The Edinburgh Trams Nightmare

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Travel on Sep 1st, 2011 | 0 comments

Over four years ago I started making plans to come to Edinburgh, UK, to study a master degree. Naturally, I did some research into the city beforehand and found out that one of the major local issues was the construction of a tram network that would run from the airport all the way to the city centre.

I remember reading that a large percentage of the locals opposed the tram system, partly because the bus system is already an excellent travel option, but primarily because of the chaos the construction would cause. By the time I read that, I believe it had already been under construction for quite a while.

I moved to Edinburgh over two years ago, only to find Princes Street (one of the main streets in Edinburgh) still closed due to the construction. Buses were taking an alternative route, but the people still weren’t happy. This seems quite logical, as it had already been under construction for years with no end in sight.

About a year ago I remember quite clearly that the works on Princes street were finished. The end seemed near. Then shortly before the Pope’s visit not so long ago they even placed a tram on the rails on Princes St. But, was it functional? Well, the thing itself seemed pretty functional… but the rails lead nowhere! Yes, Princes St. had rails installed, but at each end they just terminated abruptly. Construction was still not finished, and there was no evidence to why the works were halted.

Shortly after the scandal grew as the council got into endless debates with the construction committees and the mediators. There was a lot of frustration over the cost of the whole project, and the fact that it was coming out of the public’s pockets. Then they started a debate over whether to scrap the whole project and remove the tram lines, or finish the project off. The issue was costs of course: Is it cheaper to go on or to back off? This was followed by more discussions…

At the end of August, 2011, there were several interesting events reported in the news. I believe the first one is that the council decided to back out and scrap the project. Alarmingly quite a lot of people complained, including citizens who initially opposed the project. Afterwards, the tram chiefs decided it might be best to terminate the line at Haymarket. Finally, according to the Metro newspaper, a consortium (Train manufacturer Bombardier and French company RATP) declared that they would like to take over the construction of the trams and offered a good price. They tried the same previously but were rejected.

Now for my personal view: This is an absolutely ridiculous matter. Come on, years to build a tram system? How hard can it be? So much debate about the costs, so much time wasted, so much money spent on ridiculous meetings in posh hotels that reached no conclusion, so much chaos in Princes St. for years. I wonder how stupid a group of people must be not to be able to develop a proper system, a clear view of the costs based on materials and labour, a precise estimate of time, and a funding effort to obtain the money from various sources instead of relying primarily on the council.

Half of the tram line is already there! It’s just a matter of being intelligent, adding some numbers, deciding on the best strategy, and going ahead with it. You can’t back out now. That would be like NASA saying “oh, sorry astronauts, we’ll have to leave you up there on the ISS because we’ve disbanded all our shuttles and it would cost us too much money to get someone else to bring you down.” (I seriously hope that doesn’t happen, that will be the moment I lose faith in humanity).

Anyway, that is just my 2p on this issue. Think first, then act, but don’t spend too long thinking, and don’t back out when you’ve already started to act.

On the usefulness of tablet computers

Posted by lemiffe in A.I., Apple, Business, Computers, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Operating Systems, Products, Technology, Windows on Sep 13th, 2010 | 4 comments

I recently read an interesting article on TechCrunch which talks about the 6 or so operating systems geared towards tablets which will soon have to face a battle for who gains the most popularity in the limited market of tablet PCs.

Linda Lawrey posted this article on her Google Buzz which sparked a discussion about who might be coming out as winner, but it also generated a conversation about why anyone would want a tablet in the first place. I think 3+ million iPad owners would have something to add to that conversation, however, my post is not about that.

I personally believe tablets are useful for certain things today: While not exactly great for use on-the-go such as mobile phones they are useful as a replacement for net-books, say, for use while having a coffee at Starbucks, for taking notes while at meetings, or as a bed-side computer to check mail and browse the web before bed. But my thoughts about their usefulness are centred on the future: Internet-powered centralised intelligent home & office devices.

I can see them integrated to each room in a house, possibly on the wall, where one can quickly browse their calendar, program their alarm, control the lights of the house, communicate with the house’s security system, view CCTV video from other rooms and program DVR recording, control other digital devices from their room, etc.

Imagine: You’re going to bed so you go to your wall and program the alarm clock for 8 AM, you also program your children’s alarm clock for 7:30 AM, activate the home security system, and set up chilled-out relaxing music for the bedrooms in the house. You also program the device to start up the radiators at 6:00 AM and the hot water at the same time. At the same time you set up the A/C to maintain a certain ideal room temperature during the night. John, your kid, doesn’t like the music so he gets up and sets his own device to mute for his room. You wake up to the sound of music, increasing gradually in volume in each room, as a start to a great new day.

You might have a party that evening and you are having a discussion about a certain word definition, or the location of a country, so you get up, unplug the tablet from the wall, and perform a search on Wikipedia, bringing the tablet to the table and sorting out the discussion in moments.

In the office, you create a powerpoint presentation with interactive graphs and cool pictures on your PC. You store it on the local network, pop in to the conference room, take a tablet down from the wall, then you can discuss the points and make changes directly on the tablet, making the meeting a more productive one than the usual guy talking in front of a projector while people take notes. Not good enough? Connect a pico-projector to it, then you can have your boring meeting with the capability of making changes or taking meeting notes directly on the tablet, which makes the use of paper basically redundant.

So how useful do you believe they are? Useful enough right now? Or more useful in the near future?

My Social Network Map

Posted by lemiffe in Computers, Internet, Marketing, Products, Technology on Jul 27th, 2010 | 0 comments

Three days shy of a year ago I published a blog post about my social networks in which I explained a bit about the interconnectivity provided by sites such as Ping.fm which help you keep your status updates synchronised across social networks.

Last year I was on about 10 social networks, this year the number has gone up to 17 (which is  really19 as I excluded Google Reader and WordPress.com for visual purposes). But it seems to me that interconnectivity has still not matured enough, there is no “home” for your social networks, and I doubt this will change in the short term.

Click on the image to see a full-sized version.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant | Christopher S.

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing on Feb 15th, 2010 | 0 comments

I’ve been wanting to post something about Buzz for the last few days. It has been generating so much buzz, first of all with its instant appearance on the scene. Then with its privacy issues (that are being worked on). I wanted to write a detailed post about the pros and cons, however, I think this article I just found via Chris Brogan’s shared items details what I think much more clearly.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0

From the moment it launched, Google Buzz generated buzz:

• OMG another social network to manage
• OMG there’s too much noise
• OMG this is so redundant

And for the early adopters, it’s exactly that and more. It’s noise. It’s clutter.

It’s brilliant.

Here’s why. Google wants the best of the best data. Remember this. They are a data company. They are a data quality company. They are algorithmic in their approaches to solving problems.

For a lot of the social media crowd, the moment Buzz turned on, our valued inboxes became insanely cluttered as we linked up all our social media sites, networks, and properties. We discovered that frankly, we didn’t want the firehose of social media in our inboxes.

We realized quickly, if we didn’t already know, that most of our “friends” are in fact valueless robots spewing garbage at us all day. On services like Twitter and Facebook, we don’t really notice because it’s bite size garbage that passed by quickly. When it piles up in the inbox, we notice. Fast.

So for the early adopters, those who keep Buzz on, we’re pruning back hard. We’re not following back. We’re dropping auto-follows. We’re down to just a handful of people, close friends, that we REALLY want in our inboxes. How many of the self-proclaimed social media gurus are you actually allowing inside your inbox, in Buzz? Exactly.

Continue reading @ Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0 : Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero.

Removing The Noise | Six Pixels of Separation

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing on Feb 15th, 2010 | 0 comments

Too many people are looking for too many ways to follow too many people and places. Your best bet is to do the opposite…

Did you know that you can have your 140-character tweets from Twitter also cross-posted into your Facebook status, LinkedIn status and now even into your Google Buzz without doing much of anything besides letting each platform know that you would like this happen? And while that may sound convenient for you to ensure that anybody and everybody who is following you can get your information, it should come as no surprise that we’re quickly all barrelling towards an information and attention crash.

Continue reading… Removing The Noise | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image.