Thursday, January 06, 2011
Telebus
It used to be that you could call Winnipeg Transit Telebus and type in your bus stop number and get the time your bus comes next and all was good. But over the last year they've started putting in little advertisements for their other services like BusTxt (which I, as a Linux using poweruser can not understand) and Twitter (Which I as an intelligent human being have no care for). My problem isn't the advertising per se, it's the fact that I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE GODDAMN THING. I can't interrupt it, otherwise it will take longer than playing the message. I can't just press the stop number, because it won't let me. It's a cavalcade of FAIL and it infuriates me. I don't care about twitter. I don't care about bustxt. I just want to know when the next bus is coming.. oh look, I missed it because I was too busy trying to find out what time the bus is coming to see that it just came. Who is the genius who set this thing up? Newer Technology always makes things worse. Same thing at the Library. I miss the old winnipeg public library terminals you could telnet into. I hate using the web to get that information. It's so slow. Technology from the 80's is faster. Why is that.
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3 comments:
Heh...technology from the 80s is faster because it isn't larded with massive graphics and flash ads that add no value but just slow things down and make them clunkier!
As for transit, telebus might leave something to be desired but you certainly have to give them credit for the LED schedules they've put up at some stops. Very handy, and it goes a long way to eliminating the "Is that bus EVER going to come?" feeling you often get when waiting for a bus in the evening.
I intensely dislike the Navigo page. In our rush to embrace all the bells and whistles of new media we often overlook the simpler things like being linear and concise.
@OMC: I don't trust those LED displays. I was watching for my bus the other day. It said 16 minutes. 15 minutes later it still said 16 miuntes. Then 1 minute later it said 2 minutes. 5 minutes later the bus came. It tells you THAT your bus is coming, but it certainly doesn't WHEN it is coming.
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