Readers’ comments
Your views and feedback from email and the web
One eye on the past
In reply to Keith MacIntyre and all those who ask, “if one is not engaged in anything illegal or underhand, what is there to fear?” ( see issue 277, p28), look at your history books. An American company called CTR once bought a system for recording census data on cards from its inventor Herman Hollerith.
In 1933, the German government announced plans for a census, and used Hollerith equipment to process it. All those people who weren’t engaged in anything underhand or illegal didn’t worry about ticking the box marked “Jewish”. The machinetabulated data was just what the Nazis needed to round them up.
At some point, there may be a desire for the state to remove elements from the population whom it defines as trouble-makers. They know how each of us votes, and with the help of social media and scanning emails, they will have a list of those it thinks should be rounded up. Steve Hawker
Box shifters
I’ve just received two WD Red hard drives from Amazon, sent in flimsy paperback book wraparounds with no protection whatsoever. It’s great for the postman, as the parcel can be dropped through the letterbox, but a nightmare for the user as your brand-new NAS drive is likely to have been dropped multiple times before you install it.
I’ve refused to accept them, the second having been shipped as a “properly packed” replacement for the first, and I’m now awaiting the replacement’s replacement.
Can PC Pro do anything with Amazon to ensure it treats drives better than books? Bob Stimpson
Editor-in-chief Tim Danton replies: We approached Amazon, who told us they would take up this issue with Bob directly and said: “Amazon has developed a software program that determines the ‘right-sized’ box for any given item to be shipped to a customer, based on that item’s dimensions and weight,” the company wrote. “As a result, the number of packages delivered in a wrong-sized box has decreased dramatically, significantly reducing packaging waste and transportation costs. We also have a Packaging Feedback program, which allows customers to provide direct feedback on the packaging of their order and to upload images. Their feedback is used to improve product and Amazon packaging.” Sadly in this case the feedback is to no avail: Bob received a third hard drive in the same packaging and has heard nothing from Amazon aside from an automated “return received” email. “No apology, no agreeing to amend their ways,” wrote Bob. “I purchased my replacement from CCL, who packed it suitably.”
When cars go wrong
In response to John Taylor’s letter last month ( see issue 277, p28), you state that, “…just as car manufacturers won’t usually support a car outside of its warranty period.” Actually, they do support cars long beyond the warranty period, if the flaw affects an entire range and has safety implications.
For example, my brother-in-law’s 12-year-old BMW was recalled last year for an airbag fault. And Toyota recalled my father-in-law’s for a brake issue – it was 13 years old and had over 170,000 miles on the clock. All of this work was carried out free of charge.
Microsoft has become one of the world’s most valuable companies by
supplying software that runs businesses and infrastructure everywhere. With that profit comes a social responsibility, which it can easily afford. I appreciate that smaller companies might struggle, but Microsoft has no excuse. Gavin Hall
A value judgement
Apple CEO Tim Cook reckons the iPhone X is good value for money, and even at £1,000, I agree. Sure, other phones can do much the same for a lot less money, but wind back the clock ten years – five, even – and nobody would believe you if you explained that a phone with the capabilities of the iPhone X would cost less than three or four times its price. Ella Brouard
The pen is mightier than the (s)Word
As a forty-something who’s spent the last thirty-something years hunched over a keyboard, I’m finding this fascination with pens and pencils somewhat concerning. I’ve got an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and love this more tactile way of working, but I can’t get used to the idea of my words skidding across the glass screen in an almost illegible scrawl. It’s like being back at school; I’m having to learn how to write again, from scratch. It’s years since I wrote anything more than a shopping list by hand, and with the news that Google’s next Chromebook is going to be stylus-ready, too, it’s clear that pens are making a real comeback. Bob Roberts
Isn’t it time we recognised that offices are dehumanising, stifling places to spend the working week?
Using Facebook at work
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is taking two months of paternity leave when his second daughter is born. We know because, like everyone else on Facebook, he posted an update. Facebook apparently gives four months’ maternity and paternity leave to all staff, but the question is, why is he coming back at all?
At the end of his post he said, “I’m pretty sure the office will still be standing when I get back”. Very true, Mr Z, but is Facebook the kind of company that needs an enormous central office? Its users are dispersed worldwide and have no trouble keeping in touch with each other, posting updates, sharing files, collaborating in groups… Why can’t Facebook as a company operate in a similar manner? It clearly has the technology to do so running on its servers already.
If a company as technically advanced as Facebook, with such a diverse and dispersed userbase isn’t running a totally decentralised operation, what hope is there for the rest of us? Or was the promise of working from home, escaping the commute and setting our own hours just a myth dreamt up by internet service providers to sell faster, more expensive broadband connections?
Not speaking about Facebook specifically, but all companies: isn’t it time we recognised that offices are dehumanising, stifling places to spend the working week? Craig Herriot