Tag Archives: travel

July 17, 2023 · 01:33

Overwhelmed

That happens to us all, even to me. Don’t get me wrong, I have been around the block (more than once) but even I have to admit that I was not ready for what I saw. To set the stage I have been (and spend time there) to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Stockholm, Malmo, Copenhagen, Munich, London, Birmingham, Brighton, Heraklion, Tel Aviv, New York, Chicago, Washington DC and that in reflection is used to describe what I saw.

For several reasons I have been looking at Dubai. Initially to the Dubai Mall to consider and test one of my IP and see how it holds up. You see, it is easy to hold up any IP to places with all the defects in place. Yet can it hold up to a place that is as perfect (and as big) as the Dubai Mall? I believe it did, but not to the massive agree that it holds up to other places and seeing your IP in a diminished way also opens your ming up to optional innovations. So as I was looking at the mall I saw several walkthroughs. Some great, many less so. One provider that stood out was Alone in Dubai (at https://www.youtube.com/@aloneindubai) that provider gave me a lot more and after seeing over half a dozen of walkthrough videos I came to the initial conclusion that Dubai might be one of the most perfect places in the world. I stated ‘initially’ because I have never been there and video’s only show part of something. But what I saw showed me streets leaner than anywhere else on the planet. This is why I showed you the places I have been (I have been to a lot more places), these streets were the cleanest I have ever seen. The street radiate feelings of safety, I saw water dispensers where people and tourists could refill their bottles of water. I saw a lot that I saw before. Terraces that we see near beaches, but now nowhere near a beach. Inviting for coffee, lunch and so on. Places that we are used to seeing. Shops that we are used to see and sometimes they have a western and an Arabic facade. A global village that quite frankly blew me away and a lot of Turkish Ice cream places. Beyond this there was the skyline of Dubai which is impressive in many ways, but check out the video’s for yourself, there is nothing like a first glimpse to give you pause to question what was held in front of you and seeing that reality is different. Even outside the mall we see so much and so many places where it all seems like we have seen it all before, but we never saw it to such an immaculate degree. Then there was the Carrefour. A supermarket, yet I never saw one this big. Perhaps in America they have supermarkets that size, but the places I have been to are nowhere this big. The fish section alone was 10 times the size of the fish shops we have here. Isles with fresh fish, packaged fillet and so many choices. Isles of items we all see in our own supermarkets and the weird part was that plenty is on par with our prices, some are cheaper and some are less cheap, but there too there is the setting that the meat looks better, more high end and often at nearly the same prices. There was more of nearly everything. Something we might never have expected from a place so far from home. Today and over the last weekend I was overwhelmed by the views of a place I never expected to overwhelm me. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that the Dubai Mall was one of the most beautiful and most perfect places on the planet. What was unexpected was that Dubai was every bit as amazing as the mall was and when you see some of these videos on sights on Dubai. You will understand why it could be the best vacation spot you have ever been to in all your life.

The new week is about to start, use the video’s to survive until the next weekend.

Anyone seeking wealth?

This is a genuine question, there is no hidden trap, there is no signing up. It is a simple setting that I would love to solve (I am not adverse to wealth), yet the problem is that I see an issue and in this case, as I am not a programmer I cannot solve it. I can clean data, I can mine data and when it comes to all kinds of data I can solve it. I am not a programmer. So here is the solution in this one article that could fetch you a lot of money, because no one has anything proper at the moment. And it is the word proper that counts, because it matters.

The clock
I have written about the clock once before, the Android clock being better as it allows for a 24 hour digital clock in Android, iOS is all about look and not much about function so the analog clock is all you get (you can buy the digital version). And for me, I have 4 times on my mobile. Vancouver (Los Angeles is too pretentious), Toronto, Amsterdam and Riyadh. I do not travel, but I have friend in Europe and I wrote about the middle east regularly, so knowing what time it is over there matters.

What else?
So I was sitting and checking a few issues whilst I suddenly realised that I needed more information, which is not a problem. Yet, why was it not handy at the push of a simple button? Over 15 years and no one thought of this? I was baffled and as far as I saw, there is no solution at present and that is your option. OK, I saw one solution that offer only time and weather, but it is on top of your screen, all about pretence and not set to the comfort of the international travellers who are adding up to 10,000,000 a year according to some sources.

You see, millions a year travel over timezones. The most visible one is London – New York. Over 11,000 a day travel that route and when you consider Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Munich the numbers start really adding up and they all have the same need. Not merely the clock they see, but when they click on that clock they would like to see more. Weather, optional exchange rates, and more. What more? Well I cannot tell what they need, but weather is a first and there is no solution. There is data all over the place offering it, but no one considered connecting these dat houses in a really robust solution as a widget or an app. Yes there are all kinds of widgets and you need to adjust for every one of them, but one solution that takes the destination THEY need and add the data around it? Nope, as far as I can tell, no one was that customer friendly.

Well over 10 years in 4G and no one considered uniting these data sources. Why not? And when you get to charge $1-$5 for a power widget that does just that, you are looking at an interesting amount of money. I am not calling out that maker a millionaire yet, but it has the option of adding to that. And someone will figure it out before I am a decent programmer, so I am making the idea Public domain and let the faster and better programmer win. It is all yours.

Have a great day, have fun and do not stumble over the DO UNTIL and ENDDO statements in your source file.

What was this about?

That was the second thought I had, not the first. To be honest, I was swept up by emotional phrasing that was done rather well, but the whole mess changed when I had some time to think it through. It started about 2 days ago when I saw ‘My bank did not stop £6,500 payment to holiday scammers despite my pleas’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/mar/20/bank-did-not-stop-payment-holiday-scammers). The initial thought was what screwed up thing did the banks do this time, it was accelerated by the small issue of £6,500, which for a lot of people is regarded as loads of cash, especially when you arrange your budget in pints, which in some places outside of London will bank you 1,625 pints. For some people that is a drinking option dragging you on for well over a year, 18 months and that is a lot. So why the beer reference?

Money is a direct number, but how to compare it? There is a discussion whether an annual event can be compared to normal monthly budget. Personally I do not believe it is valid or even acceptable. If we did that we might never have a vacation ever again at present. But back to the article. We are given “Graham says that for more than six hours after she had authorised a €7,155 (£6,500) payment to a Bank of America account in the US, the money continued to sit in her First Direct bank account. When she received an email an hour after making the payment warning her that the villa’s listing on Vrbo had been removed for security reasons, she immediately phoned First Direct back to halt the transfer”, now there are issues here, but that gets to legal to consider, but VRBO removed the villa AFTER payment was processed, there will be legal issues for VRBO. The second part is that this is a US setting, with seemingly no representation in the UK, that is the actual issue for me. Then we get “At this stage, she says, the people purporting to own the villa said they might be able to do Graham a deal if she was prepared to move outside Vrbo’s email system, and to email directly.” Taking VRBO out of the loop sets VRBO free, why do you want to be out of ANY loop? And that is where the victim gives us “They have been about as useless as they could be”. The woman who is referred to as Sarah Graham is wrong.

In the first the bank correctly performed a payment setting. At the time of the payment it was ‘agreed’ on by both parties. In the second, the move outside of the VRBO loop got VRBO off the hook because they were unaware of what was going on.

Now a small education for the stupid people out there. Scammers are pretty much everywhere, where ever there is a quick deal, a cheap deal (£800 cheaper) there is an exponential growth of a scam in place. There is a travel agency in almost every corner of any street in the UK and EU. There is a reason for that. Looking at a hotel in Crete I see one for 113€ a night, that is including the flight a lot less than £6,500 for a month.

There is a growing issue with people thinking that they can get the cheap deal and when you do not know the party on the other side, there is an increasing chance of losing your money. With local travel agencies (in the UK) they tend to have ATOL protection.

This means that the scheme provides protection for travellers who book a holiday, which includes a flight. If an ATOL licensed travel company collapses, it ensures that your money is protected and you can get home. And now we get to the real part, the article does not once mention travel agency or ATOL. As such the question towards writer Miles Brignall becomes. Did you do anything more than exploit the victim? If you wanted to alert the people you would have mentioned travel agencies, ATOL licences and the issue with foreign organisations, even though I will admit that all facts taken aside, VRBO is in the clear, the scammers made sure that they were out of the loop so that they could collect, and in this the banks have no blame either. A service was performed and the bank performed it.

This was about a person trying to get the golden deal for a lot less whilst she knew none of the parties. How does that usually go over on the internet?

Tag Archives: travel

Overwhelmed

Anyone seeking wealth?

What was this about?

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