arbitrary user

Jonathan Endersby, Recovering Technologist

Archive for February, 2008

The Dyatlov Pass “Accident”

Feb 28

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Observation | 1 Comment

Nine experienced mountaineers are found dead in the freezing Russian Urals… from the looks of things they were woken up in the middle of the night and somehow “blinded” by “something”, chased semi-naked through snow into the forest where they tried to make a small fire with green twigs to stay alive… there was perfectly good firewood nearby — they just couldn’t see it… 3 were then killed by “something” and the other six died of hypothermia.

Oh, and one of them had his tongue cut out… and their skin was orange… and this is all supposedly true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_Accident

Blair witch eat your heart out. (not literally)

Updated lateness apology: In my rush to get to work this morning I forgot to thank Jonathan Hitchcock for sending me this link.

Microsoft Gold Certification means nothing…

Feb 27

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Development, Philosophy, Tech | No Comments

Many years ago I worked for a company who was a Microsoft certified partner. This was a long long time ago and I must admit that back then I was quite impressed by the fact that they were Microsoft certified partners… until I started working there. Redmond hands out certifications like a crack whore hands out cheap tricks — indiscriminately and to anyone who’s willing to pay fifty bucks.

Needless to say, this morning I was reading my gmail when I saw an ad for a “Microsoft GOLD Certified Development Partner based in Cape Town” and being the sado-masochist I am I clicked on the link… it was one of those /showpage.aspx?page_id=36 sort of sites. Ugly, but not necessarily dodgy. I put an apostrophe in the page id to see if they were cleaning their inputs and behold:

Line 166: Octigon.Octane8.Containers.Page tempPage = this._page;
Line 167:
Line 168: while (tempPage.Id != 1)
Line 169: {
Line 170: if (tempPage.Parent.Id == 1)

This shows that the site is vulnerable to sql injection… which, while not necessarily implying that the site can be hacked, does imply that, given enough time, you probably could hack it or at least cause some damage. The page also pukes out all kinds of file paths and stuff that would be useful if you were trying to do them harm.

The point here is this. Why is a web development company who are obviously bad web developers Microsoft Gold Certified?

The answer can only be that Gold Certification means absolutely nothing.

THE WHOLE F-ING POINT OF THE STRUGGLE WAS THAT OUR KIDS COULD GROW UP WATCHING DSTV INSTEAD OF GETTING SHOT IN THE FACE IN SHARPVILLE!

Feb 21

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Life, Politics, Rants | 10 Comments

You have to say it and try and sound like a 13 year old:

“It’s a democratic country and you can’t make me to do it!”

I imagine that would have been my response to my teachers if I was being forced to say an oath every day in school.

And ironically I would have been right… I would have been zit faced and snot nosed, but I would have been absolutely, categorically, right! In a democratic state you can not force anyone to recite a statement of beliefs, especially in the form of a promise to that state, against their will.

Your age does not affect your democratic freedom and I’ll tell you why: The ANC Youth League.

The ANC Youth League was founded on the ideals that the youth of South Africa were powerful and wanted freedom from the oppressive state. Kids are also easily radicalised and will cause untold shit if they all band together and you don’t listen to them.

And so it is unfortunate that we have let those radical ideals of freedom slip away from us to the extent that some people in government think it’s a good idea to institute a compulsory oath to our schools.

Imagine if they wanted to add this compulsory oath to the workplace. Imagine if every morning at 11am everyone in your office had to stand and recite a promise to uphold the constitution and forgive the past injustices… I’m trying not to swear here, but let me just say that most of us would be very very very pissed off and would probably end up rioting on the streets. One of the core precepts of a constitutional democracy is that you have the right to challenge that constitution.

Why should children be treated any other way?. If I had a kid in school today I would tell him that he can recite the oath if he wants, but he could, if he wanted to, recite my oath:

natalie_with_gun.jpg
Hey, when else am I going to be able to legitimately add a picture of Natalie with a gun to my blog?

“We the youth of South Africa, recognising the hotness of Jessica Biel, honour those heroes who shape our porous minds like Tony Hawk, Steve Jobs and Natalie Portman”

“We promise to argue with our parents about music, play video games and score chicks”

“We sincerely declare that we shall eat Nandos, Bunk School, Watch too much TV, Sneak our dad’s alcohol out of the house on a Friday night, Spend way too much time on facebook, Tell our dad’s we love them occasionally, Try our best not to be fat asses and most of all, always be kief to other people.”

Now that’s an oath… These are kids. The injustices of their past is that yesterday the DSTV wasn’t working.

THE WHOLE F-ING POINT OF THE STRUGGLE WAS THAT OUR KIDS COULD GROW UP WATCHING DSTV INSTEAD OF GETTING SHOT IN THE FACE IN SHARPVILLE!

SO why the hell is the government making 6 year olds say “We the youth of South Africa, recognising the injustices of our past…”? I hope like hell that those kids don’t recognise the injustices of their past, because that past is disgusting, filled with oppression, police brutality, racism, exploding packages ripping people’s limbs off their bodies in their own houses, incarceration, children being shot in the back, unfair education policies, segregation, heroes being murdered and a whole lot of other stuff I’d rather my kids learnt about properly, at the right age, than have flippantly wafted in their faces every day.

This makes me pissed off.

Oh, and remember that radical freedom movement, The ANC Youth League? Well, guess what they want to do… Yup, you guessed it. They want to ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays… I shit you not. The descendants of the actual heroes who actually got shot in the face for the implicit freedoms of this country now want to introduce a law that has been proven to only really affect the poor and UCT students, and has nothing to do with morality or alcoholism.

I suggest this. How about the ANC Youth League members, those who joined because they want to uphold the ideals of the group, not buy alcohol on Sundays.

Where is the love? – Chapter 1

Feb 15

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Philosophy, Service, Where is the love? | 1 Comment

Love is not something we generally associate with business — we don’t love most of the companies we deal with and more unfortunately, most people don’t even love their own jobs. If you’re in business it is more than likely that your company doesn’t love your customers (beyond what could be considered blatant cupboard/money love) and even if your company doesn’t hate its customers, it probably isn’t partaking in public-displays-of-affection towards them or even letting them know how they feel.You might think I’m joking. But you’d be wrong.

Unless you’re in the business of manufacturing leopard print kitchen appliances that only work in small Eastern European countries, the chances are that someone else is doing what you’re doing, and probably better. The longer I am involved with businesses the more I realise that most consumers seem to pick the companies they deal with in a seemingly random manner. It’s not really random, and there are plenty of books out there detailing why consumers act the way they do and if you care to study them you’ll probably end up with the same conclusion I did; that humans are herd-like animals, apparently no more intelligent at choosing which grassy hill to stand on then a pack of cows on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

cows2.jpgAnd this for the most part is reality… Consumers choose one company over another because other people are doing it and aren’t spontaneously self-combusting. Spontaneously Self Combustion seems to be the benchmark for good service these days. If the customers aren’t exploding the company must be doing a good job.

But like young Brook Shields felt in the first part of Blue Lagoon, there must be more to this.

Who is that first cow and why did he walk onto that particular hill? We know why all the other cows followed him — because cows are like humans, a little bit stupid.

That first cow was probably a lover.

He loved the feeling of the dewy grass under his hooves, he loved the way the mist sat peacefully in the lower lying parts of his hill. He loved how he could return to his perfect spot where the grass was perfect and the sun was perfectly aligned so as to warm up his bum and not be in his eyes. And how the tree was nearby for later when it got too hot and he wanted some shade… and the view… he loved the view. It reminded him of Scotland.

All the other cows went up onto that hill because that’s what cows do… that and our lover cow hadn’t yet exploded.

Consumers, as I have already pointed out, are a lot like cows. We do love to have the sun shine on our bums and not in our eyes. And when we find a company that makes us feel that way we generally stay with them for a long time.

Unfortunately companies are not grassy hills. Generally they suck. They take your money and give you just enough of whatever it is that they’re meant to be giving you so that you don’t go mad cow on their scrawny, dried up grass, no shady tree, hill asses.

In my imaginary little world I like to believe that that perfect hill is actually loving that cow back… loving how his hooves feel running down its back, loving how the cow stands in the same spot, chewing on his puke and gazing happily into the distance. The hill loves feeling loved.

There is a problem though. Cows don’t have money.

If cows had money our lover cow would become a perverted cow. He’d look to see which hill he could get for less and could he perhaps swap the tree for a small umbrella and maybe the grass didn’t really need to be real grass so long as when he ate it he didn’t explode.

This is what customers have become. Selfish perverted annoying little brats who make you angry and call you at 6:15 when you’re just about to go home and moan that their widget isn’t working just like you promised it would and if you don’t make it work RIGHT NOW they’re going to leave your company and start using that other company who’s customers also aren’t exploding.

And then we wonder why we don’t love our customers… and why they don’t love us.

There is another way. Love. Imagine if your customer loved you and the widget. Imagine if you loved your customer. You probably would have spent more time on that widget, setting it up just right because you loved the way the customer loved you when their widget was working perfectly… and if your customer loved you and their widget still didn’t work they’d call in the morning because they’d know it would be an inconvenience to call at 6:15pm. Because you loved them and they loved you.

You may think I am mad, but there *are* company-consumer relationships like this.

My idea of shocking Valentines gifts…

Feb 13

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Life, Observation, Philosophy | No Comments

Moo.com LoveMy girlfriend and I have been noticing the ridiculous amount of utter valentines garbage that is being punted by the various retail chains… PnP, Clicks and yes, even you Woolworths!

Last night we were debating what the most hideous valentines gifts would be. I think we may have them.

For Her: Worlds Greatest Lover Trophy

Stylishly injection molded from recycled toilet seats, with a faux wooden finish sticker around the base, this trophy screams “I love you this much”. It’s also larger than you think. It must be able to hold a litre of beer. Perhaps that should be the serving suggestion. On second thoughts, perhaps “You’re my number one” would be more tacky?

For Him: Homemade Droewors Necklace

Nothing says I love you more than small pieces of dried flesh and congealed fat tastefully threaded together with a rusty needle you borrowed from your mom. To add that special something we suggest threading a “sweety pie”, foil and all, in the middle so as to create a stylish centerpiece of love.

I am so tempted to make one of these.

love

j.

I’m watching you Mr Zuma.

Feb 11

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Life, Philosophy, Politics | 2 Comments

Perhaps this is too late? But it must be said… I’m watching you Mr Zuma.

Jacob Zuma is undoubtedly (short of being found guilty of some or other fraudulent activity, and even then one can’t be sure…) going to become our next president. He will be democratically elected in a free and fair election. He will ride to his victory by being the champion of the people. Well, I’m a people and I have some stuff to say.

I can look past the multiple wives. I can even *gasp* look past the womanising with one of his struggle comrade’s daughters… She was 31, a fact that the media repeatedly seemed unable to report — preferring the phrase “young daughter” instead. Bill Clinton was one of the better U.S. presidents with regards to policy and finance. He too had a womanising problem, but he never led the U.S. into a recession or sent their boys to die in an unnecessary war.

JZ was found not guilty. We have to respect the courts, especially in the political climate at the time… For those South African’s still living in a dualistic, white vs black world, you need to wake up and realise that just because the government is predominantly black, doesn’t mean they all like each other. If Mbeki had wanted to, and our courts were flexible enough with their justice, one could assume that Zuma would have been found guilty… but he wasn’t, and to me that says that he probably was innocent. Bottom line: There were plenty of powerful people who would have loved for him to disappear… but he didn’t. However Mr Zuma, you have said some pretty stupid things; case in point being your statement in court about showering after sex with an HIV positive woman. Now I realise that unlike Mr Mbeki, you didn’t attend fancy universities overseas and learn about how not to stick your foot in your mouth, BUT, that was a pretty stupid thing to say. One that resonated throughout South Africa, and the world, like the sound of a bone snapping in some horrific youtube video of a guy falling off his skateboard. I hope like hell that you realise how much you made us cringe.

I must however admit that my overwhelming optimism is beating a path for you in the bush of skepticism that is my current outlook on your looming presidency.

You did not go to a fancy university and learn how to be calculated and politically correct, and inefficient. You are a champion of the people. (or at least you claim to be). You have spoken out against South Africa’s lack of response with regards to Zimbabwe. You have promised to work hard at eradicating poverty. You are essentially spouting all the rhetoric that is required of the non-incumbent, with one small difference… you might just follow through.

Case in point, Thabo Mbeki. Great guy, comes from a great family but about as politically active and efficient as the Queen Mother. I can’t think of anything he did besides not say stuff… even with your own fraud and rape trials, the very leader of this country spoke in calculated, non-committal terms and never once gave the impression that he actually had a point of view. While this might be the “presidential way”, it’s certainly not something that the “people” want.

South Africa does face a lot of unique challenges, foremost being the gap between rich and poor, which manifests itself in our high crime rate. Sure, we might have corrupt police chiefs and/or corrupt officials, but so do many other countries who don’t have ridiculous murder and rape statistics.

This is a grass roots issue… the average Joe needs to be able to get a job and live a dignified life before we can expect the crime rates to actually drop to reasonable levels.

I hope like hell that you truly are the champion of the people and will be the leader, not of a party, but of a group of knowledgeable South Africans dedicated to making South Africa a better place. I don’t care if you get another 10 wives in the process. This is Africa, we need an African leader. I just hope we’ve found a good one in you. And if the job wasn’t hard enough, you need to put the people first while not pissing off the middle class and the elite.

Ultimately Mr Zuma, history will judge you, not the media. Your term comes at a time where South Africans are still predominantly voting along cultural lines and no true opposition exists. You have, as they say, “got it in the bag”. But as South Africa matures there will be greater pressure from the people for a government that is not dominated by one party. South Africa is evolving… So Mr Zuma, take it as a foregone conclusion that during your term the pressure to govern with excellence will increase, perhaps not to the point where you or the ANC need worry about losing grip, but perhaps enough to highlight any cracks in your stature that might be showing… and if those cracks exist there will be pressure to purge you and appoint the new hero du jour… Mbeki took the safe option, he never stuck his neck out and as a result he can leave office without looking too bad, or too good. I think it is a foregone conclusion that with your charismatic personality you will be sticking your neck out… South Africa will be watching and hoping for the best.

The people might not be revolting, but they are fickle.

Ps. If you need any help with decision making, I’m always available on my cell.

J.

L10n, gettext, php5 and Afrikaans

Feb 5

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Development, Linux, Tech | 4 Comments

I’ve been playing with the concept of creating a multilingual site and after polling the experts I started toying with php’s implementation of gettext. What a ball-ache.

Ok, so some things you need to know before we start.

  • L10n stands for Localisation or Localization… the abbreviation is therefore obvious due to the words length and different spellings.
  • gettext is a GNU standard. I shouldn’t need to explain why standards are cool, but needless to say, there are plenty of tools to make using gettext a lot easier than a “roll-your-own” solution.
  • The PHP implementation of gettext is good when it’s working. But when it’s not working it’s like a scorned girlfriend — it will *not* tell you what is wrong. You have to figure it out yourself.
  • Your solution might not be *exactly* the same as mine because gettext relies on system locales, which in turn are structured differently on pretty much every linux distribution… having said that I’m sure the stuff you’ll read here will get you going.

Firstly, why gettext? Besides the fact that it’s a standard, gettext is good because:

  • gettext’s database files (.mo) are indexed and compiled.
  • PHP’s implementation is written in C or C++ by programmers who are probably better than you and I at writing efficient searches.
  • The gettext domain (your strings) are cached by the implementation so it really is quite fast.

Ok, so let me run through quickly how it’s meant to work, starting with some code

<?
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'af_ZA');
bindtextdomain('messages', '/var/www/myapp/locale');
textdomain('messages');
echo gettext("Hello World!");
?>

Line for line:

  • setlocale tells php which locale to use; in this example I’m using af_ZA (Afrikaans)
  • bindtextdomain tells php which domain to look for and where your gettext locale folders are. A “domain” is really just a collection. In this case we’re arbitrarily calling it “messages”.
  • textdomain is telling php which domain to use from now on. (seems redundant I know but I assume you might be able to bind multiple text domains)
  • gettext will look to see if it can find a translation for the locale you set earlier (af_ZA) for this index. gettext’s index is the original string in the original language. In this case we originally used the phrase “Hello World!”. If the locale can’t be found or there isn’t a translation for this index in the locale, gettext will return the original language — in this case “Hello World!”.
  • What is really important to note at this point is that there are a million or so variations of this code on the Internet. This is the stripped down version that works fine under PHP5 and Apache2.

Next we have to create our locale directory structure. This is what it looks like:

/locale
    /af_ZA
        /LC_MESSAGES
            messages.po (You'll create these later)
            messages.mo (You'll create these later)

Obviously you would create one per language you are wanting to support. I therefore have one for en_ZA and one for af_ZA.

Next we need to create our .po file. The .po file is the unindexed, uncompiled “language” file. Basically it has human readable plaintext in it. If you had a hoard of translators working for you you would send them your .po file/s, which they would add their translations to and then send back.

The important stuff in a .po file is:

msgid "Hello World!"
msgstr ""

Now, the cool thing about using gettext is that there are tools to generate a messages.po file from .php files automatically. The following command will scan all php files looking for references to gettext and will generate messages.po file for you.

xgettext -n *.php

The next step is to copy your messages.po file into your LC_MESSAGES folders. Once you’ve copied them you can make the change to the af_ZA one.

msgid "Hello World!"
msgstr "Hello Wêreld!"

Next you need to compile both your messages.po files by running the following command in the respective directories. This command will output a binary, indexed messages.mo file.

msgfmt messages.po

Once you’ve done that you should be able to rerun your code and it should give you the afrikaans version… although it won’t because here’s what you don’t get told. gettext will only work for locales it recognises, and even though you selected South Africa when you installed your ubuntu, it still doesn’t know what Afrikaans is. Enter the myriad of confusion solved, as usual, by one simple command.

locale-gen af_ZA

This will, if you’re on a newish debian-ish box, enable the af_ZA locale and then, after restarting Apache (remember it caches), your app should be speaking Afrikaans fluently.

The mark of a true DJ…

Feb 4

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Life, Observation, Philosophy, music | 1 Comment

Kitty’s party was on Saturday night. It was inside the Simons Town Naval Base. Two things struck me here.

1. Why do we spend so much any money on naval vessels for South Africa and then let people like me say “I’m here for the party” and drive right in… and I mean *in*! On our way out we got lost and ended up staring at huge friggen submarines just sitting there while we drove past. These things are big. Not USA nuclear submarine big, but still big enough to put a little frog in your throat as you run through what you’re going to say when stopped by 10 men with semi automatic assault rifles asking why the hell you are driving around “secure” parts of the naval base in your unofficial looking Polo.

2. You get two types of DJs in the world. Those whose names you recognise and those that have custom wooden boxes to carry the 400 cd’s they take to every gig. As a tribute to these legends of the underworld I present my top 10 ways to spot an underworld DJ.

1. Has home-made wooden boxes to carry the 400 CDs he carefully selected for this gig.

breathless.jpg2. Not only does he have the Kenny G Breathless CD, but he chooses to display it proudly as if it was some limited edition Vinyl of the Beatles before they were cool.

3. He will arrange all his gear out on the biggest table he can find and will have brought all manner of unnecessary equipment (FM Tuner etc) to the party… Because everyone knows, second to having a shit-ton of CDs with you, the next most impressive thing a DJ can do is have lots and lots of gear.

4. The speakers will be home made. The amplifier might be too but I couldn’t bring myself to look. There might also be an impressive array of home made or cash converters purchased “lights”.

5. He also has the latest Timberland.

6. Instead of playing a well know Tina Turner track, he will chose to bust out the one obscure Tina track that you have never heard, despite that road trip to Durban when you were 7 when your mom went through that Tina Turner phase.

7. He will play rave music… Not stuff that old people label as “rave music”, but actual, real deal rave music that the ex-ravers in the room recognize and start breaking out in a cold sweat over.

8. He will play Mambo Number 5 and the old lady in the wheelchair will wave her hands in the air like she just doesn’t give a fuck any more care.

9. He will have a helper, usually a younger relative who looks like he gets beaten up at school. This kid will be wearing his sunday best with his shirt tucked in. He will usually be found frantically searching through the 400 CDs looking for the Coolio – Gangstas Paradise CD… Despite the fact that this CD predates his birth. This is also known as child abuse. There is a small part of this child’s mind that is being infected with the idea that this is cool… that this is how he could make his millions and get the chicks. Child A-B-U-S-E.

10. Despite the shockingly random choice of music the people will be too drunk to notice and be shaking their whatnots on the dance floor.

Kitty it was totally rad seeing you and I can’t wait to spend more time with you before you go home.

j.

Things that make me smile…

Feb 2

Posted by arbitraryuser in Aggregate This, Life, Photography, Service, Tech, geekdinner | 4 Comments

Ever have one of those weeks when you just can’t stop smiling because the world is just being so damn inspirational?

Ok, so here’s my list of things I am currently happy about:

minicards.jpg1. My Moo Cards arrived: You have no idea how friggen happy I am with them. Moo is an inspirational company and yes, I would even consider living in London to be able to work there and learn from the Moo’inistas. Since everyone wanted to know, they cost $19.99 (R145) for 100 cards. Next time you see me ask for a moo card. I’ve even made my first Moo friend.

2. Civil Twilight made my day: So a couple of days ago I got a message on facebook to say that there was a CD waiting for me in Hout Bay… Apparently I was on the “list” of complementary CDs… getting a free CD is much more of a big deal when there are probably only a few in the country at the moment. Thanks boys. Much Appreciated! The album is awesome, my only fear is that I might wear out the CD. Check out their other video.

Civil Twilight Press Pics3. Mix two of my favourite things…: If I was into American football I could have called this one “mix three of my favourite things” because one of Civil Twilight’s songs, ‘Human’ will be featured on this Sunday’s special Superbowl episode of ‘House’ guest starring Academy Award winning actress Mira Sorvino. House is one of my favourites… so is Civil Twilight. Mira is ok. ;)

4. An awesome GeekDinner: The 6th GeekDinner took place in the cosy Sloppy Sams. I was MC for the evening and really enjoyed it. About 70 of us crammed into the tiny little restaurant and had an absolute blast. Thanks to everyone who helped out.

5. Friends: I guess it goes without saying that friends are important, but recently I’ve been finding my friends to be more than just important, they’ve been critical. Sometimes your friends can give you the kick in the bum you need to get your ducks in a row… Other times they just need to be there to make you laugh. Some friends are their to guide you, others to chide you and still others just to make you feel good about yourself. Tonight I’m going to see kitty! My long lost kitty from London!… Super stoked.

6. Synchronicity: A while back I was looking for a maid/domestic worker/housekeeper whatever you want to call them. I asked around the apartment building I live in and someone suggested an awesome woman called Nokulunga who’s been my angel for the past few months. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to come home to a clean apartment every friday. Anyways, the reason I’m mentioning this is because she’s looking for somewhere to work on mondays. She comes highly recommended.

7. Last but not least: As some of you may know, I’ve been seeing someone recently. Anything I say here will be dripping with cheese and I’d rather not put you all through that. Maybe I’ll just say yay!