Ben Matthews

I’m more interested in distribution of users and local-focus of communities than country-based instances, nevertheless the map does illustrate that Lemmy has huge gaps - no country instance in all of Africa, hardly any in Asia… What can we do to make it a more global conversation ?

So how about the Cahill Butterfly projection, …

For info: this track is SE of Zagreb, en route towards Belgrade, openrailwaymap shows it was rather slow. Maybe they are concerned that the new fast line from Budapest - Belgrade competes with their route Salzburg - Ljubljana - Zagreb - Belgrade, to be the main line from Germany to Turkey.

Many Ukrainian women are still in exile further west in europe, especially those with or expecting young children, for their safety. Their children are not included in this data (it says ‘on the territory’) but these are potentially the next generation of Ukrainians, if conditions become good for them to return.

The point is to encourage more to surrender, their outlook needs to be better than meat waves, and this info needs to spread behind russian lines. These guys come from a very-low-info world, if the mass-lies collapse, so would the war effort (this happened before).

Good, but I hope they also get the option not to be exchanged, poor chance of survival if they go back. Should stay, but work on communication to the other side.

Fine map, good to see the old names. But some of these routes are pretty impassable even today - for example I doubt the Wakhan corridor was ever a major route, even the bottom of that narrow valley rises above 4000m. And note Torugart pass (been there…) is north of Kashgar on the way to Issyk Kul (missing lake), not on the way to Osh. So, considering the mountains, I guess a larger fraction than indicated crossed the steppe further north - horses wouldn’t need roads or cities, but it’s easier.

Strange that Genoa controlled off bits of coast (yellow) all the way to Crimea, Azov sea (is Tana now Azov?) , and Circassia, how did they manage all that? And who’s in that purple-coloured “Theodoro”?

Indeed trade links relevant, so navigable rivers played a big role - before railways, our main transport was either boats or horses (or camels). Horses needed a lot of grass, which thrives in drier mid-continental climates where trees don’t survive wildfires. For example the Mongol empire was good at trade and connecting cultures, covered a huge area, but not (for long) near coasts, and still demanded intense tribal loyalty (elements of such culture was absorbed by the next empire which gradually pushed it back…).

Can anybody here tell us more about India, e.g. is the government promoting this, which are their favourite distros - are there local variants we don’t know about in europe, what other foss is thriving best there (and if so, why not fediverse ?) ?

Maybe add some major tributaries - eg the Inn, Sava, Tisza … ? Sometimes, depending rain on the mountains, these have greater water flow.

I think if you plotted political inclination as a function of distance from coast, globally, you might find quite a good correlation. Various plausible explanations. For example, in tougher mid-continental climates you need to store and protect stuff to survive the winter / dry-season, so people there evolved (including self-filtering migration) to have more tribal loyalty.

Triglav, Slovenia, and the whole julijske alpe massif - such sheer dolomitic rock cliffs, glowing pink in the dawn light, combined with a friendly culture in the mountain huts around, amid strings of high lakes.

Can somebody explain the Xs ?

I agree it’s bad now, but it seems to me there is hope.
At least BDZ has a well electrified network - better than some neighbours. The old balkan ‘main-line’ went via Serbia, whose railways indeed got worse, but Belgrade recently completed a new central station and they expect to open a 2h40 service from Budapest soon - this spring, iirc. They also got plenty of EU money to finance the line to Nis, and (slower) from there to Dmitrovgrad (i.e. to Sofia), maybe by 2027. When all this is complete, you could realistically imagine a one-night (9h) train Sofia-Wien. Is BDZ anticipating this, or wil ÖBB run it? Also I suppose night trains to Istanbul were cut back while they fixed new tracks beyond Halkali, but there is huge demand potential.

But that map ( last year’s ) shows the headline is not true - there are still night trains across Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and from Belgrade to Bar. Hopefully in summer optima-tours will return on the route to turkey. Of course, we used to have more - nothing to Greece, no more Orient Express, but as i understand TEN is funding track improvements from Serbia to Bulgaria after which such routes may become viable again ?