The Latest Doggie Accessory
Thry’ve just shown see the latest doggie accessory on BBC Breakfast; the iCollar with a GPS locator and other sensors? We had a setter who needed that, who roamed all over the stud, but never left it, so was often difficult to find.
My youngest also needed one, as he used to go everywhere following the horses on his own about seven.
Some of C’s divorce clients probably wished they could have locked such a device on their partners, so they could track their movements. I suspect someone is working on it.
An Impressive Visualisation
The Croxley Rail Link is a major project to improve the links of the Metropolitan line into Watford and connect the line to Watford Junction station.
Out of curiosity I looked at this 3d visualisation of the new link.
I found it very impressive.
Note the following.
1. After Croxley station, the line bends away to the right on a viaduct.
2. At present the line goes straight on at this point to the current Watford station. This line will become a siding, when the Croxley Rail Link is built.
3. As the Grand Union Canal is crossed, this is in the area of this post.
4. Ascot Road station shown in the visualisation is now to be called Cassiobridge station.
5. The next station is Watford Vicarage Road, which serves the football ground and the hospital.
6. The existing Watford DC Line of the London Overground joins before Watford High Street station, from where the two lines share the same track to Watford Junction.
Hopefully, I’ll still be here and can try this route for real to get to the football ground in 2017.
But I don’t think that the project will be implemented as is currently planned. The Watford Observer is reporting that London Underground is taking over the responsibility for the project and I think this will result bin some changes, most likely for the better.
1. Some parties want Watford station to stay open. As it will be possible to run trains from the Croxley Rail Link through Rickmansworth and on to Amersham, could a shuttle be introduced between Amersham and Watford stations? There is a precedent for this type of arrangement in that there is a shuttle between Dalston Junction and New Cross stations on the East London Line. The main purpose is to increase the service frequency on the core of the line through the Thames Tunnel.
2. Both Amersham and Chalfont & Latimer stations are served by Chiltern Railways, who may want to put their view forward.
3. Could the changes mean that costs rise further and a delay is introduced into the project?
Zopa’s Courageous Decision
I have believed for a long time, that certain databases should be made public, so that they can be properly analysed.
Suppose for example that a suitably anonymised database of all road deaths, was to be made available.
I will not speculate as to what it might show.
But you can rest assured, that some parties would not like some of the obvious conclusions that were thrown up.
How about to a detailed database of all those in prison?
Because of the power of data analysis, I was very surprised to read that Zopa has decided to make their loan data available for analysis.
It is a very courageous decision, that I hope gets other companies and organisations to do the same thing.
Peer-To-Peer Lending For The Non-Digital World
I was an early adopter of peer-to-peer lending in 2008 and now have a six figure sum invested, which returns me over five percent before tax.
Reading the letters about poor broad band and mobile phone coverage in today’s Sunday Times, it strikes me that many people are cut off from this sensible investment.
I could if I wanted to, set up my Zopa account, so that I perhaps looked at it once every blue moon.
Would it be an idea if one of the peer-to-peer lenders offered a minimal input product for those disconnected from the digital world?
Money would be paid in by a direct transfer or even a cheque paid in at a bank branch, if you still use one.
If you needed to check your account or perhaps withdraw a small amount of the interest and repayments that you have received as cash, you would just use a debit card in any ATM.
Obviously, you will still have the option to login normally, if you wanted.
Have I Put In Enough Sockets?
We live in an age, where every device we have has a different charger and everything else needs to be connected to the mains.
My phone, broadband and Sky television lines all come in at one end of my living room, whereas the ideal place for the television is at the other end on a bracket that allows the television to either face the room or be visible from the kitchen.
So I decided to put upwards of a dozen plugs at each end of the room and run three HDMI cables along the wall, so that I could feed the signals to the television. I also ran aerial and Ethernet cables along the wall. Note the two plastic trunkings.
Until now, I’ve just used long HDMI cables, which because they have to go into the back of the Sky and BT boxes, they go round the bend a few times and make everything difficult.
The new layout, has also allowed me to move my laptop, so that when I use it, I face directly at the television, which is much more comfortable.
Transport for London’s Latest Plot To Get Us To Climb Stairs
London’s buses are effectively computer terminals and displays, that just happen to carry passengers about the city.
These pictures that I took on route 141, show the latest software upgrade.
The clock has been shown on the Next Stop display for some time, but the display, showing how many spare seats are on the upper deck, is new.
Will it help to increase the loading of buses? The only problem, is that the system is not as attractive as a comely conductress calling politely for everybody to please move along the bus!
There’s more about the technology here on the IanVisits web site.
Crossrail Could Have Wi-Fi
This article from the Standard, discusses wi-fi on Crossrail. Here’s the first paragraph.
Commuters will soon be able to use their mobile phones on trains and in tunnels on the new Crossrail rail link under plans being drawn up by TfL.
It won’t be many years before all trains, buses and trams in the UK, have full mobile access. Chiltern have already gone that way, and Virgin Trains are planning a roll-out.
My New Crap Design Tag
The new WordPress screen has resulted in my bringing in a new Crap Design tag. Click the tag on this post to see the design horrors.
Doing this was not as easy as it used to be, due to WordPress’s new editor design!
So is it back to the future with WordPress?
How Do You Get Rid Of The Beep Beep Boop Screen On WordPress?
Every day, I add my current INR reading to a post in the blog. It is just a simple way to show my results to doctors, dentists and anybody else who needs to know. I’ve also got a couple of researchers looking at the figures for interest, as it shows INR might vary from day to day.
It used to be easy and quick. I just got the page up and then clicked the Edit link on the WordPress toolbar and then the edit screen came up immediately. After typing in the new value, I just clicked Update and that was it.
If I wanted to check the page, I clicked on a View Post link and it replaced edit edit screen. Now it creates another tab in my browser.
What took a couple of seconds now takes a lot longer.
I have better things to do than look at the work of an imbecile.
I suspect the guy who designed this crap was the designer of the chocolate tea-pot.
If my blog wasn’t so big, I’d move it elsewhere!
The Anonymous Widower 