Peter’s Blog

As the saying goes, God made the world but the Dutch made the Netherlands. Of course, no landscape is untouched: walk through the British countryside and what seems to be untouched forests and hills turn out be forests planted several centuries ago and hills continuously molded over the past millenia by human activity. On the road from Haarlem to Schipol I once saw a grass-covered ziggurat-shaped hill with an incredibly straight alley of trees running by it. Rather than pretending that their environment isn’t man-made – the British aren’t the only offenders at maintaining such an illusion though I think they’re some of the worst – the Dutch celebrate the artificialness of their landscape. Building on that thought, there’s a great piece in the Herald Tribune about an MIT professor encouraging a polluted region in Italy to embrace man-made nature.

This article is just amazing: cityofsound: Transport informatics

And Jack, you’ll like that Boston is doing some cool stuff with biking.

Bike network 2.0
Boston appointed a ‘bike czar’, Nicole Freedman, and her team has used Google Maps to create a set of bike routes across the city, based on the aggregated data from actual routes that cyclists took across the city“We found out where the actual desire lines are,” said Freedman, and has since extended the network to enable users to rate streets for bikes. It’s a little rudimentary at the moment, but shows the promise of such systems. Boston are building the city’s first official bike map from the results of the system.

I need a vacation
After finishing my work on the Pride Life project and looking at , I decided I needed a vacation NOW. Where to? I hate to admit it, but a DB ad for tickets starting at €49 for their CityNightLine train to Cologne got me thinking. So why not Berlin? I had just been sent the latest draft of Turn Left’s guide to the city, so I was sorted in the guide book category. On Friday I went down to Centraal Station and after a decent wait and some playing around with timetables, I had train tickets to Berlin. Since the night train on Easter was booked almost solid, I decided to take the 06:45 from Schipol to Berlin on Monday morning. On the way back I would take a night train leaving at 00:30 on Thursday. Consulting Turn Left, I booked Monday and Tuesday nights at Motel One Mitte, for €50 a night. So there it was: I was going to Berlin! (more…)

Face value | Mr High-speed Europe | Economist.com

TGV accounts for only one-third of SNCF revenues, but its fat margins lifted the railway to a profit of €695m in 2006, after fees paid to RFF, the track owner, are taken into account. How do the TGVs make so much money when so many railways struggle? Mr Pepy points out that a double-decker TGV can make two round trips between Paris and the south or west of France every day, carrying about a thousand passengers on each leg. The combination of size and speed brings economies of scale, boosted further by the route through Strasbourg to Germany opened last summer, and the new high-speed Eurostar link to London.

French railways stand out in Europe not only because they manage to turn a profit, but because they remain solidly in the public sector while doing so. Instead of conflict between politicians and managers, there is a clear division of responsibility. French towns and regions now pay SNCF to run less glamorous local services or even extend TGV services on slower lines into the depths of Brittany. Since the regions pay, they, rather than the railway, decide where and when the local trains run. This keeps the politicians off the backs of Mr Pepy and Anne-Marie Idrac, his chairman. It also keeps politics out of the railway, since no party would dream of privatising SNCF—sparing France the agonies that Britain and Germany have faced over privatisation.

I wonder if SNCF’s TGV group’s profitability includes tracks funded by the French government. Assuming that RFF doesn’t rent the tracks to them at a loss, I guess so. If this is true, this makes me more optimistic for the California high speed rail project. I love the idea but have been worried that there was no pay the costs for the infrastructure (part of me figures that it’s fine for the state to eat the cost regardless). However, if the TGV group can make over a $1 billion a year, then there’s hope for t.

And, if you’re interested, here are some takes on the California high speed rail proposal. First, a government funded video, complete with soothing female voice:

Check out those garish blue and yellow paint schemes! I think Tyler Brûlé needs to turn his attention to the trains’ design. I like one of the YouTube comments for the video:

The only problem, why would you want to go to Sacramento?

=)
Of course, there are also the haters. Some say the rail system will destroy wildlife, some think costs will balloon out of control, and some love the idea but don’t thinking it’ll ever be built. That may be true, as the main bond issue keeps getting pushed back as the state has financial problems.

Casulo - Möbel für mobiles Wohnen - mobile living funiture

A box with the base area of a euro-pallet, only 90cm high. Inside: a armoire, a desk incl. container, a height adjustable stool, two more stools, a shelf, a bed with mattress.

All together to set up without any tools in a few minutes and without leaving any piece over. Alternatively to disassemble, ready to remove, without additional packaging materials but protected perfectly – impossible? Well, it’s not!

Having moved apartments so frequently, this is a modular furniture set I’d love to have! I’d also love a trunk that could efficiently and safely hold some basic dishes and pans, bedding, and electronics – i.e., I’d love to be able to move apartments at the drop of a hat thanks to just a few well-designed, super-efficient containers.

I just looked at the Leidseplein in Google Maps. Interestingly, the entry shows all the trams and buses that stop there and links to 9292ov.nl, the main Dutch mass transit information website. Google Transit doesn’t include the Netherlands yet, but if Maps is linking to 9292ov, my guess is that they’re going to deal for the whole country, like they did with Japan.

I’ve now been in Europe for two weeks. On one hand it feels like I just left California and on the other hand I feel like I’ve been here for months. I guess that sort of confusion is bound to happen when you’re in four different countries in almost as many days.

In these two weeks I attended a wedding in Tours, visited friends in London, Paris and Brussels, and moved to Amsterdam. I have been really fortunate to arrive in Amsterdam last Friday and hit the ground running. Through friends I had a large room lined up (a freestanding building in the garden!) and since then I have dived right into my web design and Stirred Up work. Today I bought a used bike, signed up for Dutch language courses at one of the universities, and went to an OpenCoffee meeting.

It’s funny, normally I have really strong feelings about London when I’m arriving, whether it’s love or hatred. “London I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down” (mp3) is a good summation of my feelings. Unusually, I didn’t feel much either way this time when I landed. However, once I had dropped off my huge suitcase at the luggage storage at Waterloo Station crossed the Thames and was making my way up the Aldwych a smile came to my face and a bounce to my step as I started to see places I had passed every day a year ago. I was home! After some much needed downtime at the LSE library dicking around on the internet (where I wrote the previous post), I met my friends Julie and Edd for a few pints. It’s like and suddenly London doesn’t bad at all.

So the Beachhead crew, particularly Tommy, has been asking me to update the blog regularly with what I’m up to in Europe. First of all, for those who didn’t know, as of six hours ago, I am in Europe (central London, to be more specific). This blog is probably the best way to follow what I’m up to, though I’m also updating my Jaiku account frequently and my Facebook page somewhat less so. Don’t bother with my MySpace account. If you’re on Dopplr (or want to be, I have some invites remaining), you can see my movements across Europe in the next few weeks.

So, what’s this whole Europe trip? I’m in the process of getting a permit that falls under the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, one of the lesser known of all treaties, to be a self-employed web developer in Amsterdam. Because I had the return leg of a flight to London, I landed there today around noon. The trip was uneventful, with a stop-over at a deserted JFK for the midnight flight to LHR. I spent most of the trip engrossed in Jeanne d’Arc, which I just got for my PSP (thanks Beachhead!). It’s a cool anime tactical RPG set in a fantasty Hundreds Year War in which the English have summoned demons to help them conquer France (not that fantastic, I know). For the second leg I shared the middle aisle of an exit row (I got exit row sets both legs) with four Hasidic Jews about my age. The guys were kind of annoying punks and constantly talking but whatever, they didn’t bother me too much. I think I even slept a few hours.

Here in London I’m meeting with a few professional contacts and trying to see as many friends as possible. That’ll be hard, as I have an 11:20 am flight from Stanstead on Saturday to Tours, France. There I’m attending the wedding of an old family friend (my mom will also be there). On Sunday my mom and I are heading up to Paris. I’ll try to see Seb and Svavar, two friends from London who are in town, before I go to Brussels around the 4th or so. There I’m seeing friends again and also picking up some stuff I had to leave when I left in the spring.

Then it’s onward to Amsterdam. I’m trying to find a short term flat rental I could take so I have some place to stay while I look for more long-term housing. I have a few replies to a Craigslist ad I posted, but nothing’s determined yet. Apparently a friend’s cousin is looking to rent her apartment, and long term, so maybe that’ll be my solution.

More to come as I have it. I’m about to run out and meet some friends at the pub now, but first I’ll mention that the new carry-on bag I got from Patagonica, the MLC (Maximum Legal Carry-On) [note: the website is stupid and won't let me directly link to one item], is incredible. I have a shitload of stuf in it right now — 3 phones, a small camera [not my SLR], my laptop, my PSP, some files, a large water bottle, a change of clothes — and it’s working like a champ. The backpack straps were great once the sholder strap started to to bother me as I was crossing Waterloo Bridge.