Friday, July 22, 2011

Clear naming again

One of my pet peeves is big companies' inability to name their products clearly. For example Amazon naming the third Kindle "Kindle" instead of "Kindle 3". And Apple naming every MacBook Pro model "MacBook Pro" no matter when it came out and what features it has. And camera makers seemingly having a system for naming ranges of cameras, but then breaking this system sometimes.

Another one is (British) TV channels. I'd recorded some Simpsons, and there was something else I was interested in, so I tried to find the same channel again. According to the logo and some weird and opaque Toyota ads, it was channel "T4". So I used about 20 minutes scrolling through the list (don't get me started on the slow, low-rez, and clunky cable interface), and I couldn't find it. But I did find following other channels with "4" in them:


4 HD
C4 + 1
E4
E4 HD
E4 + 1
More 4
ITV 4 
BBC 4
Channel 4
C 4 HD
Film 4 HD
Film 4
Film 4 +1
4Music
ITV4 + 1

Niiiice and clear what everything is and where it came from and what it has. 
There are hundreds, these are just the ones with "4" in them! 

... Did a bit more research: apparently it's a program (sorry, "programme") called "T4" (don't give it all away now), not a channel. And yet I couldn't find the program at the given channel and time. 

Anyhew, not important, just something that stuck in my craw. 

I'm guessing it's a lot less opaque to somebody who has grown up in this country, watched the average 4-5 hours of TV a day, and seen the channels come in one by one. Maybe. Or maybe they are too apathetic to give a hoot. 

No comments: