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Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#101

Post by zinclozenge »

smnrchrds wrote: post #45
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

It's kind of a meme in Belgium that flemish people have french last names and walloons have dutch last names.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#102

Post by cinntaile »

speedgoose wrote: post #60
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

Wikipedia says that they removed the woman rape and the kid murder scenes on the American version, 30 years ago. I don't know if people would appreciate such a movie today.

Not everyone prefers to watch mainstream movies. This movie was never mainstream and themes like this haven't faded out or anything.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#103

Post by bellyfullofbac »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #68
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS. The border was likely digitized a decade or two ago. Someone noticed the stone didn't match the database.

I also feel like the "real" border is a line in a GIS database. Sure, the stone is supposed to be the border based on a 19th century treaty but we all know a 21st century government is not going to actually treat the stone's placement as the official border.

If the stone is the legal marker, take it on a plane to China, mess up all the nice polygons...

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#104

Post by aasasd »

shirleyquirk wrote: post #100
aasasd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching the web immediately turns up: > Man Bites Dog is an intensely disturbing movie that, despite having frequent moments of dark humor, is shockingly violent and very difficult to watch. With 74% on RT, which is pretty good. I already have conflicting emotions from this. The descriptions evoke the spirit of Bret Easton Ellis' stuff. What I've seen of French film violence tends to be cinematic in an off-putting…

Man bites dog is amazing, a noir mockumentary american psycho.

Ellis' ‘Glamorama’ actually has a film crew following the protagonist. However that book is difficult to comprehend (sorta in the 70s/80s transgression-surrealism way), so I'm still not sure what the crew actually does, if anything.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#105

Post by TacticalCoder »

smnrchrds wrote: post #45
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

> Is that common in Belgium?

Jean-Claude Van Varenberg (the real name of Jean-Claude Van Damme). It is incredibly common. I've got many several french speaking belgian friends, with a french name but a dutch family name.

> Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

I would say not anywhere near what the name / family names may suggest. The north/south separation in Belgium is quite clear and although mixed french/flemish couples are by not means rare, I'd say the overlap is still not huge. Even in Brussels native flemish speaking people are only 6% of the population.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#106

Post by robert_foss »

frockington1 wrote: post #49
StavrosK wrote: post #22

Must be nice to have neighbours that aren't threatening to go to war if your borders change.

Are there many border wars in the developed world? I can think of Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan but admittedly am not familiar on the subject

Russia/Ukraine is a big one. China/neighbors in the South China Sea.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#107

Post by cinntaile »

smnrchrds wrote: post #93
sjrd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those combinations are indeed quite common in Belgium. Another example: myself :-p (Sébastien Doeraene).

If I may ask, what is the story behind your name? For example, is one of your parents francophone and the other one Dutch? Do you speak both languages natively?

Very few people in Belgium speak both French and Flemish natively. It's one or the other, depending on which side of the language border you live on. In Flanders you have compulsory French classes while in Wallonia you don't have compulsory Flemish classes, but the compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency. His last name doesn't sound very Flemish so his ancestors probably moved to Wallonia at least a few generations back. To me it even sounds like a Flemish version of a French name. The parent should correct me if I'm mistaken of course, deducting where someone is from based on their last or first name can be quite tricky in my experience.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#108

Post by dev_tty01 »

mlavin wrote: post #24
csunbird wrote: post #21

> A local history enthusiast was walking in the forest when he noticed the stone marking the boundary between the two countries had moved 2.29m (7.5ft). How do you even measure that effectively? Aren’t the stones more than hundreds of meters away from each other? edit: for example, can I do that as well with minimal equipment (e.g. with just a phone)?

I'm guessing the hole it originally sat in is still visible?

Not if the soil is being farmed. Plowing, cultivation, etc. will fill in any small hole.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#109

Post by avidphantasm »

tinus_hn wrote: post #37
Bayart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're stored in law. Treaties define borders in (seemingly) unambiguous terms. Meridians, river beds and so. Problems arise when river beds move and everything becomes extremely ambiguous. In the worst case scenario you've got borders defined by older borders of poorly documented feudal holdings and it's up in the wind where the actual border ought to be. So states have to negotiate to redefine them in modern terms…

The ground itself can move over 5 cm a year due to tectonics.

And river meanders are doing just that, meandering to and fro, changing (albeit slowly) continuously. Modern borders need to be tied geodetic datums, which has been also mentioned are also constantly changing (although probably more slowly than most rivers) and need to be updated continuously. The new datums coming out of the GRAV-D project will address the need for continuous updating (https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/datums/newdatums/index.shtml).

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#110

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

aasasd wrote: post #96
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

Searching the web immediately turns up: > Man Bites Dog is an intensely disturbing movie that, despite having frequent moments of dark humor, is shockingly violent and very difficult to watch. With 74% on RT, which is pretty good. I already have conflicting emotions from this. The descriptions evoke the spirit of Bret Easton Ellis' stuff. What I've seen of French film violence tends to be cinematic in an off-putting…

The quote is overstating it IMO. Maybe for its time it was shocking but if you compare it to game of thrones for example, which has rape scenes, torture and murder it's nothing to write home about in its depiction of those.

I watched it as a teen with my family and it didn't shock me in the least. It's serious but not traumatizing.

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