The attached is a screen shot from a genuine incident raised to our internal helped desk, just priceless and if you think I made it up then thank you for the compliment I just don’t think I’m capable of anything this brilliant.
Check Kev’s blog for the screenshot.
This one has gone viral in Systems at Debenhams. Everyone is talking about it.
Dave Winer:
Here’s the idea. Set up a trust for the movie industry. A bank account that we can deposit money into but only movie-makers can withdraw from. When you download a movie via BitTorrent that you watch all the way to the end, deposit $5 into the account for the movie. When the owners decide to accept BitTorrent as a legitimate distribution system, which someday they are sure to, they can have the money. The amount of money in the account is always public info. So it becomes an important statistic, part of the “box office” for a movie. Then you’d probably find a funny thing happening — independent movie producers who can’t get distribution any other way will start promoting this site as a legitimate way to pay for movies. It wouldn’t take long before the MPAA realized that there are a huge number of people who want the convenience of watching movies at home on their own timetable, instead of having to deal with the inhumane system the movie industry created for them.
Via Scripting News
Makes sense. I think some people just pirate because they want the convenience that the movie industry refuse to give them. Not to mention the hard sale they get at the cinema, or when they’re forced to watch adverts and “don’t steal!” messages and copyright notices at the start of a DVDs. They’ll pirate regardless of what the industry does, whether it’s right or wrong. Just as well give them a way to pay. I think some (obviously not all) will.
I see Gary Glitter is now on Twitter. Could be interesting.
A situation where someone so hated (and with fair reason) is exposed to the public on the Internet. He isn’t someone who cheated on his wife, did a crap job of managing England or a much disliked media mogul. He did things that people truly despise.
Frankie Boyle has already got stuck in:
@OfficialGlitter Hi Gary. Would you say it’s you or the captain of the Concordia that’s fucked more people in international waters?
Whilst writing my last post regarding column mode in Putty, I got thinking about which other apps might use this convention (alt key and mouse) for column mode. The first (and in fairness only) app I tried was Vim (the GVIM flavour).
I love Vim. Rarely does a week go by that I don’t learn some new trick with Vim. However by far my biggest gripe regarding Vim compared to my previous editor of choice (UltraEdit) is it’s column mode.
Generally speaking – unlike much of Vim (arguably) – column mode isn’t very intuitive to use. It’s a big enough pain that I simply don’t use it (I’ve tried to get in the habit on several occasions now). However, with the help of the alt key (as seen in the Putty post [LINK]), it’s slightly easier (at least as far as I’m concerned).
Unlike with Putty where I’m using it to select and copy text, with GVIM I’m using it to insert text.
Note that this example is for GVIM only. Not the terminal version of Vim.
There are all kinds of problems with commissions, for example, high turnover as salespeople shop jobs to get a slightly more lucrative commission system. Always attempting to maximize personal benefit which results in system gaming like making fake phone calls to hit call numbers, sandbagging deals into the next quarter, sniping new leads, and so on (the list here is actually endless).
The problems include infighting over who gets credit for accounts and sales. They include constantly comparing territories and account value to determine fairness between salespeople. They include an enormous amount of overhead as each salesperson sedulously tracks every transaction no matter how minute to make sure they get paid on it (by the way, they hate having to do this, and it’s a staggering waste of time. It’s also a place where weak salespeople like to hide out).
I hate walking into shops that are driven by commission. I don’t like being pounced on when I enter the door, and I don’t like being treated as the best mate of some cocky shit in a mobile phone shop who has the gift of the gab.
The above article as other good reasons on why commission doesn’t work. The company the writer is writing on behalf of got rid of commission, and it seems like it worked out well for them.
When trying to prevent something from being missed out when performing a frequent task, check-lists don’t work. You you inevitably fall into a routine, get cocky, and ignore them.
That’s all I have to say on the matter…
[Note: this one has been sitting in my drafts for a while. I'm not entirely sure why I wrote it, but I'd bet good money it involved a bad day at work where a check-list was proposed following a root cause analysis of a failure]
9/11 is my generation’s Kennedy assassination. Everyone remembers where they were the day it happens, and I think everyone remembers certain details about that day.
Mine aren’t in any way interesting but I figured I write it anyway.
I was working at Wickes at the time. That morning a colleague I was working with had that day found out she was pregnant, and someone from IT (a department I badly wanted to work for) was in to fix a till.
I was serving a chipper old man – the kind that can make serving customers enjoyable – when he said to me in a jokey way “Did you hear about the plane that’s hit the World Trade Center?”.
“No”, I said, anticipating a punchline. “Yeah” he replied.
It was no joke.
Although I wasn’t a breaking news junkie back then like I am today (something 9/11 turned me into), I asked most customers had they heard and did they have any information.
Every now and then a customer would have some fresh information. I was never able to truly grasp the scale of what was happening, but I got a fair idea.
My colleague obviously had her own things to worry about (being up the duff n all), and the chap from IT seemed strangely nonplussed by it all.
During any breaks I had, I’d run across to Curry’s to watch the events on TV.
I remember going into the ‘cash office’ and mentioned the events to my then manager. On a couple of occasions since then he’d pointed out he’d never forget the moment I told him. Like I say, everyone remembers certain details about that day.
I headed home still not totally grasping the scale of it. I expected to get home and say to whoever was home (either my Mum, Dad or one of my brothers) “Did you hear about what happened in America?!” expecting that they hadn’t heard yet – or at perhaps only heard in passing. But when I walked in not only was it on the TV (I didn’t realise it had become compulsive viewing for those that could) but I was shocked to see my mum crying. She really isn’t the crying type. It turns out a daughter of an old friend of hers was presumed dead as a result the attacks on the WTC.
My final memory of that day was being up late watching CNN as fighting had broke out in Afghanistan. With all the chaos of the day I thought perhaps America was already fighting back which struck me as madness to retaliate so soon. Turns out it was simply in-fighting not involving America. America would fight back later.
Andy Carvin insists that the introduction on his Google Plus profile – “I tweet revolutions” – is a joke, but nevertheless that’s what he’s famous for. Armed with TweetDeck – the power Twitter user’s app of choice – and a thoroughly curated group of reliable, enthusiastic and well-informed Twitter users, the social media strategist for US public service radio broadcaster NPR has become known for his mastery of aggregated and verified real-time news through Twitter. And that’s no mean feat on a platform still dismissed by many as a gimmick that trivialises information into uselessly short sound bites.
via Andy Carvin: the man who tweets revolutions | Media | The Guardian.
Whenever I mention to someone that I’ve started to follow breaking news on Twitter as well as the rolling news channels, I recommend they at least follow this chap if they want to do the same.
The article above focusses on the Arab Spring, but I’ve followed him for the London Riots and the Japan Earthquake also.
That night I would see a rapid series of incidents that was almost impossible to compute. On Kingsland Road, groups of shopkeepers, many of them Turkish Kurds, sprinted past our car as they chased looters away.
An hour later, and further west, I was in Chalk Farm to see men armed with scaffold poles attack passing motorists and smash their way into shops.
When the windows were broken, people of all backgrounds surged in to help themselves to the free goods.
Khalili and I were pretending to be part of the crowd, with hoodies pulled tight over our heads.
via UK riots: Paul Lewis’s five-day journey | UK news | guardian.co.uk.
A good first-hand report of the riots by Guardian reporter Paul Lewis.
I was following Paul Lewis on Twitter on the Monday night. Thanks to him and others I thought Twitter really came into its own that night. Combined with the rolling news channels it gave you a sense of the scale of what was taking place along with the general disbelief of it all felt by the public.
When the fire engines had finished the crowds started to cheer and some raised their brooms. All of a sudden everyone was raising their brooms and I managed to get the photo on my iPhone.
via BBC News – How the broom army photo swept the web.
What I didn’t realise about the photo (see below) was that it was spontanious. I figured someone shouted out “Everyone raise their brooms for the camera!”.
It makes it an all the more impressive photo knowing it’s spontanious.
