Now I know some commute on the TGV, but the airfare model works really well for a lot of people, and I think it makes sense for longer journeys. Alas, the Netherlands doesn't have any (national) long journeys.

That said, Dutch rail has a discount system in off-hours now, where you can get sizeable good discounts if you book a few days in advance. You get a ticked valid not for a specific train, but a 4-6 hour timeslot.

Living in NL, I have fond memories of the kind of travel enabled by Ouigo when I lived in FR.

I mostly use a car since it's so much cheaper and faster than public transport, but I bought this ticket in order to do some longer distance journeys as well. I don't really like driving.

Fragmentation isn't really there in science and development, fragmented financing (basically the main point I'll cede) is being worked on, and markets will always have to deal with European diversity; we're not all going to speak English tomorrow and eat the same, dress the same, etc.

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/us-europe-comparative-productivi...

Spoken like somebody who has no idea what they are talking about.

Apart from the large share of fundamental science which Europe has always been bigger in and better at (I mean, there's a huge tunnel in Texas to show that Americans at some point understood this and tried to compete), Europe is funding the military tools of the next generation in Ukraine.

Americans used to be excellent executors, then China took that role. What's left?

That's a whole new can of worms though. Their scams can be a lot more expensive, and are usually after the fact (although they'll try them at the pickup counter too).

It's one of those things I will specifically always arrange through a third party that covers insurance as well, which is really an insurance against the rental companies scams.

Because they're the only option for certain airports I expect to actually fly with them at some point. May that day never come though ;)

Certainly is, I can't get around this sometimes in order to do chores either. This is why I have a variety of kids movies, shows, series on disk. Plenty of variety, but all vetted.

Young AV?