Strange Pants

Grab a historic copy of the (censored?) Fiji Times

When the Fiji Times launched a redesign of their flagship newspapers a few months ago, I don’t think they were contemplating the sort of strong use of white space evident in today’s (Sunday, April 12, 2009) Sunday Times.

I guess this has been building since the powers that be decided to vet the news pursuant to the freshly minted Public Emergency Regulations 2009, which provide for the “control of broadcast and publications”. Pictured here are pages 2 and 3 of the Fiji Times.

Censored: Fiji Times news

That’s a whole lot of ‘control’, and not much ‘publication’. And below is the editorial page (page 6).

Censored: Fiji Times cartoon and letter

The national sense of humour seems to have suffered somewhat.

For those of you wondering how we got to this state of affairs:

*Updated (13 April):* Added several new developments to the chronology.
*Updated (14 April):* Added link to Public Emergency Regulations. Added several new developments to the chronology.

Scooting off with Fiji's name ... again

Having previously written about products and companies misappropriating the name ‘Fiji’, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add a new infringer to the list.

Roketa MC-04 Fiji 150 Scooter

This fetching mode of transportation is the Roketa MC-04 Fiji 150CC Moped.

Roketa didn’t just stop at nicking Fiji’s name either: Aruba, Bahama[sic], Maui, Bali, Carpi, Sicily, Catalina and Jamaica are all doing double duty as moped names.

The company is based in Nanjing, China, with US distributors in California and Texas so any disputes about names may bounce around a bit before finding the right jurisdiction.

On the positive side, at least Roketa is selling an eco-friendly ‘Fiji’. A 150cc engine means you can run on the smell of an oily rag … there are lawn mowers out there with bigger engines.

Suva water - silting up your pipes

As part of recent family cost-cutting measures, we got rid of our water dispenser and bought a water filter to make the best of the Suva’s tap water.

The results have been educational.

Here is the ceramic dome in the first stage of the filter at the beginning of the week. Tap water has to seep through the micro-pores in this dome before it gets to the various other stages of the filter.

clean water filter

And here it is after a hard week filtering Suva’s sparkling, treated tap water:

dirty water filter

That’s a thick layer of silt people!

Now I’m all for developing resistance to the local bugs by way of a little exposure … but that’s a lot of silt to be gulping down with your daily hydration.

This is the rather basic 14 litre filter I got from Carpenter’s Hardware for about $50.

water filter

What about you? Sticking to the tap water? Got a filter? Or do you drink only the purest mineralised water bottled at a natural aquifer fed by dew drops from virgin rainforest?

Update: (15 March) Others have noticed! Seona Smiles column in the Sunday Times this week is dedicated to the art of feeding the filter. Go read it. She has better writing; I have better pictures.

Confusing coins

Have you noticed shopkeepers and cashiers checking your change more carefully of late? Perhaps since Fiji’s new coins were unleashed on the 16th of February?

This comparison of Fiji’s old and new coin series should explain.

Old and new Fiji coins

The 50cent coin has lost it’s distinctive shape. It’s now almost the same size as the old 20cent coin.

The new 20cent coin is about the same size as the old 10cent coin.

The mismatched size similarities between the wrong denominations of the new and old coins is driving me up the wall.

This is why the taxi driver who drove you home last night was in a good mood (he got fifties instead of twenties from a customer); and also why the driver who brought you to work this morning was in a foul mood (he gave his new fifties to his last fare as change, instead of twenties).

According to this Reserve Bank press release, the old coins will hang around until April 30th, so let the confusion reign for a few more weeks.

Once the old coins are gone, we will all be able to rejoice in coinage that is cheaper to mint (Yay! for our tax dollars) and less weighty in the pocket. On the downside, these fellows now have unique electromagnetic signatures that mean we aren’t going to be able to stuff orphaned NZ and Aussie coins in the parking meters any more.

Lorem ipsum, meet website; website, meet Google

The Peninsula International Hotel recently started a Google AdWords campaign.

Text ad for Peninsula

The ad links to http://www.peninsula.com.fj … an empty shell of a site making generous use of the world’s favourite filler text

Screenshot of peninsula.com.fj

If the site had accidentally been promoted from a staging server to a production box one could understand. But why anyone would want to advertise a site in this condition is a bit of a mystery. A white page with an email address and phone number would be more effective.

The agency responsible for this little clown act seem quite happy to link to themselves from the bottom of each page (with a little keyword stuffing).

As a publicly available, advertised website for a hotel, it’s a bit of a failure. Of course, if they were aiming to capture the market for Google searches for lorem ipsum peninsula then they’re on the right track.

Which brings me to the crux of the matter: the use of lorem ipsum as filler text.

A quick search for lorem ipsum suva and lorem ipsum fiji reveal more sites struggling to fill content holes.

Web agencies, and web teams take note: do not use lorem ipsum as filler text. If your client (internal or external) can’t provide the copy for a page or section, leave it out.

37signals have a chapter in Getting Real about why lorem ipsum filler is a bad idea. If you still need filler text to push the client along, try this trick from Peter Harkins

Update: (15 March) The site that prompted this article seems to have been taken down for the time being. Thanks to @bhavinm for the heads up.

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