This map shows the average commuting time from home to work in Europe.
(Author: Maps.interlude, Link to image information and dfferent resolutions )
It might be surprising that, in spite of wildly different traffic systems and large differences in the use share of cars, these times are so similar.
An explanation is given in the wikipedia article on Marchetti’s Constant. Basically, the time spent commuting is mostly an anthropological constant, and is largely independent of means of transport and culture.
In other words, if we use faster means of transport, we almost automatically commute larger distances - regardless whether this improves our quality of life or not.
This relationship should probably be central in modern traffic planning, but it is often not considered. (There is an interesting article in German by the traffic scientist Rudolf Pfleiderer, titled “Das Phänomen Verkehr”, which describes in more detail the relationships between traffic, speed, and distance - perhaps somebody knows a good English article?)
Does it affect Windows boot time for homeoffice?
Well, Windows 11 boot times certainly didn’t get any shorter, and my work laptop’s fan is making so much noise that i am thinking in sharing my asthma meds with the poor thing. Glad that my home Debian boots in five seconds or so! :-)
You’re turning your computer off?
Why would you ever keep the work PC on? Not only for it consume power, but turning it on in the morning is a very easy 10 minutes of paid work time each day.
Well, it wouldn’t be my power and I’d probably use it to run some video encoding over night. But personally I only have one laptop for work and private use, so that stays on all the time.
Also 10 minutes is wild, mine takes between 1-2 minutes.