Friday, July 27, 2007

The USPS willfully ignores a customer's questions.

Oh, I do love stock responses that *completely ignore* the question asked. Viz:


--------------------------------------------
Customer (KIM PLOWRIGHT) - 07/27/2007 04:27 AM

Hello

[tracking number] - this packet is showing as having attempted delivery at 12am on July 25, 2007.

That's midnight...

Could you confirm if USPS uses Royal Mail in the UK to attempt delivery? In this case, is Midnight the time at which the package left USPS and was handed to the Royal Mail?

I have had no confirmation through my letterbox to say any delivery was attempted, and I don't know how to track this package or ring to arrange a time when I'm going to be in... and not asleep!

Kim

--------------------------------------------
Response (Angelique M) - 07/27/2007 07:43 AM
Dear KIM PLOWRIGHT,

Thank you for contacting us about item number, [tracking number].

We attempted to deliver your item in GREAT BRITAIN at 12:00 AM on July 25, 2007.

For further assistance regarding this item, the United States sender must call 1-800-222-1811:

Monday through Friday -- 8:00 AM to 9:30 PM Eastern Time
Saturday -- 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time
Sundays & Major Holidays – Closed

If I can be of assistance to you in the future, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for choosing the United States Postal Service®.

Regards,

Angelique



As our customer, your privacy is important to us. Please see our privacy policy at www.usps.com
-[---001:001238:46443---]

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Chore Wars :: Latest News from ChoreQuest!

Chore Wars :: Latest News from ChoreQuest!

Bugger. Jen and I were just discussing the other day that we should invent a Household Tasks MMORPG so that we could gently encourage our other halves (and ourselves, occasionally) to do more housework, chores etc.

Someone's gone and done it already. Awesomes!

Stickers


IMG_6687.jpg
Originally uploaded by smagdali
Look, here they are!

Moo Stickers

MOO | Stickers - Print stickers using your images

So, you can now buy Moo Stickers. They're great. Really. You can put your own pictures on them, or buy one of our new ReadyMade packs if you don't think your pictures are up to the job.

You'll notice I said 'Our' there.

About a month ago, I was chatting to Roo Reynolds, who said 'I keep reading your site expecting you to make the big announcement, but you never do. What's with that?'. Except he probably didn't say 'What's with that?' because he's not Californian. But, he had a point.

So, I left the BBC. In May. I now work for Moo, as a product manager. Doing nice things. Yes. I'd spent eight and a half years at the Beeb, doing all kind of things, from Cult and Doctor Who, to the bbc.co.uk2.0 project looking at the way the site needs to change to keep up with the rest of the internets. But a girl gets tired, and needs a change.

Moo is a challenge. It's a small company - we're all in one room! It's fast moving. I get to make suggestions that get acted on in hours, not years. I'm working with lovely people like Denise, Dan, Stef and Richard. It's a good change, and a challenge, and we make cute things. The project I'm working on is interesting, and brings me back closer to an old love - design.

I'm pretty happy.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance)

The Google Cache - and indeed, the internet - has a very long memory. Once you post something to the internet, it becomes very hard to remove it. Things you post when you're 18 have a habit of sticking around until you're, say, 33. I know this, as my old posts still float around in old archives.

In particular, these three young gentlemen should be aware that any future employer will be able to Google their names for a very long time to come.

* Garren Salibian (Acton- Boxborough Regional High) (creator)
* Harout Yogurtian (Belmont High School)
* Garin Parseghian (Belmont High School)

They are the founder members and admins of the Facebook group, The Anti Gay Alliance.

Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance)

It is 'Dedicated to preserving straightness throughout the world.'

The people who have commented on the site should also be aware that their comments are now indexed and searchable, as follows:

Lee Campell (St. Cloud, MN) wrote
at 11:28pm on July 7th, 2007
those mother fucking fags wow they should all be shot. and for anybody that sickes up for them should be beatin also. goldam shit packers .and oh yeah GOD hates fags

Richard Wohlbier (Wisconsin Colleges) wrote
at 11:14pm on July 7th, 2007
For every deer that we shoot, we should shoot a fag.


Scott Campbell (Chippewa Falls High) wrote
at 3:57am on July 6th, 2007
I say all fags or fag lovers who talk shit on this group should get the fuck out and run into a middle of an intersection


The group Facebook | AGA (Anti Gay Alliance) has 32 members at 4:38pm BST on 11 July, 2007.
Those members are:

Name:
Brennan Heath
Network:
Arkansas State '09

Name:
Jordan NAve
Network:
Marshall High School '10

Name:
David Arshakyan
Networks:
Watertown High School '09
Boston, MA

Name:
Paul Derderian
Networks:
Rye High School '09
Westchester, NY

Name:
Matt Fitzpatrick
Network:
Lloydminster Comprehensive '08

Name:
Teddy Lucas-rowe
Network:
Sherborne School '07

Name:
Michael Hill
Network:
Australia

Name:
Mitch Larson
Network:
Eau Claire, WI

Name:
Ani Israelyan
Network:
Watertown High School '07

Name:
Richard Wohlbier
Network:
Wisconsin Colleges

Name:
Samuel Volk
Network:
Raleigh / Durham, NC

Name:
Mike Griffioen
Network:
Central Mich. '11

Name:
Scott Campbell
Network:
Chippewa Falls High '07

Name:
Oscar Derderian
Network:
Belmont High School '09

Name:
Rob Karasiewicz
Network:
Lowell High School '07

Name:
Bosah Hlwah
Networks:
None

Name:
Matt Barber
Network:
Falmouth High School '11

Name:
Anita Tomasian
Networks:
None

Name:
Meroujan Bagdasarian
Network:
Watertown High School '07

Name:
Lee Campell
Network:
St. Cloud, MN

Caleb Merrick
Network:
Thorold Secondary School '07

Name:
Danielle Cormier
Network:
Royal Valley High '08

Name:
Harout Yogurtian
Networks:
Belmont High School '07
Boston, MA
Officer Title:
Vice President

Name:
Garren Salibian
Network:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Officer Title:
President

Name:
Will Truax
Networks:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Boston, MA

Name:
Allen Papazian
Network:
Belmont High School '09

Name:
Greg Torosian
Network:
Belmont High School '08


Name:
Eric Grigorian
Networks:
Belmont High School '10
Boston, MA

Name:
Garin Parseghian
Network:
Belmont High School '10
Officer Title:
Vice President

Name:
Chris Wood
Network:
Red Bank High School '07


Name:
Christopher Seifel
Network:
St. John's '09

Name:
Brady Lee
Networks:
Chippewa Falls High '07
Wisc Stout '07
Eau Claire, WI

Name:
Garren Salibian
Network:
Acton- Boxborough Regional High '09
Officer Title:
President

Name:
Garin Parseghian
Network:
Belmont High School '10
Officer Title:
Vice President


That is all.

Green and Pleasant LAN

Terra Nova: Our avatars, ourselves

I love the kicker at the end of this article. Spending two years in Warcraft, and having seen the world, I've often found myself thinking 'If I could live in one of these zones, which would I choose?'. Until recently, it was Arathi Highlands; nice rolling grass, occasional pleasing rocky outcrops, good mountains. Ashzara came close, too, but I'm less of an autumn fan. These days, I'd be living in Nagrand.

I wonder, actually, what the spectrum mix of light coming from a monitor would be, when questing in one of WoW's green areas. Is it the nearest approximation of full-spectrum summer sun? Is it just hitting our pineal gland's sweet spot? Has anyone tested melanin levels of regular hardcore gamers? Could this explain the late nights we all pull, given the opportunity?

Hmn.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Too old for Facebook? « Scobleizer

Too old for Facebook? « Scobleizer

What goes around comes around. I was upstairs, playing Warcraft for most of today; my first good five-hour session in a long time. As I ripped through a metric buttload of Ogres, grinding my way through level 68, I was thinking about the time I've spent on the game, and how my media habits have changed over the last few years.

I've started watching television a bit more, recently; rarely live (unless it's a half eye on the sport that Ian has on), usually documentaries from the PVR, or catching up with Doctor Who. The set rarely moves from UKTV History or BBC Four, to be honest. This evening, as I tore myself away from Azeroth, I came down to find Ian watching a best of Clive James' Chat shows programme.

The line-up - admittedly, a best of, so they had a lot to choose from - but the line-up of guests was amazing. Peter Cook and Barry Humphries together. Germaine Greer and Alan Coren. David Attenborough and Howard Jacobson. Melvyn Bragg, Jonathan Miller, Joanna Lumley, Katherine Hepburn...

There used to be clever people on television, with opinions, whom you learnt from. They cling on in Radio 4, but TV is the realm of the makeover, the WAG. It makes me feel old and irrelevant, and it’s oddly unsatisfying, like a diet of takeaway food.

Which brings me to Robert Scoble's comment about the drop in blog traffic. I'm so behind on my feed reading at the moment, it's not true. I'm not (book) reading much, but I'm listening to more music and watching more TV than usual. I'm fiddling on Flickr, and a bit on facebook, but neglecting Twitter, and Jaiku.

I'm fickle, and only have so much attention to pay to things. If one thing takes my time and energy, other things must be neglected.

It amuses me that I've been in so many meetings with people going 'games and the internet will take eyeballs and time away from telly!' and now I'm hearing bloggers going 'Social Networks are taking attention away from blogs!'. Admittedly, in the case of telly their idea of attention is a bit warped; it’s been long known that those viewing figures aren’t a guarantee that anyone was actually taking in your programme’s content, just an indication that the telly was burbling in the corner of the room whilst domestic life ebbed and flowed around it.

I’m getting to a point where I feel permanently un-satiated by my media. None of the experiences seem… significant enough, in the way that watching the Late Show in the early 90s made me set the course of my life away from science and towards art. Even the excellent Andrew Marr histories felt too… shiny and slick to really be meaningful. The images are empty. My to-read pile of books is growing inexorably – thanks to Amazon and the ease of finding things that look interesting, I’m buying faster than I read now.

How many hours in the day do you need to keep up with the onslaught of information? When was the last time you engaged really deeply with a pop culture artifact? These are all transient things.

I just wish those transient unsatisfying things didn't distract me from getting round to that slow, tangible drawing project I've been thinking about for weeks.