Showing posts with label Railway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Railway. Show all posts

Monday 7 April 2014

Amazon 90




Over the weekend I bought a Google Chromecast. While the concept is clever it doesn't really give me anything extra to my viewing experience, and took an age to set up, was invisible to my iPad and then on day 2 I had to reset it up again, so against my better judgement I decided to return it. I packaged it up and when through Amazon's return process and first they offer an instant refund, and an option called Collect+ where they offer "alternative" collection points where you can drop the item off.

This turned out to be my local Nisa store which opens at 6 am so I went round and dropped it off. I'm sorry to bypass the Post Office in this way but because of working hours I couldn't drop the package off at my local Post Office til Saturday.

On my may back I got talking to to a 90 year old ex railwayman (original from Byker) , who was eulogising about being out enjoying early mornings and gushing with positivity , and really great old guy, and he's the reason I chose the Kinks song for this post.

So this morning I've had a lift from the old and the new, so that is a fantastic way to start the week, which bodes well for a brilliant week ahead. I hope yours is going to be as good as mine.

Thursday 22 August 2013

Blue Sky Day and Data Usage


Today started grey and rainy but things took a major turn for the better and by the time I left work it was actually very hot . I don't know if feeling good in myself affects the weather or it's the other way round , but a very difficult day  was dealt with and things just improved and got better throughout the day. So this is one of those blog posts which actually about nothing , there will probably be no tags unless it's about the terrible phone signal I had on my journey from Darlington to Newcastle, quite often dropping out making things unusable. It was a Cross-Country Train and some people hve said that they scramble the mobile signal so you have to use their extortionate and flakey wifi , though I'm sure that is just some kind of urban legend.

On thing though is that a signal along a main railway line should be reasonably strong , although ironically it does disappear as you approach London's Kings Cross station. These days Mobile Phone companies are heavy on the data sell , but if are going to use data you need a signal. My first desk top PC had a hard drive capacity of 10 Mb , that would store a pop song these days. My phone , a Samsung Note 2 has 48 Gb of memory and you will use 20Mb of data browsing Facebook for 15 minutes. You're gobbling and you don't realise it.

Anywa I am home now and probably have about a thousand time more processing power than what they used to  put a man on the moon. We live in privileged times and it's only going to get better. The music is appropriate and Nazareth cover of a Yardbirds song. Ended up rambling on and managing to fit one or two tags in.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Rail Companies to Solve Overcrowding By Price Hiking





Excuse me . This is the article about this idiotic piece of government profiteering here.

Normally when demand outstrips supply, any sensible organisation increases the supply , and therefore increases it's profits. There are a small number of markets where this doesnt apply (One off concerts , precious stones , etc) , but in the case of transport , running more frequent services and purchasing or hiring more rolling stock is a very viable option.

But no thos lazy feckers see it as another way of profiteering from the masses. So they price people out of living in the cities , increase fuel duty to price them out of driving to work , and now they're going to price people out of using public transport.

So Cameron how are those essential , but low paid maintenance staff going to get to work? Oh I forgot , it doesnt matter as you're going to make them all redundant and wait for the private sector to pick up the slack when you abolish the minimum wage.

Unbelievably idiotic.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Laptop Trolley?





I do a lot of travel by public transport and train , especially frequenting Newcastle Station. The bane of my life are luggage trolleys that seem to have a life of their own and are great at blocking walways especially when you get a couple of peaple on "business trips" who insist on walking side by side , on once they're on the train seem to love wandering up and down before blocking somewhere with their luggage.

I understand that large suitcases do neccessitate a trolley or wheels or whatever , but amazingly I say a guy towing behind him a luggage rack , containing only his laptop!! Pardon me!! Could he not carry the damned thing like the rest of us . obviously not , but he made him look a total numpty!!

Anyway I think these are the pedestrian equivalent of caravans and should only be allowed to be used when all sensible people are in bed or elsewhere