The UK Telegraph reported on a recent commuter train outage there:

As the inquest into the shambolic events of the past week began, Robin Gisby, Network Rail's customer services director, apologised to those who had suffered.

With passengers' anger showing little sign of abating, he added: "I am deeply unhappy that we have mucked them (passengers) around. We will get this thing fixed and then we will understand in detail what went wrong."

According to one railway insider the main focus is to restore some semblance of normality to the network. "Then we can worry about people covering their backsides."

If only Amtrak managment had that attitude!

Bob Candeloro updates us on Holiday Party plans:

Holiday party is on for this Friday. While I plan on bringing beverages (beer, wine, soft drinks) and snacks, please feel free to bring whatever you might like to drink and/or eat. As far as securing our own car for Friday, Amtrak will not be able to accomodate us. Surprise, surprise. You'd figure after a 6-hour commute on Tuesday, they'd be able to round up an old car around somewhere. Anyway, this will not spoil the fun. As usual, we will meet in the first car, at the front of the train. Let's finish out the year in style ...

 

Facebook and the CIA

There's a buzz in the blogosphere about ties between In-Q-Tel, a CIA-backed venture capital firm, and Facebook. The story is summarized pretty well in this article in the New Zealand Herald. But, as Loring Wirbel observes on his Icono-Curmudgeon-Clast blog, "it reveals more about the nature of venture capital sleeping with the intelligence community and arch-conservatives in general, than it does about Facebook in particular."