What annoys you most about Chip & Pin? Apart from the fact that you may have lost thousands if your card has been cloned, of course?
For me, it's the fact that (I assume) the checkout operator's workstation indicates that the card machine is ready to accept your PIN a fraction of a second before the card machine itself does. That's the only reason I can think of to explain the EXTREMELY IRRITATING fact that, at the very split-second the machine displays "Please enter your PIN" the checkout person will say "can you put your PIN in please?"
Yes!! I *know* I have to put my PIN in for God's sake! I was waiting for the machine to tell me it was ready! I can't type it in BEFORE, can I? So just shut up and give me a chance to do what I already knew I would have to do, at the time I'm invited to do it!
Actually I've developed a kind of sixth sense that tells me when the machine is about to ask me for my PIN, so I can start putting it in AS THE PROMPT APPEARS! Brilliant. I can't tell you how satisfying it was the first time the words "can you put your PIN in please?" died in the throat of the checkout girl as she realised I was already halfway through it.
Small pleasures :o)
Friday, June 16, 2006
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Oxymorons
You've got to laugh, haven't you? Well at least, I did this morning walking through Westminster on my way to another of those interminable government meetings. I saw three things that ordinarily would have made me smile quietly to myself, or chuckle, but in the way of things comic their effect was cumulative, so by the time I came across the third I laughed out loud:
1. London cabs
Some of these have now started sporting the strapline "London black cabs - so much more than just a taxi" (or something like that). But are they though? No, not really. A taxi is a taxi - except of course for the legal difference between a hackney cab and a private hire vehicle. Why in today's world is it necessary to employ whizz-kid marketeers to tell us that something is "so much more" than it really is? I know what a taxi does. I know what it looks like. If it's raining, or I'm in a hurry, or where I'm going is too far to walk, I'll hail a cab. Otherwise I won't bother. I know how it works and what to expect. Why should I have to expect "so much more"? What else is there? Is the cabbie going to start offering me financial advice? Make me a BLT with tangy mayo to go? Cut my hair? No. Well, apart from the financial advice of course. Cabbies have been offering this unsolicited since time immemorial.
2. Scotland Yard.
The Met have employed the strapline "working together for a safer London" for some years now, but it's been a while since I've walked past their HQ. Last time I was there it looked quite accessible, but in the interim it has been surrounded by a steel-and-toughened-glass blast shield that could probably withstand the force of a Saturn V rocket from three feet. On top of that, the main door is protected with half-a-dozen of those thick concrete blocks that crop up in semi- permanent motorway repairs because they stay standing when hit by an articulated truck doing 60mph. So, lads, are we expecting trouble? Not QUITE achieved "a safer London" yet, then?
3. City of Westminster Cleaning Department.
My walk was briefly interrupted by a reversing council refuse collection vehicle (in the days before Political Correctness, we used to call them bin lorries) . This sparkly new vehicle was emblazoned with the words "Clean Streets" in two-foot-high green letters. As the driver completed his reversing manoeuvre, he flipped his cigarette butt out of the window onto the street, which heretofore had, presumably as a result of his colleagues' efforts, been Clean. Physician, heal thyself.
1. London cabs
Some of these have now started sporting the strapline "London black cabs - so much more than just a taxi" (or something like that). But are they though? No, not really. A taxi is a taxi - except of course for the legal difference between a hackney cab and a private hire vehicle. Why in today's world is it necessary to employ whizz-kid marketeers to tell us that something is "so much more" than it really is? I know what a taxi does. I know what it looks like. If it's raining, or I'm in a hurry, or where I'm going is too far to walk, I'll hail a cab. Otherwise I won't bother. I know how it works and what to expect. Why should I have to expect "so much more"? What else is there? Is the cabbie going to start offering me financial advice? Make me a BLT with tangy mayo to go? Cut my hair? No. Well, apart from the financial advice of course. Cabbies have been offering this unsolicited since time immemorial.
2. Scotland Yard.
The Met have employed the strapline "working together for a safer London" for some years now, but it's been a while since I've walked past their HQ. Last time I was there it looked quite accessible, but in the interim it has been surrounded by a steel-and-toughened-glass blast shield that could probably withstand the force of a Saturn V rocket from three feet. On top of that, the main door is protected with half-a-dozen of those thick concrete blocks that crop up in semi- permanent motorway repairs because they stay standing when hit by an articulated truck doing 60mph. So, lads, are we expecting trouble? Not QUITE achieved "a safer London" yet, then?
3. City of Westminster Cleaning Department.
My walk was briefly interrupted by a reversing council refuse collection vehicle (in the days before Political Correctness, we used to call them bin lorries) . This sparkly new vehicle was emblazoned with the words "Clean Streets" in two-foot-high green letters. As the driver completed his reversing manoeuvre, he flipped his cigarette butt out of the window onto the street, which heretofore had, presumably as a result of his colleagues' efforts, been Clean. Physician, heal thyself.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Freedom!
If you believe that open access to information is a good thing
If you believe, as a UK TV licence payer, that anyone in the world should have access to the archive material controlled by the BBC but which YOU have paid to create
If you believe that British values are worth promulgating in a world increasingly divided and misguided
If you believe that creativity would be nurtured, fostered and encouraged by being able to use, reuse and adapt material created by some of the most talented artists on the planet
...then you need to get yourself over to http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter and sign the petition being run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Free Culture UK to persuade the BBC to open their archives to the world.
Some small degree of access is already being set up by the BBC, and good on them for that, but a culture of restriction, licensing and control still pervades Auntie. In the 21st century, the world needs a better way. Go on, do your bit.
If you believe, as a UK TV licence payer, that anyone in the world should have access to the archive material controlled by the BBC but which YOU have paid to create
If you believe that British values are worth promulgating in a world increasingly divided and misguided
If you believe that creativity would be nurtured, fostered and encouraged by being able to use, reuse and adapt material created by some of the most talented artists on the planet
...then you need to get yourself over to http://www.freeculture.org.uk/letters/CreativeArchiveLetter and sign the petition being run by the Open Knowledge Foundation and Free Culture UK to persuade the BBC to open their archives to the world.
Some small degree of access is already being set up by the BBC, and good on them for that, but a culture of restriction, licensing and control still pervades Auntie. In the 21st century, the world needs a better way. Go on, do your bit.
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