The Vent and Rant Thread

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I always worry about how we'll ALL cope, if electricity is gone for a significant period of time (re your A/C 24/7/365). Say, if someone disrupts our power grid ....

We had that in the great Northeast Blackout. We managed, but it wasn't fun. (I was the systems/network/telecom admin for my shop, waiting for power to be restored so I could go in and start getting stuff back up again. The telephone system had its own power so I could keep in touch with my superiors, and a chap in my building had a radio he could keep powered by turning a crank and was out of the corner broadcasting updates as power was restored area by area.)

We had a lesser variant during Hurricane Sandy, which we rode back into from NC where my SO was visiting her older brother in the hospital. (He didn't come out. ) I live in the area of Manhattan that was below 34 St and without power, so we camped out for a week with a friend in Brooklyn who had power till we could go back home.
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Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

We had that in the great Northeast Blackout. We managed, but it wasn't fun. (I was the systems/network/telecom admin for my shop, waiting for power to be restored so I could go in and start getting stuff back up again. The telephone system had its own power so I could keep in touch with my superiors, and a chap in my building had a radio he could keep powered by turning a crank and was out of the corner broadcasting updates as power was restored area by area.)

In 65? I was still on LI in 65, so, ya, I remember it. Not to mention the subsequent "baby boom," although I've never bothered to check to see whether that's fact or urban myth. ;-)

We had a lesser variant during Hurricane Sandy, which we rode back into from NC where my SO was visiting her older brother in the hospital. (He didn't come out. ) I live in the area of Manhattan that was below 34 St and without power, so we camped out for a week with a friend in Brooklyn who had power till we could go back home.
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Dennis

Hmmm...sure it's not you, bringing catastrophe with you? Lessee, wasn't there a Hurricane Dennis about 10 years back? ;-)

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

In 65? I was still on LI in 65, so, ya, I remember it. Not to mention the subsequent "baby boom," although I've never bothered to check to see whether that's fact or urban myth. ;-)

No, the more recent one in 2003 caused by a cascade failure in the NE power grid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northe...ackout_of_2003

In 65 I was still living in Philly,

Hmmm...sure it's not you, bringing catastrophe with you? Lessee, wasn't there a Hurricane Dennis about 10 years back? ;-)

Pure coincidence, though coming back into it had moments. We stayed in a motel outside Harrisburg for a couple of nights because weather farther east was nasty. The associated diner had storm coverage on TV, and an older couple were positive there was rioting and looting in NYC. "No. I live there. The Police Commissioner put out the word, and every cop in uniform is on the street. And it's cold and rain. Nobody is out rioting and looting in that! NYC is not New Orleans."

We drove back in via I-87, whose eastern terminus was the Holland Tunnel. That was flooded out. There was a detour north to the Lincoln Tunnel, but that went through Hoboken, which was also partially flooded. (I had to get out and push when we stalled out in a couple of feet of water at an intersection.) Traffic in upper Manhattan was a zoo, Power was out in lower Manhattan and we were grimly amused to see the few vehicles on the street proceeding very slowly and carefully, and looking all ways before proceeding. My building was without power, so we camped out in Brooklyn with a friend for a few days.

I believe there was a Hurricane Dennis, but I disclaim any connection.
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Dennis

[wodin]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Phew.. I drive for a community organization, taking people to and from appointments, bringing clients to a program for dementia sufferers etc. Late last year they added GPS trackers to all vehicles to ensure we don't speed, go to our homes etc. Luckily to this point I've had no issues, until this afternoon 😣

My boss called me in to let me know I'd been speeding last Friday on a road downtown. All I could think was that it was on a stretch where I'd just come off an elevated expressway onto a road at ground level. My boss was surprised as she knows I'm a very careful driver, and was just letting me know with no consequences.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought the alert was false. I had her send me a copy of the report and BINGO I saw what had happened. I'd driven downtown on a highway called the DVP that links onto an elevated highway, the Gardner. Underneath the Gardner is a road called the Lakeshore. I'd taken the ramp up to the Gardner. The alerting company used the GPS to show I was on the Lakeshore (with a low speed limit) as opposed to the Gardner (with a high speed limit). Obviously they ignore the elevation data from the GPS.

Fortunately I also use an app on my SmartPhone that records my driving, so I've been able to share that data with her.

Whenever there's a dispute, the robot's always right.

[wodin]

Flooding on Maui, plenty wet on Oahu too, Kauai's OK, I haven't heard about the Big Island so that means they're prolly OK too.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wodin

Flooding on Maui, plenty wet on Oahu too, Kauai's OK, I haven't heard about the Big Island so that means they're prolly OK too.

Just saw some TV coverage of Taipei, which is getting smacked by a "super monsoon". You really don't want to be out in it, as a chap on a motor scooter in the coverage was discovering. The coast of China is bracing for it.
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Dennis

[wodin]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Just saw some TV coverage of Taipei, which is getting smacked by a "super monsoon". You really don't want to be out in it, as a chap on a motor scooter in the coverage was discovering. The coast of China is bracing for it.
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Dennis

That's a super "typhoon", which is what they call hurricanes in the northwest Pacific, and yes Taiwan is getting hit hard with sustained winds at 200 MPH.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wodin

That's a super "typhoon", which is what they call hurricanes in the northwest Pacific, and yes Taiwan is getting hit hard with sustained winds at 200 MPH.

Yeah, my bad on monsoon vs typhoon.

I'm waiting to see the impact on the consumer electronics market, since an awful lot of stuff is made in Taiwan. I don't think the actual fabs are in a position to be affected, but folks with supply chain responsibilities will be concerned about shipping delays. Won't be the first time...
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Dennis

[Rumpelteazer]

My sister and I went to Bruges on Sunday, I had booked the train tickets on the international website of the Dutch Railway (NS) and had loaded the tickets into the app on my phone. One of the options in the app is to switch on alerts in case there are any delays or problems on your route, which I had switched on.

On Sunday we leave early for the train station because we wanted to buy sandwiches and snacks for the 4 hour journey. Before we left I checked the international app and according to it there were no problems. However, when we got to the station we see on that there is planned maintenance on our route to Rotterdam and that about three quarters of the journey had to be done by bus. This adds about half an hour to our journey, which would mean we would miss our connecting train to Antwerp. Luckily we're early and we just catch the earlier train to Rotterdam. We should arrive around 10.44am and should easily make the 11.08 train to Antwerp.

At Woerden we get off train and in the bus. Our bus driver drives very slowly and he must have set his GPS to "small car" and not "big bus" because just before we reach the station he turns into a residential area with very narrow streets and gets stuck in a tight bend. With the help of some bystanders he manages to reverse out of the bend and slowly back out of the street. This all takes over 15 minutes and add to that he had to figure out how to drive from the station from there we arrived at Rotterdam Station at 11.09am. One minute after our train left.

We had two options from there: wait 59 minutes for the next train or go to a different station to get a train to Antwerp from there. The latter would be quicker, however, on that route there was also maintenance with a replacing bus service. We didn't want to risk that so we waited for nearly an hour. All in all it the train trip took 90 minutes longer and we were an hour later at the hotel. It also caused a lot of stress, having to quickly find out what we had to do to make our connections and what the alternatives were.

You would think that the international app would also list maintenance and alternative routes. For next time I know I should also check the regular app to see if there are any problems.

[Katsunami]

And then our government keeps asking itself:

"Why are so few people using public transport?"

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

You would think that the international app would also list maintenance and alternative routes. For next time I know I should also check the regular app to see if there are any problems.

Probably the international app only looks at the international train and not the local trains. For that you would of course need the regular app. Linking the international app to the local data as well would be too logical and customer friendly of course.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

And then our government keeps asking itself:

"Why are so few people using public transport?"

That has more to do with the pricing I think... I have used public transport for work for many years. I only had delays about 4 times a year. Most people that complain about the trains never use them... Or they use them in the weekend when a there is a higher chance of planned maintenance.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

That has more to do with the pricing I think... I have used public transport for work for many years. I only had delays about 4 times a year. Most people that complain about the trains never use them... Or they use them in the weekend when a there is a higher chance of planned maintenance.

I'm not in one of the big cities. Have you ever used public transport when in a small town, or even a village? Because of poor eyesight, I'm not allowed to participate in traffic, except on foot. At this time, my travel time to work is 1 hour if everything works as it should, otherwise it's 1,5 hours, and I have two bus switches during that time.

Distance between my house and work is only 10 km as the bird flies.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm not in one of the big cities. Have you ever used public transport when in a small town, or even a village? Because of poor eyesight, I'm not allowed to participate in traffic, except on foot. At this time, my travel time to work is 1 hour if everything works as it should, otherwise it's 1,5 hours, and I have two bus switches during that time.

Distance between my house and work is only 10 km as the bird flies.

Oh, goodness. That's awful. I live about 5.6 km from work and am grateful that I can bike (or drive if I have the car that day). There is a bus but I have a .64 km walk from home to the bus stop, then a 1.4 km walk from where the bus drops me off to work. The bus does do bike and ride, so I will use that when I don't bike the whole way.

The bus service isn't completely reliable, either. I'm in a smallish (for a city), oldish (for a city in the U.S.), only somewhat-sprawl-ish city. There is no public transportation from the outlying small towns. The rural-now-suburban town I grew up in doesn't even have a Greyhound bus connection to NOLA anymore. In my great-grandparents' day, there was a regular train. My great-grandfather used it (he did have an apartment in the city on the campus of the school where he worked, though).

[Rumpelteazer]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

Probably the international app only looks at the international train and not the local trains. For that you would of course need the regular app. Linking the international app to the local data as well would be too logical and customer friendly of course.

Nope, yesterday I got a message the train between Rotterdam and Utrecht was delayed. Luckily we not only took an earlier train, we also took a slightly different route to avoid having 3 minutes to transfer train from platform 16 to platform 2.

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm not in one of the big cities. Have you ever used public transport when in a small town, or even a village? Because of poor eyesight, I'm not allowed to participate in traffic, except on foot. At this time, my travel time to work is 1 hour if everything works as it should, otherwise it's 1,5 hours, and I have two bus switches during that time.

Distance between my house and work is only 10 km as the bird flies.

I don't live in a big city, not really. I have travelled all across the country by public transport. You are right, sometimes it is ridiculous. When I need to go to the airport, public transport will take me 1.5 hours. By car about 15-20 minutes...