Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a Extreme Frustration
I couldn’t connect to the internet this morning. At first I thought I must’ve forgotten to pay a bill, as the error message was ‘Authentification Failed.’ After the requisite eternity on hold, I find that this is not the case. So there’s a problem at my end. I checked everything imaginable. Twice. Nothing seems amiss. I decided to call BTOpenworld technical support (usually a couple of resorts after the last resort, but at least they answer promptly. Unlike Apple.) They asked me to check everything I already checked. Twice. They gave up. I gave up, and got on with a bit of writing work.
On performing a spellcheck, I found many words flagged as incorrect, with suggested replacements in Americanese. That wee flag in the Toolbar was set to the Stars & Stripes, instead of the Union Jack (Which, by the way, I rather resent being permanently displayed on my screen). I changed it back. Lord knows why the language setting impacts on Internet Connect, but here I am on the interweb typing this.
So, which one of youse broke into my house and made my computer American? Come on, own up!
Remember all those .mil addresses that appeared in the logs? I think you now have your explanation…
Posted by Leon at 3pm on 24.04.03
Stealth americanisation - ‘Any citizen of the world involved in the terrorist activity of spelling English correctly will be punished.;
Posted by Jack at 3pm on 24.04.03
hi, I just wanted to pass on the word about a pretty unique peace-activism site, FacesForPeace.org, where people are posting their photos and antiwar statements in one place, kind of an “online peace rally” (this war may be about over but the conditions for future preemptive, near-unilateral wars are obviously still in place). Hope you can check it out, if you like it please spread the word.
peace,
tim
http://www.facesforpeace.org
Posted by tim at 4pm on 24.04.03
Cheers Tim - that’s the kind of spam we don’t mind getting!
Posted by Jack at 4pm on 24.04.03
you know you can get rid of the flag by disabling american settings altogether. you only get the flag menu when you have more than one regional setting active. go to the system prefs dialog about it and untick american. i had the same problem.
Posted by sean at 5pm on 24.04.03
Sean - thanks for the tip. Politically suspect flag removed ;-)
In case anyone’s interested - it looks it was the installation of the latest Airport software update that reset the system to US. Be warned!
Posted by Jack at 5pm on 24.04.03