Jonathan Sanderson’s weblog, since 2001.
As expected, OFCOM have indeed published new regulations banning junk food adverts on programmes aimed at children. This isn’t the reason why ITV have stopped producing children’s programmes, but it is the pretext under which that’s happened.
Save Kids’ TV, as ever (not yet updated).
One of the things I love about this job is that I sometimes get to read the most exciting documents.
This was not one of those times.
Another classic Maopost.
Mad props to the MySociety folks for the new 10 Downing Street E-Petitions system. One doesn’t have to poke around very much to sense that they have, once again, done it ‘right.’ Boy, am I glad these chaps are on our side. By which I think I mean the side of life, liberty, and freedom. Or somesuch.
Paul Thurrott has had an interesting experience with Apple support and a troublesome MacBook, which appears to have been resolved amicably, even with faintly embarrassing offers of restitution from Apple.
I’ve had my share of support issues with Apple gear, and while my experience hasn’t been universally positive, it has averaged out at ‘better than I expect’ – ie. really not bad. While Thurrott’s right to query whether his experience was a result of his blog having rather large traffic, I can vouch for the latitude with which Apple’s ‘executive relations’ team operates. While I have put quite a lot of Apple gear on TV over the years, I don’t believe that had anything to do with the outcome of this particular story:
I once had a bit of a issue with a refurb Titanium PowerBook that, after a couple of failed repair attempts, went back for a refund. Subsequently it was refurbished again and resold, but (surprise!) it ended up failing in exactly the same way, yet again. This I know because after it was repaired it was shipped back to me, rather than to the then-current owner. Which was a tad of a faux-pas, though I’ve heard equally bad (indeed worse) stories concerning other big laptop manufacturers.
At the time I happened to have the direct number of Apple’s Exec Relations team in the UK, so I rang them. They were initially gobsmacked and somewhat suspicious. Once they’d checked their records, however, matters were put right extremely rapidly and, I think, to the satisfaction of all concerned. It wasn’t a happy episode, but the high-level customer services people went a long way not to leave a sour taste. They certainly lost money on that particular sale.
Avoiding problems in the first place is clearly the best plan, but multiply a tiny fraction by millions of customers, and you’re going to get non-zero failure cases. What’s really important is how you deal with those. This is, of course, why I’d buy another BMW (Mini), but will never touch another Mercedes (Smart). Listening to the customer and addressing the problem will beat lying and not fixing things, every time.
Notwithstanding the genuinely atrocious bandwidth I’m seeing via Clearwire here in Dublin, tonight I tried to buy a VOIP handset for use with Skype. Now, I’ve been merrily sending parcels from Amazon and Apple hither and yon, to wherever I’m next going to be when I’m in the UK, but there’s a clash between Skype’s store’s quoted delivery times and my travel plans. OK, so I’ll just buy stuff via the Ireland store, and have it delivered to my work address. Er… no. Your billing address has to be in the delivery country, sorry.
But… but… the whole point is that I can call… oh, never mind.
The inappropriately-named Clearwire, by the way, is a Dublin-wide wireless internet service, operating over some whacko proprietary extended WiFi protocol. It’s a commendably zero-configuration set-up, and I’m seeing excellent bandwidth within Dublin – I had 150Kb/sec coming down from the Trinity SourceForge mirror, for example. However, connecting to sites outwith Ireland is another story. I’m seeing up to 98% packet loss, 2500ms ping times, and net throughput of about 1.5 Kb/sec to my server in Los Angeles. It’s not even sufficiently stable to maintain an FTP control connection.
Yes, I’m on with tech support about this. Doing the various bandwidth tests and pinging different bits of the network, it looks to me like I have an excellent connection to their system, but either their upstream bandwidth is hopelessly inadequate for their customer base, or they’re traffic shaping like crazy. As in ‘let’s make the traffic shape look like a flatline.’ I suspect a bit of both, but frankly I don’t care. If support can’t solve it, I’m handing the box back. Neat tech, but at the moment it doesn’t work.
It’s only fair to mention that my chum James (not shark-hunting/Vaudeville-producing James, another one) has had his submission confirmed: he is now the holder of the Guinness World Record for the greatest number of people standing inside a single soap bubble, at twenty-five. The attempt took place during the BA this year, at Inspire in Norwich. Yay James!
Click through this lot, and tell me that ‘underwater dance class’ isn’t an ongoingly giggle-worthy source of hilariousnessesess. Dare you.
Whilst I shivered in my unheated Glaswegian flat last night, barely a half-brick’s throw away the great and the good of (Scottish) media were making non-alcoholic merry at the (Scottish) BAFTAs. Dry, evidently, because of some indiscretions and heckling last year, and the BBC’s inexplicable intention this year to broadcast the event, albeit after a judicious cooling-off period.
It’s a sign of the respect and affection with and in which we hold these noble (Scottish) awards that today’s Media Guardian does not, in fact, mention them at all. Presumably, the thought of sending an actual hack all the actual way to the actual (Scottish) Glasgow was viewed as terribly gauche.
Interestingly, there’s precious little on Technorati today, either (am I the only Scottish media blogger currently working in Dublin? Surely not?). Credit due to ‘Laura’ (surname unknown, though bizarrely we do know she’s a Libra) for pointing up the Screenplay winner (Run Tony Run!). Otherwise, there’s a thundering silence from basically everywhere.
Which is a pity, because thanks to BAFTA Scotland itself (persevering in publishing the news, even if nobody appears to give a damn), we know that:
Yay Debs! I had lunch with her yesterday, and everything! Woo!
Ben ‘I am the new Renaissance’ Hammersley has a new gig, as multimedia reporter for The Guardian. Given that we like his writing and love his photography, is there any doubt that we’ll appreciate his videos too?
That rumbling noise you hear in the background somewhere is conventional media wondering if it just missed something, then going back to sleep again.