Google Fails

I've been having a lot of problems with Google Products recently - certainly a lot more problems than I used to.

This is possibly linked to Googlers "feeling unsafe and unable to do our work". Or maybe because they spend time at work discussing "furries, polygamy, transgenderism, and plurality", or listening to talks by "a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin".

Note: I have reported all of these bugs. As far as I know, some still persist months later

Gmail

26 April: I tried the new Gmail and extremely long emails I had in my drafts folders got wiped truncated when I opened them in the new GMail (if there were warnings, they weren't very obvious - and anyway if you're going to delete user data you should be very sure to ask for clear confirmation).

27 April: (a) I can't retrieve Hotmail from Gmail using POP3, only Gmailify

(b) When I used Gmailify to manage my Hotmail from Gmail, thousands of my old emails dating back as far as 1998 got classified as spam and put in my Hotmail junk folder, and were almost deleted

14 July: When I search my mailbox, it erroneously tells me my keyword(s) appear(s) in messages it/they doesn't/don't



Late August: I was forcibly migrated go the new Gmail and extremely long emails I had in my drafts folders got truncated even when I didn't open them (upon opening some I discovered this had happened). Luckily after the disaster in April I had backed up the important drafts

Google Alerts

30 June: For weeks to months I have been getting irrelevant results. I have a search for ""the old republic" "star wars"" and almost every day I get irrelevant results where the keywords don't show up. I am going to delete this alert and replace it with a new alert and see if that solves the problem.



Google Calendar

27 April: (a) Google Calendar notify at event time hasn't worked on Android for ages (it notifies if I set it to 1 minute before the event or before, but not at the event time).

(b) When I edit the timing for a repeated event and apply the changes to all events (the "apply changes to this and future events" option is missing), the changes get applied to a preceding event in the series that has had its time changed (but not if other details of the event like title and details have been changed) (when I think about this again, this might be one expected behavior, but given that I can't only change this and future events I don't get a choice about what happens to past events)

19 June: Google Calendar now truncates the details of wordy events. Maybe they're trying to force everyone to use Google Docs.

Plus they're adding unnecessary crud to my URLs (which contributed to the truncation I experienced). The crud looks like a failed attempt at the URL-ification of plain text - failed not just because I don't want or need it, but because it is performed more than once (and forces Google redirects)



30 June: When I make changes on Google Calendar the popup with undo hovers at the bottom of the screen, blocking my view of my calendar

Google Docs:

5 May: When I paste a lot of text into a Google Docs document, the screen goes funky



Google Translate

30 June: Google Translate has issues translating "debuff" into Chinese from English (and autocomplete gives 'debuff' as part of one suggested term, but not 'debuffs'. It seems Google Translate thinks 'debuff' is a Chinese word, but not 'debuffs'

Jetstar's Business Strategy

Ignoring their customers until they give up seems a viable business strategy for Jetstar.

I had a problem with delayed luggage and tried to get them to acknowledge this/provide documentation.

Firstly the form for submitting the baggage enquiry didn't work, despite my using 3 different browsers each on two different computers. It only worked after a few days.

I was supposed to be contacted within 15 business days.

14 business days later I was concerned and called to try to get documentation in case I needed it for an insurance claim.

I was told they would get back to me within 72 hours (3 days).

144 hours (6 days) later, I called back and was told the person would escalate my case and I'd get a call back the same day.

Another 5.5 days later, I called and was asked to submit the same form I had submitted the first time.

Finally, another 11 days later (and 1.5 months after I had submitted my original enquiry) I got some closure.

I wonder how many others would have stuck it out for so long across 2 forms and 3 phone calls?

Korean Headache / Imageshack is Frogging Me

(via Go gross over Hyoyeon)


As a side note, I am going back to my Photobucket account for stuff like this because although I pay Imageshack US$2 a month they keep showing me photos of frogs.

GRR.

A data plan means never having to use Wireless@SG EVER AGAIN

I have a Wireless Broadband dongle, but it stopped working and I haven't bothered troubleshooting after getting a data plan on my phone. However today I wanted to charge my phone.

So I bit the bullet and tried Wireless@SG.

The password sent to me in February no longer works, so I had to set a new one - the login page rejected my login without telling me why (non-existent account, wrong password, expired password). In order to reset my password, I needed to jump between four - count them! - SMS threads.

Then once I reset my password and logged in, I got disconnected after a while for no reason. I went to see if I could still detect the signal, and there were 2 Wireless@SG SSIDs (from competing providers):



Wireless@SGx let me connect to it, but I had no internet access; from what I know you need a password in your connection settings to use it, so it should not even let me connect in the first place.

I tried connecting to another Wireless@SG SSID, but it gave me a "Fail Page" - how appropriate:



In the end the original SSID worked so I reconnected.

La Petite Cuisine (Serene Centre) unpleasant experience and Menu

On Sunday some of us were playing D&D near Serene Centre.

Having had pizza for lunch, we didn't want to order delivery - let alone pizza again - for dinner.

So we called up La Petite Cuisine Serene Centre. Their menu was not available online, so we asked the person on the phone if he could read out the menu, and he said he could not (Someone: "Are you illiterate?")

So I volunteered to go down and read out the menu over the phone so people could order.

After a few lines I realised photography would be a much more efficient way of doing this, so I took pictures of the menu and sent it to the hungry people awaiting my tidings.

Just as I was finishing up, I got shouted at by the French chef/boss. I explained my situation and why I was forced to do this, but not only was he not understanding, he still gruffly insisted that I should have asked them before taking any photos.

Now, in all places I've been in or to where photography is not tolerated, the staff enforcing the prohibition in question address and inform the photographer - even if not politely then at least not in a rude way. Evidently Customer Service is not a core value of this organization (or at least there is no leadership by example).

I've read complaints about him before, so maybe that is one reason for the relatively low prices.

On the up side, one staff member was sympathetic.

Since I already got shouted at, here is the menu (correct as of this Sunday) so fewer people will get into (or come near to getting into) an even remotely similar situation:



(also, the pasta, pork cotelette and steak were quite lousy [someone asked for medium rare and got medium well]; the salmon, tuna and escargots were good though)

Someone who knows some restaurant owners said chefs were eccentric and some of his friends got shouted at by their chefs 4 days a week - though they were the owners.

France/Spain 2011 - Day 5, Part 1 - Paris: Père Lachaise

"The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel." - From "Taxi"

***

France/Spain 2011
Day 5 - 21st March - Paris: Père Lachaise (Part 1)

Breakfast at the hostel started at 8am, which was too late for me even in nua mode (kids don't usually wake up early because they are too busy... having fun at night; besides, in 2006 it had sucked), for this day, I set out for the most famous cemetery in the world: Père Lachaise! I had wanted to visit in October 2010 but had been foiled, so this was a chance to put things right. So I set off at 7:52am.


Rue Mouffetard in the morning


Another cheap menu. 3 courses for 10€?!

On the métro this guy was taking his dog on the train to beg. Gah.

I arrived outside the walls (but not outside a gate) of the cemetery at 8:35am. Considering that the place opened at 8am, this was a true testament to how easy I was taking things.

I also saw a familiar joker:


Altiz

I had seen him (or his van at least, at any rate) in October 2010 in the Bois de Boulogne. Père Lachaise was his territory.


The walls of Père Lachaise


Entrance, with sun glaring in the background


Sewage Truck blocking the entrance


About the cemetery, open since 1804. They have people who died before that buried inside, but really they just reburied them.


Gate

I bumped into an American guy who said that he had visited twice before. And that he'd seen Jim Morrison both alive and dead.


Entranceway

With a map bought from a vendor, I went grave hunting.


Tomb of Colette
The most impressive tombs do not necessarily hold the most famous people, and vice versa.




Famille Dantan


Monument aux Morts, Albert Bartholomé (War Memorial)
A site claims that it is the "Final resting place of those removed from graves at the end of their lease", but this is plainly ridiculous. Nichole Bennett-Bealer is a lot more credible in affirming its nature as a war memorial.




Félix Faure. When I saw "Faure" on the map I got very excited, but this is Félix François Faure, a former President of France, not Gabriel Urbain Fauré (who's at Passy)


Among the luminaries buried here: "ZAVATTA Achille (Clown et Directeur de Cirque)"
Must've been some show.

Abelard and Heloise are also buried in Père Lachaise, which possibly makes them the oldest residents. The map didn't mention their claim to fame, though. Hurr hurr.

I also saw that a "Modigliani" was buried here. At first I got very excited and thought that it was Franco Modigliani who had come up with the Life Cycle Model of Consumption, but actually it was Amedeo Modigliani, a painter. No one cares about Economists.


Gioachino Antonio Rossini
His remains are now in Florence, boo. Ahh, politics!


Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay
I didn't exactly remember all of these people's claims to fame, but some of them sounded familiar


Stair


Famille Boutillier


George Enescu


Another stair


Georges Bizet


Jacques-Louis David
This is a pretty big grave for a heart
It was somewhat easy to miss as "Jacques" was quite faded


My wonderful Fuji FinePix F300EXR went to ISO 400 in broad daylight

A guy offered to guide me for 5€, which was quite cheap, but I preferred to wander on my own time.


Avenue


Coloured in words. Very good.


Run-down, out of bounds grave
Maybe the resident was evicted?






Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix


A meeting of ways


Famille Du Duc De Morny (Half-brother of Napoleon III)


Colourful tombstone. Mamette.


Balzac with protection




"Dias Santos Anne McDonald"
That's all I could make out


Another family grave. 2 of them hadn't died yet. I think Denise died before being born, ergo the lack of a birth year.


A lot of moss on grave. I wonder if they remove graves that are collapsing.


Grave with Chinese


Proust, with perhaps the plainest grave of the famous people

Most of the famous graves were along the ways, but some were nestled among others and required harder work to find. So for example I couldn't find Apollinaire.


Way dedicated to foreigners who died for France. It's nice for them to be remembered this way.


Crematorium

Unfortunately I couldn't find the plaque for Maria Callas put up by "Le Maria Callas International Club". Looking for plaques in a crematorium was even harder than looking for graves.


"Toi et Moi" ("You and Me")
Another resident waiting for his companion in life. Though they should've engraved V.M.'s birth year first.


manuella


Leilah Maih, with an exotic photo


Crematorium