Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#51

Post by glofish » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #38

looki wrote: post #9

Regarding the trains, >They are usually on time and cover basically everywhere worth visiting in Europe. He has a very ungerman definition of usually on time :) There's probably not a bigger laughing stock in Germany than our trains (Okay, there is BER). The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time [1]. If you have tight transfers to make, that can get very annoying. I also thought the ICE and…

Here in the US, Amtrak considers within 30 minutes to be "on time"... and struggles a lot even with that. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-amtrak-cant-run-trains-on-t... > The Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles, had an on-time performance of 4 percent in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. For the California Zephyr, connecting Chicago and San Francisco, the figure was 7 percent. In the current fi…

ok but the California Zephyr covers 4000 km - that's like going from Madrid to Moscow - I doubt any train or set of trains over that distance ever arrives on time.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#52

Post by cookie_monsta » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #3

> [My car is] impractical with only two doors and four seats I like four doors, but only two isn't too bad (drove one of those for five years). Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia? The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here. I've recently been thinking about a 2-seater to save on gas/CO2 since I have no kids anyway and you c…

> Is this from a Brisbane dialect or something?

It's just a general Australian thing of abbreviating anything with too many syllables by chopping as much as possible off the end and adding an "o"

Smoke break => smoko, Bottle shop => Bottle-o, garbage man => garbo

It's even more popular to do it with a "y" (football =>footy, present => prezzie, tantrum => tanty)

In this case it gets confusing because we call a gas/petrol station a "service station" which of course inevitably became the servo, I guess because servy sounded a bit too weird, even for us.

The online version of the most popular Australian dictionary, the Macquarie, is behind a login but my hardcopy version doesn't list servo anyway (although it does list other Oz colloquialisms like bludger). You can find references to it in the Collins[1] and also slang sites like KoalaNet[2]

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/servo [2] http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#53

Post by cosmodisk » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

mtmail wrote: post #21

learnstats2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The long-distance ones only arrive within 5 minutes 75% of the time. By standards I am familiar with, that's good. Last time I checked, my local train station had trains arriving within 10 minutes only 50% of the time.

"In Germany, there are two kinds of "on time". So far [2017], 94.2% of trains have reached their final destination within six minutes of the scheduled time, and 98.9% within 16 minutes." The article also goes into detail how every country measures punctuality differently. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42024020 (Yes, Germans love to complain about the train company)

I see Germans taking best lessons from English counterparts... Reached last destination my ass...

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#54

Post by cosmodisk » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #41

lucb1e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% punctual is good? Because I usually use the long-distance train when I need to go somewhere, not to go for a drink, and having a 1 in 4 chance of being late at a customer's or missing a plane... I dunno, that's not really a chance you want to take, so you end up planning for 1-2 hours of delay every single time, depending on how bad it is if you're late due to no fault of your own (a departing plane won't care bu…

> 75% punctual is good? Because I usually use the long-distance train when I need to go somewhere, not to go for a drink, and having a 1 in 4 chance of being late at a customer's or missing a plane... If you're gonna miss a plane because a train is more than 5 minutes late (I'm guessing closer to 10 or so, not 30), then you didn't plan your trip to the airport that well...

While I agree with you on the planning part, it still doesn't chsnge the fact thst a train can't reach all the stations on time, despite having a predefined schedule,almost no traffic and etc.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#55

Post by lucb1e » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:51 AM UTC

looki wrote: post #39

lucb1e wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which city do you live in, if I may ask? I don't think I've seen a self checkout anywhere* though I haven't been to most supermarkets in any given city (of course) so I might totally have missed them by chance. * I've been to supermarkets in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Stuttgart (and many smaller cities/towns/villages of course, but I guess there it would be less likely). > Good to know yo…

I live in the Ruhr area. They're definitely still relatively rare (I haven't seen them in the most common stores like Aldi, Rewe), so it's not too surprising you've missed them. I guess that will change within the next couple of years. I have a pretty good experiencce with O2 also, but I'm aware that it can be completely unusable in rural areas. Luckily, I don't really leave the city boundaries much. EDIT: I just rem…

Ruhr area is not very far from here. I will be on the lookout for self-registers next time I'm in Essen!

As for mobile networks, I think all of them are frequently unusable in rural areas. Between Aachen and Cologne (I most frequently travel there), which is not a quiet route, I think at least half the time there is 2G or nothing at all. I should measure that some time. My work phone (Telekom) doesn't have better reception than mine (Dutch network using O2). Without measuring, I would actually estimate that O2 is the better deal around here.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#56

Post by cookie_monsta » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

quelltext wrote: post #8

> It’s also more difficult for me as a I have a US layout keyboard at home and a German layout at work. I'd hate tp be forced to use a specific layout governed by my employer and I'm glad it's not been a problem so far to get a replacement keyboard with US layout. It's pretty common nowadays for developers to simply prefer the US layout if their country's is not great, like the German one that makes typing braces etc…

Is it not possible to BYO keyboard? This must be a productivity drag on a lot of people in similar situations

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#57

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

glofish wrote: post #51

ceejayoz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the US, Amtrak considers within 30 minutes to be "on time"... and struggles a lot even with that. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-amtrak-cant-run-trains-on-t... > The Coast Starlight, which runs between Seattle and Los Angeles, had an on-time performance of 4 percent in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30. For the California Zephyr, connecting Chicago and San Francisco, the figure was 7 percent. In the current fi…

ok but the California Zephyr covers 4000 km - that's like going from Madrid to Moscow - I doubt any train or set of trains over that distance ever arrives on time.

Amtrak doesn't fare much better when you evaluate it on smaller sections of the routes. Not owning the rails tends to put them at the mercy of freight trains. I've seen some of the longer routes on https://asm.transitdocs.com/map have 1-2 day delays marked at times. I arrived eight hours late the last time I went from Rochester to NYC (~500 km).

Look at https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2019/12/13/19 and you'll see it's been losing substantial time at almost every stop along the way.

Ride some Swiss or German trains and then try out Amtrak and the difference will be difficult to deny.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#58

Post by glofish » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #57

glofish wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok but the California Zephyr covers 4000 km - that's like going from Madrid to Moscow - I doubt any train or set of trains over that distance ever arrives on time.

Amtrak doesn't fare much better when you evaluate it on smaller sections of the routes. Not owning the rails tends to put them at the mercy of freight trains. I've seen some of the longer routes on https://asm.transitdocs.com/map have 1-2 day delays marked at times. I arrived eight hours late the last time I went from Rochester to NYC (~500 km). Look at https://asm.transitdocs.com/train/2019/12/13/19 and you'll see i…

Sure, I got no love for Amtrak. Just pointing out that we should criticize it for short trips not 4000km ones.

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#59

Post by WhiteAussie » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 3:07 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #3

> [My car is] impractical with only two doors and four seats I like four doors, but only two isn't too bad (drove one of those for five years). Seats though, is it normal to own a bus in Australia? The people I would expect to own a car with more than two rows of seats are families with 4+ kids, which is nobody here. I've recently been thinking about a 2-seater to save on gas/CO2 since I have no kids anyway and you c…

Maybe reconsider the no kids thing. Then you'll have the best reasons in the world for a larger car!

Re: Moving to Germany as an Australian (2016)

#60

Post by livueta » Sun, Dec 15, 2019, 3:19 AM UTC

fefe23 wrote: post #44

chki wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People from Africa or Asia routinely get held at extraterritorial prisons indefinitely. In case you have mixed ancestry and look like "people of color" be cautious. Not regarding anything else you are claiming this is quite an outrageous claim and I have no recollection of such things going on in Germany for the last few years. It would also be a severe violation of the German constitution if this would be happening…

Germany does not have extraterritorial prison colonies. I think this is a combination of hyperbole and choosing the wrong word. Germany does have housing for refugees and asylum seekers while they wait for asylum to be granted or denied, and the conditions there might be construed as prison-like depending on your political point of view. Technically it's not a prison. Asylum seekers are not permitted to do paid work,…

> Also, dear American friends, the biggest reasons for refugees from the middle east fleeing to Europe are a) your constant wars and meddling in the area

While you're not entirely wrong about that, there's more than enough blame to go around:

Via the Sykes-Picot agreement, the British, French and sorta the Italians laid the groundwork for centuries of violence by betraying the Arabs (who helped them topple the Ottomans) in order to further their own colonial and arguably Zionist objectives.

More recently, the French were the first to go all-in against Gadaffi. While the US piled on later, it's difficult to argue that the US is the sole military provocator in recent middle-eastern refugee-spawning wars.

I overall agree with your points, but attempting to declaim all responsibility by pointing at the big evil Americans comes off as ahistorical, head-in-sand deflection.