On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:40:51 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:23:57 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:41:50 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 20:22:08 +0000
>>>>> Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:07:13 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>>>> PDFs work everywhere. Not everyone has WhatsCrap or similar social media
>>>>>>> nonsense installed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> WhatsApp is, like email, SMS and Usenet, a delivery mechanism, not a
>>>>>> file format. Just like email, WhatsApp can be used to deliver a PDF
>>>>>> containing a QR code that forms an e-ticket.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The point about WhatsApp is that it's probably the second most widely
>>>>>> used instant messaging system, after SMS. But, unlike SMS, it natively
>>>>>> supports images and file transmission as well as simple text. As such,
>>>>>> it would make a very good delivery mechanism for a PDF e-ticket.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can you use it without setting up an account and giving a load of personal
>>>>> info? No.
>>>>> Can you use it on a PC without the phone app? No.
>>>>
>>>> Given that the answer to both questions is, in fact, "Yes", the only
>>>> question to which the answer is actually "No" is whether you actually
>>>> bothered to think about it before posting that.
>>>>
>>>>> Feck that.
>>>>
>>>> You are, of course, entitled to remain ignorant. But don't expect the
>>>> res of us to care.
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>>
>>>
>>> https://vpnoverview.com/privacy/social-media/what-does-whatsapp-know-about-me/
>>>
>>> Contacts
>>>
>>> WhatsApp also collects information you might have about your friends and
>>> other contacts through the app. While you can choose to add contacts one at
>> ^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> In other words, you don't *have* to share anything unless you want to.
>>
>
>But how many people installing WA actually know that? And how many people
>on the signer-up-era’s phone contact list know that their details are going
>to be shared with Facebook?

That's not the question the PP asked. His phone number is probably
already in the contacts list of someone with WhatsApp who has chared it
with the system anway. His question was whether you can sign up to
WhatsApp without giving away personal data about yourself. To which the
answer is an unambiguous "yes". Signing up on the mobile app requires no
real life information other than the phone number, which can be a burner
if you want. Everything else you share with it is entirely optional.

Mark

Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:40:51 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:23:57 -0000 (UTC), Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:41:50 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 20:22:08 +0000
>>>>>> Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:07:13 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>>>>> PDFs work everywhere. Not everyone has WhatsCrap or similar social media
>>>>>>>> nonsense installed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> WhatsApp is, like email, SMS and Usenet, a delivery mechanism, not a
>>>>>>> file format. Just like email, WhatsApp can be used to deliver a PDF
>>>>>>> containing a QR code that forms an e-ticket.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The point about WhatsApp is that it's probably the second most widely
>>>>>>> used instant messaging system, after SMS. But, unlike SMS, it natively
>>>>>>> supports images and file transmission as well as simple text. As such,
>>>>>>> it would make a very good delivery mechanism for a PDF e-ticket.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can you use it without setting up an account and giving a load of personal
>>>>>> info? No.
>>>>>> Can you use it on a PC without the phone app? No.
>>>>>
>>>>> Given that the answer to both questions is, in fact, "Yes", the only
>>>>> question to which the answer is actually "No" is whether you actually
>>>>> bothered to think about it before posting that.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Feck that.
>>>>>
>>>>> You are, of course, entitled to remain ignorant. But don't expect the
>>>>> res of us to care.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mark
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> https://vpnoverview.com/privacy/social-media/what-does-whatsapp-know-about-me/
>>>>
>>>> Contacts
>>>>
>>>> WhatsApp also collects information you might have about your friends and
>>>> other contacts through the app. While you can choose to add contacts one at
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^
>>>
>>> In other words, you don't *have* to share anything unless you want to.
>>>
>>
>> But how many people installing WA actually know that? And how many people
>> on the signer-up-era’s phone contact list know that their details are going
>> to be shared with Facebook?
>
> That's not the question the PP asked. His phone number is probably
> already in the contacts list of someone with WhatsApp who has chared it
> with the system anway. His question was whether you can sign up to
> WhatsApp without giving away personal data about yourself. To which the
> answer is an unambiguous "yes". Signing up on the mobile app requires no
> real life information other than the phone number, which can be a burner
> if you want. Everything else you share with it is entirely optional.
>
> Mark
>

The practical reality is different though, and WA has been deliberately
designed that way.

On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 12:59:10 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
<usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:

><Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 12:24:10 +0000
>> Ken <ken@birchanger.com> wrote:
>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:11:46 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
>>> wrote:
>>>>> Round here, you get a free trip when the bus can't issue a ticket.
>>>>
>>>> Whats the point of bus tickets? You get on , pay your money , sit down. What
>>>> do you need a ticket for other than to pick any errant chewing gum off the
>>>> seat with first?
>>>
>>> It shows that the driver hasn't pocketed your fare. It shows an
>>> inspector that not only have you paid but you've paid for the entire
>>> journey in those places (almost everywhere that isn't London) where
>>> the fare is related to the distance,
>>
>> I don't think I've seen a bus inspector since the 1980s. Do they still exist?
>>
>>
>
>I thought they descended en-mass on TfL buses, if the reality TV programmes
>are to be believed.
>
They still hunt in packs, IME more usually south of the river.

On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 07:23:47 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <1ia5rg5tvo3okv08iei4krmdlomr02rnq6@4ax.com>, at 01:24:47 on
>Fri, 10 Dec 2021, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com>
>remarked:
>>On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 19:32:59 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In message <mk4lqgdglqpc327o7ukkp49ollpkk0mmln@4ax.com>, at 22:54:32 on
>>>Fri, 3 Dec 2021, Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> remarked:
>>>
>>>>>In theory if you aren't an invalid, you aren't supposed to use the
>>>>>concessions given to invalid carriages (of which mobility scooters are
>>>>>nowadays one of the most visible incarnations).
>>>>>
>>>>You can be an invalid without being a disabled person.
>>>
>>>Can you be an invalid entitled to take advantage of the concessions
>>>available to mobility scooter drivers, but not qualifying as whatever
>>>those rules define as "an invalid"?
>>>
>>You need to ask all of the multifarious service providers (e.g. TfL
>>will let you on the bus free without providing proof that you are
>>blind or unable to walk but others might not).
>
>Is that allowing you on the bus with a mobility scooter,
>
"10.1.2 Free travel. If you are a wheelchair or mobility scooter user,
you can travel free on any of
our bus services at all times."
[https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-conditions-of-carriage.pdf]

>or are you trying to move the goalposts?
>
I leave that to you.

>>Bear in mind also (using someone known to me as an example) that
>>mobility aids can be a preventative measure against a person with
>>degenerative conditions reaching the state of being registered disabled.
>
>Probably so, but how does that intersect with the concessions given to
>riders of mobility scooters?
>
I refer you back to your question above and the responses to it (i.e.
you seem to have moved to a different goal). The word "invalid"
(except in the sense of "not valid") does not appear in TfL's CoC. I
have a colleague with multiple conditions who from time to time needs
to use a wheelchair/scooter who fails to meet the requirements for
higher rate disability benefits (one of the measures used by LAs for
automatic granting of travel comcessions) but IMU meets the definition
of a "disabled person" per s.146(d) Transport Act 2000 as that
specifies no distance over which a person "has a substantial and
long-term adverse effect on his ability to walk," or the nature of the
place where that activity is exercised (e.g. Flat ground v. stairs).
Roughly speaking, if you are disabled (not blind) and walk in the
front door of a TfL bus you have to show a Freedom Pass/ENCTS card; if
you enter the rear door on wheels then you don't need to show
anything. TfL's CoC seem to be crafted to put relevant people on trust
and avoid crew/passenger time being wasted by arguing about matters
that could need evidence from a medical practitioner to decide. OTOH,
I have seen the occasional user of a chair/buggy have a card (maybe a
Freedom Pass, maybe not) touched in by a companion.

In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:

>>>>>Emailing pdfs is also very clunky - why can't they push the tickets to
>>>>>the booking app, in the same way Google Play pushes new apps to your
>>>>>phone?
>>>>
>>>>As I have said at least twice this is exactly what does happen, with
>>>>GA at least. Buy a ticket from the app or on the web and they just
>>>>appear in the app ready for use.

Sounds to me like a "push".

>>>I'll give it another go when I have some time. But I can absolutely
>>>assure you that the other day when I tried this, the options the GA
>>>website gave for a selection of mystery purchases did not all include a
>>>pdf option, let alone a deliver-to-app version.
>>>
>>>As far as I could see they were also significantly averse to e-ticketing
>>>south of Tottenham Hale. Is that some issue with the barriers at
>>>Liverpool St, or some conflict with the Oyster zoning?
>>>
>>>Perhaps you could name a station pair where you know it to work (I'm not
>>>claiming it's never available, but GA's ticketing is very inconsistent,
>>>hence probably why there's been three different and incompatible lists
>>>at large as to what to expect to work, or not).
>>
>>It worked for Bishop's Stortford to Liverpool St. just fine.
>
>I'll see what the website offers. But...
>
>>Note that in my earlier replies I never claimed you were offered the
>>option to have an mTicket. Just that if you select pdf you seem to get
>>a single ticket than can be used as a pdf (e.g. printed) and also
>>apears in 'My Tickets' on the GA app.
>
>...I wonder why they don't tell customers that might happen?
>
>That's a bit of a big mystery purchase to make, but I might have a poke
>around to see what cheaper fares there are. Mountfitchet to BS perhaps
>(I can get that down to £1.30 with a fictional Student Discount).

Killing two three birds with one stone.

So I went to Soham station earlier (it was supposed to have opened
today, albeit the first train isn't until tomorrow). I thought I'd go
see if the PIS was saying "Bus" (like the one I then went to see at Ely,
although it wasn't listing Soham as one of the stops).

Incidentally, the only road signage I saw was one tiny finger pointer
(and no National Rail logo).

Imagine my surprise to find the site fenced off with an impressive array
of "Bugger Off" signage. There was a local couple there too, to see
where the footbridge over the line leads to. They said it had been
promised to be a replacement for a foot crossing that had been
permanently shut as part of the works "because it was too close to the
station".

So drawing a blank there I went to Ely station, and having confirmed
they weren't, after all, bustituting the Sunday service, looked for the
fare to Soham on the TVM. "No fares available for selected destination"
it said.

So I went and asked the chap at the ticket office. "That's because the
service doesn't start until tomorrow", he said, "you need to pick
"Tickets for future travel" on the first screen. So I did, for the 13th.
And... "No fares available for selected destination" <sigh>

So I went home and booked on the GA website. £2.80 no off-peak variant.

Four delivery options available:

o Receive your tickets by email

- Open and use the PDFticket on your Smartphone
- Print the PDF as a backup if you want
- Register or sign-in and download your tickets to the Greater
Anglia App.

<paging Ken: That's pull not push>

o Smartcard - load from App [5 min delay]

I can only test one thing at a time, so I can't tell if this option
pushes them to the App for me to pull to the ITSO Card.

o Smartcard - Collect from station [2hr delay]

I've done that before so can confirm it works, but the 2hr delay is a
bit disappointing.

o Self-Service ticket machine [Surprisingly, only 15 min delay, but
that's not much good for immediate travel]

I'm sure that works just fine. Needs the reference number and the card
used to charge. I charged it to PayPal, so that's another thing to test
on a future occasion. What ID will they accept for that?

"Your tickets have been emailed..." says the website. Hooray!

A Booking Confirmation email appears (not the tickets) appears three
seconds later (pretty impressive, it took PayPal thirty-one seconds to
send me a transaction receipt).

But, but, but:

We'll email your tickets to ****** for you to:

Show the tickets on your phone, or
Print the tickets out
This should arrive in 15 minute(s).

But I thought you'd just said on the website it'd been sent already??

And, and, and: it's now TWO HOURS LATER, and they PDF hasn't arrived. I
retract the "Hooray!".

There's nothing in the GA app's wallet on my phone.

<paging Ken: They didn't push it>

So now I need to find out how to pull the PDF to the App. It's not
immediately obvious from the menus.

later... can't find anything in the FAQs either in-app or on their
website.

FAIL!

So I think I'll print out the Order Confirmation (as I'm at home, and do
have a printer, and the train isn't until tomorrow morning, and of
course it says it's not the ticket, but they seem to have eaten that).

And maybe spend some time in Ely tomorrow asking the Customer Service
people there what I'm missing. Although last time I asked a similar
question they claimed they knew nothing about such fancy hi-tech stuff.
Although it appears their employer thinks the customers ought to.

ps As icing on the cake, looking at nationalrail.co.uk it says Soham
station doesn't have any TVMs, so why are the offering ticket-on-
departure? I'm guessing it means it's not in the compulsory ticket
zone either. Good news is the car park is free! So I don't need to
spend ages working out how to pay for that.

Kafka notes that:

Staffing and general services:
Information available from staff

And it's unstaffed.
--
Roland Perry

In message <CBsHzc$NBjthFA3k@perry.uk>, at 17:24:29 on Sun, 12 Dec 2021,
Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>
>>>>>>Emailing pdfs is also very clunky - why can't they push the tickets to
>>>>>>the booking app, in the same way Google Play pushes new apps to your
>>>>>>phone?
>>>>>
>>>>>As I have said at least twice this is exactly what does happen, with
>>>>>GA at least. Buy a ticket from the app or on the web and they just
>>>>>appear in the app ready for use.
>
>Sounds to me like a "push".
>
>>>>I'll give it another go when I have some time. But I can absolutely
>>>>assure you that the other day when I tried this, the options the GA
>>>>website gave for a selection of mystery purchases did not all include a
>>>>pdf option, let alone a deliver-to-app version.
>>>>
>>>>As far as I could see they were also significantly averse to e-ticketing
>>>>south of Tottenham Hale. Is that some issue with the barriers at
>>>>Liverpool St, or some conflict with the Oyster zoning?
>>>>
>>>>Perhaps you could name a station pair where you know it to work (I'm not
>>>>claiming it's never available, but GA's ticketing is very inconsistent,
>>>>hence probably why there's been three different and incompatible lists
>>>>at large as to what to expect to work, or not).
>>>
>>>It worked for Bishop's Stortford to Liverpool St. just fine.
>>
>>I'll see what the website offers. But...
>>
>>>Note that in my earlier replies I never claimed you were offered the
>>>option to have an mTicket. Just that if you select pdf you seem to get
>>>a single ticket than can be used as a pdf (e.g. printed) and also
>>>apears in 'My Tickets' on the GA app.
>>
>>...I wonder why they don't tell customers that might happen?
>>
>>That's a bit of a big mystery purchase to make, but I might have a poke
>>around to see what cheaper fares there are. Mountfitchet to BS perhaps
>>(I can get that down to £1.30 with a fictional Student Discount).
>
>Killing two

or

>three birds with one stone.
>
>So I went to Soham station earlier (it was supposed to have opened
>today, albeit the first train isn't until tomorrow). I thought I'd go
>see if the PIS was saying "Bus" (like the one I then went to see at Ely,
>although it wasn't listing Soham as one of the stops).
>
>Incidentally, the only road signage I saw was one tiny finger pointer
>(and no National Rail logo).
>
>Imagine my surprise to find the site fenced off with an impressive array
>of "Bugger Off" signage. There was a local couple there too, to see
>where the footbridge over the line leads to. They said it had been
>promised to be a replacement for a foot crossing that had been
>permanently shut as part of the works "because it was too close to the
>station".
>
>So drawing a blank there I went to Ely station, and having confirmed
>they weren't, after all, bustituting the Sunday service,

I mean, to Soham, they were bustituting it to Bury and beyond.

>looked for the fare to Soham on the TVM. "No fares available for
>selected destination" it said.
>
>So I went and asked the chap at the ticket office. "That's because the
>service doesn't start until tomorrow", he said, "you need to pick
>"Tickets for future travel" on the first screen. So I did, for the 13th.
>And... "No fares available for selected destination" <sigh>
>
>So I went home and booked on the GA website. £2.80 no off-peak variant.
>
>Four delivery options available:
>
> o Receive your tickets by email
>
> - Open and use the PDFticket on your Smartphone
> - Print the PDF as a backup if you want
> - Register or sign-in and download your tickets to the Greater
> Anglia App.
>
><paging Ken: That's pull not push>
>
> o Smartcard - load from App [5 min delay]
>
>I can only test one thing at a time, so I can't tell if this option
>pushes them to the App for me to pull to the ITSO Card.
>
> o Smartcard - Collect from station [2hr delay]
>
>I've done that before so can confirm it works, but the 2hr delay is a
>bit disappointing.
>
> o Self-Service ticket machine [Surprisingly, only 15 min delay, but
> that's not much good for immediate travel]
>
>I'm sure that works just fine. Needs the reference number and the card
>used to charge. I charged it to PayPal, so that's another thing to test
>on a future occasion. What ID will they accept for that?
>
>"Your tickets have been emailed..." says the website. Hooray!
>
>A Booking Confirmation email appears (not the tickets) appears three
>seconds later (pretty impressive, it took PayPal thirty-one seconds to
>send me a transaction receipt).
>
>But, but, but:
>
>We'll email your tickets to ****** for you to:
>
> Show the tickets on your phone, or
> Print the tickets out
> This should arrive in 15 minute(s).
>
>But I thought you'd just said on the website it'd been sent already??
>
>And, and, and: it's now TWO HOURS LATER, and they PDF hasn't arrived. I
>retract the "Hooray!".
>
>There's nothing in the GA app's wallet on my phone.
>
><paging Ken: They didn't push it>
>
>So now I need to find out how to pull the PDF to the App. It's not
>immediately obvious from the menus.
>
>later... can't find anything in the FAQs either in-app or on their
>website.
>
>FAIL!
>
>So I think I'll print out the Order Confirmation (as I'm at home, and do
>have a printer, and the train isn't until tomorrow morning, and of
>course it says it's not the ticket, but they seem to have eaten that).
>
>And maybe spend some time in Ely tomorrow asking the Customer Service
>people there what I'm missing. Although last time I asked a similar
>question they claimed they knew nothing about such fancy hi-tech stuff.
>Although it appears their employer thinks the customers ought to.
>
>ps As icing on the cake, looking at nationalrail.co.uk it says Soham
> station doesn't have any TVMs, so why are the offering ticket-on-
> departure? I'm guessing it means it's not in the compulsory ticket
> zone either. Good news is the car park is free! So I don't need to
> spend ages working out how to pay for that.
>
> Kafka notes that:
>
> Staffing and general services:
> Information available from staff
>
> And it's unstaffed.

--
Roland Perry

On 11/12/2021 16:06, Graeme Wall wrote:
> On 11/12/2021 12:17, Ken wrote:
>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 18:38:44 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In message <sov8te$n5e$2@dont-email.me>, at 11:07:43 on Fri, 10 Dec
>>> 2021, Rolf Mantel <news@hartig-mantel.de> remarked:
>>>> Am 09.12.2021 um 20:19 schrieb Roland Perry:
>>>>> In message <sol7i2$t7q$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:43:14 on Mon, 6 Dec
>>>>> 2021,  Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>>
>>>>>> I have a busy email environment too. However, I can still get
>>>>>> important
>>>>>> emails to my phone without them being obscured by the normal
>>>>>> traffic. You
>>>>>> just seem to be unwilling to adapt/change or even modify your
>>>>>> approach.
>>>
>>>>>   I've tried, this isn't just an armchair exercise. But can you answer
>>>>> why  I need to jump through such hoops just to avoid train companies
>>>>> fining  me £100 when one of their TVMs is broken?
>>>>
>>>> I have yet to see evidence that train companies fine customers when
>>>> their TVMs are broken.
>>>
>>> They threaten to, or at least don't give any comfort to passengers that
>>> it's OK to pay at your destination in such circumstances.
>>
>> One edge case: I was unable to use a fully working (so far as I know)
>> TVM because the glare from the sun meant that I couldn't see what was
>> displayed.
>
> Amazing how often installers of such machines don't take the sun into
> account. After all we do see it occasionally in this country.
>

ATMs in Italy have shades that one can pull down over the screen in the
event that the glare obscures the view.

On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>
<<All snipped>>

Leaning aside the lamentable story of the Soham ticketing all I can
say is that my expereince has been different. The tickets WERE pushed,
with no action taken by me. Unless: I thought I'd bought one of the
tickets on the web site but I suppose it's possible that I used the
app for both. When bought through the app they're definitely pushed.
It's still progress as I was unable to use the app to buy tickets at
all until I performed a factory reset on my phone. The station
selector fields were totally unresponsive.

In message <sp2683$1uiu$1@gioia.aioe.org>, at 12:40:37 on Sat, 11 Dec
2021, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com remarked:
>On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 11:33:54 +0000
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>In message <sp1v69$r5q$1@gioia.aioe.org>, at 10:40:09 on Sat, 11 Dec
>>2021, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com remarked:
>>>On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 19:51:38 -0000 (UTC)
>>>Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>>><Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 14:13:07 +0000
>>>>>> Something less century than PDF, anyway.
>>>>>
>>>>> PDFs work everywhere. Not everyone has WhatsCrap or similar social media
>>>>> nonsense installed.
>>>>
>>>>Well, until you give in to the entreaties to install Adobe Acrobat Reader
>>>>DC or whatever it’s called, which keeps trying to log you into
>>Adobe’s
>>>>systems every time it opens. I deleted it. No, I can’t fill in PDF
>>forms
>>>>any more. I don’t care.
>>>
>>>And I'm not interested in installing some Billy No Mates data
>>>trawling garbage
>>
>>>from facebook.
>>
>>In which case you'll be blissfully ignorant (now there's a first, NOT)
>>that the people you communicate with on WhatsApp are *only* your mates.
>
>I've discovered this wonderful invention called a phone whereby you can
>actually speak to someone rather than converse in 2 line snippets, which lets
>face it , is a way people "keep in touch" when they really don't want to be
>bothered to actually do so.

WhatsApp is free, which is good for international calls, and also does
video calls, and group (conference) calls. The people you are messaging
don't have to be awake, or able to take a call, if you are messaging
them.

>As for work - we use email and slack because they work on a PC. But then you
>can probably do what little work is involved with your wafflefest non job in a
>few lines of text every hour or so.

I thought we were discussing keeping in touch with "mates"?

>>That's what makes it such a useful app (no outsiders, spammers etc).
>
>Thats like saying a kids scooter is "useful" transport when comparing it to a
>car.

Other way round.
--
Roland Perry

In message <7f3ergtts9j70fqljakpdk7uah1aibnfjb@4ax.com>, at 09:15:46 on
Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>
><<All snipped>>
>
>Leaning aside the lamentable story of the Soham ticketing all I can
>say is that my expereince has been different. The tickets WERE pushed,
>with no action taken by me. Unless: I thought I'd bought one of the
>tickets on the web site but I suppose it's possible that I used the
>app for both. When bought through the app they're definitely pushed.
>It's still progress as I was unable to use the app to buy tickets at
>all until I performed a factory reset on my phone. The station
>selector fields were totally unresponsive.

More to follow; but I bought my ticket back to Soham on the app, and
once again it didn't get pushed. Instead they emailed me a PDF (that's
one better than yesterday) which then required me retrieving the email
and launching a viewer.

re: TVMs, the ones at Soham (which Nationalrail.co.uk say don't exist)
were OK with tickets to Ely, but at Ely station after some
experimentation (and again talking to the staff who said it was probably
because I was trying to buy a ticket before the train arrived - huh?
isn't that the whole point??) there's two varieties and one has Soham
tickets and the other (that I tried yesterday) not.
--
Roland Perry

In message <YdCBU$H1TxthFAU1@perry.uk>, at 09:40:05 on Mon, 13 Dec 2021,
Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>In message <7f3ergtts9j70fqljakpdk7uah1aibnfjb@4ax.com>, at 09:15:46 on
>Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>>>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>>
>><<All snipped>>
>>
>>Leaning aside the lamentable story of the Soham ticketing all I can
>>say is that my expereince has been different. The tickets WERE pushed,
>>with no action taken by me. Unless: I thought I'd bought one of the
>>tickets on the web site but I suppose it's possible that I used the
>>app for both. When bought through the app they're definitely pushed.
>>It's still progress as I was unable to use the app to buy tickets at
>>all until I performed a factory reset on my phone. The station
>>selector fields were totally unresponsive.
>
>More to follow; but I bought my ticket back to Soham on the app, and
>once again it didn't get pushed. Instead they emailed me a PDF (that's
>one better than yesterday) which then required me retrieving the email
>and launching a viewer.

Here's the order confirmation:

Great news, your train tickets are now ready! You will find them
attached to this email.

Simply show[**] the attached e-tickets on your mobile phone, or print
the tickets out.

Journey 1: ELY to SOHAM

Please use Adobe Acrobat to open and print these tickets. If you do
not have Adobe Acrobat, you must download it by clicking here.

While trying to book and download the tickets, it was obvious that the
station wifi wasn't working, nor was I able to get any 4G data (O2).
However, at that time of the morning there are plenty of trains calling,
so I was able to log into a selection GA and GN and Stansted Express
(not sure why that's separately branded) on-train wifi for long enough
to get things done.

Opening the ticket in gmail revealed that it wasn't so much an
attachment as a link to download a pdf, and with patchy connectivity
that didn't work. Switching to Spark (which is set up to download all
emails with pdf attachments) and that *had* stored a local copy. But
still requires launching and logging-in to Adobe. Which of course once
again requires connectivity (to facilitate the log-in).

Anyway, I've raised a ticket with GA about the inability to pull the
tickets into the wallet (let alone why it wasn't pushed to begin with).
And they've reassuringly said they aim to reply to 90% of emails within
10 days.

The ticket office at Ely, as I suspected, said that "online sales are
nothing to do with us". Even though, in this instance, the station,
train and app are all the same TOC.

[**] By which they mean the PDF, the app still thinks I have no tickets
at the moment, apart from a mystery purchase I made six months ago, so I
know things have once been set up. On the first train I was unable to
show the gripper a ticket and he asked "Have you activated it". Which is
odd because nothing in the booking process mentions an activation phase.

He suggested I click on the app's "Archived tickets" button, perhaps
because that also starts with an "A", but as I expected, that didn't
help.
--
Roland Perry

Am 11.12.2021 um 13:17 schrieb Ken:
> On Fri, 10 Dec 2021 18:38:44 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> In message <sov8te$n5e$2@dont-email.me>, at 11:07:43 on Fri, 10 Dec
>> 2021, Rolf Mantel <news@hartig-mantel.de> remarked:
>>> Am 09.12.2021 um 20:19 schrieb Roland Perry:
>>>> In message <sol7i2$t7q$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:43:14 on Mon, 6 Dec
>>>> 2021, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>
>>>>> I have a busy email environment too. However, I can still get important
>>>>> emails to my phone without them being obscured by the normal traffic. You
>>>>> just seem to be unwilling to adapt/change or even modify your approach.
>>
>>>> I've tried, this isn't just an armchair exercise. But can you answer
>>>> why I need to jump through such hoops just to avoid train companies
>>>> fining me £100 when one of their TVMs is broken?
>>>
>>> I have yet to see evidence that train companies fine customers when
>>> their TVMs are broken.
>>
>> They threaten to, or at least don't give any comfort to passengers that
>> it's OK to pay at your destination in such circumstances.
>
> One edge case: I was unable to use a fully working (so far as I know)
> TVM because the glare from the sun meant that I couldn't see what was
> displayed.

My wife had that situation once as well; the ticket machines in Germany
have a small label "in case you cannot use the ticket machine, please
phone xxx". In such a situation, the documented phone call serves as a
"permit to travel".

Rolf

In message <sov2hd$eb4$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:18:53 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>On 10/12/2021 07:21, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <sotp1a$epk$1@dont-email.me>, at 20:30:33 on Thu, 9 Dec
>>2021, Certes <none@nowhere.net> remarked:
>>> On 09/12/2021 17:57, Graeme Wall wrote:
>>>> On 09/12/2021 17:21, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>> In message <sosu8e$7ob$3@dont-email.me>, at 12:53:34 on Thu, 9 Dec
>>>>>2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>> On 09/12/2021 11:30, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>>> In message <soq8ge$qfh$1@dont-email.me>, at 12:30:06 on Wed, 8
>>>>>>>Dec 2021,  Bevan Price <bevanprice666@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>>>>>> On 08/12/2021 11:45, Recliner wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 11:14:01 -0000 (UTC), Sam Wilson
>>>>>>>>><ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> And of course the two CoOps near me are operated by
>>>>>>>>>>>completely different
>>>>>>>>>>> organisations, so we need two different cards etc etc.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Interesting - we also have competing CoOps near us.
>>>>>>>  Not very co-operative, is it!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  It's funny, I had no idea there were competing Co-Ops.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Historically, they started as separate Co-Ops for each town (or
>>>>>>>>district) in Northern England, commencing in Rochdale. There was
>>>>>>>>a "coming together" in, I think, the later years of the 20th
>>>>>>>>Century,  but a further separation in more recent years.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Ours are I think "Central England" vs the larger countrywide
>>>>>>>one based  in Manchester.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>  Talking of which, back in the day there were many CoOp Building
>>>>>>>Societies, but it wasn't well known that most were one-branch
>>>>>>>affairs, which gave customers a false sense of security. After a
>>>>>>>couple of the frailer ones went broke, and no-one to bail them
>>>>>>>out, a regulator forced  them all to merge, to form a new organisation.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>  What name did they pick? Ironically the same as the Consumer
>>>>>>>Affairs programme which exposed the issue: Nationwide.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That was a long time ago! I thought the name was older than the
>>>>>>programme.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think so. For whatever reason I used to watch it nearly
>>>>>every  day, and this sequence of events played out.
>>
>>>>  I used to work on it, the downside of that is you don't actually
>>>>take  much notice of the content. Also more than likely that I
>>>>didn't work on  that episode.
>>>
>>> Off-topic even for us, but do you know how the digital clock behind the
>>> Nationwide presenters was operated?  It always showed the right time
>>> but, in years of careful watching, I never saw its Solari style digits
>>> flip over to the next minute on-screen, which struck me as curious.
>>> flip digits as [obrail] Solari board
>> A school-friend of mine worked for BBC engineering, and was "in
>>charge of digital clocks", so I might ask him. His pride and joy was
>>the Ceefax clock, which was locked to Rugby (and completely custom
>>built).
>> I keep meaning to study the BBC Breakfast (etc) clocks in more
>>detail to see how far off they are, especially as one of their Covid
>>geeks has a digital clock on the wall behind him. I have two adjacent
>>TVs, one on Freesat, the other on Freeview, and they are about two
>>seconds apart.
>
>One has the signal travelling a lot further than the other. Add in he
>digital delays on each tx chain (and rx chain) and you are going to get
>noticeable variations between nominally the same stations.

Doesn't superficially explain why the terrestrial version is lagging
the satellite (although the explanation has to be the terrestrial
transmitter is getting a satellite feed, and is adding in a decode/
recode delay). It's about two seconds.
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:35:15 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <YdCBU$H1TxthFAU1@perry.uk>, at 09:40:05 on Mon, 13 Dec 2021,
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>In message <7f3ergtts9j70fqljakpdk7uah1aibnfjb@4ax.com>, at 09:15:46 on
>>Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>>On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>>>>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>
>>><<All snipped>>
>>>
>>>Leaning aside the lamentable story of the Soham ticketing all I can
>>>say is that my expereince has been different. The tickets WERE pushed,
>>>with no action taken by me. Unless: I thought I'd bought one of the
>>>tickets on the web site but I suppose it's possible that I used the
>>>app for both. When bought through the app they're definitely pushed.
>>>It's still progress as I was unable to use the app to buy tickets at
>>>all until I performed a factory reset on my phone. The station
>>>selector fields were totally unresponsive.
>>
>>More to follow; but I bought my ticket back to Soham on the app, and
>>once again it didn't get pushed. Instead they emailed me a PDF (that's
>>one better than yesterday) which then required me retrieving the email
>>and launching a viewer.
>
>Here's the order confirmation:
>
> Great news, your train tickets are now ready! You will find them
> attached to this email.
>
> Simply show[**] the attached e-tickets on your mobile phone, or print
> the tickets out.
>
> Journey 1: ELY to SOHAM
>
> Please use Adobe Acrobat to open and print these tickets. If you do
> not have Adobe Acrobat, you must download it by clicking here.
>

Obviously you don't have to take the bit about Adobe Acrobat seriously. *Any* PFF reader will do, and most Android
phones will have several installed already.

>While trying to book and download the tickets, it was obvious that the
>station wifi wasn't working, nor was I able to get any 4G data (O2).
>However, at that time of the morning there are plenty of trains calling,
>so I was able to log into a selection GA and GN and Stansted Express
>(not sure why that's separately branded) on-train wifi for long enough
>to get things done.
>
>Opening the ticket in gmail revealed that it wasn't so much an
>attachment as a link to download a pdf, and with patchy connectivity
>that didn't work.

Perhaps there's an option to determine whether or not attachments should be automatically downloaded by default, or only
on request?

> Switching to Spark (which is set up to download all
>emails with pdf attachments) and that *had* stored a local copy. But
>still requires launching and logging-in to Adobe.

No, that's just you.

> Which of course once
>again requires connectivity (to facilitate the log-in).

Just use one of the many PDF readers that work offline. You probably have several installed already.

In message <sov3c3$jk8$1@dont-email.me>, at 08:33:07 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Youngsters today can barely comprehend understanding both hardware and
>> software at the same time, let alone being that kind of system
>> integrator.
>
>That’s another assertion that is plain inaccurate. There’s a huge number of
>young people that work with RPis, Arduino etc.

How many are both programmers and chip designers. Could they lay out the
PCB from the chip data sheet?

>Granted most fall by the wayside as time goes on, but some go on to
>professional engineering. I work at both the software and hardware
>level in addition to system architecture, as do many other people I
>know. People who work with FPGAs are probably the closest in the modern
>world to your days of fiddling with disk drive controllers. In the days
>when you were fixing disk drive controllers I was fixing mini computers
>at chip level, it’s what we did in those days.

Prior to designing the hardware to connect those disk drives to the
computer, I had a job at ICL, which involved chip-level fault-finding on
very large mainframes (and just for fun, they were a mixture of ECL,
TTL, and DTL). We also had to be able to write occasional test software
in machine code to exercise things, to find out exactly what it was that
had gone wrong.

I was still writing utility software for PCs in 8086 assembler ten years
later, and [naughty lad I was] disassembling MSDOS to fix some bugs in
the disk driver software.

But some of the work had progressed to higher level languages, of which
Algol 68 was my favourite at school, but support for it was hard to find
into the late 70's.

>We probably had elderly engineers grumbling that integrated circuits
>took away all the understanding of building circuits out of a couple of
>transistors and a diode, and another bunch moaning that valves were
>much better.

Hardware, like software exists at various levels. I started out
designing things with discrete transistors (never did much with valves,
other than fix relatives' radio sets), and later we had things
like op-amps where you could trust the chip manufacturer to have put
something inside the 8-pin packaged 741 (or whatever) that worked
tolerably close to the published spec.

But it still needed laying out on a PCB, and the remaining circuitry
designing using discrete components.

In those days digital layouts were entirely digital, only needing to
cope with perhaps 8MHz, but once chips breached 25MHz it became
necessary to take analogue [aka RF] effects into account as well. Which
is of course why CPUs started to have clock-doublers (and more) inside
because you could process inside the chip far faster than the tracks on
a PCB could cope with.

Quite a bit of the work was because stuff we wanted simply wasn't
available commercially (or at least for a sensible price). So if we
wanted to program an EPROM, we often had to build a programmer from the
data sheet, write drivers for whatever it was a peripheral, and then of
course write whatever it was we were blowing into the EPROM, and then
gte back to the main task which was designing the appliance into which
the EPROM was plugged.
--
Roland Perry

In message <nnherg56i92p0lne435nh6slccc78nrgu5@4ax.com>, at 13:19:13 on
Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Recliner <recliner.usenet@gmail.com> remarked:
>On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:35:15 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In message <YdCBU$H1TxthFAU1@perry.uk>, at 09:40:05 on Mon, 13 Dec 2021,
>>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>>In message <7f3ergtts9j70fqljakpdk7uah1aibnfjb@4ax.com>, at 09:15:46 on
>>>Mon, 13 Dec 2021, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>>>On Sun, 12 Dec 2021 17:24:29 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>In message <ivrvIRDWiyshFAJe@perry.uk>, at 10:14:46 on Fri, 10 Dec 2021,
>>>>>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>
>>>><<All snipped>>
>>>>
>>>>Leaning aside the lamentable story of the Soham ticketing all I can
>>>>say is that my expereince has been different. The tickets WERE pushed,
>>>>with no action taken by me. Unless: I thought I'd bought one of the
>>>>tickets on the web site but I suppose it's possible that I used the
>>>>app for both. When bought through the app they're definitely pushed.
>>>>It's still progress as I was unable to use the app to buy tickets at
>>>>all until I performed a factory reset on my phone. The station
>>>>selector fields were totally unresponsive.
>>>
>>>More to follow; but I bought my ticket back to Soham on the app, and
>>>once again it didn't get pushed. Instead they emailed me a PDF (that's
>>>one better than yesterday) which then required me retrieving the email
>>>and launching a viewer.
>>
>>Here's the order confirmation:
>>
>> Great news, your train tickets are now ready! You will find them
>> attached to this email.
>>
>> Simply show[**] the attached e-tickets on your mobile phone, or print
>> the tickets out.
>>
>> Journey 1: ELY to SOHAM
>>
>> Please use Adobe Acrobat to open and print these tickets. If you do
>> not have Adobe Acrobat, you must download it by clicking here.
>
>Obviously you don't have to take the bit about Adobe Acrobat seriously.
>*Any* PFF reader will do, and most Android phones will have several
>installed already.

Mine don't. Although I did once have a third party PDF viewer perhaps
three phones ago. Whatever the source, it still has to be launched.

>>While trying to book and download the tickets, it was obvious that the
>>station wifi wasn't working, nor was I able to get any 4G data (O2).
>>However, at that time of the morning there are plenty of trains calling,
>>so I was able to log into a selection GA and GN and Stansted Express
>>(not sure why that's separately branded) on-train wifi for long enough
>>to get things done.
>>
>>Opening the ticket in gmail revealed that it wasn't so much an
>>attachment as a link to download a pdf, and with patchy connectivity
>>that didn't work.
>
>Perhaps there's an option to determine whether or not attachments
>should be automatically downloaded by default, or only on request?

It's gmail, you tell me.

>> Switching to Spark (which is set up to download all emails with pdf
>>attachments) and that *had* stored a local copy. But still requires
>>launching and logging-in to Adobe.
>
>No, that's just you.

No, whatever viewer is installed, it still needs launching.

>> Which of course once again requires connectivity (to facilitate the
>>log-in).
>
>Just use one of the many PDF readers that work offline. You probably
>have several installed already.

As it happens I don't. What one would you recommend.

ps Despite the chaff you are chucking out (magnificent effort, by the
way) we are no closer to understanding why the App doesn't have the
tickets available automagically in its wallet, in the way Ken claims.
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:35:15 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
wrote:

>But
>still requires launching and logging-in to Adobe. Which of course once
>again requires connectivity (to facilitate the log-in).

No it doesn't. You bypass the login screen by clicking the cross in
the top right hand corner.

In message <5le3YYTK0=s9NL3Z5LJXMYJlxRqd@4ax.com>, at 14:28:12 on Mon,
13 Dec 2021, Nigel Emery <nigele3@ukonline.co.uk> remarked:
>On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:35:15 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>But still requires launching and logging-in to Adobe. Which of course
>>once again requires connectivity (to facilitate the log-in).
>
>No it doesn't. You bypass the login screen by clicking the cross in
>the top right hand corner.

It's not at all obvious that this would circumvent the need to log in,
rather than closing the app.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <5le3YYTK0=s9NL3Z5LJXMYJlxRqd@4ax.com>, at 14:28:12 on Mon,
> 13 Dec 2021, Nigel Emery <nigele3@ukonline.co.uk> remarked:
>> On Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:35:15 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> But still requires launching and logging-in to Adobe. Which of course
>>> once again requires connectivity (to facilitate the log-in).
>>
>> No it doesn't. You bypass the login screen by clicking the cross in
>> the top right hand corner.
>
> It's not at all obvious that this would circumvent the need to log in,
> rather than closing the app.

Even knowing you, I'm astonished at the heavy weather you're making of this
trivial, self-inflicted problem!

In message <sp0aqe$pee$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:46:23 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <soqdtf$1pj$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:02:22 on Wed, 8 Dec 2021,
>> Certes <none@nowhere.net> remarked:
>>
>>>> My point is that "the Basics" should not include being compelled to
>>>> set up special email accounts and to carry a smartphone, and buy
>>>> tickets in a rush in the rain stood in the station car park, just to
>>>> avoid a £100 fine if the TOC can't be bothered to keep their ticket
>>>> machines working.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> Are there any cases of a penalty fare being successfully extracted, or
>>> even demanded, when there was no way to buy a ticket without carrying a
>>> smartphone? If not then just buy a paper ticket,
>>
>> The TVM is broken dear Liza.
>>
>>> or travel without one if that is impossible.
>>
>> And risk the fine. There should be some middle course available, or at
>> least some rather less hectoring signage saying "it's OK, if the
>> machines are broken we promise you won't be fined".
>
>So your contention that the TOC will fine you £100 pounds if you dare to
>get on the train when the TVM is broken is based entirely on the wording of
>the penalty fare notice? Genuine question, though I think analogous ones
>have been asked in other branches of the thread.

It's what the signs say, and my basic contention here is that they
should have at least a glimmer of an "unless..."
--
Roland Perry

In message <sovdt9$qpk$2@dont-email.me>, at 11:32:57 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <sotnpl$664$1@dont-email.me>, at 20:09:25 on Thu, 9 Dec 2021,
>> Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> In message <soo710$nau$1@dont-email.me>, at 17:52:32 on Tue, 7 Dec 2021,
>>>> Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>
>>>>>> If rail tickets were the only ecommerce product I ever bought, it
>>>>>> might, just, be acceptable. But given that I buy from perhaps a
>>>>>> hundred, it's a bit rich for whatever ATOC/Fat-Controller is called
>>>>>> this week to expect me to bend over backwards for *their* convenience.
>>>>
>>>>>> Far better, if we got back to the hear of this thread, they could be
>>>>>> bothered to keep their ticket machines operational, or provide PERTIS
>>>>>> machines, so passengers weren't forced to buy at the last minute using
>>>>>> their mobile, stood in the rain in the station car park, on pain of a
>>>>>> £100 fine.
>>>>>
>>>>> You need to get yourself organised, oh, and an umbrella. Personally if
>>>>> it is pouring with rail I'd do the on-line ordering before I got out of
>>>>> the car.
>>>>
>>>> But I don't know the TVM is broken until I get to it.
>>>
>>> If you buy your tickets at home/in the car it really doesn’t matter if the
>>> TVM is working or not.
>>
>> Only if the flow actually *has* e-tickets available.
>>
>> But you've lost track of the reason for this debate: it's the
>> circumstances that you arrive at the station to find that the TVM you
>> wanted to buy a paper ticket from is broken, and next to it is a big
>> hectoring sign all abut £100 fines for travelling without a ticket.
>>
>> With one of the most common rail tickets I buy being £1.90, it's really
>> not proportionate to be ordering them in advance from home.
>>
>> What would be your reaction when boarding a bus if the driver said
>> "sorry, my ticket machine is broken, you must go back home and buy a
>> ticket there first". (And of course the next bus isn't until an hour
>> later).
>
>Do you have any evidence that that’s what the TOC’s response would be if
>you boarded the train without a ticket because the TVM was broken?

It's not an equivalent situation, because very very few trains have
someone at the door whose job it is to turn away people without tickets.

When was the last time you encountered one? [OK, it used to happen on
E*]

Even the railtour I went on last week allowed anyone to board and then
only came through checking tickets after it had set off. I have no idea
what they'd do to stowaways. And on the return trip they didn't even do
that check.

The Santa train on Saturday, they didn't check at any stage, either
arriving at the station, boarding the train, or on board. I suppose that
would only arise if a stowaway sat at a table where the genuine
ticket-holder later turned up.

But I've seen that on National Rail - two people with identical seat
reservations on the same Virgin Voyager. Oops. Train manager earned his
wage that day (both potential pax were vulnerable, and there were very
few other seats available).
--
Roland Perry

In message <sp0b4a$ro1$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:51:38 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <sotl1l$i0q$1@dont-email.me>, at 19:22:29 on Thu, 9 Dec 2021,
>> Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> In message <ub84rg1q1cu4uqd19rfbjrsvs6u3u98a1u@4ax.com>, at 15:38:03 on
>>>> Thu, 9 Dec 2021, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>>>> remarked:
>>>>> On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 15:20:51 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In message <ul44rgh3pooqqimstcdg7bt0tv3npqfi12@4ax.com>, at 14:46:17 on
>>>>>> Thu, 9 Dec 2021, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>>>>>> remarked:
>>>>>>> On Thu, 9 Dec 2021 08:01:59 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In message <7jv1rg1f2lkcibd6kvd034ngclblc00730@4ax.com>, at 18:54:35 on
>>>>>>>> Wed, 8 Dec 2021, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk>
>>>>>>>> remarked:
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, 8 Dec 2021 17:59:43 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
>>>>>>>>><usenet.tweed@gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Apple Mail even copes with corporate email. My privately owned
>>>>>>>>>> phone can pick up the corporate mail from an Exchange server,
>>>>>>>>>> and if they wish they can remote wipe the corporate email on my
>>>>>>>>>> phone without affecting my private email boxes.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Apple Mail and Gmail (the default mail app on Android pohones)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Doesn't Samsung, which has a very large market share, have something
>>>>>>>> slightly different as the default?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I haven't used it, but it appears to be a custom version of Gmail.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Gmail is mainly a platform, not an app, although the two do commonly get
>>>>>> conflated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gmail is both a platform and an app. The app can access both the
>>>>> platform and other email providers.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> I haven't tried it, because I haven't felt the need to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have felt the need to try many such things because I think it's a bit
>>>>>> rich to lecture people on what they should be using, if not from
>>>>>> personal experience.
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, my use case seems to be similar to yours (multiple email accounts
>>>>> from different sources, several of which are high volume), so my
>>>>> experience seems to me to be relevant.
>>>>
>>>> But how often do you read a hundred emails a day via Gmail on your
>>>> phone?
>>>>
>>>>>>> Gmail (on my phone) and Apple Mail (on my iPad) work fine for me. Both
>>>>>>> of them support all the email accounts that I use. Looking at Spark on
>>>>>>> Google Play, I see that it, too, can connect to Gmail, Exchange and
>>>>>>> IMAP, and can handle multiple email accounts on the same device. It has
>>>>>>> a few features which Gmail and Apple Mail don't have (such as the
>>>>>>> ability to schedule email to be sent in the future), but none of them
>>>>>>> look like the killer feature that would persuade me to switch.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A killer feature could be along the lines of "how can it show me a
>>>>>> display with a hundred or so waiting emails to pick from, on such a
>>>>>> small screen"?
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think any mobile app could do that, unless you have exceptional
>>>>> eyesight. The workaround is a good search system.
>>>>
>>>> Which is what Spark claims to be better at, but it's still a compromise
>>>> when the train company is insisting on using 1992 technology to deliver
>>>> train tickets, when there are numerous far better more modern ways to do
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> Says the man who describes his email client as being on a par with a pager.
>>
>> I'm not sure what your point is. Yes, the email client on one of my
>> phones is so basic that all it's really doing is being a pager saying
>> "an email has arrived, but you are really going to have to use a PC to
>> read/reply".
>
>It seems more than a little ironic that you’re complaining about other
>people using 1992 technology when part of your complaint is that you’re
>effectively limited to even older technology.

What's older about a smartphone and an Android app?

>> I have no control over the phone, or the apps I'm allowed to use.
>
>Well, there’s your trouble.

We are where we are. And I won't be the only passenger in the same
circumstances.

>> My other (personal) phone would be pinging constantly if all my email
>> was directed towards it. On a rough estimate I have perhaps 500k in my
>> email-iverse over the last ten years, so that's 50k a year, 200 per
>> working day.
>>
>> On top of all the alerts for other things (Facebook postings in threads
>> I'm interested in, Tweets from people I follow, etc etc) it would be
>> wall to wall.
>
>Then configure the alert settings, for goodness’ sake!

The alerts arise from swamping the phone with superfluous emails. I'm
not aware of a way that Android allows the user to fine-tune alerts by
filtering the stuff inside apps. Rather than saying "this app has
received this one of many things, you are now alerted".

Are you suggesting that I can set something in Android that only alerts
me to emails arriving in gmail, that are from a specific shortlist of
senders?
--
Roland Perry

In message <sp0kg0$seq$1@dont-email.me>, at 22:31:28 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <sovdi3$o21$1@dont-email.me>, at 11:27:00 on Fri, 10 Dec
>> 2021, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>
>>> You’ll have noticed that I travelled by train through the Ely triangle in
>>> September. We bought tickets from one of the bank of working TVMs in
>>> Norwich and the tickets got us all the way to King’s Lynn,
>>>changing at Ely.
>>> Fortunately it wasn’t raining and we weren’t marooned in any car parks,
>>> though some of the folks we were with wanted to travel on a train that was
>>> cancelled. I guess we were the execptions that proved the rule.
>>
>> I'm very glad the TVMs worked for you, and the proof you've completely
>> lost the plot, which is about the unsatisfactory nature of e-ticketing
>> when TVMs you expected to use, aren't working.
>>
>> Or perhaps you do understand that, and are trying to create a
>> smokescreen?
>
>No, I was riffing on the fanciful idea (which you’ve snipped) that there
>might be an Ely triangle where modern technology fails to operate
>correctly.

My technology, or that installed by the train companies?
--
Roland Perry

In message <sp0d32$7rl$1@dont-email.me>, at 20:25:06 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>On 10/12/2021 20:16, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <sovgbk$aos$2@dont-email.me>, at 12:14:44 on Fri, 10 Dec
>>2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>> On 10/12/2021 10:05, Rolf Mantel wrote:
>>>> Am 10.12.2021 um 09:40 schrieb Graeme Wall:
>>>>> On 10/12/2021 07:34, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> It's possible, I suppose, to have one additional email address
>>>>>>such as railticketing@perry.uk, but traditionally people who have
>>>>>>multiple  ecommerce addresses tend to have one per supplier.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why?
>>
>>>>  I have (with the german words for)  "Advertizing", "phone",
>>>>"shopping",    and one "holidays" (plus "Sports" for the various
>>>>sports clouds).
>>
>>>>  "Rolf" and "Holidays" are forwarded to the mobile phone,
>>>>"railways" is  not forwarded because DB tickets automatically
>>>>appear in-app whether I  buy the on the ephone or via the web interface.

>>>> The others have no reason to reach the mobile phone.
>>>
>>> But you don't, for example ,have one for Thomas Cook, One for Tui
>>>and so on under holidays.

>> So you agree with my proposed strategy above for having one special
>>email address for all rail ticketing. That was hard work, but we are
>>getting somewhere.
>
>That was my suggestion in the first place, glad you have finally seen
>the sense in it.

And all I have to do is go round over twenty rail ticketing apps,
changing my login email address.

But I suppose if I only do that when I have sufficient notice that I
need to buy a ticket from that TOC, it won't seem like such an
imposition.
--
Roland Perry

In message <sov2kp$eb4$4@dont-email.me>, at 08:20:41 on Fri, 10 Dec
2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>On 09/12/2021 18:46, Roland Perry wrote:
>> In message <sotfku$9no$4@dont-email.me>, at 17:50:22 on Thu, 9 Dec
>>2021, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>
>>>>  I don’t think anyone is suggesting you conduct your entire
>>>>email existence  on a phone. It’s complementary to a computer
>>>>and/or iPad. However, an  iPhone is perfectly adequate to see
>>>>what’s coming in, and to compose  replies on the move if
>>>>necessary. I can see all my multiple subfolder  mailboxes on my
>>>>Exchange account, and can access them if I need to. I can  also see
>>>>multiple private email accounts. You are not special having heavy 
>>>>email traffic, mine’s not trivial either.
>>>
>>> I get the impression what Roland really needs is a decent pair of
>>>glasses.

>> A decent pair of glasses doesn't fix a sub-optimal user interface.
>>And Can I remind you that my main email screen is approx 100 lines by
>>120 columns (or if a document, two full pages of A4 at once), and no
>>amount of visiting the optician is going to get that to fit on a phone.
>
>And you need that for every single email you ever receive? Even if it
>only a qr code to open a ticket barrier.

False dichotomy.
--
Roland Perry