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I walked across Luxembourg

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Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#181

Post by oblio »

gumby wrote: post #161
dghughes wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative of a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the Queen. We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets. Especially Quebec and First Nations. But really anyone would be very mad and we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition or not.

Governors General are more than a mere “representative” (though they re described that way in my passport), they are viceroys (vice kings) so exercise royal prerogatives. Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for pedantry like this. TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather i…

> TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power.

> Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.

Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down. The German Chancellor (in other countries, the Prime Minister) wields all the power instead.

Plus, you know, they're only presidents. After 4-5-6-7 (x2 in some cases) years they go away.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#182

Post by pengaru »

famahar wrote: post #19

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

I've walked across SF multiple times, it is fun, but maybe doesn't qualify being not even 10 miles. A fit person can easily run it.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#183

Post by dreamcompiler »

famahar wrote: post #129
tetrep wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map). Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).

With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same time doesn't.

TIL disposable cameras are still available, and apparently quite popular for weddings.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#184

Post by Cockbrand »

coldtea wrote: post #94
Cockbrand wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moscow is in the very east of Russia I'm confused, did you mean to say that Moscow is in the very West of Russia?

Yes, west. (Well, technically not the very very west, but pretty close given the scale of that country).

Thanks! Geography isn't my strength, so I was genuinely confused :)

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#185

Post by googlryas »

NeoTar wrote: post #119
pjc50 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.) Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.

I did the same - taking only the kings/queens of England (i.e. starting with Alfred and ending with Queen Anne, ignoring those after the unification of the United Kingdom). Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by brother (6 from 50). The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach) and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monar…

I was really hoping that Charles would just be king for a day and give it to William thereafter. Get some fresh blood in there, as well as a figure that didn't have 50 years of somewhat controversial behavior lined up behind them.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#186

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

developer93 wrote: post #96
draven wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoes are not strictly necessary either, but they help. Trekking poles help, and I also need them to pitch my tent, so I'll keep them.

They come as part of the tent or what? Tell me more I'm intrigued.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32965526071.html

If you want a 'cheap' option that uses trekking poles.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#187

Post by gumby »

oblio wrote: post #181
gumby wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governors General are more than a mere “representative” (though they re described that way in my passport), they are viceroys (vice kings) so exercise royal prerogatives. Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for pedantry like this. TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather i…

> TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power. > Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG. Me…

> Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down.

Indeed, that is the point. But the PM can be replaced more easily than, and doesn't have the same focus of attention of, the head of state. Best is when the two are muddled, as in the German case.

I've lived in Australia, USA, France and Germany so have some idea of the spectrum of options.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#188

Post by martin_a »

mcv wrote: post #87
martin_a wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems. Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D

Some ICEs only go to Basel, but there are definitely ICEs going all the way to Bern and Interlaken. Which is a funny thing: Interlaken is officially a town of 5700 people, and yet they're got two train stations receiving international high-speed trains. I guess it's really a town of 5700 Swiss and 100,000 tourists. And the ICEs that started in Interlaken left on time. But once our train to Switzerland got delayed, I…

I think they want to get rid of the trains going to Interlaken directly. At least that's what I read in the SZ [0].

If you haven't seen it, there's the great talk from David Kriesel on the 36C3 [1] about how Deutsche Bahn is... "doing statistics" to hide their delays. It's well worth the hour!

[0]: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/deutsche-bahn-verspaetunge...

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#189

Post by ianburrell »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #183
famahar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same time doesn't.

TIL disposable cameras are still available, and apparently quite popular for weddings.

I’m surprised they are still a thing of weddings now that everyone has smartphones. Maybe they are considered nostalgic for the period before smartphones and digital cameras. Or maybe there is no good way to share photos from guests.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#190

Post by martin_a »

developer93 wrote: post #169
mcv wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression of German Pünktlichkeit certainly took a big hit. In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to my belief in the German railway system. After this trip, my brother and dad (who have a lot more international train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal state of thin…

As someone who's lived here 10 years you're spot on. I hear it all went to pot when they tried to reorganise DB to prepare it for privatisation, which never really happened, and centralised everything around Frankfurt. So now it's in a quasi independent state which no one seems very prioritised about fixing. Hey at least there's the cheap (Deutschland) ticket now.

This kind of hits the core.

As the DB (Deutsche Bahn) is a private company now (although they are 100% owned by the state), they have to make a profit.

How do you make a profit? Either raise prices or lower costs. Doing both is the best and that's what they do. Raising prices is easy, it just gets more and more expensive, even the "cheap" Deutschlandticket is too expensive, experts say it should probably be around 29 Euro/month to make a real change.

How do you save costs? You do only the bare minimum of maintenance, don't invest in building more tracks and instead reduce tracks and track switches. That's what they've done the last 20 years or so. [0]

This leads to ICEs being stuck behind slower trains as there are simply no more tracks to switch to and pass cargo trains etc. So, if some train gets stuck somewhere or has a defect, every other train is stuck behind that for some time.

Now, as the state subsidizes some parts of Deutsche Bahn, building something new is also cheaper than maintaining what is there. So they let some things rot down so far that they have to rebuild it completely. As the subsidization is then higher, that's better for the turnaround numbers.

There have been thoughts about splitting off building and maintenance of the tracks completely of the rest but that didn't work so far. In that scenario the state would take care of the infrastructure and DB would just "rent" it to drive on it.

To add something else to it:

I think David Kriesel has it in his talk [1]: DB also "found out", that you can reduce delays in your overall network when you start skipping stops or canceling them completely. If you know that you're too late at your last two stops, just cancel those stops completely.

Cancelled stops are not part of the delay statistics of DB, so not driving somewhere at all is, statistically seen, better than arriving there late. Only a little bit problematic for the people that want to get there or board there.

Turning around early also has the "advantage" that your new train will be back on time again easier.

It's a mess for long distance travel.

[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Netz#Netzentwicklung [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk

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