Posts by The Mysterious Panda 34 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Apr 2008
...and it works a treat.
The buses still have normal ticket machines and can take cash if necessary. The combined time for scanning on and off is less then it takes to buy a ticket.
If you forget to scan off then they assume you're travelling to the end of the line. Don't want to pay the extra? Don't forget to scan off then.
The only pain is when you forget to top up online the night before, though it has a healthy sized "emergency credit" if you get stuck.
The system can work, it just depends on who is handling it. I bet if Arriva had tried it then it would have been fucked up - mostly because Arriva fucks everything up that it touches...
...that they represent a significant income stream for the university. It is their money that is paying for a lot of the resources that the home students take for granted.
About 10 years ago, one of the departments at a university that I was involved in was hit by a drop of just under 50% on international intake for some reason. Home student numbers stayed the same, but the funding difference resulted in the subsequent closure of that department.
That university already have an electronic registration system in place across some schools, where students swipe/scan their Student ID card on entry to/exit from/during the lecture. Finance (for one school at least and I am fairly sure across the entire university) is attendance-driven, not necessarily enrolment-driven. If less people attend, the school get less money. That is a big incentive to establish a system that proves attendance, and to run a department dedicated to making sure that people attend.
Paris, because there is an international angle there that I wouldn't mind investigating further
Couldn't she file (hir)suite against her would-be (hir)suitor? I'm sure she had spent money on him as well, maybe by buying him some nice clothes - surely she should be able to claim money back for her suit (that she bought him). After all, she couldn' really wear it herself as it may not (hir)suite her. Maybe she could become the poster-child for the campaign - she could inspire thousands to follow (hir) suite.
If she cut herself shaving, would she self-apply her sutre?
I suppose I should apologise - making fun of hairy wimmin is hardly (hir)suitable behaviour.
Ongoing case relating to a couple charged with sexual offences. Still not been through the courts yet this site has them very clearly labelled as "RAPISTS" AND "DRUG" offenders.
I really think someone isn't familiar with, or doesn't care about, being in contempt of court. I'm glad to see that they are doing their public service by reducing the changes of a successful conviction while hiding behind a Spanish registration.
Paris, just because...
I dislike the wording but cannot say it is wide of the mark. If they suspect you have a drug on you that might be a controlled substance then what do you expect them to do, exactly?
The police have access to basic drugs testing kit (Marquis reagent if memory serves?), but it would be worth knowing whether it is accurate enough to distinguish between mephedrone and ecstacy. I suspect not.
According to a number of comments here, the story should go as follows; PC 1234 Bobbins stops the local dealer, points to the bag of Bad Drugs(TM) in his hand and asks "What's all that then?". Dealer tells him, "It's mephadrone, innit." Having read the comments section on The Register, PC Bobbins decides the dealer must be legit and above-board, and decides to back off before he brings the walls of democracy crashing down about his highly polished, liberal-grinding, hippy-stomping jackboots.
Two things;
(i) the police officer has no way of distinguishing between drugs on the street beyond visual consistency and experience unless they have one of the drugs testing kits, and even then it may still give a 'false positive' (though I would guess it's actually a 'positive positive' in this case, as the drug appears to be in the family that the kits test for).
(ii) even if they can correctly identify it, there is still the small matter of it being illegal to sell for medicinal purposes. They may wish to investigate that and I do not think that constitutes bad policing or crushing of civil liberties.
At this point, though, I agree that things go wrong. If you are cleared and released then there should be no need for the matter to affect you again. Notes kept by the Police for their own intelligence are one thing, but for the purposes of the outside world, the event should never have taken place - no comments appearing in the CRB, offence to try and compel people to answer, etc.
Paris, because she appears to be familiar with all manners of investigatory techniques.
Sure the licence issue is between the company and the original user? And I am sure that part of the licence agreement was that the licence was non-transferable.
The gentleman in the story may be able to physically possess the CD, but he does not have a valid licence of his own to use, let alone one that he has any right to pass on. Whether or not the licence was opened/read/accepted by him is, to my understanding, nothing to do with it as the original user had no right to pass it on to him in the first place.
Not saying I agree with that state of affairs, mind...
Paris, because she understands the the importance of correct transferral.
I loved this little gem from the website;
'The word M.E.A.N. is actually an acronym which stands for: “Modulated & CW Lasers…Erratically pulsed …Awareness inhibiting …Nausea inducing… Beam”.'
So, did they come up with the name first and try and squeeze the meaning in, or did they decide that 'M.C.W.L.E.P.A.I.N.I. Beam' didn't really roll of the tongue?
When they are deployed, will the police have to yell 'Chunder! Chunder! Chunder Gats! Ho!'?
I for one welcome our technicolour yawn-inducing overlords.
I read about this a while back on http://www.jp-bishop.com where I think they quote from the Westlaw report - it has some of the discussion that isn't in the subsequently released reports.
The issue seems to be that the government makes ridiculous amounts of secondary legislation under the authority of primary legislation. OPSI seems to be having such a hard job keeping up with the primary stuff that the secondary stuff is pretty much ignored.
As for the database, the EU has a much better online database for law than the UK - http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm which is fairly comprehensive and includes caselaw.
Paris, because she might be ignorant of pretty much everything but she doesn't need the excuse...
"Why do people have to be so absolutist about these things?"
Not all of us. I'm only provisionally absolutist.
We should be careful judging a person during a state of distress, it is one of the things that strips the humanity away from the animal.
On the other hand, it's a good thing he wasn't caught cheating. He might have come home to find her dumping all his stuff on the lawn - "Here's your stupid ring back... and your stupid flowers... and all your stupid clothes... and... UUUGGGHHHHErrrrrr... here's your stupid kidney back too!"
Paris, because they'll always have her...
Well done that chap, tackling these uppity women and putting them back in their place! It makes a change from most contributors obsessing over making the Bee with two backs.
Congrats on the impending little one. I tried pointing out to my wife when she was expecting that pregnancy highlights typical differences in behaviours - men just crack on and get their part of the job done in a few hours. Women have to drag the whole thing out for months. She took it quite well, and the sofa is quite comfy after a few weeks. It was even better when I was allowed to bring it back in from the garden.
Perhaps they could organise some kind of access to the kidney? He could have visiting rights every other weekend. Take it to the park, McDonalds, then pump it full of sweets to make it hyperactive just before returning it to his ex-wife.
Heart icon, because if you tilt your head and squint, you *might* mistake it for a kidney, providing you have no idea what a kidney looks like. If you have no idea what a kidney looks like, then tilt your head and squint at the icon - it *might* look something like that.
It always suprises me the number of people that will slam the 'joyless nerds', while still enjoying all the technology built on lifetimes of work by... err... 'joyless nerds' who honed their skills by 'twatting around'. Gosh, that Marie Curie, all that twatting round with 'radium-isolation' - and even worse, she was a foreigner! And even even worse, she was a woman! And even even even worse, she supported 'open source'! And even even even even worse, she was still a woman! So bad it made the list twice! You must be apoplectic by now...
I take it that they cease to be joyless nerds when their goal is something you consider worthwhile? I'll climb that mountain/trek to the pole, because it's a challenge = 'national hero'. I'll hack that phone, because it's a challenge = 'joyless nerd'? Interesting point of view though not one I'd like to keep through life.
"Yeah, I'd be pretty mad if I'd wasted money and had crying children bewildered by the sight of Santa having a sneaky fag, but I wouldn't ram my buggy into some minimum-wage teenager's shin for it."
To be honest, I had pictured you more as the one laying out Santa with a right cross.
I've not got to see the wonders of this place yet. Any chance of one of El Reg's famous reconstructions?
Paris, because pictures of her lapland made the news as well
And what exactly did they plan to do if it pulled over?
"Do you have any idea how fast you were going, sir?"
"Driving licence please. Are you insured to fly this?"
I'd love to see the newspaper headlines the next day.
"First Contact! Aliens Land in Cardiff! 3 penalty points and a fine for speeding space visitors"
"Aliens say: 'We want to bring you the cure for cancer and a solution for world peace from our home planet, but we've had our licences suspended for 12 months. Bloody magistrates."
Paris, because she's clearly not from the same planet as the rest of us...
"So why not adopt the British fair-play system and stop forcing these almost illegal nasty pieces of contractual trickery?"
We have a British fair-play system? Distinct from 'contractual trickery'? Must have slept through that Law of Contract lecture...
The following OfCom slap-down for a '3' contract might provide interesting reading, especially noting your 'plain english' comment.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ccases/closed_all/cw_888/
Ok, maybe not a slap-down by the Mighty Moderaterix standards, but at least a limp-wristed fumble.
Pais, because she's almost synonymous with limp-wristed fumbles.
Whatever the company, the salesman issue can be a matter of luck.
Working at Phones4U helped me pay my way through my first degree. Our manager was a very good, fair guy and our top salesperson (also a student) went out of his way to be genuine and helpful - maybe that was why he did so well. We had a good rep and prided ourselves on product knowledge, possibly assisted by the majority of us being fairly geeky. We had a great 'first name terms' working relationship with people at HO and could get problems fixed by a few polite requests in the right ear.
The *other* Phones4U shop only a few minutes walk away was best described as a 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'. They often called us when faced with tricky situations - ie 'We're stuck in the bathroom as we're confused - which bit is our arse and which bit is our elbow?' Our local Orange shop was run by total muppets and was widely known for it, whereas the Orange shops in the next town had some really good staff who would happily go the extra mile for the sake of customer service. When the local CPW opened, they were really on the ball. Competitors or not, we were always happy to acknowledge that. That approach brought us business and helped keep customers happy.
Your experience completely depends on which shop you choose. Not even between companies, but between the shops within the same company. A good branch will get you better customer service because they will have worked on building a good relation with the right people at Head Office. It shouldn't work that way but it does. High turnover of staff pretty much destroys that. Long term staff also tend to feel more accountable therefore responsible. Some of us did actually genuinely care, believe it or not.
There's loads about good and bad practice that could be discussed (and several scary stories about ineptitude in some situations) but it always comes back to luck. Get the right salesman, or get the right customer service agent, and you'll have a good experience. Get a bad'un and you'll get pissed off fairly quickly. Much like girlfriends, in fact...
Must say, having browsed through the old shop recently and finding all the old faces have gone, they now suck worse than MegaMaid.
On a side note, when I was working for them (many years ago) we had better basic pay than most of our competitors.
Paris, because like MegaMaid she went from suck to blow!
What the beancounter says:
£10 for 50 minutes of voice calls
£5 for 100 text messages
How the salesman spins it:
£15 for 50 minutes of voice calls
AND 100 FREE TEXT MESSAGES!
Why do people think they get 'free minutes'? The model may not be as simplistic as suggested above but it will be about increasing revenue in some format. You will pay for them somehow.
Paris, because she also likes to share her data for free.
I doubt anyone could pass better comment than the lads over at PB themselves...
"All your cops are belong to us / HLYWD"
I have to support PB because they're the underdog and it goes with the passport to support the little fellow, provided they're not Austrian postcard artists. Or Corsican meglomaniacs. Or Paul Daniels.
I have no viable idea as to what may or may not improve the state of the music business, but I'm looking forward to the legal shennanigans between PB and the World + Dog!
Yes, shennanigans. And I don't mean that place with goofy sh*t on the walls and the mozzarella sticks.
The Jolly Roger because... ARRHAAAR! PIRATES AHOY!
Dear Santa,
Please please please can I work for a company that has a job titled 'scourge of comments f**ktards and other gobby riff-raff'.
I have to admit, if I was ever asked to envisage a bunch of outcasts from the Scary Devil Monastary, I think this would be fairly close.
Happy Birthday El Reg :D
The Vulture icon? He's not dead, he's pining! Or hungover. Or both. Beautiful plumage, though...
...oh gosh, you're serious aren't you?
I'll get my coat - and nip round yours to airodump-ng* your MAC...
Paris, because for all her (de)faults, I'd still wouldn't say no to airodumping her MAC.
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*Ever since 'Google', I've been exploring the beauty of 'verbing' - randomly converting nouns to verbs
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