Geoff's Blog [Opinionated Geek]

Aren't they supposed to be good with computers?

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:15:07 GMT

Today I got the usual 'Friday Brunch' email from the British Computer Society (BCS). Except today, instead of the fairly poor showing of articles, we got adverts for books and not much else.

I should point out that I never knowingly signed up for this email. I think it was one of those "He's registered so of course he'll want it" spams. I should probably have complained about it at the time, but it only ever comes out on Fridays and by then the week has sapped my will to have contact with people who can't grasp the fact that I don't want their junk.

So it has continued until today, when they've just decided I'm a resource to monetise (or whatever the current vogue term for pissing off people whose email address you've got). So I decided to to try unsubscribing.

The good news: It has an 'unsubscribe' link. These make unsubscribing really easy, so you just click on it and you're done.

The bad news: It takes you to a page that says you have to email them to unsubscribe.

Now, I give out different email addresses to different organisations so that if they turn out to be spammers I can easily kill that address without affecting anyone else. The downside is that it's not trivial to change the address I send email as, so unsubscribing via email is more painful than necessary.

The good news: They also say you can go to the 'Member Secure Area' to unsubscribe.

The bad news: It won't let me.

It seems that I need to be registered to log in. That certainly seems to be the impression, given that it won't let me log in. It tells me my email address is invalid, even though that's the one they're sending stuff to. (Stuff, I feel I must repeat, that I don't want.)

I don't need to be registered to be sent their book spam, but I need to be registered to get them to stop sending me it.

So I try to register. As well as my membership number, I need my PIN. I don't have my PIN. I didn't even know I had a PIN from them. So I click the "Don't have your PIN?" link, which promptly emails me my PIN so I can enter it in the form. I think this is all to do with 'security', but I can't quite see how.

The good news: Using my PIN and my email address and my membership number I now have the information needed to register.

The bad news: It won't let me.

When I try to register it fails with 'Invalid Email Address'. I know it's a valid email address because it's the one they're spamming.

I know what you're thinking. It could, possibly, be that I'm already in their system and that's the reason the email address is invalid for a new registration. The problem with that theory is that it also tells me 'Invalid Email Address' when I go to the "I've forgotten my password so please send it to my email address" page. So it's not that. It just thinks my email address is invalid.

So, to summarise: The site of the British Computer Society ('[T]he leading professional body for those working in IT') fully accepts the legitimacy of my email address by sending it stuff I don't want, but refuses to accept its legitimacy when I try to get them to stop.

I realise this is most like incompetence rather than malice, but y'know, they're supposed to be good with computers.

I've now tried logging in using a different mechanism, one that allowed me to use my membership number and password. It worked. Because I couldn't use the email address to login, it's now asking me to confirm my absolutely correct email address that they've been using, as if I was the one that got it wrong.

And apparently hitting 'Continue' isn't enough to confirm it. I have to re-enter it into a textbox. The textbox just underneath where they're displaying my perfectly-valid email address.

It doesn't work. I try that and once again it says 'Invalid Email Address'.

I give up. I'm going to change it now to a different one to see if that helps. Maybe if I put 'spam' at the end of it it'll be long enough for them to believe it's a real address.

It's not looking good. I've clicked 'Continue' (again...), but it still hasn't come back. It's still working.

It's still working.

I'm not the fastest typist in the world, but it's still, still working.

I give up, and go back and re-login using the membership number. This time it accepts that the second valid email address I tried is actually valid.

The good news: Finally, finally, I get to the subscription page. It's a bit screwed up - it has some text overlayed on top of other text, but I can just about read the text underneath. So I tell it I want to unsubscribe.

The bad news: It won't let me. At least it's giving me a different error message this time. "We're sorry we have not been able to collect the data required for displaying the page you want." I have no idea what that means.

I try it again in Internet Explorer. Maybe Firefox is just too damn fancy for their taste.

The good news: It says it works.

Now I go back to my profile page and tell it to go back to my original, correct, perfectly valid email address. It works.

It really shouldn't be this difficult though. I mean, these guys are the organisation with the royal charter for computing. How can they get it so wrong?

"The Night Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenjo

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:51:13 GMT

"Fewer Vampires Than Expected"
Score: 4/5

The Night Watch: Sergei Lukyanenko: Books

ISBN: 0099489929
ISBN-13: 9780099489924

A friend recommended this book, and at the time - I'm not sure why - I got the impression that it had a lot more vampires than it actually has. I think the Tall bloke described it by saying "Vampires! Russians! Read it!"

In truth there are comparatively few vampires in it. That's not a bad thing or a good thing - it's just a thing. It was my expectations that were a bit screwed up.

But what you do get for your money is a couple of surprisingly subtle stories about the underworld in Moscow. They're a bit more intricate than I'd normally expect, and I loved them for it. There are three individual stories in the book, which took me by surprise - I wondered why it felt like the story was winding up half way through, only for it to end quite abruptly.

So, now that your expectations have been set a bit more appropriately than mine were, go read this book.

Technorati Tags: Books,Book Reviews

Let's see what this does...

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:40:27 GMT

I've just updated the blog code to try to reduce the amount of spam it gets. Fingers crossed it works.

Humblest apologies if you do get the error "My spam protection thinks you're trying to spam me. Please don't do that." It's nothing personal - in fact if you could let me know:

1) What you were doing when it happened, and

2) That you're a human being

then I'll look into it and try to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Well that's annoying...

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:52:18 GMT

I was looking at the eee PC and I've got to the stage where I'm about to buy one.

PIXmania seem to be doing a decent deal on them - get the cheapo version for ?191.60.

There are a number of problems with this:

First of all, I had a nagging memory of the name PIXmania. LearningToSnap had mentioned them, and not in a glowing way. So that's not good.
SWMBO mentioned that she'd heard they were the way Dixons/Currys shifted their FNF returned goods and overstocks. If I'm getting an FNF item I'd rather it was more obvious...
They require a landline and date of birth for registration. (As far as they're concerned, you can call me on their example number '0102030405', and I was born on 1st January 1920...)
When I got to the delivery stage, it offered me overnight shipping through UPS (the expensive option) or... nothing. There was no standard delivery option. I don't know if that was another Norn Iron thing, or if they're just playing silly buggers.
A search on Google for 'uk ASUS Eee PC 2G Surf' brought up an advert from PIXMania saying 'Get ?15 OFF on Asus 4 GB EEE PC! Use Code "EEEUK15" at Checkout.' Using the code just got me an error saying 'Sorry, this offer has now ended'.
Now that I've got to that stage, I can see that they've automatically added 'Zen Engagement' to my basket. This costs ?19.06, and gets me - I kid you not - 'A refund in case your product malfunctions'. Well thank you very-fucking-much - you mean if you sell me something that doesn't work I get my money back? Isn't that, y'know, a statutory obligation for goods sold with the customer not present?

To sum up: I still haven't got my eee, and I'm certainly not going to buy anything from PIXmania.

Funnily enough, I just found another voucher code for PIXmania and I gave it a go. It only offers ?10 off, but it works. Unfortunately for PIXmania, while I was doing this I noticed that they added something else to my basket - 'VIPIX Loyalty Card', for ?7. Bastards! I hate the way with some retailers you really need to scrutinise every part of the purchase to make sure they're not ripping you off. (Tesco are another company like that - they often have three-packs of items that are more expensive than the buying the 3 individual items, just because it's become ingrained in us that buying in bulk is cheaper.)

I'm pretty sure I know what the animal would say...

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:01:08 GMT

PETA have just announced an X-Prize - $1million to the first person to produce a commercially- viable 'artificial' meat by 2012.

Here's what I don't get. Artificial meat will - if successful - mean fewer animals being bred for their meat.

That means that fewer animals suffer, true. Because the 'suffering' animals will never exist.

Some philosophies say suffering is inherent in the nature of life. Everyone tries to make the best of it, but "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". It seems daft to me that these people are trying to encourage non-existance for animals in the name of "ethics".

I'm not trying to defend cruelty to animals in any way here, but I'm pretty sure that if you asked an animal whether it would prefer a life of suffering and quiet desperation, or no life at all, I know what it would choose.

Barge Trip!

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:38:11 GMT

I figured I'd take advantage of my new Atom-posting of images code to show you some of the pictures we took on our barge trip last month. Clicking on an image should take you to a bigger version. I'm not trying to compete with Learning To Snap here - I didn't even take most of the photos.

The idea was simple -we'd hire a barge and go out on Lough Erne. The lough is famous for its beautiful scenery and we certainly saw plenty of it.

A lot of it was underwater when we got there, however. The Shannon-Erne Waterway was flooded and the water level was too high for us to head down the Shannon, and you can kindof see the high level of the water in the photo on the right.

The weather continued to be iffy throughout the week. SWMBO did get some kite-flying in though, so that made it all OK.

She also had a go at fishing - something she'd never done before. Proud as I was, she didn't catch anything.

Actually, none of us caught anything. I think it's that good ol' Irish sense of humour kicking in - the 'we'll flog the tourists the fishing permits even though the last fish was caught in 1976' kind of thing.

The one thing I'll remember about the trip was how cold it was. Now, I'm not someone who feels the cold much - I'm generally a warm (if not hot) person, and I usually go out without a coat while SWMBO is wearing the full coat+hat+scarf regalia. But the barge was cold!

Now it may be no surprise to you, but Lough Erne in March is cold, and if you're in a metal barge it uses the whole lough as a heatsink. It's not going to be a warm place.

Luckily, the barge came with central heating.

Unluckily, it didn't work.

We spent the whole time on the barge practically frozen, using the cooker for heating or keeping the engine running so that the gas-fired central heating worked.

It was, to summarise the last hundred words, bollock freezing.

Still, being in charge of the barge was fun, as was looking at the charts and ~~trying to not get us all killed~~ navigating around the hazards.

Much drink was taken, it must be said. It was always going to be a drinking holiday on a barge rather than a barge holiday where we partook of a few bevvies, and that's no bad thing. Incidentally, if you're going to be on a barge in uncertain weather, a piggin of Headless Dog is a fine companion.

And finally, there were some stunning sunsets and night-time scenes. I'll leave you with these two shots, both taken by SWMBO.

What I did this weekend

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:32:28 GMT

Since I don't have a life, like you regular folks, this weekend I extended the Atom support in this here blog. Now, before you switch off, this should allow me to use Atom-enabled tools like Windows Live Writer to create posts with embedded images and automatically upload them to the server as well as the post itself.

The images, as well as the post's text, are stored in my li'l database. I'm not at all sure how well that'll perform, but we'll give it a go.

"The Book With No Name" by Anonymous

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:39:22 GMT

"Needs A Good Proofreader"
Score: 3/5

The Book With No Name: Anonymous: Books

ISBN: 1843172836
ISBN-13: 9781843172833

Well, here's an 'internet phenomenon' that passed me by. I'd never heard of this book until SWMBO passed it along.

Apparently I'm just an out-of-touch old crusty, because as well as its own web site, it has a MySpace page (I still don't have one of 'em, and I don't plan on getting one).

It started out as a self-published book on Lulu.com, before getting a real publishing deal and going mass-market. All of which is irrelevant, but will either give you a warm, tingly stick-it-to-the-man feeling or dear-lord-get-me-a-proofreader palpitations.

I thought it was pretty good. It was very readable, easy when compared with the book I read just before it, and it does have some nice scene-setting in it. Wikipedia says it's reminiscent of a Tarantino or Rodriguez film (I think they mean Once Upon A Time In Mexico rather than Spy Kids), and I suppose that's true but it reminded me more of a Robert Rankin book set in a pseudo-Mexican village.

If you were to take Rankin's love of all things Brentford, and transplant it to a hot desert location in the Americas, and add a lot more violence and death, you'd be pretty close to this book.

Speaking of geography, I have no idea any more where the book is set. I thought Santa Mondega was a fictional place supposed to be in the U.S., somewhere around the Texas/Mexico border. We'd never heard of it because it's a special place that doesn't appear on maps etc. Plus, a U.S. special agent is sent there to investigate.

This PR draft (sorry - PDF download) says it's in South America. I didn't get that at all.

Well, it doesn't make a great deal of difference.

One problem I did have was that sometimes it was impossible to keep track of the dialogue. I'd love to have an example to put here, but I couldn't find the one I was looking for and I'm buggered if I'm going to read it all again just for you lot. But there was one bit that was a simple conversation between two people. It was only five lines. It should be trivial:

Person A says something

Person B says something

Person A says something

Person B says something

Person A says something

But that didn't work here. Here it was:

"Something", said Person A.

"Something".

"Something".

"Something".

"Something", said Person B

It's not possible to figure out who said the in-between lines because it can't be one person then the other taking turns since that just doesn't add up. To make it worse, the 'voices' weren't distinctive enough in this case to demonstrate who was speaking each of the lines.

This is the sort of thing proofreaders catch, so maybe it could use some better editing. (There was a missing open-quote as well, but I'll let them away with that one because there are problems like that in most books.) The couple of times I noticed the problem with dialogue were more serious though.

And don't believe the PR bumph - it's not even a little bit scary.

Technorati Tags: Books,Book Reviews

"Lord Of Light" by Roger Zelazny

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:31:34 GMT

"Good, But Perseverance Required"
Score: 4/5

Lord of Light (S.F. Masterworks): Roger Zelazny: Books

ISBN: 1857988205
ISBN-13: 9781857988208

This book was recommended on a mailing list I'm on, and I wasn't sure whether to buy it or not. I mean, I'll take recommendations from anywhere (feel free to pass any recommendations on, by the way), but these folks weren't as scathing as I was about Stross's half-book The Family Trade. (I still resent wasting money on half a book just because the publisher wants to monetise a resource or whatever.) Folks on the list were more accommodating and defensive of Stross when I ranted, saying it was his publisher's fault, not his.

So I wasn't sure what their recommendations would be like.

I needn't have worried - I enjoyed this book. That said, it took a lot of work. This book is rich, but it's hard to get into and you need to pay a lot of attention throughout the book because of the way it shifts timelines and characters. The character switches can be particularly difficult if you're not paying attention, since, without giving things away, names can change and the same character can go by different names at different times.

It's quite 'Russian' in that regard - if you've ever read Dostoevsky you'll be used to characters being referred to by seemingly completely different names depending on who is talking.

Anyway, the book had an unusual depth to it. Well worth reading, but I wouldn't put it down for too long or you'll forget who's who...

Technorati Tags: Books,Book Reviews

"Long Way Round" by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:40:04 GMT

"Two Blokes' Excellent Adventrue"
Score: 4/5

Long Way Round: Ewan McGregor,Charley Boorman: Books

ISBN: 0316728683
ISBN-13: 9780316728683

I really didn't think I was going to like the series 'Long Way Round'. I liked some of the stuff Ewan McGregor had been in, but I'd never heard of Charley Boorman and I'm not a petrol-head so the idea of a bloke's road trip on bikes wasn't really a turn on.

OK, I shouldn't pre-judge things. Sometimes I'm right though.

Still, in this case I was wrong. I loved the series. It felt honest (no idea whether it was or not, but it felt it). You could feel when there was tension amongst them, and when they were happy.

This is the book of the trip. It covers the same sort of things the series did, but it glosses over some parts the series dwelt on, and it goes in to more depth on some things the series didn't really cover. It complements the series well.

And the writing's not bad either. I don't know who wrote it (I doubt it was the purported authors - I suspect they told their stories to a ghostwriter and had him or her put the actual words on paper) but it flows quite well. The chapters and sections shift perspective, with some bits being 'Charley's words' and some bits being 'Ewan's words', but that works quite well here. I'm not sure why it works so well - possibly it's because after the series I feel like I've come to know them both a little bit.

(That must be really annoying for folks in the public eye - all these people think they know a little / a lot / everything about you and you know nothing about them, and then they come up to you as if you're old friends...)

And then there's the bikes. I've only ridden a motorbike a couple of times - never enough to actually say I can ride one, let alone sit the test. But I've always thought that one day I might. I was reading this book on our barge trip, and we talked about what we'd do for our trip next year. Well, it looks like we might take a bike trip. We're slightly hampered by none of us:

Owning a motorbike,
Having a motorbike license, or even
Knowing how to ride a bike

But, well, we have a year to sort those minor details out. So, maybe next year I'll be telling you all about our 'Long Way Round Ireland Without A Fridge' trip.

And it's these guys' fault.

Technorati Tags: Books,Book Reviews