The idea is both simple and more or less selfless, and revolves around a single core concept: getting things for free is awesome.  While I have no control over whether I get stuff for free – short of taking up shoplifting as a hobby, and even then the only freebie I get is likely to be a lift in a shiny police car – I can control whether other people receive free gifts.

So I do.  Every so often, I log on to Amazon and type a name into the Wish List search.  I scroll down the list and pick someone at random – before buying them an item that they’ve been wanting but never got around to buying.

While it sounds a little stalkerish, it’s pretty safe for all concerned: I never see the person’s address – beyond a rough idea of where in the country they are – and unless I choose to identify myself in the gift message options they never know who I am either.  Somebody, somewhere, receives a book, CD, DVD, or game randomly and without cost to themselves – guaranteed to put a smile on their face for the day.

I never spend much – no more than £5 or £10 – and despite the fact that I’ll never see the person’s face as they open the parcel I get a surprising amount of enjoyment from the simple act of altruism.

Which is why I’ve written this blog post: starting now, each Wish List gift I send out will have a short URL in the gift message – http://wp.me/pkhQL-85 – which points them towards this page.  When a person receives the gift, hopefully they’ll be curious enough to visit and read about why they’ve received a parcel out of the blue – and I hope that a non-zero percentage of those will consider brightening someone else’s day with a purchase of their own, pointing that person to this page and starting the free-gift-happiness-ball rolling.

So, if you’ve received a parcel with an unexpected present in it pointing you towards this site – and if it brightened up your day at all – think about doing the same for another lucky soul.  If you do, include the URL of this page in the gift message just as it was included in yours – and if not, never mind.  Enjoy your gift, and know that somebody somewhere wanted to make a stranger’s day that little bit happier.

DISCLAIMER: This post is in no way affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by Amazon or its subsidiaries.  No links on this page containing tracking identifiers or affiliate codes, and no money or other consideration makes its way from Amazon to me.  Amazon has no idea I do this.  Feel free to use any site with a wish-list option – I just find Amazon the easiest.  Your mileage may vary.  May contain traces of nuts.  Void where prohibited.

While out and about, I spotted an amusing sign of which I wanted to take a picture.  Again, nothing special – it’s something I do quite a lot.

This particular sign was located in the window of the Halifax Holland & Barrett store, and proclaimed that the store was a “plastic free zone” that proudly used no plastic bags.  This time, I wasn’t pulling it up on grammar – instead, it was the factuality of the sign that amused me.  You see, in the window alongside the “plastic free zone” sign were plastic bags.  Oodles of them.  In fact, the vast majority of products in the window were pre-packaged in either plastic bags or plastic pots.

Camera – well, cameraphone – in hand, I snapped the sign.  Moving to the front of the window, I prepared to take a shot of the plastic bags.

Then: the lone shop assistant – a girl in her early twenties – ran out and positioned herself in front of me shouting “You can’t take photos – it’s against copyright!”

Let’s review: I’m stood on public property, causing no obstruction, quietly taking a photo of something visible from a public place where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, for non-commercial use.  Clearly, she’s off her rocker.

When I corrected her and continued to take the picture, she went inside and called the security guard on a two-way radio.  Quite what she thought he’d do – given I had at no point entered the store – I’m not sure, but it’s a moot point: apparently Halifax’s security guards were “out of town” and unavailable to attend.  After waiting for a friend to finish shopping in the store, I walked off to find some lunch.

Tomorrow, I’m going back with a group of people – including an ex-policeman – and we’re all taking photos of Holland & Barrett’s storefront.  We’re also taking photos of each other taking photos of Holland & Barrett’s storefront – and if any copyright ‘experts’ fancy telling us that we can’t exercise our rights on public property, it might be time to exercise the cheapo HD camcorder I bought a few months back.

Oh, and I think that the Advertising Standards Authority would be interested in the false claim regarding the plastic bags.

TL;DR: Don’t fuck with a photographer.  We’re more than aware of our rights.

As first reported over on HardOCP, some of Newegg’s customers reported receipt of apparently fake versions of Intel i7-920 CPU retail boxes – containing mock CPU, heatsink, and blank documentation.

With a YouTube unboxing video showing the external realism, it’s not hard to see how the issue wasn’t spotted until customers started to unbox the fakes: from the outside, the only apparent issue is a few grammatical and spelling errors on the English blurb. Once the package is unboxed, however, the problem becomes apparent: a solid, fake heatsink; a blank instruction manual; and a non-functional, slightly curved processor.

While many are seeing this as a case of fake processors being snuck into Newegg’s supply chain, the official line from the company – as reported over on TechPowerup is that the fake retail boxes aren’t intended to be malicious. Instead, the retailer has claimed on its Twitter page that the fakes are “demo boxes” which were mistakenly shipped to customers by “one of our long-term partners.”

Whether the claim of demo boxes is anything other than face-saving by the retailer, the fact that the company has “already begun proactively reaching out to the affected customers” and ensuring that their purchases are replaced with fully functional units will come as a reassurance to Newegg’s customers.

Still, it does raise the question of how exactly the mix-up occurred: if the items are, as the company claims, demo boxes – why the effort to make them look as realistic as they do, complete with fake heatsink and blank manual? If the boxes are, as many instead believe, counterfeits – how did they enter Newegg’s supply chain and make it as far as being shipped to customers? So far, the company is remaining silent as to the long-term effects this issue could have on customer confidence.

Note the shotgun-like approach to grammar involved in this image, where every single S is preceded by an errant apostrophe – with the  exception of “brows” and “extensions,” which I can only assume were missed by mistake.

The sign may declare that “Beauty Matterz,” but I posit that grammar ‘matterz’ more.

It seems that the simple rule of “an apostrophe never pluralises” is too much for the shopkeepers of our great nation.  While we’re already aware of the horrendous abuse piled upon the innocent possessive apostrophe by Asda, we could perhaps forgive the Septic owners – Mall-Wart – for their crimes, being as they are somewhat backward in the linguistic stakes as a consequence of their birth nation.

Sadly, there can be no such excuse for Sainsbury’s – and how ironic it is that the company name is correctly formatted with a possessive apostrophe of its own.  If only it could have alerted its guardians as to their folly as they proceed to litter an aisle sign with not one, but two superfluous of its brethren.  For shame.

Sure, there’s always the less legitimate method; but what if you could have a completely free download with no guilt and no midnight knocks from the copyright police?

With this thought in my mind, I Googled my little heart out and tracked down the rather neat Jamendo: a free MP3 download service that offers only Creative Commons licensed work.  With some 22,000 albums to pick from, it’s a veritable horn of plenty – and there’s some pretty awesome stuff on there.  I’m particularly fond of the French group Myl-n So.

It’s all DRM free MP3, completely legal, and you don’t even have to sign up.  Neat-o!

Don’t say I never give you anything, wretches.

Take, for example, this woeful tale of a poor innocent apostrophe who found himself sandwiched between “DVD” and “s” at the Asda Living store in Forster Square, Bradford.

Clearly there was some twisted logic in the minds of his tormentors: after all, you use an apostrophe to indicate missing letters, right?  The ultimate D in DVD stands for “Disc”, which means there are missing letters – ergo an apostrophe is required, right?

Sadly for our poor, misused apostrophe: wrong.  An apostrophe, as I’m sure you are aware, never pluralises.  Remember: no means no.

The latest entry in the Hall of Apostrophe Abuse comes courtesy of Wickes in Bradford, which managed to forbid a trolley from taking something past the nicely laminated sign – although I’m at a loss as to what.  Presumably a trolley bereft of belongings is welcome to proceed as far as it cares.

Hopefully I’ll have time for a more loquacious update this weekend.

No, there’s no point to assembling the ‘puzzle’ – except that someone has gone to a not inconsiderable effort to design the thing to be put together, so it would be rude of me to not.