@tml@urbanists.social avatar

tml

@tml@urbanists.social

Software engineer, retired. Loves trains. Anti-fascist. Atheist. Feminist. Disillusioned by the open source "community".

My toots are licensed as CC BY-ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ . In other words, feel free to index them. Magic words: searchable.

If you want to follow me you must have some sane information in your description. And some own toots that show you are real person. If you seem to be a bot, I will block you right away.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

There is a train connection from Lisbon to Badajoz (border station in Spain) that arrives at 17:26. Guess when the train to Madrid leaves Badajoz? Four minutes earlier of course. Because reasons. Would be reasonable to expect state owned railway companies in neighbouring countries to coordinate their timetables, right? #CrossBorderRail #Renfe #CP

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Sure, there are similar issues even between saner countries like France and Germany. But in those cases trains tend to run more frequently. This 17:22 train from Badajoz to Madrid is the last of the day.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

I love that some of Spain’s main railway stations have been given names honouring Spanish female authors, journalists, philosophers etc. Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Gardens, Madrid-Chamartin-Clara Campoamor, Málaga-Maria Zambrano. Are there more? Better than mythical figures (saints).

But still. From a usability POV such complex names are horrible. Parts of the name can be left out or abbreviated. Could easily confuse an unaware traveler, especially a foreigner.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

The feeling when you are already completely full in a tapas bar and can’t recall whether you ordered anything more and are afraid they will bring you one more dish.

I am used to Finnish tapas bars where three tapas per person is the norm. Here two is definitely enough.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Fabulous bridge in

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tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

First Santiago pilgrimage walker spotted. As almost expected based on Taras Grescoe’s book, he looked more looking for casual romantic encounters in hostels for peregrinos than for spiritual uplifting.

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

After a hot walk, not one but two glasses of ice cold Coke zero, please. One for each hand.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Might this perhaps be good news? Or it is just marketing BS?

Ah now I notice it was May 12 last year…

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

And without any noise, cursing workers, or sledgehammer application (compare to bogie change Poland/Ukraine etc) this train changed from 1435 to 1668 mm gauge on the fly. First time for me. Now in Galicia.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

If you buy tickets to the Alcazar in Córdoba on the net, it asks you for names, passport numbers, telephone numbers and other shit, tedious to enter. If you just walk up to the ticket office, you get your ticket, and pay. Because Internet and Security!!!

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

Now that Jack Dorsey has left the board of Bluesky he will have more time for his other job, Archbishop to Catherine the Great

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

@danjac I think the technical term is Patriarch?

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Passports have had machine-readable text for ages. Still, whoever designed ’s over-the-counter ticket sales IT system didn’t think of including a suitable reader. (Don’t know about the self-service ticket machines.) Even if Renfe, like all long distance travel companies in Spain, requires the passport or ID card number of each passenger. (Which then is, I assume, extremely rarely checked, but hey, SECURITY!!!)

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Out for a few cocktails. Luckily had a look at what Google Maps lists, as there is a classy cocktail bar in the neighbouring block that we had passed multiple times but not noticed. Called 1862 Dry Bar. Don’t know the significance of 1862.

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tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

First cocktail was Sherry Wood (see menu in image), then a Grasshopper. Extremely refreshing. Like toothpaste. My new favourite cocktail. (Yes, I watched the first episode of Palm Royale on Apple TV+.)

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tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

The next bar has a non-alcoholic cocktail named Hilma af Klint! (Love the abstractness and avantgardism of her art, hate the esoteric supernatural shit.) I went for the alcohol-containing Abduction one, though.

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tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Which is served in a suitable container, with a light and smoke show. Colour me impressed.

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar
tml, to Madrid
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

The free (as in beer) buses in , 001 and 002, are really useful. Sad that we learnt of them only on the second day here. Good for trips between Atocha and the area where our Airbnb is, for example.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

More rant: This display showing who is next in line to be served at the counter uses most of the area to display ad videos. Instead of for instance using a larger font for the numbers so that they could actually be seen by people standing far away. Oh, and some of the queue numbers use both capital O and digit zero. And there are benches to sit on in the corner, from which the display is not visible.

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

A large number of the people who have taken a queueing ticket end up not using it at all, so the staff spend a lot of their time just waiting for a customer who has already left to turn up.

tml, to random
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

What the actual duck? Buying train tickets Madrid–Cordoba from on the web, one gets put on a bloody waiting list (page) for five minutes, before one even sees what connections there are? (To check how full trains might be, and to potentially buy a normal ticket.) Spain seems to be really weird and backwards for train travel in many senses, not just . How can other as large train companies (DB etc) handle these things so much better?

Or did I click something wrong?

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

And when you think you have made a purchase (plain ticket for the wife, to save on travel days), did the things correctly with your bank identification app to approve the card purchase, return to the site, this useful message.

Oh well, at least they did not charge the card.

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

Some person on Tripadvisor wrote seven years ago (!): “The website is woefully underpowered because it does not have the capacity to handle the number of people who want to use it.” Oh well then, can’t expect things like that to be fixable in just a few years.

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

It's kinda depressing how tumblr is imploding now and I'm seeing half my follow list go "man, after seeing both twitter and tumblr do this, it's really showing how it's a bad idea for a social media network to be run by a company who can make arbitrary changes without user consent.

anyway, here's my bsky: ..."

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

@foone How is “user consent” implemented in the Fediverse, or more specifically Mastodon? Anyone can run their own server and modify the code as they like (simple matter of programming) and block any other server they like?

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

@root @foone So a “user” is someone who knows programming and wants to run their own servers etc? I see.

tml,
@tml@urbanists.social avatar

@root @foone And still such a user can resist arbitrary changes decided by whoever implements the fediverse software they’re running? (Or, alternatively, stay in some old version that in some years will be a security liability.)

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