We're not using bus-stops efficiently, making delays, congestion & pollution worse...

It seems to me that we aren't using bus stops efficiently. The photos show examples of buses using the rear half of stops in both Glasgow & Edinburgh. Let's go through this step by step -

• The stops are planned by the local authority and then painted on the road. 
• A route number flag needs to be displayed on a pole and/or shelter to inform us. 
• These flags are very often NOT positioned at the front of the painted space.
• The passengers tend to queue around the flag with information.
• The drivers tend to stop at the flag/passengers.

All of this results in only half the stop being used and unnecessary tailbacks of buses waiting to use the stop - for health and safety reasons drivers can't let passengers on or off unless the front of the vehicle is within the designated stop area.

So let's move the flags to the front of the bus stops and encourage drivers to pull as far forward as they can each time. By doing this we'll reduce congestion & pollution and speed up journey times.

If you spot further evidence of this phenomenon please let me know!

Sassy Sweet & Sour Peppers with Pumpkin Seeds

A twist on the classic that I made by accident.

Roughly slice three bell peppers & three small onions into large matchstick proportions.

Fry for a few minutes using a little oil, then add thirty millilitres of vinegar, and stir to a simmer.

Add three heaps of honey, three whooshes of Worcestershire and the same of soya sauce.

Finish with a dollop of ketchup (yes, really), and thirty grams of pumpkin seeds.

Simmer until the sauce thickens. While waiting cook some rice to serve. Enjoy...

Fair votes on Twitter

You've probably seen them - Tweets saying RT for A, Fav for B, or similar.

Unfortunately, this approach will always produce very skewed results as the people that follow the Tweeter are only going to see their RTs, not their Favs, so the RT option has a very strong advantage over the Fav option.

What we really want to do is retweet the question but collect the response a little differently.

The easiest way to do this is to ask folk to RT Only for A, but to RT & Fav for B - the total RTs minus Favs gives the A result & the number of Favs gives the B vote.

Because the question is retweeted each time there is no skew to one option or the other. To recap-

RT Only for A.

RT & Fav for B.

Total A = all RTs minus all Favs,

Total B = all Favs.

A Twitter vote done this way is both fair and easy, once you've tried it :-)

There's another example here.