The Infrastructure Off-Topic Thread!

Amtmann

Taking a cue from several other fora, we thought it mightn't be a bad idea to start an off-topic thread here.

Talk about TV, cars, wimmin, the weather, drink - whatever takes your fancy basically (within the bounds of, er, decency of course)!

The moderation won't be as strict here btw. So - let the off-topic chatting commence!

Sponge Bob

Well I suppose no infrastructure will be built without bank support . Here is how banks appraise their investments

http://www.ft.com/cms/4fe40d1a-07b4-11dd-a922-0000779fd2ac.html?_i_referralObject=10664514&fromSearch=n

Typewriter

Since this is all off topic i'd like to know what everyone on here drives.

I drive a Mitsubishi Carisma 1.6L GLX but I also drive my girlfriends Subaru Impreza 1.6 GL quite alot.



So lads & ladys what to you enjoy Ireland's new Motorways in???

L1011

Talking about women, ick...

Car wise: personal is a Fiat Panda 100HP, main driver is a work Citroen C4 though. Its the one that's beaten every last mile of motorway and HQDC in the country since April!

Amtmann

Well, I went around in an outwardly grand but inwardly rotten VW Golf Mark 3 for the past two years until she gave up the ghost outside Littleton last summer. I'd been taking photos of the M8 when she started whistling like an old kettle. I was towed ignominiously back to Cashel and the car was scrapped a few weeks ago.

BluntGuy

I drive a Fiat Punto...

*sigh*

If you're over six foot, aren't paper thin or plan to carry more than half a person... I don't recommend this car.

It's cheap and nippy, but that's about it.

Amtmann

I always imagined you going around in a big SUV for some reason! I've always been way more interested in roads than cars anyway - quite the opposite to the lads over in Motors!

BluntGuy

Furet wrote: »

I always imagined you going around in a big SUV for some reason! I've always been way more interested in roads than cars anyway - quite the opposite to the lads over in Motors!

Hah! If only I had an SUV, there's definitely some people I'd like to plough down (my Fiat would probably explode upon impact after crashing into a paper bag, so I can't use that)... err... but that's probably best kept to myself.

I'm very much interested in motors, more-so roads though. I don't buy an SUV because I don't need one. Now if I was a mother with one child, with a school 1 km down the road that could easily be walked to, THEN I'd meet the criteria!

Typewriter

I used to have a fiat punto, loved it, then I drove it out to the backs of beyond in Co. Wexford to look at some old manor house for some college trip. It wouldn’t start so I looked under the hood and the cogs that hold the timing belt on had fallen off, that’s right they had fallen off!, I had to get it towed about 15km to the nearest village (and nearest mechanic) who I got to replace the engine (because I loved it so much) which died again after only lasting 2 months.

Fiat = Fix It Again Tomorrow, never again I told myself.

No offence MYOB I hear the fiat panda thought is the exception. My girlfriend uncle is a mechanic in Cork and he swears by them.

L1011

Basically any post-03 design Fiat is grand, the problem is that the ones most people here have dealt with - Mk1, 2 and 2b Puntos - come from a 1993 core design! The Panda, 500, new Punto, new Bravo are all fine cars. The van based ones should be fine but I'm not volunteering to be seen dead driving a Qubo!

Amtmann

MYOB, have you ever driven through a place called Hacketstown in County Carlow? This is a place many people have never heard of, but in my view it makes Urlingford seem like Killarney.

BluntGuy

Isn't Hacketstown meant to be Ireland's ugliest town?

NedNew

My votes would go to

1. Castledermot, a clear winner in my opinion. Run down, derelict old buildings mixed with empty new units. Yuck.


2. Clonroche, Co. Wexford (N30), it has improved a little though in the past few years.

The Word Is Bor

I currently drive a Hi-Lux (weekdays) and an Alfa Spider (weekends).
That is how I roll.

Tech3

Talking about cars I drive a Mazda 3 saloon 06, does the job for those tipp back roads around the Nenagh-Limerick scheme! I still have the carzone photo before I bought it below:

mysterious

Bet you all remember the Kildare bottleneck!

Does anyone remember the shell house just before the daggered train bridge 2km from Kildare?? I only noticed this house because of always been stuck in tailbacks at Kildare.

Amtmann

mysterious wrote: »

Does anyone remember the shell house just before the daggered train bridge 2km from Kildare?? I only noticed this house because of always been stuck in tailbacks at Kildare.

Yup! Guesthouse?

mysterious

Furet wrote: »

Yup! Guesthouse?

Not sure, but its all shells on it.

I actually can't believe the amount of traffic that used to split the town in half. 21,000 vehicles using the town pre bypass. Not to mention that few thousands avoiding it by taking the Curragh or Athy roads!


The longest tailback in Kildare and Monasterevin, was the new years exodus back to Dublin in 2002/03 I think?!. Tailbacks strectched from Kildare to Ballybrittas going NB.:eek:


But thats the only recollection to my knowledge of the longest tailback ever in this country.

Tech3

What are posters interests outside of infrastructure and wimmin?

Amtmann

I like early modern history, red wine, mountains, forests and Dexter. I found boards.ie a few years ago when I wanted some advise about car trouble and secondary teaching. I admit that I'm addicted. I need a daily fix. This tends to annoy those around me, but they're coping.

I'm learning German at the moment (modern and a 16th-century dialect), and will probably be moving to Nuremburg for a few months early next year.

?Cee?view

Alfa Romeo Brera. Love it but cry when I think of the depreciation

Tech3

Nice interests Furet although I've never heard of Dexter!

I have a keen interest in the property market: the boom and bust, I like to watch the odd match of rugby, look at ancient Ireland,also the tourist hot spots, going on holdays and driving!

I found boards.ie when I was in college looking up the broadband forum and found community and transport last year. I always had an interest in roads and the development of them. The first dual carriageway I remember being on was the N20 coming into Cork city which I though was amazing at the time! :pac:

I'm glad the previous posts function has been disabled on the website as it gives me relief that my work mates will be taking less digs at me visiting this website. My missus and family have come to accept that this is my hobby! :eek:

mysterious

tech2 wrote: »

Nice interests Furet although I've never heard of Dexter!

I have a keen interest in the property market: the boom and bust, I like to watch the odd match of rugby, look at ancient Ireland,also the tourist hot spots, going on holdays and driving!

I found boards.ie when I was in college looking up the broadband forum and found community and transport last year. I always had an interest in roads and the development of them. The first dual carriageway I remember being on was the N20 coming into Cork city which I though was amazing at the time! :pac:

I'm glad the previous posts function has been disabled on the website as it gives me relief that my work mates will be taking less digs at me visiting this website. My missus and family have come to accept that this is my hobby! :eek:

If you don't accept yourself, how can anyone?

My motto is not to give a flying f%^& what people think. It's good to venture your own hobbie and make your dreams come true!

If someone is going to take a dig at your for that. It means they are unhappy or have nothing better to do with their own time.

My hobbies is seeking truth and removing bull**** from the arena around me.

Tech3

mysterious wrote: »

If you don't accept yourself, how can anyone?

My motto is not to give a flying f%^& what people think. It's good to venture your own hobbie and make your dreams come true!

If someone is going to take a dig at your for that. It means they are unhappy or have nothing better to do with their own time.

There only having a laugh. I don't take them seriously. Work would be rather dull if there was no p**s taking.

Amtmann

mysterious wrote: »

My hobbies is seeking truth and removing bull**** from the arena around me.

Do you live near a mart?

mysterious

Furet wrote: »

Do you live near a mart?

Actually you could say so.

In my view. i view 95% of the public to be sheep, cattle. Thank god for the 5% who are not because I would lose my mind.:D

mysterious

tech2 wrote: »

There only having a laugh. I don't take them seriously. Work would be rather dull if there was no p**s taking.

I know, but ther are people out there that would goad you for doing something productive with your time:)


Like I do road side planting in my local area. People would be looking at me, like I'm from Uranus. I do a lot of creative and different things. I love people who are not afraid to be themselves.

Tech3

mysterious wrote: »

Actually you could say so.

In my view. i view 95% of the public to be sheep, cattle. Thank god for the 5% who are not because I would lose my mind.:D

Is that the reason why you have been banned off this website so much?

Oh heres another topic: Ryanair- Yay or Nay?

mysterious

tech2 wrote: »

Is that the reason why you have been banned off this website so much?

Yes because I don't get banned on sites where I know people are not as conditioned. :P

follow da leada, hes right just don't trust yourself or your fellow man, follow da leada leada lead. He be the shepard and we be the sheep. If you challenge the shepard of this site your the black sheep.

I'm casted down from the heavens as satan.

I was decieved all the time.:D

nordydan

Speaking on chicks, are there any birds on this site? I cannot remember any. I think I remember seeing one on SABRE

Amtmann

Calina and Taconnol are women, but they're not regulars (yet!).

rameire

well i drive a honda deauville motorbike,
so im the guy filtering through all you guys stuck in the traffic, especially on the lovely 2 lane M7 motorway.

also drive a honda civic the newer version ( no i dont have shares in honda )
but that will be gone in 2 weeks, cause the missus decided to give up work to be all arty farty.

used to own a panda, great car.

opened my account on boards back in 2002, cant remember why but forgot all about it until a year or two ago.
now the missus is addicted and i have to fight her to use the comp, as she uses my log-on.

hobbies, just getting into photography, thats what the wife has decided to do. hence the reason why ive started taking photos of roads for you guys.
another hobby is alcohol, but im cutting back ( i swear ). and Stargate.
i suppose roads are a hobby now for me, its more of a how quick can they build them interest.
used to be more confrontational on boards, but am more laid back now.

also hate people who dont look after their financial situation, or cant understand how people just ignore their problems.

KevR

BluntGuy wrote: »

I drive a Fiat Punto...

*sigh*

If you're over six foot, aren't paper thin or plan to carry more than half a person... I don't recommend this car.

It's cheap and nippy, but that's about it.

I drive a Punto (1.2L Petrol) also. Love it around town but it's fairly crap for long journeys, especially on a motorway (the petrol practically drains from the car if you push it at all). Worst journey ever in my Punto was a night time trip to Dublin a couple of years back when the M6 only came as far as Kilbeggan. There was thick fog and ice on the roads, took 4 hours and I was wrecked tired.

I now also drive a Skoda Superb (1.9L Diesel). Long journeys are so effortless in it compared to the Punto.

Furet wrote: »

! I've always been way more interested in roads than cars anyway - quite the opposite to the lads over in Motors!

+1

KevR

tech2 wrote: »

What are posters interests outside of infrastructure and wimmin?

Watching but not playing football (soccer) and hurling. Travelling and sightseeing. Incidentally, often killing two birds with one stone, I have travelled all over England watching football and travelled all over Ireland for hurling. Hopefully next season when I have a job I will be able to afford some away games in the Champions League and I'll get to see some parts of Europe that I've not been to before.

In my Final Year of Information Technology in university so I suppose I am interested in computing.

Also, have a bit of an interest in power-lifting.

tech2 wrote: »

Oh heres another topic: Ryanair- Yay or Nay?

I use them a fair bit and I find them ok.

L1011

tech2 wrote: »

What are posters interests outside of infrastructure and wimmin?

men

football, trance music, weird mix of films, cooking, Lego. weird mix of stuff.

mysterious

What about interesting topics such as?


Whats going on in the world??????


Pub talk is really overated imo. Cars? A topic of conversation.EEK. Are we going to talk about cars for the rest of eternity on this thread. Come on guys be more innovative with your conversations. Don't be scared to talk about things that don't always have to be small talk.:rolleyes:


Topic, I have one.
Why are Irish people so bloody afraid to talk about realism? awareness? reality? space? nature? beliefs?

Amtmann

You can develop your thoughts about this stuff here if you want I suppose. Just don't get angry or abusive if people disagree with you!

KevR

So who else hates students? I am a student myself but I hate students. :eek:

BluntGuy

mysterious wrote: »

Whats going on in the world??????

I'm currently eating a sandwich.

Amtmann

KevR wrote: »

So who else hates students? I am a student myself but I hate students. :eek:

Count me in there.

Tech3

KevR wrote: »

So who else hates students? I am a student myself but I hate students. :eek:

I'd say the ratio of bums to real students has hit 10:1.

There is no motivation in people today.

I see many wasters with no real target in life, sad really.

Amtmann

Well, one thing that bugs me as a researcher at a third level institution is the amount of students who look cross-eyed or dismissively at you when you use a word composed of more than four syllables. This is unavoidable in the Humanities, because often long words describe concepts or whole theories of society. Rather than bothering to find out what a word or concept means, the frequent refrain is, "I wish yer man would talk proper". I make no apologies for really hating that attitude.

I've also noticed a massive decline in the quality of students' writing over the past few years - and I'm not talking about typos here. It seems that a good deal of students do not know how to punctuate properly, let alone form grammatically correct sentences. Raise this matter on certain fora, or around certain people, and you'll be denounced as a 'snob'. There's also a very non-chalant attitude in certain quarters towards attending lectures. Whatever the rights or wrongs of bringing back fees, if a certain type of student had to pay for their education, they probably wouldn't go skiving off lectures so frequently!

KevR

There has been quite a bit of attention given in the local media to the rise in anti-social behaviour from students in Galway this year.

There are 20,000 students in Galway so it's probably a small minority but I can't stand students who go on like that. It's blatant attention seeking. Also, some of them just can't handle a bit of freedom.

Boards coverage of student behaviour that was also in the local papers

Students who need to get a life and a proper sense of humour

More coverage

Chris_533976

That'll be Spongey trying to gain support for the Outer Bypass by trashing Galway Noone will want to go there anymore, only around it.

mysterious

Students today are so irritating and out of touch with reality. I'm lucky in my generation where I learnt pretty fast when I left home what real life is about and where you have to say to yourself that your a grown up and you can't depend on your parents even when your stuck.

They think by getting a degree you kinda look hot. It's one of the most irritating things to me at the moment. "This generation" from (16 to 24) And I hate to biased but it's like Americansim.


You will soon find out, life isn't all materialism and how good your job is. The ego ccentric mind. YUCK.. The amount of 20something year old's that behave like 14 years old's is quite a common thing aswell.. When they come into a shop on a sunday night they buy all the crap food and giggle like a mob. I cannot understand the logic in young people smoking it's just hideous.

I'm extra aware and senstive to the people around me. I can easily detect what they give off. They are careless, ignorant and really flippant. They have no manners for old people. No patience and HAVE NO SENSE OF DIRECTION.


They judge, pass comments, the lads are goofy and the girls act like innocents. Why is this? Is this always the way? But honestly they are annoying and loud and I have no time for it!!! One would drop a bar on the ground and all of them would laugh. It's no joke. Is this funny?

I hate to judge, but this has to be said. There is no concept of respect, awareness or self responsibility amongst these folks.


I'm 24 and I'm saying this and that saying something. (And I was a student)

Chris_533976

Furet wrote: »

Well, one thing that bugs me as a researcher at a third level institution is the amount of students who look cross-eyed or dismissively at you when you use a word composed of more than four syllables. This is unavoidable in the Humanities, because often long words describe concepts or whole theories of society. Rather than bothering to find out what a word or concept means, the frequent refrain is, "I wish yer man would talk proper". I make no apologies for really hating that attitude.

I've also noticed a massive decline in the quality of students' writing over the past few years - and I'm not talking about typos here. It seems that a good deal of students do not know how to punctuate properly, let alone form grammatically correct sentences. Raise this matter on certain fora, or around certain people, and you'll be denounced as a 'snob'. There's also a very non-chalant attitude in certain quarters towards attending lectures. Whatever the rights or wrongs of bringing back fees, if a certain type of student had to pay for their education, they probably wouldn't go skiving off lectures so frequently!

The number of scientific papers I've seen with glaring typos is staggering.

Amtmann

tech2 wrote: »

Nice interests Furet although I've never heard of Dexter!

Well then do yourself a favour and get season one. So few people here have heard of the show but I have managed to get most of my friends addicted. I guarantee you'll be hooked by the second episode!

rameire

just want to say thanks to furet for the links page,
just checked out the ireland link for skyscrapercity and noticed im being quoted on that site with my pics and talk of the m9 from boards.
were world famous guys.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=517243&page=19

I wouldnt mind joining that site, but i would find myself divorced.

Amtmann

rameire wrote: »

I wouldnt mind joining that site, but i would find myself divorced.

+1.

Road enthusiasm + discussion fora = unhappy girlfriends/wives.

Amtmann

I'm doing a bit of research on the movements of journeymen and pedlars in sixteenth-century Germany. Happily, this allows me to indulge my diletantish interest in road history.

At the moment I'm looking at the historic routes between Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Nordlingen (a major trade route or 'Handelstrasse'), and also the old road between Rothenburg and Bamberg.

Now, the current way of getting from Rothenburg to Bamberg is here. The old way is basically here, up along the Aisch River. The old road seems to have been modified quite a bit before the Autobahns were built. I am going over it bit by bit, and I notice quite clearly here that the old road was realigned. But if you follow the old road back a bit, you see that the current route, marked in blue, runs for the most part parallel to a small dirt track. In Germany today, these dirt tracks are often cycle paths. I wonder though if these cycle paths are actually (and generally) the original Handelstrasse, or simply a Green innovation of more recent years?

Anyway, moving along!

Here we have the old and great trade route from Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Nordlingen, which passes through Dinkelsbuehl. One of the great things about many German towns is that you can clearly see the mark left by redundant infrastructure, namely the old town walls. Look at this aerial view of Dinkelsbuehl for instance - and especially this one of Nordlingen. Note how perfectly circular the old town is; and also, how the fields around it also form a circular pattern.
The reason?
The city is nestled is the heart of a crater resulting from a prehistoric meteor impact.
But back to the old road. It diverges from the more modern road here and appears quite abandoned here. The image isn't clear, but I'd love to know if the old medieval route is still used by anything other than cars, namely cyclists. Meh. This off-topic thread is coming in useful!

munchkin_utd

Furet wrote: »

..... The image isn't clear, but I'd love to know if the old medieval route (Rothenburg -> Bamberg) is still used by anything other than cars, namely cyclists. Meh. This off-topic thread is coming in useful!

Aischtal Radweg?

starts in Rothenburg and ends in Bamberg anyhow.
http://www.radtourist.com/aischtal-radweg.html

and here's it on a google map!
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://radweg.doit-edv.de/AischtalRadweg.kmz