Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border • Hacker News Board

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#131

Post by markstos » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

thaeli wrote: post #69

markstos wrote: post #61

My family farm got a new neighbor, who noticed that he technically owns a sliver of land with the first 100 feet of our gravel driveway, nevermind that we've been using it for the past 50 years since our property was purchased. I don't think anyone had noticed before, as this goes way back before GIS systems and satellite photos of property boundaries. For decades there's been a fence in the logical place between the…

The easiest thing for everyone involved is for their neighbor to grant an easement for the existing driveway. That way they can keep using it, but it's with explicit permission, so the neighbor doesn't have to worry about an adverse possession claim. If they're not amenable to that, the specifics digfer by state, but usually it's a "boundary line agreement" or similar where you'd basically be buying that small sliver…

Thanks for the input! So far the neighbor hasn't been reasonable at all, so I don't expect we'll get to do this the easy way.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#132

Post by smnrchrds » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

markvdb wrote: post #115

smnrchrds wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I initially started writing half an encyclopedia here, but I scrapped that. Some random bits: - There's rather limited contact between the linguistic communities of Belgium. - Knowledge of nl is generally extremely limited in Wallonia. I have a feeling it's improving a bit, even if nl is not obligatory in education there. - Knowledge of fr is clearly worsening with the youngest generation in Flanders, even if fr is o…

Thank you for this information. What are ber, ln, and ku?

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#133

Post by ilamont » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #120

ilamont wrote: post #57

If you want to see a messed-up peaceful border situation, there is a Mohawk community straddling the U.S./Canadian border with the actual line going through NY State, Ontario, Quebec, Cornwall Island, and the St. Lawrence River. The convoluted rules inhabitants have to follow to see relatives, go to school, get medical care and conduct daily business are extreme. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akwesasne

They actually have fewer regulations and can usually cross the boarder very easily. It's one of the reasons that the area is extremely popular for smuggling.

Vince Thompson is one of about 2,000 Mohawks who lives there. He's also represents the Island as a chief on the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. Just to take his daughter to a dentist appointment and go to some meetings, he says, he has to go back and forth through U.S. and Canadian customs, waiting in line and answering intrusive questions each time. "I’m going home. I gotta report in. Then I gotta race back home, pick up my daughter, then report back in, then proceed to the dental or medical appointments," Thompson shakes his head. "It’s unbelievable."

https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/36230/201...

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#134

Post by mrweasel » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #39

aetherspawn wrote: post #7

A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…

I've heard many stories of property lines being moved simply by people moving a fence, mowing the grass, or building a structure. If no one has said anything in several years (exactly how many varies by jurisdiction, of course), the assumed property line can often become the legal property line.

That happened constantly in the Danish country side when I grew up. My dad and grandfather had to check up on one neighbor in particular pretty frequently, otherwise he grab half a meter of our field every other year or so.

Despite not having lived on the farm for 25 year my mom and dad are often brought out to help settle dispute regarding property lines.

Technically everything is mapped out and moving a post or plowing a wrong part of the field doesn’t change ownership, but some of the maps are old and reference point are no longer where they once where.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#135

Post by ssully » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

markstos wrote: post #61

My family farm got a new neighbor, who noticed that he technically owns a sliver of land with the first 100 feet of our gravel driveway, nevermind that we've been using it for the past 50 years since our property was purchased. I don't think anyone had noticed before, as this goes way back before GIS systems and satellite photos of property boundaries. For decades there's been a fence in the logical place between the…

Have they been giving your family trouble about it? I can't imagine causing issues with your neighbor is worth such a small piece of land.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#136

Post by autosharp » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

> Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

So if the farmer takes the stone and tractors it to East Russia, did the farmer accomplish more than Napoleon?

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#137

Post by pacaro » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #91

g_p wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK (technically Great Britain in this context) at least, there is an open dataset available from the national mapping authority (Ordnance Survey), which is called boundary lines. It contains all of the different boundary lines and borders of local authorities, parliamentary constituencies, regions, nations etc. This is all geo referenced against the OSGB coordinate system. I could see interesting challenges in…

The OS maps the borders of local authorities. However, it doesn't hold the authoritative map of the borders of the counties. I don't mean the modern local authorities that call themselves counties - I mean the traditional counties, which haven't been abolished or changed for centuries. The exact location of these is defined almost tautologically - a place is part of a certain county because it has always been. The ex…

My parents' house is a good example of this. The rear boundary of the property is defined as being some distance from the road. It's not totally clear (although I assume that there is a standard) whether this means the curtilage or something else. When the land behind the property was redeveloped (from a run down witches cottage to a block of flats) it was important to my parents that the treeline at the rear of the property not be cut down. The deciding factor was the rusted remains of an old fence on the far side of the trees. I had been under instructions as a kid to not mess with that or pull it up because my parents knew that it was important to preserve this kind of evidence

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#138

Post by speedgoose » Tue, May 04, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #113

speedgoose wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Game Of Thrones has rape, child murder, and torture. I think it'd do fine in that respect.

True. It doesn't feel the same though. Maybe because it's a fake documentary where the filming crew participates in the rape / murders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx8MHwRLkMc

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#139

Post by capableweb » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

csunbird wrote: post #122

capableweb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I was brought up, I was taught how to estimate/measure meters in steps when in school, so everyone had a specific gait that measures a meter. 100 of those steps ~= 100 meters. No phone needed :)

I do not think that steps have that good of a precision (2.29%) over 100 steps for measuring distance. Can a human achieve that?

I was thinking more that he somehow discovered there might be an issue when measuring without good precision, and later came back to verify with a proper method.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#140

Post by capableweb » Tue, May 04, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #119

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.

"One does not simply use GPS to mark a spot..." I tried this at home and it turns out that easily available GPS devices have huge amounts of error, especially without unobstructed line of sight like in woods. I left a phone on a stump recording a walking trail, and it wandered around multiple tens of meters. There is value in what the surveyors do :) Although I guess they would use markers like this as references, so…

I'm unsure where in the world you are, but accuracy depends on the satellite you're receiving data from. Commercial GPS satellites (or rather the stream you receive) also have better precision than normal "consumer" ones, and one could assume military has the most accurate ones. The new Galileo (Europe) system has a accuracy down to 1 meter, while GLONASS (Russia) has something like 3 meters. The commercial accuracy of Galileo is down to 1 cm though.