People on the uninvited list
We’ve all seen those Q and As with well known people who get asked random questions which are supposed to provide some kind of psychological insight. Questions like ‘who do you most admire?’, ‘what is your favourite website?’ and – goodness only knows why – ‘what car do you drive?’
The question du jour in the posh mags is “who would you invite to your dinner party?”
But the more interesting question is “who wouldn’t you invite to your next dinner party?” Here are three on our list.
1. The Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which sets a range of Internet standards, met this week in Paris. They’d be a tough crowd to please.
They all rocked up to the Hotel Concorde Lafayette located by the Champs-Elysees, ready to attend a week of sessions with titles such as Multiparty Multimedia Session Control and Worthwhile Extensible Internet Registration Data Service.
Trouble was the wi-fi wasn’t up to scratch. And this is not a crowd that suffers poor connectivity – especially when there is an email guest list through which to vent frustration and discuss possible solutions.
"I've got what looks like a pretty good 802.11 connection, but am seeing about 30 percent packet loss. It's really not useable from my room as it is currently performing," noted one attendee
"There are significant issues with this infrastructure, and it varies depending on where you are in the hotel and the load at the time," messaged another. "I have seen similar performance numbers. For me it varied between 5 percent and 35 percent packet loss with latencies up to 5 or 6 seconds. That's obviously pretty painful."
You can find out how the saga unfolded – which some comments suggested should not have been reported here: IEFT attendees reengineer their hotels wi-fi networks
2. Skinny
“The word among event promoters around New Zealand is that Skinny's event sponsorship and marketing team is disorganised, inexperienced and totally unprofessional. They are more focused on getting to the events and partying. What do you expect when you hire people just because they are young regardless of their backgrounds or experience?”
So wrote Anonymous in a comment beneath the article about the involvement of Telecom’s sub-brand Skinny in a Skateboard competition that ended up plastered all over the news because of an alleged assault.
But if the intention of Skinny is the following:
a. Get noticed
b. Get noticed without spending too much
c. Get noticed without spending too much in a way that completely distances us from that dreary old Telecom brand.
Then you’d have to say that the Skinny sponsorship and marketing team are doing just fine.
Skatepark promotion backfires for Skinny mobile
3. Telecommunications commissioner
Just kidding Ross Patterson, we think you do a good job. But some of the other guests might not want to hear about telecommuncations all evening long. Oh what are we saying, of course they do.
Here are just three things that have been achieved under the good doctor’s watch to date.
a. Mobile Termination Rates regulated
b. Transition from Operational Separation of Telecom to Structural Separation of Telecom – with Commerce Commission oversight remaining intact under the Ultra Fast Broadband.
c. Robust monitoring of the telecommunications market through public reporting of broadband performance, market share issues and conferences that bring all the players in one room (sometimes in one panel discussion) to thrash out the issues.
Telecommunications commissioner position advertised
The cinnamon challenge
Over 11 million page views on YouTube, and a number of imitators.
What is this meme du jour?
A woman trying to eat a spoonful of cinnamon.
Fry Up is taking an Easter break, see you in a couple of weeks.