Bus drivers are cunts

The main thrust of what I'm getting at: there is no money in data transfer any more and mobile voice over IP is almost free once the infrastructure is in place. Therefore every phone operator in the world is facing a situation in which they need to sell targeted advertising thanks to sophisticated user profiling. Your phone operator is the one agency who knows where you are throughout the day (assuming your mobile is kept switched on... and most are), who you call and when, which web sites or services you use and when, etc.

Big network technology providers have flogged stuff on this basis for ages now... way before anyone had an iPhone and was actually living out the conspiracist's wet dream. However, phone operators are just one customer segment for them. The other main one is governments, specifically their police forces and security services. Occasionally someone causes a fuss over a network provider doing business with some nasty regime or other, but the truth is they have been in bed with the Western powers for the duration.

I've typed myself bored now but I hope you get the picture.

Sectionfive said:

cunts!

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enlarge pls

luka said:

cunts!

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better

...except when they're being awesome

Heard a great bus anecdote from a mate yesterday - apparently some shithead had parked his bimmer in a bus stop while he nipped to KFC, greeting pleas from the driver and members of the public to move it with invitations to fuck themselves, at which point the driver decided the service couldn't be held up any longer and 'accidentally' scraped her bus down the entire length of his pride and joy.

nobody on dissensus use the bus any more

I take it occasionally. can sometimes actually kind of enjoyable if you're in no rush.

very occasional use. But when the car broke down in Cornwall, we had to get three buses back from the scrapyard near Hayle to the Lizard.

Was a bit hectic. First off, there's loads of different companies, so you can't get a ticket for all of them.

Second, a lot of them don't have official stops. We were using Google to figure out the itinerary, but where Google said there was a stop, there was none.

Then we asked another bus driver and he said the one we wanted wasn't his company, so he didnt know...

One of them on a different day was a real hero though. We had about 10 bags and were really struggling with them, but he got into the spirit and said he would get us there in time for our connection.

He told me when to get off and run to catch up the other bus we needed.

The other strange thing about Cornwall is that there was no-one else on the buses at all. And going through some of the villages was like being on a ride. Massive double decker struggling up hills and round corners.

I like buses though, I always have. I think cos I had to get bus to school all the time.

The driver was really cool, he was called TD. And he had one of those lighters where its a woman in a bikini, then you turn it upside down and all the clothes fall off. Coolest thing in the world when you are 11. He used to call me "Captain" for some reason.

catalog said:

Was a bit hectic. First off, there's loads of different companies, so you can't get a ticket for all of them.

Then we asked another bus driver and he said the one we wanted wasn't his company, so he didnt know...

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This kinda shit drives me absolutely fucking mental.

Captain Catalog does have a certain alliterative appeal to it.

sufi said:

nobody on dissensus use the bus any more

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I still use the bus. Only 8 years til I get free* travel on them in London too, so screw you all.

Few things are cooler than looking out of a window of the top deck when you're not in a hurry.

I should probably use my bike more, although I have an aversion to being crushed by motorised transport.

(*My guess is that this will be withdrawn at some point in the next 8 years in the same way that the pension age keeps increasing.)

Obviously bus drivers are not "cunts" and are one group that has proved essential during the pandemic who have been rewarded by ill health and abuse from passengers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55623059

IdleRich said:

This kinda shit drives me absolutely fucking mental.

Captain Catalog does have a certain alliterative appeal to it.

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The tube used to be owned by different companies. There was a ticket office at Euston between the two branches of what is now the Northern Line, so you would need to queue up and get a ticket if you changed.

Something something most rational and efficient economic system.

i remember years ago when i worked at a train station and got into a long conversation with an old timer... he was talking about how in the 70s, when it was BR, it was all dirty trains, constantly late. And privatisation changed all that, made them cleaner, more efficient - "I've seen both sides, worked both sides, I know" - that sort of thing.

But he did also say that what the TOCs ("train operating companies") have done now truly takes the piss... like the fact that singles and returns are not priced equitably, and the way fares are negotiated based upon an increasingly algorithmic process, so they literally make no transparent sense to the consumer.

All for a service that is there to mainly get people to work.

john eden said:

The tube used to be owned by different companies. There was a ticket office at Euston between the two branches of what is now the Northern Line, so you would need to queue up and get a ticket if you changed.

Something something most rational and efficient economic system.

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Indeed, some of the random spacing of the stations on the underground I think harks back to different stations being controlled by different companies, or at least different companies agitating for certain ones to be built, or something like that. I don't know.
That seems completely ridiculous now though, cos it is. But yeah in Oxford they used to have different companies running the bus routes too and it's incredibly infuriating to wait for ages at a stop, and then a bus comes along and you celebrate, but your return ticket isn't fucking valid. I'm getting really properly angry just thinking about it.

But yeah, I like to take the bus when it's an option. I like to see the world, read a magazine and so on. But it is a bit weird that from where I live I can a train to Lisbon which takes twenty minutes and costs about one euro, or I can take one of three bus routes which take almost an hour and cost about four euros. So you really have to be in mind for a scenic route to take them.

i remember years ago when i worked at a train station and got into a long conversation with an old timer... he was talking about how in the 70s, when it was BR, it was all dirty trains, constantly late. And privatisation changed all that, made them cleaner, more efficient - "I've seen both sides, worked both sides, I know" - that sort of thing.
But he did also say that what the TOCs ("train operating companies") have done now truly takes the piss... like the fact that singles and returns are not priced equitably, and the way fares are negotiated based upon an increasingly algorithmic process, so they literally make no transparent sense to the consumer.
All for a service that is there to mainly get people to work.

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To drily say that "singles and returns are not priced equitably" is a massive understatement of a huge scandal. The way they run they run it s a fucking disgrace, making it so hard to work out the best/cheapest way, gouging people where there is no alternative and dropping the price in towns with an airport cos otherwise it would be cheaper to fly.
Privatised rail drop unprofitable lines as well, I mean, that's totally wrong to me. You have some people who want to get to work and maybe their journey is not profitable for the train company, but if they're a doctor or something, their going to work is profitable for the country. It just seems obvious to me that the availability of good transport to places that people want or need to get to ought to be decided by more than the bottom line of whatever company happens to win a contract to make money from that area.
I barely remember BR but I never noticed any improvement. Although there ought to be one seeing as the companies run fewer lines, charge obscene prices and get government subsidies which half the time they pay to their shareholders anyway. I think that rather than compare the companies running the rail now to the 70s why not compare them to their contemporaries in Europe now? They pretty much all seem to run more cheaply, more efficiently and cleaner and better, why is that?

IdleRich said:

To drily say that "singles and returns are not priced equitably" is a massive understatement of a huge scandal. The way they run they run it s a fucking disgrace, making it so hard to work out the best/cheapest way, gouging people where there is no alternative

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you belong in the house of lords rich.

@IdleRich Because they’re not opportunistic cunts

i think the point of difference is most probably Thatcher? No other European country has gone as far as GB.

It’s been a slow decline

Nottingham council is pretty solid for green infrastructure initiatives. Everyone uses the tram. It got so hammered in the 80’s that the pushback has been long and painfully extended

hey that reminds me - bus drivers are NOT cunts cos steve underwood was/still is(?) a bus driver


He deserves an OBE for services to noise.

WashYourHands said:

@IdleRich Because they’re not opportunistic cunts

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But aren't some of them even the same companies though?
Though I take your basic point cos I am slowly realising that the British are slowly becoming the worst people in Europe.