Human perception is a weird and wonderful thing. There's a joke that goes:
1st Girl: You know Brad?
2nd Girl: The fireman?
1st Girl: Yeah! I caught him outside the house in his car - with a pair of binoculars the other day - he said he didn't know how to come and say hello.
2nd Girl: That's so sweet! Are you going out?
1st Girl: Totally! *pause* Y'know Tim, that geek from accounts I went on that date with texted me again last night as well.
2nd Girl: Eww. Total Stalker.
And it's funny because it's true. The difference between someone being a Total Stalker and someone's Soul Mate is almost entirely in the control of the adored, and not in any way in the control of the adorer. Tough luck for those suffering unrequited love. You can never win if they're just not that into you. This applies to all facets of human emotion of course, but it's love that polarises us most. Given this what most people don't realise is that the real art of seduction isn't so much what you do, as how the other person perceives what you do. Now when you see dating tips they usually don't acknowledge this, but the tips they give actually help the situation. In fact women love confident men, to the point where if they can't get confident their next preference is arrogant - presumably they're thinking: "If this dickhead thinks he's so great, maybe he is and I'm missing it."
In this situation the confident/arrogant guy is controlling perception to a degree - probably unconsciously - because if someone has no doubts about themselves then half of the social anxiety has already gone. Guys - you know those rich short fat guys with hot women? Hate to break it to you - but when those women declare their love for the lil' guys they're probably being honest. Lil' guy might seem to be half the man you are, but he KNOWS he's twice the man you are and sees no reason not to let others know it. Doh.
Of course this all applies everywhere, professionally, with loathing, loving, trusting, partnerships and friendships. Remember being 5? Remember people ordering you to be their best friend? And you denying someone best friend status, because
you already had a best friend (Hey Jack!)? 5 year olds don't really get it yet - if you say a relationship is a certain way then it is - why complicate it? Betrayal and viciousness teach us to stop trying to dictate relationships eventually so
that's all gone by about 8 or 9, but do we ever learn the lesson we should have learnt?
I think I have a pretty good relationship with my wife. But I can't be sure - I can only go from our interactions and her reality isn't mine - so to speak. But we talk a lot, and complain to each other - even about each other. And sure we fight now and then - but that's a good thing. If nobody is really invested in the relationship there's no reason to fight, really - there's no terms to negotiate when nothing you have the other wants. So we fight, we make peace, we jockey for position in our relationship - unwittingly and unconciously most of the time, but we do it nonetheless. This month she has the advantage, the next month it's mine. Who does the dog love most? What's my role? Why does she do that thing where she tells me to decide what we're doing, but means decide what she wants us to do? Because I'm pretty sure she doesn't *really* want her ass kicking on COD:MW2 or SF4 and I'm not idiotically optimistic enough suggest it. Though I don't see why this means I should watch Britains Next Top Shoemaker or whatever either. So we fight, and we negotiate and we compromise, and I go and play PS3, but somehow finish up *listening* to Britains Next Top Shoemaker and occasionally tell her that those thigh-highs are horrific during those damn unskippable cut-scenes (Seriously WTF? Screw your Artistic Integrity - I'm just trying to shoot shit here, Mr Game Designer). And we get to go another day in our makeshift togetherness. And occassionally, just occassionally, Britains Next Top Shoemaker is actually Glee or Lie To Me, and I love it and we find another connection. And very very occasionally that SF4 is Wii Sports, or that COD:MW2 is Singstar, and not only do we find another connection but it was my connection! Found by me! I made us that little bit stronger! Yay us! And me, obviously. :)
And now and then we get to sit down, and really talk, and see how each other have changed, and change our opinions of each other a little and learn something new and have our assumptions shaken a little. And this acts as nice little reminder that
the easiest mistake to make with any relationship is to regard it as a known, settled thing and disregard it or think it doesn't need a little TLC now and then. Now how much TLC is a point of much dispute, and for this there's no easy answer.
Me and the wife have very different approaches to this, so this one we're never going to agree on. But really, it seems like it's sometimes worth paying attention to the real lesson we should have learned at 6 or 7. You can't control the world, learn to go with it. I cannot guarantee reciprocity of emotion which leaves me with two options:
1) I can try to be empathetic, listen and consider things from another point of view to guess at what people really think and then if I'm brutally honest with myself and can see my own failings, then maybe, just maybe I can change that relationship.
or
2) I can believe exactly what I'm told explicitly and be blasé about absolutely everything else. Que sera sera.
I'd love to say it's all about 1) and I'm heading to sainthood, but really, if I'm honest, it's all about the 2) and who gives a crap where I'm heading...
--TechTonic
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
NNT:JE: Divine Felinity: 0001:002
Hey! JC3 back again to clean something up. I've seen on the Internet a profusion of signs carried by protesters saying the God hates kittens. See here, here and here. It's worrying because whilst we're quite used to people (nutcases mostly) trying to tell the world what Dad loves or hates, they're REALLY REALLY wrong about the kitten thing.
Me and Dad both have a thing for cats, as dad puts it: "They're wilful, destructive, violent and mercenary and have a nasty habit of taking themselves too seriously. All of which makes it so much funnier when they come a cropper. Just like humans really."
That's not entirely true of course, he probably should have said "Like some humans", but you see his point. In many ways God's relationship with the modern world of man is much like the modern world of man's relationship with cats on Youtube. He enjoys watching your loveable antics, and as long as no one is too badly harmed, it's even entertaining to watch you fall over now and again.
Prophet! Look into making the God equivalent of LOLCATS will you? A priest looking to the heavens with CAN I HAZ BLESSING? That kind of thing.
Anyway, I digress. Where were we... Cat good. Check! Oh, here we are. Yeah the flipside of this is that God has the Metatron for a reason, and last time I checked The Metatron wasn't a redneck shouting God hates Fags (What's so bad about cigarettes anyway, it's not like you HAVE to smoke them), anymore than he was a smug glasses wearing nerd with a God hates Kittens sign. Now there would be hell to pay, but we realise it's been a while since we updated you all, and that's what I'm here to rectify. Though it'll be a boring list if I just list it all out and I'm trying to avoid that in the NNT:JE, so we'll leave this for now and come back to the wider scope of Dad's loves/hates at later date.
So, in conclusion, I'd like to re-assure you that God does in fact Love kittens. And Humans. And Dogs. He even loves those nutcases holding up the signs that say what he likes and doesn't like. But it should be made clear that whilst he loves
the nutcases, that doesn't mean he likes them right now...
Peace out.
--JC3
Damnnit can we let the kitten thing go? And Human LOLCATs? Seriously?
Your Messiah has spoken.
FINE.
-TechTonic
Me and Dad both have a thing for cats, as dad puts it: "They're wilful, destructive, violent and mercenary and have a nasty habit of taking themselves too seriously. All of which makes it so much funnier when they come a cropper. Just like humans really."
That's not entirely true of course, he probably should have said "Like some humans", but you see his point. In many ways God's relationship with the modern world of man is much like the modern world of man's relationship with cats on Youtube. He enjoys watching your loveable antics, and as long as no one is too badly harmed, it's even entertaining to watch you fall over now and again.
Prophet! Look into making the God equivalent of LOLCATS will you? A priest looking to the heavens with CAN I HAZ BLESSING? That kind of thing.
Anyway, I digress. Where were we... Cat good. Check! Oh, here we are. Yeah the flipside of this is that God has the Metatron for a reason, and last time I checked The Metatron wasn't a redneck shouting God hates Fags (What's so bad about cigarettes anyway, it's not like you HAVE to smoke them), anymore than he was a smug glasses wearing nerd with a God hates Kittens sign. Now there would be hell to pay, but we realise it's been a while since we updated you all, and that's what I'm here to rectify. Though it'll be a boring list if I just list it all out and I'm trying to avoid that in the NNT:JE, so we'll leave this for now and come back to the wider scope of Dad's loves/hates at later date.
So, in conclusion, I'd like to re-assure you that God does in fact Love kittens. And Humans. And Dogs. He even loves those nutcases holding up the signs that say what he likes and doesn't like. But it should be made clear that whilst he loves
the nutcases, that doesn't mean he likes them right now...
Peace out.
--JC3
Damnnit can we let the kitten thing go? And Human LOLCATs? Seriously?
Your Messiah has spoken.
FINE.
-TechTonic
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Low price, high cost music
Much in the news days is the conflict between the "Music Business" and those dirty Pirates - presumably the hope is to sway popular opinion enough so the "War of Filesharing" can begin. That one should be fun. I'm conflicted about the whole thing - I used to download MP3s but that was on a 28.8kbps modem and only a tiny percentage of people even knew what they were. It didn't occur to anyone that it might be illegal. Note I really mean download MP3s. There was no such thing as P2P at this point -it was slow, and actually back then cost more in ISP charges than it costs to get some songs all legal like from Amazon now.
Price wasn't the factor though - that's not why it was done. It was to get hold of music you couldn't get here. Music that was coming out, or remixes, or samples (some from the labels back then, even). It was all a bit wild west and quite exciting.
My taste in music is eclectic and all encompassing, but I wouldn't typify myself as a music-lover. I like it a lot, but I don't love it. If you gave me life without music, or say alcohol - I'd take the alcohol. Hell I'd take computer games over music. I spend maybe £200 a year on music, but that's only maybe two thirds for myself, let's say £10/month or thereabouts. Or in iTunes terms maybe 120 tracks a year. Except if you check the stats that's a huge amount of money on music - that put's me in the top 20% of music spenders apparently. I'm the battlefield on which the "War on Filesharing" is to be fought. And I really don't care. The Music Industry has a hard fight on it's hands it seems. But they've done this to themselves, and here's why:
Low Price, High Cost: Apparently downloading a track costs about a £1 with a bit of variation. Want to refresh your older music? Can't be arsed ripping all your old cds? Well check out some of the online retailers. I decided to pad out the music library with older stuff last year via compilation cds. I tanked £80 on Amazon and got about 1250 tracks from compilations CDs. There was some duplicates, but not as many as you might think and though the stuff wasn't current, there nonetheless was a lot of good material. At a cost of 6-7p a track. It was cheaper to do this than do it myself because it would have taken ages to do it myself. Sweet sweet cheap music. But The Music Industry wants to get me coming, going and sideways. Want to have a radio on in your shop? Licence to perform required. Oh and a Licence to use a composer work. And it depends how many people are listening for the cost of that, and for how long. If I'm listening to a track I own on the radio in an office - The Music Industry has been paid: Once for me to license the track personally, once by the station to play it, once by the office to perform it and once for the composers. And if I download that track again in the office they'd like me to lose my job and pay them $150,000. Unless it's from Spotify, then that's okay, cos I'll be paying my subscription. Hmm. Not so cheap after all. And I'm one of your best customers? Nice service guys. Now obviously, I'm cheating a little here for the sake of hyperbole, the performance rights and composers rights can't be sorted out by the Record Companies - because they're apparently thieving bastards that don't pay the artists. Although, reading around on the internet so are the Rights Societies if you're not huge. So way to fix one problem by introducing two more and causing customer resentment.
In short, The Music Industry wants you to realise you have free access too on the radio, or can pick up for pocket change or get free with your paper - is in fact a high value limited resource. Technically, given a 32GB SD card that's maybe a gram filled with 6500 high quality MP3s nicked off the web at the full wrist-slapping $150,000 value would be "worth" 975 million dollars. That's $975,000,000. Actually, $975,000,100. Better pay for the SD card. That's per gram. A perfect, well-cut blue diamond weighs in at about $2.75 million dollars a gram. Diamond dust is about $60 a gram. So according to The Music Industry that SD card is worth 16.25 Tonnes of Diamond dust. You could buy an island with it! No wonder they have to crack down!
Vicious, Aggressive Competition (That won't play by The Rules): For so long The Music Industry has all the cards, they've been a little slow catching on that whilst they have all the chips on the poker table, everyone else is over on the couch having a grand old time playing Wii Sports. And whilst they've blundered over, spilling their winnings on the floor, they appear to have less grace and co-ordination that the seemingly ever present five year old that is oddly skillful at tennis. In order to "win" they've taken to paying off the other players to not play, unfortunately the 5 year old doesn't want to play anything other than tennis, is prone to screaming, and really doesn't give a crap about poker chips. When The Music Industry looks round they're going to notice everyone else is over on the PS3 playing Singstar. With all his poker chips.
Welcome to the Internet guys! You'll love it here! Well, you won't, but we do.
Okay, maybe I over extended the metaphor, but things are changing fast and competition is suddenly everywhere. When the artist rights guys are telling the artists they're thieves if they choose to make their works more available to the public it's pretty clear someone can't keep up.
The Players in that metaphor? They're everywhere. Use Google. And attempting to buy all the competition when the resources to get started are maybe a thousandth of what it costs to buy them is just wealth re-distribution, Mr Recording Industry - you're not some kind of commie or something are you?
Some people want to give away their music, other are joining Co-operative labels, others want to be world tour megastars. Some just want to play concerts. These are not all the same thing, so please stop trying to make them so.
But Think Of The Childr....Artists!: I have mixed sympathy for the Artists - they absolutely should be paid, but then I don't sympathise with people signing stupid contracts for a house they can't afford and then losing it. So yes it's appaling that people aren't paying Artists when they download music, but then if the Industry gave them a better cut in the first place they wouldn't be starving would they? Why is it just the downloaders fault? The Industry seems to survive just fine.
Death of The Music Industry (has been misreported): People crowing about the death of The Music Industry are, I think, as misguided as the industry itself. I think what we're looking at here is the same thing happened to bricks and mortar bookshops ten years ago. We're not killing the music industry, we're gaining choice. Some people will go on buying CDs, some will never find the other options, some will never buy the commercial stuff again. But the other metaphor guys were playing SingStar, and movies need to license tracks from someone. We may not be getting a musical revolution after all, but then perhaps a musical evolution is better for everyone anyway.
But whatever happens, I won't be spending more than that £200 a year, so yes you'll see declining profits, because it's no longer all on your balance sheets. Having a tirade about it and alienating the people that do spend money with you is perhaps not the wisest course. In fact this year I'll be watching and supporting Be The Source with interest. And I suspect they'll be taking some of your poker chips this year, Mr Music Industry. Maybe not a lot, but some. And it's not because I'm a dirty filesharing pirate. I'm just thinking of the Artists.
-TechTonic
Price wasn't the factor though - that's not why it was done. It was to get hold of music you couldn't get here. Music that was coming out, or remixes, or samples (some from the labels back then, even). It was all a bit wild west and quite exciting.
My taste in music is eclectic and all encompassing, but I wouldn't typify myself as a music-lover. I like it a lot, but I don't love it. If you gave me life without music, or say alcohol - I'd take the alcohol. Hell I'd take computer games over music. I spend maybe £200 a year on music, but that's only maybe two thirds for myself, let's say £10/month or thereabouts. Or in iTunes terms maybe 120 tracks a year. Except if you check the stats that's a huge amount of money on music - that put's me in the top 20% of music spenders apparently. I'm the battlefield on which the "War on Filesharing" is to be fought. And I really don't care. The Music Industry has a hard fight on it's hands it seems. But they've done this to themselves, and here's why:
Low Price, High Cost: Apparently downloading a track costs about a £1 with a bit of variation. Want to refresh your older music? Can't be arsed ripping all your old cds? Well check out some of the online retailers. I decided to pad out the music library with older stuff last year via compilation cds. I tanked £80 on Amazon and got about 1250 tracks from compilations CDs. There was some duplicates, but not as many as you might think and though the stuff wasn't current, there nonetheless was a lot of good material. At a cost of 6-7p a track. It was cheaper to do this than do it myself because it would have taken ages to do it myself. Sweet sweet cheap music. But The Music Industry wants to get me coming, going and sideways. Want to have a radio on in your shop? Licence to perform required. Oh and a Licence to use a composer work. And it depends how many people are listening for the cost of that, and for how long. If I'm listening to a track I own on the radio in an office - The Music Industry has been paid: Once for me to license the track personally, once by the station to play it, once by the office to perform it and once for the composers. And if I download that track again in the office they'd like me to lose my job and pay them $150,000. Unless it's from Spotify, then that's okay, cos I'll be paying my subscription. Hmm. Not so cheap after all. And I'm one of your best customers? Nice service guys. Now obviously, I'm cheating a little here for the sake of hyperbole, the performance rights and composers rights can't be sorted out by the Record Companies - because they're apparently thieving bastards that don't pay the artists. Although, reading around on the internet so are the Rights Societies if you're not huge. So way to fix one problem by introducing two more and causing customer resentment.
In short, The Music Industry wants you to realise you have free access too on the radio, or can pick up for pocket change or get free with your paper - is in fact a high value limited resource. Technically, given a 32GB SD card that's maybe a gram filled with 6500 high quality MP3s nicked off the web at the full wrist-slapping $150,000 value would be "worth" 975 million dollars. That's $975,000,000. Actually, $975,000,100. Better pay for the SD card. That's per gram. A perfect, well-cut blue diamond weighs in at about $2.75 million dollars a gram. Diamond dust is about $60 a gram. So according to The Music Industry that SD card is worth 16.25 Tonnes of Diamond dust. You could buy an island with it! No wonder they have to crack down!
Vicious, Aggressive Competition (That won't play by The Rules): For so long The Music Industry has all the cards, they've been a little slow catching on that whilst they have all the chips on the poker table, everyone else is over on the couch having a grand old time playing Wii Sports. And whilst they've blundered over, spilling their winnings on the floor, they appear to have less grace and co-ordination that the seemingly ever present five year old that is oddly skillful at tennis. In order to "win" they've taken to paying off the other players to not play, unfortunately the 5 year old doesn't want to play anything other than tennis, is prone to screaming, and really doesn't give a crap about poker chips. When The Music Industry looks round they're going to notice everyone else is over on the PS3 playing Singstar. With all his poker chips.
Welcome to the Internet guys! You'll love it here! Well, you won't, but we do.
Okay, maybe I over extended the metaphor, but things are changing fast and competition is suddenly everywhere. When the artist rights guys are telling the artists they're thieves if they choose to make their works more available to the public it's pretty clear someone can't keep up.
The Players in that metaphor? They're everywhere. Use Google. And attempting to buy all the competition when the resources to get started are maybe a thousandth of what it costs to buy them is just wealth re-distribution, Mr Recording Industry - you're not some kind of commie or something are you?
Some people want to give away their music, other are joining Co-operative labels, others want to be world tour megastars. Some just want to play concerts. These are not all the same thing, so please stop trying to make them so.
But Think Of The Childr....Artists!: I have mixed sympathy for the Artists - they absolutely should be paid, but then I don't sympathise with people signing stupid contracts for a house they can't afford and then losing it. So yes it's appaling that people aren't paying Artists when they download music, but then if the Industry gave them a better cut in the first place they wouldn't be starving would they? Why is it just the downloaders fault? The Industry seems to survive just fine.
Death of The Music Industry (has been misreported): People crowing about the death of The Music Industry are, I think, as misguided as the industry itself. I think what we're looking at here is the same thing happened to bricks and mortar bookshops ten years ago. We're not killing the music industry, we're gaining choice. Some people will go on buying CDs, some will never find the other options, some will never buy the commercial stuff again. But the other metaphor guys were playing SingStar, and movies need to license tracks from someone. We may not be getting a musical revolution after all, but then perhaps a musical evolution is better for everyone anyway.
But whatever happens, I won't be spending more than that £200 a year, so yes you'll see declining profits, because it's no longer all on your balance sheets. Having a tirade about it and alienating the people that do spend money with you is perhaps not the wisest course. In fact this year I'll be watching and supporting Be The Source with interest. And I suspect they'll be taking some of your poker chips this year, Mr Music Industry. Maybe not a lot, but some. And it's not because I'm a dirty filesharing pirate. I'm just thinking of the Artists.
-TechTonic
Saturday, July 31, 2010
NNT:JE:Prologue:001:01
New New Testament: Jesus Edition : Prologue:001:01
DISCLAIMER: This is silliness and a joke. If you don't like irreverent humour DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200 POUNDS and DO NOT TELL ME I'M GOING TO HELL.
So I just realised I'm a prophet. I mean it makes total sense. the Old Testament was around a few thousand years, then there was the New Testament, and it's BEEN a few thousand years. So we must be due a New book soon, and then there's the voices in my head. I mean sure sometimes they're just rattling on about Infinite Monkeys, how likely I am to get to the pub this weekend, how best to abuse the Elemental Beta (It's going well guys, keep it up!) and how to wind up the wife in new and interesting ways. But sometimes in all that noise - it's clearly the voice of Jesus. Well he says he is Jesus, and the core tenet of any religion is faith right? So if I have faith that he's Jesus and I'm a prophet, then I'm a prophet, right? Anyone? Tell you what I'll let you speak to the big man himself and you can decide...
PROLOGUE: 0001 :001
Right, before we start, let's clear a few things up. If you're expecting thee's and thou's and begetting it's not going to happen. The Word is useless unless it's in a form that people can understand. I mean the differences between the New and the Old Testament are obvious, and we've always like the episodic format, what with the many books in one approach. I mean really, the Bible's like a lot of Dickens' work. Serialized initially and then aggregated for ease of publishing later. With this in mind the Blog format is a perfect modern version of this approach. And later when we've finished the New New Testament: Jesus Edition, we may even roll it into a book format and sell a few copies so my prophet can profit a bit. It's only fair because at the moment the only thing I'm giving him in return for the dispensing of my celestial wisdom is mild paranoia and conflicted feelings about kittens.
Another thing is what's this obsession with my second coming? The thing that annoys me about that is how innumerate are you people? Second Coming? Are you kidding me? Did you miss that whole back from the dead thing? They killed me in the most painful way imaginable - and I was very very very dead. Then I raise from the dead all healed and glowing holy like I was one of those Daddamn X-men - and you don't even count that as a Second Coming? It's just rude. In view of this, until you get the point I'll be signing off as JC3, because this is my THIRD coming.
Alright? The other thing is, given the way attention spans have changed the New New Testament: Jesus Edition (Okay NNT:JE from here on out - JC3) isn't going to attempt to be an ongoing narrative. We'll bust out a few parables and maybe a psalm or two, but mostly I'll just be holding forth on our new vision for Christians (a lot changes in a couple of thousand years) and clarifying our position on a few things people have misunderstood. I'm excited about how this is going to go. Can't wait to start blessing you little bastards. Peace out.
--JC3
Wow. That was exhausting. And I don't know what he means about Kittens, they're evil incarnate - vicious, cruel creatures THAT I LOVE WITH ALL MY SOUL.
DAMNNIT Stop doing that JC.
That's JC3.
Whatever. I'm stopping typing now...
-TechTonic
DISCLAIMER: This is silliness and a joke. If you don't like irreverent humour DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200 POUNDS and DO NOT TELL ME I'M GOING TO HELL.
So I just realised I'm a prophet. I mean it makes total sense. the Old Testament was around a few thousand years, then there was the New Testament, and it's BEEN a few thousand years. So we must be due a New book soon, and then there's the voices in my head. I mean sure sometimes they're just rattling on about Infinite Monkeys, how likely I am to get to the pub this weekend, how best to abuse the Elemental Beta (It's going well guys, keep it up!) and how to wind up the wife in new and interesting ways. But sometimes in all that noise - it's clearly the voice of Jesus. Well he says he is Jesus, and the core tenet of any religion is faith right? So if I have faith that he's Jesus and I'm a prophet, then I'm a prophet, right? Anyone? Tell you what I'll let you speak to the big man himself and you can decide...
PROLOGUE: 0001 :001
Right, before we start, let's clear a few things up. If you're expecting thee's and thou's and begetting it's not going to happen. The Word is useless unless it's in a form that people can understand. I mean the differences between the New and the Old Testament are obvious, and we've always like the episodic format, what with the many books in one approach. I mean really, the Bible's like a lot of Dickens' work. Serialized initially and then aggregated for ease of publishing later. With this in mind the Blog format is a perfect modern version of this approach. And later when we've finished the New New Testament: Jesus Edition, we may even roll it into a book format and sell a few copies so my prophet can profit a bit. It's only fair because at the moment the only thing I'm giving him in return for the dispensing of my celestial wisdom is mild paranoia and conflicted feelings about kittens.
Another thing is what's this obsession with my second coming? The thing that annoys me about that is how innumerate are you people? Second Coming? Are you kidding me? Did you miss that whole back from the dead thing? They killed me in the most painful way imaginable - and I was very very very dead. Then I raise from the dead all healed and glowing holy like I was one of those Daddamn X-men - and you don't even count that as a Second Coming? It's just rude. In view of this, until you get the point I'll be signing off as JC3, because this is my THIRD coming.
Alright? The other thing is, given the way attention spans have changed the New New Testament: Jesus Edition (Okay NNT:JE from here on out - JC3) isn't going to attempt to be an ongoing narrative. We'll bust out a few parables and maybe a psalm or two, but mostly I'll just be holding forth on our new vision for Christians (a lot changes in a couple of thousand years) and clarifying our position on a few things people have misunderstood. I'm excited about how this is going to go. Can't wait to start blessing you little bastards. Peace out.
--JC3
Wow. That was exhausting. And I don't know what he means about Kittens, they're evil incarnate - vicious, cruel creatures THAT I LOVE WITH ALL MY SOUL.
DAMNNIT Stop doing that JC.
That's JC3.
Whatever. I'm stopping typing now...
-TechTonic
Friday, July 30, 2010
Shakespeare's Infinite Monkeys
There's this stupid idea that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually result in the complete works of Shakespeare.
This is supposed to be a lesson from the theoretical maths and physics types about the sheer scale and unimaginable scope of the infinite. To me it seems like a perfect example of just how stupid metaphors can be. For instance my initial thoughts about this whole affair was "Well sure, you now have one copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. Unfortunately it's buried somewhere in that infinite mountain of thoroughly well flung monkey poo. Way to go with the lessons Poindexter." And really that's not such an unreasonable reaction. In fact I think it's probably ONLY the high-brow theoretical types who think this is a good idea. In fact let me draw it so you get an idea of how bad an idea this is:
See? See that tiny book? Half way up that unclimbable mountain of stinky poo? That's how likely you are to find random culture in the universe. Even if you could get to it without a team of sherpas, and a steady supply of nose-pegs, it's still going to make you retch when you try and read it. Takes the romance out of Romeo and Juliet, huh?
That's all I have to say for now.
--TechTonic
This is supposed to be a lesson from the theoretical maths and physics types about the sheer scale and unimaginable scope of the infinite. To me it seems like a perfect example of just how stupid metaphors can be. For instance my initial thoughts about this whole affair was "Well sure, you now have one copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. Unfortunately it's buried somewhere in that infinite mountain of thoroughly well flung monkey poo. Way to go with the lessons Poindexter." And really that's not such an unreasonable reaction. In fact I think it's probably ONLY the high-brow theoretical types who think this is a good idea. In fact let me draw it so you get an idea of how bad an idea this is:
See? See that tiny book? Half way up that unclimbable mountain of stinky poo? That's how likely you are to find random culture in the universe. Even if you could get to it without a team of sherpas, and a steady supply of nose-pegs, it's still going to make you retch when you try and read it. Takes the romance out of Romeo and Juliet, huh?
That's all I have to say for now.
--TechTonic
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Militant Consumer
So I've realised that I'm no longer the passive technophile consumer I used to be. In fact I'm not the passive consumer of anything at all anymore. Over the last few years it seems to me customer service has declined rapidly, or if not customer service, just plain service. Where when I was young I would accept this as my lot with a shrug and move on. It irritates me now. It incences me, I'm turning into a grumpy, ranty old man. Not only do I not care, I actually quite like it. Yelling at stupidity, seems to me to be almost globablly beneficial. I mean sure, the
person recieving the earful of vehment criticism isn't having a great day. But I do make the effort to point out that I'm not mad at them. Unless they're the ones being deliberately stupid obviously. Other than that - I feel better, the service "provider" (or not in some cases) gets feedback. And if I do what I consider to be a particularly spectacular smack down - I might even keep using the service/product as I consider them suitably chastised.
The point is they've made me this way. They've taught me to be the militant consumer because invariably it gets things done. When all hope is lost one last shouty nowty rant of doom has saved the day so many times that I don't even lose hope anymore. I just wait until they trip up and then start acting like a starved wolverine with chilli oil on it's privates. Why? Because it minimises MY suffering, and I've never understood people that suffer by choice.
Now, let's get some things clear. I work in IT, specifically some fairly specialist applications, and stuff goes wrong and breaks all the time. But it's software, this is the way of things. All things really. I accept and acknowledge this. What this means is when I put in complaints, they're like the support cases I open. I have done my research, identified the problem, explained the circumstances, tried to repeat the problem. Then I restate it in clear basic terms with how to replicate the issue and send it on it's way.
If a helpful reply comes back, we all get along swimmingly and another day of peace will pass in my household. I become happy with the provider and begin to form deep emotional attachments to them.
What's important here is that the reply whilst helpful, does NOT actually have to fix the problem. It merely has to read as though they at least bothered to read the email I sent them. In fact if it's a well reasoned and clear explanation of why this happened, and that there's nothing that can be done about it - then sometimes I'm even okay with that. Anything that forces me to use an online form to submit a complaint, with carefully categorised boxes had really better not come back with a copy/paste reply because that one will make me go nuclear in under a minute. Deal with me reasonably and you will have a great loyal customer who tends to leave Direct Debits running and doesn't really care. Break stuff and ignore me at your peril. You'll lose my business and I'll take as many as I can with me. It's only fair I think to make a celebration of the people that do it right as well as smack down those that get it wrong, so here you are my list of the good in the world who have done me no wrong!
Google: This was weird - I needed to sort out some stuff with Google and after my MS Passport login thing screwed up and they made the whole thing a tortuous ordeal* I was expecting similar nightmares. Instead I got a pleasant "Oh, yeah we're sorry about that, we do it to stop spam and rubbish building up. Try now it should be all fixed." And it was. I just didn't know what to do.
Photobox: I've read some people have had problems with Photobox, but I've never yet had one. Fast, polite and efficient and they seem to have actual humans do some of the QA when they're doing Canvases and things. Good Job guys!
Spreadshirt: Just brilliant. And something you'll see popping up again and again on this blog. They do a superb job every time. I had one delayed order, and they stuck an extra T in that. No fuss, no hassle.
Sky: Bit of a mixed bag here - we've only been Sky customers for a couple of years and I think we're now on the fourth Sky+ box. This would normally condemn a company to the hall of shame - except they keep speeding up my broadband connection, they've halved my phone bill, and although we're on box number four, I don't think it's actually cost us anything. And every time the engineer that came to see us was as polite as the people that took our call. B+, but seriously, save yourself pain and source your equipment from better manufacturers Sky. That is all.
The runner up award for people that tried and stumbled at the last second go to:
Force9: Awesome customer service, great ISP, then BT bought them and started pissing about with throttling. So I stopped paying the premium I was paying for quality internet, switched to Sky and saw my bandwith double for half the price (except between 4pm and 6pm where I now get about 100 times faster) . Nice one BT. Idiots. The real tragedy here is that a genuinely brilliant ISP was bought out and systematically trashed for no obvious reason. This pissed me off so much I moved phone and line rental away from BT too. Do NOT come between a geek and his internet.
The reverse runner up award for someone who I was about to go crazy at goes to:
British Gas: Who told me they'd been billing me incorrectly for two years and I'd have to pay it all again while they sorted it out (huh?). I furiously hung up and tried again with a different agent - who pleasantly sorted the whole thing out in about thirty seconds in a sing-song voice of serenity. Angel of the Call center - I thank you wherever you are!
* In the end I fixed the problem by *guessing* my password as the password reminder and reset emails were not working. And my mails were ignored. Given that my passwords usually look like this: lkj9YANS02v this is ridiculous. Fortunately I have an odd memory.
-TechTonic
person recieving the earful of vehment criticism isn't having a great day. But I do make the effort to point out that I'm not mad at them. Unless they're the ones being deliberately stupid obviously. Other than that - I feel better, the service "provider" (or not in some cases) gets feedback. And if I do what I consider to be a particularly spectacular smack down - I might even keep using the service/product as I consider them suitably chastised.
The point is they've made me this way. They've taught me to be the militant consumer because invariably it gets things done. When all hope is lost one last shouty nowty rant of doom has saved the day so many times that I don't even lose hope anymore. I just wait until they trip up and then start acting like a starved wolverine with chilli oil on it's privates. Why? Because it minimises MY suffering, and I've never understood people that suffer by choice.
Now, let's get some things clear. I work in IT, specifically some fairly specialist applications, and stuff goes wrong and breaks all the time. But it's software, this is the way of things. All things really. I accept and acknowledge this. What this means is when I put in complaints, they're like the support cases I open. I have done my research, identified the problem, explained the circumstances, tried to repeat the problem. Then I restate it in clear basic terms with how to replicate the issue and send it on it's way.
If a helpful reply comes back, we all get along swimmingly and another day of peace will pass in my household. I become happy with the provider and begin to form deep emotional attachments to them.
What's important here is that the reply whilst helpful, does NOT actually have to fix the problem. It merely has to read as though they at least bothered to read the email I sent them. In fact if it's a well reasoned and clear explanation of why this happened, and that there's nothing that can be done about it - then sometimes I'm even okay with that. Anything that forces me to use an online form to submit a complaint, with carefully categorised boxes had really better not come back with a copy/paste reply because that one will make me go nuclear in under a minute. Deal with me reasonably and you will have a great loyal customer who tends to leave Direct Debits running and doesn't really care. Break stuff and ignore me at your peril. You'll lose my business and I'll take as many as I can with me. It's only fair I think to make a celebration of the people that do it right as well as smack down those that get it wrong, so here you are my list of the good in the world who have done me no wrong!
Google: This was weird - I needed to sort out some stuff with Google and after my MS Passport login thing screwed up and they made the whole thing a tortuous ordeal* I was expecting similar nightmares. Instead I got a pleasant "Oh, yeah we're sorry about that, we do it to stop spam and rubbish building up. Try now it should be all fixed." And it was. I just didn't know what to do.
Photobox: I've read some people have had problems with Photobox, but I've never yet had one. Fast, polite and efficient and they seem to have actual humans do some of the QA when they're doing Canvases and things. Good Job guys!
Spreadshirt: Just brilliant. And something you'll see popping up again and again on this blog. They do a superb job every time. I had one delayed order, and they stuck an extra T in that. No fuss, no hassle.
Sky: Bit of a mixed bag here - we've only been Sky customers for a couple of years and I think we're now on the fourth Sky+ box. This would normally condemn a company to the hall of shame - except they keep speeding up my broadband connection, they've halved my phone bill, and although we're on box number four, I don't think it's actually cost us anything. And every time the engineer that came to see us was as polite as the people that took our call. B+, but seriously, save yourself pain and source your equipment from better manufacturers Sky. That is all.
The runner up award for people that tried and stumbled at the last second go to:
Force9: Awesome customer service, great ISP, then BT bought them and started pissing about with throttling. So I stopped paying the premium I was paying for quality internet, switched to Sky and saw my bandwith double for half the price (except between 4pm and 6pm where I now get about 100 times faster) . Nice one BT. Idiots. The real tragedy here is that a genuinely brilliant ISP was bought out and systematically trashed for no obvious reason. This pissed me off so much I moved phone and line rental away from BT too. Do NOT come between a geek and his internet.
The reverse runner up award for someone who I was about to go crazy at goes to:
British Gas: Who told me they'd been billing me incorrectly for two years and I'd have to pay it all again while they sorted it out (huh?). I furiously hung up and tried again with a different agent - who pleasantly sorted the whole thing out in about thirty seconds in a sing-song voice of serenity. Angel of the Call center - I thank you wherever you are!
* In the end I fixed the problem by *guessing* my password as the password reminder and reset emails were not working. And my mails were ignored. Given that my passwords usually look like this: lkj9YANS02v this is ridiculous. Fortunately I have an odd memory.
-TechTonic
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