Personal Tech-stuff · 20 June 2010 ·
The Sun is rising...
Since my bike got stolen over Easter, I need a new one. I decided to go back to the Common Wheel Project, a Glasgow-based charity that employs people with mental illness to build and repair bikes. It’s a brilliant project and they do a very good job at building bikes, too. Plus, they are a bit geeky.
A suitable frame was quickly found, it’s an old Sun frame, made in Birmingham. It required a little bit attention, a few holes had to be welded and it’s currently at ESP powder coaters for a new painting. The bike will be build up as a touring/commuting bike. It will probably feature a Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub, drop bars, mud guards and a pannier rack, so that I can go onto the odd ride into the Scottish countryside. Also, the gears will ease the way up at Gilmorehill. Clearly the founders of my beloved university weren’t cyclists themselves…
Either way, here are a few pictures of the frame before and after the welding:
Tech-stuff Webdesign · 8 April 2010 ·
Irony is...
…when Richer sounds advertises a special offer for visually impaired people on its website’s front page, but places that very information in an image with no alt-text, thus rendering it invisible for people who use screen readers or who use a different style sheet to make websites more legible.
Screenshots of the Website, with images loaded:
Screenshot of the website without images loaded:
On the Internet, they would call it a “FAIL!”.
Disclosure: I am perfectly aware that this website has quite a few flaws itself and that the layout is partially broken. I will fix this over the holidays.
Personal Tech-stuff · 25 November 2008 ·
Wanna buy speakers?
Old grannies get scammed with electric blankets and knife sets. But whilst an electric blanket probably wouldn’t attract the attention of students, other goods do.
I should know better. Stories of old grannies being persuaded by some random strangers to buy electric blankets or knife sets of blunt knifes for ridiculously high prices always make me sad. I wonder, how come they throw reason over board and end up buying overpriced crap?! Well, that might be because I don’t care much about knife sets and electric blankets.
However, I should remember my one day training at a call centre selling lotteries and raffles. I only went for the training because I was not told that the job involved selling expensive lotteries to people who could not afford them. I prefer a job that does not involve tricking people, although I do understand those who work for companies because they need to make a living. But that’s an entirely different story. There was one thing about that training that stuck in my mind though. If you want to persuade people to buy your lottery you have to offer them the chance to win something they actually want. Something they want so much that they would act completely unreasonable.
I am not an old granny. I am a student, and whilst I might not be interested in electric blankets there are other things that would cause the desired effect.
On Monday, I was peacefully walking down Hillhead street, on my way to my statistics tutorial. Suddenly a van with two guys in it stopped, and the driver opened the window. I thought he’s probably going to ask for directions, so I was spreading out my mental map of the area, already knowing that I wouldn’t be of great help. (I am useless when it comes to directions!) Well, that’s not what they wanted.
Instead he was asking me whether I want to buy a pair of hifi speakers. I was like WTF?! They explained that they were working for a hifi company and install hifi equipment in studios etc. They just returned from a job in a nearby studio where they installed some speakers. But by accident the manufacturer delivered too many, whereas they had a pair of speakers left over, whereas they could just sell them cos nobody would claim them.
I was still like WTF?! and as I just recently bought some speakers quite reluctant to buy them. Plus the whole story sounded so absurd… I thought there must be a catch or something similar. Probably they were some cheap China speakers, or maybe a lump of wood in a vividly-colourful box) Well, to emphasize that they are genuine they pointed to their shirts bearing the company’s logo and showed me the boxes in the back of the van. Also, the guys said they didn’t know what the speakers are worth over here, but they had a leaflet which priced them at $1999. So they were looking for a reasonable offer. I thought, if these speakers are in a magazine then they must be genuine.
BOOOOOOOOOOF!
Heard it?
I was hit. My hunting instinct set in. As I said, I just recently bought some speakers. They are actually really nice ones. I spent weeks trying to find the right ones. But if I had the chance to get something better I certainly would. Just to see hear how they sound and then keep the better pair, sell the other. I did not like the looks of the speakers these guys had in the back of their van though, looked a bit to plastic. They were essentially huge black floor standers, looked a bit like the average 1000-watt boom box and I had never heard of floor standers being used in studios. On the other hand most studio speakers aren’t beauties and who am I that I know about the equipment used in professional audio production? I wasn’t sure, but still tempted. Thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster I am quite skint at the moment and only made an unreasonable offer of £ 50, which remained unreasonable after I doubled it. Thus I escaped the scam.
I put up the story on the subcity forums. As frankm pointed out it is in fact a world wide scam, originating in the States, but now also seen in Great Britain, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and other countries. You can read some stories of those less fortunate on scamshield.com who also keep a database of recent sightings of the so called white van speaker scam. The speakers itself, though priced generously, are worth almost nothing. And so is their quality. Ebay also has a guide on them. The reviewer doesn’t spare drastic words: “The internal electronics such as the crossovers, are by far, the absolute worst I’ve ever seen in nearly 3 decades as a hobbyist.” and “Experienced listeners suggested the best use of the Kirsch’s was as a boat anchor or firewood.” Unfortunately the sellers seem to change the brand name often, the ones sold in the UK apparently bore the “Matrix” brand. Some other Ebayer has produced a list of common names used for these speakers. Personally, I can’t remember the name they stuck on these, glad I avoided buying them. Otherwise I would never forget…
It is still such a shame I was tempted. I should have known better. Retrospectively there were so many hints that pointed out the illegitimate character of the offer. But I still made a bid and I might have fallen for them if I had too much money. But then (I hope) I would have insisted on trying them out before I pay, a condition that they would probably not accept. Who knows. I hope these scammers were unlucky in Glasgow. But I fear the worst. They are skilled in what they are doing. They know their target audience. The stories on scamshield.com suggest that they particularly target students. Electric blankets for grannies. Speakers for students.
Anyways… Electric blankets anyone? Only £ 49.99! Special offer, only valid today!
Politics Tech-stuff · 12 June 2008 ·
The irony is...
Reading news can be dull. It can be distressing, if it’s bad news. But from time to time you might find something to laugh about.
I almost got a laugh flash whilst reading the news. German news magazine Heise Online writes about the inquiry by Heide Rühle and Alain Lipietz (both MEPs for the Greens/EFA) whether Microsoft would need to be excluded from public procurement procedures.1 What has happened? In 2004, the European Comission declared that Microsoft had “violated EU competition rules by abusing its dominant position in the software market.”2 The Court of First Instance rejected Microsoft’s apeal and imposed the highest fine in its history—€ 899 million for Microsoft’s non-compliance. Now, Microsoft being Microsoft does not have a problem with money. But, as Rühle and Lipietz point out the European regulation on public procurement procedures states that companies…
“…shall be excluded from participation in procurement procedures if: ‘b) they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgement which has the force of res judicata; c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify.’”
Thus they inquired whether this does also apply to Microsoft. The news itself are bad. Microsoft will not be excluded from public procurement procedures. This is because the mentioned regulation is only a recommendation. Also, it does not define “grave professional misconduct” and requires a further ruling by the European Court of Justice in a specific case.1,3 But—guess how the Commission’s decision was published? As Microsoft Word Document!
1 Relph-knight, Terry: European Commission won’t exclude Microsoft from procurement procedures, Heise Online, 12 June 2008
2 Parliamentary questions, Writen Question by Heide Rühle (Verts/ALE) and Alain Lipietz (Verts/ALE) to the Commission, 21 April 2008
3 The European Comission, E-2295/08EN, Answer given by Mrs Grybauskaite on behalf of the Commission, 9 June 2008
Tech-stuff Personal · 17 May 2008 ·
LaTeX: It's easier than you think
Using the g-brief letter class in LaTeX I encountered a problem—which wasn’t a problem after all.
Today I had to write a more or less formal letter in English. I used to use OpenOffice Writer for that purpose until a couple of months ago, when I started using LaTeX (Not to be confused with Latex) LaTeX has many advantages over WYSIWYG editors, like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice. Documents produced by LaTeX often look much better and it is much more rigid with the layout. Also, its “What you get is what you mean” approach ensures that you get the best layout for your document. This is why I started using it for my essays and assignments, although I am not doing a hard science like Physics, which would benefit from LaTeX’s abilities to express mathematical terms and equations.
Well, I have written a couple of formal letters in German before and my preferred package was a variation of g-brief, called g-brief-jit (particularly useful for German freelancers who have to include their tax number). G-brief is an environment for German letters and it is in my opinion the most elegant LaTeX letter class for that purpose.
However, I encountered a problem with my current letter: It was in English. Therefore, all the labels (like “date”) were in German! I tried out other letter document classes, like the original letter, but found them to be inappropriate. So I decided to rewrite g-brief and tried to figure out how to do it. It took me a while to find the files needed. So I started translating g-brief—but then I noticed that it already had English-language options! Therefore, instead of rewriting the entire package, it was sufficient to add “english” to the document class of the letter—and the entire document was just the way I wanted!
That’s easy!
Interestingly, the g-brief documentation on ctan, reads: “can also be used for English (by those who can read the documentation)”
Damn it!
It’s always best to consult the manual before messing with technology. Additionally, i figured out that LaTeX is actually much easier to use than I thought. Apart from being truly beautiful.
Hah.
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