Arguing Religion

This is an open post for anyone wanting to argue religion with me, made as a response to the unfortunate hijacking of this World of Kitch post about a tacky crucifixion diorama. You are free to continue the conversation here, because, frankly, I love arguing religion.

The Pet Connection NI: I think I'll avoid them

Good friends of mine left their puppy with The Pet Connection NI while they were on holiday and came back to a dog with a broken leg, a vet bill of over £400 and The Pet Connection NI refusing to accept liability.
Obviously I don't know the details of what transpired, but common sense suggests that places like The Pet Connection NI should have insurance to cover injuries sustained by pets on their premises and accept responsibility for the pets under their care. It's like a child minder letting your kid fall down the stairs and then claiming it's the child's fault.

Of course, social media means that now (literally) thousands of people know about the story and will make sure to avoid The Pet Connection NI, including myself.

Original post about Hopalong Teddy and The Pet Connection NI

A wee move

So, I moved the blog over to Posterous. Couldn't be arsed faffing around with Wordpress when this does more than what I need. Old posts imported, domain redirected, easier posting achieved. One more thing to look after out of my hair.

Talking to Politicians - Ian Parsley (Conservatives & Unionists)

Thanks to Ian for taking the time to talk and apologies for the laughing hyenas who were also in the coffee shop.

Talking to Politicians - Stephen Farry (Alliance)

Thanks to Stephen for taking the time to talk to me.

Talking to politicians - Steven Agnew (Green)

Thanks to Steven for taking the time to talk to me and put up with some gentle ribbing about him having two cars.

Questions for the politicians?

As before, I'd love to take a few questions from the riff-raff to ask the politicians I get a chance to speak with. Remember all the devolved stuff is no longer the concern of Westminster, though I'm not sure what *is* the concern of Westminster regarding NI. Pop any questions you want me to ask in the comments.

Election 2010 - talking to the candidates

OK, the emails have been sent, going to try and get 20 minutes with each of the North Down candidates standing for Westminster. So far, my impressions come from the candidates websites. Steven Agnew (Green) - Nice website, easy to find a direct email for Steven. I have previously spoken to him prior to the European elections so expect this one to be easy to get. Stephen Farry (Alliance Party) - Website looks like it's from 1997, but it was easy to get a direct email address for Stephen Sylvia Hermon (Independent) - I got her email address from her canvassing flyer. It's a Hotmail one, which never fills one with hope. Kaye Kilpatrick (Traditional Unionist Voice) - No email addresses on website, only a contact form (and a very poor one at that). I didn't fill in all the fields (nothing to indicate some were mandatory) and I got a completely blank page with "All the fields are required, please go back and submit the form again…". Thanks for that. Filled in the missing field with a n/a and got another blank page "Your request is being processed". It was still like that ten minutes later, so no idea if it actually went through. They refused to talk to me last time, so I don't hold out much hope now. Liam Logan (SDLP) - Easy to find a direct email address. Which bounced. Emailed the general address complaining about them putting duff email addresses up for their candidates. Ian Parsley (Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force) - No direct email address and the generic ones weren't clickable to send email. Sent one to their contact@ address, which bounced. Tried again with the info@ and it hasn't bounced yet. Complained in the second email. So, let's see how things go. If someone wants to lend me a better mic this time, that would be awesome.

Why Sylvia Hermon didn't vote in the Digital Economy Bill

So, Sylvia Hermon was out on the campaign trail in Groomsport this evening, looking re-election for her seat in Westminster. I actually missed her as I was getting Sakura from Rainbows, but went for a quick walk to hunt her down to ask why she didn't even show up for the vote on the Digital Economy Bill. Nothing I write below has any intent to add weasel words to her intentions, so when I say "time better spent", I am not implying she didn't think the DEBill was irrelevant or a waste of her time. Essentially, she decided that, in the three days before parliament was dissolved and she was still able to act as an MP, her time would be better spent in her constituency, dealing face to face with with people with "emergency" problems. This seemed to include things such as OAPs who have hoods disrupting their lives, that sort of thing. I'm not sure exactly what an MP does to help that situation, but I guess that's something that's important. Her argument was that, since both Conservative and Labour were in support of the bill, it was going to get through anyway. Now, would it have been nice for my representative to show up, vote no as an act of defiance, make a stand, ineffectual though it would have been? Yes, of course. But in the three days of the wash up, should my representative do that instead of dealing directly with constituents where she feels she can actually make a difference? Well, I guess it's a moral call. She thinks that these unusual circumstances (washup, likelihood of a hung parliament etc) meant that she spent those three days in the place where she felt she could make the most real world difference. It's disappointing, but understandable. We are all hung up on the DEBill because it's the space we live in, it's something that genuinely affects our lives, so we want our representative to stand in parliament, reflect our wishes. Should we want them to do that in the face of impossible to influence party whips? It's a difficult decision. For the European election I tried to get an interview with someone from all the parties, to ask them why I should vote for them. Lady Sylvia has promised that I can do the same with her, sit down and get, on the record, her reasons I should vote for her and why, in a hung parliament, her single vote would actually make a difference.

Why I don't want background tasks on my iPad

I've been thinking about what I want to use my iPad for when it finally gets it's launch in the UK at the end of April. Casual browsing? Sure. Twitter. Yep. Email? Why not. But the thing I'm really excited about is as a magazine platform. I can't wait for Wired to launch and I would love if my other regular magazine, EVO, became available on the platform. I think this is where the iPad will really come into its own. So, why not background tasks? Lets face it, almost everything I will do on the iPad will be possible on my MacBook Pro. It would be almost trivial to bring out a magazine reading app on a desktop OS, but I don't think it works. When I'm on a multitasking OS I am constantly distracted by Twitter, email and the ease to go and look at something else. Where magazines triumph is in having an exclusive grasp on my attention. I could sit and read an issue of Wired for an hour, but only if other things aren't vying for my attention. By not having these distraction, I will be able to sit and use my iPad like a magazine, but without all that unnecessary dead tree detritus. My iPad will fill a different niche to both my iPhone and my MBP. I expect that, if the publishing companies do it right, my magazine (and maybe even newspaper) consumption will go way up and that this, along with ebooks, will be my primary use of the iPad. Can't wait. It's 2010 and finally it feels like the future is here.

12 Days of iTunes App Suggests New Functionality?

Apple have posted their new iTunes 12 Days of Christmas app, which will let you know when their now traditional Christmas freebies are available. Something very interesting in the description of the app is this:

Allow you to download a free gift from iTunes direct from your iPhone or iPod Touch

Now, this could just mean that the app will open the link to the iTunes app to give you your free song, music video, TV episode, or movie. But much more intriguing would be if the app downloaded these directly into your iTunes library. Could we see Apple opening access to third party apps that can start to interact with iTunes library on the phone to add content? Imagine a band app that could add music directly to the phone's music library, or a YouTube downloader? Maybe a game that allows you to save replays to your video library? Sure, they would need to get through the approval process first, but opening this up to third party apps would be a great move forward. The free downloads start from the 26th of December, but the app  is available now and will send you push notifications when each download is available.

How to do RSS right

I love RSS. There are very few sites I visit regularly, but dozens I like to hear from when something new gets posted. Today I subscribed to the Lifehacker feed (something I'm not sure how I neglected until now) and was given the following options:

Perfect. I hate sites that don't include the full post in their RSS feed (hint guys, I'm using RSS because I don't want to visit your site) and this gives me the option of getting the full post and still getting Lifehacker a little scratch from ads, or avoiding ads in my RSS but having to visit the site to get the full info of the stories I'm interested in. Really useful as well to see the "top stories only" option which, on a busy site like Lifehacker, is probably a godsend to many people and also, for the masochistic, a feed with full comments. Other sites could take a hint from Lifehacker and provide people with a choice in how to receive their RSS.

Talking to Politicians - Part 6: Ruari O'Kane, SDLP

Chat number fivewas with Ruari O'Kane from SDLP. Many thanks, as usual, for giving up his time when they are clearly so busy.

• www.sdlp.ie
• @sdlplive

Download the interview

Talking to Politicians - Part 5: Alex Kane, Ulster Conservatives and Unionists

Chat number four was with Alex Kane from Ulster Conservatives and Unionists. Thanks to Alex for his time and the tea. This interview was at Weavers Court and is a little noisy as we were outside. Hopefully you can still hear what's going on.

• www.voteforchangeni.com
• @jimnicholsonmep

Download the interview

Talking to Politicians - Part 4: Niall Ó Donnghaile, Sinn Féin

Chat number three was with Niall Ó Donnghaile from the Sinn Féin press office, also in Stormont. Thanks to Niall for finding some time in his day.

• www.ardfheis.com
• @sinnfeinireland (Don't have a Twitter for Niall himself, but will update if I get one)

Download the interview

Talking to Politicians - Part 3: Clive McFarland, DUP

Chat number two was with Clive McFarland, the DUP policy officer which took place in the beautiful parliamnet building at Stormont. Once again, many thanks to Clive for taking the time out of his day.

• www.dup.org.uk
• @clivemcfarland

Download the interview

Talking to Politicians - Part 2: Steven Agnew, Green Party

First chat done and dusted. I should make it clear that these are most definitely not "political interviews" because I am, frankly, clueless. Instead, think of them as how the politicians would try to convince said clueless person they are worth voting for. Many thanks to Steven Agnew for taking over an hour out of May Day to talk with me, it is much appreciated.

• www.greenpartyni.org
• @stevenagnew

Download the interview

Talking to politicians - Pt1

To be honest, I've never paid much attention to the political process in our country, never convinced it really made much difference in my life. Terrible as it is, I've usually asked my parents who they are voting for and gone that route, assuming they were paying more attention than I. However, with the upcoming European election, I decided to see if the poltical parties would be interested in sitting down with the apathetic voter and try to convince them why they deserve their vote. The plan is to spend fifteen minutes or so with someone from the office of each of the people standing for election to the European parliament, record the conversation and make it available online, with the assumption that it may be of interest to those who, like me, don't really have a clue. Step one was the sending of this email to the addresses provided to the party websites:

I am an early 30s voter who has never been convinced that voting
really makes a difference.

I would be interested in sitting down with someone from the party
and giving them fifteen minute to convince me why they should get
my vote. I would like to record this and make it available online
for the many like me who are, shall we say, politically apathetic.

Please let me know if this is a possibility.

Stuart Gibson

I shall update if/as I get responses. For reference, the people standing for election are as follows (taken from http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/northern-ireland-european)

• Diane Dodds (DUP) - Response from Clive McFarland (2nd)
• Bairbre de Brun (Sinn Fein) - Reponse from Brian Keane then Niall Ó Donnghaile with offer to meet in Stormont (5th)
• Jim Nicholson (Conservative/Ulster Unionist) - Response from Alex Kane to organise a meeting
• Alban Maguinness (SDLP)
• Ian Parsley (Alliance) - Phoned to say they were hectic this weekend, but would sort someone out next week, most likely Ian Parsley (3rd)
• Steven Agnew (Green) - Responded in person (1st)
• Jim Allister (Traditional Unionist Voice) - Response from Sammy Morrison with campaign literature. Sent reply pushing for 1to1 time (4th) UPDATE: No, they won't talk to me.

Email Responses

Steven Agnew - Green Party

Hi Stuart, I would be happy to meet up to try to convince you and your readers/listeners that it is worth voting. However it is about more than just putting a number in a box, it's about playing an active role in your community. Similarly a politician has to do more than just turn up every few years looking for your vote. Blogging is part of active engagement. The internet has made 'community' much bigger but it's still community. Part of my inspiration for getting into politics was Jello Biafra's 'Become the Media' spoken word album. His message was simple "Don't hate the media, become the media" ie if your don't like the message you're hearing spread your own. Your doing that with your blog, I'm doing it through political campaigning. Anyhow, I'll try to save some for the interview. Am I right in thinking your based in Bangor? I could meet you in the Green Party office on Abbey Street on Monday at 4pm if that suits. Alternatively we can arrange to meet at Stormont some time. Let me know a time that would suit you and we'll chat then. Cheers, Steven.

Clive McFarland - DUP

Stuart, Thanks for your email to the party. It has been passed on to myself for a response. I would be happy to try and help you in what you are trying to achieve. I'd also be happy to talk to you at some stage. If necessary you can come here to our party headquarters and record something, or alternatively a phone interview might suffice. We're certainly keen to encourage everyone to participate in the democratic process and do whatever we can to increase people's access to politics. Regards Clive McFarland Policy Office FOLLOW UP Stuart, Just following up again after your last email - apologies that you had trouble replying. Technology has a habit of playing up at the worst times... I should be able to confirm with you tomorrow exactly what time would suit best to do the interview. Depending on where you're based there might be the chance of speaking to Diane in person if we were nearby at the right time. Again though I'd be able to confirm that more definitely tomorrow. Regards Clive

Alliance Party (sorry, didn't catch the name)

Phoned me to let me know they had a really busy week/weekend with paperwork, but weren't ignoring me and would sort someone out next week, which would probably be Ian Parsley because "he's good at these sort of things".

Sammy Morrison - Traditional Unionist Voice

Dear Mr Gibson, Thank you for your email. I have attached some information about the party and our candidate, Mr Allister. Should you wish to discuss any of the issues raised in them please do not hesitate to get back to me. Kind regards, Sammy Morrison UPDATE - response to request to actually meet someone from the party Dear Mr Gibson, I am afraid this is not possible. I am, however, very happy to answer any questions you may have via email. Kind regards, Sammy Morrison

Brian Keane/Niall Ó Donnghaile - Sinn Fein

Stuart a chara, I could make points by email but clearly that is not what you are looking for. Can you give me an indication of what part of the country you are in and I can try to arrange something. Is mise Brian Keane -- Stuart a chara, Your e-mail regarding an interview with someone from Sinn Féin on the issue of voting has been passed on to me. I would be happy to arrange something with you to get a chat on this issue. It would most likely take place here in Stormont in that suits you ok? I could also do it over the telephone, I'm sure you can appreciate it is a busy time for us in Sinn Féin, we are fighting an election in every constituency in Ireland and trying to convince as many people as possible to vote for change and a strong voice in Europe. Feel free to contact me to discuss the issue further. Go raibh maith agat, Is mise, Niall Ó Donnghaile

Alex Kane - UUP

Hi Stuart, I am quite willing to have a chat with you. Perhaps you could let me have a few dates and times which would suit and we can try and tie down a time? Regards Alex. Alex. Kane UUP Director of Communications

Central authentication - good for users, bad for usability

As most of you know, I have a fun little project called Twitlonger that talks to Twitter, including the ability to post to users' accounts. Until recently, I had to ask for user passwords to enable posting, something I'm not keen on doing because it raises an expectation of trust that, to be frank, I haven't earned from most people (this goes for all the Twitter apps). Now, Twitter have enabled support for OAuth for granting applications API access to your account, without the need to give up your password. It's nice and simple, you click an authorise button, get sent to Twitter which allows you to allow or deny access and get returned to the initial site. All well and good, solves the password problem, gives users control. At the minute, I control access to Twitlonger by getting users to sign in with their Twitter username and password. This is validated against  Twitter and things like password changes etc are pretty much seamless. Users will automatically be logged out if their details have changed since they were last at the site and logging in with the new details automatically updates the details in Twitlonger. Overall, I'm pretty proud of the login experience for Twitlonger. Naturally, I now want to implement OAuth support, which means I have two choices - get the user to grantTwitlonger access every time the session expires (irritating) or store the keys necessary to authenticate with Twitter and give Twitlonger its own registration system. Not one for duplication of functionality, I was thinking about having OpenID support, so users don't need to create *another* username/password combination. Then I thought about the process for the user to be able to use Twitlonger (for the first time, anyway).

1. Login with OpenID
2. Get sent to external site to authenticate OpenID
3. Return to Twitlonger
4. Authorise with Twitter
5. Get sent to Twitter to authenticate API access
6. Return to Twitlonger
7. Actually get on with the desired task.

OK, so this should only need to happen the first time the user comes to Twitlonger, but it also means their first experience of the service involves visiting three different sites just to start the task in hand. On one hand, they will be having a much more secure experience, but from the user-friendly standpoint it will be horrible. I don't plan to find out how many people would lose interest before the end of the process. I will be implementing OAuth because it will make me feel a lot better about everything, but I'm afraid OpenID as well would be a step too far.

This is Why Retail is Failing

Nothing surprising will be revealed here, but it is just another example of why physical retail is going the way of the dodo and why it's their own fault. On Thursday I bought the new Mac Mini and had my usual wonderful experience in the Apple Store. This machine was to replace an aging (and recently dead) Windows box to take over media server and bedroom duties. As part of the process I was moving all my media files onto the new 1Tb drive. The only missing piece of the puzzle was a drive caddy to throw the old hard drives into. Normally, I buy stuff like this online but, since I wanted the job done over the weekend, I decided to check if PC World had what I needed without too much price gouging. A quick search revealed they had what I wanted, in a reasonable brand and only about a fiver premium over online prices once delivery was factored in. Stock check showed none in my local Bangor branch but available in Sprucefield. This meant around a 50 mile round trip but I had podcasts and the time. It's important to note that the online reservation service asks for a contact number and also says to allow for an hour before collection. So, 2.5 hours later I arrive at Sprucefield and (eventually) get someone to take my reference number. Unsurprisingly, as has been typical of my experience with their reservations, it wasn't ready, nor had someone gone to look for it yet. Ten minutes later the staff member returns and manages to grunt they don't have any and then stares at me. No apology, no explanation, nothing. I pointed out, in no uncertain terms, that I had made a 25 mile journey to get here and he wandered off to get someone who presumably did have some ability to deviate from merely stating useless information. A manager returned and, to his credit, at least apologised before letting me know they had one in the Bangor store he could get held for me. I sort of lost it at this stage, pointing out that if the staff had been doing their job properly and had bothered going to look for the item in the hour following my reservation they could have saved me the journey. I then asked what he was going to do for me and, after some humming and ahhing he offered a £5 reduction if I paid for it there and collected in Bangor. On the basis I had been happy to travel to Lisburn to pay full price I was reasonably happy with this offer. I questioned the manager on how they were showing stock and Bangor wasn't and, alledgedly, the online system doesn't show available stock if the system reports three units or less (though apparently PC World has terrible stock control and huge stock shrinkage). So, back I went to Bangor and collected my drive enclosure, a fiver better off (technically) but with two hours wasted unnecessarily. Ok, I've worked retail, this sort of stock thing can happen and, had I turned up 20 minutes after reserving and it hadn't been available, I would have been pissed at their online reservation system but at least couldn't have faulted the store staff. Instead, lazy staff who couldn't be bothered to check for stock when the reservation arrived (or in the 2.5 hours after) wasted my time, their time, cost them money because of the compensatory discount, created bad feeling making me even less likely to return and generated the small amount of bad publicity this post will produce. It's as if retail doesn't realise that treating customers poorly only serves to push them deeper into online purchasing and to recommend to friends and family that they do the same. This is how the situation should have gone. Reservation made. Within 30 minutes the store staff go to pull the item so it's ready for collection (they had plenty of staff, three of them were standing chatting when I went in). Staff discover item is not available, double check to confirm. Staff check availability in other stores. Staff phone me, apologise, let me know there is a stock error so don't bother coming up. Offer either alternative product they do have or tell me other stores that have the item I want. I say "great, Bangor store is two miles away", they transfer the collection order to Bangor and I go home a happy punter They don't lose £5 and I might even write "PC World in awesome customer service shock" blog post. DSG has been losing money hand over fist even before the current financial woes, they should be focussing on how to retain customers instead of driving more of them away. I will pay more for the convenience of buying locally, not having to wait on deliveries and getting to look at things in advance, but only if the experience is pleasant. The Apple Store makes retail a pleasure, many other places make retail a pleasure but the majority of retail is notable for sullen staff and difficulty in actually buying what you want. In a difficult market the ones who do it right will succeed, but those who have been coasting on the buoyant economy will be following Woolworths into the dead pool.