A Great Wind, More Ash

I am in McDonald’s. Which, in and of itself is not note-worthy, thus not blog-worthy for me.
But my burger craving has led me to a strange world of backwards technology, where I place my order to and receive it from a person and not a computer; I choose my own seat rather than having it allocated to me automatically by an algorithm programmed to improve space management; and where I have to go through a 4 step process and fill out a little form with some random information rather than having an almost instantantious internet connection.
These little forms make no sense. I find them extremely frustrating. I can fill them out fairly quickly, but when my parents or brother encounter them, I tell them not to bother with it - because I know that the 10 second search they wanted to do will end up taking 4 minutes and 50 seconds longer than it should.
Firstly I had to confirm that I was me by getting the ISP to text me a wee code. Why? What is the advantage here? I guess it makes sense if that’s all I have to do, but I still had to fill a form out after that. What is the advantage for the ISP? I can’t think of one. Then the form. Why? I don’t mind giving away information like my name and spam email address, because I’m getting a service for free. But why am I asked to fill this type of form in every time I go to a place like this? (There are some positive exceptions, though - now I’m in Starbucks, all I had to do was tap a button in my browser to establish a full connection.) What do they all need with the same pieces of information, especially if I’m not ticking the “spam me with nonsense emails” box?
Why can’t I just tick the “connect me” box? Or get a password from the staff? Why do I have to spend time giving away information that they can’t use? How is that a positive customer experience?

If you are an establishment that wants people to stay for a long time and buy lots of food and drink, then you are an establishment that wants people to use its free WiFi. If you make people jump through hoops for your free WiFi, people won’t use it and won’t stay to buy food and drinks.

/rant

I just changes the layout of my blog. And changed the colours and things. I like it now, but I won’t like it in a few days. So if you don’t like the colours, fear not; they may be gone soon.

Let me tell you what really grinds my gears.

I want to watch football this evening. When England kick off their game at 1945, there will be a total of 5 international friendlies being played around Europe. And how many of those games are available in Scotland? None. Great. Ok, fair enough, ITV have the rights to the England game. That makes sense. It’s a little disappointing that STV don’t think people will watch it here, but that’s ok. So, the next best thing is surely to go online, visit the ITV website and watch it there. Well, that would make sense, but here’s the problem: the ITV Player thing is crap. Shocking. But I’ve used it before and it’s been ok for football, so let’s give it a shot.

So. I go to the website. I load it up. I watch the extra adverts, that load with no problem whatsoever. Then, the stream of the program starts. After a whole 5 seconds, it stops. Buffering happens. 5 seconds play. Then, more buffering happens. For a good 5 minutes. Nothing but buffering and a still of Adrian Chiles face. So, I reload the page. Just in case. I sit through the ads (again), which again load with no problem, then wait for the stream to start. Same thing again; average quality picture stopping every 5 seconds, and taking an age to load. Why? What’s the problem? Is it the fact that I’m streaming 2 other European friendly games? Maybe. But then, why does a stream of the very same ITV program from this same website stream with no problem at all with the other 2 games still streaming? I think I know why. It’s a guess, but I reckon it’s a good one. Here it is: corporations, especially broadcasters, find it very difficult to realise that having a good service on your website is extremely important, if not more important, than any other service you provide.

So that’s what really grinds my gears.

And now that I’ve been watching this stream of the ITV program for a few minutes, I’ve come up with a new question to ask that I will answer in the very next sentence. Here it is: You know what else really grind my gears? ITV. What a terrible televisual service they provide. Especially when it comes to sports. And even more especially when it comes to football. I can understand that they want to support England, but that doesn’t mean that everyone watching does. Grr.

So. That’s what else really grinds my gears.

Excuse me, while I find a stream of the England game from Al Jazeera instead.

Dear commentators on ITV4:

I’m watching a football match between a German and a Spanish team, and it’s taken you all of 5 minutes of my watching to mention the English national team.

Now, I know that you are English commentators on an English-based broadcaster, but come on; this isn’t the first time, and this type of thing hasn’t happened a low enough number of times to be forgivable.

So please - SHUT UP. NO ONE CARES. Commentate on England and English teams when you’re at England national team or English team games, or even watching a foreign team that could face an English team in the very near future.

But please remember: turning a comment about a player being substituted into the game into a comment about how he played 10 minutes against a lackluster England that had their asses handed to them by the excellent German side he played 10 minutes for in the England game you referenced for no apparent reason other than to mention the below-par England side in question is not what I want to hear when I’m trying to watch an interesting European game.

Thank you in advance,

A football fan.

Dear Daft Punk,

I hear that you had a major hand in the creation of the OST for the soon-to-be-released Tron Legacy film. This makes me happy and fills me with glee.

I also hear it is very soundtrack-y and not very Daft Punk-y. I don’t mind this too much; however, I am keen for you to reassure me that this was just a warm up for some mind-blowing awesomeness you have in the pipeline.

Your loving expectant fan,

Nathan

Well, I’ve got 2 hours of standing on a train to pass, and since I’ve been repeatedly thinking of posting something new, I might as well do it now. Allow me to use my current surroundings and a copy of some text I read online to demonstrate something we all encounter, and seem to be doing little about. So, the text: “6.) Schizophonia is unhealthy. ‘Schizophonia’ describes a state where what you hear and what you see are unrelated. The word was coined by the great Canadian audiologist Murray Schafer and was intended to communicate unhealthiness. Schafer explains: ‘I coined the term schizophonia intending it to be a nervous word. Related to schizophrenia, I wanted it to convey the same sense of aberration and drama.’ My assertion that continual schizophonia is unhealthy is a hypothesis that science could and should test, both at personal and also a social level. You have only to consider the bizarre jollity of train carriages now — full of lively conversation but none of it with anyone else in the carriage — to entertain the possibility that this is somehow unnatural. Old-style silence at least had the virtue of being an honest lack of connection with those around us. Now we ignore our neighbors, merrily discussing intimate details of our lives as if the people around us simply don’t exist. Surely this is not a positive social phenomenon.” (From “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Sound”, available via all good Google searches.) The concept of Schizophonia is an interesting one, and the observations made by the scientist I quoted and the scientist quoted by the scientist I quoted are probably accurate. But the final thoughts I think are more interesting and more revealing about humans. As I stand alone, swaying with the jollity of the train as it goes down the tracks, most other people are doing what I’m doing - looking at a phones whilst listening to an iPod. The questions that popped up in my head when I read the sound article weren’t about sound, they were about our society. They were about how much our interactions matter, and what they say about us. When I turned around there, why did the man I met eyes with look away rather than smiling and starting a conversation? Why is that exact response the same as mine? (I didn’t make this up, it actually just happened.) I find this an annoying trait in myself. I wish I was confident enough to believe that the person next to me at any given moment is interested in something other than themselves. By avoiding interaction with new people, I’m either deciding that new people don’t like new people, or that I don’t like any one other than myself. And neither is exactly an encouraging thought. It’s all well and good me saying I think this “[negative] social phenomenon” is easily fixed by simply starting conversations up where I stand. But, realistically I will do that very rarely - and I think the general public tend not to do it - in case the other person doesn’t want to be spoken to. It’s difficult to tell with one look between a person who wants no conversation and one who’s scared of being shot down if they start one. So rather than pretending I know what I’m talking about and inviting people to go out on a limb and talk to strangers like they’ve been best buddies for years, I want to know what you think about this type of society. Is it really a problem? Is withholding conversation an evolutionary safety mechanism? Or an evolution of our Online Friends-Of-Friends-Only communities? Is there a way to reverse this trend, or is this a one-way journey to collective solitude? It kind of defeats the purpose if you have thoughts on this post and say nothing about them. So if you have any thoughts on it, positive, neutral or negative, please post a comment, or start a conversation about it with someone you know (or even someone you don’t know if you are so inclined). =)

Today was theme park day for us. It was also theme park day for loads of other people. Like, loads. Seriously. 6 Flags was totally mobbed. The waits were massive, but the rides were still amazing. My personal favourite for today: Vertical Velocity. A short piece of track with a “spike” at on end and a similar twisting “spike” at the other. Wiki will probably explain it better than I could. Anyway. The main focus of the ride was free-falling. Backwards and forwards. It was great =D Free-falling is one of my favourite feelings. I have always loved the dips on rollercoasters because of the tiny window, were you, your fellow riders and the cart-bit-thingie are completely at the mercy of gravity. I love the weightlessness. I love the rush of air past, or what feels like through your face. It’s awesome. So this ride, for me, was the ultimate ride. Free-falling galore. The only way my afternoon of rides could have been better was if there was a ride that was basically the video for Bliss by Muse.