The View from the Spaghetti Factory

… consider how you’d feel about them signing up to Cleanfeed, the “Great Firewall of Britain”, which prevents access to websites blacklisted by the Internet Watch Foundation. At present, six UK ISPs are filtering web content in this way… Virgin Media, Be Unlimited/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon, and Opal.

Great Firewall of Britain (The Nock Blog)

Now, it hardly needs to be said that filtering of child pornography or abuse can only be a Very Good Thing. But it’s that old chestnut again… what is porn, and what is art? What is lascivious, and what is informative? Can an image stop being controversial, becoming instead an unemotional reminder of that controversy?

Call for street canvasser boycott (BBC)

Or, to put it another way, death to the chuggers! The town where I live seems to attract lots of market research and lots of charity muggers. The former are annoying, but easy to wave away with an absent minded “sorry, in a terrible hurry”, but that doesn’t always work with the fake good cheer and over-familiarity of the chuggers. They annoy me in a couple of ways.

For a start, I object to being stopped in the street by someone I’ve never met in my life. That doesn’t make me a heartless bastard, leaving thousands of poor children to die of cancer or fester in orphanages, despite what our nylon-bibbed friends might try to suggest. In the privacy of my own home I’m capable of quite miraculous bursts of empathy. I can even fill in a direct debit form… without help!

If the guilt tactic is my first objection, the second is the fact that my goodwill and empathy is being watered down and compromised by a ‘middle man’ taking a commission. I imagine their argument is that, in return for their commission, they generate far more donations to charities… but do they? Or do they just create a generally bad feeling of obligation and, again, guilt? Are people put off for good by these tactics, meaning that they never take the time to look for the charities they *really* want to support?

It’s more than this, though. I think the chuggers also annoy me by being part of a wider problem, which includes the clipboard-wielding market research people, the cheap phonecard distributors, the advertising leaflet people, the god-botherers… they’re all part of a general background noise that doesn’t need to be there.

Oh, and speaking of cool Guardian articles, Bruce Schneier says exactly what I think about the hysterical security procedures we all have to endure in airports.

I’m already quite excited about the 2012 Olympics. I mean… the OLYMPICS! IN THE CITY WHERE I LIVE! Apart from the inevitable public transport cock-ups and ridiculous prices, how can that be anything but EXCITING? And if the GB medal haul is a sign of things to come, even better. But here’s something I hope we don’t see in 2012…

Organizers Stick to the Job of Hiding Companies That Aren’t Official Sponsors (Wall Street Journal)

Just who, in whatever sponsorship committee meeting back in 2000 or whenever, allowed that even to become the slightest vaguest hint of a suggestion on the agenda? “Okay, so you’ll sponsor us, but on the condition that we try to fool the public into thinking that your competitors don’t exist? Sure, where do we sign?”. And remember, this isn’t a Crazy Totalitarian China story… it also happened in Athens, where people were asked to remove t-shirts with “inappropriate brand logos” before entering the stadium.

Let’s not let it happen, eh? Sponsorship is advertising, not mind control.

My spam filters tend to grab most of the phishing scam emails doing the rounds (especially those purportedly from Paypal, Ebay or the high street banks) so I never see them. The ones I do see, therefore, have to be unusual and/or clever, meaning that they’re probably the ones that people are more likely to fall for.

So, for those of you who are self-employed, watch out for a fake tax rebate from HMRC. I tend to read unsolicited email with a healthy cynicism, so I consider myself pretty phish-proof, but as I read this…

… I almost, almost found myself on the point of dumbly complying. Part of it was the fact that HMRC change some of their procedures from time to time, so my initial surprise (at an email request to claim a tax rebate) was tempered by the assumption that it must be part of their gradual online development.

I soon realised not only that the reply-to address (@hmrc.gov.co.uk) was wrong, but also that my online dealings with Brenda tend to go through my non-Gmail address. And although I can’t claim to know my tax reference number off by heart, I can recognise it when I see it, and there’s no sign of it in that email. Still, it pays to be vigilant!

Farewell to the SuperSaver as train tickets change to simplify travel (Guardian)

The complexity of the train ticketing system is not the problem. It’s occasionally a minor annoyance, but not a real problem. The problem is the illusion of choice, where only a tiny number of cheap tickets are available, and the majority of available tickets are “full fare”. When the train companies reduce the price of standard tickets by about 50%, we’ll talk.

I’ve never yet been the victim of credit card fraud, but I know that the banks tend to treat their guiltless customers like criminals in these cases. On the moneysavingexpert site, forum member “zincoxide” has been plagued with calls from a debt collector after being a victim of card fraud, and his responses are some of the best comedy I’ve read in ages…

Having fun with Debitas

[edit: oh, and post #147, from a call-centre worker, is interesting]

… being, of course, Gaggia Acquisition Syndrome! And thereby hangs a quick public service announcement. The Croydon branch of House of Fraser are doing a special offer on the appropriately named Gaggia Classic, bundling it with an accessory pack for £199, which is an amazing deal. It’s very rare that you see a Classic in the UK for less than £250.

To be honest, I wouldn’t normally have gone for the accessory pack. We really don’t need another six espresso cups and saucers, we could have picked up a milk jug and chocolate shaker anywhere, and I’m sure the info on the Barista Training CD-ROM is pretty standard stuff. However, House of Fraser’s price for the Classic without the accessory pack? £299!

No idea if this offer applies to other branches or John Lewis, but if you’re after a decent coffee machine, I advise you to hurry…

If, like me, you use the train as your main form of transport, especially for cross-country journeys, you probably book your tickets from The Trainline, right? You get that clear interface, showing the prices of all available tickets, easy credit card payments, a choice of delivery methods… awww, let’s all have a lovely cosy Trainline appreciation party RIGHT HERE!

One further question. Do you live in the east of Britain, where the main intercity train operator is GNER? Well, here’s a tip… don’t use The Trainline to book your tickets.

Trying to book tickets to Lincoln, I was annoyed at how The Trainline specified a particular service via Retford, even though I knew there were much faster connections via Newark. I think they must have a fixed allocation of tickets for each service; whatever, I’ve craftily sidestepped this problem in the past by buying direct from the train operator’s website.

On this occasion, I wasn’t able to get the exact ticket I wanted direct from GNER, but something else grabbed my attention… GNER have a range of tickets with an online discount, which you can’t get through The Trainline. For example…

Standard Advance 3
Trainline — £17
GNER — £15.15

1st Advance 1
Trainline — £21.90
GNER — £19.50

For tickets in both directions, for more than one person, that’s quite a difference.

There. You can’t say I don’t do important consumer research for you.

Just a quick public service announcement, in case it’ll save anyone some bother…

I just noticed a comment on the bluesjamtracks Myspace page, where the request “please add me” was accompanied by a hotlinked picture of a comely young maiden.

I always remove spam and non-music advertising from our comments, so I clicked the picture to see what it would link to. It points at the URL http://d0f50129.com/login.php, where there’s a pretty convincing mock-up of the standard Myspace login page, except the “you must be logged-in to do that!” warning (and yes, the misplaced hyphen annoys me every time!) is on a red background, which I haven’t seen on the genuine Myspace site.

In short, a phishing attempt. There’s already quite enough comment spam on Myspace, so don’t fall for it!