simoncoles.org   Simon Coles Personal Blog

Carphone Warehouse have a table of UK iPhone Tariffs on their web site. Which is kind of useful, although it takes a lot to figure out what’s best.

As far as I can see, O2 and Orange are nearly the same except for the lowest pay monthly plan, which is slightly more generous from Orange, for the same price.

Vodafone is less generous in their monthly plans, unless you are seriously addicted to texting.

But then when you get into the additional stuff, it all becomes as clear as mud. For example, the o2 bolt ons mean you can get unlimited texting just as you can from Vodafone, for no extra charge.

And then there’s Tesco’s iPhone plan which is apparently provided by o2.

Of course, it is all so complex that no one really takes advantage of their cellphone plan, do they?

For work, what I really care about is the International Roaming charges, which again are as clear as mud.

I suspect this is one of those decisions where you could spend hours analysing it to save the grand total of 10p in the year. But you’ll never know.

So it’s down to an emotional decision – I’ve always had a bad customer experience with Vodafone (although their network is apparently better), O2’s been ok although they’ve been a bit cynical in their exploitation of iPhone users and their network is apparently not as good as the rest, and then Orange – my first phone was with Orange, and I’ve had no complaints, but that was years ago.

Shouldn’t this be easier?

It seems that the travel security policies are getting saner… but with a fatal twist according to this Reuters article.

Apparently it’s now doing to be down to each pilot (I assume the Captain) to decide the security restrictions in flight:

The TSA confirmed Monday that pilots can now decide whether to allow passengers to keep items in their laps or require them to be seated during portions of the flight.

The agency also will let pilots and airlines determine whether in-flight entertainment systems that show a plane’s location should be turned off to avoid a security risk, an agency spokeswoman said.

How’s this going to work out? Whenever there have been restrictions placed on passengers it has always been presented as “The authorities require us to xxx” which means there’s a higher authority involved, and the people in front of you enforcing the rules can’t be blamed, or argued with.

Now we will all know it was the guy at the front of the plane that made us all sit like naughty school children – or not, as the case maybe. All sorts of considerations are going to come into play aside from security, and every single thoughtful passenger is going to be second-guessing the decision of the pilots.

Of course, not only will there be an emotional reaction for each individual flight, but people who travel a lot are quickly going to start to inform their travel choices based on what’s likely to happen between different airlines. If one airline routinely inconveniences you in the name of security and another is more pragmatic, which one is a business traveller likely to choose?

Seems to me that the security breach was way before anyone got on the plane, the restrictions imposed over the past week are of little use but meant the authorities are seen to “be doing something”. And now they’re going to take the whole hot potato and throw it at the flight crew, who will take all the blame either way.

Deeply unimpressive. Perhaps it is time to Fire the TSA.

I’ve been watching with increasing concern the absurd reaction to the latest security incident involving planes. You really couldn’t make it up.

This article on The Economist’s Gulliver blog is the best I’ve seen so far – good summary of what’s happening with some decent analysis.

Just found via Twitter  - here’s the TSA regulation with some commentary.

This is completely nuts – I am struck by the difference between the UK and the US in response to Terrorism. I recall when the IRA bombed the London commuter rail network, we all went in as normal the next day because to do otherwise would have meant the Terrorists would win.

In contrast, the US Authorities seem intent on “being seen to do something” and if that means something massively disruptive but totally ineffective (“Security Theatre“) well so be it.

Come on guys, get a grip. The latest incident was a failure of your existing processes. Fix that, don’t shove more inconvenience in the way of the public – otherwise we’ll turn into a Police State and then the Terrorists will have won.

There’s risk in every day life, let’s keep things in perspective – otherwise the baddies will get exactly what they want.

Lovely – CIO.com interviews Santa’s CIO.

The Christmas experience has been enriched with the discovery of Herman, a homing pigeon who sits on Santa’s sleighdoing all the navigation of the Sleigh – he’s Santa’s GPS, and will fly down to Rudolph and whisper instructions in his ear as needed. Additional responsibilities include liaising with Air Traffic Control.

A little known fact is that Herman lives on Gin & Tonic and all good Children will leave a G&T alongside the Sherry & Mince Pie (for Father Christmas) and Carrot (for Rudolph).

There is currently a lively debate ongoing chez Coles about the existence of Herman and how it all works out. However we believe we have spied him on some of the NORAD Santa Tracking videos.

Happy Christmas everyone….