Whine of the Times

End to the Whine

2005-02-08T16:11:00.000+00:00

Having had useful feedback from superchris and GreenEggs, I'll not be continuing this blog for the time being - any whines I'd post here will instead appear in my main blog, A Consuming Experience, please visit that instead. Thanks for reading.

Internet bank with no email??

2005-02-04T20:03:00.000+00:00

Big marketing drives - you've seen the posters on the Tube. Internet bank with not only a good rate but the same rate for all customers, supposedly. And they say they can afford to be so generous to us lucky customers because it's all done online - no branches.

So how have ING Direct UK in their wisdom decided that UK customers should contact them? You guessed it - not by email, oh no - that would be going a step too far towards actually being an Internet bank, one assumes. No email address is given, not even a Web contact form. If a customer (or potential customer) wants to contact them, that has to be done by phone - or post. Very 21st century, indeed.

The company's US Website offers an email address, so why aren't UK customers afforded the same convenience? Welcome to the Internet revolution, indeed.

Documentaries - and speakers

2005-01-30T19:57:00.000+00:00

Sometimes I turn on the TV in the middle of a documentary and it's annoying not to know which talking head is who. Even if I've watched the documentary from the start, my over-full mind can't always keep track of them all, especially when the documentary keeps cutting back and forth between them.

So why is it that they only display the name and position of the speaker only once, the first time she or he is shown on screen? Why can't they display that every single time? If it wasn't a distraction for the viewer the first time, it won't be the next time; in fact I find it far more distracting trying to remember who the current talking head is and what they're supposed to be an expert on.

Hotels and toothbrushes

2005-01-24T13:22:00.000+00:00

Yes it's good that hotels provide soap and shower gel. Essential, even.

But never mind about the packet of special moisturing lotion or whatever else they may sometimes give you too.

Where's the toothbrush and toothpaste?

If I've forgotten to pack them, I absolutely hate it. One of the worst things to me is going to bed (or waking up) without being able to brush my teeth.

So forget the five different types of herbal teas or soothing unguents, I just want a small disposable toothbrush with a tiny tube of toothpaste, as some airlines provide on long haul flights. A couple of pieces of floss wouldn't go amiss either...

Website user names and passwords

2005-01-21T16:38:00.000+00:00

"Password must be at least 8 characters".
"User name cannot contain spaces".

Familiar error message? Yep, but this time-wasting step would be unnecessary if some website designers would just engage brain and spell out on their requirements on the registration page. To add insult to injury, the sites which are thoughtless enough not to give you the info you need up front will often also clear the whole form you've just laboriously filled in, to boot - not just the one field which you haven't completed exactly the way they want (if you're using IE, at least - "Back" on Opera often preserves form contents and has saved my bacon on many an occasion).

Why oh why don't websites requiring registration tell you at the start, on the sign up/registration page, how you're supposed to fill in their forms?

If I had my way, an Improbulus Edict for all websites requiring registration or login would be:

Specify your form criteria on your sign up page, including (1) the minimum requirements, and (2) what isn't allowed, for both user names and passwords (and things like what format dates must be in, and whether passwords are case-sensitive). In a smaller font, if necessary, but don't expect users to guess your invisible conditions!

Breach of which ought to be punishable by an Improbulus flogging. Though maybe that wouldn't be considered punishment by some.

Cyclists and red lights

2005-01-21T14:16:00.000+00:00

Why oh why do many cyclists, especially in London, seem to think that the law doesn't apply to bicycles? You know the ones I mean, those who treat all traffic lights (whether green, amber or red) as signifying "If you're on a cycle - just go anyway. Oh, and don't forget to target a pedestrian while you're at it". To these people, pavements are just roads to barrel down at high speed.

I nearly got hit the other day (yet again) by a cyclist running a red light near my local Tube station. I've seen elderly people, and people steering kids in prams, narrowly miss being mown down, or having to leap back onto the kerb suddenly (risking sprained ankles or worse), to try to avoid cyclists like this.

Why don't the police protect pedestrians properly by clamping down on rogue cyclists, particularly in pedestrian-heavy areas? Instead of e.g. lying in wait to nab a car going through a red light two seconds after it changes in the middle of the night on an empty road?

I know not all cyclists are inconsiderate or cavalier about the law. But the too many who are give the rest a bad name, and pedestrians the urge to poke something between their spokes. Is it going to take a pedestrian being killed or badly hurt before laws are enforced against cyclists?