Supermarkets' Dodgy Special offers.

1. Diet Coke. £1.09 each, or 2 for £1.70. This is a good special offer.

2. Beer. £4.00 for a pack, or £9.00 for two packs. This is a bad special offer.

3. Bread. £1.00 for 1 loaf, £2.00 for two. This is an irrelevant special offer.

If you don't beleive the 2nd one, I saw it in Tesco Extra Llanelli, and here is the proof!

(Click it to see the full prices)

The third one I saw in my local Tesco metro this morning, and as luck would have it there was a minion stocking the shelves, so I asked him about it!

His opinion (and I don't think its the party line) is that the "2 for £2" bit is a Tesco global policy, but each store can change their own prices, so while they charge £1.00for one, a smaller store may charge £1.09.

I still think they should put their prices through a sanity check, as it just makes them look stupid!

Queueing

Written after our trip to Legoland.

I understand queueing. I am British, after all! I get the idea that one waits, until it is ones turn.

I understand supermarket queueing. I like the challenge of looking for the shortest (time not distance) queue. I appreciate the Post Office style 'Cashier Number 5 please', mainly because although it is a longer queue it keeps moving along steadily

I don't like it when people push in. I can cope with people returning to a queue after a small child needs the toilet (been there!), and just about with a person catching up with the rest of their group (although part of me thinks that the rest of the group should let people through until the left behind member catches up naturally).

What I don't understand are theme park Q-bots.

Q-bots are virtual q-ers. They allow you (at an extra cost) to be in a virtual queue, and turn up when at the front, to get on the ride. I should point out that this idea is not exclusive to Legoland. Most theme parks, I believe have something similar. There is now also a Q bot express, for even less queueing!

There are 2 issues here.

1. I don't think it's fair that just because someone has more money they shouldn't have to queue. I've payed plenty for my ticket! (actually I haven't, I've used tesco clubcard vouchers, but in principle). They also board the ride first, meaning they get the best seats, every time, whether you like the front of the roller coaster, or the back, or the seat by the giraffe on the train. That's not fair either.

2. The signs everywhere state that this system doesn't make queueing time longer for anyone.

It's this 2nd statement with which I take exception, from a mathematical point of view. It certainly feels longer.

Case study 1

I'm in a queue for a little roller coaster. The roller coaster seats 12, and there are 6 people in front of us. I feel I should get on, but 6 people roll up the qbot line, so I don't. That feels like a longer queue. (and multiply that for every time the queue should move forward 12 spaces but only does 6).

Their argument is that I haven't waited any longer, as those people would gave been in front of me in the queue - they were there virtually, so I would have had to wait that long, I just didn't see the people.

Case study 2.

We've split up, I'm with 2 of the kids queueing for ride A. Mrs S is with 3rd daughter queueing for ride B. In front of me is a virtual family (but I don't know it). They would queue for ride A, but are richer than me, so don't really have to. How do their real selves spend the extra free time? By queueing for ride B, meaning the rest of my family are also queueing longer because of the same people.

That's the flaw in the argument as I see it, that 1 person can be in two queues at the same time and that must make total queue time on the park longer. It also makes the shows / shops etc busier

Either their argument is flawed, or mine is. Which?


Disney, btw and IMHO have a much fairer system, just for the record, as everyone can fasttrack 1 ride at a time, and there is no paying extra involved.

TweetDeck - multiple accounts

A few people have asked recently how to set up (and manage) multiple twitter accounts. This is mainly in the light of #twittereducator and @tweetingeducatr, but I've been running two accounts for a bit (I know many others are too).

Step by Step guide... (Pictures will follow)
1. Set up a 2nd (3rd, 4th) account on twitter. Please remember all usernames and passwords!!

2. Open Tweetdeck. Click on "Add more accounts". It's one the Top left of the page, next to the blue icon with your Avatar on it.

3. When the Tweetdeck settings page appears, Click on Add new account, and choose Twitter. Type in the details, and CLick Verify. Simples.
4. You will get a grey icon at the top, next to the blue one. Whichever one (or ones) are blue, you are tweeting from, if it is grey, it is not active. When you add columns, you'll be asked for which account.

5. Replies are automatically sent from the account you are replying too.

Questions?!! Like I said, a bit of a rush!

#TwitterEducator

Firstly, can I apologise NOW for wrong use of apostrophes. When typing twitter #tags, if you want to pluralise (is that made up too?) the tag, you cannot just put s on the end or it becomes a new tag. Therefor here when I'm typing tags I'll stick to that convention.


I've really grown to like #ukedchat. It's a great way to network, but with more of a focus than your usual ongoing teacher chat. At the end of each week, there is usually a suggestion to BlastFollow all #ukedchat-ers. Blast Follow is a way to follow ALL people who post with a particular tag.

Then the other day there was the suggestion (I think from, but certainly blogged by @primarypete_) that we tweet #twittereducator, and then blastfollow that tag.

I wasn't convinced. I've found that twitter following is a bit like boiling a frog. You can keep up when you follow 12 people, and wonder how people keep up with 50. You get to 50, and thats fine, but how can people manage to follow 100? By 100, you're doing fine, but there are people who follow 500. And so on. I also tend to follow people with whom I've intereacted, either generally or through a tag such as #movemeon, #ukedchat, and recently #pgcetips.

I know at least one other tweep out there felt the same, as I saw their tweet on the matter, so I got to thinking a solution. Then it came to me - lists. If I set up a list of #twittereducator's I could keep an eye on their tweets, and then follow them if I liked what they said enough. The trick was going to be how to set up the list, as I knew no way (and nor did my pln or google) of turning a tag into a list.

However I did find a solution. If there's a better way, let me know. I created a new twitter account, called @tweetingeducatr. I wanted @twittereducator, obviously but you cannot have twitter in the name and you can only have 15 characters, so I now know!.

This account blastfollowed #twittereducator, and then using tweetdeck I copied all of the people into a list, which I now share. Rather than all following all of the tag, you can keep an eye on the list, and like me individually follow the ones you like the look of. My Tweetdeck columns are getting a little out of hand, now I have 3 accounts, but that's my problem! I don't anticipate tweeting from the new account very often, except maybe to remind people the list is there to follow if they want. If you like the idea, the list is here.

Could it be done differently? Is this useful? Let me know.

PS1. Here is @dughall's link - http://twitter.com/Tweetingeducatr/twittereducator/members

PS2. Here is the XKCD cartoon I'm reminded of when reading my post.