Categories
Blogging Misdirected Emails

Gosh. 3 Years. Is It Really…

And so time, as it is wont to do, marches relentlessly forwards. This blog has really just been pining for the fjords, honest mate. I mean it’s not like much has really changed. The sun continues to shine intermittently on Melbourne. I continue to sit in front of a keyboard typing words for a living. Family is now 25% larger and I’m still getting emails intended for other Matts around the world.

I mean come on. How hard is it to remember your own email address?

On the plus side, I do now know Canadian Matt’s full address, middle name, the answers to his security questions along with details of his three previous convictions.

Wowsers.

Categories
Media Shoddy Journalism Technology teh internets

Modern Life Is Not Rubbish

I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

So wrote the late great Douglas Adams, in (according to teh internets) The Salmon of Doubt.

It’s one of those great quotes to remember if you ever hear or read someone lazily complaining about technology ruining everything that was great about life (or, heaven forbid, catch yourself starting to think that way…)

Today’s Age has one such example: “Stop filming with your smart phone and start living

The writer offers a varied list of complaints about how people today are doing it wrong, with all this technology they are carrying around allowing them to do stuff like film gigs, or have fictional relationships with Scarlett Johansson. Even, gosh, not talk to strangers in cafes:

Today, I watch as people sit in cafes alone, with headphones plugged in, eyes fixed on a scrolling personal tablet or phone screen, cocooned from their surrounds and people next to them. They’re chatting online to people they’ve never met in person.

Yeah. Because before smartphones I couldn’t stop talking to strangers whenever I was in a cafe on my own.

At least I’m not staring at strangers eating their lunch. Maybe you’re the weirdo in this scenario…

I was going to write more about this, but as with most things in life, there’s an XKCD comic for that. It makes the point far, far better than I ever could:

The Pace of Modern Life

Categories
Blogging Media Shoddy Journalism teh internets Twitter

Old Media

I’m a little behind on this one, but I found this recent message from the old media rather amusing:

Rupert Murdoch Tweets

Bloggers terrorizing politicians? Well that will never do. That’s your job, isn’t it Rupert?

Also, while I’m at it Rupe, do try to remember that if you’re going to make claims about what results a particular Google search returns, you might not want to do that on the internet, where such claims are laughably easily verified.

Rupert Murdoch Tweets 2

Categories
Media Shoddy Journalism teh internets UK

Mr Pot, Meet Mr Kettle’s Web Presence

Just catching up on a couple of recent Private Eyes, I couldn’t help notice that they chose to conclude a story about recent problems at the Times Literary Supplement with this somewhat surprising paragraph:

The resulting outcry is awkwardly timed for [Sir Peter Stothard, the editor of the TLS], since to access his organ online is to find utter chaos. Already a laughing stock because it is reached via the Times’s “entertainment” division, the TLS’s website has been “under construction” for so long, even Stothers himself felt compelled to admit the process “has tested the patience of readers and writers alike”.

Ahem. Well now. I’d link to the story in the extensive archives on Private Eye’s comprehensive, modern and easy to use website, except that Private Eye don’t seem to have got round to making it yet…

Come on guys. Of all the things you can criticise other publications for, I really don’t think you should have a go at their website until you’ve sorted out your own.

Having said that, when I visited the Private Eye site just now I did see that they have started to embrace the modern age. My subscription apparently entitles me to exclusive “digital downloads”:

Please note, as one of our valued subscribers, you have full free access to all digital downloads and content as well as your print copy of Private Eye every fortnight.

Except. Oh…

Categories
teh internets

Just As Well It’s Not The Melbourne Spellers Festival…

We’re booked in to attend a foodie event next week that’s part of the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Yesterday I received the following email:

Just as well it’s not the Melbourne Spellers Festival…

Categories
Misdirected Emails Religion

From The Misdirected Emails File

Once again, a somewhat baffling not-quite-spam message arrives in my inbox, intended for one of the other Matts.

I can’t help thinking that the author of this message could have phrased that last line a little better…

To: [A Different Matt]

Greetings All

Thank you Matt and Jennifer for your insights. I appreciate the distinction ..having a critical spirit or critical thinking. Many times when I take a hard line I question it after the fact.I I expect when we take a hard line it will be to the improvement of the overall Joac Ministry. If I am going to hold David’s feet to the fire…I expect my feet to be held to the fire. I look forward to us building relationship with each person on the Uganda Board, each child in the family home. I believe we have a unique Us Board that is helping the Lord build his kingdom in Uganda. Thanks Jenn for the photo of the kids with the black shoes. That makes what we do worthwhile. Touching each child.

Blessings
John

Categories
Misdirected Emails Spam teh internets

You Have Got The Wrong Person

I’ve written before about some of the random emails I get from time to time that were supposed to go to a different Matt (we really need a word to describe this phenomenon; “spam” just doesn’t quite cut it), but I was reminded recently that I never actually posted my all time favourite.

This one was apparently successfully sent to its original recipient, who then tried to forward it on to someone she knew called Matt.

I have no other comments to make that can possibly do justice to this, so I will simply reproduce the email in full below–typos and incorrect “yours” and all.

Enjoy…

Date: Nov 3, 2010
Subject: Sweet, Loving Email
From: Estefania
To: Matt

———- Forwarded message ———-

Stephenie,

Lets get a few things straight about this past weekend. I was going to wait and give you the chance to reach out to Lauren and I. Clearly it was foolish to think you would try and make this right or work this out. Your actions and total lack of respect makes this easy.

First, you did lie about what you did in our bed and it is a big deal. Having sex in someones bed without their permission or them even knowing about it is not right and not respectful inspite of what you think The other person has apologized to us for disrespecting our home and told me what happened. You as a guest in our house had no right to use our bed for your selfish reasons and invite your former boy friend over. The fact that you don’t see anything wrong with that demonstrates how little respect you have for your former friends or their home. We left our home and went somewhere else to sleep so you and our other friends had a place to stay. We gave up our room for your guys. It is absolutely my business if friends have sex in my bed without asking first when my wife and I have given up our bed for guests. So you invite your ex boyfriend over and sleep with him in our bed and when confronted lie about it? Classy.

As a side note, you were so concerned with Colin trying to get with your friend that you confronted him in public in front of our friends while intoxicated and incited a fight. Yet you left them alone together in another room as you hooked up with your ex? Or was it just talking according to your story? Either way, Hypocritical.

Second, even though you were disrespectful to Lauren and I (never once apologizing for the way you acted, never once expressing appreciation that we gave up our room for you or thanking us for allowing you to stay in our apartment) the lying is what makes this worse. You have a problem telling the truth and that’s your fault. Not Mike, Colin, Lauren or I, that’s your fault. Good look being an Army officer and lawyer when you don’t have the integrity to tell the truth when asked.

Third, against my better judgment, I agreed to Lauren having you as a bridesmaid because at that time you were friends. I sincerely thought that you had dramatically changed since college. That was a mistake. The disrespect you demonstrated at our wedding was abhorrent. Attacking your former boyfriend in front of OUR friends and OUR family was disrespectful to us on our wedding night. How dare you act like that? It further demonstrates that you have no respect for others and your former friends. Reminds me of the drunken fights you use to start in Gainesville that nearly led to arrests; now your have graduated to disrupting weddings.

Fourth, your not a victim; your the problem. You instigated a fight with Colin by accusing him of behaving a certain way with your friend. That is very hypocritical on your part and again disrespectful. However, the worse part is that the fight in the car could have gotten someone killed. You continued to anger Colin to point where he tried to attack you and I had to restrain him while trying to control the car. Instead of allowing cooler heads to prevail you continued to incite him with accusations that he cheated on his now deployed girlfriend. All of this demonstrates that you are in instigator and a dangerous one at that. Again, reminds me over your countless actions in Gainesville.

Fifth, at any point you could have accepted responsibility and simply apologized for your actions. Whether you agreed with being confronted or not, it was your choice to either apologize or offer some appropriate response. You did neither. Your response was, and I quote, “Do you want to inspect my vagina to look for semen?” Again, very classy Stephanie. And you wonder why I have no respect for you and your actions.

Sixth, you never should have involved OUR friends in your actions. They were not involved, did not want to be involved and also do not appreciate you involving them. Unfortunately for you, they also are aware of the truth, your lying and you ability to put on quit a performance. Just like Lauren and I are not fooled by you; they are not fooled by your either. My friends that witnessed you behavior first hand and saw how your tried to provoke Colin think you are psychopathic nuttjob. It was a good try on your part but they all see through you and realize your not the victim; your the problem.

Because you have bad mouthed Lauren and I to our friends, when I am asked about this little episode by the friends you have involved in this, I will make sure the truth is established. And it will be made clear that you were given the opportunity to make this right and you choose not too. You defriend us on facebook like a high school kid instead of acting like an attorney and an Army officer by reaching out to fix the relationship. Again, thank you for making this part easy.

Again, instead of trying to apologize for your actions, you have taken the path of feeling sorry for yourself and being the victim. Your not.

Lets remove all doubt as to why we are no longer want you as a friend. For the record, we are tired of your and your childish behavior. We are tired of the disrespect and lying. Lauren and I are no longer your friends those reasons. We don’t want you involved in our lives whatsoever. Just so your clear, you have lost our friendship because of your lying, deceit, selfcenterdness, disrespectful attitude and lack of integrity. And total failure to even attempt to apologize or make this right. You are the same person you were in Gainesville, always selfish, always the victim and never one to take responsibility or try to make things right.

You made this choice. Even though it is sad that things ended this way, we are actually very relieved not to ever to deal with you or your needless drama again.

This will catch up with you one day and karma will pay you back in full. You will reap that which you sow Stephanie. Count it.

To quote you “have a good one”

Jeremiah

Categories
teh internets

Escape From The Mobile Web

I’ve moaned about stupid design patterns on the mobile web before, but here’s another example of just how frustrating it can be when web developers decide to lock you out of their site just because you happen to be using a mobile device.

This time the culprits are Singapore Airlines, one of my favourite airlines. Shame their web presence sucks.

I have a flight coming up shortly and there’s a great big flight cancelling ash cloud floating over Europe at the moment, so I thought I might check the airline website for an update on any cancellations.

Unfortunately if I head over there on my iPhone, I get this:

20110524-212656.jpg

Oh great. I’ve been “automatically redirected to Singapore Airlines mobile which is optimised for mobile devices”. I just love it when that happens.

Ok. Let’s click the link to go to their mobile website:

Um. Ok. Sure. I’ll agree to anything if you just let me in to your site.

But then there’s this:

What? I just want to look at your website to find out whether you are cancelling flights. Why do you need my phone number? What are you going to do with it?

But ok I’ll type in some random numbers just to get through the next hurdle. Finally we get to the site:

Oh. That’s it? There might be a link to flight status down the bottom, but that means putting in an individual flight number or route. If you just want to find a general news item about the ash cloud like the one they have on their full desktop website but you happen to be using an iPhone or similar then you’re out of luck.

No link to go to the full site. Nothing.

Thanks web development team at Singapore Airlines. I love it when developers decide on my behalf that my device isn’t capable of rendering their site and lock me out.

Luckily, there’s a solution to this and all other future annoying mobile web related issues: a bit of Googling leads me to this website recommending an app called “Journey Web Browser Lite”–a Safari replacement that includes one genius feature: browser user agent spoofing.

Settings -> Pretend To Be -> Firefox 3.0

In your face annoying web developers:

(Also: look! Look at that battery meter: it cost me 5% of my battery to take those screenshots. Gotta love the battery life on a two year old iPhone…)

Categories
Media Shoddy Journalism teh internets UK

Google To Destroy Music Industry, World

In the olden days it was a lot easier for newspapers to pass off ridiculous claims as facts because anyone who wanted to verify them would have to go to some serious effort to do so. These days, however, we have teh internets, and fact checking has suddenly become a whole lot easier.

So if you’re going to make claims about teh internets, then you’d better be pretty sure that your claimed facts are, you know, actually true.

Case in point number 247 is this article in the Daily Mail: Google threatens to destroy not only pop sensation Adele, but Britain’s film and music industries.

Scroll down towards the end of the article and you’ll find this astonishing claim:

One only has to switch on the computer, call up the Google search engine and type in the name of a star like Adele to understand why the digital channel is such a threat to the UK’s performers, and for that matter our whole creative industry.

Nine out of the first ten websites which pop up on Google’s search engine are run by pirates who have downloaded Adele’s output and offer it online far more cheaply than official copyrighted sites and High Street retailers.

In effect, Google has granted these piracy sites a licence to steal. Instead of the proceeds going into future investment in artists, it ends up in the hands of internet buccaneers.

Really? Nine out of the top ten search results for “Adele” are “run by pirates”? Did you really think you could make a claim like that and nobody would check?

(And by “far more cheaply”, I presume you mean “free”, no? Unless you really believe your claim that any proceeds are someone ending up in the hands of “internet buccaneers”…)

Anyway. So I turned on my computer and “called up the Google search engine” and did just that. Your mileage may vary, because Google now gives you geographically specific and personalised search results, but when I try that very search I get her official website, her wikipedia page, her MySpace page, a YouTube link, her Facebook page, last.fm, a lyrics website and Amazon.com.

Hmm. No pirates there.

Now I’m not suggesting that it isn’t possible to find copies of Adele’s music by doing a Google search, but you do have to specifically go looking for it. And until someone releases an album called “BitTorrent Download”, you won’t really be able to accuse Google of promoting piracy.

Actually, that’s sort of the point of a search engine–Google’s job is to index the internet, not to pick and choose what is worthy of inclusion in their index. Blaming them for the fact that certain websites show up in their search results seems to be the very definition of shooting the messenger.

Unless you have some other specific reason to be annoyed at Google. Oh, hang on…

So dominant has it become that it has helped to destroy great swathes of other media in its wake, from regional newspapers in Britain and the United States to business directory companies.

Ah. I see.

Categories
Misdirected Emails Spam teh internets

Dear Matt Armstrongs Of The World

I know I got there first with the best Gmail address for our name, but just because you’re jealous it doesn’t mean you have to give out my email address to people and pretend it’s yours…

So no, “The Cast of Disneyland Paris”, I don’t think I can give you feedback on my recent visit there, given that I haven’t left Australia for over a year.

I also won’t be reviewing my recent stay at the Hilton Taba Resort Nelson Village in Egypt (although what I thought I was doing there casually taking my resort holiday in the middle of a revolution is a mystery to me–I guess at least one of the other Matts is actually a dick…)

It gets worse. Apparently I am also in the real estate business, profiting from people’s misery by selling foreclosed properties in Indiana. But I won’t be showing you around this one. Maybe you’d be better off contacting the Matt Armstrong who’s listed on the site instead of emailing me. Just a thought.

And Matt, if you’re going to sign up to a restaurant loyalty program, you might want to include your own email address. Although having said that, since their emails have an “edit profile” link at the bottom, I was able to log in and see the address and phone number of my property in Baton Rouge, LA. Perhaps I’ll turn up one day and move in.

Actually, perhaps I should consider some kind of identity fraud on people with the same name as me. Shouldn’t be too difficult, because apparently they are all idiots.