There are different allowed widths and heights ("loading gauge") for train cars in different countries. Finally, few people know that the overhead lines veer a little bit to the left and right to spread the wear on the pantographs. The extent to which this happens also differs between countries, and some countries have narrower pantographs than others, which means that trains cannot just ride both in Germany and Switzerland even though they have the same electrical system."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Direct Train to Europe: London to the Mediterranean"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32916197"}},"_tags":["comment","author_gpvos","story_9630587"],"author":"gpvos","comment_text":"Border-crossing lines are utterly fascinating. The traditional visual signalling system tends to change exactly at the border, but you may find pre-signals just inside the other country. The in-cabin signalling and automatic train protection may or may not change at the same location. Changeover of the electrical system is more elaborate, and can take place at the border, a few kilometers inside one of the countries, or at one of the larger stations on either side, in which case you will find switchable tracks at that station.
There are different allowed widths and heights ("loading gauge") for train cars in different countries. Finally, few people know that the overhead lines veer a little bit to the left and right to spread the wear on the pantographs. The extent to which this happens also differs between countries, and some countries have narrower pantographs than others, which means that trains cannot just ride both in Germany and Switzerland even though they have the same electrical system.","created_at":"2015-05-30T20:55:43Z","created_at_i":1433019343,"objectID":"9631728","parent_id":9631527,"points":null,"story_id":9630587,"story_title":"Direct Train to Europe: London to the Mediterranean","story_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32916197","updated_at":"2023-09-07T02:51:53Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"TylerE"},"comment_text":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"You just put a signal at both ends of the passing loop. Just the way they\u2019re signaled in real life - one signal to authorize a train into the loop, one to authorize movements out of the loop.
Path based signals (nor pre-signals for that matter) didn\u2019t exist in plain original TTD and constructing such track layouts was easy and straightforward."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"OpenTTD 16.0-Beta1"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.openttd.org/news/2026/06/25/openttd-16-0-beta1"}},"_tags":["comment","author_TylerE","story_48695149"],"author":"TylerE","comment_text":"You just put a signal at both ends of the passing loop. Just the way they\u2019re signaled in real life - one signal to authorize a train into the loop, one to authorize movements out of the loop.
Path based signals (nor pre-signals for that matter) didn\u2019t exist in plain original TTD and constructing such track layouts was easy and straightforward.","created_at":"2026-06-27T14:14:29Z","created_at_i":1782569669,"objectID":"48698497","parent_id":48697855,"story_id":48695149,"story_title":"OpenTTD 16.0-Beta1","story_url":"https://www.openttd.org/news/2026/06/25/openttd-16-0-beta1","updated_at":"2026-06-27T17:49:02Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"jemmyw"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"That's not quite true. The original signals would let a train into the cross over block when no station lines were available because they didn't have that pass through. Depending on the layout it would either get stuck or end up heading in the wrong direction. Pre-signals could solve it but they weren't in the original."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"OpenTTD 16.0-Beta1"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.openttd.org/news/2026/06/25/openttd-16-0-beta1"}},"_tags":["comment","author_jemmyw","story_48695149"],"author":"jemmyw","children":[48698497],"comment_text":"That's not quite true. The original signals would let a train into the cross over block when no station lines were available because they didn't have that pass through. Depending on the layout it would either get stuck or end up heading in the wrong direction. Pre-signals could solve it but they weren't in the original.","created_at":"2026-06-27T12:56:12Z","created_at_i":1782564972,"objectID":"48697855","parent_id":48696613,"story_id":48695149,"story_title":"OpenTTD 16.0-Beta1","story_url":"https://www.openttd.org/news/2026/06/25/openttd-16-0-beta1","updated_at":"2026-06-27T14:15:14Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"1qaboutecs"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"The government enforces contracts, so it gets to choose which contracts it enforces. Without a functioning judicial system (and a law enforcement system to enforce its verdicts), a contract is a piece of paper.
Plenty of contracts benefit both parties but are bad for society as a whole, and if the government pre-signals which sorts of those contracts it will refuse to enforce, this is good for society."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Author of \"Careless People\" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/sarah-wynn-williams-careless-people-meta-nrffdfpmf"}},"_tags":["comment","author_1qaboutecs","story_47639524"],"author":"1qaboutecs","comment_text":"The government enforces contracts, so it gets to choose which contracts it enforces. Without a functioning judicial system (and a law enforcement system to enforce its verdicts), a contract is a piece of paper.
Plenty of contracts benefit both parties but are bad for society as a whole, and if the government pre-signals which sorts of those contracts it will refuse to enforce, this is good for society.","created_at":"2026-04-04T17:00:15Z","created_at_i":1775322015,"objectID":"47640901","parent_id":47640181,"story_id":47639524,"story_title":"Author of \"Careless People\" banned from saying anything negative about Meta","story_url":"https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/sarah-wynn-williams-careless-people-meta-nrffdfpmf","updated_at":"2026-04-12T05:01:26Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Tade0"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"Sometimes it's a result of unforeseen consequences of design decisions.
All pre-signal Angular code must be compiled down to JS which replaces native async with Promise.
Why is that so? For a long time Angular's change detection worked by overriding native functions like setTimeout, addEventListener etc. to track these calls and react accordingly. `async` is a keyword, so it's not possible to override it like that.
Signals don't require such trickery and also allow to significantly decrease the surface area of change detection, but to take advantage of all of that one has to essentially rewrite the entire application."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"The three pillars of JavaScript bloat"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://43081j.com/2026/03/three-pillars-of-javascript-bloat"}},"_tags":["comment","author_Tade0","story_47473718"],"author":"Tade0","comment_text":"Sometimes it's a result of unforeseen consequences of design decisions.
All pre-signal Angular code must be compiled down to JS which replaces native async with Promise.
Why is that so? For a long time Angular's change detection worked by overriding native functions like setTimeout, addEventListener etc. to track these calls and react accordingly. `async` is a keyword, so it's not possible to override it like that.
Signals don't require such trickery and also allow to significantly decrease the surface area of change detection, but to take advantage of all of that one has to essentially rewrite the entire application.","created_at":"2026-03-22T09:47:58Z","created_at_i":1774172878,"objectID":"47475898","parent_id":47474070,"story_id":47473718,"story_title":"The three pillars of JavaScript bloat","story_url":"https://43081j.com/2026/03/three-pillars-of-javascript-bloat","updated_at":"2026-03-22T22:13:49Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"tptacek"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"I like everything Matthew Garrett writes but I can't resist being annoying about this:
Signal has had forward secrecy forever, right? The modern practice of secure messaging was established by OTR (Borisov and Goldberg), which practically introduced the notions of "perfect forward secrecy" and repudiability (as opposed to non-repudiability) in the messaging security model. Signal was an evolution both of those ideas and of the engineering realization of those ideas (better cryptography, better code, better packaging).
What's so galling about this state of affairs is that people are launching new messaging systems that take us backwards, not just to "pre-Signal" levels, but to pre-modern levels; like, to 2001."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Twitter's new encrypted DMs aren't better than the old ones"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/71646.html"}},"_tags":["comment","author_tptacek","story_44191591"],"author":"tptacek","children":[44194546,44197073],"comment_text":"I like everything Matthew Garrett writes but I can't resist being annoying about this:
Signal has had forward secrecy forever, right? The modern practice of secure messaging was established by OTR (Borisov and Goldberg), which practically introduced the notions of "perfect forward secrecy" and repudiability (as opposed to non-repudiability) in the messaging security model. Signal was an evolution both of those ideas and of the engineering realization of those ideas (better cryptography, better code, better packaging).
What's so galling about this state of affairs is that people are launching new messaging systems that take us backwards, not just to "pre-Signal" levels, but to pre-modern levels; like, to 2001.","created_at":"2025-06-05T17:46:49Z","created_at_i":1749145609,"objectID":"44193960","parent_id":44191591,"story_id":44191591,"story_title":"Twitter's new encrypted DMs aren't better than the old ones","story_url":"https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/71646.html","updated_at":"2025-06-09T13:59:54Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"abakker"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"This is really lowest common denominator reporting, on top of lowest common denominator sampling, and lowest common denominator question design.
A far better approach would be in trying to test for a specific hypothesis, e.g. "I believe confidence in higher ed is falling due to XYZ" reasons.
But, in the context of Gallup, I think this kind of research is really there not to answer questions, but to provide a sort of pre-signal to aide in hypothesis generation. Now that this result exists, large numbers of companies and organizations will do paid studies to figure out what this means in detail, who thinks it, and identify areas they can course correct in their strategy.
Gallup does good work, but this kind of omnibus question is not really meant to answer any questions.
Source: I work in B2B survey and interview research."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Americans' confidence in higher education has taken a nosedive"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://lithub.com/americans-confidence-in-higher-education-has-taken-a-nosedive/"}},"_tags":["comment","author_abakker","story_40991894"],"author":"abakker","children":[40992402,40992440,40992605,40992811,40992860],"comment_text":"This is really lowest common denominator reporting, on top of lowest common denominator sampling, and lowest common denominator question design.
A far better approach would be in trying to test for a specific hypothesis, e.g. "I believe confidence in higher ed is falling due to XYZ" reasons.
But, in the context of Gallup, I think this kind of research is really there not to answer questions, but to provide a sort of pre-signal to aide in hypothesis generation. Now that this result exists, large numbers of companies and organizations will do paid studies to figure out what this means in detail, who thinks it, and identify areas they can course correct in their strategy.
Gallup does good work, but this kind of omnibus question is not really meant to answer any questions.
Source: I work in B2B survey and interview research.","created_at":"2024-07-18T03:52:33Z","created_at_i":1721274753,"objectID":"40992347","parent_id":40992248,"story_id":40991894,"story_title":"Americans' confidence in higher education has taken a nosedive","story_url":"https://lithub.com/americans-confidence-in-higher-education-has-taken-a-nosedive/","updated_at":"2024-09-20T17:31:35Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"JamesonNetworks"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"Ugh, this isn\u2019t Angular anymore. This will be just like the v1 -> v2 transition. Presignal -> signal. The second they start deprecating the previous syntax, we will hit very difficult migrations"},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Google: Angular and Wiz Are Merging"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/1770478763253379488"}},"_tags":["comment","author_JamesonNetworks","story_39777267"],"author":"JamesonNetworks","children":[39778543,39778963],"comment_text":"Ugh, this isn\u2019t Angular anymore. This will be just like the v1 -> v2 transition. Presignal -> signal. The second they start deprecating the previous syntax, we will hit very difficult migrations","created_at":"2024-03-21T13:00:27Z","created_at_i":1711026027,"objectID":"39777975","parent_id":39777267,"story_id":39777267,"story_title":"Google: Angular and Wiz Are Merging","story_url":"https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/1770478763253379488","updated_at":"2024-09-20T16:41:14Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"toast0"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"> In those early years, we had one customer doing more minutes than our entire customer base. In fact, at an early Twiliocon (pre-Signal) John and Jeff had to help build out an entirely separate environment for them because it was dragging everyone else down.
As an early large customer, I wonder if that was me... sorry for messing up everyone else ;) I do remember some issues at times, but nothing we didn't see with other voice and SMS providers. Well, other providers didn't have an online log browser, so I never had trouble with browsing logs their logs.
Twiml was much easier to use than the other 'programatic voice' apis at the time, and I never had time to figure out how to run calls on sip directly. As I recall, it didn't take much time to setup voice calls, and then boom. It was helpful that quality was good and support was helpful when there were destinations with poor results."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/twilio-ceo-lawson-steps-down-after-bruising-activist-battles.html"}},"_tags":["comment","author_toast0","story_38912497"],"author":"toast0","comment_text":"> In those early years, we had one customer doing more minutes than our entire customer base. In fact, at an early Twiliocon (pre-Signal) John and Jeff had to help build out an entirely separate environment for them because it was dragging everyone else down.
As an early large customer, I wonder if that was me... sorry for messing up everyone else ;) I do remember some issues at times, but nothing we didn't see with other voice and SMS providers. Well, other providers didn't have an online log browser, so I never had trouble with browsing logs their logs.
Twiml was much easier to use than the other 'programatic voice' apis at the time, and I never had time to figure out how to run calls on sip directly. As I recall, it didn't take much time to setup voice calls, and then boom. It was helpful that quality was good and support was helpful when there were destinations with poor results.","created_at":"2024-01-09T05:14:55Z","created_at_i":1704777295,"objectID":"38922607","parent_id":38914588,"story_id":38912497,"story_title":"Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio","story_url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/twilio-ceo-lawson-steps-down-after-bruising-activist-battles.html","updated_at":"2024-09-20T16:02:06Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"josh_carterPDX"},"comment_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["pre","signal"],"value":"In the early days of Twilio, carriers laughed at what we were doing. It didn't help that most of the people at Twilio pre-2014 didn't speak much "telecom." But to your point, it was tough to rely on these carriers who thought Twilio would be gone in a few years so they didn't put much stock in ensuring the infrastructure was redundant and robust.
I was on several calls with providers begging them to put us on a more robust network. Especially in years when there was an election. In those early years, we had one customer doing more minutes than our entire customer base. In fact, at an early Twiliocon (pre-Signal) John and Jeff had to help build out an entirely separate environment for them because it was dragging everyone else down.
My point is that the early days were definitely the "Draw the Owl" days. We were figuring out things on the fly. Carriers were dubious and it was tough to get things working consistently. However, by 2015 those same carriers were developing APIs of their own.
Twilio changed the game for the telecommunications industry. Two years before joining Twilio I was putting in large-scale Avaya systems. The fact that I wrote four lines of code to make a phone ring blew my mind. Twilio and Jeff created something special. It's sad to see his run come to an end, but every company needs to adapt to the changing times. This is just Twilio's time to adapt."},"story_title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio"},"story_url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/twilio-ceo-lawson-steps-down-after-bruising-activist-battles.html"}},"_tags":["comment","author_josh_carterPDX","story_38912497"],"author":"josh_carterPDX","children":[38922607],"comment_text":"In the early days of Twilio, carriers laughed at what we were doing. It didn't help that most of the people at Twilio pre-2014 didn't speak much "telecom." But to your point, it was tough to rely on these carriers who thought Twilio would be gone in a few years so they didn't put much stock in ensuring the infrastructure was redundant and robust.
I was on several calls with providers begging them to put us on a more robust network. Especially in years when there was an election. In those early years, we had one customer doing more minutes than our entire customer base. In fact, at an early Twiliocon (pre-Signal) John and Jeff had to help build out an entirely separate environment for them because it was dragging everyone else down.
My point is that the early days were definitely the "Draw the Owl" days. We were figuring out things on the fly. Carriers were dubious and it was tough to get things working consistently. However, by 2015 those same carriers were developing APIs of their own.
Twilio changed the game for the telecommunications industry. Two years before joining Twilio I was putting in large-scale Avaya systems. The fact that I wrote four lines of code to make a phone ring blew my mind. Twilio and Jeff created something special. It's sad to see his run come to an end, but every company needs to adapt to the changing times. This is just Twilio's time to adapt.","created_at":"2024-01-08T16:42:30Z","created_at_i":1704732150,"objectID":"38914588","parent_id":38914207,"story_id":38912497,"story_title":"Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio","story_url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/08/twilio-ceo-lawson-steps-down-after-bruising-activist-battles.html","updated_at":"2024-09-20T16:01:10Z"}],"hitsPerPage":10,"nbHits":19,"nbPages":2,"page":0,"params":"query=pre-signal&hitsPerPage=10&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":27,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"roundTrip":19},"afterFetch":{"merge":{"mergeLoop":{"prepareNextHit":2,"total":2},"total":10},"total":10},"fetch":{"query":4,"scanning":10,"total":15},"total":27},"query":"pre-signal","serverTimeMS":28}