A Design Challenge
It is absolutely essential that the London Underground increases the number of stations that have step-free access.
Southgate station is a station I know well, as I used it many times to go to and from my school. It is one of those stations with three escalator slots, as this picture shows.
The middle one was just an emergency staircase, but this could be converted into an inclined lift, as is proposed at Greenford.
But as Southgate is a Grade II* Listed building, it would have to be installed with a high degree of sensitivity, which would be the design challenge.
But solve it at Southgate and you could solve it on any of the number of stations, that have two escalators and a staircase.
Improving Banking Security
There is an article about the security level of chip and pin on the BBC’s web site. It got me thinking.
I am careful with my bank debit and credit cards and feel that with on-line banking, not enough is done to create a more flexible and much more secure system, by using the power of the servers to make things difficult for a criminal.
Logging In
I always log in from memory, rather than use the little machine that my bank gave me. As the customer number and passwords are not written down anywhere, even with the card and the machine, it would be difficult to log in to my account, unless they had co-operation from someone inside the bank.
There is a big flaw in the bank’s security, in the fact that all the machines are identical, which means criminals only have to get one to use this method of logging in, if they have a stolen debit card and the customer number. I needed a new one and just went into a branch and asked for one. They didn’t ask me any questions, before I got a new one.
I very much like the login system used by Zopa. It is very secure and very simple, and I would suspect most people would not need to write anything down to login first time. Something, you can’t say about many systems I’ve seen.
Restricting Cash Withdrawals
I have never understood why thee is nowhere in your on-line banking account, where you can set parameters about how and where you can draw money out through cash machines.
In a simple case, you might impose limits on the amount of money that could be withdrawn at any one time, or say in a week or month.
I would impose a limit of up to a hundred at any one time. If I needed more, I could always change the limit. You wouldn’t want to make it too complicated, as it would start to get onerous.
Better Bank Statements
When I look at my bank statement on-line, the cash withdrawals, just say how much I’ve withdrawn and the name of the bank. Some of the direct debits are well documented either.
it would be very easy to say give every cash point machine a unique reference, so when you checked the statement, you would quickly notice a transaction that was perhaps done with a cloned card.
The more information you gave customers, the more likely they would be to spot something that wasn’t correct.
An Emergency Pin Number
You hear stories about criminals threatening cash point users and getting them to draw money out. So why not have an emergency pin number, that smallows the card, perhaps gives out a few pounds and then says something like.
This machine as run out of money, please try another machine.
Whatever the system did would have to be carefully thought out, to avoid the criminal taking it out on the victim.
SMS Confirmation Of Bigger Transactions
I’ve never understood, why this couldn’t be done, as any message relating to a purchase you hadn’t made, would give you warning.
I’ve always felt that this would be very effective, even if only a few cards were setup this way. But would criminals take the chance of using a card that was, when it might start an immediate chase.
In some ways, what seems to be sad is that all on-line banking is so similar, when there are so many things that can be done to make the system much more secure for both the bank and its customers.
Banks are just so conservative and don’t innovate. Which is why they’re going to fail even more.
An Advantage Of Living In A City
I’ve lived for forty years of my life in the country, where of course in weather like this you have to clear snow, so you can get into your house.
I’ve just walked down the road to get my paper and on the other side of the road, three workers from Hackney Council are clearing the pavement. They have a rather nifty pair of grit spreaders!
A Pair Of Nifty Grit Spreaders
I suppose to be fair to the Council, they spent a lot of money replacing the pavements last year and they’re only protecting their investment. And helping the residents’ balance!
My Central Heating
There’s something weird about the central heating in this house.
I haven’t had it switched on upstairs due to its homicidal tendencies for a few weeks. So today, as it’s so cold, I switched in on again.
It must be the first time, anybody has switched the heating on and the temperature has fallen. Despite the fact that the floor is now quite a bit warmer!
Lance Armstrong Questions His Punishment
Lance Armstrong has questioned his punishment for proven doping offences on the Oprah Winfrey show.
He actually wants to compete again.
Do they have cycling or triathlon events in prisons?
I suspect that this odious cheat, won’t give up and he’ll go to Court to get what he wants. Let’s hope the judge who tries his case is an honest man or woman.
A Welsh Take On Horseburgers
This article in the Mirror talks about and links to a video that has gone viral. It concerns a pantomime horse suffering from grief over the loss of its parents in a Tesco store in West Wales.
Algeria
I had a unique insight on Algeria as a child. Next to where we lived in Cockfosters, in about the late 1950s, a family moved in next door. The father was English, but unusually for the time, his wife was a white Algerian of French extraction. I can remember her talking to my mother about life in Algiers during the Second World War and I think my mother was sympathetic to her flight in those years.
The lady had little time for the non-white Algerians and we’d probably say she was racist now, sixty years later.
It must have been about the time of the Front Algerie Francaise, who were trying to keep Algeria part of France.
You do wonder how those bad relations between the two factions in Algeria left a legacy, that we’re seeing worked out in that part of Africa today.
One thing I do remember about my neighbour, was that she wanted their son to be a Roman Catholic priest, a notion that really horrified my mother, who being of Huguenot descent, wasn’t too keen on that branch of the Christian religion. The son’s name was the same, as a well-known actor and I often wonder what he did in later life, when I see a Catholic priest.
The bonus of living next door, was that occasionally when my mother was away, I got a delicious meal sent in from next door, that had been cooked in the French manner.
Is It The Right Maple Leaf?
There’s a bit of a row going on in Canada over whether their new plastic banknotes have the right maple leaf. It’s reported here on the BBC.
I have no opinion about the maple leaf as I’m no biologist, but is that lady on the note supposed to be the Queen?
I’ve never seen a plastic banknote, although I’ve always thought they should work. Checking with Wikipedia, they are more common than you think according to this article.
The Anonymous Widower 