Unclepea

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Critical Mass

Hello you, I'm involved in Critical Mass Montreal (in Quebec, Canada). I saw you posted a part of Joel Pomerantz's flyer explaining corking. Is there any way we could have access to the entire flyer? We could use the images and inspire ourselves on the content... Thanks. 204.19.5.251 15:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but while I'm getting to that, you may get just as much info or more from the Critical Mass Glossary, which is also in the links list at the end of the Critical Mass article. Joel Pomerantz, a.k.a. Unclepea 18:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Little Tree/Forrest Carter

Compliments on a bloody good editing job. Vizjim 18:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

creek

Hey Unclepea!

I read with interest your update to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Armory in which you question the validity of the statement "a remnant of Mission Creek flows through the basement of the Armory". You call the water instead "groundwater which would have percolated through the soils into nearby Mission Creek during the time it existed as an open waterway".

I am curious what exactly is the difference from your perspective? The passage of water, a 'river', still exists underground after all. If you dig down a 200 foot long portion into the underground passage of water, you'll recreate a visible flow.

I suppose you could argue that 'remnant' is a bad term. Would you prefer tour guides say "This passage of water represents one of the few above-ground and visible sections of what was Mission Creek, but now flows below ground?"

Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.184.54 (talk) 02:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

First let me clarify that I do not consider the sub-basement of a building to be "above-ground."

As I will explain in a moment, I don't believe it's justified to call groundwater "an underground creek" unless it's flowing through open passages such as karst (limestone) caves. There is no karst or other cave network in San Francisco other than the sewers. (Water in the sewers can be considered a diverted creek in some cases, but that is also hard to justify when many sources are combined in the sewer, often pumped from other watersheds, traveling a route entirely controlled by human engineering, except for the leaks both into and out of the sewer. A messy situation, to be sure.)

Even saying it's a remnant of Mission Creek is like saying that your bath water today is a remnant of any leak that your pipes had 150 years ago. Changing it to say, as you in effect suggest, "This tub of water represents one incarnation of what was once a leak in my pipes" seems rather lacking in useful information other than about your poetic leanings.

In an idealized situation groundwater percolates through soils then shows up at the surface as a spring, where it feeds a flowing surface creek. I don't consider the nearby groundwater that has not yet entered that surface creek to be that creek. To consider the leaks in the Armory basement part of Mission Creek, you'd have to consider all the soil moisture and groundwater to be part of the creek they might eventually feed — if they remain unobstructed.

If we wish to keep the reference clear, we can't include "potential source" groundwater to be part of the creek, any more than we can consider local rain part of the creek before it reaches the surface.

The water percolating through soil two long blocks from any charted course of Mission Creek has only one meaningful connection to Mission Creek: they share a watershed--almost. More like a groundwatershed, a concept which is necessarily impossible to fully determine with affordable technology, even if it could be clearly defined.

That all makes it difficult enough without the element of history. With the careful definition I lay out, there simply is no Mission Creek anymore.

To top it all off, the particulars of what was called Mission Creek make it especially hard to get away with some of these tempting phrases, since Mission Creek wasn't even a creek. It was an estuarial channel. i.e. a tidal slough. It was a mixing zone of the in-flowing tides and the out-flowing groundwater and runoff. It's a common practice to name channels in tidal marshes as if they are creeks. This was a case in point.

The water leaking into basements in the same watershed more than a century later is not part of a tidal mixing zone, is not part of a creek and is not a remnant, either. Unless you just want to evoke nostalgic feelings or tell fun stories, in which case it's anything you like.

Unclepea (talk) 05:58, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Joan Straumanis

Hi, thanks for your email. I'm pretty busy with other work right now, but I'd like to suggest that you start an article in your sandbox and I could help you develop it. It's really not so hard once you get the hang of it. Best, Yoninah (talk) 15:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Joan Straumanis has been accepted

Joan Straumanis, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.

Congratulations, and thank you for helping expand the scope of Wikipedia! We hope you will continue making quality contributions.

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Thanks again, and happy editing!

Missvain (talk) 23:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)