Presumably, the exception is to print out a copy of the timetable on paper and stick it in a frame?

Most of the bus and tram stops around here (Potsdam area) have LED matrix signs that list the next few things stopping, with active advert screens generally on the vehicle itself (where they're comprehensively ignored, since the majority of passengers actually pay attention to the world outside and know where they are).

Curiously, my local petrol station has huge e-ink displays to show the current price (it can change ten times or more a day).

I am always amused by gas prices and not in a good way.

I mean, yes - they need to charge relative to the price that they're going to pay the distributor, but how many delivery tankers does any one gas station receive on any given day?

I mean, does the price of the gas change while that delivery truck is in transit?

Gas prices in Canada or at least one chain, the "base price" is set from a central location.

Driving into work (Calgary) I noted that the inbound traffic gas stations were more expensive, while the outbound ones were cheaper & vice versa going home.

Also seen them change after the rush-hour/school runs are over in the morning & potentially switching back\forth around lunch times, then going up for the evening.

The Uber model of pricing.

I just came back from the future, and that worked out well for everyone.

PS: Calgary is a beautiful city. Was there last year on a project for several weeks and have to say, of all the Canadian cities I've been to, Calgary appeals the most to me.

Never been to as far west as BC (Bring Cash) or as far east as Newfoundland (heard they're strange) - but will hand it to Calgary. :)

For clarity, Gas in the article refers to Gas, literally, Not Gasoline/Petrol for those reading in N America.

What do they call 'Gas' in N America? Butane/propane? Something else?

I mean, does the price of the gas change while that delivery truck is in transit?

You're making the mistake of assuming that the 'free market' reduces prices to a minimum courtesy of competition. That is of course what the proponents thereof would like you to believe, but, in observed fact it actually *raises* prices to some figure technically known as 'all the market will bear'...

I think I may have posted this recently, but in (at least this bit of) Germany, fuel stations are required to inform an official body within five minutes of changing their pump prices, and that body makes the prices available to e.g. web clients on grounds of transparency.

https://ich-tanke.de/tankstellen/super-e10/umkreis/14469-potsdam/

Whereas we in the UK have to rely on some petrol price web sites few by drivers' observations.

The one I currently use has actually been quite accurate but the reported prices are often noted to be two or three days old. So am always suitable sceptical of some super-low price until I actually get it into my tank.

Have recently seen a differential between forecourts of as much as 21p a litre. Which is large enough to cover the monetary cost of driving quite a number of miles to fill up. As it is ludicrous to use petrol to save money, we make sure we plan to fill up when already travelling in the direction of the cheapest petrol. But not everyone has that luxury.

The times when supermarket petrol looked like a loss leader are well and truly dead. With Tesco now often being the most expensive in the area (though usually equalled by Morrison's).

It is gas (natural gas), not petrol, benzine, gasoline or whatever you want to call it.

Russian gas was cheap and used to power the power stations that supplied the electricity grid in large parts of Europe, along with coal, wind, solar and nuclear power. Russia is artificially restricting supplies to Europe (due to oversupply of gas inside Russia, due to throttling what comes to Europe, Russia is allegedly burning 4.34 million cubic metres (117950986.778 cubic feet) of gas every day from a processing station near the Finnish border.

As a result, the gas suppliers in Europe are having to look at alternate sources, such as shipping the gas in from the US, the UAE etc. That involves building terminals for the ships, which don't exist yet, and the cost of the gas is much higher than that supplied by Russia.

As well as the signage, public buildings will only be heated to 19°C (66.2°F) this winter. Spain has gone a step further, air conditioning systems aren't allowed to cool below 26°C (78.8°F), although Germany has far fewer AC users than Spain, so such an order wasn't given here. Private households are also being adviced to heat to 19°C this winter and to turn down the hot water temperature, although you can't go below 50°C (122°F) due to Legionnaires Disease, we have dropped out hot water temperature to 52°C to be on the safe side.

Also, here in Germany, gas prices change during the day, it is usually most expensive between 7 and 9 am and cheapest in the evening, prices can vary by up to 10c a litre (38c a gallon).

The bus stop signs around the Hague in NL are all solar powered... Not sure how long the charge holds, or if there is a backup non-solar source?

It's annoying to be outdoors and see more ads than your browser's blocker lets through. In Silicon Valley, they're usually for big corporations that Reg readers would never trust.

About time digital adverts got the same treatment - this time for light pollution. (Although really, was it necessary to order the NUC or Pi to be powered down due to the slipshod language of the law or perhaps not tie the power of the NUC or Pi to the power of the physical signage?)

For the last two or more decades, as homes around FRA encroached the airport (used to be nothing but fields nearby), eventually I suppose those homeowners forgot the reason why the land around the airport was cheap in the first place and started bitching that "hey, FRA is loud - let's shut it down" and the local government acquiesced.

Accordingly, with the exception of emergencies, FRA has been shut to all flights between 11PM and 5AM local for over a decade.

Of course - this is when freighters (think FedEx/UPS/AtlasAir/AmazonAir/DHL etc) typically perform their movements and FRA was Germany's most important international freight hub.

When I worked in the Mechanicals department of London Underground I learned that one of the "hot potatoes" for depot staff was that whatever else needed to be switched off on rolling stock, the Advert Cut Out Switch (A:COS ) was to remain on - sod the batteries and sod anyone doing electrical work.

(For those that wonder what those abbreviations are, just below the adverts in tube cars - the cantrail - they are to identify equipment below the seats).

That seems to be how it's going with all airports and airfields everywhere. Schiphol (Amsterdam) has the same issue and I know several small GA airfields (grass strips) that have problems with locals that moved in when the airfield had already existed for at least 50 years, but suddenly now aircraft noise on the weekends is a problem.

Yes, shutting down the computers is part of the reason for doing this. There will be a huge shortfall in gas this winter, so measures are in place to save as much as possible. As a lot of gas is used on power stations, turning off all unnecessary electronic devices (or unplugging them if they only have a "soft off" an no physical power switch that cuts supply) is a big part of that.

In addition, public buildings will only be heated to 19°C here and the government recommends private homes (at least gas and electricity powered heating) should also be reduced to 19°C, likewise the hot water temperature should be reduced as far as possible (50°C is the hard limit due to Legionnaires Disease, we dropped ours to 52°C to have a safety margin).

public buildings will only be heated to 19°C

This is the bit that surprises me. When I was a lad, 'standard laboratory temperature" was 18C -- and that was an increase from when my teachers were tiny. When I was a bit older, I was poor -- and our home was unheated. That's possible where I live, but even so the winter temperature was 6-15.

And my architecture text tells me that when heating was first introduced in London theatres, they were able to maintain the temperature at 12C

Is this really going to make a difference? Flea on a dog's back I would have thought.

Yes, but fleas are very annoying. Better to get rid of them completely.

Up to 12 MWh/year for the largest ones apparently, which in real units is about 1.4 kW.

Not a lot. We did without them for years anyway.

Given the amount of electrical signage - from neon lights to computer powered displays and everything inbetween - yes it should make a difference and every saved cubic meter of gas is a cubic meter of gas that can be diverted to industrial processes or heating homes, instead of idiotic things, like electronic signage in shops that nobody really sees or cares about, when the shop is closed.

Putin puttin in some choice Borkings.

Less ads is not that bad.

== Bring us Dabbsy Back! ==

Seems like one of those "someone should do something" rules that don't actually DO anything in the grand scheme of things (except annoy people).

Maybe they should, you know, not close all those nuke plants?? They'd have plenty of power (even without polluting their own and every neighboring country by burning lignite). But no, something, something, Fukushima something something Chernobyl (ie, rampant radiophobia).

It's frustrating being a nuclear supporter. Try to explain that there's more radioactive fallout from coal-fired plants than properly operating nuclear ones. People don't seem to comprehend it.

We should have been honing our skills and building better designs decades ago. The problems of both Chernobyl and Fukushima are common in a sense: design flaws that people flagged, but were ignored, and then a bloody mindedness to sweep it all under the rug.

High positive void coefficient, lack of containment, graphite tipped control rods, and an incredible lack of regard for safety during a test for the first, inappropriate design for the backup power for the second, and it was also an old design. I read the Japanese left the diesels in the basement because it was in the American plans, despite some voicing their concerns. But the later units had their backup gennys installed uphill from the plant, as far as I recall.

There needs to be some way for engineers to voice their concerns in a way that forces the hand of the company building and running these plants.

It's also a general issue that the fleets are getting older without enough new installed capacity to take over, so we just extend and extend. If we extend indefinitely, we're going to encounter problems.

If we extend indefinitely, we're going to encounter problems.

Correct you are. In loose terms, we are over-extending the designed lives of our nuclear fleet by years and years, today. And we're only able to do so because these vessels were overbuilt because, well, we're talking about nuclear FRICKING fission. You error on the side of caution on safety margins. ;)

Yes, they are being inspected and are currently deemed safe, but we're not building new ones - and this will take 10 to 15 or more years for a new crop of generators to come online.

I have to imagine that if we can apply 40 or 50 or more years of gained operational knowledge, a brand-new fission reactor will be better, cheaper and safer than ones built two generations ago that are running today - which are still supremely safe.

People seem to get upset when I explain to them that if we replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we can literally kill nearly 10 million people per year from radiation accidents and STILL do better than current fossil fuel output (from PM2.5 particulate output alone! That's ignoring all the other shit put out by anything burning dino-juice).

Given a large proportion of electricity in Germany is powered by gas, and the nuclear power stations are being shut off at the end of the year, it isn't a "someone should do something" rule, it is a critical measure to ensure as much gas as possible can be saved for heating homes or for critical industrial processes, who need it a darned sight more than electronic signage that few people will see, when the shops are closed.