xkcd

by **UniqueScreenname** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:06 pm UTC

I did all of the Truth or Fails on YouTube.

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 1:32 pm UTC

Mass Transportation out of this city is almost non-existent. Where is the underground railroad when you need it! No bus, no rail. Let me add that to the con list. Why doesn't America have an efficient rail system? I don't wanna spend St Pat's day here:( Oh well, busily working on my exit strategy.

by **emceng** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:01 pm UTC

The Cat wrote: Why doesn't America have an efficient rail system?.

Low population density

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:20 pm UTC

I understand how it's not cost effective for rural areas of America. I'm talking high speed rail. The reduced commute time would open up opportunity for environmentally friendly growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China

by **UniqueScreenname** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:29 pm UTC

Possibly sea level. I know in Florida we can't even have basements. There's a house in my neighborhood where the pool was drained and the watershed (don't know if that's the right word) was so high that it pushed the pool right out of the ground. I have no idea what LA's sea level is though.

by **emceng** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:31 pm UTC

Yeah, but in California you'd spend about $10 billion just doing environmental impact studies to lay out the route, before the lawsuits over how the new railroad adversely affects minority populations.

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:40 pm UTC

No, fuck that. You're looking at the now. Fuck the now. Why didn't we do it 80 years ago?

Cars.

by **UniqueScreenname** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:41 pm UTC

Do they have taxis there? Now that I think about it, it does seem ridiculous. New York is just really well set up. Everything is compact and easy to walk to, plus the cabs and the subway. How did LA get to be such a mess?

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:44 pm UTC

Yeah, but in California you'd spend about $10 billion just doing environmental impact studies to lay out the route, before the lawsuits over how the new railroad adversely affects minority populations.

I think you'd have more uproar from the "stay off my lawn" and "save the tillapease sparrow" crowds. I think congress needs a little more fiber in it's diet

poor people typically welcome the opportunity to find a job outside of their extremely confined socioeconomic environment. Why do you think their are so many Irish in America? Happy St. Pats!

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:46 pm UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:Do they have taxis there? Now that I think about it, it does seem ridiculous. New York is just really well set up. Everything is compact and easy to walk to, plus the cabs and the subway. How did LA get to be such a mess?

Post-War American Dream, of everyone owning a house on a half acre lot with 2.5 kids and a two car garage.

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:00 pm UTC

The bus system here will take you everywhere except the affluent areas :-)

Lets do a study! Compare and contrast property values and bus/train maps in your area. At what price do buses slow down or stop running? Does the geographic separation prevent big walls and sliding steel gates? In what areas is this most prominent? It could be an interesting study.....

Just checked in my area. They don't like buses within 2-8 miles of any beach. It must be a demand issue! No one likes to go to the beach! If they expanded their bus system and promoted a "safe way to spend a night on the town", maybe they wouldn't have record numbers of DUIs. Go management!

by **Rium** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 6:57 pm UTC

I just found the bathroom’s resonant frequency by humming. The bathroom will be about 150 % more fun from now on.

by **Ptolom** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:39 pm UTC

emceng wrote:
The Cat wrote: Why doesn't America have an efficient rail system?.

Low population density

Why doesn't Britain have an efficient rail system?
Small population area

by **Felstaff** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:46 pm UTC

It's efficient! Just... expensive.

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:54 pm UTC

Dude, I think it becomes less expensive when we start totaling up the related cost....

by **darknut** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:06 am UTC

outside my window there is currently a double rainbow. all the way across the sky
what does it meeean

by **Zarq** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:09 am UTC

so intense

by **suffer-cait** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:24 am UTC

/me is from hawaii
/hawaii is some what impressed by triple rainbows, but not too much

by **The Cat** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:20 am UTC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC8JVz5eDl4

I believe we call this the delegate dosado! (square dance for all y'all who just checked in). A more appropriate title would be "Pimp thug for life". Pimp those delegates! Must be the money! Ho!

P.S.

I love tiny!

by **The EGE** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:45 am UTC

Felstaff wrote:It's efficient! Just... expensive.

Can you give some general numbers? I'm curious to compare.

In the US:

Metro ride: $1.70 / ₤1.07 (Boston) to $6.00 / ₤3.79 (Longer ride on distance-based system)

30-mile commuter rail ride: $7.00 / ₤4.42 to $12.00 / ₤7.58

100-mile intercity rail ride: $30 / ₤19 to $50 / ₤32

100-mile high-speed intercity ride: $70 / ₤44 to $100 / ₤63

by **Thesh** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:00 am UTC

emceng wrote:Yeah, but in California you'd spend about $10 billion just doing environmental impact studies to lay out the route, before the lawsuits over how the new railroad adversely affects minority populations.

Los Angeles actually had good public transportation at one point.

Here's where the red car used to go:

http://museumsanfernandovalley.blogspot ... f-van.html

by **Magnanimous** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:25 am UTC

SexyTalon wrote:
UniqueScreenname wrote:Do they have taxis there? Now that I think about it, it does seem ridiculous. New York is just really well set up. Everything is compact and easy to walk to, plus the cabs and the subway. How did LA get to be such a mess?

Post-War American Dream, of everyone owning a house on a half acre lot with 2.5 kids and a two car garage.

And of course, this affects basically every city in the west. Seattle has horrible traffic problems.

by **Steax** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:01 am UTC

I still haven't figured out how YouTube's "view count" works. How can a video have thousands of comments but only a few set views?

by **Josephine** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 8:18 am UTC

It has view counts like 301 for a while on every video that gets a lot of views quickly. I forget why, it might be a secutiry thing, or how it records them, or something like that. But that's not the actual view count.

by **Arisu** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:28 am UTC

It's to prevent people from increasing their view count by refreshing constantly (or other similar unfair means)
at 300+ views youtube puts the counter at pause and starts seeing whether or not all those hits are from unique sources or not.
It usually starts updating again after a few hours.

by **eSOANEM** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 11:22 am UTC

Felstaff wrote:It's efficient! Just... expensive.

Not if you live out my way. It used to be we had two ways to get into London, the tube into Baker Street or the overground to Marylebone, each with a train at least every half-hour, taking about the same time and costing the same. Now though, the met line trains take about 50% extra because they decided to drop all the fast services and the Chiltern line trains from Marylebone leave half as often. It leads to a lot of standing around.

The EGE wrote:
Felstaff wrote:It's efficient! Just... expensive.

Can you give some general numbers? I'm curious to compare.

Spending the whole day travelling on the tube in London can cost upwards of £10 without an Oyster (although if you're only sticking to central London, £8.40 will, if you buy the right tickets, be the most you pay).

by **The Cat** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:22 pm UTC

Los Angeles actually had good public transportation at one point.

Here's where the red car used to go:

http://museumsanfernandovalley.blogspot ... f-van.html

They've done a great deal to "force out the bad element" in the Venice Santa Monica areas. Everything from rerouting buses to increased property taxes. It's been awhile, but I remember something to do with rent control.

I can't wait to get back to the Sierra's this summer.

________________

I thought London's rail system was great. It could use a little modernizing....Are they doing that for the Olympics?

by **UniqueScreenname** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:34 pm UTC

The metro in Vienna was the simplest one I have ever encountered. I just made so much sense. However, the city isn't that big and essentially a square, so it makes it easy to define.

by **dhokarena56** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:39 pm UTC

I want to become dictator. After outlawing corporations and mass-murdering their lobbyists, I will ban suburbia, put most of the country's major cities on individual currencies, sign the Schengen Accords, and put a $10 tax on gasoline not being used for mass transit. I will also restrict the franchise to mathematicians, historians, logicians and scientists. I will also operate several fleets of black helicopters whose sole purpose is to fly around and make people paranoid that I'm going to institute the New World Order, which will be amusing.

by **Jumble** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:44 pm UTC

The Cat wrote:I thought London's rail system was great. It could use a little modernizing....Are they doing that for the Olympics?

No, not really.

They're building something called 'cross rail' which will, I gather, give us an east-west cross London mainline rail link, to go withe the north-south link on the thameslink line. For some reason that means the north-south line currently doesnt run across London at weekends. This won't be finished until 2018 (if we're lucky). They are building some posh new stations on the thameslink service. The refurbished Blackriars is shaping up to be quite impressive and will apparently include solar panels all the way across Blackfriars rail bridge.

Other than that they seem to think we can cope with the Jubilee line, which they refurbished and extended 10 years ago. They are coping with the expected over capacity by telling Londoners that we can expect our journey to work to take us (at least) twice as long and perhaps we should walk instead (26 miles each way in my case). I'm in the process of trying to rebuild my Brompton. It's going to be fun....

by **Hyphe** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:09 pm UTC

Don't forget the Games Lanes! My route to work is via bus, on roads with one bus lane and one normal lane. For three weeks the bus lane will be out of use and so my bus (and all the ambulances!) are going to have to crawl along on the already-heavily-congested normal lane.

They have improved the Victoria line for the Olympics, and quite a few stations have better escalators. Mostly they didn't improve things specifically for the Games, but just brought the already-needed things forward a bit.

by **The Cat** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:33 pm UTC

Other than that they seem to think we can cope with the Jubilee line, which they refurbished and extended 10 years ago. They are coping with the expected over capacity by telling Londoners that we can expect our journey to work to take us (at least) twice as long and perhaps we should walk instead (26 miles each way in my case). I'm in the process of trying to rebuild my Brompton. It's going to be fun....

Folding bike, never knew the brand. Great bike. Well, I hope you get to shag many Olympians to make up for the inconvenience. Speaking of, I wonder if Harry had a good time in Nowhere and Jerome AZ. Bugs n all.... Cheers!

by **SurgicalSteel** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:08 pm UTC

Really not feeling like going to work this afternoon

by **Cathy** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:18 am UTC

sitting on my bed with a laptop swaying back and forth. Looks almost like when I was 16 and cookoo but now I'm 21 and happy and tipsy and shit. Growing up is pretty fuckingcool. It's nice.

I'm married, motherfucker

My dad doesn't have my bank accounts anymore! woooohooooooo. I can pay for my own fucking college now!

Honeymoons are fun.

Maybe this shouldhave gone in the actual drunkenness thread. But it really feels like Rnandom meandering to the morgue.

by **dhokarena56** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 4:29 am UTC

I'm sick of the primaries. I'm sick of these bastards. Hell, even Reinhard would be preferable to the motley assortment of Trunicht knockoffs running.

by **SecondTalon** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:55 am UTC

dhokarena56 wrote:I will ban suburbia

How?

, put most of the country's major cities on individual currencies,

That... why do you think that's a good idea?

by **It Should Be Real** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:33 am UTC

I have eaten too many lemon tarts and now I feel sick. In a completely unrelated vein, due to some sort of tart eating indoors hurricane (?) my mam is getting 4 lemon tarts for mother's day instead of 12.

by **Mumpy** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:14 am UTC

SexyTalon wrote:
dhokarena56 wrote:put most of the country's major cities on individual currencies,
That... why do you think that's a good idea?

Not that I know much about the economics of it, but Bristol has just brought in the bristol pound. Tied to GBP, it's only accepted in Bristol and can be traded for normal currency in most places, the idea is that it keeps money in the local economy. I'm not too sure why people won't just take GBP out instead of BP, but how this all turns out will be kinda interesting to watch.

http://bristolpound.org/

by **bigglesworth** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 11:06 am UTC

Cathy wrote:sitting on my bed with a laptop swaying back and forth.

I sway my laptop back and forth
I sway my laptop back and forth
I sway my laptop back and forth
I sway my laptop back and forth

by **The Cat** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 12:10 pm UTC

I have eaten too many lemon tarts and now I feel sick. In a completely unrelated vein, due to some sort of tart eating indoors hurricane (?) my mam is getting 4 lemon tarts for mother's day instead of 12.

Dear lord, I just found an entire cheese burger and fries in my bathroom sink. Oddly enough, it was right next to my St. Paddys day attire. Its gonna be a long morning.

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