Apple – Deceptive Delivery Claims?

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Feb 142009
 

So you buy something cool from Apple (in my case a 24″ iMac) and you’re promised that it’ll turn up in three business days.

Or maybe not?

First of all when you open the Apple online store, if you’re looking at the UK store it will say an iMac will ship in under 24-hours. Interestingly enough those in the US get a lower quality of service as their store says it ships in 1-3 days. But make any change to your iMac at all, and the delivery time shoots up to three days (to be precise the phrase is “Ships: 3 days”).

So you order your iMac and all of a sudden the expected delivery date lurches further off in time. In my case I ordered my iMac on the 11th Feb expecting it to turn up early in the next week. The first estimate of when it would turn up was the 18th (Wed) and is now the 19th (Thu); neither of which I would classify as “early in the next week” or anywhere near the 3 days specified.

Apple will quite probably (and almost certainly correctly) claim that the fine print in their ordering process clearly states that three days for adding an extra RAM DIMM, and three further days for delivery is perfectly reasonable, and that the optimistic delivery dates are what happens in the most favourable possible circumstances. And I am not claiming Apple is unique in this sort of behaviour.

But this sort of deceptive shit is what gives salescritters such an evil reputation; enough that some of us believe they could possibly be some sort of special category of subhuman. If you are not sure that you can deliver something the next business day, do not say you can even if it sounds good. You may have a “get out of jail free” card in your fineprint, but that does not stop you looking like a scumbag.

Ideally do not say anything about delivery time until you have all the information – so you know that I have ordered that funky cable that takes an extra day to get packaged. And then give a delivery estimate, and emphasise that it is an estimate.

If someone is curious enough to find out how long it will take for the iMac to be delivered before they start the ordering process they can probably be counted on to hit a button titled “Delivery Times” where you can explain in full how long it takes to deliver an iMac including all the variations.

It is sort of old-fashioned to expect anyone to keep their word without paying attention to whether they are legally obliged to, but it does give a good impression. And all it takes is to avoid promising things you cannot deliver – surely it is worth that to give a good impression!

The Golliwog

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 062009
 

Firstly I should point out this has nothing to do with Carol Thatcher’s use of the term or indeed a considerably less recent incident where Naomi Campbell was supposedly called one. It just so happened that the former has triggered the memory of a ‘story’ that I wanted to write.

Secondly this is not some kind of attempt to claim those who feel that the word (and the toy) is racists are wrong. If someone feels the use is racist that is a good enough reason to get rid of gollywogs. Besides which judging from the Wikipedia article on Gollywogs, most of the gollywog toys were pretty damn scary – too scary to be given to children anyway.

Way back in the distant past I would sometimes play with a gollywog hand puppet that my grandparents had in their house. Perhaps I was dumb (I was after all less than 10 at the time) but I always thought it was some kind of cartoon character or something. I certainly did not make an association between it and any kind of human; the toy I played with was definitely not that human!

Later at school when racist words crept in (at the some time I started getting called “four-eyes” and “lanky”), I do not recall the word “gollywog” being used to refer to anyone.

So back when I first heard about gollywogs being banned for being rascist (probably something to do with a certain jam), I practically fell off my chair in surprise. Did anyone seriously believe that there was any similarity between gollywogs and black people ?

I can distantly remember the “Golly” logo being used on certain jars of jam (“jelly” to any Americans tuning in), but again it never seemed to me to be anything other than some sort of cartoon character from the distant past. It also did not seem to bring to mind black people in any form.

Perhaps this was a case of people reading about the history of the word, and jumping to conclusions of how and why it was being used ? Taking offense at something that was not at the time intended to be used as a racist term ?

It would also explain why gollywog has apparently now become a term used by racists. I remain to be convinced that it was so used in the past … I do not remember it being used, and there are far more hateful words that were thrown around back then.

Of course having read up on it a little bit I now know that the origins were racist, but a word and an image that has originally racist origins can end up being used innocently. For example “Welsh” used to mean “foreigner” thus “Wales” meant “the land of the foreigner”, complete with a racist undercurrent. Now “Wales” is merely the name of a country we should really be calling “Cymru” (even if I’m not sure how to pronounce it).

On a side note, why do we have to use “black people” to use to refer to people whose African ancestors were rather more recent than others ? It seems rather insulting (to either “white” or “black”) to categorise any person by the colour of the dead stuff that keeps the squishy bits in. And it is not even particularly accurate. “Chocolate” would work so much better and be more inclusive – my skin is white chocolate, hers is milk chocolate, and his is dark chocolate.

Snow In The South, Travel Chaos, Whingers Out In Force

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Feb 022009
 

Today (and probably tomorrow) the South of England has been subjected to the heaviest snow-fall for 18 years or so.  As can be expected for such an unusual weather event (the Met office dragged out it’s rarely used “extreme” warning), anyone travelling this morning found things more than a little tricky.

As usual the whingers are also out in force claiming that we should have prepared better and comparing us to countries that are more used to extreme weather. They have a point: if we were to spend huge amounts of money to prepare for events that happen once every 20 years we could cope better.

And some of the whingers need to take note that some of the preparations need to be made by them; motorists in countries with more extreme weather make some of the preparations themselves. So many of the whingers share in responsibility for the lack of preparation.

But does it really matter that much ?

Oh businesses will complain, but what does it really harm the world if we take a day off ? At least those who live any distance from work. In many cases people can work from home which reduces the risk for those who really have to get in (and not just because their medieval bosses do not trust them to get something done).

The real answer is to lighten up and enjoy the different weather – it may be cold, but at least it is bright too!

Businesses Running To The Government In The Depression

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 292009
 

When the economy is well, we constantly hear from businesses about how government should not interfere with business; that anything the private sector does is sacred, and the public sector is at best pathetic. They complain the most about regulation but government support for problematic businesses frequently comes up to. And of course whinge constantly about taxation on business.

Of course any business that needs support from the government to survive is pathetic and probably should fail.

But wait! Come this recession, we are seeing speaking heads from businesses in droves demanding that the government bail their business out. Somehow because there is a recession on, all the traditional rules can be ignored and businesses need support from government.

Sure perhaps we do need to use public money to help out businesses that would otherwise fail. After all reverting to 19th century economics like the Conservatives seems to have done is likely to be far worse. But that does not mean they should get a free ride – we should remind them that businesses usually ask to be left alone, and that goes two ways.

And of course put up taxes on businesses a tad, to pay back the money over the long term. And every time a business complains about high taxes, remind them of these times when government was spending money to help businesses out.

Israel and Hamas Share Reponsibility For Civilian Casualties

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 172009
 

On a side matter, who the hell came up with this mealy-mouthed “collateral damage” phrase anyway ? Let us call a spade a spade and stop hiding an ugly truth behind a pretty phrase. It is “civilian casualties”.

Who is responsible for the civilian casualties in the current mess in the Gaza strip ? I should point out that I’m talking about the Winter 2009 mess seeing as there have been so many in the past and will probably be again.

Well Israel’s mealy-mouthed spokescritters will have you believe that it is all the fault of Hamas for fighting amongst civilians and stock-piling weapons amongst civilians, etc. There’s an element of truth to that, although one wonders whether if Israel were reduced in size to a territory the size of the Gaza Strip, would not their own army do pretty much the same thing ? Or at least the Zionist lunatic fringe.

But Hamas does not deserve all of the blame. Israel gets some too. Whether or not Israel is justified in using military force in trying to stop Hamas from attacking Israel, those dead cilivians in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombs, Israeli shells, and Israeli bullets. Israel has to bear the responsibility of those deaths and not just blame Hamas for them.

To claim otherwise is an insult to everyone’s intelligence and further damages Israel’s credibility. And Israel needs to spend a lot of time repairing their credibility. There are many ordinary people in Europe who are more likely to believe claims made by Hamas than claims made by Israel because of the lies and half-truths that Israel has told in the past.

There are many weapons used to fight terrorism. One of the most important is truth. One of the least important is military might.

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