengers unless we greatly subsidize the price of a ticket.
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  47.  @meebie  The country close to being carbon neutral are very small, not a good model for us. We are going to produce all those cars anyway, as people replace their current vehicles. The emissions, as opposed to other environmental costs, are minuscule to construct an EV compared to the lifetime carbon emissions of an ICE vehicle. So, we ARE going to replace virtually all of the current vehicles over the next twenty years, they will be autonomous by the end, and they will be the preferred means of travel.
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  48.  @TheUrbanGaze  Because most of Europe nationalized the railroads decades ago and own the right-of-ways. They don't need to spend money to acquire the necessary property. I've written this about 40 times here. Could you do me a favor before posting another totally obvious question that I've answer dozens of times already? Go back and actual read what has already been written rather than thinking you're the first schmo to think up the oh-so-devastating question. I wish this didn't sound so snarky, but I am totally bored with this whole topic because I've answered everything already many times. Don't bother me again unless you have something original to contribute.
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  49.  @iliashdz9106  For the 9,000th time in this discussion.: The California project escalated out of control because of the land costs (the right of way). Yes, lawsuits didn't help and some major inefficiencies added to the burden, but the French are not known for cheap projects either and the land is the expensive part. California hasn't even begun to purchase the necessary land into the Bay Area or into LA. The French already own most the land on which they built most of their HSR system. The cost of buying the land between Seattle and Portland would be astronomical.
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  50.  @iliashdz9106  Short answer: Yes, of course. Long answer: The average cost per square foot of land in Seattle suburbs is $333.29/square foot. Close to that in Portland suburbs. Lets go with $300/square foot for length of the line. The minimum right of way is 40 feet but most modern systems use 100 feet or so for access roads and safety. That makes the right of way $30,000 per foot. Downtown Seattle to Downtown Portland is about 175 miles or 924,000. To make things easy, lets make it 925,000 feet times the $30,000 per foot, or 27,720,000,000. That is $30 billion dollars for the average cost of land ignoring the considerably more expensive land in the cities of Portland and Seattle. Not add in land inflation, speculation, and the eminent domain costs, we are staring at $100 billion just to get the right of way. Now let's start building the thing ten years from now, because it will take that long to acquire all the land (one of the things most people don't realize about eminent domain is the government can get the land relatively quickly and start using it while settling on the price and the lawsuits, but the environmental impact suits in two different states and Federal claims, ten years easily). Just look at how much the initial estimates in California escalated just to get the useless part built.
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