mastodon.green is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Plant trees while you use Mastodon. A server originally for people in the EU, but now open for anyone in the world

Administered by:

Server stats:

1.2K
active users

I just made this silly but accurate thing. I'm silly too and i love it, but also i'm serious in my silliness.

Simon

@danielgibert I love it. But I believe in this case it's not 'european', it's 'literally every country except that single stupid one we don't talk about'

@realsimon @danielgibert My guess is that it's (at least) all countries that have signed to the Vienna Convention. Also, the background of the right side ones can be yellow.

@sellout Only the left ones can be! If it's blue, it's yellow; if it's red, it's green.

@njsg @realsimon @danielgibert the yellow background means that this sign is temporary and has priority over the white-background ones

@grishka @njsg @realsimon @danielgibert oh, just like on the ground, where the yellow lines are temporary overruling the white lines, here in Germany.

@SchwarzeLocke @grishka @njsg @realsimon @danielgibert the three Countries in North America 🇲🇽 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 need the red diagonal in the restrictive ones... and at least in Canada the obligatory/allow one has a green circle (haven't drive enough in the US to confirm that) and that's not a thing in Mexico
mstdn.ca/@jubiloMX/11428115630

An image of four Canadian traffic signals, one of each basic type, all containing the image of a banana. 
First is square and blue, with a white banana. It says "You could eat a banana"
Second is white round with green border and a black banana.. It says "You must eat a banana"
Third is white round with red border, a red diagonal line crossing and a black banana. It says "You can't eat a banana"
Fourth is a yellow rhombus with small black border and a black banana. It says "Caution, a banana!"
Mastodon CanadaJúbilo MX (@jubiloMX@mstdn.ca)Attached: 1 image Canadian traffic signals explained reworking on @danielgibert@mastodon.online 's European version

@njsg @realsimon @danielgibert the famous "you can't eat a banana... for now" and "caution! A temporary banana!"

@realsimon @danielgibert … Australia?

(these are barely recognisable to me, and even then, only the right-hand ones)

@buzzyrobin @realsimon @danielgibert fond memories of trundling along the Bass Highway and spotting a sign which said, in all caps, something like

"LANE MARKINGS REMOVED DO NOT OVERTAKE UNLESS IT IS SAFE TO DO SO"

which was to me a breathtaking statement of the bloody obvious, and completely oblivious to the average driver's reading comprehension while travelling at highway speed

@jackeric @buzzyrobin @realsimon @danielgibert my favorite old Aus road signs were the ones saying "Loose Stones Travel Slowly", which would make a good meaningless proverb

@tslumley @jackeric @buzzyrobin @realsimon @danielgibert Reminds me of the British road signs like SLOW CHILDREN and HEAVY PLANT CROSSING

@baz @jackeric @buzzyrobin @realsimon @danielgibert and someone needs to mention the Ogden Nash poem based on the US signs like
Soft
C A U T I O N
Shoulders

and

Cross
C H I L D R E N
Walk

@blackcap @realsimon @danielgibert IT ISN'T EVEN THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE US?
I wasn't aware if this.

(And funny, just entered Denmark via train, saw road signs next to the tracks, and thought it's interesting they are all similar in other countries. Just a few minutes after, I saw this thread and learned about vienna convention.)

@1000millimeter @realsimon @danielgibert It's pretty darn similar throughout the USA, though different states do have variant signs. But it's subtle differences. They all look very MUTCD-like. You would in no way mistake the signage in any US state for Europe.

@realsimon Not quite! While the EU fairly consistently uses Vienna Convention signs, Canada uses American style signs. Argentina, most of central America, Mexico and Australia use a mix of Vienna Convention signs and American signs with a few creative liberties taken with their own additions.

@danielgibert

Also the most bizarre thing about this is the US pretty much wrote the Vienna Convention solo, then failed to adopt it.

@realsimon @danielgibert

@BalooUriza @realsimon @danielgibert Ireland, despite being in the EU, never signed the Vienna Convention and pretty much follows that approach too ("mix of Vienna Convention signs and American signs with a few creative liberties taken with their own additions").

Hence the proliferation of yellow warning signs I mentioned in a different reply.

Having lived in Spain for many years, Irish road signs seem weird to me when I go back, but of course seemed perfectly normal when I grew up with them.

@alan @BalooUriza @realsimon @danielgibert

I'm not as intelligent today as I usually am, and what I noticed is that the no-speed-limit sign looks like a spacetime diagram with light-like worldlines. In practice it doesn't get any faster, and there are various reasons why and why not (e.g. arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9702049 § unphysically). /gen

arXiv logo
arXiv.orgA Superluminal Subway: The Krasnikov TubeThe ``warp drive'' metric recently presented by Alcubierre has the problem that an observer at the center of the warp bubble is causally separated from the outer edge of the bubble wall. Hence such an observer can neither create a warp bubble on demand nor control one once it has been created. In addition, such a bubble requires negative energy densities. One might hope that elimination of the first problem might ameliorate the second as well. We analyze and generalize a metric, originally proposed by Krasnikov for two spacetime dimensions, which does not suffer from the first difficulty. As a consequence, the Krasnikov metric has the interesting property that although the time for a one-way trip to a distant star cannot be shortened, the time for a round trip, as measured by clocks on Earth, can be made arbitrarily short. In our four dimensional extension of this metric, a ``tube'' is constructed along the path of an outbound spaceship, which connects the Earth and the star. Inside the tube spacetime is flat, but the light cones are opened out so as to allow superluminal travel in one direction. We show that, although a single Krasnikov tube does not involve closed timelike curves, a time machine can be constructed with a system of two non-overlapping tubes. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that Krasnikov tubes, like warp bubbles and traversable wormholes, also involve unphysically thin layers of negative energy density, as well as large total negative energies, and therefore probably cannot be realized in practice.

@BalooUriza other than some very minor differences (biggest being "give way" instead of "yield", and UK speed limit signs) Australia pretty well follows MUTCD - not really a "mix of both"

@irina Australia's speed limit signs are actually Vienna Convention signs painted onto American blanks. They really split the difference there.

@BalooUriza @irina I found it comparatively hard to spot Australian speed limit signs because of the rectangular outline - the round outline stands out from the surroundings more

@jackeric Being American, the shape is immediately recognizable for me, as it's the same aspect ratio and orientation as our speed limit signs. My understanding is Australia initially reprinted the existing blanks during the switch to metric as a cost cutting measure but I don't know why they then kept making speed limit signs on American blanks.

@irina

@BalooUriza @realsimon @danielgibert The Québécois "ARRÊT"-sign doesn't look American-style to me.
(FWIW it also differs from the "STOP"-sign as used in France ;-)

@realsimon

Yeah that's because we standardized back in 1920's, and what we standardized ON was basically whatever guerilla signage various auto clubs had been putting was most popular in the 1910’s

We tried adopting Vienna Convention signage in the 1970's but the trial was an unmitigated disaster, so instead we settled for slowly updating the MUTCD to start replacing text on signs with symbols. The only remaining vestiges of the attempt are a handful of rare signs with metric units.

@realsimon @danielgibert

We wouldn't because no one would put a banana up next to the sign for a size comparison! No we could understand those "kilos" of "meters" or whatever! 😢

@JeffGrigg @realsimon @danielgibert kilometer is just kilogram of meters. Idk why it's hard to understand 🤔

@realsimon @danielgibert it's every country that sign the vienna convention. Plus all the others who didn't want to re invent the wheel

@realsimon

hi! lots of countries don't use the vienna convention! canada, essentially all of latin america and the caribbean, australia and NZ, southern africa, among others.

just because the united states does something doesn't mean it's wrong, and also doesn't mean it's the only country on the planet that does it.

@vorboyvo excuse my ignorance. I was unaware that there are multiple countries that use wrong street signs.