>> ^Chimeling:

Don't really like watching these, they make me realise how utter crap I am at building in Minecraft..
If you want a lodge, 1 floor, 1 room, with absolutely no symmetry, contact me.


Me too. I thought I was the bee's knees for making an underground passage through a mountain.

Because it's there? No fucking idea.

I got tired watching it.>> ^blankfist:

Holy shit. But why? Why?! WHY?!!

Texas is so huge and spread out most places are not at all conducive to pedestrian traffic. there are towns literally built around the interstate.

I think Austin has a good bit of foot/bike traffic, but it's a really young progressive town. There are areas of Fort Worth that are totally bike/walk-able. And critical mass is a pretty big thing for the hip kids who live in the more urban/less suburban areas. The hipper parts of Fort Worth are even starting to get bike lanes.

I live in a small town that is now a full blown suburb of Fort Worth. The new parts of this expanding town are totally built around the interstate/shopping malls.....Fortunately, I live and (now) work in the 150 year old part of town. Everything I need is in safe biking distance. Starting June 6th I will be able to bike my kids to daycare, then bike to work and the grocery store. And plan to do it everyday that it is not raining. I'm completely excited. A friend that lives with us right now also works in the old part of town and he bikes to work everyday as well.

Supposedly the town is planning on dealing with its booming population by eventually making all the different neighborhoods connect with bike and walking trails. They are also building a park n ride/train station to connect this town to popular spots in Fort Worth, it will also go straight to the intermodal transit station in downtown fort worth and connect to both airports, downtown dallas, dallas shopping/club districts, the major medical district, museums, fair grounds,the sports arenas and even the corporate/suburban areas in North Dallas. I'm soooo excited about this!! In a few years I will feasibly be able to ride my bike to the train station and catch a train all the way to Plano (about 1hr 20 minutes north east) to visit my sister for the weekend. Excellent.

That is why I never text while walking, or read, or anything else that requires not watching directly where I'm going, and people who do shit me to tears.

In fact, I even really don't like listening to music while walking as it takes away from my spacial awareness too much, and I walk 2kms to the train station each morning and night, so I've lots of opportunity to try it, but I just can't handle not being able to hear everything going on and being more aware for it. (And no, this is in NO way a 'I must be alert and vigilant for anyone who may harm me' type malarky, I just like to hear when cars are coming, or bikes, or just knowing what's going on around me in general. Plus it's more peaceful anyway.)

>> ^entr0py:

But, she didn't actually suggest body scanners for trains, ships and buses, did she?

You're right. She did not. But if she did install the backscatter x-rays and 'gate rape' pat down procedures at bus stations, train stations and ship ports, would it really change your opinion of her in the slightest? And why are Democrats now laying down and claiming "this is the world we live in" instead of protesting this for the civil liberties violation that it is?

Citation provided. Well done. Always be weary of statistics though http://i.imgur.com/XE9Iu.png
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

I can't be arsed running through this again so I'll just politely ask you to cite your statistical evidence.
How many terrorist acts have been committed or attempted in U.S. territory by caucasian males aged 3-5?
Answer: Zero
And how many terrorist acts have been committed or attempted in U.S. territory by foreign-born Muslim males age 17-40?
1983
April 18, Beirut, Lebanon: U.S. embassy destroyed in suicide car-bomb attack; 63 dead, including 17 Americans. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Oct. 23, Beirut, Lebanon: Shiite suicide bombers exploded truck near U.S. military barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 marines. Minutes later a second bomb killed 58 French paratroopers in their barracks in West Beirut.
Dec. 12, Kuwait City, Kuwait: Shiite truck bombers attacked the U.S. embassy and other targets, killing 5 and injuring 80.
1984
Sept. 20, east Beirut, Lebanon: truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy annex, killing 24, including 2 U.S. military.
Dec. 3, Beirut, Lebanon: Kuwait Airways Flight 221, from Kuwait to Pakistan, hijacked and diverted to Tehran. 2 Americans killed.
1985
April 12, Madrid, Spain: Bombing at restaurant frequented by U.S. soldiers, killed 18 Spaniards and injured 82.
June 14, Beirut, Lebanon: TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome hijacked to Beirut by Hezbollah terrorists and held for 17 days. A U.S. Navy diver executed.
Oct. 7, Mediterranean Sea: gunmen attack Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro. One U.S. tourist killed. Hijacking linked to Libya.
Dec. 18, Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria: airports in Rome and Vienna were bombed, killing 20 people, 5 of whom were Americans. Bombing linked to Libya.
1986
April 5, West Berlin, Germany: Libyans bombed a disco frequented by U.S. servicemen, killing 2 and injuring hundreds.
1988
Dec. 21, Lockerbie, Scotland: N.Y.-bound Pan-Am Boeing 747 exploded in flight from a terrorist bomb and crashed into Scottish village, killing all 259 aboard and 11 on the ground. Passengers included 35 Syracuse University students and many U.S. military personnel. Libya formally admitted responsibility 15 years later (Aug. 2003) and offered $2.7 billion compensation to victims' families.
1993
Feb. 26, New York City: bomb exploded in basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring at least 1,040 others. In 1995, militant Islamist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 9 others were convicted of conspiracy charges, and in 1998, Ramzi Yousef, believed to have been the mastermind, was convicted of the bombing. Al-Qaeda involvement is suspected.
1995
Nov. 13, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: car bomb exploded at U.S. military headquarters, killing 5 U.S. military servicemen.
1996
June 25, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: truck bomb exploded outside Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds of others. 13 Saudis and a Lebanese, all alleged members of Islamic militant group Hezbollah, were indicted on charges relating to the attack in June 2001.
1998
Aug. 7, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: truck bombs exploded almost simultaneously near 2 U.S. embassies, killing 224 (213 in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania) and injuring about 4,500. 4 men connected with al-Qaeda 2 of whom had received training at al-Qaeda camps inside Afghanistan, were convicted of the killings in May 2001 and later sentenced to life in prison. A federal grand jury had indicted 22 men in connection with the attacks, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who remained at large.
2000
Oct. 12, Aden, Yemen: U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole heavily damaged when a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside it. 17 sailors killed. Linked to Osama bin Laden, or members of al-Qaeda terrorist network.
2001
Sept. 11, New York City, Arlington, Va., and Shanksville, Pa.: hijackers crashed 2 commercial jets into twin towers of World Trade Center; 2 more hijacked jets were crashed into the Pentagon and a field in rural Pa. Total dead and missing numbered 2,9921: 2,749 in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon, 40 in Pa., and 19 hijackers. Islamic al-Qaeda terrorist group blamed.
2002
June 14, Karachi, Pakistan: bomb explodes outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12. Linked to al-Qaeda.
2003 1
May 12, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: suicide bombers kill 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners. Al-Qaeda suspected.
2004
May 29–31, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists attack the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.
June 11–19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.
Dec. 6, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: terrorists storm the U.S. consulate, killing 5 consulate employees. 4 terrorists were killed by Saudi security.
2005
Nov. 9, Amman, Jordan: suicide bombers hit 3 American hotels, Radisson, Grand Hyatt, and Days Inn, in Amman, Jordan, killing 57. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
2007
Dec. 11, Algeria: more than 60 people are killed, including 11 United Nations staff members, when Al Qaeda terrorists detonate two car bombs near Algeria's Constitutional Council and the United Nations offices.
2008
May 26, Iraq: a suicide bomber on a motorcycle kills six U.S. soldiers and wounds 18 others in Tarmiya.
June 24, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills at least 20 people, including three U.S. Marines, at a meeting between sheiks and Americans in Karmah, a town west of Baghdad.
June 12, Afghanistan: four American servicemen are killed when a roadside bomb explodes near a U.S. military vehicle in Farah Province.
July 13, Afghanistan: nine U.S.soldiers and at least 15 NATO troops die when Taliban militants boldly attack an American base in Kunar Province, which borders Pakistan. It's the most deadly against U.S. troops in three years.
Aug. 18 and 19, Afghanistan: as many as 15 suicide bombers backed by about 30 militants attack a U.S. military base, Camp Salerno, in Bamiyan. Fighting between U.S. troops and members of the Taliban rages overnight. No U.S. troops are killed.
Sept. 16, Yemen: a car bomb and a rocket strike the U.S. embassy in Yemen as staff arrived to work, killing 16 people, including 4 civilians. At least 25 suspected al-Qaeda militants are arrested for the attack.
Nov. 26, India: in a series of attacks on several of Mumbai's landmarks and commercial hubs that are popular with Americans and other foreign tourists, including at least two five-star hotels, a hospital, a train station, and a cinema. About 300 people are wounded and nearly 190 people die, including at least 5 Americans.
2009
Feb. 9, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills four American soldiers and their Iraqi translator near a police checkpoint.
April 10, Iraq: a suicide attack kills five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen.
Dec. 25: A Nigerian man on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit attempted to ignite an explosive device hidden in his underwear. The explosive device that failed to detonate was a mixture of powder and liquid that did not alert security personnel in the airport. The alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told officials later that he was directed by the terrorist group Al Qaeda. The suspect was already on the government's watch list when he attempted the bombing; his father, a respected Nigerian banker, had told the U.S. government that he was worried about his son's increased extremism.
Dec. 30, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills eight Americans civilians, seven of them CIA agents, at a base in Afghanistan. It's the deadliest attack on the agency since 9/11. The attacker is reportedly a double agent from Jordan who was acting on behalf of al-Qaeda.
2010
May 2, New York City: After discovering a bomb in a smoking vehicle parked in Times Square, authorities arrest Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani who recently became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and charge him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and several other federal charges. American officials later announce that the Pakistani Taliban likely played a role in the bomb plot, including training Shahzad.
The underwear bomber. The shoe bomber. The ink-cartridge bomber. 9/11. Foreign-born Muslim males age 17-40. Profiling isn't prejudice or racism. It's just statistics.

I can't be arsed running through this again so I'll just politely ask you to cite your statistical evidence.

How many terrorist acts have been committed or attempted in U.S. territory by caucasian males aged 3-5?
Answer: Zero

And how many terrorist acts have been committed or attempted in U.S. territory by foreign-born Muslim males age 17-40?

1983
April 18, Beirut, Lebanon: U.S. embassy destroyed in suicide car-bomb attack; 63 dead, including 17 Americans. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Oct. 23, Beirut, Lebanon: Shiite suicide bombers exploded truck near U.S. military barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 marines. Minutes later a second bomb killed 58 French paratroopers in their barracks in West Beirut.
Dec. 12, Kuwait City, Kuwait: Shiite truck bombers attacked the U.S. embassy and other targets, killing 5 and injuring 80.
1984
Sept. 20, east Beirut, Lebanon: truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy annex, killing 24, including 2 U.S. military.
Dec. 3, Beirut, Lebanon: Kuwait Airways Flight 221, from Kuwait to Pakistan, hijacked and diverted to Tehran. 2 Americans killed.
1985
April 12, Madrid, Spain: Bombing at restaurant frequented by U.S. soldiers, killed 18 Spaniards and injured 82.
June 14, Beirut, Lebanon: TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome hijacked to Beirut by Hezbollah terrorists and held for 17 days. A U.S. Navy diver executed.
Oct. 7, Mediterranean Sea: gunmen attack Italian cruise ship, Achille Lauro. One U.S. tourist killed. Hijacking linked to Libya.
Dec. 18, Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria: airports in Rome and Vienna were bombed, killing 20 people, 5 of whom were Americans. Bombing linked to Libya.
1986
April 5, West Berlin, Germany: Libyans bombed a disco frequented by U.S. servicemen, killing 2 and injuring hundreds.
1988
Dec. 21, Lockerbie, Scotland: N.Y.-bound Pan-Am Boeing 747 exploded in flight from a terrorist bomb and crashed into Scottish village, killing all 259 aboard and 11 on the ground. Passengers included 35 Syracuse University students and many U.S. military personnel. Libya formally admitted responsibility 15 years later (Aug. 2003) and offered $2.7 billion compensation to victims' families.
1993
Feb. 26, New York City: bomb exploded in basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring at least 1,040 others. In 1995, militant Islamist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 9 others were convicted of conspiracy charges, and in 1998, Ramzi Yousef, believed to have been the mastermind, was convicted of the bombing. Al-Qaeda involvement is suspected.
1995
Nov. 13, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: car bomb exploded at U.S. military headquarters, killing 5 U.S. military servicemen.
1996
June 25, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: truck bomb exploded outside Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds of others. 13 Saudis and a Lebanese, all alleged members of Islamic militant group Hezbollah, were indicted on charges relating to the attack in June 2001.
1998
Aug. 7, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: truck bombs exploded almost simultaneously near 2 U.S. embassies, killing 224 (213 in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania) and injuring about 4,500. 4 men connected with al-Qaeda 2 of whom had received training at al-Qaeda camps inside Afghanistan, were convicted of the killings in May 2001 and later sentenced to life in prison. A federal grand jury had indicted 22 men in connection with the attacks, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who remained at large.
2000
Oct. 12, Aden, Yemen: U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole heavily damaged when a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside it. 17 sailors killed. Linked to Osama bin Laden, or members of al-Qaeda terrorist network.
2001
Sept. 11, New York City, Arlington, Va., and Shanksville, Pa.: hijackers crashed 2 commercial jets into twin towers of World Trade Center; 2 more hijacked jets were crashed into the Pentagon and a field in rural Pa. Total dead and missing numbered 2,9921: 2,749 in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon, 40 in Pa., and 19 hijackers. Islamic al-Qaeda terrorist group blamed.
2002
June 14, Karachi, Pakistan: bomb explodes outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12. Linked to al-Qaeda.
2003 1
May 12, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: suicide bombers kill 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners. Al-Qaeda suspected.
2004
May 29–31, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists attack the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.
June 11–19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.
Dec. 6, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: terrorists storm the U.S. consulate, killing 5 consulate employees. 4 terrorists were killed by Saudi security.
2005
Nov. 9, Amman, Jordan: suicide bombers hit 3 American hotels, Radisson, Grand Hyatt, and Days Inn, in Amman, Jordan, killing 57. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
2007
Dec. 11, Algeria: more than 60 people are killed, including 11 United Nations staff members, when Al Qaeda terrorists detonate two car bombs near Algeria's Constitutional Council and the United Nations offices.
2008
May 26, Iraq: a suicide bomber on a motorcycle kills six U.S. soldiers and wounds 18 others in Tarmiya.
June 24, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills at least 20 people, including three U.S. Marines, at a meeting between sheiks and Americans in Karmah, a town west of Baghdad.
June 12, Afghanistan: four American servicemen are killed when a roadside bomb explodes near a U.S. military vehicle in Farah Province.
July 13, Afghanistan: nine U.S.soldiers and at least 15 NATO troops die when Taliban militants boldly attack an American base in Kunar Province, which borders Pakistan. It's the most deadly against U.S. troops in three years.
Aug. 18 and 19, Afghanistan: as many as 15 suicide bombers backed by about 30 militants attack a U.S. military base, Camp Salerno, in Bamiyan. Fighting between U.S. troops and members of the Taliban rages overnight. No U.S. troops are killed.
Sept. 16, Yemen: a car bomb and a rocket strike the U.S. embassy in Yemen as staff arrived to work, killing 16 people, including 4 civilians. At least 25 suspected al-Qaeda militants are arrested for the attack.
Nov. 26, India: in a series of attacks on several of Mumbai's landmarks and commercial hubs that are popular with Americans and other foreign tourists, including at least two five-star hotels, a hospital, a train station, and a cinema. About 300 people are wounded and nearly 190 people die, including at least 5 Americans.
2009
Feb. 9, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills four American soldiers and their Iraqi translator near a police checkpoint.
April 10, Iraq: a suicide attack kills five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen.
Dec. 25: A Nigerian man on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit attempted to ignite an explosive device hidden in his underwear. The explosive device that failed to detonate was a mixture of powder and liquid that did not alert security personnel in the airport. The alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told officials later that he was directed by the terrorist group Al Qaeda. The suspect was already on the government's watch list when he attempted the bombing; his father, a respected Nigerian banker, had told the U.S. government that he was worried about his son's increased extremism.
Dec. 30, Iraq: a suicide bomber kills eight Americans civilians, seven of them CIA agents, at a base in Afghanistan. It's the deadliest attack on the agency since 9/11. The attacker is reportedly a double agent from Jordan who was acting on behalf of al-Qaeda.
2010
May 2, New York City: After discovering a bomb in a smoking vehicle parked in Times Square, authorities arrest Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani who recently became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and charge him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and several other federal charges. American officials later announce that the Pakistani Taliban likely played a role in the bomb plot, including training Shahzad.

The underwear bomber. The shoe bomber. The ink-cartridge bomber. 9/11. Foreign-born Muslim males age 17-40. Profiling isn't prejudice or racism. It's just statistics.

Lived in and around Detroit for my first 23 years.

I raved in many of those buildings they show (including the packard plant and the abandoned train station) and lived on a block where 3 out of 24 houses were habitable.

Thanks for posting this.

Seems kind of based on the Japanese story of Hachiko the dog, who waited faithfully for his dead owner to arrive back from the train station in Tokyo (shibuya I think)

* Given a single payer system: How will preventative medicine work in principal? If person A begins smoking and gets lung cancer, does that person get the same deal as everyone else? Or more likely, if person A is obese and as a result has to have more treatments for a particular problem, does that give the government or the people paying the right to decide what he can and can't eat? Just thinking. (Following along with the ban of Trans-fats, and the talk about a soda tax)

You never deny people the right to smoke, or to eat shit foods, you just take money from the purchase of things that are proven bad for you (like cigarettes) and give that to the pool of money for health care (such as we do in Australia, cigarettes are HUGELY taxed here such that if you smoke at least you're putting a fair chunk of change aside for your eventual health care requirements).

Also, you can/could (I don't know how much this may be done already here or elsewhere) provide discounts in the usual medicare levy you pay in your taxes if you are doing proactive things of taking care of yourself. If you are a gym user or swim center user or whatever, you should be able to get some money back on your health levy... although I guess this is hard to quantify... how would I prove that I walk to the train station every day instead of driving? Not sure...

One morning 3 Alabama good old boys and 3 Yankees were in a ticket line at the Birmingham train station heading to Atlanta for a big football game. The 3 Northerners each bought a ticket and watched as the 3 Southerners
bought just one ticket among them.

"How are the 3 of you going to travel on one 1 ticket?" asked one of the Yankees.

"Watch and learn" answered one of the boys from the South.

When the 6 travelers boarded the train, the 3 Yankees sat down, but the 3 Southerners crammed into a bathroom together and closed the door. Shortly after the train departed, the conductor came around to collect tickets. He knocked on the bathroom door and said, "tickets please." The door opened just a crack and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand.

The Conductor took it and moved on.

The Yankees saw this happen and agreed it was quite a clever idea. Indeed, so clever that they decided to do the same thing on the return trip and save some money. That evening after the game when they got to the Atlanta train station, they bought a single ticket for the return trip while to their astonishment the 3 Southerners didn't buy a single ticket!

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" asked one of the perplexed Yankees.

"Watch and learn", answered one of the Southern boys.

When they boarded the train the 3 Northerners crammed themselves into a bathroom and the 3 Southerners crammed themselves into the other bathroom across from it.

Shortly after the train began to move, one of the Southerners left their bathroom and walked quietly over to the Yankee's bathroom. He knocked on the door and said "ticket please"!

Sure, the assembly line day laborer may lose his job to the robotic arm, but other jobs will be created to manufacture those arms, write the software for them, service them, etc.

One factory for industrial robots is enough to supply a vast number of regular factories. The whole chain is done in this area, from software development to robot design to robot construction and naturally, it takes less manhours than it saves through increased productivity, or else it wouldn't be done in the first place.

Let's take a look at Volkswagen. Last I heard, they need an increase of 7% in sales just to keep up with rising productivity. 7% more sales or 7% less workers or 7% less wages ... every year. To see the consequences of this, one only needs to take a look at Bremerhaven or any train station along the railroad line from the factories in Wolfsburg, Braunschweig and Hannover (not to mention the ones in southern Germany) to the northern harbours, where the vehicles are brought to be shipped out. Enough bloody cars to fill the English Channel, everywhere you look. That's not sustainable, not in the least. And yet they still want to keep a dying automobile manufacturer (Opel) alive ...

Just a few days, two key railroad switches at Wunstorf were shut down for maintenance, now there are countless car trains stuck at the classification yards, enough to mobilize the whole bloody state. And they are not even back to pre-crisis production levels.

What I'm saying is this: they produce more cars than ever, more than any current market can take, and even though it takes vastly more work to build a modern car than it did 50 years ago, they still need considerably less manhours per car. That includes all the suppliers as well. And they should be damn proud of it, because that's what previous generations worked for. However, it is basically kept alive artificially and has to collapse eventually. That'll be fun. Opel will be the first, 2011 at the latest.

Only completely new areas have the ability to create enough jobs to remotely compensate for the loss caused by increased productivity and saturated markets. Telecommunications was the last one, renewable energy will most likely be the next one.

That said, there will always be endless work that needs to be done, just not jobs that create an income. For instance, the national railroad could use at least the 100k people back they let go over the last 2 decades. Though to get everything done according to regulations, 200k should be a closer bet. But since it's more profitable to cut maintenance personal by another 10%, the status of the infrastructure can only be described as desolate in large parts of the country.

Edit: damn, that's 3/4 just rambling ... sorry.

I would have to agree with calvados and Quboid. I was in Amsterdam for a few days and stayed at a hostel in the red light district by the train station. By the way, near the train station is always the worst place to stay in any big town in Europe. One night my friend and I were hanging out in the lobby/bar of our hostel and some guy that was on drugs (not weed) strayed into the place and started harassing the patrons until the bar tender had to yell at him many time to leave. As we walked down the streets drug dealers would ask us if we wanted to buy cocaine. All in all though I would say that most of the problems in central Amsterdam are caused by the tourists that go there expecting a wild and crazy time. If you walk 5 minutes in just about any direction you find very nice clean neighborhoods that are very welcoming. When I go back again I will definitely stay in the outer ring areas.

I gotta say that I found Amsterdam sketchy and uninviting when I first got there (edit: based on an admittedly small sample of the city). I was staying in the Centrum district, near the train station, at the legendary Flying Pig hostel. Dudes trying to sell me drugs kept following me like tenacious mosquitoes and at night in the middle distance I heard women's screams which were not of the happy variety. (I was also reminded that two friends of mine had been attacked right outside my hostel.) It was by far the place in Europe that I most felt I needed to watch my back -- about the only place I felt that, actually. The marks of the sex and drug trade were seamy and dissolute without being hot or exciting (perhaps I would've seen that differently if I'd been there to indulge in either one, or both, but I wasn't). The sex museum was lame. I have to castigate the Flying Pig Downtown hostel too; its reputation was supposed to be tremendous -- "best place I've ever stayed" and so on -- but it was the worst; even with two weeks' advance booking I was in a moldy, windowless basement dorm; the place was not remotely clean and the showers backed up immediately. It bears mentioning too that this was the only time I've met hostel-goers who were uniformly furtive and unfriendly rather than social and outgoing (or at least making an effort at same) which has been my experience at virtually all other hostels before and since. A great many of them must have been stoned to the gills, and maybe that accounts for the weirdy unfriendliness -- I don't know.

I cut short my stay and was about to head back out into the warm welcome of the smaller cities and towns, but before I did I ended up spending a couple days 4 km away at the Flying Pig Uptown, which was clean, bright, filled with friendly people and right near the Leidseplein, a beautiful public square filled with shade trees and ringed with bars and bistros (it was near the Heineken Brewery too). Purely by chance I ran into an Aussie buddy that I had met in Arnhem earlier in the week, too. So that was good. YMMV.

About 6 years ago, my parents took me to Germany and The Netherlands. It was amazing. It was in late May - I had just celebrated my 21st birthday.

We spent two nights in Haarlam (it's about a 15-minute train ride west of Amsterdam), drove east to Germany, stayed at a different German town every night for 6 nights (Koln (Cologne), Aachen, Bernkastle, Mainz, Cocham, and Koblenz - the Youth Hostels in Germany are AWESOME, especially Koblenz, we stayed in this re-purposed fortress overlooking Deutsches Eck - The walls were like 6-foot-thick stone... I digress...) and then spent our last two days back in Haarlam. We did some day trips to Amsterdam and Zandfoort as well.

When you get out of the main train station in Amsterdam, you're at the north end of the city, looking south. As soon as you walk out of the building, you'll notice a big multi-story parking structure just off to the right. But its not a parking structure for cars - it's for bikes only. Just outside the train station in Haarlam, there's a space about 1/4th the size of a soccer pitch, just for bicycle parking.

And the Dutch reap ALL the benefits of biking everywhere. Nearly all the women had AWESOME legs, toned, cut... mmmmmm.... MAN I miss it...

You don't see gas guzzlers anywhere on the streets of Amsterdam. The roads aren't NEARLY wide enough for a Ford Exploiter. No one would be able to afford the gas either - what we pay for a gallon, they pay for a liter (over 4x the price - which is weird when you think about it, since the Middle East is closer to them than the US...)

As a side note, the canals WREAK to high hell in the late spring/summer time. When I walked out of the train station, my nose was assaulted with a very foul odor. It was like walking into a barn, but I certainly didn't see any livestock...

I guess you'd get used to it if you were living there...