Very nice! I think we're confusing route length and track length, though.

Can you elaborate further on this so I might be able to fix it? As best I am able to discern, system track length for all current ones is accurate.

Could track length include sidings and double-tracks and extensions and other maintenance track needs that aren't useful for the passengers themselves?

Motorists are incredibly fragile. I'm glad Paris has had a mayor who could stand up to their entitled whinging.

Motorists are an easy scapegoat but without alternatives it's just political handwaving. And most people are motorists.

Take my city for example. I work in an office block around a 15 minute walk from the centre, which has free parking for employees. Monday this week the city announced that the land is now paid parking to the city effective immediately. When it was pointed out they they hadn't provided any of the necessary signage or machines for this, they decided it was illegal to park there at all, with fines and tow trucks for non compliance. An email from them suggested "cycling or using public transport as the weather is nicer".

I cannot stress this enough. No warning, no compromise, no other use for this land, just an immediate draconian announcement.

It's very easy to call another group entitled if you're not one of them

> the city announced that the land is now paid parking to the city

what a strange way to put it... why didn't they just say that they are not using any more taxpayer money to finance your parking space? Land in a city is not "for free".

> It's very easy to call another group entitled if you're not one of them

yeah, well: my point, exactly!

I'll be totally honest in that I don't know what the arrangement was before, but that free parking was previously enforced by permits so it's a reasonable assumption that it was not at the tax payers expense

You miss the larger point not mentioned: all those motorists will be mad and looking to vote for someone next election that will undo it all.

Your job in any political office is not to leave everything as-is and to cement yourself into that position, but to make marginal improvements, even if doing so costs you the next elections or inconveniences people (hopefully only temporarily).

Most of those marginal improvements can only be seen as something positive in retrospective, not while they're being made. While they're being made, they'll always be unpopular, as the voter base is usually not keen on defending the people that are currently in charge. That doesn't mean they won't show up in the next elections, just that they are quieter in the meantime.

in the ideal world maybe - but we don't live in the ideal world: most are trying to get re-elected, or elected to a higher office now that they have experience.

and even in the ideal world a great leader can do more in the next term if they get relected.

Interesting how correctly naming them motorists sharpens how "the default" is often to be presumed drivers and pedestrians and cyclists are marginal

I don’t know that it’s a helpful distinction. A lot of people do it all - drive, walk, bike, and take public transit. Only in this kind of discussion do I see people declaring it a team you have to choose.

> Motorists are incredibly fragile

Until you throw yourself in front of my car

> > Motorists are incredibly fragile

> Until you throw yourself in front of my car

Fragile with regard to their egos, as illustrated here.

I use a search engine if I can more or less precisely describe what I want in a few words.

If I find that I really need to be more extensively descriptive, or to actually ask a question, I'll use an LLM, but that's pretty rare.

Here's an example of the latter that I did yesterday (this is Google Gemini):

"Hello! There is a poetic device where one line of a poem can be read both as the continuation of the previous line and as the first part of the following line. What is that called?"

"Hello! That poetic device is called an anastrophe or sometimes a hyperbaton, but these terms are more generally used for the inversion of the usual order of words or clauses in a sentence.

"While anastrophe or hyperbaton can create the effect you're describing, there isn't one single, widely recognized term specifically for a line that functions as both the end of one thought and the beginning of another in the way you've described.

"However, the effect you're describing is closely related to the idea of enjambment (also known as "run-on lines"). Enjambment is when a line of poetry ends without punctuation or a natural pause, and the thought continues onto the next line.

"..."

I proceeded to provide an example, saying "Points if you know what song this is ;-)", and Gemini confidently misidentified the song. (The correct song is "Black Cow" by Steely Dan; Gemini told me that the lyrics I'd quoted were from Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street," which doesn't contain any lyrics that even resemble what I'd quoted.)

Yep, I learned the terms IPL and IML ("Initial Microprogram Load," more akin to a cold boot) when I worked on an IBM midrange system running DOS/VSE back in the 1980s.

It's a diagram, not a map.

The old "map" isn't geographically accurate, either.

This was Vignelli's original plan, which the MTA never followed through on.

What is this "metrocard" of which you speak?

(It's going away at the end of this year.)

From the linked article: "Additionally, a reference to your post is 'fanned out' to your followers so they can see it in their Timelines."

So not the content, just a sort of link to it.

The complete polish is the author's very point, alongside the fact that most software products never get that complete polish.

I believe that historically, the primary group of people who are "not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" are diplomatic personnel from other countries. Those people actually are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction.