Bob Browning's blog

I am reading Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson.

I wish I could write like that.

The stories about the Outlaws themselves are hilarious in a black sort of way, but there is at least a certain internal logic to their behaviour. The real lesson of the book for me is that the Idea of the Hells Angels (or if you will, the Brand) ended up more powerful than the Hells Angels themselves. Police over-reacted to events that had nothing to do with the Hells Angels on the other side of the continent simply because of rumours of their involvement.

Hunter S Thompson is a genius with deep insights into human psychology.

Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas next.

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Believing:

1. That whenever radio and wires compete radio always wins in the end
2. We should not swell BTs profits any more than we have to but encourage any sort of competition.

I have wireless broadband from NOW at home. Note this is broadband delivered by radio – not a wireless home network. In the home I just connect to the modem by a regulat network cable.

I have a couple of reasons other than the above:

1. I hope to use the modem as a backup for the office broadband if we get into problems.
2. I can think of all sorts of uses for a broadband connection which I can stuff in my rucksack with my laptop.

Both rely on the coverage area increasing of course, it is still pretty limited.

First experience is good. The box arrived, plugged it in and started up the dialer software. Lo we have lift-off. The station servicing my cell was down Saturday night and Sunday morning which is not so good. The wait on the support line was long and the music on hold terrible – thank goodness I have a hands free phone. The operator was very helpful however. They have just set up in our area to I can forgive some teething problems.

Price is OK – £14 for 512k. Easy to install and works fine.

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It is argued that where radio comes up agains wires, radio always wins in the end. So when Now extended their wireless broadband to our street I signed up. 256/512k for £14 per month (I hope this includes VAT) sounds a reasonable deal.

I also have an ulterior motive – in an emergency if our office broadband breaks I can take a taxi home and pick up the wireless box and use it as a backup. That is the theory anyway – we shall see.

So far I have only one complaint – well two actually.

1. the box hasn’t arrived they are late delivering
2. their music on hold is truly dreadful.

More later…

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In 2008 people are going to start losing their analog TV and will have to switch to digital. Yes that is 2 years time!

I have Freeview – no big deal other than having to juggle with two remotes instead of one. However if you use a VCR to time-shift programs digital TV is close to unusable. So not only am I down for an extra set-top box for every other TV in the house I also have to replace my VCR – but with what? The answer is a PVR (Hard disk-based freeview decoder and recorder = sky+ for freeview) but try buying one. Last Saturday I checked John Lewis in Kingston – nothing. Even if they had one it would be obsolete – Freeview PVRs are in the rapid development stage where models are obsolete within months.

If we were serious about switching, every TV you buy would have an integrated decoder – but they don’t.

In short the country does not look as if it is ready for digital. It will come that is obvious but before it happens people need time to switch technology and two years is just not enough. Here in London it won’t be till 2012 – thank goodness.

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I have been using Vonage for a few months now. Quality is not up to business standard but this is not their fault I believe.

Talking to a few experts it looks like the problem is that with ADSL the upload bandwidth (256k) is not enough. I can hear people on the phone OK but they don’t hear me well all the time. To make this work you need:

• A good upload bandwidth (i.e. SDSL which is not cheap)
• A router that prioritises voice
• Low contention.

We have business ADSL from BT where the contention is 20:1 which is OK although being business users I guess the other 19 are heavy users.

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I have been using pipemedia for voip. They are cheap but I have had complaints about quality.

Vonage is now in the UK, so I ordered the service.

You get a Cisco router (included in the £16 setup charge). The whole thing has a very professional feel. The router worked first time, the voice quality looks clear.

I will report back on progress.

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Yesterday I needed one red pepper plus a bunch of bananas. The checkout lines were horrendous so I decided to take the self-checkout route.

Those machines are the worst user interface I can image.

1. They have a voice response system, but the voice is often telling you something different to what’s on the screen. The screen is saying press enter, and the voice is saying ‘unexpected item in the packing area’.
2. The screen design is bad. When you select an item manually, it asks you to type in the number of items and press enter. There are two clear red buttons for ‘help’ and ‘abandon’. The ‘enter button’ is hidden away in the numeric keypad, the same colour as the numeric keys. I actually had a hard job finding it.
3. If you make a mistake and want to correct it, you can’t remove an item without a supervisor coming up and releasing it. What user interface doesn’t allow you to correct mistakes?
4. The note dispenser is in a totally different place to the coin dispenser which is in a totally different place to the receipt dispenser.

I needed the attendant twice for the purchase of two items. And I am the least techno-phobic person in the world. I can work most bits of gadgetary but this takes the cake.

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I have beeen using pipemedia for VOIP and they are chaep and the results are OK. However several people have complained about the quality at their end. So I have signed up with Vonage. The first bit of good news is that the VOIP box is free – others charge £60. There is a hefty signup fee however abd £10 per month.

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Apparently a group took photos of Swiss undercover police (who were taking photos of demonstrators) and posted them on their web site. The Swiss talked to the US who issued a soepena to the hosting company (Rackspace) in Texas. The next thing the servers have been physically removed from the server farm in Rackspace London.

Home Office spokeswoman Caroline Flint said, “I can confirm that no UK law enforcement agendas were involved in the matter referred to.”

The servers are back now but some files are missing.

How in the name of our constitution (which in our case we do not have) can this happen. There is no mention of any UK court order in this story that i can find. Did Rackspace London really take down some servers on the basis of a US subpoena?

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You just couldn’t make it up could you. Some guys funded by the dept of trade and industry (ie us) have come up with the recommendation that computer games should be studied in schools. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3956241.stm

Well I guess now the playing fields have all been sold off… sigh…

How about teaching them to write english and do simple maths.

Despite the fact that half the population can apparently get multiple A levels at grade A . And despite the fact that the exams have not been dumbed down and the pupils have just go better, I am still confronted by a series of ill-educated illiterates who couldn’t figure their way out of a paper bag whenever I have to interview graduates.

I know one person who’s interviewing approach is to first ask the graduate which part of the course they excelled in. Then he would ask a few questions about that area. You guessed it, most couldn’t answer them.

When I last interviewed marketing grads (who had all done statistics as a course) and asked them to explain the concept of standard deviation, very few could.

Our education system is a cruel joke played on the innocents who have to go through it.

I dispair.

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