Scargill

Part of the reason people get confused by technology – is that half the time the people doing the advertising haven’t a clue what it is they are selling!!

I’m on the lookout for a plasma TV. I’ve chosen plasma despite all the comments suggesting that LCD is better. Why? Well, instead of comparing them straigh on – try comparing plasma and LCD from an angle. You’ll see the difference.

So, plasma TVs tend to have lower resolution than their LCD counterparts – so I went off comparing resolutions. Here’s a prime example of why people get confused…

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/dirresults.html?s=LG-42PG300

In the above advert, you’ll see that this particular model is quoted as having a resolution of 1366 * 768 – and a contrast ratio of 20,000:1

Pretty good – but it gets better. Click on the link – and resulting page shows an overview – this time the very same model has the same resolution – but an astounding 50,000:1 contrast ratio. Amazing at the price, huh!??

Now click on the SPECIFICATION tag and it gets even better!! The resolution is now up to a wopping 1920 * 1080. Pretty special for under a grand, wouldn’t you say.

Except that a competitor’s site states that the resolution is a mere 1024 * 768 !!

I emailed Novatech and the answer….

Dear Customer

It is 1024×768.

So now you know – next time you see something that looks too good to be true – it probably is!!

Sunday: Back home to dark, wet England. Sure enough as reported by friends, our electricity was off. Thank heavens for modern breakers.. I managed to narrow the problem down to one breaker – the one providing power to the “east wing” of the house – i.e. my office and the master bedroom. As I was doing this, Maureen reported that one of the lamps in the bedroom was full of water – and she wasn’t exxagerating!

Monday: After a good night’s sleep I woke up bright and early and decided the first thing I should do was to check the flat roof – for one of those barely discernable openings that you find which let the water creep in – WELL – I found one!!! They say that some some folks have “all the luck” ??

7pm another call from a building company “we can send anyone out until the morning – health and safety.

Saturday: Today we travelled to Seville – which on any other day would have been a wondrous event as the place is lovely – however it rained all day which put the dampers on things a little. Having said that, it was 15-20 degrees for most of the day so still short-sleeve shirt weather.

We visited the Real Al Cazar and then, after an also-ran lunch the Cathedral. Well, it’s big, it has lots of paintings and stuff that should impress, but it’s SO big that after a while it all just goes in one eye and out of the other.

The city itself however is most impressive and definitely warrants another trip when the sun is out!

In common with everywhere else we’ve seen to up to how, the roads in and out are embarrassingly modern (I’m assuming the EU paid for this) – even once you get out into rural areas.

Complete with endless narrow streets full of touristy shops and restaurants, there is, I would imagine, something for everyone in Seville.

Interestingly as we parked in town, what looked like a policeman herded us into an available parking space. As we got out of the car he asked us how long we’d be staying – I said I was not sure – perhaps 4-5 hours. He thought about this and uttered “5 euros” in a friendly manner. Well, I paid him the 5 euros – and off he went to the next person to help them park!!

No receipt, no ticket… clearly there is a learning excercise to be had here. The guide says little on the subject other than to say that the parking wardens are mainly “unofficial” whatever that means and that for a small sum are usually most helpful!!!

On the right you’ll see Maureen at her favourite hobby – shopping!!

First thing in the morning we head off back no doubt to miserable cold weather back in the UK and for me, a repair job no doubt on the email which packed in yesterday. My job for next week – figure out how to make it completely reliable for our next trip to Spain – which will be in the very near future to sign papers and get the ball rolling on our new house.

Friday: A trip to the Mezquita in Cordoba (a temple first built in the Visigoth era) via a wonderful castle called Castillo de Almondovar del Rio.

Thursday: We’re currently staying in Cordoba, near Seville which is 300km away from Galera – Maureen’s after some culture. On the way we’re planning furniture moving, bank acounts and a thousand other things we’ve probably not even thought of yet. Summer home in Spain? Well, sounds better than summer home in Bellingham!

Wednesday: Sunny Galera, a mere 100 miles northeast of Granada, at the top of a mountain, and overlooking the valley etc…. is our new summer home.. and although it looks like a small house, of course most of it is buried in the hill itself, so this small house actually contains 2 bedrooms, large study, laundry room and is spread over 3 floors in total – and more importantly – it’s ours!

Sun’s out, weather is cool but one hell of a lot better than the uk.

Here is the the YouTube video for the new cueva in Galera. http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-6386083093557120185&hl=en-GB

Pictures are rubbish here due to limitations of the blog, I’ve put some better ones on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scargill/sets/72157603964755100/

We set off from the rainy UK in the early hours of Monday morning for Spain and what a ride it’s been since then. We arrived in Spain lunchtime to less than exciting weather. Granted it was MUCH warmer than the UK but there was a light rain. Non-the-less we set off from Malaga airport for the long trip to the small inland town of GALERA in a rented SEAT.

What could have been an otherwise quite boring ride turned into a major affair when, half an hour into the trip, as we were minding our own business on the motorway, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a truck coming up on my left. It wasn’t so much the fact that it was a truck, it was the fact that he was jack-knifing at the time – and before I could as much as turn around, the truck slammed into the side of our car HARD. Within what seemed like a second or less, we found ourselves driving up the motorway BACKWARDS.

Having taken out the rear left side of the car, our new friend proceeded to slam again onto the driver’s side – and at some point I’ve yet to determine, a Merc was involved and that hit the front. Happy to say no-one was seriously hurt but the vehicle was a write-off.

Several hours later we set of AGAIN from the Airport armed with a brand new Peugeot and we’re currently looking at cave-houses with a view to buying one as a second home! No, seriously, take a cave, dig a deep hole, line it with concrete, put a front on it and you have handy home – it’s a big thing out here and they’re really neat.

Next…  a trip to the Mezquita in Cordoba (a temple first built in the Visigoth era) via a wonderful castle called Castillo de Almondovar del Rio and then on to Sunny Galera, a mere 100 miles northeast of Granada, at the top of a mountain, and overlooking the valley etc…. our new summer home.. and although it looks like a small house, of course most of it is buried in the hill itself, so this small house actually contains 2 bedrooms, large study, laundry room and is spread over 3 floors in total – and more importantly – it’s ours!

“Thank you for continuing to hold, we value your call…”

Does that sound familiar? Does it make you want to pick up a shotgun and blow the phone to pieces?

I have a broadband account with Pipex – one of their £14.99 accounts. I took this up a year ago and a couple of weeks ago I got a letter from Pipex so say we owed them some money. It turns out the credit card I used had timed out. I went to their website to change the card details last week and while I was there I noticed that they now offer what I’m paying £14.99 for – for £9.99 – I queried this and was told “it’s just a newer offer”. So I suggested that as the account was a year old I’d like to move to the new tariff – NO PROBLEM was the reply (how many times have you heard that?)

Today I received an email to say that they had the new credit card details – thank you very much – and just to confirm I’d be charged £14.99 a month from now on.

Erm, no.

Rather than start another email trail I rang them up today (Saturday morning 2nd Feb) and after a considerable period I finally got through to someone .

I spoke to a lady to explain that the £14.99 charge was NOT what we’d agreed – that I’d asked to be moved to the £9.99 account. She explained that she could change this now no problem – then came back to say the system would not allow her to do this – and gave me a telephone number – 08045 0772537.

I rang that number and once again listened to “we value your call….” this time with a warning that it would take at least 6 minutes to answer the call.

I’m sorry, there IS only one reason for these messages – and it’s not too many customers – it’s TOO FEW STAFF! Like many big companies – they can’t care THAT much!! The call cost I could care less about – I value my TIME!!

When I finally got through, I explained I wanted to transfer to the £9.99 account – no problem, but THEN I was then told that due to technical difficulties they could NOT transfer me to the cheaper number!! I suggested that if they could not do this, I’d like to CANCEL the account, get my MAC number and go somewhere else – there are plenty of options out there.

I was polite through all of this… yet the operator made NO attempt to keep my business.

“No problem – ring 0871 2225550 and press option 4” said he..

Well, actually there was no option 4, it was option 1 THEN option 4…

The automated voice on THAT number told me that in fact if I wanted to cancel the account, I should ring 0845 072 2865.

This I did and I was then told by ANOTHER automated voice that this number was no longer valid and I should ring 0871 222 6366.

The automated voice on THAT number told me that the office is closed and I should ring back on Monday.

Is it possible for a company to get any nearer to gross incompetence than this? At times, Orange come a close second but I think this beats the lot – 6 telephone calls over 3 days only to get NO-WHERE.

I rang them back on Monday and I spoke to a gentleman – sounded mexican – who was very difficult to understand. I explained I wanted a MAC code and to cancel the account. He said I could not do both at once. After a long conversation he told me I’d receive the MAC code via email WITHIN 5 WORKING DAYS (I can’t help thinking it takes seconds to organise). I then have to go to another provider within 30 days and THEN let Pipex know that I no longer need the account.

As he was thanking me and putting the phone down – I asked him if he had space on the record for NOTES. I asked him to make a note to state that at NO time had anyone asked me WHY I was cancelling the account. He said he would make a note (had it been me I’d have asked there and THEN why the customer was leaving – but I guess that’s why I dont’ work in a call centre).

I await my MAC number…. such a shame, they could have sorted this out if they could have been bothered.

Pipex. Just say NO!

I was reading the Independent on Sunday and the headlines read “Profits of Doom” – Big business shuns green policies.

Well, there you go, it must be official then. The assumption that this title makes is that there IS a problem with global warming THAT BIG BUSINESS COULD FIX… and that’s where I have an issue.

Here are my concerns. Firstly climate change – definitely – it’s happening (and as they say, it has happened before and it WILL happen again) – no doubt about that – global warming is another matter. Sitting here with my hands purple with cold in sunny Wark in February after some AWFULLY cold, snowy weather it’s hard to believe that global WARMING is real and if it is, BRING IT ON, I say. But that’s not the point.

The point is this… I’m not AT ALL convinced that we’re the cause of most of the climate changes OR that we have to repent in order to make things ok. This is another one of those politically correct things – one has to be GREEN, one has to have GREEN CREDENTIALS and if one doesn’t – one is BAD.

Ok, how about the argument that carbon dioxide change comes AFTER, not BEFORE climate change… the problem with looking at FACTS as against FANTASY is that facts put forward by large numbers of scientists get IGNORED because scientists by and large are seen to be BORING. The fact that 50% of the American population thinks we’ve only been here a few thousand years show how rivetting science is despite having cast-iron concrete proof that we’ve been around for millions of years – half the population of the supposed world-leader isn’t interested.

And so it seems to be with climate change – show a bunch of hurricanes, get someone with street-cred like Al Gore up on stage and we’re all convinced that if we just amend our ways, it’ll all come out in the wash. We must of course suffer to do this and big business must suffer the most – otherwise they are evil.

Well, I need convincing of the following:

Why is it that the carbon dioxide level changes appear to be the wrong way around.
Why is it that a good number of scientists are DEAD SET against the current arguments – these are experts in their fields – not newpaper reporters.
What earthly difference in percentage terms can anyone in Britain make – while the Chinese continue to expand and polute – not to mention America… if Britain went hell for leather into this what percentage would it make on WORLD scale… I’m guessing a virtually insignificant amount.

Maybe, just MAYBE some big businesses have done their math?

As for the ice-caps – well, I’m no expert on the subject but the russians a while ago were planning on putting some huge umbrella up – it failed and I can’t remember why they tried – but what’s wrong with shielding the polar regions from the sun? A very light, very large foil (or whatever) reflector in space would be feasable even if it ended up with the odd puncture hole due to meteorites. Expensive, yes, but feasable, definitely.

And then there is THIS…. Please, grab some coffee and watch THIS – at least one scientist thinks there is ANOTHER way. If you want to listen to Al Gore, he’s on TED.COM as well – quite funny with it too.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/192

I don’t know how many of you watched the BBC program “Watchdog” the other night. It was my first and last time.

They were checking into “bugus psychics” and I could not believe my ears when I heard

“of course, there ARE genuine psychics out there”

Since WHEN? It seems I’m not the only one that spotted this because if you key the words into Google there are plenty other people out there who were equally taken aback.

And we’re supposed to take advice from the program? I don’t think so!

I don’t mind nonsense on TV in general – you can always turn it off or cancel your SKY subscription – but I really object when it’s on the BBC – we can’t exactly refuse to pay the licence now can we (for international readers, yes, we HAVE to pay a licence over here in the UK).