The biggest problem with being a tourist in Finland is that even in the capital very close to everything is in Finnish only. This includes descriptive texts in museums. You may as well not bother with most attractions.

Interesting article I've read while observing this: "It's impossible to make money running hotels in Helsinki".

To be blunt: If Helsinki wants more tourists it needs to make them want to return. This starts with making tourist attractions relevant to non-Finnsh speaking people. If they don't want more tourists they should close down hotels rather than moan about a lack of guests.

Everyting else is, it has to be said, is amazing.

Second train for #Helsinki2026 is the 11:20 from Østerport to Malmö C and I'm using the usual (slightly expensive) hack and splurging on a first class ticket.

This train is heavily used by holidaymakers heading to the airport and tends to be uncomfortably crowded between Copenhagen Central and Malmö C.

Starting another bit of #CrossBorderRail

First train is the 10:59 from Skodsborg to Østerport. Optimistic in spite of what the extreme temperatures are likely to do to time tables and train reliability over the rest of the day.

I'll try to keep the entire trip in one thread and with the hashtag #Helsinki2026 in all posts for easy filtering.

While I do appreciate that SJ has a really good system for rebooking in case of cancellations, I'd honestly prefer if my planned train hadn't been cancelled.

We peaked at 29C and way too much grass pollen outside today. Indoors we're stable at 27C.

I'm built for 20C and have the choice of melting while having trouble breathing or just plain melting. Seriously considering going to work on a Saturday just to go sit in the server room...

The connection between Denmark and Sweden on the Øresundståg remains my favourite #CrossBorderRail connection. Fast, frequent, and reasonably priced.

The Swedes need to stop breaking the spirit and letter of both Schengen and the Nordic Union with their ridiculous security theater border controls for it to be perfect, though.

I'll be going with the firstborn, a fairly nerdy (math/science flavour) introvert with a voracious appetite for knowledge and a dislike of crowds. So far we're thinking something along the lines of the following:

British Museum
Kew Gardens
Science Museum
A Hidden London tour if possible

Add to that a lot of general walking around and at least three excellent meals a day.

Any recommandations for either?

2/2

I may end up going to Ye Olde London Towne some time around Octoberish. By train, obviously. The plan is to do Copenhagen-Amsterdam in a day and then Amsterdam-London the next in order to try to avoid the Eurostar dungeon in Brussels. The return trip will be the same, only in reverse. I'm all ears if someone has better ideas. 1/2

Heading home again I've been reminded of how well the start/end of the journey works: Cross-platform interchange at Østerport station with less than ten minutes to wait.

On my way to Malmö for a bit of jetlag the game prep. As per usual we spent a while doing nothing at Hyllie station as no one seems to consider the border control theater worth the time or effort. Wait aside this is still my favourite #CrossBorderRail connection. Frequent, easy to use, reasonably priced (though definitely not as cheap as it should be).

Lufthansa are cancelling 20,000 unprofitable shorthaul flights in order to save fuel over the coming six months. This will save 40,000 metric tons of fuel. [0]

So they're burning 80,000 metric tons a year on short haul flights in Europe while losing money doing so. Can we stop doing that sort of thing permanently and collectively as a continent?

[0] https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/en/lufthansa-group-optimises-flight-offering-in-summer-across-all-six-hubs/#

I've decided to test out Alpine Linux as a desktop OS. Given the state of things <gestures vaguely in the direction of nazis and slop> I've got to ask:

Is there any good reason not to?

Added bonus: I can now do a rolling firmware update and degrade performance rather than disconnect clients outright. This has already proven popular with the rest of the household.

I finished the day by capitulating and installing an extra access point upstairs.

The deck separating the two storeys of our flat is 25 cm of reinforced concrete and I just couldn't find a stairwell position that managed to cover everything in a reasonable way.

One @mikrotik wAP ax on each storey has me maxing out our outbound line from anywhere in the flat (yes, I know they're outdoor APs but the antenna radiation pattern and the ridiculously good value for money works for me).

Started the day with a lovely walk in -11C and sunshine. My kind of winter weather.

Just to get an excuse to post a poll...

I've been running a bunch of odd internal to the home services from a proxmox box in the living room. Isn't it about time I migrated the whole thing to @BastilleBSD on FreeBSD 15?

Dear postal/courier companies.

You could save all of us so much time and effort if you'd all allow us to change the delivery address to "nearest pick-up point" before the first delivery attempt.

This toot was specifically triggered by FedEx consistently announcing delivery dates that then won't happen, but it's a universal issue.

I think my favourite mastodon post type is the "follow me on my really cool train journey to $destination" thread.

Given the option I'd travel to exciting places (by train) frequently rather than semi-annually, and getting to travel vicariously on here is a decent and free substitute.

Keep on travelling and posting about it all you lovely people!

I'm currently trying to both beat some sort of seasonal ailment and boredom by stubbornly refusing to leave my bed and pondering train travel options for next year respectively.

I'm hoping for some sort of #FediTrainBrain assistance on the latter.

Here's my conundrum:

1. Primary vacation is in early to mid July due to having kids.
2. I thoroughly dislike temperatures above 25C.
3. Top destinations on the family wishlist are (alphabetically): Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Prague, and Stockholm.

Most of the destinations are way too warm meaning the obvious solution would be a Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki-Stockholm-Copenhagen roundtrip, but apparently affordable family rooms for 4 sell out more than 9 months in advance so that one is out.

Any ideas for awesome places we haven't thought of?

Having spent the past year and a bit fighting first one and then two excessively temperamental 3D printers I joined a 3D printer session at the maker space at $work. The verdict was a very simple “those printers are awesome if what you want to do is fiddle with your printer. For printing, not so much”. I suppose I got them for free for a reason…

I caved in and replaced them with a single and more capable model last week. So far I’ve printed more per day this week than I did in a year with the old ones. Obligatory benchy aside I’ve only printed useful things, so it’s not even gratuitous shiny new device usage.

tl;dr - if you want to do 3D printing, get a device that won’t fight you all the way.