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
Saturday, July 31, 2010
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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