An Interesting Evening

Well that was fun.

I got back to St Albans station this evening to a bit of a conundrum. When I went to the bike racks to collect my bike I find that there are two D locks connecting it to the frame, rather than the one I attached in the morning.

After spending a couple of minutes in "WTF??!?!?" mode I went back to speak to the station staff.

I explained myself to the guy at the ticket office and he recommended that I speak to the supervisor over at the information desk on platform one.

After explaining the situation he asks "Do you have any proof of ownership?". This was a bit of a problem. I don't tend to carry that sort of thing with me (and I imagine no-one else does either). I can open one of the locks attached to my bike, but not the other, so that doesn't help much.

Fortunately I have my passport in my bag and the guy is willing to take a copy of that along with a written statement of consent as sufficient excuse to get the bolt cutters out. He finds cover for the information office and we head over to the bike racks.

Of course the bolt cutters would have been up to the task if it had been a chain or cable lock. Not for a D lock though. After about 10-15 of fruitless effort we managed to get through the rubber sheath on the lock.

My main concern was that someone had put the lock on hoping that I would go home and leave the bike locked there; leaving them free to come back in the early hours of the morning and nick it. This thought didn't leave me with a good feeling about giving up on cutting the lock, even though it seemed pointless.

As we were struggling away a guy comes up to collect his bike which is locked up near mine (not on the same rail). He realises that his bike isn't locked up.

Somehow he managed to put his bike in the rack and then put his lock onto a completely different bike. Mine.

There were embarrassed apologies and statements of relief then we all went our separate ways.

I have come away with increased respect for the staff at St Albans station. Everyone there was very polite and helpful. Much kudos.

Now back to your normal bitter and cynical programming...

Merry Christmas Commuters

Christmas eve is not a public holiday here in the UK. Sure there are plenty of people with the day off but many of us still need to get to work on time.

For the past few days the 7:44 has been advertised as having 8 cars then arriving with 4. The 7:18 has been cancelled the past 2 days. 7:32 was cancelled this morning and from memory its not the first time this week. The 7:44 was advertised as being on time up until 7:45. Then suddenly its running 15 minutes late? Wtf?

So I'm on the 7:50. Now to see what time I arrive at West Hampstead so I can get off the wind up version and onto a real train to complete the journey...

Bringing Contextual Advertising into Real Life

OK.  So I'm standing at Wet Hamster zoned out waiting for my delayed (surprise) train when I realise what I'm looking at.  An ad for Google Chrome.

I love Chrome.  In development circles chrome refers to all the fancy bells and whistles in the user interface.  All the bells and whistles that Google have got rid of in their bare bones lightning fast browser.

Given that Chrome's promise (which it delivers) is speed, it seems ironic that this ad has been put on the platform of the worst performing train franchise in th UK.  The first thought is ironic coincidence, then the next thought is "what if this is deliberate?".  We are used  to stupid billboards. Any relevance is purely coincidental.  But this is Google. These guys know a scary amount about who we are, what we like and where we live.  These are the guys that put personally targeted advertising in front of us every day.  These are the one company in the world that I feel actually have the smarts to be behind a conspiracy theory.

If they have deliberately put these ads up on First Capital Connect platforms to target pissed off commuters experiencing real world delays every day, providing us with a promise of reduced delays in the virtual world, then I salute them.

Hats off to you Google.  You are the smartest guys around.  My earlier tweet "Google: pumping shit into the intertubes and seeing what sticks" is intended as a compliment.  Google foster innovation and produce good ideas at the speed of light.  Many of them fail, but some do not and if that leads to gmail, maps, reader, wave, etc then I say Bravo.