I have decided to keep a list of reasons for delays on trains:

30th November 2006
GNER – first train delayed due to ‘plastic bag on overhead lines’
GNER – second train delayed (a different train from the one above) due to ‘weather in the Aviemore area’ – if there wasn’t ‘weather in the Aviemore area’ I would be even more concerned

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It is with regret that MMISoftware announces it will not be supporting a recently announced Greek computer. This is mainly because the computer is over 2000 years old.

A truly fascinating story in the Guardian Newspaper (UK). It appears that a mix of cogs and wheels found in a Roman shipwreck is an ancient Greek computer capable of predicting the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon, basically an astronomical calendar. Incredible.

For the full story see: Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

Not really MMISoftware related but I travel a lot on business and when I can, I travel by train. Over the years I have personally heard (or read about) a number excuses, my favourite is ‘leaves on the line’ and the best two I have read about are ‘wrong sort of rain’ (an excuse given for delays in Manchester a few years ago) and ‘wrong sort of pollen’ (last summer (or the one before), pollen released from Rape (a yellow flowering plant grown for oil) fields clogged air filters on trains causing the engines to overheat) . I have therefore decided to keep my own list of reasons for delays on trains, and the first one is:

26th November 2006:
First Trains – going to London – signals struck by lightening, missed our arrival time in to London (as we were delayed), therefore no platform free.

I travel a lot by train in the UK, and I have recently noticed a lack of food on GNER trains. You go to the buffet and there is nothing. A few pieces of cake, a couple of rounds of tired old sandwiches, and that is it.

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Not really MMISoftware related, but good news for me (I often rent cars in the UK I have to keep requesting cars with tape players, and these are increasingly rare)…. It appears that the ban on MP3 player transmitters is to be lifted in the UK. This at least explains why these ‘illegal’ items having been appearing for sale in a number of shops in the UK in the last few months and over at [Amazon][Amazon_uk].

Full story: BBC NEWS | Politics | Ban on MP3 transmitters is lifted