It's Promissory Estoppel time - Its promissory estoppel time! Promissory Estoppel!
That title's supposed to be sung (or randomly shouted) to the tune of "Its Penut Butter Jelly Time" =]
Anyhow its because I was traveling back to London from Colchester yesterday when I incurred the wrath of Ticket Collectors. Basically my ticket was 'out of date' so I had no valid ticket and hence had to pay a penalty fare of the original ticket PLUS a £10 fee. Was it my fault? Was it my fault my arse!
I had passed it through one of the automated ticket gates which let me past. Therefore I assumed it would let me travel on that day and I carried on my merry way till I was stopped by a ticket collector on the way to London.
Basically I get to appeal to some independent commission. So my reasoning is this: If the gate had performed its sole prerogative duty and ensured that people with invalid tickets couldn't travel, therefore to warn them if their tickets were invalid, I would have known of this and could have purchased a new ticket.
There is legal principle behind this as well. Promissory Estoppel. Basically if one party asserts to another party that a certain set of conditions are true and the recipient party acts upon that assertion to his detriment the initial party is unable to later claim that those conditions no longer exist.
See by telling me my ticket was valid for travel that day First Great Eastern made me a promise that I acted upon by taking the train. Therefore they are 'estopped' from later claiming to me that my ticket is invalid for travel and hence applying the fine.
At first I was pissed off but then I realized that I actually got to do a bit of Legal work.. Later I realized I would probably pay £10 for the opportunity to do this. Man I'm sad but it sure will be fun if the commission decides otherwise.. I'll take civil proceedings against them if need be! I will have my £10 back! The law is in my corner!
How cold is it outside? F********!!! CLOSE THE DOOR!! CLOSE IT!!!
My good friend Alex arrived last night at some ungodly hour (1) and I had to go to Liverpool Street to meet him. The McDonald's at the station was open so I picked up 2 apple pies as I figured he probably was starving and I had no food in the house =]
He arrived, most grateful for the apple pie (Hey, one of them had to be for me =] I'm generous but I'm not two apple pies generous) and we spent 30 minutes outside the station freezing our buts off waiting for the N11. We were most relieved when it eventually did arrive (I couldn't feel my face) and the trip was quite speedy. Still, nothing compared to how fast it'll be once congestion charging arrives (mwahahahah!!). Anyhow we got to the flat at around 2, had a warm drink of tea/hot chocolate and went out separate ways at the end of the corridor, basically passing out just as we reached our rooms.
This morning I decided that I would pick up the RAM I ordered which had arrived the day before. Sadly although I had the "You weren't here" card from the Post Office I had arrived in London after they shut the sorting office close to the flat so I couldn't collect it.
I went to Sainsbury's and made a circuit out of it. Picking up the daily essentials, Milk, pasta, RAM etc.
Anyhow I'm stocked up on food again (woo!) and I installed the ram. Just opened Genevieve my Quicksilver G4 and slotted it in, started up without a hitch and opened the "About this mac" panel with pride, lovingly noting the 768mg my tower was now accredited. Mmm... Ram
As for what they say about OS X running especially speedily when you have loads of ram, I can't be too sure as I've only had it in about 1 hour and haven't been engaged in anything especially taxing on the system. I might pop in Giants; Citizen Kabuto the king of all comedy strategy FPS's and see what difference it makes. The other acid test is Civ III. Don't as me how but the Mac dev team decided that it'd be:
"Really neat if our game ate so much ram that it ground to pittifully slow speeds even on top of the line powermacs!"
Muuuuuuuuuzac!
Ah yes, that crappy sounding 3 track CD can only mean one thing; waiting for a customer service expert.
Today it was One.Tel my new broadband provider (well.. To be anyway) as I called up to ask "what the hell was going on with my order" as I hadn't received any updates. Anyhow turns out they really aren't to blame (I didn't really expect them to be, they seemed a nice enough company) and the true villain's identity was so obvious that they would all have to had simultaneously worn eyepatches, prosthetic limbs and spoken with an odd accent for me to have guessed any quicker. BT..... Dum dum duuuuuum!
Yes as was reported in The Register, BT has broadband by the balls and is squeezing as much as it possibly can do without getting sued. Basically One.Tel have to hand their orders over to BT for the infrastructure work on checking the line and stuff because BT won't let them. It is at this point (after 26 tea breaks) that BT get back to them giving them a 'Live-Date' (38 tea breaks later) so that One.Tel can issue usernames, passwords and line-installations.
They say since the baton was handed over to BT on the 23rd I should get my 'Live-Date' soon and they can then do stuff. Still, I have little trust for a company who's Dial-Up service changed from "BT Anytime" to "BT Sometimes" and finally to "BT When we feel like it". Urge to play Getaway Rising! Only for BT van scenes.. Screw killing people whilst wearing BT overalls. I want to total the BT van! =]
To go back to the title the One.Tel line-hold music wasn't all that bad, in fact it was quite a nice choir piece. Unfortunately it lost marks after I started hearing it again - arrgh!
Right the time has come for me to Eat something!
later folks
John
Posted by John Swaine at January 30, 2003 12:34 PM