facepalm

  • More everyday sexism: ePad Femme

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Tech

    Dubai-based tech company Eurostar Group knows exactly what women want (apparently. Ed.) and has designed a tablet especially for them – the ePad Femme. Eurostar itself calls the ePad Femme “the first tablet specifically for ladies.”

    The ePad Femme is an 8-inch tablet running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and comes pre-loaded with a light pink wallpaper and apps concerning yoga, grocery shopping, and cooking, as shown below.

    image of ePad Femme
    Don’t like yoga, shopping or recipes? Ever thought of buying another tablet?

    Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Mani Nair, Eurostar’s associate vice-president of marketing, said the tablet comes with pre-loaded ‘womanly’ applications so the user can “just turn it on and log in to cooking recipes or yoga”, adding that the ePad Femme “makes a perfect gadget for a woman who might find difficulties in terms of downloading these applications.”

    Needless to say, such sexism has hardly been greeted with enthusiasm by women tech writers. For instance, Casey Johnson has a piece on arstechnica entitled “Finally, a tablet simple enough for a woman to use </sarcasm>”.

    However, such criticism seems likely to fall on deaf ears in Dubai.

  • Plain talk about plane trees

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    The Bristol Post is not particularly renowned for the quality of its journalism.

    This point of view was borne out by its report today on public works in Weston-super Mare, which features the following paragraph:

    The species to be planted include silver birch, hazel, Scots pine, Himalayan plain, London plain and common alder. Work on removing the trees is due to start this week.

    Himalayan plain? London plain? The Post should be sent to sit in shame in homophone corner until it learns the difference between a plain tree and a plane tree and promises not to make such elementary sub-editing errors in future.

    However, the Post is not only guilty of falling victim to homophony and failing to do a bit of basic sub-editing. Indeed it is also guilty of churnalism – “a form of journalism in which press releases, wire stories and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further research or checking”.

    Checking back on the source of the story in question, one arrives at a North Somerset Council news item of 20th February 2013, where – lo and behold – the following sentence appears:

    The species to be planted include silver birch, hazel, Scots pine, Himalayan plain, London plain and common alder.

    Thus the anonymous Post hack quoted initially has merely repeated the error of the original author of the news in North Somerset.

    This blog has pointed out before that North Somerset is a strange place (posts passim), but having an illiterate write news on the council website is just plain perverse.

  • ORR fails open standards test

    Steve WoodsOpen Data, Open Standards, Tech

    As a regular rail user, I sometimes use real-time train information and was intrigued to learn that the Office of Rail Regulation is currently holding a consultation on real-time train information until 28th February.

    However, the ORR is clearly confused as to what open standards (such as web standards. Ed.) really are, as shown by the following sentence from the consultation page:

    So that we are able to apply web standards to content on our website, we would prefer that you email us your response in Microsoft Word format.

    Firstly, MS Office formats are closed, proprietary formats, unlike the Open Document Format (ODF) used by more sensible office suites.

    Secondly, does the above statement imply that the ORR uses MS Word to edit its web content? MS Word has a hard time behaving like a word processor. 🙂 When used for HTML it produces some of the sloppiest mark-up known. As Homer Simpson would say: “Doh!”

  • North Somerset crime special

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities

    image of Dixon of Dock Green
    Crime has certainly changed since the heyday of the fictional Sgt. Dixon
    As this blog has previously noted (posts passim), from the author’s lofty perch in Bristol, North Somerset is a part of the UK that seems to live in an alternative reality (could this have something to do with the consumption of cider? Ed.).

    Today’s Bristol Post carries a report of a crime in Yatton that is so heinous, it has been reproduced in full below:

    Police want to talk to two drivers who got involved in a road rage incident in Yatton.

    At around 8am on Tuesday, January 29, two vehicles were travelling in opposite directions on Mendip Road.

    One of the vehicles used Mendip Gardens to turn around and pulled out into the path of the other car.

    There was a disagreement between the drivers which resulted in the car horns being sounded.

    The car which had turned around then stopped just past the junction with Chescombe Gardens.

    The drivers of the vehicles, or anyone who witnessed the incident, should contact DC Nicholas Riley at Weston-super-Mare Police Station on 101.

    As you can see, Avon & Somerset Constabulary consider this crime so serious they have assigned a detective constable to pursuing the malefactors.

    Presumably Mr Plod is keen to apprehend the villains in question as sounding one’s horn when stationary is an offence.

    Notwithstanding that, one could legitimately ask which is the greater crime: two irate petrolheads making idiots of themselves or the waste of police time and resources involved in its investigation?

    Answers in the comments below please!

  • More dodgy spam comment script coding

    Steve WoodsTech

    I’ve blogged in the past about blog comment spam (posts passim).

    Today another badly coded spam comment script misfired, leaving the comment below in the moderation cue:

    I Live THESE {fendi moncler bag|moncler mens clothing|moncler gamme bleu jacket|moncler paris boutique|moncler lucie jacket|moncler 2011 collection|moncler jacket women 2012|men moncler hats|moncler ski|moncler boots uk!!!

    Leaving aside the abysmal English – ‘live’ instead of ‘love’ – can you spot where the coding error? That’s right! The missing curly bracket at the end. As Homer Simpson would say: “Doh!”

  • More everyday sexism from Asda

    Steve WoodsOddities

    It’s just gone New Year and the sound of breaking resolutions can be heard all around.

    However, that doesn’t stop our major supermarket chains leaping on the keep fit bandwagon following the festive blow-out and Asda is no exception. It also provides Asda with an excuse to indulge in a bit of everyday sexism.

    Apparently, only women are suitable targets for dieting and keeping fit, as the image and copy below from its website reveal.

    image of Asda Fitness Competition - men not welcome.
    Asda Fitness Competition – men not welcome.

    There’s 25% off home fitness equipment on Asda Direct in our Big Sale – including treadmills, rowing machines and exercise bikes.

    To help kickstart your home fitness routine we’re giving away this York Fitness cycle (down from £398.99 to £333 on Asda Direct) and stylish gymwear from George including this crop top, vest top and leggings pictured above.

    For a chance to win simply enter your details below and tell us what your New Year’s resolution is. The winner will be selected at random after the prize draw closes at noon on January 9th 2013.

    Below the quoted text is a form for personal details, including entrants’ clothes sizes: “What size gymwear would you prefer? (eg 12, 14, 16) *.

    In Asda-land men obviously don’t exercise, get fit or wear clothes!

  • Crapita cocks it up again!

    Steve WoodsOddities

    Is there anything that Capita can’t cock up?

    Following on from the courts interpreting fiasco overseen by Crapita Translation and Interpreting (posts passim) and Birmingham City Council’s unusable telephone system (posts passim), the BBC now reports that Capita is making a cock-up of its contract with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to track down 174,000 illegal immigrants in the UK. The contract’s value is believed to be up to £40 mn. and what the firm will be paid depends on how many actually leave the UK permanently.

    People living legally in the UK have been incorrectly told to leave the country by Crapita by telephone, email and text message.

    Those contacted in these ways included a woman with a UK passport (i.e. a full card-carrying British citizen) and a man with a valid visa who had invested £1 mn. in a UK business.

    The standard text message sent to victims by Crapita reads: “Message from the UK Border Agency. You are required to leave the UK as you no longer have the right to remain.” Recipients are then advised to contact the UKBA.

    When approached to provide a reason for its cock-ups, Crapita blamed the UKBA, stating some of the information with which it had been provided may have been inaccurate.

    However, it seems to me that Crapita has merely applied the skills it has learnt over many years from administering TV Licensing, including the harassment those without a television (and thus those who need no television licence) to suspected illegal immigrants.

    Crapita clearly cares little about the cock-ups as long as the profits keep rolling in from the public sector.

  • Microsoft deal protested by Egyptian openistas

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    A group of technology activists gathered in front of the Cabinet office in Cairo on Sunday 30th December to protest an Egyptian governmental deal with software giant Microsoft to buy software for the public sector, the English language Egypt Independent news site reports.

    On 26 December, the official Facebook page of Hesham Qandil, the Egyptian Prime Minister, announced that the Cabinet had concluded a deal with Microsoft for the next 4 tax years to buy and maintain licensed software worth nearly $44 mn. for the government.

    “What the government is buying is the licence to use software and not new [software],” says Ali Shaath, co-founder of the Egyptian Association for Free and Open Software and the Arab Digital Expression Foundation.

    The activists’ main contention with the deal is that Microsoft products bought by the government are imported, expensive and their code source is usually closed and protected by rigid copyright rules which do not allow for knowledge sharing and generation. Meanwhile, an alternative lies with locally conceived, less expensive software, whose open code source enables copying, sharing and building more software.

    “We’re talking about the same computers, the same software, no extra development and no extra training,” Shaath said, explaining that the free and open software alternative will cost zero in comparison since its licences are free of charge and its only cost is derived from customisation and training.

    The activists believe that free and open software developers is could readily provide the software the government needs. A case in point was the portal developed with free and open software to provide voters with information ahead of the March 2011 referendum.

    NB: this post was originally published on Bristol Wireless.

  • Crapita – trebles all round!

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics

    Good news! Capita, a name not unknown in these hallowed halls (posts passim) has been the major beneficiary of one of the Outsourcers of the Year for 2012 in Private Eye‘s Rotten Borough Awards 2012 for its wholesale takeover of £300 mn. worth of public services from the London Borough of Barnet for the next decade or so.

    image of article scanned from Private Eye
    A honourable mention for Crapita. You deserve it, folks.

    Well done, Crapita! You richly deserve the work, of course. As they say in true Private Eye style and as per the post title: “Trebles all round!”

    How can local council services in London possibly be ‘delivered’ from Sheffield, Carlisle and Belfast? Answers in the comments below, please.

    Hat tip: Broken Barnet

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