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Have you noticed how a great many companies in the UK publish 0870 numbers that you must use if you want to contact them?If you buy a mortgage, or a product, or a service, you might reasonably expect that company to make a profit and use some of that profit on support staff, so that if you have a query, you can call them and talk to them. Seems fair. After all, with mortgages, one of the reasons given for their expensive "arrangement fee" is to help pay the time of anyone you need to contact about the mortgage. And the fact that you so frequently have to queue is because maybe they have "streamlined" their service a little too far. And it is simple, isn't it? 0845 numbers are charged at the local rate, 0870 numbers are charged at the national rate. Maybe I am calculating things wrong. I looked through the BT web site until I found their charges page (nicely hidden). Let's say you spend 10 minutes on the phone trying to tell a corporate that the product you bought from them needs fixing. If you simply dialed a national number during working hours, you'd pay 30 pence. Yet if you dialed their 0870 number you'd pay 75 pence! So, let's get this straight. You buy a faulty product from a company, then you have to pay over double the national rate charge to sit in a telephone queue in order to tell them about it. And don't get me started on outsourcing to India ... Is it me, or does that sound unfair? Of course, maybe the extra you pay helps pay for the extra cost of routing your call to India. So the company saves money by their outsourcing efforts and you foot the telephone bill too. The BT charge calculator is at http://www.bt.com/Pricing/pis_info.jsp?PRICE_OPTION= Residential/PIS_UK_Calls/PIS_UK_Call_Prices&showsub=PIS_ Residential&showsub2=PIS_UK_Calls&showsub3=PIS_UK_Call_ Prices&showsub=PIS_Residential&showsub2=PIS_UK_Calls&showsub3 =PIS_UK_Call_Prices&obsType=LINK&obsOID=30195&vStore=1314 &obsPage=/Pricing/call_pricer.jsp&obsNoSee=Y |
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After the London bombings, there has been a lot of talk about obligating ISPs to keep a copy of all emails for a period of time to help combat terrorism. I am, of course, against all forms of terrorism - I simply don't see how this knee jerk reaction can help. Within one day I could set up two email servers that bypassed ISP services for everything except traffic (i.e. the ISPs used would not store any emails for me, since their servers would not be used for emails). Or is the suggestion to store all emails and store all internet traffic that everyone uses, including all web pages, all software downloads, etc? I could encrypt all data using free but increasingly sophisticated software making it all but impossible to decrypt the data even if you knew where to look to access it in the first place. The terrorists seem to me to be pretty sophisticated - I am sure they have access to people with much better computer skills than I do (I would rate mine as "advanced hobyist"). The only way I could see this work would be for all ISPs in the world to store all internet data that passes through their network (which must run into millions of terrabytes per day for a decent sized ISP), so that in the event of a terrorist attack, all that data can be sifted. Bearing in mind the important data could well be encrypted in any (or several) way(s) by means that are at best crackable only by highly powerful computers running over a long period of time. Maybe I am missing something? If so, I would love to know what. |
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I recently decided I needed a new laptop and, after much deliberation, decided on one based around an Athlon 64. Because it contains a 64 bit processor I thought I might try one of the new flavours of Linux for 64 bit machines (Fedora Core 3, to be exact) - after all, Windows XP 64 bit is not due until next year (due to historical reasons, I actually have a Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional license available anyway). Once I had determined the specific specification, I called a large PC manufacturer to place the order, and whilst talking to them I asked if I could get a small price reduction for not having Windows XP Home delivered with the machine. I was told that this company only ship machines with Windows XP Home pre-installed, though I could upgrade to XP Professional for £50 if I wanted to! I called round a couple of other large PC manufactuters to get the same response. It seems to me that in this day and age, to *have* to buy Windows licenses you have no requirement for, and thus make Mr Gates that little bit richer, smacks of the Microsoft monopoly we hear so much about. People talk of Linux being a viable free alternative to Windows - surely this isn't the case when you have to buy a Windows license with a new PC, like it or not? |
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On Sunday 29th October 2006, clocks in Europe were set back an hour, which meant that those of us without small children got an extra hour in bed. It occurred to me that it would be a wonderful thing if this could happen every week. Why not? There are many advantages: 1. We'd all get an extra hour in bed 2. Well, that is it really, but surely it must be worth considering |
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He was said to be born on December 25th of a virgin mother. He had twelve followers, who practised baptism, and he sacrificed himself to redeem mankind. He was put to death on a cross and buried in a cave. He descended into the underworld but on the third day he rose again. His many titles included "The Truth", "The Light" and "The Shepherd". I am referring here to Mithras, an ancient Persian god. There are, however, many parallels with others - Adonis and Dionysus for example. Oh, and Jesus Christ. December 25th seems significant as the birth of the older, pagan gods since this date is near the start of the new year after the winter solstice, when new life begins. It appears that Christ's birth date was overlayed on this to help Christianity consume paganism. There is an awful lot of information suggesting that Christianity is just another in a long line of fantastic religions that can't ultimately be true. Why not pull up your favourite search engine, try some words like "Mithras", "December" and "Christ" and see where your research leads you ... |
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