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The slow death of purposeless walking

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#151

Post by pimlottc »

grobot wrote: post #143

Interested to know if any other visitors from here were presented with an SSL cert selection dialog for beta.bbc.co.uk:443 on visiting this article - "Select a certificate" not something I've seen before. https://www.dropbox.com/s/dedkeid58gj7bln/Screenshot%202014-... Selecting the DigiCert option delivered a Keychain popup asking me for "privateKey", which kept presenting itself on being deny, deny, denied. (Chrome/…

They must have their server set to request client certificates. Even with that on, most people will see nothing as browsers will only show that dialog if they have any client certificates registered that the remote site will accept (wrt the signing CA).

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#152

Post by NicoJuicy »

mattjaynes wrote: post #138
sentenza wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with your move to Berlin! It might interest you that there are many car-sharing schemes operational in Berlin, so that you can go completely car-less, even if you have to cover a large distance or transport something every now and then.

Thanks! That's great to know :) I've been told Berlin is pretty spread-out, so it'll be good to have access to a vehicle for longer distances.

You never know, but if you want to taste a beer in Belgium, always welcome!

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#153

Post by zhte415 »

brc wrote: post #137
pwenzel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing note from the NPR story: > Champagne was considered a stimulant. And a lot of trainers — these guys had trainers — advised their pedestrians to drink a lot of champagne during the race. They thought that this would give them some kind of advantage. The problem was a lot of these guys would drink it by the bottle. That definitely was not a stimulant to say the least.

Early Tour de France riders would take a bottle of brandy with them and swig it. It was supposed to dull the pain of steep climbs. At some point that was abandoned.

Recently linked on HN, the Italian army include Grappa in a breakfast pack: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/18/eat-of-b...

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#154

Post by hessenwolf »

Please tell me you saw the /r/unitedkingdom thread where somebody suggested replacing walking with wanking?

A great information theory example of what happens when two codes are too close together; walk is one letter away from wank, so a single-letter error changes the meaning completely, but leaves the message still hysterically sensible and readable.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#155

Post by ibrow »

mattjaynes wrote: post #135

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even…

I live in Berlin and have just walked to work - I love it (even on a rainy day like today) - time to think.

Whilst Berlin is spread out I have found that you normally stick to your own "kiez" (neighbourhood). If you are lucky you'll be able to live and work in roughly the same area, and therefore walking (or cycling) is a great option.

As a previous commenter said, there are a number of shared car options available. I don't use these as I have no need, but they seem very good.

Also, the public transport within the city is very good.

There is, however, one danger of walking. It is very easy to find yourself stopping for a coffee or a beer on a sunny day!

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#156

Post by auvrw »

jrockway wrote: post #145
mattjaynes wrote: post #135

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even…

This is exactly how I feel when I visit Mountain View for work. Why are the parking lots in front of the store and not in the back? Why do I have to walk through a sea of parked cars to get to my building? It's all very strange to me. I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark. My conclusion: not the place for me.

> I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.

i lived near mountain view and did not notice this when visiting on my bicycle or the caltrain. sure, it's not the city proper, but mountain view seems rather quaint and really quite pedestrian friendly, at least in the area by the train station.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#157

Post by mxfh »

mattjaynes wrote: post #138
sentenza wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with your move to Berlin! It might interest you that there are many car-sharing schemes operational in Berlin, so that you can go completely car-less, even if you have to cover a large distance or transport something every now and then.

Thanks! That's great to know :) I've been told Berlin is pretty spread-out, so it'll be good to have access to a vehicle for longer distances.

You don't need a car in Berlin unless you need to move furniture or need to re-stock multiple beer crates at once.

car2go works fine for occasional small size shuttle needs (yet their coverage is shrinking with every update of their TOS). For the ultimate exposure to Berlin-style directness (some people mislabel this as rudeness) I would also recommend renting a Sprinter van at Robben-Wientjes.

As a rule of thumb: if you stay within the S-Bahn Ring or in walking distance to any S/U-Bahn Station up to 3 stops out of it you get almost anywhere within the city in about half an hour. Biking is normally easier in the former east, since West-Berlin's post-war urban development was also all about cars.

Was in Texas multiple times for a few weeks and the car-centric AC-enabled lifestyle is always quite the culture shock for me.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#158

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

zhte415 wrote: post #153
brc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early Tour de France riders would take a bottle of brandy with them and swig it. It was supposed to dull the pain of steep climbs. At some point that was abandoned.

Recently linked on HN, the Italian army include Grappa in a breakfast pack: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/18/eat-of-b...

Are we sure that the Grappa for drinking rather than say use as lighter fluid or for cleaning weapons?

I'll drink most anything but I won't drink Grappa...

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#159

Post by VexXtreme »

I live in Tokyo and I absolutely love walking. I sometimes do 10-15 km a day easily. There are so many small interesting back alleys and hidden nooks and crannies here that you could spend half a lifetime exploring this city and still not find everything it has to offer.

I find walking, observing my surroundings and watching people extremely mentally stimulating but also relaxing. It's a great way to get rid of stress and come up with some fresh ideas at the same time. Besides, when you live in a city that's visually appealing, it's hard to get bored even when you're just going from point A to point B.

Tokyo is very pedestrian friendly, maybe even more so than many European cities. Why American cities are hostile to pedestrians is a mystery to me.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#160

Post by EzGraphs »

catwork wrote: post #19

Reminds me of another quote from C.S. Lewis (who was cited in the article) on the subject. "Even on those rear occasions when a modern undergraduate is not attending some such society he is seldom engaged in those solitary walks, or walks with a single companion, which built the minds of the previous generations. He lives in a crowd; caucus has replaced friendship." - C.S. Lewis from the essay "Membership" in "The We…

Should be "rare occasions" I think. Great quote.
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