Adventures with used car salesmen

Posted on 2011/05/04 by Antony

No, it’s not what you think. This isn’t the usual dishonest used car salesman story.

So, I’ve been looking to buy a car for the last few months. I do all of my searching online, and only go to test drive a car that I’ve already decided would probably be a good fit. Anyway, I go in, test drive a car, and we walk inside to ‘run some numbers’.

The guy turns on his computer and notices that the icons on his screen (Windows Vista) are huge. He has no idea what’s going on and starts complaining. He calls in one of the other guys and says “what did you do, you made all the icons huge. What did you do! How do I undo it!”

I’m of course chuckling inside, as it’s pretty obvious that all that’s happened is the screen resolution has been decreased. I decide to keep quiet, as they both seem to be passing on the blame. Then the second guy puts his hand on the monitor and does the pinch-to-zoom gesture. No, he was not joking. I quietly muttered “You know this isn’t an iPad, right?”

Anyway, after a few minutes, they gave up, so I offered to fix it for them. I think their response was even more surprising. “Woa! how did you learn how to do that!”
Fortunately, I refrained from replying “By myself, when I was 7.”

protecting personal information

Posted on 2011/04/03 by Antony

For reasons that aren’t important, I bought 2 cell phones yesterday (rundown, they were for other people).
The sellers were both in their 20s and I contacted them both through craigslist.

One of them worked a technical job at an Engineering firm. The other probably worked at Walmart.
So, the purpose of the story. Both of the phones I purchased had hundreds of contacts, text messages, photos and emails still on the phone.
Are people seriously stupid? The first thing I did when I got each device was do a factory reset. It took me all of 20 seconds to do it. Why aren’t people concerned about these things?

So, a word of advice, don’t just assume the guy buying your stuff will be nice enough to do a factory reset. Do it yourself.

Overtime.

Posted on 2011/03/21 by Antony

I remember when I was a student and was paid hourly. I used to sign up for frequent Saturday shifts. The same went for holidays. I worked 9-5 every day of the 2 week Christmas break, worked thanksgiving, etc… The same happened over the summer holidays. While many of my friends would go home and literally do nothing for the entire months of June, July and August, I would work. I was still able to have a social life. I would just hang out with my friends at night. Some semesters I took classes over the summer break, but I would still work at least 30 hours/week. It just felt good to build up some savings. To be honest, I always wondered what some of my non-working friends did all day. Some of them had a class at 10am, then another class a 3pm, and another at 5pm. But what did they do the the rest of the day…. seriously? I usually had class blocked out perfectly. I has class from 9-1pm, and worked from 1-5pm. I had to take exams at the testing centre at night, which sucked, but still, it was worth it when my paycheck arrived. Still, back to my main point. I worked those extra hours because my hours correlated perfectly with my paycheck.

Everything changed the moment I graduated and was switched to Salary. Suddenly it didn’t matter if I worked 40 or 70 hours in a given week. My paycheck looked identical. My eagerness to work overtime disappeared instantly.Why should I work weekends? Why should I stay late?

Everyone knows to expect occasional overtime. I understand that sometimes there are important deadlines, but where do you draw the line? After 45 hours? 50? 60? how about 70? In reality, most managers have no incentive to protect a full-time salaried employee from overtime. After all, it costs them the same whether you work 40 or 70 hours in any given week. So, if a company can produce more in 70 vs 40 hours of work, and at the same exact cost…. overtime almost seems like an inevitability. I suppose like everything in this world, there’s hierarchy. At the end of the day, a manager (or boss) just wants to report success to his superiors. They want to report that the project is complete/working. They don’t really want to report that they sent their engineers home due to too much overtime, and that they’ll fix it the following morning.

During my last few jobs I’ve noticed that there are 2 distinct types of managers (though obviously various subsets of each).

Manager-1 cares specifically about his employees. He wants to get the best out of them, but doesn’t want to take advantage of them. He wants to treat them fairly, and pay them according to their worth. If a project doesn’t get completed on time, the manager will (unless it’s absolutely urgent) alert his superiors that the deadline was unrealistic, that there were unforeseen complications, and that it will be finished soon. In the event that there’s a problem that’s absolutely mission critical, and requires overtime, Manager-1 will very nicely ask his employees for help, and, most importantly, make up for it later. Whether that is a raise/bonus and/or time off depends on the amount and frequency of the overtime. Not only that, but a good manager will proactively try to prevent overtime from being necessary, usually by either stretching out release dates, or hiring more employees.
Manager-2 only cares about results. You’ll only ever go home on time if absolutely EVERYTHING is finished perfectly. Manager-2 only ever wants to report success to his superiors. He hates to hear complaints, even if they’re extremely valid. If something goes wrong, it doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night, or if you’ve already put in 60 hours that week, he’ll call, wake you up, and expect you to start work immediately. You won’t be compensated, and won’t be thanked, as you’re expected to do this sort of thing. Manager-2 likes to take credit for his employee’s work. Worse than that, he ends up believing it himself. Because of this, when a worker complains that he’s done too much overtime, Manager-2 is surprised, as he really believes he’s the hardest working person in the office.

Like most of us, I’ve had both types of bosses before. As you can guess, employees of Manager-1 are much more willing to do overtime, as they know their boss will make it right. Not only that, but they’ll try to make their boss look good in front of his superiors. It’s ironic, but the manager who only values results usually gets worse results.

Fads

Posted on 2011/02/08 by Antony

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt while living in the USA, it’s that Americans love being obsessed about something, and they love going to the extreme.

Not once in England did I see anyone dress up to go to the cinema, but here, each time a Harry Potter film comes out, you can expect it to happen. The same happened for Twilight, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek etc..
But why? Why the need to obsess about something. Interestingly enough, it’s always the same group of people. While you might think that of the 1000 group of people, a subset dress up for Harry Potter, and another unique subset dresses up for Twilight, I’d be willing to bet there’s a huge overlap. There are just people who like to be obsessed about stuff, and dress up for it, so they obsess about lots of different shows. It must give them excitement…. or something.

The same goes for exercise. People here either go to Gold’s Gym every morning at 5am, or eat twelve doughnuts a day. There doesn’t seem to be a medium. I don’t really know anyone who goes to the gym twice a week. It’s either zero or five.
Seriously, what’s the deal with 5am! I’d have to be really, really in need of exercise to put myself through that. In fact, since I moved here I’ve pretty much fluctuated between those two groups. When I was younger I was on the track, cross-country and tennis teams all at the same time. I played tennis five times a week for two hours and ran between 30-50 miles(also each week). Then, later, I took up mountain biking, and would go every night for between 20-40 miles at a time.

So, what do I do now? In a word, nothing. Since graduating from University, I’ve had a desk job, and no reason to train. Before, the practice wasn’t so much for exercise, it was to win. Those who know me know I’ve always been extremely competitive. Whether it’s the final of a tennis tournament, a state championship 800m race, or just a game of scrabble. I just hate losing. That was always part of the reason I trained. In England I was a bit of a strange runner. I ran the 100m, the 1500m, and cross-country. Why didn’t I ever run the 400m. I’m not really sure. Probably because I was lazy and it hurts the most. To this day I’m still not sure what hurts more, the 400m, or the 800m. If you run them correctly they’re both excruciating. Most of the time, during cross-country I would jog along toward the front of the pack,

When I first started taking cross-country seriously, I would just run at school during practice, and that was it. That is, until I lost. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I spent the entire Christmas break running twice a day, usually 6 miles in the morning, and another 6 at night. And I ran fast. And I ran outside, like you’re supposed to, not on some fake treadmill. It’s the hardest I’ve ever trained, and I was only 16. For probably the only time in my life I was able to run a sub 50 second 400m, and a sub 2 minute 800m. Unfortunately, I came back after the break, won, and went back to only running during class time. Of course, it’s not quite that simple. Cross-country was always from September to December, while Tennis AND Track was in January. Juggling both Tennis and Track was a bit of a challenge. I had track from 3-4pm and Tennis from 4-6pm (and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I actually had a part time job from 6-10pm… in the CourgarEat at BYU…. Nothing I’m too proud of, but you should never be ashamed of working during school. Believe me, I’ve met some lazy students who lived off of Daddy’s dime, but I’ll leave for another post. Anyway I made some cool friends, and dumped it for a job in computers as soon as I could).

So, back to the original topic of fads. Two years ago P90x was all the rage. I distinctly remember going to lunch (at a fast food place) with a couple of friends. One of them ordered enough food for 3 people, and then complained that P90x was not working. That was the first I’d heard of it, and all experience taught me was that it couldn’t do the impossible.
It seems that the newest exercise fad is Zumba. It seems like a great idea. A ‘fun’ way to lose weight. I already have dozens of friends (though all girls) who are obsessed with it. Seeing as P90x is targeted mostly at males, it was only a matter of time. Still, just as everyone’s obsession with P90x has slowly died down, I expect the same to happen to Zumba. By design, Zumba is repetitive, and there are only so many different ways of jumping up and down. Still, I suppose anything that motivates someone to be healthy is a good thing. Denisse has started to look into it, and it’s interesting to see her check out youtube videos of it. It’s ironic, but the more popular an exercise programme is, the less effective it is to do it in a group. On all the youtube videos there are a couple instructors with literally hundreds of people crammed in together imitating. You can clearly see that there isn’t room for any of the audience to properly imitate. Still, can’t blame them for trying.

Oh Amazon…

Posted on 2011/01/08 by Antony

I love Amazon. Their prices are almost always good, their shipping is free (over $25), and up until now I’ve had native speakers when I called with a problem. That is, up until now.
I ordered a $400 item last week. The package tracking shows it as delivered, but it wasn’t.

Usually I’ve had pretty good luck calling in to Amazon support, but today was a today disaster. First I called. I got a person I couldn’t understand, was put on hold, and later hung up on.

Then I decided to use “Live chat”
Here is a short excerpt.

You are now connected to Pradip Kumar from Amazon.com.

Me:Package was not delivered (as claimed) called, but was hung up on by Amazon CSR.

Pradip Kumar:Hello, my name is Pradip. I’ll be happy to help you. Let me check this. I see that the tracking is showing delivered.

(Notice he tells me something I already know (package shows as delivered), and doesn’t apologize for being hung up on.

Me:yes. but it wasn’t

Pradip Kumar:I’m sorry to hear you weren’t able to locate your package, even though tracking says it’s been delivered. Sometimes a carrier will accidentally scan a package as “Delivered” when it’s actually still on the way. When this happens, the package is usually delivered within the next few business days. If this is the case, the original package would arrive sooner than a replacement, so I’d like to ask you to wait until January 17 in case the shipment does arrive.

Me:fine. but i really needed my package by this week

Pradip Kumar:I understand and I’m sorry about this. I see that it has already shipped and I hope it will be delivered on or before January 17. Just to compensate the delay I’ll refund you the shipping charges that you paid for this order. Will that help?

Me:I did not pay shipping charges

Pradip Kumar:I’m sorry about that information. That was not meant for you. Let me check this a bit further. OK, Antony. I see that the tracking isn’t updated. You’ll receive this package before January 17.

This instills confidence. He’s confused me with a different customer.

Me:It is updated. It shows it was already delivered (on Thursday)

Pradip Kumar:Actually sometimes a carrier accidentally scan a package as “Delivered” when it’s actually still on the way. I’m sorry about that. Your shipment is late, but not yet presumed lost. In my experience, late packages arrive not long after the estimated delivery date. Please wait a little longer, until January 17, before requesting a refund or replacement. January 17 is the waiting period.

Me:We’re not talking about ‘estimated delivery’. The item shows that it actually WAS delivered

Pradip Kumar:Yes, I understand that and I can confirm that the package isn’t lost. It’s on the way. I’ll follow up with you to see if you’ve received the package after January 17. If you haven’t received your package at that time, I’ll make sure to get a replacement or refund for you.

How on earth can he confirm that my package isn’t lost? Even UPS thinks it’s lost.

Me:How can you confirm? UPS shows the package has been delivered.

Pradip Kumar:Will that help?

Me:you claim you can confirm that the package wasn’t lost and it’s on its way, but that’s not possible, you can only see the same tracking information as I have and it shows delivered.

This is where I got disconnected again. Brilliant. Thanks Amazon.

It’s clear you can’t get everything in life. If you want good customer service, it’s going to cost more money, so arguably you can’t blame Amazon, as they’re just trying to keep their prices low. Still, I expected more from you Amazon……

Yet another mobile phone

Posted on 2010/10/10 by Antony

Those of you who know me know that a little over six months ago I started a new job at HP working on their Web Print Solutions team. Leaving my previous job at a startup meant giving up my old phone (Motorola Droid). It was a great phone. One that I’d only had for about five months. During the transition, I temporarily bought an old HTC T-Mobile G1 with a month to month plan. I had that for two months until HP got me a phone on their corporate plan. Working for such a huge company has many differences vs the average startup. First, they actually produce equipment that you use. Rather than buying everything from other companies, you can order many things from yourself (internally), and save a bunch of money. Because of this, if HP makes a version of something you want to buy, it’s usually expected that you get the HP version. Usually this doesn’t matter, as I don’t really care if my computer monitor is made by HP or someone else. There aren’t going to be too many differences. But, in the case of a mobile phone, the differences are huge. I was only given the option of one phone on one network. Unfortunately for me, the options were both bad. It uses the worst ‘smartphone’ operating system (OS), on the nation’s least reliable network. The reason for the lack of choice? HP builds their own phones, and have only released them for AT&T. It would obviously look pretty bad if HP employees didn’t use their own phones. Now, as I’m sure you’re wondering, “why can HP force you to get a certain type of phone!” Obviously they can’t force you to buy a certain type of phone, but they can restrict what types of phones they give their employees. Due to my job, HP pays for my phone (and plan), so it’s only fair that they choose what it is. Thus, my only choice was to get an HP iPaq Glisten on AT&T.
I am a current HP employee, so I probably shouldn’t be too critical. But I’ll say one thing. They’re using Windows Mobile 6.5, and I believe Windows Mobile 6.5 to be truly terrible. HP, being mostly a hardware (and services) company didn’t have their own mobile OS. Most mobile OS’s aren’t for sale. Apple and RIM won’t licence out their OS for use on HP hardware. So really, there were only 3 options:

Build their own OS
Ship with a licensable OS, such as Windows Mobile (or, more recently, Android and Symbian)
Buy a phone company that already owns its own mobile OS

Which did HP do? Well, they started out doing #2. The problem here is that they were entirely reliant on Microsoft to do a good job for them to have a successful product. As we all know, the iPhone came out a little over 3 years ago, and blew Windows Mobile out of the water. So HP was left with a huge problem. They had an inferior product because Microsoft had dropped the ball. By only controlling the hardware, HP could only do so much to compete against the iPhone (and more recently, Android), so it wasn’t their fault they had an inferior device. The solution? Either switch to Android, or buy a phone company. In July 2010 HP purchased Palm Inc. for $1.2b, thus giving them the very capable mobile OS named webOS, along with a whole bunch of useful patents. Now HP controls both the hardware and software.

So, what does this all have to do with me? Well, since HP now owns Palm (and webOS), Palm phones are now on the approved list of devices for HP employees. This means that I’m now able to get a Palm prē + (in doing so, I’m also able to switch to Verizon Wireless, the best national carrier! hooray for no more dropped calls!). The choice was really a no-brainer. I was given the choice between the Palm Prē or Palm Pixi on either of the available carriers (Verizon, Sprint or AT&T). Obviously Verizon is the biggest/best carrier, and the Prē is clearly Palm’s flagship device (having a significantly superior CPU/GPU over the Pixi). Also worth noting is that the Palm Prē came out first on Sprint. 6 months later, it arrived on Verizon and AT&T with double the RAM and flash memory (512MB RAM and 16GB Flash), redubbed the Palm Prē plus. So by choosing Verizon I not only got the best network, but also the best version of the Prē.

So, how do I like it so far? While it’s obviously miles better than Windows Mobile, I do admit I’m still a fan of Android. Having said that, webOS is an extremely capable OS. To be honest, my major gripes with the phone are actually hardware (read: all easily fixable). The main issues I have with it are screen resolution (480×320, which is very last-gen), and the small screen (3.1″, also last-gen). With all recent Android devices being 3.7″ or bigger, with at least 800×480 resolution, this screen feels a little cramped. Also, the CPU feels a little underpowered. It’s the same CPU as in the original Droid (though it’s underclocked to 500Mhz). And the Droid has obviously since been replaced with the Droid 2. All recent Android smartphones have been coming out with 1Ghz CPUs, and having ‘just’ a 500Mhz CPU is noticeable. Still, two great things are the RAM and Flash storage. Both are as good as any other device on the market (with the exception of the $300 iPhone 32GB). The keyboard is decent, and usable despite being of the small portrait variety, rather than the more common landscape kind. Another downside is the fast that the touch screen is plastic (versus almost all modern smartphones that are now hardened or Gorilla glass).

I actually don’t have too many complaints for webOS. It’s an extremely polished OS with a great user interface (UI). It has clearly been designed to compete with the iPhone. In many ways it trumps it. Multitasking is perfect, and there are a number of great ideas and keyboard shortcuts. Cut/Copy/Paste is great, as is Synergy, webOS’s way of combining contacts from numerous sources such as Gmail, Facebook, Exchange and Yahoo.

The obviously downside to not having sold too many devices is the fact that the Palm App Catalog has only a small fraction of the apps that Android and iOS uers have, but, if HP can deliver great hardware in the coming months, users with flock to it, which will in turn bring developers.

The biggest loser in all of this is of course Microsoft. They’re had nothing good to compete with the iPhone for 3 1/2 years, and because of it they’ve lost HP, Motorola and most of HTC, as customers. Microsoft’s new mobile OS, Windows Phone 7 is set for release this month, which will be the first time Microsoft officially supports capacitive touch screens (disgraceful huh?). Honestly, how does a company with a research and development budget the size of Microsoft’s take 3 1/2 years to catch up with Apple?
I’ll tell you why. Some companies, such as Apple and Google are creative companies. They create something better because they can. Microsoft, being the dominant player in most markets doesn’t need to take such risks. They merely need to maintain what they have without taking too many risks. Then, if a competitor releases a significantly superior product, Microsoft has time to ‘play catchup.’ Obviously this isn’t good for the consumer, as we’re all reliant on the Apples and Googles of this world to provide innovation. I’m getting off topic here, but just ask yourselves why Microsoft fired the Internet Explorer team after they released Internet Explorer 6. Why? Because there was no competition, Netscape was dead. Why did they bring them back to create Internet Explorer 7 (many many years later), simply because Firefox was released. If Firefox had not been released, Microsoft would not have improved Internet Explorer 6. Ever. Ironically, I remember when Internet Explorer 7 was released. Mozilla (creators of Firefox) made the statement “Internet Explorer 7 is the best release we’ve ever made.” (obviously implying that the only reason IE 7 was released was because of the competition they’d created with Firefox).

Will Windows Phone 7 be good? Probably; but it had better be after almost 5 years in development. The problem is, I don’t want to use Microsoft products because you then become tied to a company that only innovates if they have to, rather than because they want to. I really believe that if the iPhone (and Android) had never been released, WP7 would never have existed in its current form. They’d probably still be using a stylus. If WP7 is good, it will all be thanks to Apple and Google.

Adventures at the fuel pump

Posted on 2010/09/16 by Antony

So, since someone who shall remain nameless (only be known by the letters kdr) said my blog was too boring and geeky, I’ve decided to post what happened to me yesterday while trying to fill up with fuel.
This happened at the Conoco in American Fork, UT.

I get off work and drive to the nearest petrol station. I pull out my credit card, swipe, and begin fueling. I’ve only put in about a gallon when a woman (dressed in Conoco employee uniform) comes out and starts yelling that I haven’t paid for gas. I tell her that I swiped my card. She repeats herself, getting frustrated with me, and tells me I need to come inside to pay. I’m obviously a little annoyed at this point, as I was in a bit of a hurry.

I go inside, and the woman explains that the guy on the pump next to me had pre-paid $15 for fuel, and by some accident, they’d allotted the money to my pump by mistake, and I’d used his fuel. She then proceeds to tell me that I owe this random guy $3.07. She asks me to pay him. I obviously refuse. I then tell the lady that I was going to pay with a credit card. I explain that I bought the fuel from Conoco, and will be paying Conoco with my credit card. The Conoco employee says she doesn’t know how to fix the problem. The only solution is for me to pay the guy $3.07, the guy then pumps the remaining $11.93, then pays Conoco my $3.07 and pumps that. She claimed there was no other way, and asks me if I can drive to an ATM to get the money. Being so extremely complicated (note the sarcasm), I explain that the guy can pump the remaining $11.93 and then I can do a pre-pay of $3.07 with my credit card, which he can then pump as well. Then everyone’s paid and everyone’s happy (except for the fact that I’ve just wasted 10 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.)

Sounds simple, right?

Wrong.

Everything goes according to plan. The guy pumps the remaining $11.93. I then pre-pay for $3.07. But, then, rather than send my $3.07 to the guy’s pump, the lady send the $3.07 to a different pump, and the EXACT SAME THING HAPPENS AGAIN. She darts out toward the pumps and starts screaming at this poor woman “You haven’t paid, you haven’t paid. Stop pumping fuel.”

I’m not so much fed up at this point, I’m just shocked at the sheer incompetence. The woman asks me to wait until this is all sorted out. I kindly explain that I have now paid for my $3.07 of fuel, and that I’m free to leave. I also mention that I still only pumped 1 gallon of fuel, but that I will be using that gallon to get to a different gas station.

I leave.

The cost of engineering

Posted on 2010/08/31 by Antony

I read something very interesting the other day while looking for a Firmware update to my Samsung LN46b650 HDTV.

An owner of the same TV as me was asking (on a forum) Samsung to release an updated firmware with support for more codecs. The Samsung rep. replied that it was an older model, and that engineering effort was mostly spent on newer and unreleased models. Sounds obvious so far, right?
Here comes the funny part. The user replies:

“I would be willing to pay for the requested firmware update to defray the companies costs”

Does anyone else see how realize how stupid this sounds?

Having worked as an Engineer at several different places I can tell you that engineering a new firmware is no quick and simple task. It usually requires a Project Manager and depending on the size of the project, it can take between a few and dozens of Engineers. Then it takes lots Quality Assurance testers who verify that there are no regressions, and finally, it requires a Release Manager who approves the final release as ‘Production Ready.’
So, given the fact that the firmware is already available and a few features just need to be added does simplify things, but you’re still talking possibly thousands of man-hours. Even if one Engineer could do this upgrade by himself, it would still require lots of testing (imagine if an ‘update’ broke your TV!). All in all, you’re probably talking tens of thousands of dollars for a fairly simply update. Something that one individual user is hardly going to fund. Seriously, what was this guy willing to pay. $10? That pays a single engineer’s salary for about 12 minutes.

This isn’t the case with software updates. How many of us have downloaded a software ‘update’ that screwed stuff up? Probably all of us. The difference here is that you can usually fix a software update with another update (or hotfix). Firmware, however is different. Because it sits right on top of the hardware, it can do much more damage. It would be quite easy, for example, for a firmware update to break its own ability to update, so, the new firmware doesn’t allow further updating. With software, this can happen too, but there’s nothing stopping you from uninstalling and reinstalling an older version. This usually isn’t possible with Firmware.

It just goes to show that for a great Engineering product, you generally need to be selling millions of devices. How else can you afford to spend millions on Research and Development? Thats what makes my change of job so drastic. My last two jobs were very small startup companies. The first (http://novadrill.com/) had just a handful of Engineers, and we were each our own QA. They ended up being very successful, selling to a much larger company. The company had some good technology, but it needed to sell to one of the big players. In fact, it was always intended to be sold. There was never a plan to get to market alone. They knew they’d need lots and lots of funding, and that meant being bought out. The initial funding was really just to create products that could show great potential, and interest some of the big players. Now I’m at HP working on Eprint. There are literally hundreds of people involved. Every week I’m on a conference call with people I’ve never heard of. There are entire teams of people in multiple different countries working on different parts of the product. Of course, HP is only investing this much money on the project because they know that each year they sell millions and millions of printers. That means several things. 1, they will very quickly have a huge customer base, and 2, they want an extra edge over the competition, and obviously they wouldn’t mind getting their own app store.

Spain are World Champions!

Posted on 2010/07/14 by Antony

Despite playing in one of the roughest matches I’ve seen in years, Spain was able to finish with its fourth clean sheet in a row.
The dutch are a good team, but they’re a bunch of foulers.
The two most accountable are Van Bommel and de Jong. Van Bommel seemed to do everything possible to foul – and even worse, to annoy the Spanish players into fouling back. Being half Spanish, every time I saw Van Bommel smile and foul at the same time I just got more and more annoyed. Even if I were not half Spanish, watching the Dutch play would have been enough for me to want them to lose.

And here is the worst foul I have ever seen. Somehow he only got a yellow card. The only explanation is that the ref could only see this from a bad angle.
de Jong’s behaviour is absolutely despicable, and probably not an accident. Considering de Jong is the same guy who just a few months earlier broke Stuart Holden (a USA football player) in a reckless challenge.
Just look at him in the picture. He’s not looking at the ball at all!
This guy should be banned from football for a very, very long time.

Technology and Sport

Posted on 2010/06/28 by Antony

For most of the world these few weeks have been nothing but football.

I’m sure every World Cup is filled with referee errors, but this one has been particularly bad.
Perhaps they’re always this bad, but the viewer at home has more access to instant-replays during each passing tournament. You have to feel badly for the teams whose World Cup dreams get destroyed by a bad call, but I also feel for the referee. 1 billion people instantly know that he’s made a mistake. The worst, most obvious mistake would have to be in the England-Germany match. Here is what the Uruguayan referee saw after Frank Lampard scored a goal the first half of their round of 16 match against Germany

Clearly, there’s a definite need for technology of some kind. Be it instant replays, goal-line cameras, a 5th referee that has access to views from different cameras, etc…. There are many ways to solve this problem, and any of them would probably work. I personally like the way it works at Wimbledon. Each player is allowed a maximum of three incorrect challenges in a normal set after which they are not permitted to challenge again in that set. So, basically, if as long as you don’t make 3 incorrect challenges per set, you can challenge everything. . This has the advantage that it only happens with the player is fairly certain they are right, or when the point is crucial. There is very little time wasting or complaining, as rather than complain about a bad call, you just make an official challenge. (See official Wimbledon Challenge System here.)

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