A Tin Of Spam, Yesterday

I set up a ‘contact me’ form on my photo websites yesterday. I wondered if I should introduce a ‘captcha’ – one of those things where you have to type the numbers or letters into a box to prove you’re a human.

Hold on, I thought, why should I punish my genuine customers for the few people who might try to spam my contact form? That seems silly. Real customers don’t want to type numbers into a box. My conclusion was that I’d not use a captcha unless the volume of spam that I may eventually see were getting too great for me to sift the real customers.

I had my first contact from the form today, less than 24 hours after putting it up.

Of course, it’s spam.

An iPhone, Yesterday

Apple says a fault on its new iPhone 4 is causing it to incorrectly display the phone’s signal.

Ah… so holding the phone wrong isn’t causing the signal to drop? It’s just being displayed incorrectly?

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong.

Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars.

(Full story here)

Now, I’m not known for my cynicism, but you don’t think that Apple were perhaps exaggerating their signal strengths as some kind of marketing offensive do you? And they got caught out?

No… that couldn’t be the case at all.

Whatever the cause, it’s a big knock for the Lord and Saviour™ of shiny consumer goods. That leads me to another thought… the atheists complain that those of faith defend their faiths even in the lack of evidence, or even counter-evidence. I wonder what the Apple fans’ response will be. I very much compare them to the ‘blind faithful’.

Well when you look at the results and think that’s a total pile of bobbins, it’s not so great. Working for myself is good, but occasionally, I could do with a team around me to bounce off.

Humph. I’m going to have a sulk now.

Recently some Finnish friends came to stay at my house. I understand a little Finnish and so I was able to listen to them. In four weeks’ time I am taking a Japanese exam. There are words in Finnish and Japanese that sound the same. For example “kippu” (ticket) in Japanese is “lippu” in Finnish. Also, there are Finnish words that I think sound Japanese. For example, in Finnish, “window” is “ikkuna”. Now it is difficult. Sometimes when I am speaking Japanese, I stop and say “Ah! Sorry… that is a Finnish word!”.

最近フィンランド語を話す友達が私のうちに来ました。私はフィンランド語を少し分かりますから友達に聞けました。四週間後に日本語のしけんを受けます。ある言葉はフィンラド語と日本語で同じそうです。たとえば、切符（キップ）はフィンランド語で「リップ」と言います。も、あるフィンランド語の言葉は日本語で聞くそうと思います。たとえば、窓（マド）はフィンランド語で「イックナ」と言います。今、難しいです。時々私は日本語を話す時に止めて「あっ！ごめんね～　フィンランド語の言葉ですよ！」と言います。

What I’m not all for is this kind of malarkey.

Iranian cleric blames quakes on promiscuous women
“Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes,” he explained.

Actually, to be fair he is applying scientific reasoning. Obviously immodest women can’t directly cause earthquakes. It’s the men who’ve been led astray by them that actually causes the problem. A very good case of NOT cause and effect reasoning.

(apologies to Borat)

The article then goes on to describe some of the downright disgusting behaviour these hussies engage in:

Correspondents say many young Iranians sometimes push the boundaries of how they can dress, showing hair under their headscarves [...]

Shocking!

On the day we were measured for the wedding suits, he came round beforehand with the ingredients and we cooked a ‘the beast’, put it in the oven while we were being measured, and ate the ‘the beast’ on our return. It was nice. As he puts it… “don’t you like the feeling of finishing a curry and feeling like you’ve just climbed a mountain?”.

So… I have this new appreciation of hot curry. I’m not having one every time I have curry, but I can now see the appeal. Last night’s MANBURGER, for example, was seasoned with 1/3 of a teaspoon of hot chilli powder and 20 chopped dried red chillis, seeds and all. Now that was quite hot. I even sweated from my eyeballs a little.

Anyway… on his recent holiday (with very fortunate return, being on one of the two planes that landed at Manchester on Friday) he had a TRUE MAN CURRY™ It was… are you ready for this…

BISON VINDALOO.

Yes. Vindaloo. With BISON in it.

But that got us thinking… there must be a more manly curry than that…

Eagle Tikka Phall.

That should pretty much be the most manly curry possible.

UNLESS…

An experienced hawker uses an eagle to catch a frick’n WOLVERINE.

EAGLE-CAUGHT-WOLVERINE PHALL.

Anyone think they can trump that?

A friend recently asked if I would countersign her daughter’s passport application since I’m apparantly qualified to do so being a “Photographer (Professional)”. No problem, I said, went round, signed the application and thought nothing of it.

A phone call from the friend a week later alerted me to the fact that the Identity and Passport Service decided that my address looked “a little bit too much like a residential address” and therefore my profession was brought into question and my countersignature invalid. Given a VAT registration number, they would happily accept the signature.

I don’t have a VAT registration number. That’s because I’m not VAT registered. That’s because my turnover is below the threshold that requires me to be VAT registered. I did, however, give my friend all the details of the BIPP of which I am a member – my membership number, the BIPP’s contact details and so on.

I thought nothing further of it.

Yesterday I received a letter from the Identity and Passport Service.

Dear Stu

RE: PASSPORT APPLICATION FOR [Jeannette Thomspon]

You recently signed a passport application for the person named above.

Please:

- confirm your company’s full name, business address and phone number. Also give your profession and professional qualifications.

- say whether your company is a limited business, whether it is a registered charity or whether it is registered for VAT. Please quote the company, charity and VAT registration numbers in your reply.

Your reply should cover each point we have mentioned. Please then sign and date it. It is important that you sign your reply personally rather than allow someone else to reply on your behalf.

I would be grateful for a prompt reply.

Please reply on business headed paper using the enclosed prepaid label. The information provided will be treated with the strictest confidence.

Yours sincerely,

ppsquiggle

Mr. A Hitler

I’ve done them a reply. I don’t think they’ll like it. Their systems don’t seem to want to accept a sole trader, working from home who doesn’t yet have his professional qualification (but is working on it). I bet my friend wishes she’d just given the family doctor a tenner to countersign!

And while they’re making it nigh-on-impossible for the man/lady/baby in the street to get a passport, the professional forgeries continue. Seems the key to being a successful criminal is to be rich and well-connected.

(*’draw’ is a good verb to use instead of ‘write’ if you really want to wind Japanese people up about their writing)

Result:

“Give your pizza some wind! (cry of last desperate military charge)”

a) caused by stupidity or lack of research
b) painful
and
c) permanent

I’m not sure exactly what this particular chap wanted his tattoo to say, maybe “World Peace” or “Love For Ever” or maybe he was going for “Strength of Many Men”.

You can clearly see from the closeup that what he got was 馬鹿外人 (baka gaijin) which means “Stupid Foreigner”.

Japanese-literate Tattoo Artist WIN!

D,

I won’t be able to make the networking meeting tonight – not through not wanting to. I was hoping to pop in for half an hour, but I have a meeting at 7pm and need to do some preparation for it. I hope the new venue is a suitable choice, and that a good number turn out. Hopefully see you soon,

Stu.

The reply…

Stu,

The meeting is next week (20th) is that any better for you?

D

D’oh! I swear that one day I will learn to read a diary.