Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
True. Unless you have two proper locks. In that case your bike will last a very long time. Nope. You will probably retrieve your two locks from the fencing you attached them to (if you did!), with your bike gone. Wouter van Ooijen -- http://www.voti.nl Webshop for PICs and other electronics http://www.voti.nl/hvu Teacher electronics and informatics -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl) enlightened us with: True. Unless you have two proper locks. In that case your bike will last a very long time. Nope. You will probably retrieve your two locks from the fencing you attached them to (if you did!), with your bike gone. That's not my experience, but hey, who am I? I've just lived here for eight years. Sybren -- The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Sybren Stuvel wrote: Martin P. Hellwig enlightened us with: Personal transportation sucks in the Netherlands, if you live in the Randstad (the area of the above mentioned cities) and you have to travel across the Randstad, you go with the bike and/or bus/tram/metro/train because that is the fastest way of transportation. And a bike isn't personal transportation? Yes it is, and it sucks too, or do you find it amusing to ride 15 clicks through rain and wind to get to your clients? Of course you go by car but then it will take you longer. Byt the way did you notice the travel across the Randstad part? By the way, the big cities are notorious for losing your bike fast. True. Unless you have two proper locks. In that case your bike will last a very long time. Yes that reminds me that I had 2 quite expensive abus locks on my rather cheap bike, the day after a hack was published on the Internet how to open this lock without damaging, the locks where stolen but my bike was further untouched, that pretty badly hurt my bikes ego I guess. That doesn't mean that public transportation is good, no actual since the public transportation is commercialized it sucks too. It's quite good actually. The Dutch Railways (Nationale Spoorwegen, NS for short) have a reputation of being late, but it isn't that bad. Trains run frequently, and if you have a serious delay, you even get part of your money back. They don't do it because they like the customer they do it because it's a law. My GF and I just got back from a holiday in Croatia. There, there is only a train every four hours, and then you're lucky. The track is so Croatia is hardley comparible to western europe. bad, going by bus is just as fast, except you can buy a ticket on the bus instead of having to buy a ticket + reservation in advance. On the way back, we used the ICE (intercity express) through Germany. It got delayed, so we missed our train to Amsterdam by 15 minutes. The Aah yes, ICE, always put in a extra half hour if you need to change trains, you don't wat to miss reserved trains, no realy you don't want to. It is just the same as with airplanes. delay was in Köln, because the pope paid a visit - well known to the Deutsche Bahn, but still they didn't do anything about it. We had to use another train which left two hours later. And we didn't get any compensation for this - not even for the reservation for the train we missed. Same as with airplanes. We had a delay of two hours. In The Netherlands you would at least get a significant percentage of your money back. Not in Germany. Strange, I very frequently go with rail like transportation across western europe and the only place where it sucks more then in the Netherlands is the UK or France when they doing another strike. I do not account major accidents like flooding, storm or earthquakes. After all, I think with the frequent trains (compared to Croatia) and reasonable refunds (compared to Germany), the NS isn't that bad after all. Comparing it to Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain, Norway, Swizz etc.etc. okay, but comparing it with a former Communistic country? They still have about 45 years of catching up to do and to there credits they develop much faster then the old western countries. I heard that in Swizz public transportation tend to leave on time and even arrive on time! Compare that with 12% delayed leaving and 27% delayed arrivals of trains in the Netherlands. A rule of thumb is that as soon as the weathere changes (it doesn't matter what from what and where too) you have at least a 15 minute delay between the major stations. Just don't plan to get anywhere special with public transportation after 2300h. There are night trains between the big cities in the Randstad. At least in Amsterdam busses go through the city all the night, every night. I don't know about other cities - I live in Amsterdam. There still alot of people living in cities like Gouda or surrounding villages in Het Groene Hart, and most of them can only get home after 23.00h when they go by car (or motorbike). cut Most people in here are non-believers or so lightly believers that you won't know the difference between them and the non-believers. The biggest part of the remaining believers are realistic and value life, moral and norms without compromising public safety, of course fanatics are every where in the world including the Netherlands. Here in Amsterdam, things are getting more nasty. A writer/critic/actor was killed in the name of Allah, just because he excercised his freedom of speech. Another man was seriously messed up while standing in his own front door opening, just because he's homosexual. In his street, sometimes people are shouting Go away you homo, you're not welcome here. This is a Macoccan street!. I'm not discriminating, but Maroccans telling Dutch people they aren't welcome in their own captial?
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Martin P. Hellwig enlightened us with: Yes it is, and it sucks too In Amsterdam, it's the best way to go. or do you find it amusing to ride 15 clicks through rain and wind to get to your clients? Makes a man out of you ;-) Of course, rain sucks, but as long as it's not raining too hard it's not really an issue for me. By the way did you notice the travel across the Randstad part? Sure. I wouldn't want to bike from Amsterdam to Rotterdam either. Yes that reminds me that I had 2 quite expensive abus locks on my rather cheap bike, the day after a hack was published on the Internet how to open this lock without damaging, the locks where stolen but my bike was further untouched, that pretty badly hurt my bikes ego I guess. LOL :) if you have a serious delay, you even get part of your money back. They don't do it because they like the customer they do it because it's a law. I don't mind for what reason they do it. Fact is that they do it. Comparing it to Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain, Norway, Swizz etc.etc. okay, but comparing it with a former Communistic country? Hey, I just had a three week holiday in Croatia with transportation mostly by train. It made me a lot more positive about the NS. Yeah that sucks, but this is the work of fanatics and in no way by the average, anyone searching for a reason for murder, rape or opression can find them in any religious context that doesn't matter if it's one of various christian incarnations, islam or whatever mono/multi/none-god(s) believes people believe in. Oh I agree to that. The problem IMHO is that currently the name of Allah and/or the Islam are used a lot when people are killed, and we don't see a massive counter-move from other (not mentally insane like those fanatics) Islamitic people. Sybren -- The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Wade wrote: Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? For a Python newsgroup, I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet that Guido van Rossum developed Python at the CWI in Amsterdam (called Stichting Mathematisch Centrum at the time). Type 'copyright' at the Python prompt some time. regards, -- Reinout van Schouwen *** student of Artifical Intelligence email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]*** mobile phone: +31-6-44360778 www.vanschouwen.info *** help mee met GNOME vertalen: nl.gnome.org -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Thank you for your praise of my little country, but depending on your definition, the Netherlands might not be as civil as you assume. A lot of my foreign collegues commplain about how rude the dutch can be. Countries like sweden or japan seem to have much better manners. As to which countries have been civilized for the longest time, the Netherlands wouldn't rank very high there either, China, Greece or Egypt have been civilized much longer. I do think however that New york should have it's name reverted to New Amsterdam ;-) Tom Anderson [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/24/05 6:49 pm On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Armin Steinhoff wrote: Adriaan Renting wrote: Wade [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/24/05 2:31 pm http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. What a joke ... Amsterdam is 'civilized' since several hundreds of years :) Indeed. Perhaps we should rename it Old New York to reinforce the point :). But yes, the Netherlands is a highly civilised country - up there with Denmark and Canada, and above the UK, France or Germany, IMNERHO. I'm not going to bother comparing it to the US! tom -- This should be on ox.boring, shouldn't it? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
But yes, the Netherlands is a highly civilised country - up there with Denmark and Canada, and above the UK, France or Germany, IMNERHO. I'm not going to bother comparing it to the US! How strange that you put Canada so high on your list. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Martin P. Hellwig enlightened us with: Personal transportation sucks in the Netherlands, if you live in the Randstad (the area of the above mentioned cities) and you have to travel across the Randstad, you go with the bike and/or bus/tram/metro/train because that is the fastest way of transportation. And a bike isn't personal transportation? By the way, the big cities are notorious for losing your bike fast. True. Unless you have two proper locks. In that case your bike will last a very long time. That doesn't mean that public transportation is good, no actual since the public transportation is commercialized it sucks too. It's quite good actually. The Dutch Railways (Nationale Spoorwegen, NS for short) have a reputation of being late, but it isn't that bad. Trains run frequently, and if you have a serious delay, you even get part of your money back. My GF and I just got back from a holiday in Croatia. There, there is only a train every four hours, and then you're lucky. The track is so bad, going by bus is just as fast, except you can buy a ticket on the bus instead of having to buy a ticket + reservation in advance. On the way back, we used the ICE (intercity express) through Germany. It got delayed, so we missed our train to Amsterdam by 15 minutes. The delay was in Köln, because the pope paid a visit - well known to the Deutsche Bahn, but still they didn't do anything about it. We had to use another train which left two hours later. And we didn't get any compensation for this - not even for the reservation for the train we missed. We had a delay of two hours. In The Netherlands you would at least get a significant percentage of your money back. Not in Germany. After all, I think with the frequent trains (compared to Croatia) and reasonable refunds (compared to Germany), the NS isn't that bad after all. Just don't plan to get anywhere special with public transportation after 2300h. There are night trains between the big cities in the Randstad. At least in Amsterdam busses go through the city all the night, every night. I don't know about other cities - I live in Amsterdam. Well politics, in the Netherlands is like politics in the rest of Western-Europe North-Atlantic-coast countries, excluding UK Ireland. Still, we were the first ones to legalize properly executed eutanasia. We were also the first to have official single-sex marriages. I don't know about other countries, but here prostitution is a regular job, so you have to pay taxes as a prostitute, and there is even a union. Most of the time these politicians are social caring about everybody in the country including non-voters, non-payers and fanatic-believers of-whatever-you-can-imagine. That's very true. I'm not too happy about that. Too many people refuse to vote, for just that reason. Most people in here are non-believers or so lightly believers that you won't know the difference between them and the non-believers. The biggest part of the remaining believers are realistic and value life, moral and norms without compromising public safety, of course fanatics are every where in the world including the Netherlands. Here in Amsterdam, things are getting more nasty. A writer/critic/actor was killed in the name of Allah, just because he excercised his freedom of speech. Another man was seriously messed up while standing in his own front door opening, just because he's homosexual. In his street, sometimes people are shouting Go away you homo, you're not welcome here. This is a Macoccan street!. I'm not discriminating, but Maroccans telling Dutch people they aren't welcome in their own captial? I wish _those_ people would just go back to Marocco. The only serious downsize is that in the Randstad the house prices are too high Very true. My girlfriend and I are renting a house in the northern part of Amsterdam, just above Central Station. We had to search quite hard to find that, though! Sybren -- The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Adriaan Renting enlightened us with: A lot of my foreign collegues commplain about how rude the dutch can be. Countries like sweden or japan seem to have much better manners. I also think the Dutch aren't all that communicative. I was queueing in a store when they announced to have the new CD from an already deceased artist. I turned around to tell the man behind me I wonder how they did that. The reaction was just yeah, and he looked away from me. Just coming back from Croatia, where everybody likes to talk to each other, it was indeed a bit of a shock. Another reason the Dutch are sometimes found to be a bit rude, is because usually we just say what we think. For some cultures, this is indeed considered to be rude. I just think it's honest. I do think however that New york should have it's name reverted to New Amsterdam ;-) Definitely ;-) Sybren -- The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Martin P. Hellwig [EMAIL PROTECTED] (MPH) wrote: MPH Of course this is all done with public transport and/or bike, not without MPH reason. MPH Personal transportation sucks in the Netherlands, if you live in the MPH Randstad (the area of the above mentioned cities) and you have to travel MPH across the Randstad, you go with the bike and/or bus/tram/metro/train MPH because that is the fastest way of transportation. That depends very much on where you live and where you have to go (mostly on the number of changes of transport vehicle). I, for example live in a small village, 11 km from my work in Utrecht. By bus it is 45-60 minutes, by bike 40 min. and by car (rush hour) usually 20-25 min. Only when something serious happens it can be 45 min. by car. This happens about once a year. Most of the time I take the bike, but not for the speed. It is actually a pleasant ride, mainly through woods and meadows. My daughter worked some years ago in Nieuwegein, adjacent to Utrecht. By car 20 min., by public transport 60-90 min. And this is not in some remote area, but just in the center of the country, one of the most densely populated areas. -- Piet van Oostrum [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~piet [PGP 8DAE142BE17999C4] Private email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be acapital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself? Frank Zappa Geef mij wat vloerbedekking onder deze vette zwevende sofa sorry, very off-topic, couldn't resist dimitri -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Sybren Stuvel wrote: Martin P. Hellwig enlightened us with: [...] On the way back, we used the ICE (intercity express) through Germany. It got delayed, so we missed our train to Amsterdam by 15 minutes. The delay was in Köln, because the pope paid a visit - well known to the Deutsche Bahn, but still they didn't do anything about it. We had to use another train which left two hours later. And we didn't get any compensation for this - not even for the reservation for the train we missed. We had a delay of two hours. In The Netherlands you would at least get a significant percentage of your money back. Not in Germany. [...] Hitler must be turnng in his grave. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Should I move to Amsterdam?
http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. Extra Python connection, besides the obvious one: Is gezellig related to the Zen of Python? ( http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6351024471/m/2041067571/r/3901049571 ) -- Wade Leftwich Ithaca, NY -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Well, I'm not sure if Amsterdam is nice, but the Netherlands is o.k., except for the weather. I'd like to descripbe it as 49 weeks of autumn, 1 week of spring, 1 week of summer, 1 week of winter. Currently my employer only has an opening for a Microwave Antenna designer though, sorry no Python coders. http://www.astron.nl/astron/jobs/index.htm Seems like a nice column, I'll read it completely some other time. Wade [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/24/05 2:31 pm http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. Extra Python connection, besides the obvious one: Is gezellig related to the Zen of Python? ( http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6351024471/m/2041067571/r/3901049571 ) -- Wade Leftwich Ithaca, NY -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. It used to be, until some lunatic (alledged to be a left-winger) killed an (alledged right-wing) politician, and another (alledged muslim-extremist) lunatic killed an (alledged right- or left-wing, depends on who you ask) cineast. We used to be a place where everything happens a few years later, but we are catching up! :( But I fondly remember the classes I had at the Delft university by Lambert Meertens about the ABC language, which is the forerunner of Python. :) Wouter van Ooijen -- http://www.voti.nl Webshop for PICs and other electronics http://www.voti.nl/hvu Teacher electronics and informatics -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Adriaan Renting wrote: Well, I'm not sure if Amsterdam is nice, but the Netherlands is o.k., except for the weather. I'd like to descripbe it as 49 weeks of autumn, 1 week of spring, 1 week of summer, 1 week of winter. Currently my employer only has an opening for a Microwave Antenna designer though, sorry no Python coders. http://www.astron.nl/astron/jobs/index.htm Seems like a nice column, I'll read it completely some other time. Wade [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/24/05 2:31 pm http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. What a joke ... Amsterdam is 'civilized' since several hundreds of years :) --Armin Extra Python connection, besides the obvious one: Is gezellig related to the Zen of Python? ( http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6351024471/m/2041067571/r/3901049571 ) -- Wade Leftwich Ithaca, NY -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Armin Steinhoff wrote: Adriaan Renting wrote: Wade [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/24/05 2:31 pm http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. What a joke ... Amsterdam is 'civilized' since several hundreds of years :) Indeed. Perhaps we should rename it Old New York to reinforce the point :). But yes, the Netherlands is a highly civilised country - up there with Denmark and Canada, and above the UK, France or Germany, IMNERHO. I'm not going to bother comparing it to the US! tom -- This should be on ox.boring, shouldn't it? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Should I move to Amsterdam?
Wade wrote: http://www.slate.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/ Nice little series by Seth Stevenson for Americans daydreaming about emigration. Somewhere, anywhere ... maybe Amsterdam? I've never been to the Netherlands myself, but it sounds very civilized. Extra Python connection, besides the obvious one: Is gezellig related to the Zen of Python? ( http://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6351024471/m/2041067571/r/3901049571 ) -- Wade Leftwich Ithaca, NY Well I dunno, I was born in Germany moved to the Netherlands and been quit around in the country. Personally I don't like city life, however from where I live I am within the hour in the center of Rotterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht, if you add half an hour I'm at the heart of Amsterdam. While coming back at home at a small but flourishing village. Of course this is all done with public transport and/or bike, not without reason. Personal transportation sucks in the Netherlands, if you live in the Randstad (the area of the above mentioned cities) and you have to travel across the Randstad, you go with the bike and/or bus/tram/metro/train because that is the fastest way of transportation. By the way, the big cities are notorious for losing your bike fast. That doesn't mean that public transportation is good, no actual since the public transportation is commercialized it sucks too. But it beats the hell out of being in the traffic jam every day for at least an hour wherever you want to go, not entirely true, between 11.00-15.00 and 21.00-05.00 then it's clear enough to switch lanes. Just don't plan to get anywhere special with public transportation after 2300h. Still you might want to go earlier if you go by car, perhaps then you can find that one parking spot close enough to your destination that you don't need to take the bus/tram/metro after all to finish the last 5 miles. Well politics, in the Netherlands is like politics in the rest of Western-Europe North-Atlantic-coast countries, excluding UK Ireland. Most of the time these politicians are social caring about everybody in the country including non-voters, non-payers and fanatic-believers of-whatever-you-can-imagine. Although that social caring is mostly out of a dark personal agenda or plain dumbness. In the Netherlands even the most right-winged (of any mattering size) parties are still liberal socialist in the US viewpoint. Somehow I think that if you want to become a politician you have to be able to shutdown at least 75% percent of you brain while making decisions and reactivate them when you have to find an excuse for the misstep, well at least the last part is true for the Netherlands, from what I see of US politics even that is not a requirement. In the Netherlands we still have (but watering away) tradition that people are responsible for their own deeds and do not sue some unrelated company when spilling hot coffee or microwaving your puppy or washing you baby in the wash machine. Most people in here are non-believers or so lightly believers that you won't know the difference between them and the non-believers. The biggest part of the remaining believers are realistic and value life, moral and norms without compromising public safety, of course fanatics are every where in the world including the Netherlands. We had some very difficult years but the economics is picking up again and because we made some serious budget cuts in social security and public health it is on a more stable bases then that of Germany and France. The only serious downsize is that in the Randstad the house prices are too high, the only way you can buy a reasonable row house house (3 bedrooms, average room = 4x3 meters) in a not too bad side of the city is when you and you partner work full time and are not planning to raise your kid(s) all by your self. Still I don't want to live anywhere else, Holland is big enough to find some country side with a slower pace of living (but still having adsl), if you prefer that like me. And with a bit of searching you can build up a social and work environment not filled with shallow and/or dumbed down people. All of the above is of course my viewpoint YMMV. -- mph -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
