The Off Topic Topic

[Duque de Bragança]

Oh I also love the few voices on twitter calling for people to be in solidarity with the striking Tube workers. #FatChance

Public transport strikes are endemic over here. And get little sympathy.

It's a service that millions of people depend on, so the leverage unions have is tremendous. And boy, they love using it.

How French/Frank of them. 

[Syt]

Small anecdote from a friend who works at the worker's chamber and is responsible for all things commuting related. He said subway drivers have the lowest job satisfaction among Vienna's public transport employees. Apparently, all they do anymore is pressing "start" when the train's ready to go. Everything else is automated. Combined with spending a lot of time in tunnels, this apparently gets boring very fast.

The new U5 will be fully automated, and I guess once it's established the rest of the network will switch to automation (which requires re-furbishing all stations, e.g. have those barriers for people on the platform that open when the train's doors open).

[garbon]

Small anecdote from a friend who works at the worker's chamber and is responsible for all things commuting related. He said subway drivers have the lowest job satisfaction among Vienna's public transport employees. Apparently, all they do anymore is pressing "start" when the train's ready to go. Everything else is automated. Combined with spending a lot of time in tunnels, this apparently gets boring very fast.

Oh yeah, I think it would be a very dull job. However, it is also often a very well compensated (pay and benefits) so...

[Tamas]

Well, you know the British psyche and culture much more: would there be massive cheating if there were no barriers?

For example, I understand its akin to public shaming if you are caught not having a valid ticket in Germany, whereas in Hungary many people feel like a resistance fighter if they manage to travel without one.

[CountDeMoney]

"Allah is the greatest," what, man?  Don't leave me hanging!

Er, not the best translation, nor best understood out of context.

"The (One) God is most powerful"

It is at once an assertion of the unity of the Godhead (also the source of Muslim unitarian monotheism) and also an assertion of the primacy of the (Monotheistic) Abrahamic faiths over the older forms of polytheism.

Yeah, but the screenie had a comma, which tells me the sentence was not complete.

The King of Jordan (and the rightful Sharif of the Holy Places) sends his regards, CdM.

I look forward to getting together again for our charter fishing tournament this year.    

[The Larch]

Yeah, the no-barriers approach I have seen in most German cities is delightful. Ördnung.

They had no barriers in Rome either when I was living there, and inspectors were rarely seen, given the first impression that it was totally free.

Also, people got on the buses through back doors and the drivers didn't sell tickets and didn't check for them, so it was even complicated to do things legally sometimes.

[The Larch]

Small anecdote from a friend who works at the worker's chamber and is responsible for all things commuting related. He said subway drivers have the lowest job satisfaction among Vienna's public transport employees. Apparently, all they do anymore is pressing "start" when the train's ready to go. Everything else is automated. Combined with spending a lot of time in tunnels, this apparently gets boring very fast.

The new U5 will be fully automated, and I guess once it's established the rest of the network will switch to automation (which requires re-furbishing all stations, e.g. have those barriers for people on the platform that open when the train's doors open).

The company my brother works for makes those trains. 

[Josquius]

Yes. For the no barrier/buy your tickets at the machine system you need teams of roving ticket inspectors who can double up as security/passenger assistance. It seems a win/win way to me, greater security for the passengers and a more interesting job for the staff.

They use this system in Switzerland.

I theorise that they have really scientifically studied the optimum number of inspectors to employ to fulfil the objectives of
1: encouraging the majority to pay
2: giving people just enough  of a belief that they can try not paying so that they will always make decent money in fines.

I really do wonder about the studies and maths that go into this.

[The Brain]

I'm glad they are only allowed 24 hours.

A day? A year?

[garbon]

I'm glad they are only allowed 24 hours.

A day? A year?

24 hours across consecutive days. So with this strike starting 6pm on Sunday, has to be finished by 6pm Monday. Don't know the other regulations on frequency

[Jacob]

[The Brain]

Real?

[Syt]

[The Brain]

The book of McJob.

[mongers]

Study crashes main Moon-formation theory

Mariëtte Le RouxAFPJanuary 9, 2017

Paris (AFP) - The Moon, our planet's constant companion for some 4.5 billion years, may have been forged by a rash of smaller bodies smashing into an embryonic Earth, researchers said Monday.

Such a bombardment birth would explain a major inconsistency in the prevailing hypothesis that the Moon splintered off in a single, giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized celestial body.

In such a scenario, scientists expect that about a fifth of the Moon's material would have come from Earth and the rest from the impacting body.

Yet, the makeup of the Earth and the Moon are near identical -- an improbability that has long perplexed backers of the single-impact hypothesis.

"The multiple impact scenario is a more 'natural' way of explaining the formation of the Moon," said Raluca Rufu of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, who co-authored the new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

.....

Full item here:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/study-crashes-main-moon-formation-theory-162207822.html?ref=gs