IT frustration

One of the biggest frustrations of modern life is to be found at the human-IT interface; it is particularly noticeable when you live through a software or hardware upgrade. After three years, my Samsung Galaxy S3 has been replaced by a Huawei VNS-L21 mobile phone as part of the corporate contract with T-Mobile. Huawei is not a brand I know. The phone has newer version of the Android operating system (6.0, with 4.0 on my Samsung), and its main benefits over the Samsung are greatly enhanced battery life (36 to 48 hours of normal usage compared to 8 to 12 on the old phone) and far greater download/upload speed.

The Huawei has a built-in camera boasting 13 megapixels, which is 1 MP more than the Nikon D80 DSLR I bought in 2007, and 5MP more than in my old Samsung.

Below: Huawei and Samsung both have a presence on Warsaw's Plac Konstytucji.

The old phone had a replacement battery (which was changed after the original one got so bad that power level drained from 30% to 0% in the time it took to take the bus from Wilanowska to Karczunkowska - around 25 minutes in the evening rush-hour). The new battery promises to be much better (for the record - it was fully charged at 08:10 this morning, and at 20:45, it's down to 66%, which includes a fair amount of Twittering, SMSing and a few phone calls). And it's faster and better connected than the Samsung.

But these days the joys of unboxing a new piece of kit, a glamorous-looking device, is matched by the frustration experienced in getting used to using it.

However... getting used to new equipment is problematic.

I'm typing an SMS or a tweet in Polish, and no sooner have I typed the word than the phone changes it to a completely different English word. I type 'mam nadzieję' and the phone changes this to 'mam Nadine'. Like, thanks. Predictive typing. But where to switch this lunatic feature off? How to teach this phone that I'd like to be able to write in more than one language?

I checked 'settings'. Nowhere could I find anything about keyboard. Frustration. I had to ask Kuba at the office, who explained that the keyboard settings were not with 'settings', but on the keyboard. So we change language to 'more than one language', selected as to 'English UK' and 'Polish'. One problem less. But without Kuba's help it would have been hours of frustration. Plenty more new problems will no doubt arise - using the phone's camera, adding telephone numbers to contacts etc. Many of these functions on a Huawei using Android 6.0 are quite different to a Samsung using Android 4.0.

All of these things I have to learn on the go. No time to have a three-day training course on using the new phone. Again, this leads to frustration. I'm in a hurry, need to make a call - can't retrieve a number I know full well is in the memory, nor can I save a called number.

My father, 93, has similar problems when technology changes. Typically this is software updates on the browser, new security features, which cause obstacles in his getting to where he wants to be online, upsetting well-worn procedures. Now, my father is a very determined man and can sit trying to work out a problem for a lot longer than I have the patience to do. Even so, it's a waste of his time to have to try figure these things out. My father has a long relationship with IT, going back to the 1980s, with an Amstrad 386 running MS DOS. Successive waves of technology change all take getting used to.

In the old days of IT, devices used to come with thick printed manuals. If you couldn't work it out, you'd be told to 'RTFM', in the parlance of the time. Today's devices come with a link to a website from which you can download the full manual. But this comes with little more than advice about how to dispose safely of the battery and not letting children eat your phone. In eight languages. Useless.

In terms of working out how to switch off predictive typing, or operate the voice-controlled assistant -  if you don't have an IT wizard on hand - it's frustrating. A tool as complex as a smartphone has the functions of a phone, a contact book, a calendar, a camera (stills and movie), a map, a voice recorder, a search engine/ dictionary/ encyclopaedia, which have to mesh seamlessly together.

Another issue: my laptop is five years old; it's great. A Samsung with a 12.1" screen, light, fast, with an excellent battery. Nothing wrong with it. However, all things must pass, and I shall at some time have to buy a new one.

Now look.

I DO NOT WANT WINDOWS 10. No. Not ever. I'm entirely satisfied with Windows 7 Home Office Premium. There's nothing wrong with it. Can Windows not get the fact that hundreds of millions of users are happy with Windows 7? Why ram down our throats novelties we neither want nor need?

The developed world is getting older; as we all do so, we will not be expecting added layers of complexity from our IT. Everything should be as simple - as intuitive - as possible. This is the challenge for IT developers - creating devices that are complex but at the same time simple to use yet also secure. One day, many of us will be in our 90s, struggling to keep up with the latest innovations and improvements. Let's hope the engineers can work out how to make it easier for us.

This time last year:
Wałbrzych's Gold Train - the dream ends

This time three years ago:
Kitten football

This time four years ago:
The drainage of Jeziorki

This time five years ago:
The Eurocrisis - what would Jesus do?

This time six years ago:
Orders of magnitude

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki in the snow

This time eight years ago:
Better news on the commuting front

This time nine years ago:
I no longer recognise the land where I was born

Łódź Fabryczna finally opens

Today, Sunday 11 December, is a big day on Poland's (and indeed Europe's) railways, as it's the day the railway timetables change; it's a deadline for major infrastructural works. Here in Jeziorki, the 'up' platform (Peron 2) saw the first train stop there just before five am. In Łódź, however, a much bigger event took place today, the opening of Fabryczna station, over five years after it was closed for redevelopment. And in Switzerland, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest rail tunnel at over 57km, opened for full service today too.

Back to Łódź. This has been a massive engineering project; not only was the station redeveloped but the railway line which terminated here has been re-laid underground and will be stretched right across the city underground to connect with the north-south line on the east side of Łódź, north of Łódź Kaliska station. Then, and only then, will Łódź Fabryczna become a through station, allowing all trains passing through the city to call. Until the tunnel is opened to rail traffic, Łódź Widzew will handle the bulk of passenger trains calling in on the city en route between, say, Poznań and Rzeszów or Białystok and Ełk. Then, and only then, will Łódź Fabryczna fulfil its potential as a Great Station. Until that time, it will see only a handful of local trains and shuttle services between Łódź and Warsaw. This will happen some time after 2022, so don't hold your breath. [UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2023: STILL NO SIGHT OF THE BASTARD - WORK IS NOT EVEN HALF-WAY COMPLETED]

But in the meantime, let's at least celebrate the opening of the new Łódź Fabryczna, five years and two months after the old one was closed. And it was due to have opened in October 2014.

All photos courtesy of Moni. Below: folk musicians and crowds; a big day for Łódź - after 62 months, the city centre is finally connected to the outside world by rail.

This architectural conceit (below) reminds me of Piaseczno's Fashion House factory outlet or the Bicester shopping village; faux facades in a modern setting.

Below: Looks familiar? The station layout is similar to that of Warszawa Centralna; four platforms each serving two tracks (eight platforms in British railway parlance). The railway lines are 16m beneath street level, and for the time being anyway terminate here.

Below: Dzień dobry bo w Łodzi - 'Good day because (it's) in Łódź' - lovely mural in the style of Pan Tu Nie Stał, legendary fashion and accessory shop from Łódź (now with branches in Warsaw and Kraków)

A huge step forward compared to the old Łódź Fabryczna station, run-down and grimy.  A railway station that befits a city the size and national importance of Łódź. The concourse is fit for purpose.

Journey times from here to Warsaw are now below 1 hr 20 mins for the fastest services, an improvement of the two hours of yore, but given that the distance is exactly the same as London Euston to Rugby (83 miles, 135km), it's worth noting that the fastest time between the two stations is 48 minutes.

Below: Emerging into the dreary daylight, the scene outside the new station is similar to what befell the eyes of the traveller arriving at the old station.

Below: view from the north side of the station; on the other side, the EC1 Nowe Centrum Łódź (New Centre of Łódź) development. From here, it's a seven-minute, 550m walk to the flat I bought my daughter last year. A good investment, I think!

This time two years ago:
Pluses and minuses of PKP

This time three years ago:
When transportation breaks down

This time five years ago:
Take me back to Tulsa

This time seven years ago:
Another book launch

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki in the 16th Century

This time nine years ago:
Rotten weather, literally

Power in the vertical or horizontal?

'The Power Vertical' is the title of a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty blog about Russia, but the title can apply to any country where power is concentrated in the hands of one person; Castro, Kim Jong Un, Lukashenko, Assad, Mugabe, Maduro  - and those who are trying to achieve this end - the likes of Erdogan, Orban, and yes, Kaczynski.

Suweren, 'the sovereign'. Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the largest party in the Polish parliament, though neither the elected head of state nor prime minister, is bent on building a state that channels all power through his trusted people up to him. No room then for distributed, bottom-up networked decision making, no room for people at grassroots level with a different world-view competing for control of the levers of influence.

The state-owned media has been put into the hands of loyalists who've turned it into a shameless propaganda. I don't watch TVP any more - it's party media. Now, using regulatory mechanisms, PiS is setting out to reduce private media outlets' ad revenues and hence influence.

The new trend in Polish politics in recent months is to start questioning the reason for existence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), starting from healthcare charity WOŚP, through to attacks on environmental groups.

Ahead of 2018's local elections, the organs of state are trying to discredit popular local leaders who are not from PiS, an example being Hanna Zdanowska in Łódź. She borrowed money to treat her sick child, made some mistake on the application form, repaid the loan, and is now facing investigation from the CBŚ despite the fact the bank from which she borrowed the money has not even raised this as an issue.

The education system is likewise being adjusted to the needs of Mr Kaczyński; more history (of the right sort), less stuff like science and dodgy things like evolution. The liberal wing of the Catholic Church in Poland has far less influence than the Radio Maryja end of the spectrum, broadcasting intolerance from Toruń, which tends to sees eye-to-eye with Mr Kaczyński.

Mr Kaczyński is intent on snuffing out alternative sources of power to his, just as the communist party was, creating a monopoly that did not countenance non-party initiatives. Communism deprived people of democracy via the ballot box and also of free association and freedom of speech.

Looking at the state of Polish NGOs, there's much that could be improved. Governance and transparency. Compared to British NGOs, which are generally well-run and have traditions going back decades in many cases, Polish NGOs are still in their infancy. They mean well but could do with being more professional. This does not mean they should be closed down; on the contrary, they should be allowed to grow their memberships, focus on effective fundraising and communicating with people at ground level.

The more people can get together to help one another, the less they have to reach out to the state to help them, the less influence the state has over us, the less important it is when the state is won by a person inimical to democracy.

The populist cry 'down with the elites' takes on an interesting meaning when one pauses to consider what a member of the elite actually is. According to Polish sociologist Jerzy Stelmach, it's a person whose livelihood is not in the least bit linked to whoever holds political power. All the placemen in Polish government agencies and state-owned enterprises are not, by this definition, members of the elite. They are here today, gone after the next election. They cling on to their cushy jobs by dint of their political loyalty within the power vertical, knowing that their office with two assistants, their chauffeur-driven car, is entirely dependent on PiS winning the next parliamentary election.

This makes me a member of the elite. I'm old enough and successful enough (and lucky enough) not to be financially dependent on the ebb and flow of Polish politics. This makes me independent, and, being ideologically opposed to power verticals of left or right, I'm therefore suspect in the eyes of those who support Kaczyzm.

To those who support PiS, I'd say this. There were plenty of imperfections with the PO government, especially towards the end, when complacency and laziness set in. But were things in Poland really so bad that the baby had to go with the bathwater? Was Polska really w ruinie? Was the situation in the autumn of 2015 so bad that democracy (albeit fledgling and imperfect) had to be replaced by a one-man party bent on creating a one-party state?

Power in the hands of one man? NO THANKS.

This time four years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time five years ago:
Classic glass

This time six years agor:
What's the Polish for 'pattern'?

This time nine years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."

New 'up' platform at W-wa Jeziorki approaches completion

Getting off the train from town last night, I could see that the new 'up' platform is nearly ready to be put into service ('oddane do użytku' - which Google Translate gives merely as 'completed'). As an aside here, I'd add that the pedestrian footbridge at W-wa Okęcie was completed in April, but has still not been oddane do użytku, which literally means 'handed over for use'. Anyway, thanks to the intensive work on this stretch of track, things have been moving much quicker than around W-wa Okęcie station, where there's still much to do to connect the new 'down' line with W-wa Dawidy.

Below: looking south towards Nowa Iwiczna station, taken from what will be the 'down' (southbound) platform. The pedestrian crossing takes you across both new tracks, and then a newly-built footpath, bounded by a metal mesh fence on both sides, leads to the new 'up' (northbound) platform. It's sodden with rainwater, but passable.

I go. There's no signage up. None at all. No signs to say either 'platform is now operational', or 'platform is not in use, please use other platform for trains to town'. Below: view of the 'down' platform from the new 'up' platform yesterday evening. Pallets suggest that the laying of paving slabs has only just been completed. To the right, a display board with the station name, but no timetables as yet. The new PKP timetables come into operation on Sunday 11 December; my guess is that this platform may be in use by then...

Below: photo taken today from the very far end of the new 'up' platform shows a clear surface; the construction crew has cleaned up and moved on. Still no information about when it opens. As I finished my explorations, a town-bound train passed along the other track and stopped at the opposite platform, so single-track working is still in operation.

I can see it will be a long, long while before ul. Karczunkowska reopens. The fenced-off footpath to the new 'up' platform crosses the road, blocking even construction machinery from getting through. And there's no sign whatever of work on the viaduct that's meant to carry Karczunkowska over the railway tracks.

The new timetable gives the long-suffering users of the Radom line no new services, merely a rejig of the old timetable. Instead of trains to town at 07:04, 07:25, 08:07, 09:08 and 10:08, they are spaced more irregularly; 07:04, 07:49, 08:21, 09:08 and 09:53. The 08:21 service gets into W-wa Śródmieście at 08:52, so I'll be cutting it fine for nine o'clock meetings in the office (a 12-minute walk from the station).

Below: update from the morning of Saturday, 10 December. The new timetable is up. Trains will run from here as of tomorrow. But for today, confusing - how many people were waiting here for a train to town that arrived at the other platform? I saw someone in this predicament last night...

Below: southbound trains will continue to use the opposite platform. Single-track working ends tomorrow morning - the 04:53 to Warszawa Wschodnia will be the first train to use the new 'up' platform. In future years, this photo, without a viaduct crossing the lines, will be an archival rarity!

Bonus photo, below, looking south at the new platforms, which are about to be passed by a train of empty wood-chip wagons heading north towards the Okęcie sidings on the coal train line from Siekierki via Konstancin-Jeziorna.

This time last year:
Tottenham Court Road station revisited

This time two years ago:
Zen and the Art of Publishing

This time four years ago:
Wrocław, another Polish city of neon

This time five years ago:
Ronald Reagan remembered

This time six years ago:
Accident of birth

This time eight years ago:
Under the Liberator

This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki on old maps

Emilia comes down

It's coming down. The Stołeczne Przedsiębiorstwo Handlu Wewnętrznego 'Meble Emilia' (The Capital City Enterprise of Internal Trade 'Furniture Emilia') pavilion. This delightful piece of modernist architecture (designed by Marian Kuźniar and Hanna Lewicka, opened in 1970) is making way for an another skyscraper along the axis of ul. Emilii Plater, on the west side of the Palace of Culture. Below: viewed from the street, looking up towards the Intercontinental Hotel.

Below: looking down at the geometric crenellations of the roof from the Intercontinental. The chipboard walls at either end of the pavilion were added later; originally, Dom Meblowy Emilia was glazed all round.

Below: a photo I took in September 2012, when news of Emilia's impending fate was announced. Beyond it, the Warsaw Financial Centre, and, still under construction, the Cosmopolitan Twarda 2/4 building. Note the 'EMILIA' sign on the roof. This has been saved for posterity...

...and has been relocated to Soho Factory on ul. Minska, the wonderful post-industrial enclave of start-up incubators, restaurants and bars, apartments - and of course Warsaw's neon museum. Below: the EMILIA sign at its new location. Next to it, the Jubiler sign that used to hang on the jeweller's shop on the corner of Al. Jerozolimskie and ul. Krucza.

But it wasn't just the neon. Outside the shop was this memorable signage consisting of back-lit plastic blocks. I took this picture in March 2010

Let's have a better look at it... a splendid piece of Polish design at its modernist best.


All is not lost. Far from it. The Meble Emilia pavilion will be rebuilt across the road in Park Świętokrzyski. Hopefully without the blocked-off ends, so that once again, passers-by will be able to wall all round it and peer in through glass walls, front, back and both sides.

This time last year:
On being rich in Poland

This time four years ago:
The link between health and happiness explored

This time five years ago:
The black SUV, the black SUV... (with the darkened rear windows)

This time six years ago:
Atonement

This time nine years ago:
Where I'm from, and why

Warsaw by night, early winter

This time three years ago:
Burn less gas and do Ukraine a favour

This time six years ago:
Early evening atmosphere

This time eight years ago:
Toponyms - how many names has Jeziorki?

This time nine years ago:
On the road to Białystok

Early winter travels - Warsaw-Kraków-Poznań-Warsaw

Friday morning, after a night of wet snow. On my way to town, trying to keep my shoes and trousers clean in these conditions (below) is not easy. Fortunately, a kindly neighbour offers me a lift towards the Metro.

Train to town, and before long I'm in the city centre. Below: the Palace of Culture rises above the snow-covered trees along ul. Świętokrzyska.

After a few hours in the office, I have to catch a train to Kraków for our Annual Dinner there. The train is a TLK service, which means no buffet car. There's a dense crowd on the platform a W-wa Centralna station. The train pulls in - notice the snow on the roof. Many of the passengers are holidaymakers, judging by their bulging rucksacks, hiking boots and trekking poles.

The train journey itself was jolly. The next compartment was occupied by students with guitars, who sang all the way to Kraków. The lady wheeling the snacks trolley was particularly friendly, and I managed to keep hunger at bay given that I hadn't had time for any lunch. I shared the compartment with two American tourists, a bit older than me, who must have got a good impression of Poland - the young man who helped them lift their baggage onto the racks, the fluently bilingual conductor, and the singing from next door. People were sitting in the corridors, but this was a good-natured train.

After the dinner at the Kraków Technology Park, it was time to catch the night train - to Poznań. Why Poznań? There was no direct train back from Kraków to Warsaw; hotels in Kraków are expensive. A night train to Poznań and an InterCity train from Poznań to Warsaw works out much cheaper than a hotel in Kraków and train to Warsaw.

I was impressed by the night train - new rolling stock. The toilet was wheelchair-friendly and included a shower cubicle; the compartments were more ergonomic, with a slide-out ladder to the upper bunks. However, the bed was harder than in the older night trains. As with my train to Koszalin last week, there was bottled water, a chocolate muffin and a flannel-and-soap set for each traveller.

The train I boarded is called the Orion - Poland's longest night train service, covering 884 km from Przemyśl in south-eastern Poland, near the Ukrainian border, to Szczecin in north-west Poland. The Orion leaves Przemyśl at 18:17 and arrives in Szczecin at 09:26 the next day - a journey of 15 hours and nine minutes. It calls at Rzeszów, Kraków, Katowice, Opole, Wrocław and Poznań among the 34 stations along the way. This train thus links seven Polish provincial capitals.

My journey was less than half of the whole route - just 429 km, Kraków to Poznań. I slept well after five glasses of wine with the dinner, and was awakened by the conductor half an hour before the train arrived in Poznań.

After a petit déjeuner à l'Ecosse, there was a few minutes to grab some shots of dawn over Poznań. Below: looking east - the PKS bus station under the Avenida shopping mall (left), and the Novotel Poznań Centrum mid-frame.

Below: looking west the view along the Most Dworcowy bridge towards the Poznań international trade fair building. The socialist-realist spire dates from the mid-1950s and gives this vista a old-school communist air.

Below: looking north - the original Art Deco tower at the north-east corner of the Poznań trade fair building, which dates back to 1929. During WW2, the premises became a Nazi aircraft factory, and thus subject to allied bombing. But this tower survived. To the left, the Sheraton hotel, with neon signs for Centra batteries behind it.

The sun shone all the way to Warsaw, a chance to get some good snaps from the train. The Nikon Coolpix P900 is not a quick-draw camera, it takes a while to switch on and get the thing to zoom and focus - traditional DSLRs are much faster. I missed a couple of shots - wild deer in fields by the tracks in particular. But this, below, is the P900 in its element; sunshine, stability plus a subject where the foreshortening effect of the massive zoom plays to good effect. My train to Warsaw pulls into Poznań Główny station.

Agriculture, electricity and the church (below). Just about visible are three wild deer sitting at the far end of the field in the middle distance (click to enlarge).

Passing Konin, which I'd visited in September, the chimneys of its power station belching steam into the atmosphere (below).

Below: Dobrzelin, just before Żychlin, near Kutno - the Polski Cukier factory.

My journey to Warsaw took longer than expected. 28.8km from W-wa Wschodnia, at Błonie station, the train stopped, and did not move for another 20 minutes. There were two failed attempts to start in, on the third it finally moved. So I missed my connecting train at W-wa Zachodnia to Jeziorki, but took a SKM train to the airport, walked from there to W-wa Okęcie station in good time for the next homeward train. Below: view from the end of platform 6 at W-wa Zachodnia, looking east towards town. The SKM train is heaving into view.

I enjoy train travel and prefer it to going by car. A long train trip like this is a pleasure.

This time last year:
Patriotism and nationalism: what's the difference?

This time two years ago:
Poland's progress in the international rankings

This time three years ago:
The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2013

Also this time three years ago:
Poland's rapid advance up the education league table: PISA 2013

This time four years ago:
Life expectancy across the EU: more comparisons

Jeziorki - second track, second platform

Arriving home at Jeziorki station for the first time in almost two weeks, I step off the Radom-bound train and see the lights of an oncoming train in the distance (below). This can only mean one thing - the 'up' line is now nearly ready. Snow's falling heavily, but the temperature is +3C, so what lands is slush. Not pleasant to walk in at all.

Below: with the southbound train out of view, I zoom in on an SM42 shunter at the head of a short rake of engineering wagons. The 'up' platform is visible, lit up by the engine's headlamps. The whistle sounds, and the train moves northwards across the level crossing heading towards W-wa Dawidy.

Below: as it passes, I catch a shot of the wagon that's used to attach the overhead power lines to the supports. Right at the back of the train - a mobile toilet for the workers.

A final snap from the pedestrian level crossing (the road crossing now firmly closed for more than three months). Note the ballast on the new 'up' line is now in place. It will be interesting how far the two parallel lines stretch - certainly not as far south as Nowa Iwiczna, but to W-wa Dawidy? I'll find out at the weekend.

Prospects for swift completion of the line are good, but the viaduct that will take ul. Karczunkowska over the tracks less so. Apparently, the documentation had faults in it (this would not have happened had the project been prepared using Building Information Modelling methodology), so several months delay have crept in. Quelle surprise.

Bonus shot - as promised, here's where we are on Saturday 3 December: looking towards W-wa Dawidy from the far end of the W-wa Jeziorki station, we can see the track-laying between the two stations is complete, and now the overhead power-line crew is busy installing the cables.

This time last year:
Pitshanger Lane wins London's High Street of the Year award

This time three years ago:
Trouble ahead in Ukraine.

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki, dawn, winter

This time nine years ago:
Tuwim's Lokomotywa in English