There's not much oxygen in landfills, so the waste doesn't decompose properly. I don't remember the details, but the resultant chemicals can cause problems if they leech into groundwater.
Composted properly, the waste will be aerated.
Also, in Europe at least, it simply takes up too much space.
The city I live in started recycling pickup a month or so ago, I just put the recyclables list up on the fridge. Problem fucking solved.
I visited the US earlier this year, and was surprised how few recycling bins there were. I saw one in a park, and one (for glass only) at a traveller's hostel.
I spent the first couple of days wandering around with empty bottles in my bag, until I realised recycling just didn't happen. Googling shows one city does kerbside collection, but not in the centre, and the other has a pilot project. Neither had anywhere for me to put an empty drink can while walking in the street.
My chemistry teacher had a BBC Micro sitting in the corner of the lab. I never saw it used, until near the end of the final term when I was 18 (2004). He ran a simulation of the electron cloud round a hydrogen atom, and admitted that he only used the machine once per year for this purpose.
My dad was a school IT teacher in the 1990s and early 2000s, so there were always lots of Acorn machines for me to play on. BBC Micros were old by then, but I remember an Archimedes A310 (A320?) which was borrowed from school -- it was too expensive to buy. Later, my parents bought an A3000, then an A4000. Unusually, my dad came to IT from the design/art side, rather than business/science. That meant the stuff he borrowed from school over the holidays (to learn) was much more interesting. We digitised some home videos using an A5000, must have been about 1992-3.
I tried to learn as much as I could, but there really wasn't anyone who could teach me, and not even anyone who knew where to start. It's a shame we didn't get Internet access until about 1996 (by then on a PC).
I can only conclude that at least part of what you see on that page is determined by Geolocation or login status (I don't have a Facebook account any more).
I expect so, possibly it knows from my profile, or when I first signed up. The address in Ireland is right at the top of the page I see.
I can see the Californian court term too, but it doesn't necessarily apply to me. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if Facebook can make that restriction under Irish/English (no idea which) law. Assuming it's similar to English law, which I did study briefly, if they can't make that restriction all the other terms still stand.
The bit that only applies in Germany replaces that term with a German court.
You are wrong, based on the source you cited (the ONS report cited by the Guardian).
"The ONS said there was a higher proportion of higher-skilled jobs in the public sector, and the gap had widened over the past decade as lower-skilled jobs had been outsourced to the private sector." "But when employees with a degree are compared, those in the public sector earned around 5.7% less than those in the private sector, figures showed."
I don't know about primary school teachers -- they get shorter days, easier marking and less pay anyway -- but both my parents were secondary school teachers, and regularly worked late into the evening marking work. They'd often leave school around when the children left (perhaps 15 minutes later), but bring a stack of books to mark home with them. I think the holidays more-or-less made up for the the "no, mummy and daddy are working".
Board of directors: Marc Andreesen, Jim Breyer, Donald Graham, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg
The company Facebook, Inc. has been established and registered according to the law of the state of Delaware.
Registration number: 3835815, Secretary of State, State of Delaware"
(I really wonder what the pharmacist does if someone tries to buy a box of condoms. "Sorry, you'll have to be served by my colleague!")
It seems it's allowed, although I haven't found a better source than this. I don't think it should be allowed -- for example, a women who has been raped should not need to explain that to the pharmacist (if that would make them change their mind) or be inconvenienced by having to go elsewhere -- if that's even practical.
I'm not sure if you'd be allowed to discriminate against unmarried people. The European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to privacy, and a right to prevent discrimination, so I hope it wouldn't be allowed.
You have described a whole bunch of things that I'd never take pictures of. Who takes pictures of the trash bin? Who takes their camera to work (other than photographers)? Shopping? Seriously?
A couple of months ago I looked through all my photographs and chose 30 to print as postcards, for Postcrossing.
10 were taken specifically to get some postcard-like shots (city skyline, etc). 15 are from day trips and holidays.
Five of them were taken unexpectedly. When I walked to university in the snow, and noticed the graveyard looked pretty. When I was on a train at dawn, and the light over the mountains lit everything up magnificently. When I was driving to my parents' house, and noticed the centuries-old cottage a mile or two away would make a good picture.
Also, I actually have a picture of a rubbish bin. It's titled "14 days in the USA, and I finally found a recycling bin!". It's not a good picture, but it helps tell a story.
But the big point of getting a P'n'S is to buy something cheap that you will be willing to risk on that rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Or carry in your pocket anywhere you go. Without feeling like you need to protect your investment by keeping it in a case that keeps you from getting it out and using it.... For me, that means something under $100, but then I am just one of the 99%.
I have amateur photographic insurance, which should cover me if something happens. I have a DSLR. I'd take it to a street party or festival if I'm going more to play with photography than participate. If I want to join in, or go for a night out afterwards, I'll take my old PnS.
(And $100 isn't that much, is it? I'm not American, so your costs and income are different to mine, but I'd have to spend a good chunk of $100 to visit somewhere that isn't local. If I didn't have a job, the government would give me £67.50 = $104 a week to help find one.)
However, for an unbiased entry-level SLR, the Nex-3 and A33/A35 cameras are an amazing deal... and offer things that others do not for the non-discerning entry-level shooter.
I bought a Sony A55 on this basis, and I'm pleased with it. I went for the A55 because it's slightly higher spec, and has an integrated GPS. I like seeing my pictures on a map (I think other people do too), but I really don't like having to spend lots of time in front of a computer when I get home after a trip somewhere.
While I'm still learning about photography it's really useful to just stick the camera on one of the auto modes (landscape, night portrait etc) and let it figure out what to do. I can see what it's done (in auto mode the settings aren't hidden, just locked), and tweak it in manual mode if I want to.
You have an optimistic vision for self-driving electric cars, yet no vision for self-driving high speed trains. We are much, much closer to the latter. I think the rails mean trains will always be able to go faster, or use less energy. (Rails make the navigation problem one-dimensional (speed) and provides a narrow but extremely high-quality running surface.)
My friend's girlfriend has just this second walked out out of my house. She's going to take a 5-minute walk to the local station, then take a computer-driven electric metro train to the main station, then take a high speed train to a city 250 miles away. She didn't see the need to bring all her possessions along for a weekend visit, and no one is going to steal her clothes if she goes to the dining car.
The last taxi I took in the USA cost $34, from an airport to a central hotel. It was a long ride, about 16 miles, but the hotel was only 1.5 miles from the Amtrak station.
I left the USA from a different city (Atlanta), where the journey from a not-so-central hotel to the airport cost me $2.50 -- I walked 5 minutes to the MARTA station; the train took me to the airport terminal building. The journey from the airport here to my house was similar.
You can live in the middle of nowhere, but there's no more reason for the city-dwellers to pay for your roads than for you to pay for their trains. Plenty of people do live near enough to benefit from a decent rail service.
First, you have to drive to the terminal and park. Figure its probably 30 minute drive. Next, you probably ought to be there 15 minutes in advance of the scheduled departure time to get your bags checked, and then it takes you 2 hrs 38 minutes to get there. Fine. Then, you have to wait for your bags to be retrieved, which at airports is usually 30 - 45 minutes. Then, you have to go rent a car, which is about another 30 minutes, including walking or busing to the car. Then you have to drive to your actual destination, probably on average another 30 minutes from the terminal. Almost 5 hours to make the train trip with all the delays involved with scheduled service, as opposed to being on course for your final destination as soon as you leave your driveway. And of course the price of driving is the gasoline, as opposed to downtown parking rates associated with rail terminals downtown in order to leave your car, and then rental car rates on the other end in order to get where you're ultimately going. Plus, of course, there's the train fare itself.
So, how many people are going to pay all that money to save maybe 1 - 2 hours? Probably not many.
I don't think you know how this kind of train travel works. And I think the chance of delays is high for a 7-8 hour road trip.
You don't check your bags -- you carry them on yourself.
You don't need to be 15 minutes early -- if your arrival time is that important you need to allow extra time for the road journey too. Of course, it's more relaxing to have a little time to wait, especially for unfamiliar travellers. But you can still board the train 1 minute before it's scheduled to leave. (There's a door for every 20-30 seats, so it doesn't even matter if many people do this. And they don't need to find a seat before the train can depart.)
The time on the train can be used -- working, reading, resting, sleeping, eating, etc.
Since your bags are with you, you don't need to wait for them to be retrieved.
Would you rent a car? If there's no city transport I'd take a taxi -- no wait, and no need to find parking, or navigate. The journey should be short, since the station should be very central.
Looks like ½-1 hours wasted time, plus 2h38m that may or may not be wasted. That compares well to 7-8 hours wasted.
Diesel locomotives are still much heavier, and with a much lower power than an electric locomotive/train. High speed trains draw 5-10MW or more -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV
While trying to find a figure for the acceleration I found this: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/890.shtml which you might find interesting. "Today’s diesel-electric passenger locomotives are derivatives of freight designs; consequently, they are relatively heavy and their diesel-electric power plants rapidly lose the ability for additional acceleration at speeds above 80 miles per hour. This stretches acceleration times and virtually precludes speeds over 100 miles per hour."
In the UK there are diesel-powered "high speed" (when they were designed) trains, they go at 125mph, but they still accelerate more slowly than electric ones. And they smell.
The "last chance to disconnect" point would have to be tens of kilometres from the end of the parallel track.
You absolutely have to allow for exceptional scenarios, such as when "a passenger train running from London Charing Cross to Hastings failed to stop at Stonegate station in East Sussex. The train ran for a further 2.45 miles (3.94 km) with the emergency brake applied, passing the level crossing at Crowhurst Bridge before coming to a stop 3.22 miles (5.18 km) after first applying the brakes.". That train was only going at 100km/h and took over 5km to stop. It was due to high winds causing exceptional autumn leaf fall, making the rails exceptionally greasy, and a maintenance oversight meaning there wasn't enough sand to give extra adhesion. (investigation report)
I notice the guy with the idea is a designer, not an engineer. (I'm not an engineer either, FWIW.)
With my family, I covered a lot of the USA in about 10 weeks on three different trips, although that was back when petrol was really, really cheap (as opposed to just being really cheap, as it is now). My dad likes driving.
I don't remember seeing any man-made science (except for some big civil engineering, e.g. Hoover Dam) but there are lots of natural science things to see -- geology, animals and plants. Head to the national parks!
No, I had all sorts of exciting fun in high school chemistry. I recall mixing sugar and...something to make a big black carbon...excrement looking thing.
Concentrated sulphuric acid, to produce carbon.
We didn't get to do that ourselves, some idiot in the class -- who was also the best at chemistry -- had thrown acid at his recently-ex-friend the day before and the teacher was still furious.
It's just that in America, at least, unless you are an awesome chemist, you don't end up doing cool stuff like that. You end up bored int he corner of a lab doing the same thing over and over again.
I wanted to be a chemist, and was fortunately able to do some "work experience" for a week at the UK R&D place for one of the multinational drug companies. Mostly I was just watching (I wasn't old enough to be insured to actually do more than that), but it was fascinating to see -- massive stainless steel reaction vessels, some *very* dangerous chemicals (it isn't worth working out how to make a drug safely in large quantities until it's proved to be useful), 200L drums of acid, etc. Awesome. But most of the time the chemists were sitting at their desks. The last big bang had been years and years ago, and they still talked about it. Apparently they sold the patent to the military.
Later, I looked round a university chemistry department on an open day when I was 17, then wandered into the computing department, and decided that was much more interesting.
However, teaching looks like a fun "retirement" job, since true retirement doesn't exist anymore.
I'll consider that (maybe maths, but I hope by then they'll be teaching proper computing at school). The government is trying to encourage experienced people to be teachers, though it would probably still be a big pay cut.
When I said school, I meant what I called secondary school and what you probably call high school;-).
The physics teacher suggested we made it and painted it on the door handles of the chemistry lab -- he claimed to have done this, but I doubt he did. He later was very clear that that wasn't a serious suggestion. (We liked to tease him. He walked out of the room to photocopy something. I found an empty bottle, put some water in it, stuck on a "corrosive" sticker. My friend crushed up a purple sweet (candy). We waited by the door, as if to pour the mixture onto it.)
I "had to" go for work (I wouldn't have refused going anywhere, but I didn't choose the country). I stayed an extra week for holiday.
I don't yet drive, and hadn't planned to go to the USA until I'd learnt. So, I walked and used public transport, and as a result met more poor people than most tourists probably do. At least twice a day, on some days four or five times, I was asked for money. One guy said he'd got a job, and needed the money to take the metro to it. I wasn't sure whether to believe that, and I'm not sure why he couldn't have walked if there was no other option (1½ hours walk), but I did believe that the government didn't give anyone any money to help them find/get to a job, and that the police would give him a $200 fine and jail time if he begged for an unwanted day pass at a station. The Americans at the hostel didn't see a problem with this.
Almost without exception, everyone on the metro was black (often, I was the only exception). No official racism, but a socio-economic status quo exists, and everyone knows their place. It's like the British class system, but worse.
Forget France or Britain, gimme Bangkok, Cartagena or Pyongyang!!
I think you should remove Bangkok from your list. Thailand is popular for Europeans to visit (probably others too?), especially rich, young ones. The usual reason for going is to do volunteer work, mature, etc (spoof video, meme in the UK. Back at university, they recount stories of ordering a bucket of strong punch for $1 from a pretty woman on a beach, drinking it all, and partying until dawn, every day. (I'm sure it's a great place to visit, but I don't think of it as "non-standard").
"847,198 British nationals visited Thailand in 2010 (Source: Thai Immigration)" -- that's over 1% of the country (!). (source). Less British people visited Sweden... Compare "Very few British nationals visit North Korea and those that do are usually part of an organised tour." and "Around 23,000 visits were made by British passport holders to Colombia in 2010" (though purely by distance, Columbia must be more popular with Americans.)
Slashdot Mirror
There's not much oxygen in landfills, so the waste doesn't decompose properly. I don't remember the details, but the resultant chemicals can cause problems if they leech into groundwater.
Composted properly, the waste will be aerated.
Also, in Europe at least, it simply takes up too much space.
I had a small "apartment" once. I simply used smaller bins. They still collected all the waste every week.
The city I live in started recycling pickup a month or so ago, I just put the recyclables list up on the fridge. Problem fucking solved.
I visited the US earlier this year, and was surprised how few recycling bins there were. I saw one in a park, and one (for glass only) at a traveller's hostel.
I spent the first couple of days wandering around with empty bottles in my bag, until I realised recycling just didn't happen. Googling shows one city does kerbside collection, but not in the centre, and the other has a pilot project. Neither had anywhere for me to put an empty drink can while walking in the street.
It was on the front page yesterday: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/30/0423256/android-dev-demonstrates-carrieriq-phone-logging-software-on-video
Neither did my un-branded Android phone bought in the UK, or my friends Orange-branded Android also bought in the UK.
It sounds like this is something added by American carriers.
My chemistry teacher had a BBC Micro sitting in the corner of the lab. I never saw it used, until near the end of the final term when I was 18 (2004). He ran a simulation of the electron cloud round a hydrogen atom, and admitted that he only used the machine once per year for this purpose.
My dad was a school IT teacher in the 1990s and early 2000s, so there were always lots of Acorn machines for me to play on. BBC Micros were old by then, but I remember an Archimedes A310 (A320?) which was borrowed from school -- it was too expensive to buy. Later, my parents bought an A3000, then an A4000. Unusually, my dad came to IT from the design/art side, rather than business/science. That meant the stuff he borrowed from school over the holidays (to learn) was much more interesting. We digitised some home videos using an A5000, must have been about 1992-3.
I tried to learn as much as I could, but there really wasn't anyone who could teach me, and not even anyone who knew where to start. It's a shame we didn't get Internet access until about 1996 (by then on a PC).
I don't see it on my UK stock (non-branded) Desire.
Look in "All Applications" as explained by the video. I haven't checked with the debugger.
I can only conclude that at least part of what you see on that page is determined by Geolocation or login status (I don't have a Facebook account any more).
I expect so, possibly it knows from my profile, or when I first signed up. The address in Ireland is right at the top of the page I see.
I can see the Californian court term too, but it doesn't necessarily apply to me. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if Facebook can make that restriction under Irish/English (no idea which) law. Assuming it's similar to English law, which I did study briefly, if they can't make that restriction all the other terms still stand.
The bit that only applies in Germany replaces that term with a German court.
You are wrong, based on the source you cited (the ONS report cited by the Guardian).
"The ONS said there was a higher proportion of higher-skilled jobs in the public sector, and the gap had widened over the past decade as lower-skilled jobs had been outsourced to the private sector."
"But when employees with a degree are compared, those in the public sector earned around 5.7% less than those in the private sector, figures showed."
I don't know about primary school teachers -- they get shorter days, easier marking and less pay anyway -- but both my parents were secondary school teachers, and regularly worked late into the evening marking work. They'd often leave school around when the children left (perhaps 15 minutes later), but bring a stack of books to mark home with them. I think the holidays more-or-less made up for the the "no, mummy and daddy are working".
When I go to http://www.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf I see:
"Company Information
The website under www.facebook.com and the services on these pages are being offered to you by:
Facebook Ireland Limited
Hanover Reach, 5-7 Hanover Quay, Dublin 2 Ireland
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=impressum_contact or impressum-support@support.facebook.com
Board of directors: Marc Andreesen, Jim Breyer, Donald Graham, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg
The company Facebook, Inc. has been established and registered according to the law of the state of Delaware.
Registration number: 3835815, Secretary of State, State of Delaware"
There are also these terms that apply only in Germany: http://www.facebook.com/terms/provisions/german/index.php
So it's not as simple as you might think.
UK story on a pharmacist refusing contraception: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/8557816.stm
(I really wonder what the pharmacist does if someone tries to buy a box of condoms. "Sorry, you'll have to be served by my colleague!")
It seems it's allowed, although I haven't found a better source than this. I don't think it should be allowed -- for example, a women who has been raped should not need to explain that to the pharmacist (if that would make them change their mind) or be inconvenienced by having to go elsewhere -- if that's even practical.
Someone from the National Secular Society stayed at the hotel with his partner, they weren't married.
Article.
I'm not sure if you'd be allowed to discriminate against unmarried people. The European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to privacy, and a right to prevent discrimination, so I hope it wouldn't be allowed.
You have described a whole bunch of things that I'd never take pictures of. Who takes pictures of the trash bin? Who takes their camera to work (other than photographers)? Shopping? Seriously?
A couple of months ago I looked through all my photographs and chose 30 to print as postcards, for Postcrossing.
10 were taken specifically to get some postcard-like shots (city skyline, etc). 15 are from day trips and holidays.
Five of them were taken unexpectedly. When I walked to university in the snow, and noticed the graveyard looked pretty. When I was on a train at dawn, and the light over the mountains lit everything up magnificently. When I was driving to my parents' house, and noticed the centuries-old cottage a mile or two away would make a good picture.
Also, I actually have a picture of a rubbish bin. It's titled "14 days in the USA, and I finally found a recycling bin!". It's not a good picture, but it helps tell a story.
But the big point of getting a P'n'S is to buy something cheap that you will be willing to risk on that rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Or carry in your pocket anywhere you go. Without feeling like you need to protect your investment by keeping it in a case that keeps you from getting it out and using it.... For me, that means something under $100, but then I am just one of the 99%.
I have amateur photographic insurance, which should cover me if something happens. I have a DSLR. I'd take it to a street party or festival if I'm going more to play with photography than participate. If I want to join in, or go for a night out afterwards, I'll take my old PnS.
(And $100 isn't that much, is it? I'm not American, so your costs and income are different to mine, but I'd have to spend a good chunk of $100 to visit somewhere that isn't local. If I didn't have a job, the government would give me £67.50 = $104 a week to help find one.)
However, for an unbiased entry-level SLR, the Nex-3 and A33/A35 cameras are an amazing deal... and offer things that others do not for the non-discerning entry-level shooter.
I bought a Sony A55 on this basis, and I'm pleased with it. I went for the A55 because it's slightly higher spec, and has an integrated GPS. I like seeing my pictures on a map (I think other people do too), but I really don't like having to spend lots of time in front of a computer when I get home after a trip somewhere.
While I'm still learning about photography it's really useful to just stick the camera on one of the auto modes (landscape, night portrait etc) and let it figure out what to do. I can see what it's done (in auto mode the settings aren't hidden, just locked), and tweak it in manual mode if I want to.
You have an optimistic vision for self-driving electric cars, yet no vision for self-driving high speed trains. We are much, much closer to the latter. I think the rails mean trains will always be able to go faster, or use less energy. (Rails make the navigation problem one-dimensional (speed) and provides a narrow but extremely high-quality running surface.)
My friend's girlfriend has just this second walked out out of my house. She's going to take a 5-minute walk to the local station, then take a computer-driven electric metro train to the main station, then take a high speed train to a city 250 miles away. She didn't see the need to bring all her possessions along for a weekend visit, and no one is going to steal her clothes if she goes to the dining car.
The last taxi I took in the USA cost $34, from an airport to a central hotel. It was a long ride, about 16 miles, but the hotel was only 1.5 miles from the Amtrak station.
I left the USA from a different city (Atlanta), where the journey from a not-so-central hotel to the airport cost me $2.50 -- I walked 5 minutes to the MARTA station; the train took me to the airport terminal building. The journey from the airport here to my house was similar.
You can live in the middle of nowhere, but there's no more reason for the city-dwellers to pay for your roads than for you to pay for their trains. Plenty of people do live near enough to benefit from a decent rail service.
Time savings? Probably not.
First, you have to drive to the terminal and park. Figure its probably 30 minute drive. Next, you probably ought to be there 15 minutes in advance of the scheduled departure time to get your bags checked, and then it takes you 2 hrs 38 minutes to get there. Fine. Then, you have to wait for your bags to be retrieved, which at airports is usually 30 - 45 minutes. Then, you have to go rent a car, which is about another 30 minutes, including walking or busing to the car. Then you have to drive to your actual destination, probably on average another 30 minutes from the terminal. Almost 5 hours to make the train trip with all the delays involved with scheduled service, as opposed to being on course for your final destination as soon as you leave your driveway. And of course the price of driving is the gasoline, as opposed to downtown parking rates associated with rail terminals downtown in order to leave your car, and then rental car rates on the other end in order to get where you're ultimately going. Plus, of course, there's the train fare itself.
So, how many people are going to pay all that money to save maybe 1 - 2 hours? Probably not many.
I don't think you know how this kind of train travel works. And I think the chance of delays is high for a 7-8 hour road trip.
You don't check your bags -- you carry them on yourself.
You don't need to be 15 minutes early -- if your arrival time is that important you need to allow extra time for the road journey too. Of course, it's more relaxing to have a little time to wait, especially for unfamiliar travellers. But you can still board the train 1 minute before it's scheduled to leave. (There's a door for every 20-30 seats, so it doesn't even matter if many people do this. And they don't need to find a seat before the train can depart.)
The time on the train can be used -- working, reading, resting, sleeping, eating, etc.
Since your bags are with you, you don't need to wait for them to be retrieved.
Would you rent a car? If there's no city transport I'd take a taxi -- no wait, and no need to find parking, or navigate. The journey should be short, since the station should be very central.
Looks like ½-1 hours wasted time, plus 2h38m that may or may not be wasted. That compares well to 7-8 hours wasted.
Diesel locomotives are still much heavier, and with a much lower power than an electric locomotive/train. High speed trains draw 5-10MW or more -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV
While trying to find a figure for the acceleration I found this: http://www.fra.dot.gov/Pages/890.shtml which you might find interesting. "Today’s diesel-electric passenger locomotives are derivatives of freight designs; consequently, they are relatively heavy and their diesel-electric power plants rapidly lose the ability for additional acceleration at speeds above 80 miles per hour. This stretches acceleration times and virtually precludes speeds over 100 miles per hour."
In the UK there are diesel-powered "high speed" (when they were designed) trains, they go at 125mph, but they still accelerate more slowly than electric ones. And they smell.
The "last chance to disconnect" point would have to be tens of kilometres from the end of the parallel track.
You absolutely have to allow for exceptional scenarios, such as when "a passenger train running from London Charing Cross to Hastings failed to stop at Stonegate station in East Sussex. The train ran for a further 2.45 miles (3.94 km) with the emergency brake applied, passing the level crossing at Crowhurst Bridge before coming to a stop 3.22 miles (5.18 km) after first applying the brakes.". That train was only going at 100km/h and took over 5km to stop. It was due to high winds causing exceptional autumn leaf fall, making the rails exceptionally greasy, and a maintenance oversight meaning there wasn't enough sand to give extra adhesion. (investigation report)
I notice the guy with the idea is a designer, not an engineer. (I'm not an engineer either, FWIW.)
When you're petrol costs you $9 a gallon then you can complain about price!
With the current exchange rate, it's US$7.80 / USgallon, known round here as £1.33 / Litre. Near enough?
When I did the big trips with my parents it was about $0.75/gal (20/L, 13p/L).
With my family, I covered a lot of the USA in about 10 weeks on three different trips, although that was back when petrol was really, really cheap (as opposed to just being really cheap, as it is now). My dad likes driving.
I don't remember seeing any man-made science (except for some big civil engineering, e.g. Hoover Dam) but there are lots of natural science things to see -- geology, animals and plants. Head to the national parks!
No, I had all sorts of exciting fun in high school chemistry. I recall mixing sugar and...something to make a big black carbon...excrement looking thing.
Concentrated sulphuric acid, to produce carbon.
We didn't get to do that ourselves, some idiot in the class -- who was also the best at chemistry -- had thrown acid at his recently-ex-friend the day before and the teacher was still furious.
It's just that in America, at least, unless you are an awesome chemist, you don't end up doing cool stuff like that. You end up bored int he corner of a lab doing the same thing over and over again.
I wanted to be a chemist, and was fortunately able to do some "work experience" for a week at the UK R&D place for one of the multinational drug companies. Mostly I was just watching (I wasn't old enough to be insured to actually do more than that), but it was fascinating to see -- massive stainless steel reaction vessels, some *very* dangerous chemicals (it isn't worth working out how to make a drug safely in large quantities until it's proved to be useful), 200L drums of acid, etc. Awesome. But most of the time the chemists were sitting at their desks.
The last big bang had been years and years ago, and they still talked about it. Apparently they sold the patent to the military.
Later, I looked round a university chemistry department on an open day when I was 17, then wandered into the computing department, and decided that was much more interesting.
However, teaching looks like a fun "retirement" job, since true retirement doesn't exist anymore.
I'll consider that (maybe maths, but I hope by then they'll be teaching proper computing at school). The government is trying to encourage experienced people to be teachers, though it would probably still be a big pay cut.
When I said school, I meant what I called secondary school and what you probably call high school ;-).
The physics teacher suggested we made it and painted it on the door handles of the chemistry lab -- he claimed to have done this, but I doubt he did. He later was very clear that that wasn't a serious suggestion. (We liked to tease him. He walked out of the room to photocopy something. I found an empty bottle, put some water in it, stuck on a "corrosive" sticker. My friend crushed up a purple sweet (candy). We waited by the door, as if to pour the mixture onto it.)
I "had to" go for work (I wouldn't have refused going anywhere, but I didn't choose the country). I stayed an extra week for holiday.
I don't yet drive, and hadn't planned to go to the USA until I'd learnt. So, I walked and used public transport, and as a result met more poor people than most tourists probably do. At least twice a day, on some days four or five times, I was asked for money. One guy said he'd got a job, and needed the money to take the metro to it. I wasn't sure whether to believe that, and I'm not sure why he couldn't have walked if there was no other option (1½ hours walk), but I did believe that the government didn't give anyone any money to help them find/get to a job, and that the police would give him a $200 fine and jail time if he begged for an unwanted day pass at a station. The Americans at the hostel didn't see a problem with this.
Almost without exception, everyone on the metro was black (often, I was the only exception). No official racism, but a socio-economic status quo exists, and everyone knows their place. It's like the British class system, but worse.
Forget France or Britain, gimme Bangkok, Cartagena or Pyongyang!!
I think you should remove Bangkok from your list. Thailand is popular for Europeans to visit (probably others too?), especially rich, young ones. The usual reason for going is to do volunteer work, mature, etc (spoof video, meme in the UK. Back at university, they recount stories of ordering a bucket of strong punch for $1 from a pretty woman on a beach, drinking it all, and partying until dawn, every day. (I'm sure it's a great place to visit, but I don't think of it as "non-standard").
"847,198 British nationals visited Thailand in 2010 (Source: Thai Immigration)" -- that's over 1% of the country (!). (source). Less British people visited Sweden...
Compare "Very few British nationals visit North Korea and those that do are usually part of an organised tour." and "Around 23,000 visits were made by British passport holders to Colombia in 2010" (though purely by distance, Columbia must be more popular with Americans.)