f13.net

So a nice chap writes a free app that lets people check train times; which works for a year until ~1 week ago when the organisation that hosts the train time information decides that you need a license to access this freely available information (http://mocko.org.uk/b/2010/10/29/national-rail-have-killed-my-train-times-app/)  :uhrr:

There is some follow up correspondence with the chief executive (http://mocko.org.uk/b/2010/11/02/national-rail-have-killed-my-uk-train-times-app-still-dead/) which doesn't really further the case. It's just all a bit baffling that they want to make it harder for people to access train time data. There seems to be no advantage in trying to charge for this service, but then there might be subtleties that I missed.

My guess? Somebody at National Rail signed a contract with another app developer for a non-free train times app (one is mentioned in the second post) who then pushed National Rail to enforce exclusive access to the data for the authorized app. Meaning, of course, that public information has been quietly privatized so that some cuntweasel developer can make money off it, probably earning National Rail such a small revenue cut as to be nonexistent.

And the temptation is to think this is no big deal. But this is the sort of shit that is hurting the reputation of modern governance all around the world, eroding the confidence of citizens in dribs and drabs. When caught out, the bureaucrats who are involved in these kinds of shenangians typically throw up all sorts of process-driven smokescreens, and pretend that somehow there's an arcane issue that the general public isn't privy to, and maybe there should be an effort to study the problem and suchlike. Mostly so they can move on to the next bit of common-sense defying weaselry.

Don't even get me started.

This will hit politics at lightspeed.

I blame Apple's app store policy.

I can't even think about apps without getting pissy. We have a bunch of middle-manager types demanding apps to access their data. With no rationale. No explanation of why they need it.

Just for the 'coolness' factor. Which is generally just a 'fuck, okay, whatever', but this is sensitive and secure data. It's not quite like CIA analysts demanding the ability to access their intel databases from their iPhones from the Starbucks down the street, but it's closer to that than, say, making an app to let them access shit they normally use a browser or whatnot for.

Expensive waste of time, with no rationale, and even more expensive if we want to actually keep it secure and stick to the security regs.

UGH.

I think the guy is actually an android dev, I'm not 100% sure though

It's not a mobile "app", it's a Web page formatted for mobile devices:

http://mocko.org.uk/pda/trains

Edit: mobile

My comment was literally just a ridiculous blame whatever's not popular now post. Knew I should have gone with I blame Obama or I blame John Stewart. I'm thinking Khaldun's probably nailed this, especially since all this guy had done was reformat the National Rail site. Fuck since when did train timetables become private intellectual property? Is teletext going to have start paying fees for airline times? Why the fuck would you make it harder for customers to know when trains are unless someone's making money off it (and since they have it available free I'm guessing it's not the train companies)?

Except this doesn't seem to be the case in this instance. The information, according to the OP, was publically available.

I think Khaldun is probably on the mark for this one. That or someone at National Rail is bored and just wants to fuck with people.

Look, just to put this in some form of perspective :

This is information that you can walk into your local station and pick up in paper form utterly free of charge.  Train timetables are the very essence of free information.  The idea of paying at for this at any point in any format is utterly ridiculous.

However, because it's Data now and we're living in a Web 2 world where we're constantly attempting to leverage our microtransactions through an utterly new paradigm means that some utter cunthole decided that this Data is not free.

It's simple.  This is the work of a Cunthole.  Stop overthinking it or getting on board the free-market train or generally being the type of argumentative dicks that you usually are.

This is Cunthole stuff.  And what's worse about it all is the Constant Stream of Fucking Lies that surrounds our society at the moment where a Cunthole can put together a tissue thin rationalisation around their cunthole behaviour and expect anyone to swallow it.

This is a Railway making it harder for Railway customers to know when the trains run.

Christ on a bike.

Hey look if it's not formatted for mobile viewing their licensing fee is really reasonable and by that I mean freely available on-line as well as in stations. (http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/3828.aspx)

edit: they're|=their.

Last updated 18/05/2010?  You guys have 18 months in Europe?   :why_so_serious:

No, we use the logical date format. Day - Month - Year

From the smallest unit to the largest. Because thats the only sorting that makes sense!  :why_so_serious:

I've never understood American dates.  Nor Stardates.  Both make as much sense.

Actually, the most logical  format is largest unit to the smallest, that way you can easily tack the time onto the date and still sort it properly by using sort(8).

ddmmyyyy is still better than the ass-backwards system the amerikuns use though. :grin:

Oh, I tend to agree with Khaldun. I just can't really see "apps" without going into a frothing rage over that particular waste of time.

I think someone at National Rail decided they needed an official National Rail "app" -- not exactly a bad idea, you know -- and hired someone to do it, and that someone got them to agree with an exclusitivity deal, and enforced it.

Good idea -- more avenues for people to find out train schedules without calling them up --  shit implementation, leading to this stupidity.

Thanks for that tissue thin rationalisation.

 :oh_i_see:

We use mm/dd/yy because when we say a date, it's in the form of "November fourth, twenty-ten", not "the fourth of November, twenty-ten".

In computer files I do put the year first, in which case yyyy-mm-dd makes sense. ;D

Real progammers measure the date in seconds since 1970. :)

Not if they 1) want non-programmers to be able to read it, and 2) they're too :effort: to manually decode it in their heads anyways. :P

Oh, be nitpicky. We do everything in GMT here, and let users pick how they want to display it in local time. Default is american standard.

I always date things like "4 Nov 2010" so I can pretend to be cool like a European without risk of getting jailed for fraud when people think I've been pre-dating things back to April 11th.
Irrelevant! You don't go around saying "that costs dollars ten", do you? Do you?

So, business as usual then.

Not over here.  This is us starting to adopt habits from our oversees brethren.  Because it's worked out so very well for them.

Us starting to adopt habits from our overseas brethren would mean getting the damn trains to run according to the fucking timetable in the first place.  National Rail timetables are not a statement of intent that "the train will be arriving exactly at this time and departing time" but more of guideline - an indication that there might be a train at that time if you're lucky.

tl;dr - I was being snarky about National Rail's timetables.  :oh_i_see:

The top American exports are crazy christianity, and shitty right-wing economics. We pride ourselves on being a culture of ideas. :)

edit: wrong thread

If a mod would delete this post, that'd be grand. I apparently haven't woken up yet, despite it being almost 2pm.