6th April 2008 | No Comments

YouTube

As much as I like Youtube and the likes (e.g. Tudou) after spending some time today browsing through Youtube, the truth of this XKCD comic definitely hit home…

1st April 2008 | No Comments

Train Tickets

The other day I was looking for the train schedule to London, and decided to buy the train tickets online. I had never done that before for train tickets, so I was curious how it was going to work; for the National Express bus you simply get an e-ticket, which you print out and show to the driver. However, printed e-tickets won’t fit in the ticket barriers at the station, so I assumed it would have to work differently.

I was pleasantly surprised by how it worked: you buy your tickets online using your credit or debit card, and get a confirmation code. Now when you go to the station, you simply insert your card into the ticket machine, enter your confirmation code, and the tickets are printed on the spot! A very nice and efficient way of using the internet to buy tickets in advance and save queuing time, if I may say so. One might complain about the British rail system, but the Dutch railways clearly aren’t this advanced yet…

Only one small nitpick: I wish one could enter a confirmation code manually, so I don’t have to write the supplied confirmation code on a piece of paper and take it with me.