Still no HTML

Many years ago, there were some standards set out for the language of the web: "HTML".

The idea is simple: if you define the language then everyone who writes it and everyone who reads it will understand each other. 

There were several good tools (mostly released free of charge) written to at least check that the HTML that you write is at least syntactically correct. That is, in non-technical language, when computers talk to each other, the computers use the same words and sentence structures so that they can understand each other.

So, why then in 2010 do big banks, with their massive budgets still skip the simplest of requirements+tests on their on-line banking and not stick to the standards, littering their HTML with obvious errors that are apparent on any browser (except perhaps the one that the web programmer happened to use)?

Doggy Bag

There's a lovely little bit of woodland near my office, with a footpath through it. I make a point of waking through it when going to and from the office - a bit of piece and quiet between the fast pace at work and home.

Lots of other people walk through that strip of Eden too; it's a regular for people walking dogs or simply taking a short-cut.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of plastic bags in it...nothing too unusual about that perhaps, but these plastic bags are full of dog poo!

Why oh why does [at least one of] the regular dog walkers "scoop" and then leave the plastic bag of dejecta on the path? It's not like there isn't a suitable bin at the end of the footpath, only 30 metres away from the growing pile!

What possible reason can there be for it? If you're man enough to do the hard bit and pick it up, surely you can carry it?

Collatz Conjecture

Today was a very low productivity day in the IT industry. 

All around the world, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians and every other kind of geek simultaneously stopped work in a flawed attempt to prove one of the most confusing, troubling, and hard problems - the Collatz Conjecture - all because of a cartoon on the internet.

I was going to end with an estimate of the number of hours spent (twice as many as yesterday and third as much as tomorrow, blah blah blah), but quite frankly, I felt lonely.

Stone age banking

For some reason, you can't do payments or transfers from our business Euro account using internet banking.

"Well, it would have been really useful...it's on the feedback form that we gave you years ago."

...

"At least we can do telephone banking..."

"err, actually that won't work either."

"Well, then I suppose we'll have to continue walking two directors/signatories down to the bank at lunchtime...Can I have the form to fill in in our office, so that we don't have do deal with all the account details down the details at the counter? Hey we might even be able to get all the signatures done in the office too!

"You don't have a form for that? I see.

"Oh and you've changed your policy. If we want to do that then we have to go into the main branch in York...I see.

"So, we've got all that money in our account and cannot get it out without driving two directors into the city?"

"You could always write a letter to the bank asking them to make a payment for you. That should work."

Anyone else feel like we're going backwards CBSH?