The StupidFilter Project plans to create a filter that will do for idiotic online content what spam filters do for junk mail.

You can’t download it yet and I wonder whether it is a bit of a spoof.  We’ll see. 

But I like their chutzpah, whether it is a fake or not.  Here’s an excerpt from their FAQ:

Isn’t filtering stupidity elitist?

Yes. Yes, it is. That’s sort of the whole point.

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive gender-neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishees.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Whenever something goes wrong with a piece of technology and I reach the utter depths of despair – after I’ve read the manual, looked at the helpful, searched the internet and generally tinkered like a bloke – I sometimes call technical support.

I do this without any hope, of course. See earlier posts about my lamentable experience with McAfee and the City of Westminster, for example. What usually happens is that you get a 17-year old reading a script (”Is the computer switched on?” etc.).

What a difference, then, with HP. My print quality was getting worse and I tried all the usual remedies: new ink cartridges, cleaning print heads etc.) Nothing helped so I called HP. I got through straight away. Their support guy talked me through a few tests and options that I hadn’t tried and then said that I probably needed to change one of the print heads. So far, so good.

I didn’t have a spare print head so I had to go and buy one. What was really impressive was that the technician called me every day to see if it had arrived and if the problem was fixed. What was even more impressive was the call I got this morning from an independent ‘verification department’ to check that the problem really was fixed and to see if I had any suggestions about how to improve HP’s technical support.

I think this must be the first time in history that someone from a call centre said that they would call back and then actually did call back. Kudos to HP.

(Full disclosure: HP is a client, although I don’t do any work for the printer people and their technical support department doesn’t know me from Adam.)

The Computer History Museum has created a YouTube videeo channel.  It’s really good. (Hat tip to Slashdot.)

In 2002, I went on a tour of the archives with John Toole as part of my long stay holiday in San Francisco. This was when the museum was still in a warehouse. It was the most nostalgic afternoon for me - it was like walking through my own life. All the computers I had ever used or played with were there on a shelf.

I completely support their work and encourage you to visit the museum, watch the videos and give them lots of money.

It would be cool if they added the video of the discussion panel with Nolan Bushnell and Steve Russell. Perhaps it will be added in future. You can read my little history of computer games on my personal site.

It’s not just me who has trouble parking in London, thanks to the idiotic pay-by-phone system. Jeremy Clarkson does too. We may not agree about everything (see earlier post) but we definitely agree about this. 

Yesterday, I got a parking ticket. Anyone who drives in London picks up a few each year thanks to ruthless parking enforcement and complex rules that change from borough to borough. However, this ticket is an example of how technology can take something simple and make it insanely complicated.

Here is how you pay for parking with a parking meter:

• Insert coins into the meter until the display shows the length of stay you want
• Don’t be late getting back to the car

Here is how you pay in the City of Westminster now:

• Don’t forget your mobile phone
• Find the four digit code for the bay you parked in
• Send a text with the four digit number, the number of minutes parking you want and the last four digits of your credit card
• Wait five minutes. If you don’t get a response, call another number to register.
• Wade through a multi-layer voicemail menu to enter your credit card number, start and end date, car registration number, security code etc.
• If that doesn’t work (it won’t if you’re using a Samsung I600 because you can’t enter the registration number), try to speak to an operator
• When they hang up on you for no reason, call back, wade through a different menu and get a customer support number
• Write down the customer support number then call it
• Wade through another menu until you speak to an operator
• When they hang up on you a second time, call back and repeat
• When you finally reach an operator who doesn’t hang up on you, give them all your details and try to pay
• By this time 30 minutes have elapsed and you’ve already got a ticket and you can’t back-date your payment
• In any case, her computer will crash and she can’t take your money
• Hang up. Give up. Throw up.
• Take parking ticket and write stern letter to the council
• Write sarcastic blog entry

How did they ever come up with such an impossible-to-use system? What about people who can’t use a mobile phone? Or don’t own one?  Or people who don’t speak English?

There are some serious usability issues here. There are also some human rights and discrimination issues.

A cynic might think the council has deliberately made it difficult in order to increase revenue from parking fines.

In many big companies, intellectual property protection - trademarks and registered marks - drive product naming. I’ve worked on several projects in November that suffered from overwrought names.  Some examples (not necessarily from my work):

• Intel® Centrino® Pro™ processor technology
• The 2007 Microsoft Office system
• Adobe® Acrobat® 8 Professional software

The problem is that there is little flexibility in the way writers can use these phrases. In some cases, a five-word name with three trademark bugs has to be used EVERY time the product is referenced. No abbreviation or variation is allowed at all. I suppose part of the challenge of my work is to deal with this and still turn out reasonable copy.

I’d love to hear from a IP lawyer about why this happens. Some companies seem to have wieldy product names and still protect their rights. MacBook, iPod, OS X or iPhone anyone? 

(In fact Apple’s pith may explain an odd phenomenon. I have never understood why people call them “AppleMac”.  Perhaps they need more words than Apple give them.)

I’m going to change my name. From now on, I want to be known as “the 2008 Matthew Stibbe Writing™ system Ultimate Edition® with Marketing Plus Technology®.”

Technorati Tags: Naming, writing, IP, trademarks, Apple