2006.04.19

I was going on about Jurabib yesterday. Found something better. Google it up. It's called "custom-bib". It's a rather odd script that will step you through the process of designing your own (Natbib) BST files. It's unbelievably useful, especially as the current version of LyX supports before-name text in Natbib as well as Jurabib. Jurabib is nice, but it's such an arse to get working in LyX if you don't want the Jones/Smith format. This Natbib custom BST maker is unbelievably useful. It takes maybe fifteen minutes to set up a stylesheet, and then you are set for, well, the rest of your university career if, like me, you are in a discipline where things don't change much. They've also added Alt + Cmd + V to the latest LyX, which makes things a lot easier. What's left? To take Bibdesk and merge it in to LyX. And then a way of editing LaTeX in an outliner. We need a LyX/OPML Editor mashup. That would knock the socks off any GOffice, Writely, Office Live crap. But nobody is going to do it, because it's not AJAX and it's not sexy and not a rinky-dinky toy. 2006-04-19T21:18:57ZUntitled entry permalink

Dude, you need to virtualise. That means online dating, meetups and so on. You lose serendipity, but it also means you don't have to hang out at parties filled with boring poeple. 2006-04-19T18:02:56ZUntitled entry permalink

I tried Boot Camp the other day. It lasted about half an hour before I removed the partition. Now I'm going a step better with Parallels Workstation for OS X. It's Public Beta, and is gong to be about £23 when released. It's like Virtual PC, but actually maintained. I wonder how well it'll run FF11. As someone said, it would be really cool if you could run Boot Camp partitions in Parallels. 2006-04-19T14:39:55ZUntitled entry permalink

I've just been approved for a credit card. This means that I'll actually be able to pay for things while abroad. Not many Americans take Switch or Maestro or whatever it's now called. 2006-04-19T14:22:09ZUntitled entry permalink

Theological Terms Dump. Madness. 2006-04-19T07:54:03ZUntitled entry permalink

Stephen at Netweb has a post about Cory in Melbourne. 2006-04-19T07:52:32ZUntitled entry permalink

Scoble is blogging on the train. Welcome to the club! 2006-04-19T07:44:18ZUntitled entry permalink

Matt Mullenweg is annoyed by the feed validator. My RSS validates, but I'm not particularly bothered. If someone has a problem with my RSS, they simply have to email me. 2006-04-19T07:42:42ZUntitled entry permalink

My GPRS has been acting strange over the last few hours. I'm back home now, but I wasn't able to get a connection on my train ride home. 2006-04-18T23:04:47ZUntitled entry permalink

Our Long Nights Together Are So Sexy 2006-04-19T08:39:08ZTitled entry permalink

Or not. Because the subject is telemarketers. Life of a telemarketer is a new blog by a Canadian telemarketing employee going by the pseudonym "Clark Kent".

Today he points to this article about Indian telemarketers and call-centre workers. From the article:

"Australian accents ­ especially in working-class areas ­ are very difficult to understand."

Do they get it now? Racism is something I cannot condone. Legibility and comprehensibility are things that should be valued. If Indian call centre employees are complaining that they can't understand Ozzie accents, might they not understand some of the horror we feel when put through to them.

It's not race, it's not accent. I interact with many Indians here in Britain, everywhere from fast-food joints and curry houses through to tech meetups and academic discussions.

The problem with the call centre employees is that they aren't very knowledgable, are inflexible and their employers are often dishonest about it all.

For instance, I had to replace my laptop battery recently. I phoned the newly outsourced Apple phone care, and got put through to "John" or "Michael" or whoever in Mumbai. I had 'prepared' my case. I explained the behaviour, how to replicate the behaviour, and pointed out that numerous people online had the same issue and AppleCare US had simply done a replacement.

What I found out during this conversation is that the guys in India actually have something like an IRC channel running with Western techs on them. If you call them up and ask a simple question - "How do I open iTunes?" - they'll tell you. If you call them up and ask them a difficult question - "Why are your batteries a pile of shite? - they'll log on, grab an American or European techie and get them to answer it in real time.

The problem was resolved, after a few hours of farting about. The guy was perfectly pleasant, even though his accent was slightly difficult to hear over the tinny phone connection. But he didn't know what he was talking about beyond the simplest of points.

He also got it wrong on the returns front. He took a credit card number, and told me to return the battery. The email I got the next day told me not to. As did the returns website. And when I got the part, it didn't have the usual instructions to return. (Which is fine - I've now got a MacBook with two batteries, albeit one stops turns your machine off when you get to 40%).

They don't understand Ozzie accents? Good, we don't understand theirs too well...

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Evil In Uniform Is Not Evil After All 2006-04-19T08:03:14ZTitled entry permalink

Ever since Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered last year, I've been saying "nothing is going to come of this".

And I'm right. No charges are going to be brought for the murderer of Mr de Menezes.

Why? Because, in the eyes of the Crown Prosecution Service, if you are wearing a uniform you are exempt from the homicide laws.

So sayeth the Police Federation: "The officers will be greatly relieved."

I'm sure they will. They've just got away with murder. That's not something you can do normally, only if you are an "officer".

It's not the intellectuals bringing about moral relativism and situation ethics: it's those mofos in the CPS.

It's common wisdom that if you shoot a cop, you are more guilty than if you shoot a normal person. But if a cop shoots you, they're totally innocent.

Now I won't be able to travel the Tube safely. If any of the guys who died on July the 7th had survived, you can bet your buttcheeks that they wouldn't have been pardoned, they would have been in prison. Why don't the terrorists in uniform get the same treatment?

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No. 181
Tom Morris
Currently in: Kent, England
Usually in: East Sussex, United Kingdom
AIM: tommorris
YIM: tom.morris

I am a , an , like to code in and noodle about with and the . I also have a BA in philosophy from London, and am studying for an MA. My philosophical interests are in Victorian-era German philosophy, Kierkegaard, Robert Nozick, hermeneutics and current approaches to the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science. Musically, I like jazz fusion, soul and P-Funk. My musical nirvana would be a mixture of Beethoven, Miles Davis and George Clinton topped with a side-serving of Erykah, Jill and Angie.

I also write for the Citizendium, an online encyclopedia project. If you know about stuff, you should join in.

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