(Image Source: TorrentFreak Anti-DRM T-Shirt Design Contest)In the financial world (which is roughly equivalent to gambling) the acceptance of risk necessarily equates to financial returns. The bigger the risk, the bigger the returns.

Think about roulette odds: Put your chips on Black or Red and you have a 53% 'risk' of losing, and a 1:1 pay-out for winning; put your chips on 00 and you have a 97% 'risk' of losing, but a 35:1 pay-out if you get lucky. The returns you get are commensurate with the amount of risk you take on.


What does this have to do with your shiny new iPod, I hear you ask? Well, the link is that whenever you buy DRM-protected music (e.g. from the iTunes Music Store), you are taking on certain risks without realising it, and without adequate compensation.

An article published last month on kuro5hin presents two of these risks as yet another argument against DRM:

Credit Risk

"you're counting on Microsoft or Apple not going out of business any time in your life and making all of your media instantly unreadable"

Liquidity Risk

"Unlike with books, CDs or DVDs, which can be given to friends for free or even sold on the newly viable secondary markets facilitated by eBay and others, DRM media is generally non-transferrable."

An Example

Suppose that you would like to buy the latest album from your favourite band. You are trying to decide between instant gratification from the iTunes Music Store or a slightly more arduous trip to the high-street. A quick check shows that prices between the two are comparable: £7.99.

A store-bought CD is a physical asset. It is something you can hold, and carry with you, or lend to friends. It had to be manufactured, and transported to the high-street. It has a nice printed cover and, if you're lucky, it may even have a fold-out booklet with song lyrics, artwork, etc. It can be ripped and encoded to any format you like, and played on a portable music player, or in-car player, or entertainment centre of your choice. It can even be sold at the flea-market if you're strapped for cash. A CD is not at the mercy of your iPod's declining battery-life.

Why, then, should you pay £7.99 for an inflexible, low-fidelity, risk-exposed, DRM-secured MP3 download, when you could have the CD album instead?

These considerations also extend beyond music to other forms of protected media. An example from the article is "Sony's PlayStation 3, which has the capability to tie the video games played on it to a unique machine" meaning that you can't lend or sell your game to anyone else.

The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman, is all about the little details in our everyday lives. Basic things like doors, or telephones, or stoves. The design details of these objects can either be done well, or poorly. but without conscious effort we don't notice them either way.

Ideally, the design details are done well. We don't notice them (and we don't need to). If done poorly, however, we still don't notice them; instead we fault ourselves: "I'm so bad with mechanical things." "I don't get on with computers." We naturally tend to fall into the pit of learned helplessness (or taught helplessness).

It's easy to fail as a result of poor design. Even something as trivial as a door has significant level of complexity when you break it down: Do you push or pull the door to open it? If so, on which side? Or maybe it slides? If so, in which direction? There are four ways to manually open a swinging door; how do we know which mode (or modes) of operation apply? The answer lies in the subtle design queues that answer these questions for us.

How many times have you pushed a door that should be pulled open, or pulled a door that should be pushed open? This picture shows a door giving mixed messages: The sign explicitly tells you to push the door open, but the handle implicitly tells you to pull the door open; because, after all, handles are for pulling on!

A classic example I can remember is one of the entrances to the Mathematics building at Reading University: There are two sets of double-doors with identical features on both sides. A horizontal plate positioned at hip-height and spanning the width of the door, suitable for pushing but also raised enough from the surface of the door so that you can wrap your fingers around the back of it and pull the door. At least it was obvious that the double-doors were meant to open in the middle, but the direction in which each set opened was a mystery to me. I failed at those doors many a time, and many others did too. (Don't even get me started on the light switches.)



Only yesterday I saw a man at a service station try to open a door similar to the one pictured by pulling on the handle. The sign clearly instructed to "Push"! Was he stupid? Should he have read the sign? What if he was not literate in English? What if he was distracted? Was it really his fault that he failed to open the door on the first attempt, or was it the fault of poor design?

"Somehow, when a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual -- even a one-word manual -- then it is a failure, poorly designed."

"If a design depends upon labels, it may be faulty. Labels are important and often necessary, but the appropriate use of natural mappings can minimise the need for them. Wherever labels seems necessary, consider another design."

Another scenario Norman talks about in his book is the arrangement of knobs on a stove-top: Burners are in a rectangular arrangement, yet the control knobs for them are, more often than not, in a linear arrangement. Left and right pairs of knobs control left and right pairs of burners respectively, that much is intuitive, but which dial in the pair controls the front burner and which controls the rear is a mystery.

Labels and diagrams are sometimes helpful, but often mask poor design.

• Consider the benefit of a rectangular arrangement of the hob controls which mimics the rectangular arrangement of the burners. Would there still be need for diagrams that indicate the mapping of controls to burners?
• Consider the benefit of having a rectangular push plate on one side of a door, and a pull handle on the other: Would there still be a need for signs indicating "Push" and "Pull"?

Good design is intuitive and easy to use right out of the box -- without having to read the manual. After all, few people actually read the manual anyway. If your instructions aren't already blindingly obvious then, even if the manual is read, its content will soon be forgotten by all but the most dedicated users. Perhaps the most amusing demonstration that "nobody reads the manual" is the book itself: First published in 1988, this book is "the manual" for designers, yet it seems a lot of its lessons have gone unlearnt over the past two decades.

"Good design takes care, planning, thought. It takes conscious attention to the needs of the user."

Computer Software

The cunning thing is that all of these design principles also apply in the world of computer software:

The Pit of Success: in stark contrast to a summit, a peak, or a journey across a desert to find victory though many trials and surprises, we want our customers to simply fall into winning practices by using our platform and frameworks. To the extent that we make it easy to get into trouble, we fail. -- Rico Mariani

The Pit Of Success for doors: A door without a handle can only be pushed.

Another good example of how well this content relates to computer software is the principle: Design For Errors.

There are many different reasons why users may make errors. Norman names seven distinct classes of error, and prescribes that designers should:

1. Understand the causes of error and design in order and minimize those causes.
2. Make it possible to reverse actions – to "undo" them – or make it harder to do what cannot be reversed.
3. Make it easier to discover the errors that do occur, and make them easier to correct.
   
4. Change the attitude toward errors. Think of an object’s user as attempting to do a task, getting there by imperfect approximations. Don’t think of the user as making errors; think of the actions as approximations of what is desired.

The Windows Recycle Bin was a way to allow recovery from the previously permanent action of deleting a file. Even the "Are you sure?" prompt was not enough, for that tends to confirm the action (deletion) when what you really want to confirm is the file that is being deleted. Users tend to hit "Yes" with a sigh: "Of course I'm sure; I wouldn't have pressed delete otherwise!" only to realise a second later that they accidentally selected the wrong file.

Good designs will let the user take steps towards their goal and give them suitable feedback to allow them to reach it, but without imposing serious penalties or restrictions on the path they take to get there.

"The principle of good design can make complexity manageable."


(The content from this book is nicely summarised here.)

I just ordered an upgrade for my current phone. I'm sticking with the Orange SmartPhone product line (which is merely a re-branding of HTC hardware) but taking an upgrade to the E650. It has a larger 2.4" screen, 2 mega-pixel digital camera, Windows Mobile 6, and a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. (Alas, they don't have a Dvorak option.)

Getting the upgrade was not as easy as it should be, partly because I'm on an O2 equivalent plan (through the Orange Value Promise offering) in an attempt to reduce the monthly contract charge for my phone, which I use fairly lightly.

Customer Service: Upgrades
I called Orange and the upgrades department told me my desired phone would cost £59. I told them that I'd been a customer for six years, and was now running two years out of contract, having taken no upgrades. I think after three years of "paying off my handset" with the monthly contract rates I'm entitled to an upgrade. The representative said it was based on my past six months of usage only. (So having only two handsets over my six contract years with Orange didn't make any difference!)

"You're telling me that after six years with Orange and two years being out of contract you want me to pay £70 for an upgrade? Ok, in that case I'd like to speak to someone who can help me switch to one of your competitors."

He warned that there was a 20 minute wait and offered to call me back (what, too many people trying to disconnect at the same time?! hah). Half-expecting not to ever get a call back I was pleasantly surprised when I did, only 10 or 15 minutes later.

Customer Service: Disconnections
The woman barely let me finish my spiel about how loyal a customer I am, and how one of her colleagues had just informed me that there was absolutely no way for me to get this phone for less than £69.99.

"Not necessarily. Let me see... Since you're a low usage customer we can offer you..."

She proceeded to detail a contract that featured monthly minutes and text allocations that were an order of magnitude greater than my current contract, yet for a cheaper monthly cost; and I'd get the E650 for free.

"What is this plan called? Is it listed on your website or anything?"

"It's called the Generic £15 plan; It's not listed anywhere; It's specially tailored, just for you."

(Yeah right, it's tailored just for me and any other customer who's about to leave. But hey, I'm not complaining!)

Now we're talking
I was hoping just for a free phone... and I didn't think it would be that easy either! The monthly cost reduction was a nice bonus, and the extra minutes/texts will ensure I never exceed my monthly allocation.

I get the phone I want, and reduce my monthly outgoings; they get to keep me as a customer. It's a win-win situation both ways.

Moral of the story
Drive a hard bargain with your mobile carrier, especially when it comes to renewals. Don't bother with the upgrades department; go straight to disconnections (internally named "customer retention") — they are the ones with the power to offer you un-advertised upgrade options and contract plans.

With the increasing maturity of the mobile phone market, providers will only get more competitive in their strategies to snatch customers from the competition, and to then retain them.

Here is an interesting extract from one of the books I'm currently reading (The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman) which dovetails nicely with the recently-reviewed, The God Delusion.

The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right so long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue that I needed to understand the problem. As long as [science] doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So [science] can be cut off from modern society except for its applications, and thus can be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit. So I suggest, maybe incorrectly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite. There was in the past an era of conversation on these matters. It was felt by the church that Galileo's views attacked the church. Nobody is worrying about it. Nobody attacks; I mean, nobody writes trying to explain the inconsistencies between the theological views and the scientific views held by different people today – or even the inconsistencies sometimes held by the same scientist between his religious and scientific beliefs.

[...] A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false, but rather how likely it is to be true of false. "Does God exist?" When put in the questional form, "How likely is it?", it makes such a terrifying transformation of the religious point of view, and that is why the religious point of view is unscientific. We must discuss each question within the uncertainties that are allowed. And as the evidence grows it increases the probability perhaps that some idea is right, or decreases it. But it never makes absolutely certain one way of the other. Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose questions. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified – how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

Now the freedom to doubt, which is absolutely essential for the development of the sciences, was born from a struggle with the constituted authorities of the time who had a solution to every problem, namely, the church. Galileo is a symbol of that struggle – one of the most important strugglers. […] The fact that Galileo was right is not essential to this discussion. The fact that he was trying to be suppressed is, of course.

From the essay entitled What Is And What Should Be The Role of Scientific Culture In Modern Society. pp. 111–113 in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman.

I haven't been an active member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) since I went to New York last year, to present my paper on Human Perturbation Response in Haptically Guided Movements at the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Annual International Conference (EMBC). In fact, my IEEE membership has lapsed so I'm not a member at all now.

Apparently this doesn't stop them sending me the occasional random email from the deep tendrils of their widely replicated email lists¹, such as this one, informing me that:

We are happy to announce that

the Joint Meeting of The Joint Meeting [sic] of the 6th International Symposium on Noninvasive Functional Source Imaging of the Brain and Heart & the International Conference on Functional Biomedical Imaging (NFSI&ICFBI'07)
http://ee.zju.edu.cn/nfsi2007/

will be held from October 12-14, 2007 in Hangzhou, China.

I have to say, it's a pretty impressive conference title when it merits a paragraph of its own, mid-sentence!

So, just in case you're thinking of submitting, remember that the paper submission deadline is 1 June, 2007.

---

¹ I remember being shocked that when I became an IEEE member they instantly signed me up for a myriad of mailing lists, without my express consent, and without any way for me to even find out what I'd been signed up for. Furthermore, each list had to be individually unsubscribed from in a process that was billed to take four to six weeks. If this is what an engineering organisation delivers I'd imagine the International Shakespeare Association must require a horse-couriered slate tablet with your unsubscription request etched into the stone!

Do you ever feel like there are too many things to think about? Or that there are not enough hours in the day to do the things you'd like to? Do you find yourself forgetting what you wanted to get from the store; or who's birthday it is next week; or that you meant to do such-and-such yesterday afternoon?

In the world of David Allen, it's all about the system. If you build up a system of organisation that is quick, simple, and in which you trust, then you can let that manage your tasks and 'projects' (personal or professional), so that you can get them out of your head and concentrate on the task at hand, and only the task at hand. Once you're done with that, your system will tell you what the next task is.

If you need to do something next Monday, say pay a bill, you can put it in your 'tickler file' and then put it out of your head. Sure enough, next Monday the bill will pop up to your attention, provided you play by the rules.

Getting Things Done is about emptying your head into an external framework that operates with a fixed set of rules. You just follow the rules and the framework helps you work out what to do at a particular time, and in a particular 'context' (e.g. "at the store", "at home", "at work", "at a phone", "at a computer")

I found this book an awesome read, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in boosting their personal productivity. I also recommend Vitalist Remember The Milk to assist your GTD implementation.

I recently watched Al Gore's production, An Inconvenient Truth. It was a pretty convincing presentation, which was to be expected. It seemed well put together, and the conclusions flowed nicely from it.

The problem is that I'm currently watching a recording of a similarly well put together Channel 4 documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle, which is debunking the entire debate around global warming piecemeal.

CO₂ makes up a very small portion of the atmosphere on Earth. Furthermore, there are plenty of other sources on Earth that generate far more CO₂ than the grand total combined efforts of the human race. Volcanoes, livestock, and decaying leaves, each generate far more CO₂ than human activities, apparently. But the biggest generators of CO₂ are actually the oceans.

The current period of warming started long before humans were having any significant impact on CO₂, and there was actually a drop in temperature for the four decades during the post-war industrial revolution.

One very important thing that Al Gore conveniently forgot to mention, when he had that big panoramic graph of historical CO₂ levels and atmospheric temperature, is that there is actually an 800 year time lag between the changes in CO₂ levels and corresponding changes in temperature. But it is actually temperature that is leading by 800 years... which somewhat undermines the theory that CO₂ levels drive temperature — the exact opposite seems to be true, and if you look closely, you can actually see this unmentioned misalignment on Al Gore's graphs. (It has also been confirmed by numerous ice-drill studies.)

This brings us back to the oceans — the biggest contributors to CO₂ in the atmosphere. Colder oceans can dissolve more CO₂ (just like a cold bottle of your favourite carbonated beverage holds more fizz). So increases in global temperature warm up the oceans, which then release more of their CO₂ into the atmosphere. And because the oceans are so vast they literally take hundreds and hundreds (or sometimes thousands) of years to warm up and cool down, which explains the 800 year lag.

Some other key points:

• News reports need to get more hysterical to draw attention. "Actually, there isn't really a problem, and we're not all going to die" doesn't make very exiting news, apparently.
• Funding for research on global warming is up to about 2 Billion pounds. Scientists who stand up against these views don't get to dip into that pot of funding. You'd have better chances of getting funded for a study on the nut-gathering patterns of squirrels with a title like "The effect of global climate change... on nut-gathering patterns of squirrels".
• 1,000 years ago Greenland was a lot warmer than it is today; the permafrost in Russia was far more melty in the past.
• Some thousands of years ago the Earth's temperature reached a peak far higher than what we see today, and the polar bears and ice caps seem to have survived.
• The IPCC seems to be a somewhat corrupt and politically driven entity.

"The sun is driving climate change — CO₂ is irrelevant."

It's hard to know who to believe on these issues, but one thing seems pretty certain: Al Gore has an "inconvenient truth" of his own — despite all the preaching (he claims to have delivered his presentation thousands of times around the world) his Nashville mansion uses more electricity in a month than the average American household uses in a year, his energy consumption has increased by over 10% since the release of An Inconvenient Truth; and in August last year he used more than twice the electricity that an average American household uses in a year.

Nice one Mr. Gore. Way to practice what you preach! But then again, he is a politician isn't he? Lying through your teeth is a strict prerequisite for that line of work.

I guess this is probably old news that I missed out on, but I just came across some sneaky USB-Rechargeable AA batteries from a company called USBCELL. It's a pretty neat idea, I have to say, and it took quite a while for someone to come up with it. The innovation in USB powered devices has been pretty crazy in the years since USB ports became standard issue. Everything from miniature USB-powered appliances, such as vacuum cleaners, beverage coolers, and humidifiers (!), through to USB Christmas trees, and pet collars, has been done before. But it took them this long to come up with the idea of hiding a USB port inside a rechargeable AA battery. Kudos!

Currently they offer AA batteries only, but are planning to expand to cover AAA, C, D, 9V, and mobile phone batteries too. I wish them the best of luck and I hope they make a killing in their enterprise.

Wikipedia says:
"The USBCELL AA product, launched on September 19th 2006, has been shortlisted as a finalist for the prestigous UK Design Week Award for best consumer product design of 2006."

(an excerpt from the May 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine.)

But then again, wasn't it also curiosity that killed the cat?

First Great Western
One thing that really makes a big impression on me (and, I'd be willing to guess, on most people) is customer service. During the past week I've had the pleasure of being graced with not one but two representatives of the First Great Western train company, on my commute home from work, who both truly seemed like they wanted to be there; like they were enjoying their job. It was a pleasant break from the norm — there's nothing worse than interacting with someone who is unhelpful, and gives off the distinct vibe that they'd rather be anywhere else; and there's nothing better than interacting with someone who is friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic.

lastminute.com
In other customer service matters, I also had a reply from lastminute.com regarding the snafu with my flight booking on my most recent trip to the USA. I don't think I bothered whining writing about that one but, in a nutshell, they forgot to mention that my flight booking involved a paper ticket (who uses paper tickets these days?!) so I turned up at the airport only to be told that I didn't actually have a ticket for my flight! Luckily the paper ticket was awaiting collection at a travel agent elsewhere in the terminal and not all was lost, but it was still quite alarming that the website and confirmation email clearly stated that my booking was an "e-Ticket".

After talking to people via email and getting nowhere I wrote them a rather firm letter suggesting that they might want to look into this, in order to prevent recurrence. It took them a month, but they sent me a one-page apology, complete with £50 cash refund, and on Valentine's Day no less!

My prize from the photo competition was a "Gerber Clutch" multi-tool. (pictured)

It is compact, light-weight, and strikingly well-engineered — the pliers are only about 3mm in thickness but have an integral spring, at the pivot, which makes for easy one-handed operation.

Having said that, I don't know when I'll actually find a use for this tool — I don't have any camping trips planned for the near future, and I don't go fishing.

PS: I'm going to the USA for three weeks to visit Kelley over the holidays. See you next year!

High-rolling in The City: (click image for the full-size article)

What an incredible waste of money!

Why is it that we refuse to even acknowledge each other in the calm and peaceful setting of a train, where we are (mostly) seated and (often) enjoying the views of rolling hills rushing past?

And yet, many of us see fit to go out to "socialise" in some smokey trash-dump where you can't hear yourself think for the music blaring from the speakers.

Would our journeys not go quicker if we all had roaring conversations instead of staring blankly into space, trying our hardest not to make eye contact?

I would have posed this question to the passenger sitting next to me on the train ride home, but they seemed content with enjoying the scenery, and wouldn't have heard me for their iPod anyway.

On The Path To World Domination

During my recent visit to New York I was somewhat plagued by Starbucks. I knew that they were pretty commonplace in the USA, but I wasn't prepared for this. On three consecutive mornings, my room-mate and I were reduced to eating breakfast at:

1. The Starbucks attached to the hotel entrance;
2. The Starbucks on the opposite side of the block (when we went out looking for a non-Starbucks coffee shop, and failed); and then, just for variety
3. The Starbucks on one of the lower levels of the hotel.
   

If only I'd known about The Starbucks Delocator.

(An interesting point of note was that the price of a medium mocha drink went up 50 cents each time you got closer to your room -- the shop around the block was cheapest, the one in the hotel entrance next, and the one inside the hotel dearest. I suppose if I went three blocks away from Times Square the price would probably have halved.)

The Anti-Promotion

Unbeknownst to me, during the time of my personal issues Starbucks themselves were having some promotional issues. Apparently they sent out a promotional coupon, via email, to a small group of employees and partners in Atlanta, asking that they forward it to family and friends.

As per the instructions, the coupon was spread far and wide, but then they backed out and refused to honor the vouchers because, apparently, the offer was redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond its control.

That's okay though, because Caribou Coffee decided to put it's money where Starbucks' mouth is, and honor the offer on their behalf!

Satirical Onions

Meanwhile: New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks

"Eventually, Starbucks rest rooms everywhere will sell coffee," Schultz said. "But that ambitious scheme is at least five years down the road. In the meantime, we plan to open an additional location in this Starbucks' ladies' room within months, and are already drafting plans for a fourth restaurant along the corridor leading from the main seating area to the rest rooms. At some point a 'Star-bucks Express' window will eventually open in the walk-in closet of the men's room Starbucks."

This article from InformationWeek talks about why Apple's copy protection is bad for consumers, bad for competition, and bad for the industry.

Here are some out-takes, but I highly recommend you read the entire article.

No one but Apple is allowed to make players for iTunes Music Store songs, and no one but Apple can sell you proprietary file-format music that will play on the iPod.

[...]

Reverse engineering is a common practice in most industries. You can reverse-engineer a blender and make your own blades, you can reverse-engineer a car and make your own muffler, and you can reverse-engineer a document and make a compatible reader. Apple loves to reverse-engineer -- from Keynote to TextEdit to Mail.app, Apple loves reverse-engineering its competitors' products and making its own competing products.

But the iTunes/iPod product line is off-limits to this kind of reverse-engineering. No one but Apple can authorize an iTunes/iPod competitor, and Apple's not exactly enthusiastic about such authorization --the one major effort to date was the stillborn Motorola ROKR phone, which was so crippled by ridiculous Apple-driven restrictions that it barely made a ripple as it sank to the bottom of the cesspool of failed electronics.

[...]

Apple has already demonstrated its willingness to abuse its monopoly over iTunes players by shipping "updates" to iTunes that add new restrictions to the songs its customers have already purchased. The business model of buying music on the Internet is that one buys a "license" for certain uses, but the company that supplies the product to you can revoke parts of the license, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is just abuse.

Furthermore, without any compatible products out there, your collection of music purchased from the iTunes Music Store dies along with the battery-life of your iPod. Unless you buy another iPod to replace it, you will have to forfeit your collection of music that you paid for through the nose¹, since nothing else will play it!

[Full Article]

---

¹ Record companies skim a significant portion of the store price in production and distribution fees. But the electronic distribution is far cheaper than driving truckloads of CDs to record stores. Not to mention that electronic duplication, unlike CD manufacturing, is essentially free! Yet you still end up paying the same sort of price for an album as you would in a record store. Sweet deal for the record labels, I guess.

Apparently it's time for some big football competition again. Yay! I wouldn't have known it except for the fact that every man and his dog seem to be flying silly little flags on their cars.

Improbable Research tells us that the extra drag created by these flags flapping in the wind can reduce your fuel efficiency by 3%. Researcher Dr Antonio Filippone said: “Half a million cars with these flags attached will burn a total of 1.22 million litres of fuel during the World Cup.”

Meanwhile, the NHS may be dishing out extra funds to treat World Cup related health problems of serious fans. For example, myocardial infarction (heart attack) and urticaria -- first reported in 1987, "an urticarial rash [hives] apparently caused by the frustration of watching England play football."

ASCII Broadcasts

Just to take the piss, I'll be watching all the action in a real-time ASCII stream, via telnet:

telnet diego.ascii-wm.net 2006

Courtesy of ascii-wm.net (Click here for a terminal screencap)

Boing Boing

And while we're on the subject of taking the piss: The owners of the Boing Boing website received a premature legal threat about World Cup video distribution. Here's what Mark Frauenfelder had to say:

I don't even know what the FIFA World Cup is. I'm guessing it's soccer, which I hate just as much as any other pro sport. Every editor at Boing Boing detests professional sports, and we would sooner stream a video of a crumpled up paper napkin in the corner of a room than show some jackasses running after a ball. The only time we would ever post anything about pro-sports would be to make fun of them.

As a counter-strike, Boing Boing pointed out to their wider readership the amusing incident that Baker & McKenzie were no-doubt hoping would blow over: Richard Phillips, 36-year-old solicitor at the firm (who is said to earn well over £100,000) demanded £4 from Jenny Amner -- a secretary, mother of two, in her fifties -- who accidentally splashed some ketchup on his trousers at lunch.

Hi Jenny, I went to a dry cleaners at lunch and they said it would cost £4 to remove the ketchup stains. If you cd let me have the cash today, that wd be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Richard

She was a little slow to reply, and when she returned to the office she found a post-it note on her desk, chasing her for the money. Here's the reply she sent to him, and the other 250 workers on their floor of the office building:

Subject: RE: Ketchup trousers.

With reference to the email below, I must apologise for not getting back to you straight away but due to my mother's sudden illness, death and funeral I have had more pressing issues than your £4.

I apologise again for accidentally getting a few splashes of ketchup on your trousers. Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is greater than mine as a mere secretary.

Having already spoken to and shown your email and Anne-Marie's note to various partners, lawyers and trainees in ECC&T and IP/IT, they kindly offered to do a collection to raise the £4.

I however declined their kind offer but should you feel the urgent need for the £4, it will be on my desk this afternoon.

Jenny

This email was then promptly circulated around the London legal community and beyond, as a polite reminder that although it's nice to be important, it's more important to be nice.

Every now and then I see a nice mountain bike, brand new, latest gadgets, full suspension, etc. It's locked with the metaphorical equivalent of a short piece of parcel string attaching the handle on the bell to a twig on a tree branch, with a double-bow knot.

Allow me to explain...

The Quick Release

Modern bicycle wheels are attached to the frame using a quick-release skewer that allows you to take the wheel off quickly and easily. This is particularly handy when you get a puncture during a race -- you can undo the quick release, slip off the wheel, and replace it with another wheel that has a fresh inner-tube.

In circuit races people often bring spare sets of wheels to use in case of a puncture -- usually you can ride to the start-finish line, change your wheel, and re-join the race the following lap. Because races usually contain one (or several) groups of riders, it's easy for you to re-join the race where you were before the puncture, and most referees at circuit races will allow you to do this if you puncture. (Some referees are even nice enough to replace your punctured tube and pump it up after you head off, so that you have a spare in case get another puncture.)

In professional road racing you'd have a team car riding behind the race. Inside will be your team director, mechanic, and other key people. On top of the car will be spare wheels and, often, entire bikes. Should you get a puncture in the peloton you just slow down and drop out of the rear-end of the bunch and ride along until your team car gets to you. Your mechanic will jump out and swap the wheel for you and you'll be on your way about five seconds later.

In amateur racing your mileage may vary -- there might be a neutral service vehicle, which may or may not be very well organised, and may or may not screw you over. Deal with it.

Back On Track

What does this have to do with anything? Well, as much as quick-release wheels are handy in a racing situation, they are also very anti-handy in the theiving-scum situation encountered at most universities.

When you lock your bike frame to a secure object the lock doesn't protect your wheels. And if your wheels happen to be quick-release then someone can walk off with them in a matter of seconds. A nice set of wheels can be quite expensive, not to mention the inconvenience of being left in the middle of nowhere with a bike frame and no wheels.

Who Would Do Such A Thing?

I don't know why anyone would do something so mean, but I've seen it happen. Heck, that's a lie -- I do know why someone would do such a thing: because they are mean and greedy theiving scum!



Naïve?

Why would anyone leave their quick-release wheels unlocked? I don't know; maybe they're naïve. That hefty lock could have at least secured the rear wheel, instead of just the frame! Not to mention that it's locked through the suspension shock -- had the thieves had a little more time and/or sense they could have simply disconnected the shock absorber and threaded the seat-post and saddle through the loop of the lock, and made off with the bike whole!


Verdict

In this particular case the owner was just begging for trouble. I'm guessing they probably also left the bike out there overnight after one too many beers at the union, or something like that.

In general, it would be nice if there were no thieves in the world. In practice, there are thieves, and ignorance won't protect you from them.

American Express provide a variety of credit cards and charge cards for individuals and businesses. One of the personal cards they are currently pushing in the UK is the American Express Blue card (pictured). This card boasts the MoneyBack benefit that gives you an annual credit that is a fixed percentage of your qualifying transactions (basically, any normal purchase transactions so long as you pay off your bill on time -- which is easy with a Direct Debit).

So 1% MoneyBack sounds appealing. Like a 1% discount on everything you buy throughout the year! If you're enough of a consumer that could add up!

Check out this section from their terms and conditions:

An annual rebate on the aggregate amount of all Transactions (other than Cash Withdrawals) will be payable to you by us at the following tiers and rates:

• 0.5% for aggregate amounts up to £2,000
• 1% for aggregate amounts in excess of £2,001
  
  

Ahh, so it's not a fixed 1% -- there are some intricacies. But providing you run more than £2,000 of transactions then you should be fine to get the 1% on the full amount, right? That is your understanding of the above quoted paragraph, right?

Wrong.

I'm not at all sure how this works, but they're somehow claiming that you always get 0.5% on the first £2,000, and 1% thereafter. Perhaps that might be communicated by the word "tiers", despite the fact that they continually use the term "aggregate amount" (which is not specifically defined anywhere and, to me at least, suggests reference to the sum total of all your transactions for the year).

Furthermore, even if the sole word "tiers" is enough to get them off the hook, I nabbed the following section from the card comparison page on their website:

An annual rebate on the aggregate amount of all transactions (other than the exclusions stated above) will be payable to you by us as the following rates:

• 0.5% for aggregate amounts up to £2,000; and
• 1% for aggregate amounts in access of £2,001
  
  

Note the omission of the word "tiers". Maybe I'm missing something, but I genuinely do not see any way that this could be interpreted to mean "0.5% on the first £2,000 and 1% thereafter".

After a chat to customer services (where they weren't entirely sure what season it was, or what the time of day was, or whether they'd tied their shoelaces this morning) they sent me a letter confirming that I'd been paid the correct amount of CashBack at the rate of 0.5% on the first £2,000 and 1% thereafter.

I tried to call back at customer services to query it again and, after explaining the entire situation to some woman in a call-centre in India she informed me that their computer systems were being upgraded and they couldn't do anything (not even think, apparently!), and they didn't know when the upgrade would be finished but it had been going on for 20 hours. So I pointed out that my enquiry had little dependence on their computer systems -- it's not like I was trying to pay a bill, or query my account -- but that wasn't enough. She couldn't help me. The fact that she didn't point out that "sorry but I can't actually do anything for you, I'm just picking up this phone because they pay me to" before I went through the entire history of the matter, just adds further annoyance.

So, having got the proper motivation, I sent a follow-up letter via postal mail, featuring the above quotations, and asking them what on earth they were talking about. I also threw in something about "regulatory bodies" and "false advertising".

The astute reader will note that the discrepancy between 0.5% and 1% on £2,000 is only £10, but that is irrelevant. This is a matter of principle.

I'll let you know what happens.

Here are some photos from my cameraphone that I've neglected to publish until now.

Bush: Terrorist

When I went to get my bike fixed a couple of weeks ago I snapped this amusing graffiti at the end of my mechanic's road:


Close-up:


Overclocked Calculator

When doing some last-minute revision on the sunny lawn in front of the examination hall yesterday I noticed an interesting switch on my course-mate's graphical calculator:


Upon inquiry, I was informed that it was an overclock switch which speeds up calculations almost two-fold.


I didn't get any more information (we walked into the exam hall at that point) and I can't help thinking he's yanking my chain. But why would anyone go through the trouble of cracking open the case of their calculator and installing a switch that doesn't actually do anything?

If I'd had more time I would have bench-marked him on some factorials :-)

Usability

Some time ago¹ I was attending a research seminar by a professor² who was visiting from Sweden. Mid-way through the lecture someone decided that they desperately needed to change the lighting configuration in the theatre. At that point they seemingly randomly switched on and off various top lights, side lights, and stage lights before eventually giving up and sitting back down.

¹I tried to find out when it was, only to discover that the website that lists "Upcoming Seminars" hasn't been updated in over a year. (See point four in my previous post.)
²Professor Torsten Söderström, expert in system identification and other extremely boring math-based things. Check out his cheery mug.

Unfortunately they left the board light on, which is positioned directly above the whiteboard and shines directly on it. Unfortunately the "whiteboard" in this case was a projector screen, showing the good Professor's 800 slide PowerPoint deck.

This caused further disruption as another person got up to correct this, again, by randomly switching various lights on and off until the desired state was reached.

Recently I took a closer look at the light-switch panel in that theatre and all was explained.
Here is a photograph of what they were working with:



Check out those hot usability features:

1. Incomprehensible alphanumeric labels in various orientations, lengths and colours.
2. Blanked-out switch placeholders
3. Switches that don't seem to do anything (!)
   

Looks par for the course. Quick, we'd better add some new buildings before we spend money on maintaining the existing ones on campus!

Here's a list of nit-picks I've collected over the past couple of weeks at university that, collectively, drive me insane and highly unlikely to return for post-graduate studies.

University Nitpicks:

1. Published timetables get changed without notification.
2. Timetable notifications get sent after the relevant lectures have taken place.
3. Lectures get cancelled on 15 minutes notice, given via email.
4. The Research Seminar listings haven't been updated for almost a year.
5. The official unified University-wide timetabling system is not accessible from off-campus and frequently returns nonsense results when you access it on-campus. (Bear in mind that printed timetables for courses are usually available on-campus, so the online system has no conceivable use if you're already on-campus, except maybe to look at timetables for future terms.)
6. Exam timetables get published at https://www.[DOMAIN].ac.uk/si/sits.urd/run/siw_lgn but accessing https://www.[DOMAIN].ac.uk/ yields a standard IIS "Under Construction" page, giving you no hope of typing in the URL. Instead you have to navigate through several levels of links to get to the page if you've not previously bookmarked it. Classy!
7. On a similar note, all of the university domains are picky -- if you don't include the www. you don't get squat. I know that technically http://www.microsoft.com and http://microsoft.com are different, but c'mon, let's think about usability for a second here.
8. The policy on exam timetables states "Please note that if you have queried your exam timetable with the Examinations Office and have been informed of changes to your timetable (for example, as a result of changes to your module enrolment), you will be sent a hard copy of your timetable and the timetable will no longer be available on the portal until immediately before the examination period." I'm not sure what the reasoning for this is, but my timetable had an exam scheduled for a course that was not supposed to have an exam (!) which was later removed, the (online) timetable amended, remained available online (contradictory to the above-stated policy), no hard-copy was sent, nor did they contact me to inform me of the change. Let's be clear here, they changed the timetable for my final exams and didn't bother to tell me. Great!
9. Coursework turned in during November gets returned in May (three months late for the specified return date, and two days before the exam for that course) with no comments or feedback what-so-ever apart from a mark on the front!
10. Other coursework did have some feedback, but unfortunately it served only to confuse students. Ratings of 'very good', 'good', 'average', or 'poor' were given in eight categories. Someone who had everything rated as 'very good' got a mark of 85%. Where did the other 15% go?