Posts by Adrian 19

Somerset buses bin paper tickets, sniff journey-logging chips

It all depends

As a regular visitor to London I love having Oyster. I just need to remember to scan in and out for train/tube travel and with a simple flat fare on buses I only need to scan in. And it automatically tops up so I'm always able to pay the fare (bank balance permitting!)

For urban areas these smart cards are great and simple to use. It *could* (but probably won't) make travelling by First in Bristol simpler and cheaper but in outlying rural areas like Somerset they will have to use scan in and out to ensure they can charge the relevant extortionate fare.

All in all, though, for ease of use (if properly designed) and the fact that it could eliminate the abuse of 'change tickets' by the bus companies I'm all in favour.

Integrated tube tickets not on the Olympic menu

Will they tell the police?

This will be interesting, seeing as our police are prone to thinking taking photographs of a Chatham chip shop is aiding terrorist activity ... what will they make of photographs in or of an Olympic venue?

http://photographernotaterrorist.org/

Flickr!: Now! with! added! Yahoo!

The Flickr community is fast becoming a Brand

Ahh, it all makes sense now.

Emphasising the Yahoo! brand, tie-ups with photo marketeers like Getty ... over recent months, the Flickr admins have clearly been under instruction to 'clean up' the site and a great many pro (i.e. paying) users have had their accounts summarily deleted for some alleged infraction of Flickr's infamously vague TOS.

Some one says you 'stole' their photo - DELETE account

Some one says you're posting voyeuristic images - DELETE account

You question the authority of the admins - DELETE account

Even if they warn you that your account is due to be deleted they do not discuss either the images that have been called into question (so you don't know which ones need to be taken down - let only discuss the merits of the allegations) or give you any clue as to how long you have until they pull the plug.

I love the Flickr *community* and the site's toolset is pretty good but the admins are basically a bunch of cowardly and vindictive children who are scared of facing down specious claims so they just bully innocent contributors instead.

Mrs Slocombe's pussy vanishes from Twitter

Classics in the US of A

I'm surprised by the remark that the wonderful Ms Slocombe would be little known across the pond. It's been my impression that Americans love these old-fashioned Brit comedies ... oftentimes more than we do.