I’m quite interested in the technology which is getting photos and images out of Burma’s state-controlled internet system, and that story led me to this guide, which explains how to circumvent state-controlled IT.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15012
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013
In some parts of the world I could be put into jail for posting this information. Puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it.
I have been trying to contact A.N. Organisation for months. I filled out their form twice - once in May, once in August - trying to get a response. The lack of response from what appeared to be a very reputable group had me wondering if A.N. Organisation had actually gone dormant.
Today, out of curiosity, I went to the form and clicked the “submit” button without filling it out. I got the same “Thanks for your submission, we’ll get back to you right away” message I got before when I filled it out. So I pulled up the source code:
<form name=“form1″ method=“post” action=“”>
Give me strength…
And on another topic. Why is it that if a gangmaster attracts immigrants with fake job listings, it’s exploitation, but if an office-based recruitment consultant gets potential candidates onto her books with fake job listings, it’s acceptable practice? Answers on a postcard please, sent to one Glasgow agency in particular.
Here in the UK, banks have been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons. The big news story, which became headline news because it marked the tipping point of paying customers vs the smarmy arrogance of the banking industry, coincided with some housekeeping that I did on my own bank accounts.
I closed a US credit card account that I hadn’t used in years. About a week later, I got the usual monthly billing email from BoA saying that the $50 annual fee on this card was now due. Uh-oh. Seemed like the credit card wasn’t fully “closed” in their systems yet. So I called BoA’s designated collect number for overseas callers. A lovely lady answered in two rings, with no hold time. I explained to her what had occured and she very cheerfully went into the system and cancelled out the $50 annual fee while making sure the card was closed in all of their systems. Just like that. This was at 3 AM her time. No arguments, no interrogations, no excuses and no trying to bring me back as a customer. I got it sorted with a smile in 60 seconds.
Could you imagine that happening with a British high street bank?
Part of my housekeeping has also been trying to do some better record-keeping. (Rest assured that Idea15’s finances are tidy, methodical, and completely organised. My own personal ones, typically, are in a pile.) It’s nobody’s fault but my own that my records are in such disarray, but I lost my right hand man when I moved here. In the states, I used Microsoft Money to keep on top of my finances with Wall Street precision. Every evening, I’d pull up the program and click a button. That would download my investment portfolio’s performance up to the minute, allowing me to identify trends before they impacted the bottom line. That same click would connect to all my bank accounts - checking, credit card, and so forth - and download the latest balances and transactions, even that day’s groceries, which would then be automatically categorised as to what they were (food, clothing, and so forth.) Another click would bring up a pie chart of where my money was going, and one more click would compare it with the previous month’s spending to tell me where my credit card was leading me astray. With just a few clicks I had a friendly, birds-eye view of every penny to my name, where it was being spent, and where my financial future was headed. It helped that BoA had so many features integrated online that the only time I ever had to physically walk into a branch was when I needed a roll of quarters for the washing machine.
…Then I moved here and put that same Microsoft Money program on my husband’s computer, and learned that “online banking” here meant printing and filling out a form, which you then snail mailed in, to be granted an “online banking” account, which means you can check your balance online. That’s about all you can do with it. As for instant downloads, when I asked about that, they looked at me like I was speaking Martian. A very offended bank staffer later confirmed that they had no intention of allowing such a thing, as that would involve their usual excuses (Data Protection Act, systems integrity, staff availability, etc.) When we moved, I had to take a stack of paperwork to the bank to prove that I am who I am and I have indeed moved to this new address and there was the paperwork to prove it, when BoA had let me change my address myself online in seconds. If I want to put some extra cash into my savings account, I have to schlep to the bank, stand in the queue, and hand the “passbook” to the clerk, who manually adds an entry to it. Way to make you feel like you’re about 67 years old. And because there is a time lag of days, not hours, between putting funds in your account and the funds actually appearing in your account, I went £3 overdrawn last year even though I appeared to have a positive balance, and was slapped with a £64 penalty charge.
Did you know that the cheque clearance process in the UK is still manual? Cheques go to a central clearing house, where several women all named Margaret physically read each one and decide where they need to go. This takes three to four days. What year is this again?
To have gone from my one-click investment portfolio and instant budgeting to hand entries in a physical book and useless “online banking” has been a step down that I’ve never adjusted to, and I never will. And although it’s time for me to kick myself up the backside with my financial record-keeping, it wouldn’t kill our banks to meet me halfway by moving out of their poky little cubby holes and into the 21st century.
It’s time for the latest episode of Scotland’s favourite soap opera, a tale of friendships and deceit, Enterprise and waste, alliances and fighting, love and pain, the haves and have nots, and their glamorous lives along the Clyde.
I speak, of course, about
In today’s episode, Charlene and Isobel plot their revenge against Jack, while Alex profits from chaos once more. But is Jack’s secret ally all that he appears to be? Fiona makes her intentions clear.
I am currently reading a book which I checked out from my local library. The book was in a special display with the promotional decor of a campaign called “Get a Grip!” According to my local library system’s web site, this is what the “Get a Grip” campaign is about:
Can you remember the experience of being so engrossed in a book that you couldn’t bear to put it down? The Get a Grip promotion aims to capture the feeling of compulsion that drives a reader to keep going while the dinner burns, while the train pulls away from the stop, or while their partner quietly snores next to them in the wee small hours. The books in this collection are not just from the obvious crime, thriller or horror genres, we have widened the theme to include non-fiction titles, gripping yarns from sea-faring adventures to mountain-top tragedies, plus short stories, literary and foreign fiction, and Black and Asian writing. So go on, grab a book from our collection - you might find that it has gripped you and won’t let go.
Nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the promotional postcard which the library system has inserted into all of the “Get a Grip” books. Here is a scan of the postcard.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That building on the left is the north tower of the World Trade Center, and the other buildings are numbers 2, 3, and 4 World Financial Center. From the location of the background shot, the image implies that this photoshopped gentleman is hanging off WTC building 5 or 6, although the height he is dangling at would only match one other building. No need to mention which one.
Graphic designers are as clever as they are perceptive. Whoever designed this promotional campaign knew exactly which images they were using. And whoever approved this promotional campaign doesn’t get out much. Make sure the latter isn’t you.
I’ve seen lots of photoshoppery which went over the line, but those images were safely confined to humour and entertainment sites. Not inserted into library books at public expense.
Scottish Enterprise rewards ex-director with £777,600
Iain Carmichael, the former finance director at Scottish Enterprise who played a key role in the mismanagement of its taxpayer-funded half-a- billion-pound-plus budget in 2005/06, had an extra £380,600 pumped into his pension fund, it emerged yesterday. The annual accounts of the economic and business development quango, which were made public yesterday, reveal that Carmichael retired in March with a golden goodbye worth £539,105 - nearly three times the £200,000 that had been previously estimated. He received £106,765 in pay in lieu of notice, £5544 for accrued holiday pay, £46,196 for loss of office and £380,600, which was transferred into the Scottish Enterprise pension fund to bump up his retirement pay.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/news/display.var.1671723.0.0.php
SE defends itself, saying that their outlays actually came under the budget allocation for the financial year. What were they doing allocating that much money to executive salaries in the first place? Or is that the question that’s not allowed to be asked?
Oh the places I could take Idea15 with a fraction of that guy’s “car allowance”. It says something when a startup can’t get £1000 of basic funding out of the national business development organisation, yet a bureaucrat at that organisation gets a $1.5 million bonus even after being hauled in front of a parliamentary committee.
The Scottish Executive has decided to change its name to The Scottish Government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6974798.stm
No doubt they read too many blog posts where the author referenced “The Scottish Executive (Scotland’s government.) ” Naturally!
As the name of a legislative authority, “The Scottish Executive” was daft. Branding a government something else for the sheer sake of it was a symptom of the pretentiously superior regard that it held itself in, and still does.
But if those behind the decision think that changing an authority’s mentality is as easy as changing their name, they’ve been listening to too many ex-authority consultants. It is going to take a lot more than new letters and signs to turn our government into a true means of representative democracy, rather than a haven for unskilled and parochial careerists who would last five minutes in the private sector.
I am amused by the quoted figure for the rebranding: just £100k. Not bloody likely. It will take a minimum of half a million to complete the change. Put another way, I know of a certain quango which spent over £60k rebranding a local development agency which only served 40,000 people. How does it cost that much? Because rebranding is not just about ordering new signs and letterhead. Factor in the consulting fees, man-hours and meetings, press campaign, marketing diktats and charges, and the costs of the “partnership working” culture which demands the dithering and dilution of even the simplest tasks. If you carry out the job quickly, and efficiently, and under budget, you have obviously failed to involve all your “partners” in “consultation”, and your task is reassigned to someone more willing to be “inclusive”. This is the sort of entrenched nonsense - not the verbiage on letterheads - which the government should be fighting tooth and nail.
Could it be that the rebranding for the community group was grossly inflated to grease the wheels of the marketing and consultancy gravy train, while the rebranding of the whole national government has been grossly underestimated to keep up appearances?
The Scottish government’s rebranding is a positive and necessary step, but it should be considered what it is - a minor cosmetic process. Just get on with it, don’t use it for point-scoring and self-congratulation, and move on to the real work at hand.
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