...is a weblog about the liberal arts 2.0 edited by Jason Kottke since March 1998 (archives). You can read about me and kottke.org here. If you've got questions, concerns, or interesting links, send them along.
From Schott's Vocab: A Miscellany of Modern Words and Phrases:
Elephant Flyovers - Elevated crossings designed to protect Indian elephants from road and rail accidents.
While you're there, be sure to check out Schott's entries for Daggering and Fire Fatigue. Actually, they're all fantastic.
The last bit of high-speed track has been placed, cutting the Eurostar train's journey from Paris to London to 2 hours and 15 minutes. Peak speed is 183 mph with an average speed of 130 mph. For reference, the NYC-to-Boston Acela averages 66 mph (top speed of 150 mph) and the Shanghai Maglev averages 142 mph (top speed: 268 mph).
In rough chronological order**, here are all the modes of transportation we used on our three-week trip to Asia:
Taxi
Bus
Car
Car
Airplane, Embraer
AirTrain
Airplane, Airbus 340
Taxi
MTR (multiple times)
Star Ferry (multiple times)
Ferry
Ferry
Peak tram
Ferry
Bus
Bus
Taxi
Airplane
Taxi
SkyTrain (multiple times)
River taxi (multiple times)
Van
Van
Metro (multiple times)
Canal taxi
Taxi
Taxi
Airplane (Boeing 747)
Taxi
Taxi (multiple times)
Car
Boat
Horse cart
Row boat
Boat
Car
Taxi
Airplane
Taxi
Airplane, Airbus 340
AirTrain
Airplane
Car
Car
Bus
Taxi
For those scoring at home, that's roughly 12 different forms of transportation. That's a whole lot of traveling. Here are a few we didn't make use of:
Tuk tuk
Motorcycle
Motorbike
Cyclos
Long-tail boat
** Where we used something several times over a period of days, I've marked the first instance with "multiple times".
Cool Google Maps photo of the taxi lot at JFK. (via new york hack)
American Airlines posts first profit in 5 years by listening to cost-cutting measures suggested by employees. Does this mean we can have our pillows back now?
Why do you get stuck at O'Hare for hours?. The major airlines' hubs are too "hubby"; that is, to make all the connecting flights work, they overload the airports with takeoffs at peak times, making several flights a day chronically (and purposely) late.
NYC taxi agency approves the use of hybrid cars as taxis. Downside: the hybrids have less leg room than the vast Crown Vic.
Weblog detailing a journey across Russia on the trans-Siberian railway.
Woman goes into labor on the F train this morning. Aha! That's why my train was so slow this morning.
Ask and ye shall receive: Google Maps with the NYC subway stops on it. A little flaky in Safari, but works well in Firefox.
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