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Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#171

Post by sangnoir »

garmaine wrote: post #164
sangnoir wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the logistics regarding nationality and property within the exchanged land? Are the inhabitants now dutch, or Belgians who now own Dutch property?

I don’t know about this case, but typically this is uninhabited, unimproved land that is exchanged.

I had assumed that the land was occupied because the motivation for the exchange mentioned in the article are reports of crime (nudity, drugs) that Belgian police can't easily attend to. It is likely the suspects were visitors to the area.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#172

Post by detaro »

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)?

Phone GPS struggles with that kind of precision, but for professional GPS gear (which is becoming a lot more affordable recently) few cm precision is not that much of a challenge. And I would assume that the enthusiast just noticed it being off from what it had been before and the precise number being one determined by a professional, or someone with professional tools.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#173

Post by enimodas »

majewsky wrote: post #12
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more cynically, things only go smoothly when there's nothing at stake.

It's the other way around. The thing that's at stake is economic cooperation, so both sides are more willing to find an amicable solution than otherwise.

That's what they said before ww1

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#174

Post by FabHK »

berkes wrote: post #99
yrgulation wrote: post #77

I cant' help but rejoice that europe's borders (at least within the eu) are a mere stone. Not too long ago moving that stone might have led to war, now it leads to jokes.

A related story is the border between Belgium and the Netherlands that was recently moved[1]. Not because some war was imminent, but because of very practical reasons: Belgian police could only reach that piece of Belgium by boat; so "exchanging it with NL" was the easiest, because the Dutch police could just drive there. It makes me happy to see that we're down to "practical exchanges of land" from centuries of war…

Or the Whisky War over Hans Island, which the Canadians claim and leave a bottle of (Canadian) whisky, upon which the Danish claim it and leave a bottle of (Danish) snaps, ad infinitum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisky_War

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#175

Post by walrus01 »

_the_inflator wrote: post #32

This is funny. Even funnier are the so-called line houses along the USA/Canada border: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_house

Not only that, but due to limitations in 19th century surveying technology, the actual 49th parallel as measured by a high precision GPS+GLONASS+Galileo receiver is some dozens of meters different from where the practically enforced line is (such as zero avenue and its ditch in South Surrey/Langley, British Columbia where it meets Whatcom County, WA).

If you go here and search for "B street, Blaine WA" and right click in google maps, look at the latitude, the actual 49th parallel is considerably south of what is enforced in practice. Much of Blaine, and a very long strip all the way to the great lakes, is actually in Canada...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/B+St,+Blaine,+WA+98230,+US...

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#176

Post by vbezhenar »

capableweb wrote: post #140
foobarian wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

How commercial and normal are differentiated? Is it possible to crack it and use in your own GPS device?

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#177

Post by the-dude »

garmaine wrote: post #164
sangnoir wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the logistics regarding nationality and property within the exchanged land? Are the inhabitants now dutch, or Belgians who now own Dutch property?

I don’t know about this case, but typically this is uninhabited, unimproved land that is exchanged.

Dutchie here, FTA :

> wordt geklaagd over drugsoverlast, afval en naaktloperij

So the actual problems are complaints about drug users, illegal trash dumping and nudism. And the negotiations only took 5 years.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#178

Post by NicoJuicy »

cinntaile wrote: post #153
NicoJuicy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. My French is good enough for talking to French canadians ( native dutch). And even french have trouble understanding the Quebec language. Some that learned it never use it, so they forget it though. But they don't need it professionally.

Good enough is not even close to native though. He was wondering about native.

Well, he was saying:

> but the compulsory classes don't get you anywhere near native proficiency.

And my proficiency is good enough work related and when I meet people. With no issues.

What more would i need?

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#179

Post by athenot »

8ytecoder wrote: post #26
317070 wrote: post #14

This is so ironic. There is already a movie (Rien a Declarer / Nothing to declare) whose main premise is a guy spending his nights slightly moving the border between France and Belgium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6MljTh0kws (This extract is French only unfortunately :( ) Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQPaxlZWu4 (With English subtitles) But, as someone who grew up less than 100 meters from this borde…

One of the most complex borders with hundreds of enclaves and people living there with no clear idea on which country they belong to used to be the India-Bangladesh border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Bangladesh_encla...

Wow this is crazy. But at the same time, it could be an interesting solution for other disputed borders around the world. Leaders are often obsessed with drawing a clean line between 2 areas but reality is a lot more messy and nuanced.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#180

Post by vanderZwan »

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…

> Friends from outside Belgium often tell me they notice absurd humor as a common trait.

Explains why you had some of the best surrealists back in the day

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