Well to get the ball rolling on Bad Shops, I thought I would address the issues I had shopping with Ebuyer last September. Without going into too much detail for a first post, and I have bought from them quite a few times in the past, this last order was enough to ensure that, no matter what the potential savings, I wont shop there again.

Basically, I made an order for a 32″ LCD TV, a new graphics card, some mini-SD Memory and DVD blanks. Nice and simple. After I made the order I was sent an email from their customer services saying the order had failed (no particular reason) and could I try again. I duly recreated the order and this time it was successful. Too successful. Upon checking my account page, it appeared both orders had cleared and I was going to get two televisions. Wonderful.

I raised an “eNote” (this is a cumbersome system) which had little effect and I was informed by the system it could take up to 10 days to process the eNote – while the deliveries were going to take place in 5 days. Not wishing to be billed twice, I eventually called customer services and eventually got one order cancelled. At this point, while it was annoying that the eBuyer customer fulfilment software was erratic, it was not a major problem. Now for the rest of my rant, this was before expensive orders had free delivery, I had paid extra for the delivery to be within 5 days.
The next day I got an email informing me that my order would be delivered on (cant remember the exact date), which was the Friday that week (the fifth day). As the delivery windows are an entire day, I had to take a day off work. As you can imagine, nothing was delivered. I phoned customer services at 1500 hours only to be told deliveries can be as late as 1800. At 1830 I phoned up to be informed that my order was never going to be shipped anyway as payment had not yet cleared. Obviously dismayed that I had taken a day off work for a shipment which was never going to arrive the customer services assistant bore the brunt of some ire. As the customer services close at 1900, this was never fully resolved and I was informed i would be contacted by eNote with a new delivery date over the weekend.

On Sunday evening I received an eNote telling me the delivery would be on Monday. Lots of notice, but I managed to negotiate a short notice day off work. On Monday, 1800 rolled round and no delivery. Once again I phoned customer services who informed me that no delivery had been scheduled but it would be sent on Tuesday. Obviously at 1800 on a Monday there was no way I could get the time off, but fortunately my wife would be available to collect it.

Now by some miracle at lunchtime on Tuesday a delivery arrived. It was the graphics card. Nothing else. Once more, after work I called customer services to be informed that there had been a problem and the other items would be shipped separately. When I asked when I could expect them, no answer was forthcoming.

On the Wednesday the TV and the mini-SD arrived. Without any warning, other than an eNote sent to me one hour before the delivery informing me it was on the way. Fortunately my neighbours were able to take the delivery which prevented the farce escalating. Still no DVD blanks and now I was informed eBuyer was out of stock of them. Shocking.

Sheer bloody mindedness stopped me cancelling the order, and they duly arrived two weeks later – actually on the day the relevant eNote stated.

After complaining repeatedly to eBuyer by email, eNote and telephone to no avail, I wrote a ranting letter of complaint. The reply was the under their terms and conditions eBuyer do not compensate for any inconveience caused etc., etc., and the best they could offer was to refund the delivery charge. (about £10)

As a result of eBuyers dismal order fulfilment system I lost three days pay waiting for that order which, in the end, took nearly three weeks to deliver. This easily wiped out any savings I may have made based on their prices. As eBuyer is an online retailer, being able to deliver the goods the customer orders when promised is vital. It is probably the single most important part of maintaining customer loyalty and getting a brand recommended by word of mouth. In the past, I have recommended eBuyer. As you may guess, not only will I no longer EVER buy from them again, I would not recommend any one else did and actively advise people to shop elsewhere.

In the great scheme of things, I am only one person and my impact on their business is limited. If the balance of people like their service they will do well. Personally, I find paying slightly more (such as when I bought my new digital camera, it was £30 more but delivered free and exactly when said within a 2 hour time frame) for better customer service is more than worth it.

There may come the day that this blog has a section about which retailers we do recommend. If that happens I will let you know which companies have certainly come through with the goods 🙂

Here are some links worth checking out, mostly examinations of bad science, bad medicine and crackpottery:

• http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/online_prayer_benefits_breast_cancer_pat.php
• http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/uhohthis_is_going_to_backfire.php
• http://blog.myspace.com/starlitexprss (this is pretty mad and may fuel a future blog post)
• http://www.badscience.net/?p=346

More may follow soon.

Stepping away from my quest for the ultimate in ID/Religious irony humour (only for a while though), I thought I would address some “Bad Science” which is frequently raising its ugly head as part of the War on Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) – also known as 4x4s here in blighty.

Now, for quite some time the eco warriors have been campaigning against what they see as gas guzzling monsters being used, unnecessarily, on the school run. This has been picked up by successive news agencies and turned into a bit of a campaign issue for some politicians (i.e. Ken Livingstone). Now, without debating the rights and wrongs of driving an SUV or heading down the road of is a 32mpg SUV worse than a 16 mpg sports car (interesting in itself as the SUV may be carrying 5 people compared to the two in the sports car…), or even if you can make a moral value call on something like ownership of a type of vehicle, I wanted to highlight the science involved.

Recently, there has been reporting about a study which found SUV drivers 55% less likely than car drivers to have their hands in the “10 to 2” position on the wheel, which it then goes on to describe as the sign of a “safe and alert” driver. This is an insane premise. Speaking as a car driver, I rarely, if ever, have my hands at “10 to 2” and have never caused an accident in my life. As it stands though, I have no idea if there is any research which supports the “safe” claim so I will not comment on it any further other than to say it is a premise which needs proving.

Now, in light of the research (which you can read about on New Scientist) I decided to carry out a bit of my own. For various reasons I spent 90 minutes in a roadside service station on the A1(M) in the north of England on Tuesday 10 Jan 07. During this time I was able to observe a lot of passing vehicles and as the road was very, very busy there was a wide mix of vehicle types. As part of my study, I observed the drivers of 100 passenger cars, 100 sports utility vehicles and 50 light goods vehicles. I only noted the ones where I could clearly see the top half of the steering wheel to confirm the drivers hand positions so there were more vehicles which passed without me making a note. This is a much smaller study group than the
Now, of the 100 SUVs which passed, only six had drivers with their hands at “10 to 2” (interestingly all were female), the rest had either one hand on top or both hands out of sight. Now, this is then compared to the “normal” cars out of which a grand total of four had their hands at “10 to 2.” Of these four, two were “young drivers” one of which still had a green P plate. Of the 50 LGV/vans I looked at none had their hands at “10 to 2.”

In addition, both SUVs and Cars had four people each who were using phones while driving (seven vans were), and two van drivers were driving without seatbelts (no cars or SUVs were as far as I could see).

As this is a small study group, I realise the numbers may be far from accurate, so yesterday (Wednesday, 11 Jan 07), I carried out a similar study (100 cars, 100 SUVs – no vans) from a service station on the M1 motorway. This time, five SUV drivers were observed with their hands at “10 to 2” with four car drivers again. This means approximately 5% of SUV drivers have their hands in that position compared to around 4% of car drivers. For the numbers to have matched those in the study, I should have been looking at around 2 SUV drivers for 4 car drivers.
This broadly matches my own experience of being a passenger in other people’s cars and other people’s SUVs. I know no car drivers, with more than about 12 – 18 months driving experience, who drive with their hands at “10 – 2.” From my personal experience, driving with your hands at “10 to 2” is not a reliable indicator of a safe and alert driver. It also strikes me as inaccurate to say SUV drivers are less likely to drive in the “10 to 2” position than a normal car – with the exception of new drivers are, in turn, less likely to drive an SUV than a car.

I am not sure if this is bad science, but it strikes me as just being part of the slightly obsessive (and occasionally irrational) desire to demonise drivers of SUV/4x4s. I remember a few months ago reading about how SUV/4x4s gave smaller fields of view than normal cars (due to the width of side pillars), yet this never accounted for the increased field of view from the size of the vehicle and hight of the driver. I am not trying to support the use of SUVs but I think arguing against it should be rational and logical.

Well, I was not planning to make any more posts today but when I came across “The Fanciful Land of Evolution” I couldn’t help myself. It seem PZ Myers has his own personal stalker who is showing the valuable Christian traits of compassion, forgiveness and humility. If you are bored, the website is an excellent place to go to get a worrying insight into the insane mind. The author of blog seems to spend a lot of his time hunting round “evolutionist” blogs and trolling them under different names. He then waits until patience is worn out and has the temerity to say he was “banned for no good reason.” Its nice to see a crank like this in his home lair.

Not many today, visit them and you will see why:

• http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/carnivalia_and_an_open_thread_44.php
• http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/eskowyet_another_backlasher.php

Make sure you follow the links they offer.

It seems after my previous “complaints” there was a bit of a backlog in the comments on the Blasphemy Challenge article and now my comment is there. Phew. First off let me appologise for any misunderstanding made.

On a more entertaining note, it is pleasing to the see the cranks and crackpots can be guaranteed to turn up to a post like this (does this mean I am a crank?) as some of the comments show: (This is long, the bit on the home page is trimmed, please take the time to read on. It really is worth it)
Continue reading →

The joys of playing around with a Nokia N73 camera phone

Now, as mentioned in the past I am a big fan of the Respectful Insolence blog and I regularly use it as a jumping off point when I go blogsurfing. Also, I have in the past been forced to admit I am wrong and where required correct previously posted statements. Today, it seems I may be heading down this road again, but I am not sure yet.

Previously, I mentioned to apparent oddity of British people thinking that developing cancer or not was down to fate. This was fairly quickly challenged by a post here (albeit by a biased poster) which initially I ignored. My take on heather‘s post was that it was just a bit of semantic pedantry and I could ignore it. Today, however, after reading Orac’s post I see I may have been making too much of a broad brush judgement.

Now, heather quite rightly points out (as does a lot of Orac’s post) that chance does have the “final say” as to whether or not a person will develop a cancer. I agree and this isn’t what my complaint about poor education was meant to imply. Heather points out:

My point is that – even cancers caused by heavy irradiation are due to chance, although the chance may approach 100% with regard to certain substances. With most cancers, you can only consider the impact of lifestyle choices statistically. (And having some acquaintance with epidemiology, I can say this is a pretty arcane art).

And I cant really say anything which disagrees with this.

My point is, and I am painfully aware now that this is an assumption, the way I read the study was not that people believed their chance of developing cancer was a risk which was affected by various lifestyle and genetic factors but remained (non the less) a “chance” event.

I read the report on the survey as suggesting that the people thought the chance of them developing cancer was entirely down to fate with no impact from their lifestyle choices. My own discussions with British people (whilst not exactly being a survey) suggests this is about right. I know people who smoke 20 a day with almost no fear of cancer (putting developing it down to “fate”) but baulk at the thought of eating a foodstuff which may prove to contain a minute trace of a carcinogenic compound.
This leads nicely to one part of respectful insolence I actually don’t agree with.

Only people who have never tried to convince patients to change such lifestyles for the benefit of their health would so blithely attribute this belief in “fate” to stupidity or ignorance. In some cases it may be stupidity or ignorance, but in the majority of cases it probably is not. For instance, 90% of the people in the U.K survey knew that smoking increased the odds of developing cancer, and that still didn’t stop a significant proportion from attributing whether smokers get cancer or not to “fate.” It’s all easy from the air to dismiss patients as being “ignorant” or “stupid,” but it won’t help to persuade them that there are indeed actions that they can take themselves to decrease their risk of developing cancer.

Now, it strikes me that here Orac is no longer arguing that the people thinking developing cancer is down to fate are ignorant or not, he is simply saying the “patient” should not be thought of as ignorant. This is a wonderful point of view for a doctor to take but, at the risk of being rude, is fairly meaningless. Yes, it may not help persuade patients to modify their lifestyle but that certainly does not falsify the idea.

All in all, I stand corrected with the automatic assumption that the report implied the people thought it was Fate / Chance and no other factor. I (currently) still think that people who do think it is Fate / Chance and not lifestyle factors are poorly educated or stupid (or both).

I will try to retain an open mind though.

Been a while, so here are some entertaining and informing links. Hope you enjoy them:

• http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/ the_backlash_is_winding_up.php (more Dawkins related debate!)
• http://proman.compuskills.co.uk/introduction_projects.php (An introduction to project management)
• http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/ 4107 (Greasemonkey script to kill file blog comments)
• http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/01/ stupidity_from_our_old_friend.php (excellent deconstruction of an idiots argument)
• http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/01/ exposing_the_frame_atheism_and.php (discussion about an American attempt to remove the privilege Atheists get…….)
• http://service.compuskills.co.uk/blog/2007/01/ 04/ what-are-the-main-differences- between-html-and-xhtml/ (HTML newbie advice)
• http://service.compuskills.co.uk/ rss.php (Compuskills web design service newsfeed)

Obviously the Guardian is keen to get in on the Dawkins bandwagon (Check Pharyngula – any post which mentions Dawkins gets five or six times as many responses as one which doesn’t). Sadly, the Guardian, being a newspaper is far from well placed to comment on science or scientists commentary. You would think that, being literary minded journalists, they would be able to comment on philosophical matter but it appears this is not the case.

On Saturday, the Guardian published a comment article by Tobias Jones, titled: “Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians” with a tag line which reads:

Militant secularists like Richard Dawkins are taking their revenge on us believers for refusing to stay in the closet

Amazing. I thought for a few minutes that I had slept for months and it was actually 1 April. Madness is apparently a too polite word for it. Intrinsically it highlights what seems to me to be the main flaw in the current religious-anti-Atheist arguments, Dawkins is not a High Priest of Atheism! There is a constant string of nonsense where religious proponents try to undermine the valid debating points made by Dawkins (and PZ Myers, Sam Harris et al) by attacking the nature and behaviour of what they see as the religious leader of the opposition.

Add to this that tag line which implies the faithful have spent millennia being quiet and hiding their beliefs. Wow. What universe does Mr Jones inhabit?
Are all these people insane? (I think the answer to that question is pretty self evident).

Side note: The guardian certainly achieved their aims with the anti-Dawkins comment. As you may imagine it generated a massive volume of response comments. Fortunately most were of the mind that Mr Jones is inherently insane.

Well, it has been a considerable time since I tried to leave a “Reader comment” on the Blasphemy Challenge article and nothing has shown up. I am not sure if this is because my comment is from out side the US, met some spam checker comments or what ever. I hope it is not because my comment was critical of some of the content of the article and I am sure that WSLS would not prevent such comments on that basis alone. Basically, I am asking anyone who gets the chance to read the article and, if you have anything to say, please comment on it and see if they show up. Thanks for your help.

First the wet – some one making a few watery complaints about Dawkins titled “Oh, Richard *slaps forehead*.” Typical comments along the lines of Dawkins not realising there are non-Abrahamic religions etc. Some of the comments she gets are entertaining though. It’s nice to see everyone has formed solid (unfounded) opinions of how much they hate the solid (apparently unfounded) opinions Dawkins has formed. I suspect that at least one commenter doesn’t really know what Dawkins has written 🙂

Also, the more entertaining – a post with a video clip where Dawkins does his “what if you are wrong” bit. Entertaining mainly because it is good to see a scientist who can defend himself in that sort of environment. Science does not lend itself to public debates, and as such, lots of good scientists struggle because they get shouted down by charismatic detractors. What a great way to spend Sunday 🙂

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Richard Dawkins, Religion, Philosophy, Neo Pagan, Buddhist

Well, MySpace is still going strong for the Christian nutcase Zealots. Have a look at this “Rules for Christian Women” if you don’t believe me. If you ever get board and want to see how off the rails people can REALLY get you should just tag search Philosophy. It is amazing.

Technorati Tags: Religion, Nutcase, Madness, Insane, Crackpot, Society, Philosophy,

Well, could it get any better than that? In the past I have objected to people taking the position that Dawkins is a religious leader for the Atheist religion. I am sure 99.99% of the worlds population can, after giving it a moments thought, see how ludicrous the concept is. I wish I didn’t have to say it but some people don’t realise that Atheism is not a competing religion. Not believing in (deity of choice) is not the “opposite” of believing in the said deity.

Strangely, this seems to be a concept which religious people really can not come to terms with. This results in them identifying prominent atheists and subjecting them to the treatment as if they were priests of a heretical religion. This is farcical. Entertaining, but farcical none the less.

Anyway, I was following the “FriendlyAtheist.com” blasphemy challenge links out of curiosity and I found some interesting sites which largely indicate to me (living in the comparatively secular UK) the extent that religious dogma provides an undercurrent to the thought processes of people in the US.

One site which really stood out was on WSLS.com (“Blasphemy Challenge targets youngsters“). Now without going into the rather tepid journalistic style there were some bits which amazed me. Before I paste the quotes, I should explain myself. Remember, journalists write in a language they assume their audiences will understand and are nearly always going to bias their editorial space in the direction they think their readers and supporters will appreciate. With that in mind, look at these gems: (emphasis mine)

I asked Donald Shedd, biology professor at Randolph College in Lynchburg, about the videos:”are you surprised?”

Shedd: “no, not at all. An increasing number of people are prepared to verbalize that.” Shedd is a follower of Richard Dawkins, who he calls the “Pope” of atheism.

Blimey. Surely Dawkins assumption of the Atheist Papal position should have been made public! Now, I do actually wonder if this was something Donald Shedd said or if it was something the journalist prompted for (or made up). But it is no where near as worrying as the “follower of Dawkins” comment.

Atheism is not a religion. Dawkins is not the Prophet of the Atheist God. When he says something, he is giving his own opinion and leaving his comments open to debate and challenge. Do people not understand what being an Atheist is?

This is followed up with:

“The blasphemy challenge” says it’s largely based on Dawkins’ teachings.

What? I mean, seriously, WHAT?

Dawkins is an expert on Evolutionary Biology. I have read the Blasphemy challenge website and it has nothing to do with biology nor it is based on any biology textbooks. Does the “journalist” who wrote the article actually think that Dawkins’ books (God Delusion, Blind Watchmaker etc) are “teachings” which are followed by Atheists?

Madness. Pure, unadulterated madness.

Sadly, this is, I suspect, an example of the journalist writing for his audience. They are probably religious people who expect to see a competing religion (I know, I know) have a Pope and have teachings.

Doesn’t stop it being madness though. Currently there is only one comment for this story (another one written by a very rational person may be awaiting moderation though…) and it reads:

God is very real and people better start believing it. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Well, enough said really. There is nothing I could write that would be funnier than that.

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Richard Dawkins, Religion, Blasphemy, Christianity, Bible, Philosophy

Weekends are never good time for churning out posts here, so I suspect asides will come to dominate two out of seven days each week in 2007.

I just wanted to make a quick post to let you know about some very good blogs, well worth reading:

• The Friendly Atheist – has an excellent article on the Blasphemy Challenge which is apparently getting religious groups’ backs up. (Oh well eh?)
• For those who dont think “Oh well” when it comes to annoying the religious fundamentalists, the Atheist Ethicist has an excellent post about what is wrong with Atheist Moderates.

I suspect the second link will be more relevant to Americans, as currently in the UK there is little overt public disfavour of Atheism (although very few overt atheists get public office and religious leaders are always looked to as “moral guardians” by the media and general public). One concern I do have is history has shown that American culture, trends, habits and societal madness eventually makes its way to the UK.

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Belief, Religion, Philosophy, Society, Blasphemy