I am hardly a technophobe, but I don't find myself leaping at the new technologies or the new internet trends. I was a pretty slow adopter of eBay, for example, and highly skeptical of their business idea. Likewise, I did not see the big deal about yet another search engine (google).
It took a while before I decided to give facebook a try, and the same for LinkedIn.
I have quite consciously avoided taking on any more of these networking services - they just eat up time, I think.
This specifically applied to Twitter. I really struggled to see the point of it. 140 characters - why ?
However, I am on the point of caving in.
With a trip to Vegas just around the corner, it seems like it would be the ideal way of keeping friends (those also in Vegas, those about to come, those staying at home or already back) informed of my progress at the tournaments and indeed to share the news of others among the "community" (I do find that UK poker players in Vegas constitute a real community).
I may soon be learning Twitterese.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Time is Money
After a dentist's appointment in Bedford this morning, I drove to the station much later than normal. This meant I had to drive all the way to the far end of the car park to find a free space.
It's actually quite a long way from one end to the other !
As I approached these far off lands, I noticed (along with many cars) large groups of people congregating around the pay&display machines.
At first I thought they were all marvelling at the large number of pound coins you need to make up the daily rate. Then I noticed they were studying the machines intently, perhaps with some annoyance, as if it were broken.
The same groups were surrounding several machines. They couldn't all be broken, surely ?
They appeared to be waiting for something to happen. A software upgrade ? I know all these machines have microchips inside, but that seemed a bit odd.
They couldn't all have agreed to "meet at the parking meter" ?
Then, as I pulled into my space, the "pips" went on my radio and I realised that it was just striking 10am - the start of off-peak parking.
My spending a little time waiting at the machine, they saved 2/3rd off the parking price !
It's actually quite a long way from one end to the other !
As I approached these far off lands, I noticed (along with many cars) large groups of people congregating around the pay&display machines.
At first I thought they were all marvelling at the large number of pound coins you need to make up the daily rate. Then I noticed they were studying the machines intently, perhaps with some annoyance, as if it were broken.
The same groups were surrounding several machines. They couldn't all be broken, surely ?
They appeared to be waiting for something to happen. A software upgrade ? I know all these machines have microchips inside, but that seemed a bit odd.
They couldn't all have agreed to "meet at the parking meter" ?
Then, as I pulled into my space, the "pips" went on my radio and I realised that it was just striking 10am - the start of off-peak parking.
My spending a little time waiting at the machine, they saved 2/3rd off the parking price !
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Claim derailed
We have been very fortunate to avoid complications from the recent ash-induced travel chaos. We travelled a week or so before the travel "ban" and are due to travel in a few weeks, but we missed this problem entirely.
The severity of this event makes the snow disruptions seem minor even though, at the time, these seemed to be quite significant especially on the "Thameslink" line (now First Capital Connect).
There were also severe non-weather problems on this line. I was affected when I started daily commuting to London again at the beginning of this year.
However, I had pretty much forgotten about the problems until I saw the recent compensation offer from FCC. 50% reduction off monthly season tickets - which is what I have been using [the season-ticket sweet-spot for value occurs at one month. The extra discounts for quarterly and annual tickets due not really make up for the lack of flexibility].
I had not personally been too badly affected as I only started regularly using the service on 11th January but the window for compensation ran to 15th January. This meant I was covered and could pick up a handy £300 or so discount.
It was a bit of a coup that I had just sneaked inside the timeframe. But then I checked my records and discovered that on the first occasion, I actually opted for a weekly ticket for just the first week ! I bought my first monthly ticket on the 17th.
Before I knew about the compensation, I didn't feel too put out but now I feel like I have missed out !
The severity of this event makes the snow disruptions seem minor even though, at the time, these seemed to be quite significant especially on the "Thameslink" line (now First Capital Connect).
There were also severe non-weather problems on this line. I was affected when I started daily commuting to London again at the beginning of this year.
However, I had pretty much forgotten about the problems until I saw the recent compensation offer from FCC. 50% reduction off monthly season tickets - which is what I have been using [the season-ticket sweet-spot for value occurs at one month. The extra discounts for quarterly and annual tickets due not really make up for the lack of flexibility].
I had not personally been too badly affected as I only started regularly using the service on 11th January but the window for compensation ran to 15th January. This meant I was covered and could pick up a handy £300 or so discount.
It was a bit of a coup that I had just sneaked inside the timeframe. But then I checked my records and discovered that on the first occasion, I actually opted for a weekly ticket for just the first week ! I bought my first monthly ticket on the 17th.
Before I knew about the compensation, I didn't feel too put out but now I feel like I have missed out !
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Spanish Over Fishing
Back in July 2008, I wrote a blog about the bureaucracy involved in acquiring a sea-fishing license in Spain. In that case, I did eventually obtain the license with local help from Hazel & Roger.
It was not entirely clear that this was worthwhile as Harry & I only succeeded in catching a couple of fish in several attempts.
This time, Roger had located an inland fishing lake (stocked and maintained specifically for fishing) and a license was not required, according to his lead.
Harry & I made our way there early one morning and the place certainly looked the part.
The license situation was not so clear, however. The owner had information prepared on the subject to help make it "clear".
Apparently, the region of Andalucia has lumped together fishing with hunting and come up with a fantastically complex system.
The usual method is to take a course and exam which takes 40 days. Applications for the course must be made at specific times of the year, and the exam can be taken only on particular days. Both the course, the exam and then the license require payment of fees and filling of forms.
Luckily, there is a "simpler" method in case you have a UK license (which obviously we do).
All you have to do is ...
i) Take your UK license and UK passport, in person, to the British Consulate and pay €41 for them to fill in a form to acknowledge that you have a UK license.
ii) Take this to another agency to obtain an identification number
iii) Obtain fishing insurance (!?)
iv) Take all this to another place and pay some more fees, fill in some more forms etc and they will issue a license.
Probably.
The good news is that now we know that the Spanish seem to be really intent on making tourist fishing impossible, it will save on packing and transporting the fishing equipment - we will simply not bother !
It was not entirely clear that this was worthwhile as Harry & I only succeeded in catching a couple of fish in several attempts.
This time, Roger had located an inland fishing lake (stocked and maintained specifically for fishing) and a license was not required, according to his lead.
Harry & I made our way there early one morning and the place certainly looked the part.
The license situation was not so clear, however. The owner had information prepared on the subject to help make it "clear".
Apparently, the region of Andalucia has lumped together fishing with hunting and come up with a fantastically complex system.
The usual method is to take a course and exam which takes 40 days. Applications for the course must be made at specific times of the year, and the exam can be taken only on particular days. Both the course, the exam and then the license require payment of fees and filling of forms.
Luckily, there is a "simpler" method in case you have a UK license (which obviously we do).
All you have to do is ...
i) Take your UK license and UK passport, in person, to the British Consulate and pay €41 for them to fill in a form to acknowledge that you have a UK license.
ii) Take this to another agency to obtain an identification number
iii) Obtain fishing insurance (!?)
iv) Take all this to another place and pay some more fees, fill in some more forms etc and they will issue a license.
Probably.
The good news is that now we know that the Spanish seem to be really intent on making tourist fishing impossible, it will save on packing and transporting the fishing equipment - we will simply not bother !
Monday, 4 January 2010
U-S-A part2
What else does USA stand for ?
2. Ugly Stupid Automobile
The queue at the Dollar car rental was pretty short, albeit still slow and somewhat irritating, but there was no major hitch. As usual, they tried to suggest we upgrade from our already large vehicle and as always we declined.
Our vehicle was a "full size saloon". This turned out to be a Mercury Grand Marquis. I have to assume that this model was manufactured specifically to sell to hire companies so that they could benefit from stupendous discounts for buying up cars that no one else would buy.
The thing is astonishingly unattractive. It is easy to understand why European or Japanese cars are seen as so stylish by the more sophisticated US buyer.
The car was undoubtedly modern in some respects, but in looks and layout it made you wonder if it can been deliberately designed to be bad. On the plus side, it was indeed comfortable (as you would expect when sitting in seats the size of a sofa).
We did grow used to it, and if one didn't know better then it would seem perfectly normal for the "gas" to be guzzled at a rate so fast that the needle moved towards empty at a speed that was discernible to the naked eye.
As for the chioce of colour - no doubt dreary beige was specified by Dollar to achieve maximum price discounts.
3. Unusual: Service Absent
Something that one can usually count on in America is excellent service (even if it is a little sickly). Disappointingly, we were let down time after time in restaurants (with just a couple of welcome exceptions).
We're at a bit of a loss to explain this, except for the fact that it must be difficult to find enough good quality staff for the vast number of places where they're needed.
4. Upcoming: Scary Action
Harry loves rollercoasters and is now big enough to try any that he wants to. Even he balked at one or two of them - especially the one in Busch Gardens with two vertical drops.
One that seemed scary last time but felt more benign, now that we have been immunised by trips to Alton Towers and previous visits to Orlando, was Return to Atlantis at Seaworld.
This is a log-flume type of ride and is unusual in that instead of having one large drop, it actually has one large drop on display and another one hidden on the blind side.
In a log flume, the usual set-up is that there are lots of fake drops along the way - Disney's Splash Mountain is the classic. By the time we come to the real drop we've had some extra fun along the way.
Well in Return to Atlantis, there won't so many false alarms but the real peculiarity was that before each slide there was LITERALLY a big sign warning us of the upcoming drop and in case we had our eyes closed, there was a voice recording to the same effect !
I am perplexed by this. Why would they do it ? There can't be a law requiring it (such a law would really spoil a lot of rides) and if there were, then such notices would be in place on all the other rides surely ?
5. Unhelpfully Signposted Attraction
Dollar offered us a SatNav ($13 a day, plus tax). This would have been spectactularly unnecessary - partly because we had brought our own TomTom but also because the roads around the Disney/Universal/I-Drive area are really easy to work with. Not only are they quite logical, but the signposting to the attractions is so thorough that any wrong turns are easily corrected by following the next sign.
So, I was surprised by the completely different scenario when Harry and I drove to Tampa to visit Busch Gardens (highly recommended by the way). I had a look on the map and could see it should be very easy - drive South on the I4 for about 80 miles then follow signs.
Well, this was basically correct but the signs took me completely by surprise - there were hardly any !
There was one sign about 12 miles from the Jct between the I4 and the I75 indicating that I need to take the I75 North. There was no repeater sign, not even right at the junction, nor when I turned off. On the I75 itself, there was no indication that we were going in the right direction until there was just one small sign at the required junction. Even on the final approach roads, there was one sign and one only for each turning.
Luckily we had been before a few years ago so I was somewhat prepared.
I am puzzled by this, given the size and economic importance of the attraction. I can only assume there must be local by-laws preventing them from "advertising" with roadsigns.
Meanwhile the signage inside the park was first rate. If the poor directions kept a few people away, then I guess we benefitted from that !
2. Ugly Stupid Automobile
The queue at the Dollar car rental was pretty short, albeit still slow and somewhat irritating, but there was no major hitch. As usual, they tried to suggest we upgrade from our already large vehicle and as always we declined.
Our vehicle was a "full size saloon". This turned out to be a Mercury Grand Marquis. I have to assume that this model was manufactured specifically to sell to hire companies so that they could benefit from stupendous discounts for buying up cars that no one else would buy.
The thing is astonishingly unattractive. It is easy to understand why European or Japanese cars are seen as so stylish by the more sophisticated US buyer.
The car was undoubtedly modern in some respects, but in looks and layout it made you wonder if it can been deliberately designed to be bad. On the plus side, it was indeed comfortable (as you would expect when sitting in seats the size of a sofa).
We did grow used to it, and if one didn't know better then it would seem perfectly normal for the "gas" to be guzzled at a rate so fast that the needle moved towards empty at a speed that was discernible to the naked eye.
As for the chioce of colour - no doubt dreary beige was specified by Dollar to achieve maximum price discounts.
3. Unusual: Service Absent
Something that one can usually count on in America is excellent service (even if it is a little sickly). Disappointingly, we were let down time after time in restaurants (with just a couple of welcome exceptions).
We're at a bit of a loss to explain this, except for the fact that it must be difficult to find enough good quality staff for the vast number of places where they're needed.
4. Upcoming: Scary Action
Harry loves rollercoasters and is now big enough to try any that he wants to. Even he balked at one or two of them - especially the one in Busch Gardens with two vertical drops.
One that seemed scary last time but felt more benign, now that we have been immunised by trips to Alton Towers and previous visits to Orlando, was Return to Atlantis at Seaworld.
This is a log-flume type of ride and is unusual in that instead of having one large drop, it actually has one large drop on display and another one hidden on the blind side.
In a log flume, the usual set-up is that there are lots of fake drops along the way - Disney's Splash Mountain is the classic. By the time we come to the real drop we've had some extra fun along the way.
Well in Return to Atlantis, there won't so many false alarms but the real peculiarity was that before each slide there was LITERALLY a big sign warning us of the upcoming drop and in case we had our eyes closed, there was a voice recording to the same effect !
I am perplexed by this. Why would they do it ? There can't be a law requiring it (such a law would really spoil a lot of rides) and if there were, then such notices would be in place on all the other rides surely ?
5. Unhelpfully Signposted Attraction
Dollar offered us a SatNav ($13 a day, plus tax). This would have been spectactularly unnecessary - partly because we had brought our own TomTom but also because the roads around the Disney/Universal/I-Drive area are really easy to work with. Not only are they quite logical, but the signposting to the attractions is so thorough that any wrong turns are easily corrected by following the next sign.
So, I was surprised by the completely different scenario when Harry and I drove to Tampa to visit Busch Gardens (highly recommended by the way). I had a look on the map and could see it should be very easy - drive South on the I4 for about 80 miles then follow signs.
Well, this was basically correct but the signs took me completely by surprise - there were hardly any !
There was one sign about 12 miles from the Jct between the I4 and the I75 indicating that I need to take the I75 North. There was no repeater sign, not even right at the junction, nor when I turned off. On the I75 itself, there was no indication that we were going in the right direction until there was just one small sign at the required junction. Even on the final approach roads, there was one sign and one only for each turning.
Luckily we had been before a few years ago so I was somewhat prepared.
I am puzzled by this, given the size and economic importance of the attraction. I can only assume there must be local by-laws preventing them from "advertising" with roadsigns.
Meanwhile the signage inside the park was first rate. If the poor directions kept a few people away, then I guess we benefitted from that !
Friday, 1 January 2010
Happy Binary Day !
The 1st January 2010, and I couldn't help noticing that the date 01/01/10 can be written with just ones and zeros - a binary date of a sort.
It's quite a while since this happened before - November 2001. After November next year, it will be a very long time until it happens again (another 90 years or so).
11:11 on Armistice Day this year will be a pretty significant moment numerologically speaking, I suppose.
Of course, we could argue that this year and (20)00 and (20)01 etc don't really count if we want to use the full year. In that case we need to go back to around the time of the Battle of Hastings - the start of the 2nd millennium was of course rich in binary dates. And we will have to wait another 8,000 years or so to get the next occurrences.
I wondered whether anyone else was having these thoughts and a quick web search revealed that apparently there is much chatter about it in the Twittersphere. Likewise there's the debate about what to call this new decade. My vote would go to "the twenty tens".
Happy Twenty Ten !
It's quite a while since this happened before - November 2001. After November next year, it will be a very long time until it happens again (another 90 years or so).
11:11 on Armistice Day this year will be a pretty significant moment numerologically speaking, I suppose.
Of course, we could argue that this year and (20)00 and (20)01 etc don't really count if we want to use the full year. In that case we need to go back to around the time of the Battle of Hastings - the start of the 2nd millennium was of course rich in binary dates. And we will have to wait another 8,000 years or so to get the next occurrences.
I wondered whether anyone else was having these thoughts and a quick web search revealed that apparently there is much chatter about it in the Twittersphere. Likewise there's the debate about what to call this new decade. My vote would go to "the twenty tens".
Happy Twenty Ten !
Monday, 28 December 2009
U-S-A part1
We were in Florida for 2 weeks up to and just after Christmas. We had a good time (it's hard not to in Orlando) but a few things about the US of A struck as as odd, irritating or downright bizarre. So what does USA stand for ?
1. Unbelievably Slow Admission
When we arrived at Orlando International, we were quick off the plane and so faced only a short queue at immigration. Officials at the holiday airports always seem friendlier than those I remember at JFK. Or maybe it's just that I was exposed to a very fierce agent once in the past and they all seem benign by comparison.
In any case, with just 2 groups ahead of us (and one of those groups only had 1 person), I assumed we would be through in no time.
Not so. The official in our line ("Colon" was his name) was quite outstandingly slow. It actually took us just short of an hour to emerge. Truly remarkable.
Mind you, the US have their entry procedures in quite a pickle in my opinion. It seems to me they are actually pretty disorganized.
I assume that behind it all, the CIA/NSA/FBI are actually doing a good job tracking those who really need to be tracked and traced but for the average traveller their procedures look a mess.
I have been to the US dozens of times, and the green I94 visa waiver form is still with us, but they have added to it without ever streamlining it.
So now we have to fill in our vacation address before we leave the UK and the airline have to provide that to the US authorities in electronic form but we STILL have to write it on the form (and all this despite the fact that they can't very well check we have given a genuine address).
They added finger printing (which they keep a record of, but which we still have to complete from scratch each time) and then they introduced electronic visa waivers (ESTA) BUT they did not phase out any of the paper forms. You need to do both, for further duplication, so the paperwork just grows and grows.
Not that they have left the I-94W totally un-updated. No, they have now added fields for phone number and email - neither of which they are conceivably going to use. You would think that when they modify the form (understandably they so not wish to do so too often) they would correct the more obvious failings and inconsistencies.
For example: they use a grid format on the form despite the fact that many names, addresses and even country names will not fit in the number of spaces provided. But on the back of the form, they don't. And on the customs forms, they don't.
On the I-94W itself, there are 4 places to put your country - all the fields have different lengths. There is little enough room for names that many people will have an issue, but they allow 6 spaces to denote sex (M/F).
The new and pointless email field is ridiculously short - if you allow 11 or 12 spaces for "@hotmail.com" (hardly the longest domain name) there are 7 spaces left for the rest of the address. It would not take a genius to realise that this will be sufficient for almost no-one.
The entry procedure itself consists of presumably high-tech finger-printing and photo-recognition with an extraordinary amount of stapling and rubber-stamping.
In fact, on reflection, one hour wasn't bad just based on the number of staples and stamps that our agent had to process.
Unhelpful, Stupid, Annoying
1. Unbelievably Slow Admission
When we arrived at Orlando International, we were quick off the plane and so faced only a short queue at immigration. Officials at the holiday airports always seem friendlier than those I remember at JFK. Or maybe it's just that I was exposed to a very fierce agent once in the past and they all seem benign by comparison.
In any case, with just 2 groups ahead of us (and one of those groups only had 1 person), I assumed we would be through in no time.
Not so. The official in our line ("Colon" was his name) was quite outstandingly slow. It actually took us just short of an hour to emerge. Truly remarkable.
Mind you, the US have their entry procedures in quite a pickle in my opinion. It seems to me they are actually pretty disorganized.
I assume that behind it all, the CIA/NSA/FBI are actually doing a good job tracking those who really need to be tracked and traced but for the average traveller their procedures look a mess.
I have been to the US dozens of times, and the green I94 visa waiver form is still with us, but they have added to it without ever streamlining it.
So now we have to fill in our vacation address before we leave the UK and the airline have to provide that to the US authorities in electronic form but we STILL have to write it on the form (and all this despite the fact that they can't very well check we have given a genuine address).
They added finger printing (which they keep a record of, but which we still have to complete from scratch each time) and then they introduced electronic visa waivers (ESTA) BUT they did not phase out any of the paper forms. You need to do both, for further duplication, so the paperwork just grows and grows.
Not that they have left the I-94W totally un-updated. No, they have now added fields for phone number and email - neither of which they are conceivably going to use. You would think that when they modify the form (understandably they so not wish to do so too often) they would correct the more obvious failings and inconsistencies.
For example: they use a grid format on the form despite the fact that many names, addresses and even country names will not fit in the number of spaces provided. But on the back of the form, they don't. And on the customs forms, they don't.
On the I-94W itself, there are 4 places to put your country - all the fields have different lengths. There is little enough room for names that many people will have an issue, but they allow 6 spaces to denote sex (M/F).
The new and pointless email field is ridiculously short - if you allow 11 or 12 spaces for "@hotmail.com" (hardly the longest domain name) there are 7 spaces left for the rest of the address. It would not take a genius to realise that this will be sufficient for almost no-one.
The entry procedure itself consists of presumably high-tech finger-printing and photo-recognition with an extraordinary amount of stapling and rubber-stamping.
In fact, on reflection, one hour wasn't bad just based on the number of staples and stamps that our agent had to process.
Unhelpful, Stupid, Annoying
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