International Date Line

2017-09-03 (Sunday)

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned that:

Exactly 50 years ago today, on 1967-09-03, Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the road. In my post of 2016-09-03 I gave an extensive report about the whole procedure. Today, I will complement with some interesting facts.

Did you know that:

  • Mainly island nations still drive on the left-hand side, such as United Kingdom and its former colonies (Ireland, Malta, East Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand), but also Japan. Reference # 1 has a complete list.
London1994-08-08

A photo from a country that insists on driving on the left-hand side, taken in London on 1984-08-08.

  • On 2009-09-07, the Pacific nation Samoa changed from driving on the right-hand to the left-hand side of the road, thus permitting import of cars with the steering wheel located on the right-hand side from its neighbours Australia and New Zealand, cheaper than long transports from Europe or USA. And then in 2011, the Samoan people lost December 30 when the country moved from the eastern to the western side of the International Date Line. They are now 3 hours ahead of New Zealand, instead of the former 21 hours behind. See also reference # 2 below.
  • There is nothing that says that driving on any of the sides is less dangerous than on the other side. Radio Sweden told us that last Friday in a science program (in Swedish). See reference #3.
Petropolis

Even in countries using right-hand traffic, there are examples of local exceptions. This photo was taken in the city of Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil. The road sign here alerts the drivers to use ‘MÃO INGLESA’ (“ENGLISH HAND”), i.e. to drive on the left-hand side.

Where will you be on September 12? In case you have not got a ticket to Apple’s launch of their new iPhone, then I have a suggestion for you:

Come to São Paulo, SP, Brazil, and listen to me and my colleagues present technology in the past, present and future! If that sounds interesting, then you can find an invitation in reference #4 below. See you there!

That’s what I learned in school !

Refs.:

1: Right- and left-hand traffic

2: Samoa

3: Höger eller vänster – vägvalet som splittrar världen

4: Tech seminar- Walking along memory lane into the future – Sept 12

*: What did you learn in school today ?

2016-04-19 (Tuesday)

Posted on by What did you learn in School today ?

Today, I learned that:

There is a classical truce of 100 days given to a new government, administration or similar to be able to get into its role. In the same way, today I communicate that this is my 100th blog post since I started writing daily posts on 2016-01-09. Had I not suffered an accident on 2016-02-22, that day would have been last Sunday instead.

I would like to thank all my faithful readers for your support, suggestions and encouragement, sure that there is a public interested in knowing about my findings in this ever so complicated world. At the same time, I must admit that the blog posting is sometimes taking too much of my available time, so I have decided to continue in a somewhat reduced format. The content will continue the same, but I cannot promise a new post every single day. Depending upon availability and what happens in the world, I expect to publish 2 or 3 posts per week. Thank you very much for your understanding!

Dateline

A photo of the inflight monitor showing the moment when we crossed the International Date Line. Sorry about the resolution, unfortunately the screens in 2005 were at most of VGA quality.

Continuing my around-the-globe-journey 11 years ago, today it is time to say Sayonara, Nippon ! And 2005-04-19 proved to be the longest day of my life so far, 37 hours from midnight in Tokyo till the next midnight in Montreal, since the latter one was 13 hours behind the former. And of course, we crossed the International Date Line, as you can see in the photo above, and of which you can read more about in reference #1 below.

19AC

On my last day in Japan, 2005-04-19, I found yet another example of how densely populated the Japanese islands are. In order to permit that a person buys a car, s/he has to prove that there is already allocated parking space for the car. And what do you do if you need two cars? The solution is a private elevator in your parking space to administer two cars in one horizontal space! The other two photos show a double-decker bridge on the way to the airport and also a proof that Japan is not only the land of the rising sun, but also the setting sun. さよならにっぽん !

… That’s what I learned in school !

Refs.:

1: International Date Line

+: What did you learn in school today ?