Experian is kind of amazing.

For context; I recently received a very threatening letter over a council-tax bill from well over a year ago. It seems they’ve been trying to track me for ages to no avail (Hey, Islington council: The next time you try to contact someone, try googling their name. Mine is unique enough and easy to find, which means you would be able to find an e-mail address that I check semi-obsessively), and so passed it to a debt collection agency.

So, whilst I’m sorting that mess out, I figured I’d get a copy of my credit report, to see if it has gone far enough to send me into a spiralling mess of doom.

I Googled ‘Credit report’, found Experian, and decided to request my ‘statutory credit report’, which they (apparently, grudgingly) offer to anyone who requests one, at a relatively easy-to-swallow £2. (more…)

Earlier today, I noted on Facebook that it was sad that This article by Kristopher Schau was in Norwegian, because in my mind, it exquisitely shows how Norway is dealing with the mind-boggling tragedy that is dealing with the deaths of 77 people in Oslo and Utøya in 2011.

It bears keeping in mind that Kristopher Schau is famous for things that have very little to do with political commentary. He’s a comedian first and foremost, and if you’ve heard of him outside of Norway, it is probably for him being part of a 3-piece rock group Hurra Torpedo, who did a stirring, kitchen-appliance cover (!) of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Without further ado..

“Court notes, week 1″ by Kristopher Schau

Translated by Haje Jan Kamps (more…)

Reading this blog post on the Netflix technology blog made me come to a realisation: In many of my previous jobs, I’ve had to beg and bribe to make people blog about what they have been working on. I’ve just realise that means I’ve been working with the wrong people on the wrong projects.

Mark my words: if anyone ever works for me, and complains that blogging is a chore, and ‘not in their work description’, they’re getting fired. No ifs, no ands, no buts.

If you’re not excited about enough about what you’re doing to want to shout it from the rooftops and tell the world about it, you’re doing the wrong job for the wrong company.

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of those fantastic books that makes you re-consider everything around you: Why do things look the way they do – and most importantly – why are some things easier to use than others?

Filled with great examples and more than a little bit of common sense, I think this is a must-read for everybody – designers and mere mortals alike.



View all my reviews

“At some point, it became OK to laugh about rape”, I claim, and am met with looks of horror. “What”, people will say, “the ever-loving god are you talking about”, they will continue.

It is true: Most people would agree that sexual assault is not a laughing matter. We all know, or are aware of people who have been subjected rape. In the US, more than 25% of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.

Rape is the most denigrating and one of the most cowardly of crimes: Committing a crime hideous of nature, that often takes the victim longer to get over than that the suspect spends in a jail cell – if they are ever actually convicted of their crime, that is.

Repeat after me: Rapes ruin lives. Rape is not funny.

Why is Prison rape OK?

And yet, when it comes to prison rape, the tune is very different. It appears that people are more accepting of it. “Don’t bend over to pick up the soap”, they’ll say. “He’ll be bunking with Bubba at Broadmoor”, or “He’ll be someone’s bitch soon enough”.

What in the world is going through your mind, people? The criminal justice system has a whole array of penalties – Fines, community service, prison sentences, mental facilities and (in some cases) capital punishment. There’s no civilised society that has “rape” on the menu as punishment for a crime.

Rape is rape. It doesn’t matter if it is committed in an upstairs bedroom at a party, a park after dark, or in a prison cell. It’s revolting, wrong, and should be strictly punished.

I don’t care what a person has done to land themselves in prison – there is no crime that is punishable by rape, and as a society, we cannot be standing idly by and ignoring that this is being done. The fact that in some prisons, rape is the rule, rather than the exception, makes it only more disgusting.

Rape is rape. Rape is not funny. Enough with the jokes about prison rape, already.

New York is a city that’s the home to many a fantastic photographic retailer. Between the rather fantastic B&H, the solidly competent Adorama, and – if you’re going to shop online anyway – the ever-reliable Photo & Video section at Amazon, there shouldn’t really be any reason to go anywhere else…

…As aptly confirmed by the nightmare of an ordering scenario a friend of mine, Sarah, had just before Christmas at the tail-end last year.

What happened?

Sarah lives in London, but her parents live in California. She decided to order a couple of cameras (given how much cheaper camera equipment is in the US, that makes sense), and have it shipped to her parents address. Sound pretty straightforward, right?

It probably would have been, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she decided to try and use 42th Street Photo to place her order. Here’s what happened;

On December 17, Sarah ordered a Canon Powershot S95 and a Canon EOS Rebel Digital T2i, but because her shipping address (in California) was different from her invoice address (in London), the order was blocked. Fair enough, I suppose, there’s a lot of credit card fraud out there.

Dodgy card charges

So instead of trying to confirm with Sarah that this was a genuine order, they call the shipping address, where her mother answers the phone. Now, I don’t know much about credit card security, but it sounds to me as if they are worried about that, they should call the invoice address – not the shipping address. I’ll leave this thought for you: If you were a fraudster, would you be at the shipping or the invoice address? Exactly.

Interestingly enough, Sarah’s card was charged on Friday December 17th, so they clearly didn’t care much about the security anyway. Also, by the time the 18th rolled around, the order status on 42 Photo had already updated to ‘shipped’. So why did they call? Well.. when they spoke to Sarah’s mother on the 21st (four days after the card was charged and the cameras had supposedly shipped), they tried to upsell to faster shipping (even though their website, they said that shipping was only going to be ‘less than 10 days’) so the order could get there in time for Christmas. Then, they tried to add memory cards to the order, stating that “the camera wouldn’t work without them”.

Weird upselling

Parents come in all sorts of shapes and sizes – and amounts of photography knowledge. It just so happens that Sarah’s mother’s photography knowledge is, well, shall we say, somewhat lacking. So when somebody calls her and tells her that Sarah must have made a mistake, and that she must have forgotten to order a piece of the camera which is needed for it to work, what should she do?

I find it curious anyway, that a phonecall to someone at a delivery address should potentially be enough to add additional charges (shipping; memory cards) to a credit card that was already charged and authorised via a website, but that’s by the by.

In addition, if you check the 42nd street Photo website, you’ll find their terms and conditions state “Although you have received an email confirming your order, we do not charge your credit card until the item is ready to be shipped and all customer adjustments if any are applied” (emphasis mine). Since the card was charged on the 17th, and 42 street Photo started calling Sarah’s mother on the 21nd, that was clearly ignored as well.

Shipping… Too late.

Then, eventually, Sarah receives a shipping confirmation on the 22nd of December, via UPS, stating that the items had been shipped, and were scheduled to be delivered on December 30th – 3 days later than expected.

Now, most people are perfectly happy to wait for another three days, but there was an itsy-weeny problem: Sarah was going to leave the country on the 29th, and needed her cameras with her. Since the order was placed on the 17th, and the 42 Street Website promised a 10-day delivery (at most), Sarah figured she would have a couple of days leeway. Instead, the cameras would arrive two days too late.
What have we learned?

Between the slow shipping (5 days to ship an order of cameras that are marked in stock?), charging the credit card too early, breaching their own terms and conditions, trying to upsell memory cards and shipping (the latter, presumably, to cover their own ass for being too slow in shipping the items in the first place), trying to get a person unrelated to the transaction to authorise additional spending on a credit card, rude one-line replies to genuine customer service woes, and an apparent lack of care about fraud prevention…

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ll be turning to 42 street photo for my photography needs in the future…

When I was 16 or so, a friend of mine died. It was all very strange how it went; she had a heart defect, and was on heart medication to help her defect. Then, one day, she calls her boyfriend with a cryptic message. He gets worried, and travels across the town to go see her. By the time he makes it to her house, her mother has found her. They call an ambulance, but she dies before the ambulance crew arrives. It turns out she has taken around 12 of the very potent “take one every 24 hours” heart medication pills, in what appears to have been a suicide.

There was no note. There was no message. There were no warnings or problems that anyone knew of. Only she knew why she did it, but she didn’t tell anybody. (more…)

I have spent a bit of time playing the FaceBook game Mob Wars: La Casa Nostra recently (Wanna join my mob? Add me!), and noticed that its purchasing model is actually quite sophisticated – and in order to make the maximum amount of money from your property portfolio, you are going to have to be a little bit careful.

If you haven’t played the game, basically you are a mobster, who tries to fight him (or her-)self up in the world. You get in fights, you do jobs, and you fight bosses. Part of all of this is that you use the money you earn to buy property, which then, in turn, makes you more money. (more…)

If you’ve been a good boy or girl, the only time you would come across the Miranda warning (or, as it is more frequently known, the Miranda Rights) or the Police Caution on the dozens of cop shows on TV. Both of these warnings are given as soon as possible after someone has been arrested. On telly, the accused will often reply with a poignant “Sod off, wanker” or similar. Come to think of it, the same happens in real life.

Anyway, on TV, these warnings are often rattled off at incredibly high speed. If you take a closer look, however, you’ll see that the two apparently similar warnings are different. Very different. The Miranda rights in the US and the Police Caution in the UK are, in fact, the exact opposites of each other. (more…)

I have a huge problem with all the panic that happens every time a ‘terrorist’ manages to make a half-witted attempt at blowing up a plane…

True terrorists have no qualms about going on suicide missions, but are frequently screwed by being really bloody unintelligent. There’s are sure-fire way of getting a bomb on board a plane, which nobody would be able to do anything about, and which current detection methods can’t even track. (more…)