Luci Sandor’s blog

After 69 years of Romanian radio, BBC decides to withdraw from Romania. Official reasons are the loss in general radio audience and BBC market share (less than 3%). There is no mention of how the Bucharest office became the playground of the Romanian government, and how inconvenient journalists were dismissed at the request of Romanian authorities. (Citing US State Dept: In November [2003], the Romanian service of the BBC did not renew the contract of a long-serving reporter, Traian Ungureanu. Ungureanu was respected for his political analyses and known for frequent criticisms of PSD policies. Press colleagues believed Ungureanu’s removal was linked to these criticisms; the BBC responded by saying that Ungureanu, a 14-year veteran, had failed a routine voice test. Several reporters and an editor at the BBC resigned to protest the dismissal. This happened in the same era when Tony Blair pressured the Romanian PM to sell a huge state-owned steel mill to Mittal.)

All other 31 localized, foreign-language services, will be maintained until these pesky Iranians will learn what democracy is.

A recent article from Microsoft’s website writer sdfJuliaasdasd Francis shows how "Office XP is great for Home users". From the Knowledge Base article 556099, summarized "Office is so handy, I love it", one may learn that in fact "sadf asdf" and various other things that one can type with only four keys. This makes sense especially when read backwards, or upside down.

A stupid idea which essentially makes me to reject any call from unknown phone numbers: US mobile phone customers pay for mobile phone calls, no matter whether they called or were called. A worse idea is that one has to pay for a received text message (SMS), and there’s no straightforward way to reject these messages. Armed with a plan like mine (unlimited free texts), one could send you thousands of text messages, until you go bankrupt, and there’s nothing you can do about it. EU telecom comissioner, Viviane Reding, declared for the FT that she thinks this double-charging practice is fit for European customers too. After inflating hundreds of millions of cell bills, Ms. Reding must feel very satisfied.

I am on my way to write a series of blogs from the train. A horribly hot/humid day which beats hands down all horrible weather I have witnessed in NJ/NYC in the recent years triggered power shortages which affected computers and trains alike. According to the conductor of the train that I am riding just now, no train moves between Philly and NYC. I shall be stuck somewhere midway along with some other hundreds of late commuters. NJtransit.com confirms that, Amtrak.com does not publish such information about the lines they own and operate.
Later edit: Only 40 minutes delay! That’s almost normal business.
Even later: The other Newark - New York City train, the PATH, just announced 20 minutes delays, after cancelling its other line for the whole day. With the whole 4 dollars a gas gallon fuss keeping leisure drivers away from the wheel, it will soon be faster to drive into Manhattan.

According to Livescore.com, in a game featuring Romanian and French national teams in Zurich, “the home team have had 45% of possession compared to the away team’s 55%.” That probably meant that Swiss players were on the field too.