Monday, January 13, 2014

Cutting Red And Green Tape - A Modest Proposal


This is apparently going to be the new buzz-phrase for the year, and I welcome it. The old buzz phrase* was far too complicated to implement and you had to fill out a form to even get it. This was ultimately counter-productive as a lot of people rebelled and used precise, intelligent english instead of the buzz-phrase. It played hell with 5-second sound bytes on the evening news...

Here in the photo trade ( trade as in " I'll trade you this old D40 for a new D4s and you give me $ 100 back and a free six-pack of Stella..." ) we have any number of red and green ribbons strung across our lives. Quite apart from a computer accountancy system that was invented by the Marquis De Sade when he had a toothache, the various registrations and websites and downloads and passwords that are necessary to access some of the special offers are an absolute pain.

This can also apply to the registration of new equipment and software - the instructions on my copy of an add-on computer program were so ambiguously worded that in the end I took it off my computer and binned it - I was afraid that if I did all steps they required I would have ended up launching something from a missile field in Nebraska.

Even better are the websites where the manufacturer wants to tell you something but has gone all coy and shy and puts it under an electronic rock in the garden. Poke the right bit of the page and something pops up, but miss it by a millimetre and you'll never know.

To assist this new resolve on the part of the government to streamline things we are going to institute a policy of compelling our customers to empty their pockets into a tray at the door. Their wallets will be X-rayed and tested for suspicious substances. Like money. You'll know when we have some when you hear the floor manager call out " Woo Hoo!".

Uncle Dick

* " Implement the resolution of the Third Party Congress in concentrating the interest of the photographic masses to the new technology of wireless agitation and propaganda."

posted by Unknown at 9:00 AM

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Cutting Red And Green Tape - A Modest Proposal


This is apparently going to be the new buzz-phrase for the year, and I welcome it. The old buzz phrase* was far too complicated to implement and you had to fill out a form to even get it. This was ultimately counter-productive as a lot of people rebelled and used precise, intelligent english instead of the buzz-phrase. It played hell with 5-second sound bytes on the evening news...

Here in the photo trade ( trade as in " I'll trade you this old D40 for a new D4s and you give me $ 100 back and a free six-pack of Stella..." ) we have any number of red and green ribbons strung across our lives. Quite apart from a computer accountancy system that was invented by the Marquis De Sade when he had a toothache, the various registrations and websites and downloads and passwords that are necessary to access some of the special offers are an absolute pain.

This can also apply to the registration of new equipment and software - the instructions on my copy of an add-on computer program were so ambiguously worded that in the end I took it off my computer and binned it - I was afraid that if I did all steps they required I would have ended up launching something from a missile field in Nebraska.

Even better are the websites where the manufacturer wants to tell you something but has gone all coy and shy and puts it under an electronic rock in the garden. Poke the right bit of the page and something pops up, but miss it by a millimetre and you'll never know.

To assist this new resolve on the part of the government to streamline things we are going to institute a policy of compelling our customers to empty their pockets into a tray at the door. Their wallets will be X-rayed and tested for suspicious substances. Like money. You'll know when we have some when you hear the floor manager call out " Woo Hoo!".

Uncle Dick

* " Implement the resolution of the Third Party Congress in concentrating the interest of the photographic masses to the new technology of wireless agitation and propaganda."