Commuting WTF Thread
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@pie_flavor said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@dfdub said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@remi said in Commuting WTF Thread:
I got up and bellowed at the full train car to shut the fuck up
Can I borrow you for a few weeks?
I can neither confirm nor deny that his post gave me a justice boner.
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Hectic work day, but could leave earlier too. So I had to rush to what I call the Fuck You Bus. Starting this autumn the brilliant minds that be rescheduled one afternoon departure to depart 5 minutes earlier than the others. So instead of the easy to remember all afternoon buses depart at xx:20 as well as being used to the fact, the 15:20 bus now departs at 15:15. That has tripped me up a couple times so I’ve barely missed it and had to wait all the way to 16:20 for the next. And my question is just: Why the fuck would you do that? Also, there’s nothing special to it. It takes the normal route.
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I used to take a hour-long train from my town into another town to work. It was an expensive train due to the region.
When I had my journey disrupted 3 times in six weeks because somebody stole the copper signalling wire in each separate occasion, I came to conclude it was an expensive region because they were plating their copper in gold or something.
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@shoreline said in Commuting WTF Thread:
I came to conclude it was an expensive region because they were plating their copper in gold or something.
Copper is worth a lot, easy to melt and easier to find than gold
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I was unfortunately stuck with a kid in the seat behind me for a ~12 hr ride that started around 8 pm. So this kid A (~8 years old) was kicking and punching the seat repeatedly in a very consistent fashion. I knew this was not gonna stop. So I did these things in the following order.
- Told the kid not to play with the seat (which the kid promptly ignored).
- Told the parent who was on the next seat that the kid is kicking and punching the seat and it is very unpleasant for me. Mom says to the kid to stop doing it once after which the kid again does. Repeated this step twice and gave up.
- Now the father and the kid's sibling Kid B (~5 years old) are sitting on seats that are on the opposite side of the aisle behind me. Both the kid and the father have passed the fuck out with snoring included.
Everyone eventually sleeps and around 2 am I see that the kid A has reclined the seat and stretched out her legs on top of my seat almost on top of my head. I pushed it off and immediately she put it back on like a reflex. Did it twice to no avail. This time I pushed her feet off the top of my seat and instantaneously pressed the button on my seat that would make my seat come back to its straight 90 degree position, and the kid put her feet where the seat was there just a moment ago and it came crashing down hard on the floor. Started wailing and crying and I went back to sleep. There was kicking now and then and it was a very fucky sleep for me.
7:30 AM
Kid A and Kid B are running up and down the aisle and playing and creating a ruckus. I've got an interview in a few hours and I am sleep deprived and pissed and my level headedness levels were really low. So Kid B tries to stand in the aisle, grab the armrests of seats on either side and go the good old swing and falls the fuck down with a crash. Father (who I can tell is either super drill sergeant like or hates his family or hates everything that exists) comes and this happens
Dad: "What happened why are you crying?"
Kid B: "Kid A pushed me down and kicked me"
Kid A: "WHaaaaaaaaat? That never happened"
Kid B: "No you pushed me down and then kicked me"
Kid A: "You are lying. I did no such thing"
Kid B: Points to me and goes "Daddy he was watching all this. You ask him if she pushed me down and kicked me"
Me: Ummm Yeah she did.Dad indian-whacked Kid A and whacked her well. I had absolutely no remorse. This was my only way to get back at this kid. What was odd though was the fact the Kid B was giving me weird looks afterwards like I was a lying fucking scumbag even though it was her lie :/
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@timebandit said in Commuting WTF Thread:
Copper is worth a lot
Seriously? I kept being told it wasn't.
I mean, I'm prepared to believe either way, but I don't play the stocks or anything.
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@shoreline said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@timebandit said in Commuting WTF Thread:
Copper is worth a lot
Seriously? I kept being told it wasn't.
I mean, I'm prepared to believe either way, but I don't play the stocks or anything.
Some people are desperate enough for cash that stealing copper and selling it for scrap are worth it to them.
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@shoreline Recent quote:
- LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the London Metal
Exchange rose as much as 0.8 percent to $7,158 a tonne,
its highest since Feb. 26, and stood at $7,135 a tonne at 0731
GMT.
It's all relative, I suppose. The same amount of aluminum is $2,345.
- LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the London Metal
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@lolwhat said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@shoreline said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@timebandit said in Commuting WTF Thread:
Copper is worth a lot
Seriously? I kept being told it wasn't.
I mean, I'm prepared to believe either way, but I don't play the stocks or anything.
Some people are desperate enough for cash that stealing copper and selling it for scrap are worth it to them.
It was around recession time (~2009).
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
I was unfortunately stuck with a kid in the seat behind me for a ~12 hr ride that started around 8 pm. So this kid A (~8 years old) was kicking and punching the seat repeatedly in a very consistent fashion. I knew this was not gonna stop. So I did these things in the following order.
- Told the kid not to play with the seat (which the kid promptly ignored).
- Told the parent who was on the next seat that the kid is kicking and punching the seat and it is very unpleasant for me. Mom says to the kid to stop doing it once after which the kid again does. Repeated this step twice and gave up.
- Now the father and the kid's sibling Kid B (~5 years old) are sitting on seats that are on the opposite side of the aisle behind me. Both the kid and the father have passed the fuck out with snoring included.
Everyone eventually sleeps and around 2 am I see that the kid A has reclined the seat and stretched out her legs on top of my seat almost on top of my head. I pushed it off and immediately she put it back on like a reflex. Did it twice to no avail. This time I pushed her feet off the top of my seat and instantaneously pressed the button on my seat that would make my seat come back to its straight 90 degree position, and the kid put her feet where the seat was there just a moment ago and it came crashing down hard on the floor. Started wailing and crying and I went back to sleep. There was kicking now and then and it was a very fucky sleep for me.
7:30 AM
Kid A and Kid B are running up and down the aisle and playing and creating a ruckus. I've got an interview in a few hours and I am sleep deprived and pissed and my level headedness levels were really low. So Kid B tries to stand in the aisle, grab the armrests of seats on either side and go the good old swing and falls the fuck down with a crash. Father (who I can tell is either super drill sergeant like or hates his family or hates everything that exists) comes and this happens
Dad: "What happened why are you crying?"
Kid B: "Kid A pushed me down and kicked me"
Kid A: "WHaaaaaaaaat? That never happened"
Kid B: "No you pushed me down and then kicked me"
Kid A: "You are lying. I did no such thing"
Kid B: Points to me and goes "Daddy he was watching all this. You ask him if she pushed me down and kicked me"
Me: Ummm Yeah she did.Dad indian-whacked Kid A and whacked her well. I had absolutely no remorse. This was my only way to get back at this kid. What was odd though was the fact the Kid B was giving me weird looks afterwards like I was a lying fucking scumbag even though it was her lie :/
This story had everything except a thousand elephants and the prime minister's daughter. Or possibly the princess's daughter. I forget whose daughter it was.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
or hates everything that exists
Wait, I don't live in India...
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@shoreline said in Commuting WTF Thread:
Seriously? I kept being told it wasn't.
Depends on how destitute your country is, really.
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@shoreline said in Commuting WTF Thread:
This story had everything except a thousand elephants and the prime minister's daughter. Or possibly the princess's daughter. I forget whose daughter it was
There is always a CEO's nephew and the president's daughter somewhere in every WTFy story.
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I'm in a train. All the seats are numbered. Each number is unique within the whole train, is assigned consecutively by physical location and is printed right next to each seat. Your number is printed on your ticket, along with the car it's in. There are also plenty of signs indicating "seats 1-x left, seats x-y right".
Despite that, I still had to wait 5 entire minutes for two groups of 3 and 4 people standing in the corridor to figure out which ones were their seats. What doubt could they possibly be having?
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@anonymous234
In the trains I use, seat numbers are only unique within the car, not the whole train. This has lead to some interesting disputes in the past, with people refusing to give up someone else's seat, claiming they had reserved it themselves.Which is how I discovered that the train company's policy is to upgrade passengers to first class if another passenger refuses to give up the reserved seat. Every day I hope I run into such an idiot so I can go straight to the train crew, without even bothering to argue, and get a free upgrade. Unfortunately, I've only seen it happen to other people so far.
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This post is deleted!
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@sockpuppet7 just fbmac'd!
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DANGEROUS SRS BUS DRIVER – 00:38
— KrishnadasEDIT: We drive on the left side of the road in India where the video is taken. If you did not know that, the video would look wrong af.
The bus in this video. Does it happen in the western world? Also is there a technical term for what the bust driver is doing? As in doing something that is several steps above teetering on the edge of harmful driving.
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@stillwater most buses drive in the right side of the road on the western world
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@sockpuppet7 said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@stillwater most buses drive in the right side of the road on the western world
Gosh darn it! I have to explain the video now
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@stillwater also, in my country a white line means the road only goes one way, so the motorcycle would be in the wrong (very very wrong)
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@sockpuppet7 You do understand the white bus in the video is on the lane with oncoming traffic?
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@stillwater not on my country rules it would not, I dunno where this video is and if a white line means anything there
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@sockpuppet7 said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@stillwater not on my country rules it would not, I dunno where this video is and if a white line means anything there
Fair enough. Added the Edit.
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Some more context. There are certain roads with only two lanes, each for one direction. There is a white dashed line in the middle to separate the lanes and there are two white lines on the edge of the road to mark where the road ends. It so happens that when you're driving on your lane, vehicles try to overtake each other on the opposite lane and end up in your lane in the process. This happens in very close ranges like in hundreds of meters in the video where the only thing that saves you from getting killed is how quick your reflexes are. Also the bigger vehicles assume right of way no matter what where or when. Driving here is so unsafe. SMH.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
The bus in this video. Does it happen in the western world?
Yes, but I've never seen a bus driver do it and it usually results in an accident.
is there a technical term for what the bust driver is doing? As in doing something that is several steps above teetering on the edge of harmful driving.
Yes, it's [bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep].
Seriously, I don't know how to describe this without using insults.
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Here, directions of travel are separated by double yellow lines. A dashed line on your side indicate passing is allowed (as long as it's actually clear to do so), solid means no passing.
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@coderpatsy said in Commuting WTF Thread:
Here, directions of travel are separated by double yellow lines.
They are here in Norway too. Except that quite a few roads lack lines in the middle (because they're too narrow) and also lack lines on the side (because the road surface is being relaid). Which doesn't mean that anyone slows down, of course…
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@dkf Or something like this where everyone still seems to travel at least 80 km/h.
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@rhywden That reminds me of the roads here, except I've got a rock cliff on each side: mountain on one side, and down to the sea on the other. And god there's so many RVs!
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I once was in a car on a narrow 2-lane road through the mountains at night. On the inside of the curve was a vertical rock face. On the outside of the curve was a sheer drop. It was a pretty sharp curve too, IIRC. And then the semi coming the other way decided to drift into our lane...
I don't remember which side we were on, but I remember the "oh crap" moment from everyone in the car.
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@benjamin-hall said in Commuting WTF Thread:
I remember the "oh crap" moment from everyone in the car.
“We've gone straight to brown alert!”
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@dfdub said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@anonymous234
In the trains I use, seat numbers are only unique within the car, not the whole train. This has lead to some interesting disputes in the past, with people refusing to give up someone else's seat, claiming they had reserved it themselves.Which is how I discovered that the train company's policy is to upgrade passengers to first class if another passenger refuses to give up the reserved seat. Every day I hope I run into such an idiot so I can go straight to the train crew, without even bothering to argue, and get a free upgrade. Unfortunately, I've only seen it happen to other people so far.
You need to make some friends who will trade off the task of not giving up their seats for each other.
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Not strictly commuting, but I was reminded of when I went on a night train last. The train passes where I live a bit late, so the people I was going to share a compartment with had already gone to bed and decided to use the unused beds for luggage storage. Although that just led to me being given my own compartment and didn't have to share with anyone.
Then the train got stuck in the middle of nowhere for 4 hours. Which was nice for me, as I got some extra hours to sleep. Not so nice for those who were going to pick me up from the station as the train was set to arrive very early (around 5), so they could have got some extra hours of sleep too had they known. :P
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@rhywden In Ireland (where im vacationing), not only do people drive on the
wrongnot-right side of the road (if there's even two sides to speak of), they also take speed limits as a challenge.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
EDIT: We drive on the left side of the road in India where the video is taken. If you did not know that, the video would look wrong af.
The bus in this video. Does it happen in the western world? Also is there a technical term for what the bust driver is doing? As in doing something that is several steps above teetering on the edge of harmful driving.In the video, the road has a dashed line. In the US, that means passing is allowed. (Aka you can enter the other direction long enough to pass a slow-moving truck). So the bus isn't doing anything legally wrong, AFAIK.
I dunno if dashed lines mean the same thing in other countries.
However, it's also the vehicle passing's responsibility to ensure the passing is safely conducted. As soon as he moved enough into the other lane to see the oncoming motorcycle, his duty was to hit the brakes and return to his lane. So the bus driver is definitely an ass here.
But then again, the motorcyclist also seems to be going way too fast for a road in that condition. So he's not blameless.
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Compared to most of you, my commute — just 15 minutes on a bus — seems unfair :P
On the other hand, summer downpour sometimes creates a certain problem in the middle of my route…
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@dcoder said in Commuting WTF Thread:
On the other hand, summer downpour sometimes creates a certain problem in the middle of my route…
Ask a passing alligator to push the bus…
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Much has been said about people who play music without headphones... thankfully they are not very common anymore.
What's surprisingly common is people who wear headphones, but still play the music loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.
Probably because they've gone deaf from all that super loud music in their ears.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
DANGEROUS SRS BUS DRIVER – 00:38
— KrishnadasEDIT: We drive on the left side of the road in India where the video is taken. If you did not know that, the video would look wrong af.
The bus in this video. Does it happen in the western world? Also is there a technical term for what the bust driver is doing? As in doing something that is several steps above teetering on the edge of harmful driving.Has happened a couple of times for me in Sweden. But only while riding motorcycles. Not specifically buses, but trucks as well. But mostly it's slightly above average cost audis.
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@dfdub Looks suspiciously like Czech-Slovak border to me. At least when I travelled there, there was a crew switch.
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@carnage No matter how many times this happens, I don't seem like I'm getting used to it.
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@anonymous234 said in Commuting WTF Thread:
What's surprisingly common is people who wear headphones, but still play the music loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.
The problem is usually not the volume, but the shitty headphones. I contemplated ordering cheap, but somewhat soundproof in-ear headphones in bulk and handing them out more than once.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@carnage No matter how many times this happens, I don't seem like I'm getting used to it.
Yeah, I'm not getting used to getting run off the road either.
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@anonymous234 said in Commuting WTF Thread:
What's surprisingly common is people who wear headphones, but still play the music loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.
Arrggh, I hate that. There's been times when I can hear someone else's music from their earphones, louder than the music that's playing literally in my ears. I hate to think how loud it must be on their end. But mostly I just wish they'd turn it down so I could listen to my own music in peace.
@dfdub said in Commuting WTF Thread:
The problem is usually
notboth the volume, butand the shitty headphones.Doesn't matter how crappy the headphones are, if I can hear your music distinctly from half a train carriage away it is too damn loud. But yes, people with good headphones don't contribute to this problem, and could all be destroying their hearing on a daily basis for all I know.
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Metro is identifying the new trains because they “use a different barrier between cars our blind & visually impaired riders need to be mindful of,” Metro replied via Twitter.
The new trains have raised concerns at the Federal Transit Administration because the rubber barriers between the cars leave a 9-inch gap between them where people standing on the platform can fall through.
A blind woman using a cane did just that in May at the Van Ness-UDC station when she stepped off the platform thinking she was getting on a train.
But instead of saying something useful like, "Mind the gap," they announce the train model.
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@boomzilla I always fail to understand how people overlook the obvious and then do something stupid.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@boomzilla I always fail to understand how people overlook the obvious and then do something stupid.
I've highlighted the key words for you.
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@stillwater said in Commuting WTF Thread:
@boomzilla I always fail to understand how people overlook the obvious and then do something stupid.
If you spent 45 hours a week completely immersed in trains talking to train people about train stuff using train terminology, you begin to forget that normal people have no clue what a "series 7000" train is. How could they not know that? We've been checking-out these trains for the last 7 years! Idiots!
Same reason so many software developers are so fucking awful at usability.
