On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:23:41 +0000, Jose wrote:

Consider that a snowfall can paralyze a city and bring intercontenental
travel to a halt. In the seventeen hundreds, people just walked in the
snow.

Thanks; I love the irony of these two sentences together. In centuries
past, people did travel between continents. But it was not the triviality
it's become today (even including the claimed security at our commercial
airports {8^).

Sure we've a lot more to lose from infrastructure failures today, but
that's only because our infrastructure provides so much more than it did
in centuries past.

All in all, I'm glad for that. It's rather like GA, if you look at it
from the proper perspective (and perhaps squint a bit {8^). I have to
prepare for various failure modes (from engine failure to a closed
airport) that are non-issues for our ground-bound kin. But we still
choose to fly.

It's wealth. We've more to lose by having it, but I'm still happy to have
it.

[...]
The city would be rebuilt in about two weeks

I'm trying to picture this, and I cannot quite. Two weeks to rebuild 1707
NYC or Philadelphia or London?

- Andrew