Categories
Public Transport Worldly Matters

On Public Transportation

On reading Rubenérd’s post on Australian public transport, I wrote up a quick comment and at the last minute decided to make my own blog post instead.

The Metro-Rail construction work in Bangalore is going at a very slow pace and since it’s being constructed right in the middle of several important “link” roads, traffic is dismal at times. And, Bangalore also happens to be the hub for most “high-end”, multi-national company-employed settlers who flaunt their cars and whatnot in these congested roads often driving with nobody else (what a waste!)

Additionally, there are these “Think Big. Live Big. Buy an SUV” car loan schemes which are advertised on radios too. Long traffic jams are an everyday reality.

As I was researching information for this blog post, I hit upon this. Yes! Bangalore might end up having both metro-rail and mono-rail. It’s an interesting combination given the radially outgoing roads of Bangalore and the ring-roads that connect them at several places.

Public transport is more or less bearable in the southern Indian states, Maharashtra and Goa. (Unsure about the other states). The problem with buses is specific to the crowded mess of a city called Bangalore with its myriad of one-ways and outright stupid traffic sense of the auto-rickshaw drivers. Many college-going students end up wasting a lot of time just trying to commute between their homes and colleges. The alternate modes of transport which I believe are sensibly conceived should help Bangalore breathe well again.

Categories
Interaction Design

On Pixel Smoothened and Bitmap Fonts

Having gotten used to pixel-smoothed fonts on the Gnome terminal for quite a while now, I opened up an xterm for some reason and ran an htop in it. This different look of the fonts (bitmap fonts?) made me pause for a moment there and say to myself, “wow”.Pixel smoothened vs. Bitmap fonts.

Categories
Travel

On female drivers in Bangalore

Two accidents involving women driving the car and men on the two wheelers who were the receiving end of the damage.

One happened on last Saturday – around 10:30-ish in the morning; and the other, this morning (10:20-ish).

The woman doesn’t look who’s closing in along with her and takes blind or uninformed turns to the right/left. In both the cases the men who drove the bikes had their bikes on the floor. Fallen. Today’s case was most likely a high velocity impact! The glass of the windows of the car had shattered. Poor guy couldn’t really fight back at the woman. Things like these reinforce popular stereotypes such as “women can’t drive”. Come on! How can someone who’s driving a car not pay attention to who’s driving around the car? Huh?