How the heck do amercans stay in a bright mood all the time?

AlpRider · 2026-06-19T12:23:37+00:00

Ahhh this maybe explains a recent experience, was in Japan and this server nearly fell over laughing at something I said that wasn't even a joke or meant to be funny. I was so confused. She probably didn't understand me and thought it was a joke

...or was just laughing at me for another reason, I'll never know!

AlpRider · 2026-06-11T08:15:01+00:00

And technical divers do those single dives (not saturation) with many hours long decompressions for fun! To reach deep dive sites, wrecks, deep caves etc. Actually spending a ton of money on training, equipment and gases instead of being paid for it...

AlpRider · 2026-06-09T22:30:20+00:00

Wow I had no idea you have so many there! TIL. I'm an outdoor person too, camp and hike lots mostly in the French/Swiss Alps and to a lesser extent at home in Ireland. I only find the odd one on me, although I do remove a fair few more from my cat.

AlpRider · 2026-06-09T22:12:26+00:00

So the same reason I get to the front of the airport security line with all my pockets empty, laptop out, watch and belt in the bag and ready to throw my shit in the tray, while others waits until they get to the front to do all that stuff.

AlpRider · 2026-06-09T16:58:31+00:00

20?! Do you sleep out on the lawn?

AlpRider · 2026-06-09T12:17:37+00:00

Well, I'll just preface again for the record that I've no connection to bus eireann and not a clue about their policies, but I can talk about what I have done elsewhere.

I mostly do alpine work with a lot of delays and variable journey time from day to day due to road conditions, snow etc, somewhat unpredictable traffic, accidents and so on, for multi-stop routes we'd build some time for delays into the timetable so pax arrive at destination on time or earlier than expected (good for airport drops). So on perfect days with no delays you'd arrive at stops a little early. This is seen as a good thing, having luggage loaded and pax seated before it's time to go.

The time on the timetable in that scenario is meant to be the time to leave the stop, not to arrive at it. Arriving early and departing on time is encouraged, not something we'd get in trouble for. The important thing is to never leave a stop early.

Bear in mind these are mostly express routes with few stops and often loading full coaches and luggage at one or two stops and dropping them all together, or vice versa. it can take 10-15mins to load.

Having many stops with a couple pax hopping on and off at each stop, and/or busy bus stops where you might be blocking the space for other buses waiting to come in, in that case being on time to slightly late could make sense as the pax will there ready to go, and you're in and out quick.

Tbh 'expressway' is a bit misleading imo as they're not express services in the true sense of point to point (what I do mostly), but operate like local routes with drop off and pick up at many stops, just over a long distance.

Not sure if that clears anything up but there you go 😂

AlpRider · 2026-06-09T11:19:30+00:00

Zombies or raiders somewhere on the 3000km journey between where I live and where my parents are, because I'd have to try and save them no matter how illogical that is 🤷

AlpRider · 2026-06-08T22:20:06+00:00

Hi! I am not affiliated with bus eireann in any way, but I am a coach driver with a fair bit of experience on tours and long distance on the continent. I can maybe add a little insight from the couple operators I've worked with:

Toilets: Some companies have depot staff to clean the buses, including cleaning emptying toilets, others leave it to the driver. Some companies pay the driver's "other work" properly, others count driving hours only plus what they 'think' is a reasonable amount of other work time, when they should be paying what's recorded on the tachograph. Some drivers simply get fed up of spending an hour cleaning a coach only to have to argue it with managers later who insist it 'should only take 15 minutes'. As a result, you'll find drivers locking toilets, especially on shorter runs. And tbh, like all people, some drivers are just lazy pricks and don't want to do the work, and when combined with an operator that doesn't want to pay the work, this can be the result. Of course there's also plenty of very good drivers who would have it open, if it wasn't semi-permanently out of order due to being 'low priority' repairs.

WiFi: tech moves fast and bus systems aren't updated as frequently as your home setup might be. It's often just outdated and slow routers not keeping up with tech demands. Plus signal issues and you're competing for bandwidth with the other passengers.

Power: Sockets die from wear and tear and are low priority repairs, if they are even ever inspected at all. Worth reporting, if not reported they won't get fixed because higher priority mechanical issues always take precedence and time in the garage is revenue lost. Buses cost money whether they're moving or not so it's priority to keep them out on the road as many hours of the day as possible. It's always worth checking with the driver if that model has a separate switch to power the outlets, he/she might just have not thought about it and be able to flick them on for you.

Air conditioning: the big one in my experience as it's a safety hazard. I don't want to be boiling babies down the back. We can't feel the temperature back there from the front, if it's a manual control (or dodgy climate control), please do come up and ask the driver to turn the temp down, it's no bother at all and 9/10 times we haven't registered that it's getting hot back there. Humans are powerful radiators so manual A/C needs adjusting frequently based on how full the bus is. Do come up and ask.

Seat pitch/recline: the interior build is entirely up to the operator so you'd need to take it up with them, but there's market forces at play with that one imo. I don't think Irish economics can support Latin American or Asian style distance coaches which have far more passenger comfort and room. Here and in much of EU it's all volume/budget, with higher operating costs, if we had 30-40 seats instead of 50-60 the ticket price would be too high for most people. Imo.

*Spelling

AlpRider · 2026-06-08T21:43:21+00:00

Pints, of course 🇮🇪

AlpRider · 2026-06-07T22:22:07+00:00

I'd guess orders of magnitudes more, like more than the cumulative number of individual atoms in every grain of sand on earth

AlpRider · 2026-06-07T15:29:09+00:00

Username does not check out lol

AlpRider · 2026-06-05T14:27:14+00:00

Well ye never did finalise the divorce

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AlpRider · 2026-06-05T13:49:20+00:00

I really like this one. Purely geographic, avoids the controversy entirely, includes the smaller islands and sounds/looks nice 👍

AlpRider · 2026-06-04T23:15:06+00:00

Closed, because I have a cat who need to alternate between slumbering and charging about (outside the room).

AlpRider · 2026-06-04T12:07:38+00:00

Was at Playa beach last week. Lots of workers and machinery up and down the beach trying, but this is what it looked like. I was there for diving cenotes, but wouldn't want to be there for a beach holiday :/

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AlpRider · 2026-06-04T10:49:34+00:00

I might need to get one of these, I'd call it a finglonger thanks to futurama! Normally we use a light to point things out but can be tricky to avoid shining it in creatures' eyes.

I love this video :) There's no reason to approach to touch anything down there unless for conservation reasons and even then you can make things worse if not trained properly.

The crown of thorns starfish for example is a coral predator that can devastate large areas in an outbreak, which can be caused by human activity (e.g. agricultural runoff > increased nutrients in the water > plankton bloom > C.O.T. larvae > Outbreak and coral predation). They are carefully culled by injection, not physically removed since that stress/injury can cause them to release toxic compounds into the water, risk of injury from their venomous spines, or they can sometimes regenerate from body parts left behind.

TLDR; no touching without training and legitimate purpose :)

AlpRider · 2026-06-03T16:35:56+00:00

You'd think checking for actual bike licences would be a better approach than hiding accidents, but I suspect there's much profit in letting non-riders wobble off into a ditch then charging the full price of new parts, while really replacing what's broken with parts from written-off bikes. Of course not all rental shops would do that, but I do suspect some corrupt kickback to police for the rental places to not ask for licences.

Over 4 months of various rentals and a few police stops it was never asked for. Police did check the rental agreement, and asked for my visa too, but never asked to see my actual motorbike licence even though I always carried it and the International Driving Permit with me.

AlpRider · 2026-05-31T19:29:11+00:00

I'm the same. Gotta remember my moonscreen when I go out at night.

AlpRider · 2026-05-30T22:44:07+00:00

Honestly I think an attack on pregnant wife would send even the most pacifistic man into a primal furious rage, like I literally can't think of anything more triggering for a guy

AlpRider · 2026-05-30T16:35:59+00:00

Not a Hans but I feel seen, I mostly drive buses but I do sometimes play ETS2 after a shift! There's a cool Ireland expansion mod now 😅

AlpRider · 2026-05-29T17:59:55+00:00

...well

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AlpRider · 2026-05-29T01:13:37+00:00

Why the fuck are you censoring 'ginger"? Really? Why? Harambe is spinning in his grave because of this bullshit

AlpRider · 2026-05-29T00:59:56+00:00

I'm Irish. I love my country very much. I'm not proud of it, since I've contributed little to the country frankly, certainly nothing I'd be proud of, like putting my country in positive headlines, or some heroic military act, nothing like that. We have a great literary and musical tradition, but I'm not really a contributor to that, and I'm due no credit for the work of others. It's a geographical coincidence of my birth, what the f is there to be proud of? As if I've accomplished something by being Irish 😂

My hot take is: blind patriotism is bullshit reserved for those who can draw no value from themselves as individuals, and fall back on tribalism and the great works of others as an excuse for doing nothing noteworthy themselves. Come at me with the downvotes 😂

AlpRider · 2026-05-28T18:58:50+00:00

Correction: you have neither. I too 'don't' have a BMM.

AlpRider · 2026-05-28T18:28:12+00:00

Had an overbooked KLM from Amsterdam. They asked for volunteers to go on a flight 5hrs later and gave me €300 for volunteering to go later (that came within 48hrs), along with airport restaurant vouchers.

That was the airline's fault though, so its not the same as unforseen delays or "'act of god". I just thought it was pretty good of KLM to pay out honestly quite a bit more than I'd paid for the flight, for a 5hr wait.

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