Wednesday 2 November 2016

You want? You pay.


I mentioned the view from our front window a couple of posts ago, and this is it. Right now we have the Autumn colours, and soon - I hope - everything will be dusted in a white frost. Feel free to embiggen it (I just wanted to use that word again).

I just leaned out the window with the camera on my phone, but today I am due to get my first smartphone (iPhone) through the post. That one, I am told, has an 8gb camera on it.

I have put off getting any phone which is more intelligent than I am for a long time, but decided that I now actually need one. When I paid the breakdown driver the other day, he took a card payment using his phone, and I thought I could get a similar system up on one to allow for impulse purchases at H.I.'s exhibition at the end of the month. It turns out not to be that simple.

I could subscribe to a company which would send me a gadget if I subscribe for a year at a cost of £59 plus 1.95% of each transaction, but do I want to do that? I don't think so - not for one week of hoping someone will take the bait as an afterthought. So I have gone back to the obvious solution of everyone having had a smartphone for years, and also an online account with the ability to make a BACS transfer using their own phone.

I suppose I could install a contactless reader app and just steal £30 from everyone by deftly passing my phone over their back pockets. Since all of these gadgets and the software to run them were made or developed by the USA, I find it amazing that all the American tourists who come here do not have chip and pin cards to pay for things, as we have had for years. Many of them don't even know what chip and pin is, and have to swipe the cards using the magnetic strip.

It is ironic that the day my phone is due to arrive, two seperate newspapers are running a campaign to stop lorry-drivers from using their phones whilst driving. A British lorry-driver has just been sent to prison for 10 years for killing a mother and her 3 children by piling into them at 50 mph whilst reading texts and choosing music, and not actually looking at the road ahead for about 5 seconds.

One of the newspapers has a picture of a lorry-driver using both hands on his phone, with the steering wheel left to work itself!

I can assure anyone who uses the road network in Somerset that I will not be playing games or looking for Pokemons at the wheel.

31 comments:

  1. Here you see cyclists reading their smartphone while flitting over a junction and the traffic lights show red -- and they also can't hear anything because they have headphones on.

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    1. Yes, we have those and if they are ever hit by a car, it is always the car's fault.

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  2. Do Polish people living in Britain becomes British?

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    1. Maybe I should have pointed out that the photos in the papers were all of lorries with foreign plates, but I know that Brits are just as guilty.

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    2. That is very true. The lorry driver you quoted as being involved in the accident was, however, Polish.

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    3. I am now moving to the other side of the bar for a drink with friends away from some of yours.

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    4. Was he? So another good reason to go with Brexit and cease trade with Europe altogether.

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  3. You can play with your pocket monster in your car if you tell it you are the passenger. It will probably ask you.

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    1. I am constantly playing with my pocket monster, which is why I am barred from many cafes.

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  4. Almost a month into learning how to use my first smart phone, I'm finding the process enjoyable, confusing, and slightly productive. Just learning about something new is interesting and I'm trying not to devote too much time to the small device, although the temptation is great.

    The view from your window is great. Just imagining all that has passed through that area over the years is something to contemplate.

    Oh, before I forget, most of my credit cards to have chips, but the PIN technology is still creeping in at a slower pace. I understand this is due to various entities negotiating about who pays for what part of the monetary transferring and who is liable when something untoward happens. Money talking again.

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    1. Yes, a lot of water has passed under that bridge. Re the chips, I imagined the slow progress must be to do with money - everything else is so fast.

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  5. Welcome to Smart Phone World. You can even use it as a telephone!

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    1. My new phone (which still hasn't arrived) is quite small, which I like. I see no point in carting around huge tablets (which can also be used as phones) unless you spend a lot of time out of the office.

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  6. That's all good and well, Tom. You "will not be playing games or looking for Pokemons at the wheel". But what else will distract you? Before you answer that indignantly - I know you are not a moron.

    No mobile/cell phone for me. They do not register on my radar of the necessities of life. I have lived for so (relatively) long without the need why should I start bumping into lamp posts now? What can a Smartphone give me that a simple question "what's the time" can't be given to me by a stranger using a smartphone? As conversation starters go useless; gratifyingly people will look at you in that startled way. The other day I asked a local for some directions. Naturally, dear dog in heaven, he had to consult his smartphone first.

    U

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    1. No, not a Mormon - not an Amish either, which is why I drive a car. Part of the nessecary skills of driving is not to be distracted by anything to the point where you crash. Most people take this as a given. I think I am pretty good at looking ahead, until I get out of the car. Do people always look terrified if you ask them a question on the street?

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    2. I didn't say "terrified". I said "startled". Startled because everyone assumes everyone else has all the information they need (including the time) at their fingertips. I don't.

      Where does "Mormon" come into it? Can't remember now, one of you said you were dyslexic.

      "Part of the necessary skills of driving...". You don't say. Really?

      Anyway, despite thinking you rather interesting, knowing Bath well and living only a stone throw away - I may yet abandon idea of inviting you for a drink at that Turtle place or, indeed, somewhere even classier. Views not withstanding.

      U

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    3. Phew. I tend not to hang about with people who seem to have no sense of humour at all, so your cancelled invitation is a massive relief to me. I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

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  7. The new iPhones have Apple Pay where you scan your thumbprint into your phone. You are going to enjoy your new phone.

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    1. Mine isn't that new! It's a re-con at £75 - rather less than the new ones at £800.

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    2. Which one did you order? The 6s can do apple pay.

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    3. 4s. I always buy a few years behind so other people can write the reviews. Also, I want a small one.

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  8. I absolutely love my iphone - so grateful for baby brother who gifted their big sister their old one. Now to find a damn app so I can post to my blog from my phone.

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    1. That's easy - just log on to Google Blogger. You can do that from any phone.

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  9. That lorry driver got what he deserved - and the photograph of the children must haunt him for the rest of his life.

    The view from your window is lovely - I can almost say you are lucky to hae that view and yet live in such a beautiful city. I am not a townie and the thought of living anywhere but deep in the countryside is abhorrent, but I really do love your view.

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    1. I live in quiet dread of killing someone in my car, even if it is their fault. I could be a countryman, but things did not work out that way.

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  10. What a view!

    The only thing worth seeing from the front windows of my house are some really nice, big, old neighborhood trees in a few yards. Magnolias, oaks, and dogwoods, mostly. And they're rapidly being cut down because they make the old, lazy, riding-lawn mower guys have to work a little harder to maintain their postage stamp cookie cutter yards. The nice old trees are one of the few cool things about this neighborhood.

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    1. I wish I had really nice, big, old neighbours I could stare at with binoculars.

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  11. If I'd have known, you could have had my old iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 for nothing ...... i have them in a drawer, in their boxes, in pristine condition !! .... doing nothing. XXXX

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  12. I've sold my old ones as I replaced them. Now I have the small version of the 6s (called iPhone SE). It looks like an iPhone5. After trading in my old one, it was pretty cheap.

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  13. What I really meant to write is how I love and miss that view. I would move back to Bath in a heart beat if I could make find employment there.

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