De Beauvoir Town’s Cycle Superhighway
De Beauvoir Town is flat and good cycling terrain. I took these pictures this morning in Lawford Road.
I must get back on my bike, as it’s an easy way to get around and we have a couple of roads like this with little vehicular traffic, as they are blocked by iron posts, which are just visible in some of the pictures.
In some ways because the roads are wide and parked cars aren’t a problem, they can use this approach of putting the cyclists down the middle of the road.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if all of London had been built with wide streets like this part of Hackney.
How To Build A Fake House
They were putting this up as I walked past this morning.
I went back last night to take a few more pictures and spoke to the contractor. He told me, it will look like the surrounding houses when it’s finished and that Hackney Council were very co-operative.
We don’t have too many eye-sores around here, but I’ve seen places in London and other cities, where a house in say a terrace is well past its renovate-by-date and surely this technique might be a much more affordable way to create a new house.
It will be interesting to see what it looks like when it’s finished.
Liverpool University’s New London Campus
after a false start a few doors away, Liverpool University seem to have at last got a building for their campus in London. It’s reported here.
My only complaint, is that I think it’s in posh Islington, rather than practical and common-sense Hackney. At least though it’s only a short walk from the 141 bus stop, I can get close to my house. For those visitors from Liverpool, it’s just a 205 bus from Euston to Epworth Street.
Did They Build This Hideous Church To Match The Underground Ventilation Shaft?
This church just has to be seen to realise how awful it is.
Perhaps they built it to match the ventilation shaft for Warwick Avenue station?
Riding Whilst Pregnant
There has been a bit of criticism of Zara Phillips riding, whilst she is pregnant.
I do wonder if her mother and grandmother gave up whilst they were pregnant!
I’ve known lots of women, who continued to ride after they became pregnant and some for quite a long time. In none of these cases was there any complications. Although an anaesthetist once told me, that he once had to give an epidural to a very fit ballet dancer during childbirth and had difficulty getting the needle home, as her muscles were so strong. But it all turned out right in the end.
The funniest story was from a mate of mine, who rode up to a forthright lady we both knew well. “Good morning, Mrs. S”, he said and the reply was “I’m pregnant and so’s the horse!” Both births were successful, and I’ve met the daiughter involved many times.
Zopa Tweaks The Alogorithm
I am a Control Engineer by training, so I’m supposed to be able to make systems perform in a safe and stable manner. As an example, when your train comes into the station and stops precisely in the right place, or an airliner lands itself automatically, a Control Engineer will have been responsible for working out the principles of how that is done. I have said before that Zopa is in fact a stable system, but now they have tweaked the algorithm to speed up the lending process without losing any of the stability. It’s all described here in their blog.
The most important way to lend money faster is to create a bigger demand. Zopa asks lenders to spread the word to those with good credit ratings, who might want to borrow money for sensible purposes.
But of course, you won’t get a bigger demand unless you have more money in the pot to borrow! So the whole process should spiral and feed in on itself.
The one thing that needs to be maintained to the highest possible level, is the checking of borrowers to make sure, they’re credit worthy.
But even this process should get better, as Zopa learns more about good borrowers and this feeds back into the system.
The whole system is a classic feedback control system, that has the ability to mutate and change itself by learning from its history.
Does your very average bank, like the Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers behave like this? Of course it doesn’t, as those at the top cast a strategy in stone and it gets slavishly followed to the letter. Unfortunately, it has no capacity to learn and change in a Darwinian manner.
But more importantly, it can’t respond easily to increased demand and a changed marketplace. Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers also has constraints placed on it, as regards to parameters like working capital.
Zopa just needs to balance their lending to the amount that is deposited by lenders, or as I prefer savers. If I look at my figures for Zopa over the last year or so, these figures have been moving towards balance.
Now with their Safeguard system enabled, the loop has been closed!
Are The New Bus for London’s Overheating Problems Fixed?
According to this article in the Standard, Sir Peter Hendy says that the overheating problems on the New Bus for London are fixed.
But don’t just take his word for it.
Today I went with a friend from Trafalgar Square to Warren Street on one of the new buses on Route 24.
It was very pleasant despite it being a very hot day.
I do have a slight reservation about route 24, in that, when the Hackney 8 on route 38 were running double-crewed, the atmosphere did sometimes catch a bit of a party mood. But probably, that’s because Hackney is the East End with all its bustle and humour and Hampstead is a lot more posh and sedate. I’ve even been chatted up by a widow some years older than me on a 38! That certainly wouldn’t happen on a 24!
Barts Take A Strong Line Against Smoking
This story in the Standard has the headline.
Hospitals warn smokers: no treatment and £75 fine if you light up
I can’t why this isn’t in force all over the country.
An Island In All This Heat
Yesterday on my way to and from the Truscott Arms, I took Hammersmith and City branch trains on the Metropolitan line.
I rode both ways in new S Stock trains.
These are fully air-conditioned and it makes life a little better. It would appear there’s only the Circle and District lines left to re-equip.
An Accident On A Bus
I’ve travelled on public transport for something like sixty years and I’d never been involved in any accident until yesterday.
I was on a 6 bus, coming back from the Truscott Arms, when it got hit by a skip lorry.
Does this show that public transport is actually rather safe, as one non-injury accident in sixty years doesn’t seem bad odds.
The Anonymous Widower 