Things you don't need to know...

I remember once reading an article on the curious similarities between the English and the Japanese. Both small islands with large imperial power. Both with rigid class systems and manners. Chivalric code and knights, and the Samurai with Bushido. A very silly sense of humour and wild imagination. Even the flags - red symbols on white backgrounds. There were many more.

Ripper said:

I remember once reading an article on the curious similarities between the English and the Japanese. Both small islands with large imperial power. Both with rigid class systems and manners. Chivalric code and knights, and the Samurai with Bushido. A very silly sense of humour and wild imagination. Even the flags - red symbols on white backgrounds. There were many more.

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That's curious indeed. Did the article each any sort of conclusion, or was that presented as pure coincidence?

Maybe countries with a successful military power, enough critical mass and access to the sea were given a chance to develop into imperial power, the rest could be a consequence of that (the flags are probably pure coincidence as they don't share the same symbolism).

Or it needn't be a country, haven't the Vikings conquered, or at least occupied, lands over a large area? I have no idea about their humour though If I'm correct they played a significant role in gathering people and found Russia?

Sorry for yet another long post, but left and right choices are also funny for boats and planes. Correct me if I'm wrong.

They put the rudder on the right because most people are right-handed (same origin than horse and cart traffic), so the port side had to be on the left since the rudder made it difficult on the right side, it would have smashed against the dock. Hence the starboard (from old English rudder / steer-board / steorbord) and port side terms. With head-on traffic, each boat steer on their right though, so as to have the incoming boat on their port side, and I don't know the origin of that. I think it's to easily watch that they don't collide with something else on starboard, similarly to the origin of cart's right lane traffic?

Then air law mimicked the same rules, actually it shares a great deal with naval law, if you ever study for a pilot licence or a boating licence you'll get a lot of common material. So that explains that. There's also the reason why pilots are usually on the left side, which I've read was due to early planes being piloted by officers, who used to mounted horses and you get on your horse from the left side, because of this damn sword again. It's the opposite in helicopters, no idea why.

Now, imagine a moment there were 50-50 chance to be left-handed, how history would have coped with that :lol:

Redglyph said:

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Sweden, that change must have been something to see.

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I remember it well. Living in Norway, we have always driven on the right side. But of course we paid close attention to what happpened at our sweet brother.'s

Some time before the event this tune became popular: Håll dej til höger, Svenson" (Keep to the right, mr Svenson", by the Swedish pop group Telstars.



And this is how it happened:



an incarnation of pibbur who thinks that the most important consequence of the way the drive in he UK and Oz and other places like that is that getting a driver's license must be easy, since yiou get away with driving on the wrong side of the road.

a pibbur said:

I remember it well. Living in Norway, we have always driven on the right side. But of course we paid close attention to what happpened at our sweet brother.'s

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Excellent, thanks for sharing!
I wonder how they did with the wrong side of the driver's seat during this transition? From the movie it seems they're already all on the left, maybe the constructors were well synchronized with the switch. But it must have been many people on the bad side of the car for a while, not ideal to drive in those conditions, especially in the city (thankfully there was less traffic back then).

The British actually, somewhat reluctantly, changed to the metric system. Obviously they still have several exceptions, like beer still being in pints. But only when it is draught beer, when it is bottled it is supposed to be in liters again. Strange folks those British

Ripper said:

I remember once reading an article on the curious similarities between the English and the Japanese. Both small islands with large imperial power. Both with rigid class systems and manners. Chivalric code and knights, and the Samurai with Bushido. A very silly sense of humour and wild imagination. Even the flags - red symbols on white backgrounds. There were many more.

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I’d suggest one major difference, Japan wasn’t invaded for nearly 2000 years, nor had raiders such as Vikings, so the depth and cultural intensity is the most of anywhere I’ve visited or worked. Also, no immigration so incredibly racial homogeneous. To my western sensibilities it is by far the most ‘foreign’ place I’ve been.

You can still buy draught beer in pints in Oz too. Now the big question is when are those silly Yanks going to join the rest of the world and go metric??!!

You should see the looks I get when I tell people, who know I live in Florida, that it was close to thirty degrees a few days ago. I shudder to think what the reactions would be if I tried talking about millilitres.

I'm curious as to average speeds. On a typical weekend if you get on a highway in the midwest, the speed limit is 70 miles/112 km per hour. In reality you'll be going 85 miles/136 km per hour if you don't want to get run over. Do any other countries drive so insanely fast as an average?

Of course, I'm aware you can cross several of the smaller countries in an hour at these speeds so maybe you need a large, mostly empty area to travel at warp

'nut who lives in the midwest USA which has tons of big, mostly empty, highways. I took a 130 mile trip and it took me 1 hour and 37 minutes and that includes the town driving on either side of the trip. It's nuts. For mid-westerners, I was going from outside St. Louis to Cape Girardeau.

I drive an Impala Premier which tops out at 155 miles an hour though I've never hit that!

Myrthos said:

The British actually, somewhat reluctantly, changed to the metric system. Obviously they still have several exceptions, like beer still being in pints. But only when it is draught beer, when it is bottled it is supposed to be in liters again. Strange folks those British

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It's not an easy process apparently. I think they're still using gallons, which are not the same as US gallons. Fortunately we can talk in Celsius degrees unlike in the US, but miles and pounds are still there for distance and weight. Pressure is still in pound per inch square. At least most planes have knots now, and not mph, but doing calculations or having reference points in pressure and volume for the gauges isn't easy when one is used to the metric system.

And UK/US measure car consumption in mpg (but so not the same gallons?), and not in litre per 100 km.

Of course I understand it's not easy to change those things. How long have we translated the EUR prices in old money's on this part of the pond :lol:

crpgnut said:

I'm curious as to average speeds. On a typical weekend if you get on a highway in the midwest, the speed limit is 70 miles/112 km per hour. In reality you'll be going 85 miles/136 km per hour if you don't want to get run over. Do any other countries drive so insanely fast as an average?

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So true about the getting run over

I believe in France it's still 130 km/h on highways (except when it's raining, then it's 110), in Belgium it's 120 km/h. In Germany it's unlimited on parts of autobahns, though manufacturers usually respect a gentleman agreement to limit the speed of their cars at 250 km/h. If I'm not wrong, it's unlimited in Australia and in the Isle of Man (not sure whether this applies on every road, I hope not).

The principle is simple and sound: the less time you pass through some area, the less you are exposed to risks. So when you think about it, it's actually safer to drive faster Also, when you push this principle to the limit, the theory merges with the tunnel effect principle, which can be convenient, e.g. in traffic jam.

Redglyph said:

That's curious indeed. Did the article each any sort of conclusion, or was that presented as pure coincidence?

Maybe countries with a successful military power, enough critical mass and access to the sea were given a chance to develop into imperial power, the rest could be a consequence of that (the flags are probably pure coincidence as they don't share the same symbolism).

Or it needn't be a country, haven't the Vikings conquered, or at least occupied, lands over a large area? I have no idea about their humour though If I'm correct they played a significant role in gathering people and found Russia?

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The article was just one those lightweight pieces that they sometimes put in the paper, to break things up a bit. Not to be taken too seriously, but quite a lot of amusing parallels.

Hurls said:

I’d suggest one major difference, Japan wasn’t invaded for nearly 2000 years, nor had raiders such as Vikings, so the depth and cultural intensity is the most of anywhere I’ve visited or worked. Also, no immigration so incredibly racial homogeneous. To my western sensibilities it is by far the most ‘foreign’ place I’ve been.

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Yes, I also once saw a theory that suggested that the reason Britain became a major military power, is that it spent so many centuries being invaded, that you had to "git gud" if you wanted to hold on to it. The Lebor Gabála Érenn, which is the Irish mythic origin story, translates as The Book of Invaders.

BTW, I mentioned Corsica earlier, and I highly recommend it to folks that enjoy interesting unspoiled landscapes.

Ripper said:

BTW, I mentioned Corsica earlier, and I highly recommend it to folks that enjoy interesting unspoiled landscapes.

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That's some beautiful scenery for sure.

Paging a pibbur.


Australia: Geologist Beaten Up by Angriest Octopus

That's because of all those violent games Steam failed to ban over there. You just don't let an octopus play everything.

Ripper said:

Paging a pibbur.


Australia: Geologist Beaten Up by Angriest Octopus

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The thing that really gets me is how stupid he was.The octopus attacked him, so he left the water, then went back in, and surprise, surprise, it attacked him again! (Must have been a tourist.)

Hurls said:

The thing that really gets me is how stupid he was.The octopus attacked him, so he left the water, then went back in, and surprise, surprise, it attacked him again! (Must have been a tourist.)

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You've got to admire the scientific methodology though. He just had to confirm the stimuli-response observation.

Silly octopi wins over man not once but twice. Guess we're going hungry tonight, lads.

Hurls said:

Also changed in Myanmar more recently. So left and right hand drive cars, trucks busses etc. all at once.

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I don't actually know where this comes from, but I usually walk on the left in the streets, and have in general a strong tendency to do things via the left side. Like high jump in sports when I was so much younger. I really don't know where this comes from.

My sister could, when she was younger at school, actually write in mirrored letters ! (April 1st has passed already, mind you !)
We said that she should try to keep this unique ability, but she decided not to, somehow.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

I don't actually know where this comes from, but I usually walk on the left in the streets, and have in general a strong tendency to do things via the left side. Like high jump in sports when I was so much younger. I really don't know where this comes from.



My sister could, when she was younger at school, actually write in mirrored letters ! (April 1st has passed already, mind you !)

We said that she should try to keep this unique ability, but she decided not to, somehow.

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Writing mirrored letters is actually not that uncommon when kids first learn to write. I don't know why, and it tends to disappear as they get better at it.