» I don't understand the attraction

Personalised number plates
I was recently party to a conversation where some friends were discussing which personalised registration would look best on his new BMW. I think they are a completely waste of money and just show the owner to have more ego than sense.

Edit: fixed some poor grammar. Always proofread.
(Thu 15th Oct 2009, 15:52, More)

» I don't understand the attraction

I don't understand dressing in black past the age of 15
Don't get me wrong, some of my best mates are confirmed metalheads and I've been known to dabble on occasion (Cult of Luna FTW) but that doesn't mean you have to live it 24/7 does it? Black combats, black boots and a (usually faded) black t-shirt emblazoned with the indecypherable logo of some obscure Norwegien band is the daily uniform suited to and all situations. I have a friend who hasn't owned a pair of jeans in 12 years. And they go out in all weathers in the same stuff. Hot summers day? Black t-shirt. Depths of winter? Black t-shirt. Talk about leaving me cold, how do you not get hypothermia?

Also, get a haircut and have a shave. And stop looking down your nose at me because I'm able to listen to Avenged Sevenfold without gagging. Getting all judgemental over listening to a band from your particular genre. Imagine that.

I hope that should you wish to flame me it's because you don't understand why I don't understand living a genre of music.
(Tue 20th Oct 2009, 18:24, More)

» The Boss

The MD
With the swaggering gait of a self-assured cock-about-town he prowls the office, surveying the small empire he built upon the blood, sweat and tears of countless designers, developers, marketers and an ever-changing, expendable unit of salesmen. His thoughts briefly drift to those sacrificed for his cause in the Round of the Redundancies, but just long enough to deliver a motivational speech to the survivors on how they've "really moved the business forward". The shallow words fall upon deaf ears. The motley crew that are left have heard it all before, coupled with promises of riches that were never given and improvements to working conditions never implemented.

He moves on, unable to hide the facial ticks and incessant sniffing that betray the Bolivian influence to his corporate strategy. It doesn't matter to him. It has worked thus far and secured a buy-out from a bigger, more experienced army. His spoils of war are rich and plentiful. He will bow out wealthy and content as those left behind are forced to uproot from the shiny lights of the City to the concrete monstrosity that is Slough.

The boy done good.
(Fri 19th Jun 2009, 10:28, More)

» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade

Cheap international phone calls
My first job after leaving university was to develop a billing system for cheap international phone calls. I was in a development team of... one. Just me. Fresh out of university with no experience of programming in the real world. I could rant on and on about exactly how bad the company was but that's an answer for a different QotW. Perhaps I should get to the point.

The billing system allowed our customers to manage all sorts of international phone call methods (call shops, phone cards, NetMeeting), allowing different rates to be applied to different phone lines for all destinations. The real push was in phone cards - which was where the real rip off came in.

When I learned of the requirements I had to develop I felt pretty sick. I have a good friend in Australia and back in the day I'd buy phone cards to call her up from time to time. I shall pass on what I had to do.

* Most people know of the connection charge. These have to be advertised in the small print. The call connects and you get stung with 20p - sometimes more.

* Next comes the billing period. For example you will be billed for every 6 seconds you use. Make a 1 second call, be billed for 6.

* After that we have an expiry date. Cards will expire 30 days after first use. Fair enough, I guess - but if you still have some money left...

* Lastly we have the biggest swindle. They vary the number of seconds in a minute. Some of our customers would set the number as low as 40 seconds in a minute. One of their customers would call somewhere like Sylhet on a promise of 45 minutes for the fiver the parted with for the card. They'd get 20 minutes.

This was calculated was in a big Oracle stored procedure which would return two values. The first was the amount of time the person had for a phone call, the second was the amount of time we'd tell them they had. The difference could be huge.

We had a support line with an answer phone. It was always fun to come in in the morning to find 6 new messages full of colourful insults that our customers didn't have to hear - until the day when the office shut and I was working without pay because the Americans didn't want to bail us out anymore for making a loss.

In conclusion. Don't buy phone cards. They rip you off something chronic.
(Fri 28th Sep 2007, 12:58, More)

» Best Graffiti Ever

Benetton
Who remembers the Benetton ad campaign of 1991? Huge billboard posters of a new-born baby all over the place. One clever person down my neck of the woods subverted it in the best way possible. Down at the bottom he'd added the logo of popular brand. And whose was the logo?...

...Danish.
(Thu 3rd May 2007, 22:21, More)