This Japanese advert is attracting a lot of attention as some people assume it's targeting Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si-lSLv9b4E
Surely the racist ones are the people who:
a. Infer that any monkey is automatically representative of Africa Americans, and;
b. Are completely ignorant of the cultures and social mores of nation from which the ad comes.
The Japanese Macaque is hugely popular in Japan (though maybe not with the local farmers) and is a generally very nice primate to be around. If the odd American thinks that this (brown haired, pink faced) primate looks like a black man then maybe it’s another case of the US templating its own set of values on another very different culture. Perhaps they should invade.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Not his fault, apparently
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2152671/Grieving-father-attacks-canoe-hire-business.html
We can all feel for this poor guy, but that’s no excuse for his idiotic remarks being given a national platform.
He was the one who decided to hire the canoes, he was the one who knew how much experience he and his children had. But now it’s the people who hired him the equipment who are responsible fro this tradegy. However much he’s grieving, in the long term surely it would be better for him to accept responsibility for his own poor judgment now, rather than live in denial of his guilt forever
We can all feel for this poor guy, but that’s no excuse for his idiotic remarks being given a national platform.
He was the one who decided to hire the canoes, he was the one who knew how much experience he and his children had. But now it’s the people who hired him the equipment who are responsible fro this tradegy. However much he’s grieving, in the long term surely it would be better for him to accept responsibility for his own poor judgment now, rather than live in denial of his guilt forever
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Scum of The Earth
When I was an IT contractor we regarded recruitment agents as slightly below pond life on the evolutionary scale. They were totally without encumbrances that hold the rest of us back. I'm talking about things like honesty, morality, and the like. I’m sure there were some nice ones about, but I never met them.
Now I’m recruiting for a new techie, and despite my best efforts I am getting spam from the scum, so I’ve drafted a standard reply as follows:
THIS IS A STANDARD REPLY.
You have sent an unsolicited email in response to a gumtree posting clearly marked with the following :
“Anti spam: Do NOT contact me offering services or anything of a commercial nature.”
As you have chosen to ignore this instruction your email domain has now been flagged as a spamming domain, and may be added to a number of blacklists. Once a domain is listed on a blacklist you may find that email is not being received across a wide range of organisations.
To resolve this your mail administrator will be required to contact any list administrators to request that the domain be removed from any blacklists, and will be required to give assurances that unsolicited email is no longer being sent from this domain.
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL AS FURTHER EMAILS FROM YOUR EMAIL DOMAIN WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED
The wording is careful - I’m not actually going to the trouble of blacklisting domains, and this won’t stop other agencies from wasting my time, but it sure feels good when I hit the REPLY button.
Now I’m recruiting for a new techie, and despite my best efforts I am getting spam from the scum, so I’ve drafted a standard reply as follows:
THIS IS A STANDARD REPLY.
You have sent an unsolicited email in response to a gumtree posting clearly marked with the following :
“Anti spam: Do NOT contact me offering services or anything of a commercial nature.”
As you have chosen to ignore this instruction your email domain has now been flagged as a spamming domain, and may be added to a number of blacklists. Once a domain is listed on a blacklist you may find that email is not being received across a wide range of organisations.
To resolve this your mail administrator will be required to contact any list administrators to request that the domain be removed from any blacklists, and will be required to give assurances that unsolicited email is no longer being sent from this domain.
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL AS FURTHER EMAILS FROM YOUR EMAIL DOMAIN WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED
The wording is careful - I’m not actually going to the trouble of blacklisting domains, and this won’t stop other agencies from wasting my time, but it sure feels good when I hit the REPLY button.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Here's One I Prepared Earlier
Please excuse the length - I dictated this Using Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 so it’s more verbose that normal – but my is it soooo much easier to rant verbally….
I’m posting this now because I didn’t before – mostly lethargy, but also an urge to wait and see what happened. And the answer is… Nothing. FSB never replied to two emails, British Gas have lost my account it would seem, and have never event sent me a reminder. And so due to glorious inefficiency all round, I emerge victorious. Will the last person competent enough to do so please turn of the lights….
---------------------------------------------------
When I took on the lease of our new shop in the beginning of June I initially tried, admittedly not very hard, to find out who our utility providers were. These days this is a less than simple task, and it was only a month or so later when I had a little more time to dedicate to this task that I was able to find that British Gas were supplying both gas and electricity to the property. When I phoned up to get the bill transferred into my company's name we began to discuss rates. It works slightly differently when you’re a business, and you seem to have a little more negotiating power about the rates and standing charges that you're going to pay, however until you have agreed a contract with your gas supplier you are put on a ‘special’ rate, for which you may read punitive rate.
British Gas, when I pointed this out to them, said they would quite happily backdate the tariffs they were offering to the date of my taking over the property, but I had two objections to this. Firstly it is an overt form of blackmail. I do not like having my decisions affected in this way, and given that British Gas were not the most competitive suppliers, I would have had good reason not to choose them anyway. I refuse to be subjected to what I considered to be a shoddy practice, and contacted NPower who were offering a more competitive tariff are both gas and electricity supplies.
For those who don't know how these things work, the process of changing supplier takes some six to eight weeks, during which time you have to pay whatever special tariff the old supplier chooses to apply to your account. It was about nine weeks later that British Gas sent me a bill based upon this punitive tariff which firstly quoted a wholly unrealistic estimated electricity reading, and also made no reference to the fact that they were no longer providing the supply to my property (specifically they were charging for dates after NPower had taken over the supply). This was very much a case of showing a red rag to a bull, and in very short order I had made my feelings on the matter cleared to British Gas, and had also spoken to NPower who confirmed that they had informed British Gas of the date of their taking over the supply, including the meter reading.
British Gas had not acted on this information, and clearly made no note of the reading (hence their ludicrous estimate) and more importantly when I told them to sort out their own mess, they told me to contact NPower and get it sorted out from their side (though after a few short words they did agree to change their records without placing any more obstacles in my away)
Let's look at specific numbers to get a little bit of an idea about why I'm getting upset with British Gas...
Firstly will deal with the estimate of 3485 units used between the 8th June and 1st October. The actual reading, which is about half of this, reflects the fact that we are running two servers and half a dozen computers at any one time as well as lighting our office for about 10 hours a day. The previous occupants used practically no electronic equipment and therefore used a fraction of what we are using, so this is clearly a cavalier attempt on the part of British Gas to frontload their cash flow. Then come the tariffs British Gas 13p per kilowatt; NPower 8.26p. Standing charge: British Gas £133 per quarter approximately; NPower £16.24 per quarter. In other words the unit charge is twice as much and the standing charge about eight times as much with British Gas.
This is simply not fair, and I don't like things that aren't fair. The important point to note is that whatever my statutory obligations, I do not have a contract with British Gas, or at least not one I have signed or agreed to. Were it a case of 10 or 20% extra to pay then I might stomach this, but given that I'm being screwed I'm going to put up a fight. At the moment I’ve raised the matter with the Federation of Small Businesses, of which we are a member, and through them will raise the matter with Energy Watch, the ombudsman.
I’m posting this now because I didn’t before – mostly lethargy, but also an urge to wait and see what happened. And the answer is… Nothing. FSB never replied to two emails, British Gas have lost my account it would seem, and have never event sent me a reminder. And so due to glorious inefficiency all round, I emerge victorious. Will the last person competent enough to do so please turn of the lights….
---------------------------------------------------
When I took on the lease of our new shop in the beginning of June I initially tried, admittedly not very hard, to find out who our utility providers were. These days this is a less than simple task, and it was only a month or so later when I had a little more time to dedicate to this task that I was able to find that British Gas were supplying both gas and electricity to the property. When I phoned up to get the bill transferred into my company's name we began to discuss rates. It works slightly differently when you’re a business, and you seem to have a little more negotiating power about the rates and standing charges that you're going to pay, however until you have agreed a contract with your gas supplier you are put on a ‘special’ rate, for which you may read punitive rate.
British Gas, when I pointed this out to them, said they would quite happily backdate the tariffs they were offering to the date of my taking over the property, but I had two objections to this. Firstly it is an overt form of blackmail. I do not like having my decisions affected in this way, and given that British Gas were not the most competitive suppliers, I would have had good reason not to choose them anyway. I refuse to be subjected to what I considered to be a shoddy practice, and contacted NPower who were offering a more competitive tariff are both gas and electricity supplies.
For those who don't know how these things work, the process of changing supplier takes some six to eight weeks, during which time you have to pay whatever special tariff the old supplier chooses to apply to your account. It was about nine weeks later that British Gas sent me a bill based upon this punitive tariff which firstly quoted a wholly unrealistic estimated electricity reading, and also made no reference to the fact that they were no longer providing the supply to my property (specifically they were charging for dates after NPower had taken over the supply). This was very much a case of showing a red rag to a bull, and in very short order I had made my feelings on the matter cleared to British Gas, and had also spoken to NPower who confirmed that they had informed British Gas of the date of their taking over the supply, including the meter reading.
British Gas had not acted on this information, and clearly made no note of the reading (hence their ludicrous estimate) and more importantly when I told them to sort out their own mess, they told me to contact NPower and get it sorted out from their side (though after a few short words they did agree to change their records without placing any more obstacles in my away)
Let's look at specific numbers to get a little bit of an idea about why I'm getting upset with British Gas...
Firstly will deal with the estimate of 3485 units used between the 8th June and 1st October. The actual reading, which is about half of this, reflects the fact that we are running two servers and half a dozen computers at any one time as well as lighting our office for about 10 hours a day. The previous occupants used practically no electronic equipment and therefore used a fraction of what we are using, so this is clearly a cavalier attempt on the part of British Gas to frontload their cash flow. Then come the tariffs British Gas 13p per kilowatt; NPower 8.26p. Standing charge: British Gas £133 per quarter approximately; NPower £16.24 per quarter. In other words the unit charge is twice as much and the standing charge about eight times as much with British Gas.
This is simply not fair, and I don't like things that aren't fair. The important point to note is that whatever my statutory obligations, I do not have a contract with British Gas, or at least not one I have signed or agreed to. Were it a case of 10 or 20% extra to pay then I might stomach this, but given that I'm being screwed I'm going to put up a fight. At the moment I’ve raised the matter with the Federation of Small Businesses, of which we are a member, and through them will raise the matter with Energy Watch, the ombudsman.
By An Amazing Coincidence....
...I get a call from TV licensing. Thinking they've received my letter (see last blog entry, which was still waiting to go out with this evening's post) we begin at cross purposes. Then in one of those all-too-rare moments I have a lucid conversation with somebody helpful.
I can, it turns out, send in my refund application which is now downloadable from http://tvlicensing.metafaq.com/resources/tvlicensing/licensingInfo/Refund and the kind lady even gives me the license number and expiry date which I need as I no longer have the original.
So now I’ll post that off with a final bill from my old address and see what happens….
I can, it turns out, send in my refund application which is now downloadable from http://tvlicensing.metafaq.com/resources/tvlicensing/licensingInfo/Refund and the kind lady even gives me the license number and expiry date which I need as I no longer have the original.
So now I’ll post that off with a final bill from my old address and see what happens….
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