tenthofjune

I was relieved to read in the Bolton News that the ridiculous chicanes installed on Crown Lane in Horwich, are to be removed.

The full details of the decision can be read here, but the summary reads:

Residents of Crown Lane/Station Road have had a longstanding concern about the speed of all traffic and volume of heavy goods vehicles, using this route. In August 2006, following a consultation and public meeting to discuss the options, an experimental scheme was introduced in the form of two chicanes and a 7.5 tonne weight limit. At the end of the first six months of operation, local residents were consulted to determine their views on the operation of the scheme. This report summarises and comments on the concerns expressed, both in response to the introduction of the scheme, and in response to the consultation. Having considered the comments made in response to the latest consultation and by those who have submitted formal objections in writing, the Director of Environmental Services recommends the Executive Member to agree to the removal of the chicanes on Crown Lane, Horwich, to the north of Vale Avenue and on Station Road, Blackrod, at the M61 motorway bridge. The Director further recommends that the Planning and Highways Committee be requested to confirm the Experimental 7.5 tonne Weight Limit as a permanent Order.

Not before time! This is not some back road being used as a rat-run, it is a classified road (the B5238) and forms a vital link between Horwich and Blackrod (and the A6). You only have to look at the chaos caused when the A6 was closed by roadworks, the alternate route via Chorley New Road and De Havilland Way ground to a halt.

If traffic calming is required, then two mini roundabouts at Vale Avenue and Moss Lane would achieve this, (Moss Lane is going to be getting a lot busier, since the Council approved the building of a large number of apartments there), but that would of course cost a lot more money.

When I first used PayPal, I had a card registered and nothing else. I then decided to become verified and registered my bank account.

From then on when making a payment, PayPal’s confirmation screen said that the funding source was my bank account, and that the BACKUP funding source was my card.

Note the word ‘backup’, suggesting to the user that this is only required if there is a problem with the primary source (bank account). This is further reinforced by the fact that the payment is always taken from the bank account by direct debit and never by card payment.

When I made a couple of payments recently, I noticed that the payment method stated ‘echeque’ from my bank account. I assumed that this was PayPal’s new term for a payment from my bank account. Not so! The echeque payment method incurs a 7-9 working day delay! At no stage was a warning given that this payment would not be instant. Additionally, the email receipt clearly states that a payment has been made to the recipient when this has clearly not yet happened.

I was only alerted to the delay when an ebay seller informed me that ebay was telling him he had been paid, but was not showing in his PayPal account. I then started investigating and discovered that my payments were showing as ‘uncleared’ and that the reason was that echeque is a different payment method which had been selected because my card (which I had been led to believe by PayPal was only for backup) had expired.

Since then I have discovered several websites who accept PayPal adding prominent warning messages about the delay involved with echeque payments. It is clear that they have experienced problems with their customers not being aware of the delays involved with echeque. This is hardly surprising – it is not in PayPal’s interest to warn you about the delay, because this means the money sits in their account earning interest.

A google search for ‘warning paypal echeque’ also yields several people unhappy with the lack of warning for echeques.

From a telephone call with PayPal customer services, it appears that the card details are not in fact a backup as implied by their web pages, but are necessary to make the payment instant.

Update

Ebay now have this graphic on their site, encouraging you to use PayPal:

In case you can’t see the animated gif, it says “cheque = 10-14 days, PayPal = Instant, Get Paid Instantly”
Not if the echeque method is used – this is extremely misleading.

We all know that fuel is that bit more expensive at motorway services, usually a few pence more per litre, and the prices in the Burger bar are higher than on the high street, basically because they have a monopoly as there is no local competition, but this weekend I saw one example which can only be described as taking the piss:

A pasty will cost you about 75p at your local bakers, a sausage roll about 40p, but Tebay services were charging £2.25 for each of these. That represents 3-5 times the price.

I’d always regarded Tebay as different to the large chain services, but they have gone down in my estimation.

Before digital photography, panoramas involved the use of a guillotine and tape, but now it’s much easier with several photo-stitching software packages available; they may be bundled with your camera or be part of a photo editing package such as Photoshop Elements. The tips for good results, however, are still the same:

1. Keep the camera level. Ideally mount it on a tripod and use one of the many hot-shoe mounted spirit levels available. Failure to do this results in ‘banana’ panoramics.
2. Do not be tempted to use wide-angle lenses ‘to fit more in’, as the distortion makes it harder to marry up the frames. Use either a standard or telephoto lens.
3. Keep foreground objects out of shot. Due to the difference in view between frames, the photo-stitch software will not be able to match up both distant and closer objects.
4. Take all frames at the same exposure settings. This will avoid obvious contrast and colour changes between adjacent frames. If you don’t have a manual mode, then exposure lock can be used. If you are using film, you also need to get them printed with the same settings.
5. Overlap the frames at least 50%. Back in the days of film, this could have seemed expensive, but with digital there is nothing lost and the photo stitching software will have a lot more to work with. Most digital cameras have a stitch assist mode where the current frame is overlaid onto the previous frame on the camera’s screen.
6. Experiment! panoramics can be vertical too.

Got this email circulating this morning:

Here is a math trick so unbelievable that it will stump you.

Well firstly, this has obviously come from America, since maths has been spelt without the ‘s’.

Personally I would like to know who came up with this and why that person is not running the country.

err… why? It’s hardly rocket science.

Grab a calculator. (You won’t be able to do this one in your Head)

A sign of a failing education system

I think this only works with 7 digit (e.g. 123 4567 – area code excluded) landline numbers.

Not surprising when you see how this works.

Now for the so called clever bit of maths:

1. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the Area code)
2. Multiply by 80
3. Add 1
4. Multiply by 250
5. Add to this the last 4 digits of your phone number
6. Add to this the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
7. Subtract 250
8. Divide number by 2

Do you recognize the answer ??

Of course you do, it’s your phone number.

If the first 3 digits of your phone number are x, and the last four digits are y, then this calculation can be represented as:

(250(80x + 1) + 2y – 250)/2

which simplifies to:

10000x + y

so basically:

1230000 + 4567 = 1234567

Surprise, surprise

Is it just me, or does Steve Ballmer look like the monster from Young Frankenstein?

My sister (and friends) are once again running the 10k at Tatton Park for Cancer Research UK.

Last year was run in fancy dress through the rain and mud, but this year they’ve decided to opt for the pink Breast Cancer t-shirts.

Most of us know someone who has been affected by cancer, so please show your support by sponsoring the Pink Ladies at www.10ksponsorme.org/PinkLadies. If you’re a UK taxpayer an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no extra cost to you.

Airline cabin announcements. All too rarely, airline attendants make an effort to make the in flight “safety lecture” and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some examples that have been heard or reported:
Read more…

More problems with Parcelforce (aka Parcelfarce).

I ordered some stuff from the Nokia Shop on Monday 14th May. Unfortunately, they will only deliver to the cardholder address, so getting it shipped to work was not an option. Nokia’s website doesn’t specify the carrier, so I was disappointed to find a card through the door last Thursday from Parcelforce. Another card appeared on Friday, so we used Parcelforce’s website to book a redelivery. The website offered to retry on Saturday, so we accepted and it even gave a confirmation number.

Read more…

Just been to the digital photography review site dpreview.com to find that they have been bought out by Amazon. Not sure this is good news. The press release says that dpreview will continue to operate as a standalone operation based in London. Let’s hope Amazon refrain from meddling.