Technology: Or not…

There’s something awful about getting the DART home on friday evening. About 60% of 9-5ers go straight to the pub, which means those left getting the usual DART home are ever so slightly disgruntled about whatever chore or responsibility is causing them to go about their usual business. Things are made more hectic by school-children free for the weekend, students on their way home to mammy with large bags (the boys i mean, naturally!), and various random commuter trains (in this case to Gorey) nonsensically interrupting the usual pattern of arrivals and departures.

In the midst of all this I was faced with incompetent ‘technology’. I know it’s not the meaning of the word exactly but I like to delude myself that in most cases technology implies advancement, and maybe even convenience. At approx 5:37pm on Friday I was reminded that computers can never replace people as fully as they might like (not that anybody will complain until they have no jobs, but that’s an argument for another day).

DART have relatively recently installed automated ticketing machines. The standard ‘human interface’ is still available, but at Tara Street it’s actually quite out of the way. So, at 5:37pm (approx.), I approxed one of the aforementioned machines to purchase a ticket for my journey home. Knowing that it would cost €1.95 (ridiculously overpriced, but again, an argument for another day), I had my €2 ready. The machine, which has a surprisingly manageable interface, informed me abruptly that it would not be providing change. I consoled myself that I would not normally take the 5c change anyway [another case of self-delusion, I like to think that leaving my small amount of change will somehow cheer someone else up. Nonsense I know, but a daily foible nonetheless]. I selected my ticket and journey type, and quite happily inserted one euro coin and two 50c pieces. And they came straight back out.

I was then, quite rudely, informed by a flashing green and yellow screen that:

YOU MUST ENTER EXACT CHANGE

NO CHANGE WILL BE GIVEN

PLEASE ENTER EXACT COINS

It took me a minute to realise what I was being told. This supposedly ‘intelligent’ machine wasn’t able to accept my extra 5c. So then, while the DART I wanted to be on was arriving at the station, I had to scramble around my wallet to try to find EXACTLY €1.95. Tell me, who on earth has exactly €1.95 in their purse or pocket at 5:37pm on a Friday evening?

To say that I was frustrated would be a grand and glorious understatement.

As I (eventually) made my way towards a DART some time later, I was standing at the doors waiting for passengers to alight, and one of them took it upon himself to try to ‘push’ the DART doors open… faster? It occurred to me, that perhaps man and machine are never meant to really understand each other…

Nice one..

You may or may not be aware of my addiction to Empire magazine. Either way, the whole world deserves to know that they produced a fantastic movie trivia booklet with this month’s edition. Nowhere else could you find a full-page illustration of the Three Amigo’s Salute (p.47), or The View From Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (p.82), or, best of all, LightSaber Handles from the Star Wars Saga (p.19).

Blissful…

Boo hoo hoo…

Sickening rubbish on telly these days. The great and good being ignored and instead ‘the premier’ (as our ever-ignorant neighbours like to call him) is sitting on ryan tubridy’s show spouting c-r-a-p about how hard his job is and how the poor bab works 14-16 hour days and only gets to eat dinner at 11pm at night.

The man gets paid €268,500 a year. He is one of the best paid political leaders in the EU and he has the cheek to give out about the hours? I know PLENTY of people who work just as hard if not harder for not even a tenth of that wage. And they make fewer mistakes. And they are held considerably more accountable.

It enrages me to watch a man with such potential to do good making such a mess of it. I’m relatively sure he’s a decent guy but assuming that’s the case why can’t he see the wood for the trees?! And why oh why is this nation so charmed by this one man that they will happily re-elect his frankly irresponsible government time and again, no matter how bad a job they do? It’s like this. I’ve (already) known too many ‘men’ (and I mean that in the loosest sense, in that they were notably lacking of certain physiological appendages and were certainly not gentlemen) who were as charming as you could imagine, and behind it all they were as trustworthy as your local heroin dealer.

A daily poll in one of the AM-Rags last week showed that 92% of respondents thought Bertie wasn’t worth the money. So why can’t I bring myself to hope that that 92% will act accordingly on May 11, 2007…??