Conversation:

Entry: Prosophobia and the User Page - A87756051
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni (GE, Post Editor, send Stuff) - U1590784

Pay me no mind. I was just testing a few things.

I don't know if this qualifies as a guide entry, anyway. It's probably more of a Post article, just me rambling on.

DG

Oh, I can't see why this wouldn't be suitable for the guide.

I like it, and there's a lot of information in it which I hadn't heard of before.

Thanks, Bel. We'll see what they say.

This is good, and thought provoking.

I wondered why you put the section on the bicycle before the section on the Luddites, as, historically they should be the other way round. (By the way there are still pedestrians who hate cyclists, especially in London.)

Could you put a footnote on 'Festina Lente', for those of us who don't read Latin.

Ned Ludd was right !

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/U227484

I'll put that footnote in, MVP. Good thought.

I guess I wasn't trying to think linearly, but rather to associate ideas. (Also, we've been watching 'Doctor Who'. )

I admit to having problems with cyclists. It's not the ones who know what they're doing. It's the ones in Philadelphia who ride (illegally) on the sidewalk and knock down pedestrians.

In Philly, you aren't supposed to be on the sidewalk if you're over 12.

More interestingly in that city's neighbourhoods, seniors ride mobility chairs *on the street*.

Some of the seniors in mobility scoooters are real menaces!

True. Then there are Segways...

why is this page blue? I read this in Pliny and only the top edge was blue- Oh well, that's progress for you.

Most of this is very good, Dmitri, but I'm a bit worried by the implications of the final section.

The Pliny page is narrow because it is badly designed. The BBC should have created an interface that matched the width of the page to the width of the screen, as any browser is capable of doing. It's something of a sore point that they didn't, and I don't think you should be drawing attention to this in an Entry intended for the "Approved Guide".

I'd include links to the National Railway Museum, York, which is where the carriage can be visited:
http://www.nrm.org.uk/OurCollection/LocomotivesAndRollingStock/CollectionItem.aspx?objid=1983-7001&pageNo=18

and possibly to A533413 '2001: A Space Odyssey' - the Film

(In Britain bicycles are only allowed on pavements if they are clearly labelled as shared use footways and cycle paths, either segregated or unsegregated. Cyclists are expected to ride on the roads - after all, it was cyclists who made modern roads possible. After the introduction of the canal and railway networks by the 1840s, Britain's roads were ignored until the Cyclist Touring Club created the Roads Improvement Association in 1885 and held the first Roads Conference in 1886. The first petrol car was not built in Britain until 1894. Motorists - get off our roads! Stick to motorways, which were designed for cars.
Oh, and Segways are not allowed on Britain's roads, only on land in private ownership.)

<BB<

Hey, BB, that info is . Thank you, I'll add the links.

Gnomon, can you suggest a rewording? You know me. I am ignorant on many topics. I read all 140 pages of the informative Powerpoint Pastey sent me, on why and how and wherefore they redesign web pages for handheld devices. I clearly misunderstood, because I thought that was why the Pliny page sits in solitary splendour in the middle of my computer page, which now has the shape of a movie screen, Doctor Who, for the watching of.

I certainly was trying to be encouraging and complimentary, while having a bit of fun with technology history.

Changes made.

Gnomon, I tried this. Would it meet with your approval?

>>Why is the layout different from the classic formats you are used to? Because our friends on the go are reading this page on hand-held devices, which require new strategies. <<

BB, when giving outside links...*remember the ampersands*. Error in GuideML, indeed...

Ampersands!

Incidentally, if you do mention segways at all, don't forget that the British owner of the Segway company died when he drove his segway off a cliff.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-11416654

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I'm gathering this gentleman was not the inventor of the Segway?

It seems a shame. Looks like he was a nice man.

He wasn't the inventor, but a business man who bought the company that manufactures Segways. Since he was the man behind the campaign claiming that Segways were safe to use even if they don't reach UK safety standards and was hoping to make them legal, the 'Segways are safe' campaign suffered a bit of a drop.

Are you going to mention segways in your article at all? I suspect this is going slightly off topic...

<BB<

I always worry about those Segways. They seem like a bit of a hazard outdoors.

No, I think I'll leave the Segways out of this.

Attacca of the segways.

If you put a little skirt on a Segway, and made people wear safety helmets and carry a plumber's helper, they'd look sort of like Daleks...

I see that someone else has already done this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4dUQgIaXGg



I rewrote the last couple of paragraphs, with help from Pastey.