VT_hawkeye's New Writeups

Eurostar (thing)

2003-03-24T21:16:58Z

I rode Eurostar from London's Waterloo Station to Paris's Gare du Nord in early March 2003, keeping my eyes open and my GPS in hand to watch exactly where we were and just how fast we were going. This WU will attempt to give a more up-to-date view of the passenger experience from London to Paris; I unfortunately do not have any information other than hearsay for the reverse route or the Belgian service, because I flew home from Paris.

Tickets can be purchased in the UK, continental Europe or USA, in GBP, Euros or USD respectively. Prices in each currency are fixed and don't necessarily have any relation to prevailing exchange rates, so if you want to travel as cheaply as you can, it's best to shop around before you order. Advance tickets will usually be less expensive, and if you're under 26, you can get a youth rate whether you're a student or not. All tickets are reserved seating.

Upon arrival at Waterloo by Tube, you follow signs for Eurostar service into a…

January 10, 2003 (idea)

2003-01-10T20:43:08Z

Word to the Britnoders:

I AM ON MY WAY.

Seriously. I'm heading to the UK and France the first week of March, and I'd like to hang out with you guys at some point.

28 February-2 March: arrive Manchester, drive to Blackburn, go to Blackburn Rovers (featuring US national goalkeeper Brad Friedel) match v. Manchester City on 1 March
2-5 March: LONDON
5 March afternoon: Eurostar to Paris
5-8 March: Paris, crashing with a college friend and her husband, then back to the States

Britnoders, particularly Londoners: I have a few things I want to see which I missed the last time I visited, but most of them are only open during the day. Thus, my evenings for 2-4 March appear to be conspicuously free. So, any of you that would be interested in meeting up/showing me around/whatever, please drop me a /msg. Tourist London I can handle myself, but meeting cool people makes travelling a whole heck of a lot more fun.

Hope to see you guys then.

November 5, 2002 (idea)

2002-11-05T18:21:58Z

On this Election Day, a few things come to mind.

First, for those who would call our elections "illegitimate" and who claim that their vote won't be counted: please do us all a favor and find somewhere where elections really are a joke, learn about it, tell us about it, and learn a few things applicable to the US today in the process. The fact that your side lost a close race does not make an election illegitimate. Selective enforcement of election laws illegitimizes an election.

Second, please go out there and vote. But don't do so without thinking about it. Lots of people have lots of stuff to say, and it's awfully easy to throw a fit about what's happening right now. Coming up with a viable long-term solution to the problems that those happenings address seems a bit harder for those folks. Sitting on your hands…

PRL (thing)

2002-10-17T16:26:14Z

A PRL is a preferred roaming list, an encoded file used by CDMA mobile phones to determine preferential order of use for systems other than their home system.

In general, any cellular carrier will have its system segmented into regions that can be uniquely identified by a numeric SID, or system ID. (IIRC, my old nTelos phone was on 4217 in western Virginia, but nTelos's eastern VA network was 4468.) While you are within the coverage area of that system, your phone will connect to it; you should get all your nifty features like voice-mail notification, text-messaging, data services, etc. Things get a little more interesting when you can't get to a home system, though. Your phone, if not told otherwise, would simply refuse to work off-system; your display would show "No service," and you'd be out of luck.

In the early days of analog car phone service, users had to carry around a phone book-sized list of access codes in order to get any outbound roaming service, and had to…

Biafra (place)

2002-08-22T00:05:55Z

Before an angry radical white guy decided he liked the sound of the name, Biafra was a short-lived secessionist republic that attempted to break off from Nigeria in 1967.

The Christian-Muslim conflict in Nigeria that we see today (much of the north subscribes to Sharia, which offends the secular national government greatly) is, as in much of Africa, overlaid on long-standing tribal rivalries. In late 1966, attacks on non-Muslim Igbo settlers in the north had reached a fever pitch. The Igbo-dominated Eastern Region (now roughly the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states) started openly talking secession as refugees flooded in, led by regional military officers. Conversely, non-Igbo started leaving the East as they felt their societal position would be compromised by the new arrivals. Although talks were held starting in early 1967 to settle the disputes that were driving Igbo into the East, reconcile between the Eastern military and federal political leaders…

middle school (place)

2002-08-21T18:36:42Z

In the American educational system, "middle school" is between elementary school and high school, and roughly defined by the 10-13 age group. Some school systems completely lack this level, running elementary school to sixth grade and starting high school or "secondary school" at seventh grade; in other places, it's called junior high. The most common grade assignments seem to be 6th-8th grades, but arrangements exist that use virtually any 2-4 year subset of 5th-9th grades that includes at least seventh grade.

Middle school is a traumatic experience (or, more simply, hell) for most kids. There are two major changes that cause most of these problems: the adjustment to a class-shifting schedule, and puberty.

Let's tackle class-shifting first. In elementary school, a child is assigned to one homeroom ("Mrs. So-and-so's class") where he/she spends the majority of the day. For special subjects like physical education and music, the entire class is marched off to…