Problems of online gambling

What puzzles me about online gambling is how it is allowed to operate with 2 huge problems.

1. How easy it is to collude.
2. The unusually high odds of getting several great hands competing against each other

The worst case scenario for the first point is to have everyone except one person colluding. They can be communicating over the phone to tell each other their hands. You just cannot stop this. They could say they will monitor the behaviour and find out the collusion but this will be assuming they will hang around for long enough. After scamming the innocent, they can close the account and open another with a different computer. Even with just two people colluding, it is a huge advantage over the other players. I imagine spotting the collusion will become harder if there are fewer people colluding.

The second point can be prevented but it would not be in the interests of the gambling websites. They are only interested in more people betting. The more people with strong hands at the same time, the more money will go in the pot. I cannot understand how these skewed odds can be maintained.

Chip and pin problem

Chip and pin. This is a way to use our cards and we are told that there is more security. Well, the security increase is only completely true for the banks. Whilst for the consumers, we have much less proof that a card has been used fraudulently. Before, we could say that the signature is different and the experts would be able to prove this. By getting rid of the signature requirement,
the onus is on the consumer to prove that nothing untoward has happened. The best way is to have both: the signature and the pin.

Cheese stick packaging problem

I feed my daughter these small sticks of cheese individually packaged. My criticism is about opening the packaging. Why can they not design it so that no cheese will be left on the packaging? I tear it from the designated place and it leaves an awkward hole. Awkward because as I push the cheese out, the edges of the cheese scrape against the packaging taking bits of cheese with it. If they really want people to have all the cheese, they should design the packaging better. The impression I get is that the manufacturer is not bothered about their cheese being wasted? Surely they should be delivering a message that their cheese is so good that they do not want anything wasted. Too many things seem to lack passion these days.

More space in London Underground trains

Space is greatly lacking in the London underground trains. The space is constrained by the size of the tunnels. The size of the tunnels could be enlarged but this would be prohibitively expensive. So another solution would be to modify the trains. I remember being very disappointed by the most recent designs of the trains because they had become smaller. I can only think that this was due to a grave error. For the Northern line at least, the space problem has been exacerbated. You only have to look at the thickness of the walls and behind the seats. All that width is wasted for what reason? I have been on many underground and overground trains abroad and I find it incredible that the most recent designs require so much width for the walls. In contrast, the underground trains in Tokyo are incredulously thin. Don't squander so much space for the walls.

Another way to increase the space is to consider having the floor lower. But this may mean lowering the platforms and perhaps making the wheels smaller. The size of the wheels could be unaltered and cleverly housed underneath the seats. Although the heat from the wheels could be felt more by the people sitting down.

More thought is required but I do feel that more space can be claimed by the passengers.

Dell laptop battery problem

Although I have a laptop, I tend to use the mains rather than rely on the battery. I noticed that the battery life was getting shorter and shorter. I can only surmise that either the battery was faulty or that the battery was getting charged constantly. Once the battery is fully charged by the mains, shouldn't the mains stop charging the battery and let the mains power the computer? This appears not to be the case. I suggest that all laptops should be designed to solve this problem.

BT baby monitor problem

A baby monitor is useful when you have a little one. But I did not expect the design to be so poor. There is a clip that protects the housing of the batteries but this thing is very difficult to detach. This means that putting the batteries in and out of the monitor becomes difficult. I am staggered that such a design could be released to the public.

YouTube registration hassle

Has anyone else experienced problems registering with YouTube? After some hassle, I managed to register. I am surprised that such a well known website would have the following problem. I chose a username, password, retyped the password and solved the CAPTCHA (the image where you have to type the letters and numbers you see). I pressed the submit button and it complained that I did not read the CAPTCHA correctly. I had to type and retype the password again and solve the CAPTCHA. After several tries, I managed to solve it but this time, the username had been taken. Why not tell me before that the username is taken? When typing the username, you should immediately be able to check the availability. Why do I need to type and retype the password after each time I failed the CAPTCHA? Besides, why should the CAPTCHA be so difficult to solve? They have even a button you can press to tackle a new CAPTCHA.

Camden parking attendant with no moral values

Below is an email I sent to the Camden Council.

My inquiry concerns a parking attendant (parking attendant number C1790). On Monday 12th February, I drove my wife to the Royal Free hospital for performing amniocentesis. We were in a rush to get to the appointment on time. I parked the car in South End Road NW3 and walked past the above parking attendant saying I have parked there just now and I am off to buy a parking ticket. Having paid 4 pounds 80 pence for the maximum 2 hours at 9.54am, I placed it clearly in the car. After the surgical procedure, I came back and to my horror there was a penalty charge notice marked 10.02am.

The parking contravention was: parked in a residents' parking space without clearly displaying a valid residents' parking permit. (Code 15).

I have checked on your useful website that it does seem to be permit holders only (a map showing this would be useful). So in this respect, I have made a terrible mistake (another suggestion is to identify the difference between the pay and display and permit holders perhaps by markings on the road).

However, I am disappointed to say the least about this parking attendant C1790. He could have easily warned us about the parking being only for permit holders. He knew very well that we were not permit holders because I told him that I am buying a parking ticket.

It is tragic that this incident has disturbed my wife very badly when she should be peacefully resting. I am looking forward to a reply from you that we hope will bring an amicable resolution to this horribly insensitive incident.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Julian Hartley


Many of you may have similar or even worse stories about parking attendants. I would really appreciate you to share your experiences with me.

Some other horror stories that I have heard are about the parking ticket not being displayed properly and receiving a penalty whilst you are buying a parking ticket. Another form which is possibly more common around the world is a coin machine allocated for each parking space (I suppose they should be all like this so you won't have problems of whether it is a pay and display parking space etc. Councils are cutting costs by having one machine that serves many spaces. If they are reportedly making a lot of money, they can afford to do so. This money must be spent on other things.). You have not many coins to buy enough time to park so you put a few coins that you have and go back in the restaurant for some more. You put more coins in to buy the amount you intended. All the time, the parking attendant sees this and yet a penalty is issued because of overfeeding (practice of topping up the parking meter so that you can park longer than the maximum length of time allowed).

Hand soap dispenser

Although the mechanism creates a lot of waste, they are convenient. But I cannot help wondering whether they are manufactured in such a way as to preventing people using the soap sparingly. The one I am using at home squirts out a lot even when I try not to. They have not designed the dispenser with economy in mind. Why can't they design it so that the user has much more control over the amount of soap that comes out? This way we won't have to use an excessive amount of soap to just wash our hands and we will not be contributing as much to the pollution of the rivers and the sea.

NTL internet down time compensation

I have been down for one week and the compensation was one week times cost of line divided by 30. Is this a reasonable or usual compensation package? I don't think so. Logically speaking from their perspective, this sounds the fairest way but I am afraid I am very disappointed. Why don't they come up with better compensation packages that will really convince users to stay with them? So what is reasonable? Why not reduce the rate I pay every month by half for three months? Surely this is a small price to pay to keep customers happy? I think the trick with compensation packages is to offer something that exceeds the customer's expectations.

If they carry on with their way of compensating, customer retention will be poor. Simple way to see this is to consider someone down for one month. Now would they be happy to have the next month free even though they have paid for the unused month? I don't feel compensated because they have only credited with me for the amount of down time.

In fact it is worse because the phone calls I have made to them have cost me.

Bank and double standards

HSBC are offering 5.75% interest on their online saver for new customers. Existing customers will get 5.25%. Is this kind of thing common around the world? I am familiar with banks offering attractive packages just for the first few months but this appears to be a longer offering.

It is a shame that the banks are banking on their customers to be loyal enough to stay. Do they not think that satisfying their existing customers will be more beneficial than luring new customers using unfair tactics.

I feel that if banks offer a package that improves over time would be better. For example, if you stay with us for a year, we will offer you 0.25% above the Bank of England rate. If you stay two years, it will be 0.5% above Bank of England rate. Do you not think that this would attract more customers?

drink-drive limit

Is it wise to have a drink-drive limit? Why not ban driving completely if you are under the influence of alcohol? I say this because the driving of some people may be affected even when they abide by the law. This may be particularly upsetting for people who are not easily influenced, it is better than having a misleading law that may result in deaths on the road.

hiking shoes slippery

I like hiking up mountains and I bought a pair of Merrell hiking shoes. They look very nice but there is one problem with them. They are fairly slippery on concrete and rock. Maybe they were designed for walking on soil? It would be interesting to know if anyone else felt the same?

London Underground and Mill Hill East Station

The line branches off into two. One going to Mill Hill East Station and the other which services 4 more stations. I have often wondered why not have two trains say that service the people in Mill Hill East? Although they would have to get off at Finchley Central (station at the junction), the service should be more frequent.

Well, it looks like they have finally done this last year.

Accordion buses in London

When you think of buses in London, almost everyone will say double decker buses. But these days, we find long single decker buses that are connected by something akin to what you find on accordions (this allows the bus to bend in the middle). Why have they introduced these? They are really a menace on the roads to pedestrians and other cars. Someone who allowed these things to be introduced on the streets of London has made a grave mistake.

The only reason why they still infiltrate the streets is because they cost a lot of money to put them there. I suppose no one is going to be brave enough to take them out of service. Or could they? Well, no.

Phone-in quiz TV

I have briefly watched such a thing and I became curious as to how they arrive at the solution. I am on about the quiz which has only one answer which tend to be numeric. These things seem impossible. I think they have a right to publish not just the answer but also the step-by-step process in arriving at the answer. This should clearly send a message to the people phoning in that they have next to no chance of getting the right answer. I think at the moment, they are debating about publishing the odds of getting the answer. This may not be adequate because how would you accurately calculate the odds?

Printer ink

Printer ink is extremely expensive. I suppose they are trying to recoup the money from offering the printers very cheaply. The manufacturers say that the cartridge is expensive to manufacture but why not reduce the cost of the next purchase if the consumer sends the empty cartridges back? This makes environmental sense as well. The manufacturers are not doing this so we have companies that collect the empty cartridges, refill them and resell them.

I made a mistake in buying such a product from inkprices.com. It did not last very long so I suspected there was a fault with the cartridge or perhaps there was not enough ink put in. I returned the cartridge but they just told me that the cartridge was fine. So they did not send me another equivalent product. They have now my cartridge to refill and resell.

The moral is not to part with the evidence. It sounds a bit obvious but I didn't do so because I believed that they would send it. Another moral is not to blindingly trust someone. Again something obvious but I did otherwise because would I be willing to investigate further by getting an independent opinion on the fitness of the product? Alas no.

It would be interesting to know whether the law can protect the consumer in a case such as this? It is difficult to protect the consumer when the product in question is perishable or used up.

What do I want to do here?

I want to document my thoughts about any inefficiencies around the world and I do hope that something good will come out of it. Your comments will be greatly appreciated.

Inevitably, since I am based in London, what I write will focus more on things around here. But I think all issues can be relevant one way or another, depending on the way you interpret them. Comments that give a global perspective will be greatly appreciated.

Hello and welcome to my blog.