Gencia Blog - The Darkside

End of a dark, dark week for democracy

Sat, 16 May 2009 16:57:00 +0100

So the people who run our country have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar! It comes as no surprise to the electorate though some are shocked at the extent of the fraud as each new revelation breaks the news. And make no mistake, fraud it is. Not only will heads roll in the cabinet and Westminster in general but it seems that there is such an appetite from the public for criminal charges to be brought for some of the most blatant 'accounting oversites' that have occured that some of the more outrageous shisters might find themselves in court. This story is going to run and run.

The moral bankruptcy that permiates is clear for all to see. It makes a lie of the whole idea of democracy. If I hear the phrase 'it was within the rules' one more time I think I might put my foot through the TV. Of course if I were an MP I could put a claim in for a nice new 42" flatscreen, but as it is I have to buy my own out of what's left after I've paid my taxes and my mortgage so I'm restraining myself. The people who deem to tell us what to do have been stealing from us for years. They have tried their very best to stop it from becoming public and now it is clear why. They are a disgrace. For the most part they are self promoters who have been feathering their own nests with our money.

As government moves inexorably toward more and more transparency we'll clear out these parasites who have no moral compass and care about nothing but themselves. As they have consistently shown they will fight it every step of the way. The most corrupt fight hardest of all. It will take a long time but the exterminators are in and they're starting to clear out the vermin. It's a start.

Power to the people!

Katy Perry Cover Band

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:03:00 +0100

Ukrainian version of Katy Perry's "Hot 'N' Cold".

Possibly one of the best cover versions ever.

Looking forward to their version of "I kissed a girl"

Extreme Sheepherding

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:42:00 +0100

I saw a story about this on the news last night and think it needs to be shared so as not to be missed.

Take some farmers in the Brecon Beacons, some subservient sheep and some very talented sheep dog and this is what you get.

Comedy moment of the year?

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:06:00 +0100

My vote for best comedy moment of the year. Shame that this clip doesn’t give you the whole set up but it’s still quality. Enjoy...

Follow this link for my Comedy Moment of the year

Christopher Walken on Twitter

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:19:00 +0100

Whether it is him or not, and I see no reason why it wouldn't be, I thoroughly recommend you follow this guy:

http://twitter.com/cwalken

Most amusing tweets on a daily basis from, hopefully, the great man himself. Can't read them without hearing his voice in my head.

Deep linking a YouTube video

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:13:00 +0100

Ever sent someone a YouTube link and informed them the certain section of content you want them to view is about a minute and a half in?

Well now you can send a link and append the following to the end if, for example, you want to go 1 minute and 45 seconds in:

#t=1m45s

where m is the minute and s is the second

So, whereas normally you'd send a link such as:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKgCXWGM3wY

and say "watch this for the greatest free kick you're ever likely to see, but if you don't want to watch highlights of a great game then spin on to about 4m40", you can now just send the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKgCXWGM3wY#t=4m47s

Personally I think this is a great technique and now you think about it you wonder why it took so long to come about in the first place!

Top 3 Sopranos Endings

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:06:00 +0100

As it’s Christmas Eve and it’s wind down day, I thought today’s blog entry would be somewhat self indulgent whilst loosely work related – as this is something we talk about in the Gencia office’s quite a lot, here are my top 3 Soprano’s endings.

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Congestion charge - lies and damn lies

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:16:00 +0100

It hasn’t been thought through. It will create the largest congestion charging zone in Europe and will severely penalise city centre business.

Many businesses will change their working hours and therefore the rush hour will turn into the rush 2 hours.

City centre traffic has not increased in Manchester for fifteen years so why the charge now?

It is actually nothing to do with congestion. If it was effective at reducing congestion that it would not generate any income. It is purely and simply another way to tax drivers who have no choice other than to get a job outside Manchester. For many, a choice that they will be forced to make!

A mere 18 additional miles of tramway, to be paid for by the charge, is estimated to cost over 1.2 BILLION. We are all very familiar with how these type of public works costs escalate so the actual costs are likely to be much more.

The one sided propaganda, lies and half truths propagated by the yes campaign and paid for by residents taxes has been a disgrace.

PLEASE, PLEASE SEE THROUGH THE PROPAGANDA AND VOTE NO!

PayPal: Accept payments globally, safely and easily (1 out of 3 aint bad!)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:16:00 +0100

As a buyer, I think PayPal offers a great service - making it so so easy to get those latest gadgets I need, without even thinking about it, or having to dig out my credit card from wherever I put it...

As a seller, I'm not so sure.

Paypal advertise on their website that they Accept payments globally, safely and easily

Starting at the end, we have always found PayPal to be hard work to deal with - sending email to them is completely pointless - as you'll generally get back a reply something like this:

Dear ....,

Thank you for contacting us in relation to the status of your Buyer Complaint (XXagent to insert case IDXX). We can confirm that (XXagent to insert brief summaryXX).

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,

.....

- This has been copied word for word from the last email we recieved from PayPal - and was the 6th in a series of more and more non-sensical emails for this case. (One of the previous emails had advice which we presume related to somone elses case - it certainly wasn't relevant for ours!)

So as far as we are concerned, the easily claim is an outright lie.

Moving on then, we get to the safely claim.

PayPal offers NO protection to sellers of non physical products and services

What this means, is that unless you have shipped a physical item, to the PayPal confirmed registered address (using an approved tracked delivery service) then you have no protection at all against fraudulent transactions / charge backs.

So anyone that is providing an online service using PayPal for charging customers (and it really does cost money to provide these services) has no gurantee that they will actually recieved the funds from PayPal, even when PayPal has instructed them that the funds have been transferred...

So, more acurately, I think PayPal's strapline should be:

Accept payments globally, safely (for PayPal not you!) and with extreme difficulty!

Kerry Katona drunk (allegedly) on This Morning

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:32:00 +0100

Kerry Katona always provides quality car crash TV, but this latest wreckage is one from which she possibly may not emerge.

and that's why mum's go to Threshers

Is your personal data protected?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:10:00 +0100

The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) was brought in to protect us and based around eight key principles which legally require our personal information to be:

• Processed fairly and lawfully

• Processed for specific purposes

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive

• Accurate and, where necessary, up to date

• Not kept for longer than is necessary

• Processed in accordance with your rights

• Kept secure

• Not transferred overseas without adequate safeguards in place.

I have never really worried about my personal data until I received a fax in error last week. The RAPt CARAT team of HM Prison Service Wandsworth kindly faxed me someone's prison report. This report gives me the person's name, address, drugs record, prison number, assessment, legal profile, drug and alcohol use and next court date.

I rang the sender explaining their error expecting some sort of explanation and reassurance that this is a rare occurance instead I was told "these things happen", given the correct fax number and asked to re-send. I expected her to at least ask me to destroy the information but no instruction was given.

I will now shred the information however it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. They are clearly in breach of DPA.

Is my personal data protected?! Is yours?!

Who's to blame for the credit crunch?

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:48:00 +0100

I haven't written a blog post for a while because, quite frankly, I haven't had the time or the inclination. I've been quietly contemplating the financial ruin of the entire civilised world and wondering where it all went wrong and why I racked up quite so much credit card debt.

The common concensus seems to be that we should blame all those greedy pin striped city fat cats for the turmoil we now find ourselves in. Or is it the Government and the Bank of England for not playing a more leading role in making sure that neither we nor the financial institutions borrow more than we can afford?

For many years it's been possible to live on "plastic" without ever paying interest and the easy credit has been very, very tempting. Now it's crunch time and we're all looking for someone to blame.

Personally I blame myself. I have a bigger TV than had ever been thought of just a few short years ago, two stereos neither of which I listen to, umpteen perfectly servicable mobile phones lying in various draws and the list goes on. I'm a gadget freak. I'm an internet shopping freak. I like clothes, cars and overpriced coffee from Starbucks. I'm in a bad way and it's all my own fault.

Or is it?

Marketers are the easiest people to market to. I'm a sucker for some good packaging or a subtle lifestyle ad.' You can sell me anything if you stick it in a cool box. If it's got an Apple logo on it it's as good as mine. It doesn't matter that I can't afford it, I need it in my life. I'm a marketer but I'm also a marketers dream. I love all this 'stuff.' I loved the process of buying it even more than I enjoy acually owning it and now, like many others, I'm suffering from a bit of a financial hangover. It's the ad' men we should blame and because I am one I'm still blaming myself.

The question is, when we get the money train back on it's tracks will we learn our lesson? Will I pay off my 'Mint' card and be a more sensible, thrifty person in the future? The answer is yes I will.

Until Apple bring out a MacBook Air with a DVD drive...

Adobe customer support. Er what a joke!

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:43:00 +0100

Today we discovered a Cold Fusion error and, for the first time ever, tried to contact Adobe customer support. We are entitled to support as users of Cold Fusion 8.

This apparently entitles us to be sent round the houses 2 or 3 times and then put on hold for one and a half hours. During this time we were serenaded with an interesting choice of music, presumably selected to induce suicidal feelings of remorse at having spent over four grand on software that doesn't work properly.

In the end we gave up. Which is of course Adobe's intention because they don't really want to offer any support on their bug ridden and extremely expensive products.

They don't even have the good grace to let you know you are in a queuing system and if you are likely ever to speak to anyone, ever!

Thanks for all your help with this problem Adobe. At least we know where we stand once we've parted with our cash.

On our own.

Steve McClaren is Dutch yes?

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:56:00 +0100

Steve McClaren - a man who rarely fails to amuse.. and when he's not being funny, he's generally failing (except for the umbrella incident, where he was simultaneously failing and amusing).

Having moved to Dutch side FC Twente earlier this summer, we thought we had seen the back of him for a while, until his new side drew Arsenal in the Champions League qualifier, and who would've thought his pre/post match interviews could provide such entertainment.

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How good are we at marketing violence?

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:06:00 +0100

At the time of writing it has just been reported that the 18th teenager has been knifed to death in our capital this year, but should we be surprised at the rise in gun and knife crime in the UK?

I don't think so. We've been marketing it in the media for the last 50 years and we're getting better at it all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I've never been a big advocate of censorship, however I've always felt that, particularly in the UK, we've always been much more hung up about sexual content than we have been about graphic violence. Instinctively that feels all wrong to me.

I like my action movies just as much as the next guy but how can we possibly believe in the power of marketing and yet argue that violence in movies, on TV and in computer games does not have an influence on the young and impressionable. They are two sides of the same coin. If we can influence kids in to buying our brand of consumer goods we can also play our part in turning them toward a life of knife carrying and violence.

We are bombarded with violent imagery day after day in the news we read, the films we watch and the music we listen to. It's everywhere. Is it at all realistic to think that we are not influenced by an ultra-violent TV show but we suddenly become impressionable during the commercial break? No, we reap what we sow. We are influenced by what we see and what we see is an image of a violent society. It should come as no suprise that it is reflected back at us.