Lies, Damned Lies, and Amazon Parcel Shipping Announcements

On April 2nd this year, I ordered a copy of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” on Bluray.

At 14:17 on Sunday April 8th, I received notification that it had shipped, via Amazon’s own, in-house courier service.

At noon on Monday April 9th, I checked the delivery status via the Amazon ordering page and was told that the parcel was out for delivery and would be with me by 20:00. I checked again at 19:55 – just 5 minutes before the deadline and was able to confirm that it was still expected.

At 20:05 (and, largely curious to see if stepping past the anticipated delivery date would cause anything to happen with the shipping details) I checked again. I was told that the parcel was now still in transit, but that Amazon were “sorry” that it was delayed and that if it had not arrived by Thursday, I should contact them for assistance. Uh-uh. Where’s my parcel?

So I contacted a representative via a chat window. Top tip – if you ever have to contact Amazon, use a chat window. You will get the chance to receive an email copy of the entire transcript – which is useful evidence.

As to be expected, the loyal Amazon helper fell over himself to apologise – and did really well. To be fair, this was a rather unusual event. However, coming hot on the heels of some flat out lying and deceptive practices from Amazon regarding a printer order, I was inclined to be careful… This was what I got from the Amazon helper:

Please allow me to explain what seems to have happened. We do our best to ensure that all orders are delivered by the date provided when you place your order, but occasionally due to the volume of orders dispatched, there are rare occasions when a carrier receives an order that wasn’t originally assigned to them. However, we still expect your order to arrive as expected.

Be assured, this is not an common occurrence and our transportation team is working hard to eliminate these issues and continually monitor instances like this.”

When I expressed relief that the helper suggested the parcel would arrive on Tuesday April 10th, I got a bit of a surprise:

I don’t want to set any false expectation to your but as the parcel arrive to the carrier facility which was not assign to the order so there might be 1-2 days of delay as we have to ask the carrier to locate your parcel which takes 1-2 days.”

Wait, what? What’s this “locate my parcel” lark? You’ve just spent 10 minutes telling me that the parcel is with the courier and is in the van that delivers to my local area. So there was quite a bit more bluff and bluster about how everything was all in hand, but, basically, that was it.

Or was it? Take a look at the photograph, below, which is the shipping envelope in which it arrived today… See the dispatch date, at the top? “09/04”. Monday. [You might notice I’ve blanked the delivery address, just for the sake of privacy…]

So all that lovely detail about how it had been dispatched on Sunday morning was just complete fabrication. Typical.

Bastards.

A Question of Earth-Shattering Importance

This last weekend I met some friends for lunch. Over a fantastic afternoon, one of the topics that came up for discussion was the movie “Blade Runner 2049“, starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.

This led to the supremely important question from the original movie: Is Deckard (Harrison Ford’s Character) a Replicant?

Spoiler Alert:

In narrow, simplistic terms: yes, yes he is. But – it’s just a tad more complex than that.

Before we dive in to the complexity, however, here’s a brief explanation – and proof – that the above statement is at least partially true. In a televised interview, made after the release of BR2049, Ridley Scott explicitly confirms that the “movie version” of Deckard is a Replicant.

He explains that in the middle of the film there is a scene in which Deckard sits at a piano, in his apartment, where he dreams. The dream sequence is of a verdant, grassy meadow with a unicorn galloping gently towards the camera.

Then, in the closing scene of the film, where Deckard is “escaping” with Rachael, we see him scout the way as he escorts her to the elevator in his apartment building. He turns back to check that they are alone and spots a tiny origami unicorn, placed on the floor just outside Deckard’s apartment. At that moment we hear Gaff (the always-awesome Edward James Olmos) calling out as if from a distance, “It’s a pity she won’t live!”

The first scene mentioned here clearly shows the view that Deckard is experiencing a dream. The second also shows us that Gaff knows the content of the dream and has found a way to let Deckard “know that he knows”. Obviously, the only way that Gaff could know about Deckard’s dream would be if Deckard were a Replicant. Earlier in the movie the viewer is given another example of this – when Deckard applies the Voight-Kampf test to Rachael, they discuss her dream about the spiders – a “memory” implanted in Rachael but which Deckard had been briefed on. The unicorn dream is the same approach applied to Deckard and Gaff.  Given the perceived threat of rogue Replicants, it’s conceivable that Gaff would at some point have been asked to “retire” Deckard – the origami unicorn at the apartment was Gaff’s way of saying, “Get out of here – scram – I’m not going to ‘retire’ you…”

 

All of which – but in particular Ridley’s comments in the linked YouTube clip, give us a very definitive answer – for the movies. However, that’s not the whole story.

Blade Runner itself [the original] was based on a book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”,  by Philip K. Dick. In the book, at least, this question was never definitively resolved. The origami we see in the film was a device added to the story, by Scott, with the specific intention of answering this question – but in a really subtle way.

I am still searching for a quotation from Philip K. Dick on the subject and will update this post if I find one I can link to.

Was Deckard a Replicant or a human? Yes, he was definitely one of those.

2017 Pedal Car Grand Prix

This year the Pedal Car Grand Prix returned to town [it alternates with Ringwood] and once again the turnout and enthusiasm of both Teams and spectators was exceptional. It was a fiercely hot day – exhausting just to wander round taking photographs, so spare a thought for the contestants. We had a couple of minor spills and quite a few “racing incidents” – let’s just say that the “sin bin” saw a fair few visitors this year… On the whole, though, it was an entertaining spectacle and as popular as ever.

I took the opportunity to try out the Olympus OM-D EM-1 MkII “focus tracking”… To start with I found this to be remarkable fiddly – for example, give it an approaching pedal car and it will generally select the front of the car itself [usually the logo or race number] as the target. However, as the subject draws closer, so the camera’s built-in facial recognition software kicks in and the moment that it detects a person in the vehicle, the focus would automatically adjust. A little bit of patience and a lot of faith were certainly required. On the other hand, 16fps continuous shooting, with a ludicrously large capture buffer meant that burst-mode shooting was the order of the day.

The last time I was here I had my Canon EOS 7D with a 24-70mm lens [38-112mm equivalent] and I probably kept 2-3 images. This year I was using the Olympus with the 40-150mm lens [80-300mm equivalent] and I reckon that more than 60% were sharp enough to look to keep… OK, the Canon is quite a bit older, but it’s amazing to see how far the technology has moved.

Deceptive Calm

Early last month I had decided to venture out with a camera to see if there was anything worth capturing on a clear winter’s day on the South Coast of the UK. In the end I wound up at Mudeford Quay, near Christchurch, and discovered “the Run” – the narrow channel that connects Christchurch harbour to the English Channel – was practically motionless, with next to zero sign of moving water, and just the gentlest of swell formed where the outbound current met the waters of Christchurch Bay.

Given how turbulent this location normally is, either this was a rare event, or I was lucky enough to catch this precisely as the tide turned.

Marvel-less Marwell

Having recently treated myself to a new lens (the ridiculously good Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 Pro), I was in search of something interesting to go point it at when I saw an article relating to Marwell Zoological Park…

And no, before you wonder what a UK zoo has to do with the comic/movie mega-franchise, the answer is nothing. In fact, the title of this post is a reference to the remarkably dreary experience of visiting what is supposed to be one of the UK’s premiere wildlife attractions. The animals were listless, lifeless and looked to be mostly bored. The enclosures were poorly maintained and dirty, the “viewing areas” – most of which were glazed rather than fenced off with wired netting – included filthy glass covered with hand-prints, smeared ice-cream or chocolate and were overlooking empty views. I’d estimate that something like 20-25% of the exhibits were closed. I only bothered trying one cafeteria, which seemed to be offering a good range of hot food – but soggy and tasteless sandwiches [more fool me] all charged at obscene prices.

It was interesting to go somewhere different, but I came away wishing I’d spent my £20 admission and ~ £7 lunch money going somewhere slightly less oppressive. Oh well. Not many shots pulled out just yet – I took about 220 and just skimmed through quickly looking for a few examples. Lens did spectacularly well. Anything of less than stunning quality here is either as a consequence of the subject being a *long* way back [Snow Leopard, for example] or thanks to the idiot operating the camera…