Train Sim World. Yes Dovetail have their problems, yes its expensive if you want a lot of the latest DLC (why, its not multiplayer so doesn’t decrease in popularity like multiplayer game DLC), yes its not a well optimised graphical tour de force. But damn is it relaxing to play with multiple levels of difficulty that are entirely optional. Its possible to get hundreds of hours of replay from a single route if that’s what you enjoy.
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UK we have had speed cameras for ages. There was a trend for people to either spray paint the lens or even firebomb the camera. So they had to put in a second (video) camera mounted as high as possible to protect the first camera, quite amusing that a safety camera has to be kept safe by another safety cameras, its cameras all the way down.
Personally I think speed cameras that monitor a fixed point are pretty dumb unless that fixed point is an accident black spot such as outside a school or a red light camera for dangerous set of traffic lights. Its far better to have average speed cameras for a large section of road but those are more costly as you need way more cameras to make them work outside of motorways as you need to cover all the junctions properly.
Latest cameras we have in testing can see if you do not have your seat belt done up or are using your phone. Just stopping people from using their phone has to be the biggest step forward we can make with modern road safety.
Its the running costs of these that are insane, and the CO2 that it produces.
All will be rated by gallons per hour for the engines, the big boats can consume 500 gallons per hour. Now assume the owner wants to move the boat just 100 nm, or about 3 hours of travel at the most efficient speed (allowing for departure and arrival). Thats about 1500 gallons for one of the big boats. Assume £6 per gallon, thats £9k, to do 60 nm. Assuming an average of 40 mpg in a car, you could do 60000 miles for the same amount of fuel, or the same annual consumption as seven average UK drivers vs. 60 nm in a big boat. A 60 nm trip is something you do to get to a lunch stop before going on somewhere else for the evening. It can take multiple days of continuous travel to work across the Med, mean while the owner flies somewhere else while the boat is moved, then flies back.
Then there is the electric production on these. Sure, solar has helped a ton, but a lot of the really big boats don’t have a ton of solar as it takes flat surface space that has other shit on it. So they use a generator, a big one. Whole boat will have aircon and copious amounts of inverters to give the guests mains electric, electric toys, tons of lighting, and navigation equipment. The fuel for this is on top of the fuel burned to move the boat.
Then there is the staff on the boat, big boats can have a dozen or more staff on board, all of whom had to fly to get to the boat, and have their own food, washing, and daily energy needs.
Its not uncommon for a rich owner to request the boat moved to a particular location, stocked up with food and booze that is flown in from multiple locations. Then the owner and their guests fly in, and sometimes not, so all that effort and energy is wasted.
Final kicker is that really big boats have a second chase boat, full of even more staff and often similar size to the main boat in consumption. Bezos has two helicopter pads on his chase boat as he cannot have one on his main boat because he wanted sails on it, which don’t actually work properly, they have never used more than one at once.
There were still tickets available the day before, despite heavy discounts. I suspect they used seat filling services in the end to push it to capacity.They had to do so for some of the other knock out stages.