Stuart Hacking

As of Monday 26th March Ulsterbus raised their prices yet again. However, I figured from experience that this information would not yet be apparent on Translink’s website. I was surprised to find that indeed they have already updated their site with the new ticket consessions – however they are still advertising the student return ticket at the old prices.

Seeing an opportunity I decided that I would only pay £4, no matter how far I had to fight it!

The bus driver was the first obstacle. I handed him the £4 and said “Student return to Belfast, please.” He punched it in – £4.10 came up. Undaunted I told him that the translink website was advertising the student return at £4. He replied “Well, this machine says £4.10.” A slight argument ensued and his finishing move was to tell me that either I pay £4.10 or I stay in Ballyclare. The offer to take it up with an inspector at the depot was presented.

On arriving at the depot I tell the driver that I will only be a minute. I approached the office and stated my case. The inspector responds that maybe the website just hasn’t been update yet and asks when I checked it. Calmly, I inform him that it was only about 20 minutes ago; that the ticket prices had been updated on the website, and finally that the student return was still being advertised at £4. He spent that next 10 minutes on the phone to customer services.

I was next told that since the Ballyclare depot has no internet access my claim cannot be backed up, a rather lame counterpoint I thought and the inspector made no false inpression that he was in any way impressed by my quest for a 10p refund on my ticket.

This is the situation at the moment: If I can produce a printout of their website showing this falsely presented information then Ulsterbus will gladly write me a cheque for 10 pence.

I just want to say at this point that I’m not doing this for the money, but more for the reason that Ulsterbus will gladly defend their right to present inaccurate information and expect the consumers to put up with it.

fun, life Rant, stubborn, transport

Andres’ thoughts – Top ten things ten years of professional software development has taught me

This article really rings true, especially if you end up working at a large company. I know when I worked at Microsoft being able to talk to the other developers and managers was much more important than knowing every last thing about C# or C++.

Computers, Development Programming, work

Wow… It’s been what? 3 months since the last CG Film was released. Some of us may have been hoping that the novelty had finally wore off – That stories could once again be told through the most suitable medium rather than being wrapped into that template applied to animation.

Fear not however as some unknown company (that’s right.. apparently no-one is owning up to this as of yet) has created just the movie to capture our imaginations and transport us into a childhood land of fantasy.

The movie? Well – it’s The Reef released on the 9th March in the UK.

The story explores the unfamiliar waters of a child who is separated from his parents and makes a new life on a reef – it’s almost an original plot already. Some of the characters you may not have recognised before – There’s a Pelican, at least one turtle, and a nasty shark who appears to be sneaking up on our heroes with a friendly smile on his face… Wait a minute. I’m sure I’ve seen that smile before…

Of course I have, because Pixar already released this movie 4 years ago. How could I forget.

“Hey… unknown company! Didn’t you realise we moved onto vehicles this year? Hurry up and give us more cars!”

Come to think of it, Dreamworks have not yet released their own movie about vehicles. It seems odd for a company who’s current practice seems to be closely imitating Pixar but with more celebrity voiceovers.

(After a little more scouting I have discovered that the company responsible for this is ‘Digiart,’ however I intend to leave the post as is because ‘unknown company’ has better rhythm)

Computers, Graphics, movies animation, cg, enough, movies