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The Old Hack

Story Wednesday January 31, 2018

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41 minutes ago, ijuin said:

During rush hour, nobody is going to be going 65 in California. Traffic congestion must be taken into account, and the first and fifth most congested traffic areas in the WORLD are the Los Angeles area and San Francisco area.

Can't be any worse than trying to take the 401 through Toronto during rush hour with construction or accidents turning up to 9 lanes into 2 or 3 in some spots.

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12 hours ago, ijuin said:

During rush hour, nobody is going to be going 65 in California. Traffic congestion must be taken into account, and the first and fifth most congested traffic areas in the WORLD are the Los Angeles area and San Francisco area.

It all depends on when you're on the roads...

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I thought it was because everybody is in a rush to get to their workplaces. Requiring most workers to start work at the same time of day, plus building the housing and the workplaces far apart, plus severely inadequate mass transit, equals half of the population needing to traverse the roads simultaneously.

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22 minutes ago, ijuin said:

I thought it was because everybody is in a rush to get to their workplaces. Requiring most workers to start work at the same time of day, plus building the housing and the workplaces far apart, plus severely inadequate mass transit, equals half of the population needing to traverse the roads simultaneously.

We have a similar expression in Danish, 'myldretid', or directly translated, 'throng time' or 'crowded time.'

What is hilarious is that the Danish verb in question is an old relative of 'to mill' (as in 'milling about'), so I guess it also translates into 'Miller time.' :D

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13 hours ago, ijuin said:

I thought it was because everybody is in a rush to get to their workplaces. Requiring most workers to start work at the same time of day, plus building the housing and the workplaces far apart, plus severely inadequate mass transit, equals half of the population needing to traverse the roads simultaneously.

1) In factory, everyone must be starting at same time. Not sure why should the same be true in office. Or in agriculture.

2) It is not good idea to build housing near factory's chimneys. Not sure why should the same be true for office. In agriculture, it doesn't make sense at all.

3) Why the factory is not taking responsibility of bringing all employers in at the same time by ensuring the mass transit is adequate, even if it would need to finance it?

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2 hours ago, animalia said:

That applies for intercity travel, but I was referring to commuter travel. Why is it that, even though I live in a town of 45 thousand people that is surrounded on three sides by a city of two hundred thousand, there is not a single bus line that stops within two kilometers of my house? My house is NOT located on the edge of anything--in fact I have to go more than two kilometers away in order to find ANY unbuilt space other than neighborhood parks.

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On 2/8/2018 at 2:29 AM, The Old Hack said:

We have a similar expression in Danish, 'myldretid', or directly translated, 'throng time' or 'crowded time.'

I was under the impression that Copenhagen was basically a bicycle-and-tram city. But I've never gotten much north of Madrid.

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48 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:
On 2/8/2018 at 11:29 AM, The Old Hack said:

We have a similar expression in Danish, 'myldretid', or directly translated, 'throng time' or 'crowded time.'

I was under the impression that Copenhagen was basically a bicycle-and-tram city. But I've never gotten much north of Madrid.

And now you know why.

(Wasn't that far north either, although I got much closer.)

 

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3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I was under the impression that Copenhagen was basically a bicycle-and-tram city. But I've never gotten much north of Madrid.

Oh, it is. Our public transport system is quite decent and you can get nearly everywhere on bicycle. But during rush hour everything is still packed.

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I imagine that even when we have teleportation technology available, "Rush Hour" will still drop rate of travel well below the speed of light.

Edited by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Posted before I was finished writing

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2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I imagine that even when we have teleportation technology available, "Rush Hour" will still drop rate of travel well below the speed of light.

True teleportation (unlike Star Trek transporters) uses space-folding and is literally impossible to be slow as the distance you travel is shortened to zero from your point of view.

However, it is possible the waiting for the space-folding will take longer during rush hour due to interference.

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8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

True teleportation (unlike Star Trek transporters) uses space-folding and is literally impossible to be slow as the distance you travel is shortened to zero from your point of view.

However, it is possible the waiting for the space-folding will take longer during rush hour due to interference.

Also, if the machines that facilitate the teleportation are large and/or expensive, there may be "teleportation stations", and there would likely be long lines for them during rush hour.

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On 2/4/2018 at 4:52 PM, hkmaly said:

Maybe Mrs. Kitsune doesn't have homophobia. She seems to place great emphasis on tradition. Relationship with Ellen isn't problem by itself, but she is likely afraid that Nanase won't have any children without husband, and no children means end of tradition. Maybe she stops seeing the problem after Nanase and Ellen explains being lesbian doesn't mean they can't have children.

My possibly-erroneous understanding is that it's common and accepted in Japanese culture for teenage girls to go through a period of romantic (and possibly sexual) interaction with other girls. Let's face it, this would offer at least one advantage over heterosexual interaction: no chance of pregnancy.

On the other hand, with all the effort Mamase puts into maintaining Japanese culture, we now know she went to high school in Moperville. (Because Raven was one of her teachers, and he's been teaching at the same high school for enough decades to be noteworthy.)

I'm still open to the possibility that Mamase swore a not-well-thought-out oath in response to Noriko's behavior, and settled on "it's just a phase" as a way of accepting Nanase and Ellen's relationship without violating that oath.

 

On 2/6/2018 at 1:15 PM, Vorlonagent said:

You can boil WW2 down to "Too much hubris on one side, not enough on the other."  But then you have to unpack it again to make it explain anything.

My summary of the cause of World War I is: the various national leaders were in a room full of open powder-kegs, laying a complex web of powder trails connecting them, and occasionally one of them - or someone else - would throw a lit match. Details of exactly which lit match would cause the explosion, really don't matter.

On details that actually occurred though... the terrorist who killed the Austrian Archduke declared himself a "Yugoslav". Yugoslavia did not exist. The creation of Yugoslavia would have been bad for Austria (because  a good chunk of the alleged territory of that mythical nation was in Austria as it then existed) and also bad for the Serbian government as it then existed (which had most of the rest of the territory, but would have been a minority of the resulting state). So it made no sense to blame the Serbian government for the terrorist's actions, even though he was legally a Serbian national.

Austria blamed the Serbian government anyway, and sent a list of I think it was six demands.

Serbia pointed out the obvious logical problem, and agreed to all but one of Austria's demands. The one rejected demand was that the Austrian government would appoint all of Serbia's judges - and they need not be Serbian.

On the basis of that one refusal, Austria declared war.

Now, remember all those powder-trails I mentioned? Russia and Serbia had a treaty specifically calling for Russia to aid Serbia if Austria declared war on Serbia. So Russia declared war on Austria. Austria and Germany had a similar treaty in case Russia would declare war on Austria. So Germany entered the war. Germany was aware of the complex network, and figured out that France was going to enter the war and not on their side - so Germany attacked France. And so on. And so on.

Thing is, if the war had started in a different manner, Germany could have been on the same side as France and/or Russia...

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3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Also, if the machines that facilitate the teleportation are large and/or expensive, there may be "teleportation stations", and there would likely be long lines for them during rush hour.

Bah.  I'll get a jaunting belt from Tim, I'm sure he can handle any guidance needed.  </ObscureChildhoodSciFi>

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3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Also, if the machines that facilitate the teleportation are large and/or expensive, there may be "teleportation stations", and there would likely be long lines for them during rush hour.

Yes. Obviously. But again, it wouldn't be the teleportation itself which is slow.

38 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

My possibly-erroneous understanding is that it's common and accepted in Japanese culture for teenage girls to go through a period of romantic (and possibly sexual) interaction with other girls. Let's face it, this would offer at least one advantage over heterosexual interaction: no chance of pregnancy.

On the other hand, with all the effort Mamase puts into maintaining Japanese culture, we now know she went to high school in Moperville. (Because Raven was one of her teachers, and he's been teaching at the same high school for enough decades to be noteworthy.)

I would say that no matter if that understanding is erroneous, it may be exactly the understanding Mamase has.

39 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I'm still open to the possibility that Mamase swore a not-well-thought-out oath in response to Noriko's behavior, and settled on "it's just a phase" as a way of accepting Nanase and Ellen's relationship without violating that oath.

Considering Noriko's behaviour didn't had anything to do with homosexual interaction, I would say the oath would need to be somehow related to having children. Which Mamase might not realize is still possible for Nanase and Ellen.

43 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

My summary of the cause of World War I is: the various national leaders were in a room full of open powder-kegs, laying a complex web of powder trails connecting them, and occasionally one of them - or someone else - would throw a lit match. Details of exactly which lit match would cause the explosion, really don't matter.

Sounds close enough.

43 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Russia and Serbia had a treaty specifically calling for Russia to aid Serbia if Austria declared war on Serbia. So Russia declared war on Austria. Austria and Germany had a similar treaty in case Russia would declare war on Austria. So Germany entered the war. Germany was aware of the complex network, and figured out that France was going to enter the war and not on their side - so Germany attacked France.

That makes one wonder: how many of similar treaties are still in effect? And how pissed would current national leaders need to be to actually go with it? Like, Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty was so far invoked just once, but ...

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11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That makes one wonder: how many of similar treaties are still in effect? And how pissed would current national leaders need to be to actually go with it?

Strangely, this is exactly the way the Trojan war began in legend.

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17 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:
11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That makes one wonder: how many of similar treaties are still in effect? And how pissed would current national leaders need to be to actually go with it?

Strangely, this is exactly the way the Trojan war began in legend.

Wait ... what so strange about it?

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4 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Wait ... what so strange about it?

You're right.  

There is no reason why anyone should expect Politicians to study classical literature, or even history.

Recently, candidates for the Republican Presidential Nomination were pressured into pledging support for the eventual nominee.  To prevent the GOP vote from being split by third party or independent candidates.  At the time I wanted to hear at least one of them reference how that plan resulted in the Trojan war.

They didn't.

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1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

At the time I wanted to hear at least one of them reference how that plan resulted in the Trojan war.

And here I thought it was started by someone holding a beauty contest where the winner got an apple.

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14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
15 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

At the time I wanted to hear at least one of them reference how that plan resulted in the Trojan war.

And here I thought it was started by someone holding a beauty contest where the winner got an apple.

"Holding"? It was improvised contest. That's why the price was known before the judge.

Also, in tradition remaining into today, the contest was decided by who bribed the judge best.

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25 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

"Holding"? It was improvised contest. That's why the price was known before the judge.

Nope. It wasn't improvised. It appeared to be improvised, true, and the contestants fell for it. But it was carefully devised in order to achieve the exact sort of outcome that it actually had.

26 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Also, in tradition remaining into today, the contest was decided by who bribed the judge best.

Mind, depending on the type of contest that one is getting a lot of competition from respectively careful use of pharmaceutics, blackmail and character assassination.

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6 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
35 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

"Holding"? It was improvised contest. That's why the price was known before the judge.

Nope. It wasn't improvised. It appeared to be improvised, true, and the contestants fell for it. But it was carefully devised in order to achieve the exact sort of outcome that it actually had.

It was totally improvised. Although the one providing the price did had outcome like this in her mind.

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