Assuming China is more like Europe than the US on this one, you probably transfer the money directly into your friend's account using a computer or smartphone.

I'm about to sign a contract for employment in a wealthy European country. It states upfront that severance pay is 2-6 months, depending on length of service. Balancing this, my notice period will be 3 months.

If the company can't afford to pay on these terms them it's going bust. They should have made these developers redundant 6 months earlier (or whatever) but instead took a gamble.

Apples will be made from applewood.

Wormwood fibre would surely lead to electronic hallucination.

Only for the products you buy, so why not charge the purchaser, rather than subsidising the transport of their purchases?

If goods you buy are transported by ship, you pay a tiny amount for the maintenance and fuel of the ship, but your neighbour doesn't.

The last time a bridge collapsed in the UK due to a maintenence problem seems to be 50 years ago. I think we've got this one sorted...

(Bridges have been washed away by floodwater within the last decade, usually really old ones. If the river profile was changed by a land use change upstream, that could be blamed on inadequate processes.)

There are laser location sensors in several underground stations in London that have construction work nearby. One laser thing on a robot seems to routinely measure the distance to many fixed targets.

GPS isn't an option, so you could still be right that it's cheaper.

$1000M for 9 miles of light rail isn't completely crazy (expensive, but believable). The average cost in the UK is £25M/mile ($40M), but Edinburgh's cost £100M/mile ($156M). A lot of the cost is moving whatever's buried under the road out of the way, to allow future repairs without disrupting the tram.

It's a lot cheaper to build something outside a city on worthless land, whether rail or road.

The 2009 cost per mile for building a 2+2 road in the UK was £13M, for a basic two-lane road £8M. Are you sure your final figure is correct?

(NB the British rail costs will include all appropriate safety systems. This article is interesting. It's over 8 years since a passenger on a train died in Britain, though some have died falling down stairs/escalators, off platforms etc.)

There are four London Underground lines with Automatic Train Operation. There's even a Wikipedia category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

It's not 100% automatic, the driver has to press a button to close the doors, and another (I think) to tell the train "go when ready".

165mph through Ashford, Kent.

(I'm sure there are faster examples, and this isn't the top speed of the train, but that could be the track layout rather than the urban area.)

I don't think much has changed from older usage. The terms "motor car", "motor vehicle", "motor boat", "motorway", "motorbike", etc aren't new.

Fuel is the easy one -- the truck pulls into a fuel station, and the attendant fills it up. The truck company has a contract with the fuel station franchise.

Lots of journeys probably don't involve any complicated roads. Port or rail freight yard to supermarket distribution centre, from there to the out-of-town supermarket, etc.

The core demographic seems to be grouchy, middle-aged, American libertarians, going by the comments.

See http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/... in fact, average age was 38.2 in 2012. Can I assume no new users, and say the average is now over 40?

You're a fucking idiot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

http://www.newstatesman.com/po...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-...

You have no idea about London.

When I was a student I lived 15 minutes walk from St Pancras International Station. Immediately north of the station used to be really bad, but since its redevelopment (The Guardian / Google offices etc) you need to walk a little further -- about 10 minutes is plenty.

Council (social) housing on all sides on Copenhagen Street, 0.7 miles from trains to Paris.

The main local issue for the area is the expansion of one of the stations, which is criticised because an area of council houses behind the station would be demolished.

(Incidentally, I live relatively close to LHR, it's about the same time by public transport to either that airport or St Pancras. I'd still prefer the train if I'm going to Paris.)

You might be correct in 10 years or so, if the new government's desired changes to the way social security is paid are fully implemented. (Poor people will no longer be allowed to live in inner London, and the state-owned housing will be sold off.)

Trains are obviously a terrorist target worldwide, but the only one I know of in Europe with a security checkpoint is between London and Paris/Brussels (where there is a passport check anyway). If someone wants to crash a train, it's *far* easier to drive a road vehicle onto the tracks, and probably more deadly and disruptive to target a busy commuter train (example).

Trains should be something like every 30-60 minutes, if the service is to be useful. Compare http://traintimes.org.uk/londo... or (so I'm not picking such major cities) http://traintimes.org.uk/brist...

Seats have airline-style fold-down tables (but larger), except the facing ones that have real tables. It's generally possible to pre-book the type you prefer — 4 seats around a table is nice for a family, but on a peak-time train will be used by business travellers. There will be power sockets, WiFi, a drinks trolley.