Gauteng Blog

Foreign reporting on South Africa hasn't really moved on

2008-01-27T08:10:00.000+02:00

Earlier in the week, the Guardian, when describing the power cuts managed to take the obligatory dig at "griping whites", pointing out that black townships had no electricity in the past.

The Washington Post also got into the act, quoting people who were apparently glad to see Sandton in darkness:

On that night last month, South Africa's debilitating run of blackouts had darkened the gleaming hotels and bank towers of Alexandra's famously glitzy neighbor, Sandton. And Alexandra, once synonymous with the squalor blacks were forced to endure under white-supremacist rule, had light.

"I said, 'Wow! Reversal of roles!' " recalled Dhlomo-Mautloa, 51. "I was thinking it was wonderful."

...

But here in Alexandra, the pain of what the state-owned utility Eskom calls "load shedding," the temporary cutting off of power to some consumers, has been tempered by a sense that the nation's bounty -- and burdens -- are finally being experienced more evenly.

"Load shedding is the great leveler," Dhlomo-Mautloa, who also is an artist, said with a laugh. "We should call it 'load sharing' because we are sharing this inconvenience."

As much as I would like to share in the gloating that load shedding is a just retribution for Apartheid, the foolish reporters don't understand that crippling the South African economy is just as likely to punish blacks as whites. A working black person who faces a job loss because of this debacle would spit in the face of this argument. Only the deeply ignorant (or woolly headed foreign reporters) would enjoy seeing the financial heart of South Africa plunged into darkness.

And thirteen years was more than enough to increase production capacity. The government has taken the blame, mining activity has ground to a halt and the brakes are being slammed on the economy. But, it looks like some foreign reporters have not moved on and are battling to understand the dynamics of today's South Africa.

How long before South Africa's first affirmative action plane crash?

2008-01-17T08:05:00.001+02:00

The last months of rolling blackouts ("load shedding") from Eskom, and general incompetence have made me a more cynical person about South Africa and its short to medium term future.

Something in my gut, following the Comair/Kulula Department of Labour debacle, has made me wonder how long it will ¹ be before someone in the aviation industry, not suited or qualified for a position of critical responsibility, but forced into that position by a government quota, will cause a major catastrophe.

Of course, God-forbid, should such a catastrophe happen, and it is caused by an underqualifed employment equity person, there will be a cover up, and no one will dare speak the truth for fear of being branded racist.

The government could, of course, be aware of this and take a pragmatic approach to transformation to the sector, but, given the every day incompetence (in the corporate world and government) of people who are out of their depth in their employment equity positions, I doubt that they would.

I fully support the demographic transformation of the South African workforce, but, unless it is driven by pragmatic considerations, rather than blind ideology, we might find it tough to dig ourselves of the mess we create. After all the business world may be able to understand the ideology and try to implement it, but the laws of physics are far less understanding.

Notes:
<1> The Air Force would be a good place to see if this will happen, as the government usually precedes the corporate sector in transformation.

Update:
Looks like we didn't have to wait that long for an example. And an SAA manager wants "non-white" individuals to be given preference for overtime and extra training.

Whose propaganda organ will the SABC become?

2007-12-20T06:36:00.000+02:00

After reverting to its Apartheid-era role as a propaganda organ/lapdog under the Thabo Mbeki, it will be interesting to see whose side the SABC will take now: that of the government, or the ANC leadership.

Update (03 February 2008): It looks like the new ANC leadership wants the SABC to be independent, and move away from being a propaganda mouthpiece. We shall wait and see if they are as good as their word.

Democracy and the disinfection of tyranny

2007-12-17T04:01:00.000+02:00

Whatever you may think of Jacob Zuma, what we are seeing in Polokwane demonstrates the power of democracy.

An arrogant denialist is being stripped of his power.

Whatever pain South Africa may feel in the next few weeks and months, at least we have been saved from Thabo Mbeki's increasingly erratic behavior^1,².

Jacob Zuma may turn out to be no better than Mbeki, or even worse, but the message that leaders can be held accountable in South Africa is powerful one, and one I hope the populace internalizes.

Notes:
¹ Nelson Mandela mercifully managed to hold on to his faculties for long enough to lead South Africa, but the fact is that as people age, we expect signs of senility to creep in. We should not be surprised that this happens with leaders as well.
² Assuming he gives up easily. But I seriously doubt he will find much support if he tries any funny business.

Would a downturn in SA be an entirely bad thing?

2007-12-13T06:21:00.000+02:00

South African businesses have had an easy time in the last few years, and it shows. Service is collapsing. In my experience, corporates are becoming increasingly incompetant and complacent.

Would a bit of a wakeup call could be in order?

Is service collapsing in South Africa?

2007-12-09T08:19:00.000+02:00

From lazy HR executives to crappily run loyalty programs ¹ and clueless call centres, a fair number of major corporates in South Africa seem to be having problems with service.

There are exceptions: Discovery and Outsurance, for example have, thus far, never given me problems, and their bright, well-informed call centre agents are always aware of what's happening.

With other companies, dealing with call centre agents is a matter of luck. A good call centre agent can quickly resolve an issue, and a bad one would have you pulling your hair out in frustration.

A lot of the time, I suppose, training issues and poor IT systems play a part, but at other times, errors can be attributed to pure laziness.

But, unfortunately, the rot in some corporates goes beyond call centres, and the same culture of laziness is infecting other areas of the organisation. South African service consumers are too docile, so I expect things to get worse before they start getting better.

Notes:
¹ Momentum Multiply has improved a little since my last post: they now have online travel bookings, but it's still a rather sloppy option. If you can get Vitality, rather go for that. Interestingly the two examples of good service (Outsurance and Discovery) were both, till recently also members of the FirstRand group -Discovery having beeen unbundled recently- but their customer service ethos and reliability put Momentum to shame.

Traffic cops stopping people to solicit bribes

2007-11-25T07:18:00.000+02:00

It's bad enough when traffic police stop people for actual infractions, and then accept bribes to let them off (this is common throughout South Africa). But when one starts hearing stories about perfectly law-abiding citizens being stopped and harassed for bribes (in more isolated municipalities), one gets really worried.

I'll could be accused of "Afro-pessimism", if I point this out, but I've been told that in Nigeria, you never stop for a police officer, because he'll try solicit a bribe.

Small shops setting minimum purchase amounts on credit cards

2007-11-09T10:11:00.000+02:00

I recently went to a small shop and the (rather rude) cashier said that I needed to make a purchase for a minimum amount, before I could use my credit card. The greedy merchant will accept cards for large amounts, but refuses to pay fees for small purchases.

I avoid carrying cash and prefer the disciplined use of a credit card for all my purchases.

Back to my story, luckily I had cash to pay for my purchase, but I decided to do some investigating.

According to the Visa website:

Visa has certain regulations that all merchants that accept Visa cards must follow. One of those rules is that Visa merchants are not permitted to establish minimum transaction amounts, even on sale items. However, in some countries surcharging is legal and the local legislation will take precedence over Visa's regulations.

The remedy, according to the Visa website:

If you run into a problem with a merchant, please notify your Visa card-issuing bank. Visa member banks have access to the appropriate Visa rules and regulations as well as to the Notification of Customer Complaint forms which should be used by the bank to document and file merchant complaints.

Unfortunately, based on my experience, SA banks don't seem capable of dealing with this problem (or it is legal here). Either way, since Visa doesn't allow me to complain directly, I am at a dead end.

This sort of thing is typical of small shops who whine about being squeezed by big chain stores, but also try to screw their customers (and, I suspect, the taxman) at every opportunity. Many of these small timers have no concept of customer service, and deserve to be obliterated.

Update. Help from an expert: http://mymoney.iafrica.com/expert_advice/664706.htm . Too bad my bank, after shunting me from pillar to post, eventually told me merchants were allowed to set minimum purchases. SA banks prove as incompetent at ever.
Update 2. Another example of this from a branch of a franchise takeaway.

Ben Schoeman congestion: whose fault?

2007-06-16T04:41:00.000+02:00

Commuters who have to endure the peak-hour congestion on the Ben Schoeman highway between the Brakfontein and Buccleuch interchanges on the N1, or have to take another route between Pretoria and Johannesburg would be forgiven for cursing the traffic authorities.

I think the transport authorities were slow in recognizing and reacting to the problem (and their reaction was perhaps inappropriate - let's see how the Gautrain works out).

The transport authorities also don't react quickly enough in daily traffic. Broken down trucks at peak times often stay stuck for hours, causing huge back-ups, with the authorities being either unable, or unwilling to move them.

But I don't think that the transport authorities are exclusively to blame:

It seems like the south-bound lanes are congested in the mornings, and the north-bound lanes in the evenings. A lot of skilled workers are forced to commute from Pretoria and Centurion to Johannesburg because of the dearth of well-paying job opportunities in the Tshwane Metropolitan area. For now a lot of blame has to be apportioned to the municipality (which had a lot of its priorities wrong), and to the commuters themselves, who are perhaps symptomatic of a government-centric, non-entrepreneurial Pretoria mindset. The commercial sector in Centurion seems to be growing, so perhaps things will improve in a few years.
Anyone who has driven along the R55 will see that there are massive developments coming up, from Woodmead to Centurion. Who gives zoning permission for these developments in areas where the road network is inadequate? Do the speculators/developers pay rezoning levies? Are the rezoning levies used to improve the road networks? Another example of this is the Samrand area in Centurion, which has one of the most congested interchanges on the Ben Schoeman in the mornings that brings traffic on the freeway to a grinding halt, and the immediate area isn't even heavily developed yet (Samrand has an interesting history). Presumably, a lot of people using the interchange, and clogging the highway up, come from developments in the south of Centurion, which have mushroomed in the last few years.
Flexitime (or "semi-flexitime"), which allows individual workers to stagger their working hours is great for individual commuters and it probably reduces peak traffic volumes, but it probably leads to by increasing the number of single-occupant vehicles, since everyone starts and ends at different times. Fully flexible working hours and telecommuting are probably the way of the future, but I don't expect many South African companies to adopt these methods anytime soon (I find South Africa to be rather conservative and uninnovative, but that's another story).

While new lanes should perhaps be added to the Ben Schoeman highway and other measures introduced to cope with existing demand, the government cannot be expected to add new lanes to the highway forever.

Unless zoning laws are enforced, and urban sprawl is brought under control, along with more commercial development in Centurion and Pretoria, I don't see Gauteng's north-south traffic problems ending anytime soon.

Gapminder: Demographic data visualisations

2007-06-16T03:20:00.001+02:00

This has been around for a few months, but if you haven't played with it yet, it's worth a look:

Gapminder from Google.

It allows you to visualize various demographic measures. South Africa doesn't do too badly, except on life expectancy, where, like other Southern African countries, the life expectancy has plunged in recent years. To my untrained eye, South Africa's reduced life expectancy doesn't seem to be correlated with economic growth or child mortality, but it may be correlated with per capita income.

Productivity per capita versus life expectancy might also be a revealing measure, but I am not an economist, so I can't think of any way of measuring productivity, or defining it.

Gapminder is a fascinating tool.

If, like me, Gapminder got you interested in data visualization check out the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.

Patricia de Lille wants "crackdown" on blogs

2007-05-22T10:42:00.000+02:00

Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille wants to regulate blogging. Whether she even knows what a blog is, is another matter, but she is obviously channelling David Bullard.

Regardless, I have already discussed this in detail.

It's interesting how enticing petty tyranny is to some politicians.

The following needs to be drilled into the heads of South Africa's chattering classes, who don't quite understand the idea of free speech:

"...anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an
honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the
tyranny of the majority." US Supreme Court

House price madness

2007-05-20T10:43:00.001+02:00

I'm a professional who earns a reasonable salary. It's above the industry average, and I'm pretty sure it's much higher than the median salary in South Africa. I have no debt, so I would have assumed that I'm in a fairly good financial position.

So, I was bored, and went on a few bank websites, to see what type of bond I could afford. I plugged in my gross monthly income, and I was shocked to discover that I would have trouble getting a bond for anything larger than a glorified matchbox.

According to this article the average middle income house costs R911 800, and Standard Bank's median house price is R580 000¹. Both of which would be out of my reach.

I could rent, but, even that is quite pricey. If a landlord wanted a yield of 10% on a house, at the median value, he would need to charge R4 800 per month in rental. ²

Who can afford to get a bond on the "median house"? According to the article, households with a joint income of R20 000 per month. How many families have that kind of income?

I've heard from "experts" that the National Credit Act could make houses more affordable by cracking down on reckless lending by financial institutions. If the prices reflect a real housing shortage, then I'm pretty sure that shortage will be filled by the huge housing developments that are mushrooming around Gauteng (and I am sure the rest of South Africa as well). Either way, prices will have to drop or stabilise until incomes catch up. Until that happens I have a great deal sympathy for the civil servants who are going on strike. The middle classes are being hit very hard currently, and it's become difficult to afford to have a roof over one's head in South Africa, low official inflation rate or not. And if lower house prices make some speculators go bankrupt, thats just too bad.

Notes:
^{1 I don't know what they mean by "house", so that could be a hole in the argument.}
^{2 I'm no economist, so forgive me if my terminology and figures are a bit off, but I think the general idea is correct. I also doubt that landlords are actually getting 10%.}

^{Update: More hype about how house prices are going to go up.}

Africa’s Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling - New York Times

2007-05-20T02:22:00.000+02:00

Africa’s best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors and engineers, writers and intellectuals, are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a result of international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already strained institutions

The New York Times has a piece on the problems facing universities in the rest of Africa. South African higher education isn't in half as bad a state, but it makes for interesting reading. [via]

In defence of anonymous blogging

2007-05-06T01:10:00.000+02:00

Mainstream South Africa, and the Sunday Times in particular, have finally found out about the obscure pastime called blogging.

I even saw an advertisement the other day, for ~~mixed veggies or something~~ Stork margarine where a housewife spoke about how her blog helped her express herself.

Blogging is apparently the new hot topic in South Africa, years after the rest of the world got over the novelty.

What will the South African media discover next- Usenet?

In today's paper, Sunday Times columnist David Bullard joins in, and lays into blogging in general, and anonymous blogs in particular.

Much of his criticism is valid. Many blogs (anonymous or not) are cesspits. The amount of hate expressed on some blogs is shocking.

Of course mainstream journalists also screw things up -the Sudan Red hysteria that the Sunday Times whips up every couple of years is a good example. Mainstream journalists can be complicit in lying to the public, abusing their credibility (real or manufactured) to help drive nations to war.

But I'm not posting this to get involved the "MSM versus blogosphere" debate. I never cared much for the endless navel gazing of many bloggers. I am posting this in response to one of Bullard's remarks:

"I'm told that it’s possible to track down the author of any offensive website and perhaps that’s what the government should be doing instead of looking at legislation to gag legitimate publications. Better still, maybe it’s time the print journalists named and shamed some of the more offensive anonymous bloggers and published their physical addresses."

Now anonymous speech is a thorny topic, and while I know that mainstream journalists are threatened by blogging, encouraging the unleashing of the government's censorship pit bulls is a horrible idea (and who decides what constitutes "offensive" or "legitimate" speech anyway).

Instead of launching into a treatise into the value of anonymous free speech, I will quote the US Supreme Court, which sums up my position on this topic quite succinctly:

"...anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."

Even members of the ruling ANC resort to anonymous speech when it confronts entrenched interests. The idea that anonymous speech is not somehow "legitimate" is appalling.

In any case, while it is technically possible to unmask anonymous websites, anonymous free speech has been a part of the internet from the beginning, and it will always remain so. If Bullard looked at Usenet archives of South Africa related newsgroups, from 10 years ago, or the comments sections on mainstream news websites, he would see that anonymous and offensive postings have always been a feature of online discourse in South Africa.

I have no doubt that the credibility of anonymous sources (including this blog) is lower than those where the names of the authors are known. This is how it should be, and the average person is smart enough to realize that anonymous sources should be treated with caution, and scrutinized more carefully. However, this does not justify a campaign to discourage anonymous free speech.

I hope that the government's attempts to censor the press fail, but if they do not, I am glad that the internet is available to those who wish to express themselves freely and without fear of retribution. Long may it stay that way.

Momentum Multiply: How not to run a loyalty programme

2007-03-10T11:24:00.000+02:00

Momentum has two loyalty programmes: Save Thru Spend, available to its clients for free and Multiply, which provides additional benefits, for a monthly fee. Multiply is a status based rewards programme, similar to Discovery's Vitality.

There are two types of savings that Multipy offers: discounts and cash back into investments. It's a brilliant idea, and some of the savings on offer (steep discounts on gym memberships, movie, car hire and plane tickets) are good.

Unfortunately, the execution is poor. The Multiply website is down with alarming regularity, and has some appallingly uninformative error messages. Although the site does warn that it will have limited functionality after hours, someone doesn't seem to understand that the web is a 24x7 medium, and sites are not supposed to keep Pretoria civil servant's hours (I exaggerate, but only slightly).

Try booking a Nu Metro movie ticket (only allowed through Computicket) on a Sunday, and if Multiply is down, you are out of luck. Of course Sunday is "after hours", but tell that to my friend who wanted to book a ticket that day.

If the system is up, you have to contend with the confusing and clunky Computicket Multiply booking procedure. Did anyone do usability testing on that thing?

Want to book a plane ticket through the "low cost airline", and get a discount? You can't book on the website: you need to phone, or email(!) them. The airline's systems are probably not integrated with Multiply's. Nor, it appears are many of their other partners (Spar being a notable exception).

Points sometimes take ages to be updated.

This is a poor show. Momentum is a fairly slick company, and not all their systems are as bad as the Multiply one. But unless they fix their apparently half-baked Multiply systems fast, they will find that their loyalty programme is a liability, that reflects poorly on them.

Remembering the victim of another senseless murder

2007-02-13T10:15:00.000+02:00

A few years ago I blogged about a Chinese immigrant who was shot in central Durban when I was nearby.

Today, another murder made the papers. The brutality and callousness of those that raped an elderly woman and then slit her throat, should cause outrage. But when I heard the story, I felt very little. There have been so many brutal murders, so much crime, that I felt a distant sort of rage, but no visceral reaction. No feeling of shock. Murder has become so much a part of our lives, and we are so conditioned to crime that very little causes outrage anymore, and that is an outrage.

When the history of this era is written...

2007-02-11T01:45:00.000+02:00

perhaps forensic auditors rather than historians will be in the best position to describe South Africa's "miracle" transition.

Why is it fashionable to complain about crime only now?

2007-02-04T03:03:00.000+02:00

Crime is a huge problem in South Africa and it has been been a huge problem for years. I have had family members hijacked, burgled, robbed at gunpoint (numerous times), tortured and killed, in the last 10 years.

Ordinary people have had to put up with crime for a long time, but the South African media seemed reluctant to move beyond merely reporting crime. Suddenly, though, along with big business, they seem to have found their voices, and are complaining that the government is failing in its most fundamental duty - to protect its citizens.

Is it because of the 2010 World Cup? Or is it the lame duck factor - with Mbeki's quasi-authoritarian reign coming to an end, are they less afraid of reprisals¹ from the Great Denialist and his henchmen? What has emboldened the media and big business?

^{Note 1: Even though they were intimidated into dropping the anti-crime campaign, I doubt that FNB would have even contemplated such a campaign 2 years ago.}

Durban Robots

2007-01-06T10:05:00.000+02:00

Two years after I first mentioned it, I found that the people in charge of Durban's traffic lights still haven't figured out that they need to change the lightbulbs regularly. Idiots.

Three years of blogging

2006-11-28T23:09:00.000+02:00

The three year anniversary of the first entry on this blog just passed. How time flies.

Life insurance crooks

2006-11-26T13:49:00.000+02:00

I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with someone who wanted to sell me a life insurance policy this week, who works for a huge "respectable" insurance company (which lately seems to be developing a reputation for ripping people off).

The high pressure tactics he used were quite remarkable (even resorting to emotional blackmail at times); although I didn't fall victim to his tactics, the experience left me very angry. A lot of innocent, less-savvy people are being ripped off.

Although most of the other people I've dealt wth in the financial services industry were relatively decent, people like him give the whole industry a bad name.

The sooner the (literally) blood-sucking bastards are brought under control, the better for all concerned.

Holy war hotting up?

2006-11-19T17:43:00.000+02:00

The pope-Islam hostilities appear to be heating up again, ahead of his visit to Turkey.

The Time article contains the following rather interesting fact:

In late October, Benedict received a different kind of validation in an open "Your Holiness" letter from 38 of the best-known names in Islamic theology. The missive politely eviscerated his Regensburg speech but went on to "applaud" the Pope's "efforts to oppose the dominance of positivism and materialism in human life" and expressed a desire for "frank and sincere dialogue."

The article refers, of course, to the speech the pope gave a few months ago, that got (small) parts of the Muslim world foaming at the mouth, which was praised by many of those who read it.

Now, in case you missed it, the letter from the Muslim heavyweights to the pope can be found here (by the way, Muslims need to improve their PR operations - it was fairly difficult to find this).

Unfortunately for the pope, it appears that his controversial speech contained some glaring errors, and wasn't as well thought-out as many of us first assumed. If he wants to confront Islam and impress Muslims as much as he impresses the chattering classes in the West, the holy father needs to up his game a little.

Borat movie: disappointing

2006-11-19T13:18:00.000+02:00

I had high expectations for the Borat movie, but instead of rolling in the aisles with the rest of the people in the cinema, I was disappointed.

The movie is basically a collection of the usual Borat humour, as found on the TV show, unfortunately made so over-the-top and dumbed-down that it becomes embarrassing.

An example, I have seen a few funny clips where Borat meets with high society types for dinner, and there is also such a scene in the movie. However, in the movie he goes absolutely over the top, and after visiting the toilet he actually brings a turd back to the dinner table. Instead of talking about a prostitute as he did in the TV series, he brings one to dinner. Instead of exposing the latent prejudices of his hosts he just acts like a jackass, and when he gets kicked out, it's less funny than inevitable.

The scripted scenes could have been written by a cruder version of Leon Schuster, and were tedious as hell.

A few laughs don't make this movie worthy of the hype it has generated.

From the archives

2006-09-25T21:17:00.000+02:00

I sometimes hear people claiming that "African culture" leads to people blindly supporting their leaders, regardless of their actions. Of course, this is not an exclusively African trait at all. At times, all countries, even the most advanced, get caught up in fits of leader worship.

I remember reading the neocon National Review Online's Corner blog coverage when Bush did his now infamous "Mission Accomplished" photo-op on an aircraft carrier back in 2003.

Here, for your enjoyment is a link to the fawning coverage from that day, three years ago (scroll down to May 1 and work your way up).

Looking at the references to bush as a "stud", and the praise for the now-embarrassing photo-op, one cannot help but cringe at the bullshit put out by this bloodthirsty outfit.

Hyperlinking bans

2006-09-24T15:47:00.000+02:00

Looked at the "terms and conditions" section on a South African corporate website recently?

I noticed that at least two of the big four banks, a large listed IT company, and another top listed holding company have notices that require written permission for incoming hyperlinks to those sites. (I'd link to them, but, if their websites are to be believed, I could get sued).

I seriously doubt that search engines like Google ask for permission before indexing and linking to pages on those sites.

The draconian (and absurd) warnings on these websites, that prohibit even linking to their home pages without written permission, are a sign that a lot of South African companies remain absolutely clueless about the nature of the web.

[Take 2...Blogger wiped the first version of this post]

Hope

2006-09-23T09:04:00.000+02:00

Once there was a busy road, full of vehicles. Although the road was wide, traffic moved very slowly along the road.

On this road there was a red taxi. The taxi was brave, and worked hard to end the traffic jam, along with some other taxis.

Eventually the traffic jam unblocked, and the traffic started flowing freely. The taxi was rewarded by being given its own lane, along with other taxis who had helped end the traffic jam.

But some of the red taxi's friends realized that, as an older model, the taxi, along with its friends would end up jamming up the traffic again because they didn't understand the reality of driving in modern traffic. They conspired to get the old vehicle off the road, using the taxi's own naivete against it.

Humiliated and broken, it looked like the taxi was destined for the scrapyard. But, suddenly, to everyone's surprise the taxi was released back onto the highway.

Now, for some time before the taxi's return to the road, there were rumours that it had a slow puncture. These rumours had started when it emerged that the taxi had driven over an area with sharp nails without a care in the world (at a time that vehicles driving over nails without caring was a major problem on the road). Did the taxi, they speculated, already have a slow puncture? ¹

Panic ensued, as the sleek new cars on the freeway thought they would, once again, be caught in a traffic jam. The taxi trundled along in the emergency lane, building up speed, when suddenly, a tyre exploded and it rolled off the road into a ditch, never to return to the road.

Did you know?

2006-09-16T16:53:00.000+02:00

A number of American universities (including MIT) require students to pass a swimming test before they are allowed to graduate.

Here we go again

2006-09-16T11:23:00.000+02:00

The pope quoted some offensive statements about Islam, and Muslims may yet react in a similar way that they reacted to the Danish cartoon crisis.

If they do react in the same way, it will be a confirmation of the pitiful state of the Muslim world, which, it seems, cannot learn from its mistakes.

This is the kind of controversy that made me support this pope. Good old fire and brimstone - if I was a Muslim, and really confident in my religion, I'd say "bring it on". Enough of the wishy-washy kumbaya bullshit - it's refreshing to have someone speak their mind. I'd personally rather have a dozen enemies that I knew about, than one that I didn't.

Muslims: the pope is your spiritual enemy. Get over it.

Updates:

Abu Aardvark thinks that the sort of rhetoric employed by the pope strengthens Al-Qaeda's hand..
An in-depth look at the pope and church from earlier this year.
No huge riots yet, and now that the pope has clarified his statements, I wait for the usual suspects to start bleating about how his "capitulation" is a symbol of "dhimmitude" in "Eurabia".

It's for your own safety

2006-09-16T11:00:00.000+02:00

The Star had some tips for people traveling overseas after the clampdown on hand luggage.

Mostly useful information, but the following statement stood out:

Baby foods are being tested at the security gates. Again, it seems absurd, but it is for your own safety. [emphasis mine]

Except sheeple, it appears that the entire threat was grossly exaggerated. The idiotic security measures don't seem absurd they are absurd.

The circumstances around the liquid terror scare intrigued me from the start, and, although terrorists will continue killing innocents, it now appears that there are other players who are actively exploiting the specter of global terrorism to advance their own agendas.

Ubuntu upgrade Blues

2006-09-09T17:29:00.000+02:00

I'm trying to upgrade my Ubuntu Linux distribution, and it involves a bit more pain that I had expected for something that is aimed at the "human being" segment of the population- what with files being locked and piped commands required to unlock things.

Although I'll probably figure it out because I'm a techie, I seriously doubt that someone without much computer knowledge would cope. My Ubuntu install experience is not as bad as my experience getting a graphics card to work on SUSE a few years ago, but I think Ubuntu has a long way to go yet...

Update: I am using a VMWare virtual machine and I don't have any critical data on the machine, so I just did a new install, and wiped out everything. I tried entering some arcane commands I found on the internet to do the update, but I kept getting the same errors over and over again. Also, there is surprisingly little information about how to upgrade, despite the update manager referring one to the Ubuntu website.

I did find this, but it was too late, so I don't know if it would have worked or led me back the same way.

Busting Nigerian email scammers

2006-09-02T21:58:00.000+02:00

Puts our own crime problem in perspective...

The complexity cult in "software engineering"

2006-08-06T12:19:00.000+02:00

I've written before about the affliction of some programming "gurus" that leads them to believe that design complexity is a sign of "cleverness", when, in reality, it leads to maintainability problems.

There are certainly programmers ¹ who develop brilliant frameworks that seriously reduce the burdens of application developers. But I get the feeling that they are far rarer than the wannabes who create complexity because it's part of their job descriptions, at the behest of clueless cargo-cultist buzzword-oriented managers, or because their inflated egos deny them the ability to realise their own limitations. A few years of experience and knowing some design patterns does not a "software architect" make.

Most developers that produce business systems would probably do better if they came to terms with their mediocrity, and focused all their efforts on adding value to their customers using ready-made tools and frameworks produced by others wherever possible ².

Footnotes

^1. You could call them "software architects", if you like pretentious and fairly inaccurate metaphorical titles
^2. ie almost all of the time. This doesn't mean that design should be thrown out, merely that re-inventing the wheel for the sake of intellectual masturbation should be shunned.

Classical music

2006-08-05T14:16:00.000+02:00

In recent months I obtained some classical music mp3 collections, and I have started appreciating the genre.

It's interesting how deeply embedded some of the tunes are in popular culture. From the absurd "bananana" advertising adaptation by now defunct the Banana Board in the late 1980s (I think - I was still quite young at the time), based on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, to the movies, these songs have always been in the background.

It's nice to be able to put names to the tunes.

Analyze this

2006-08-01T19:40:00.000+02:00

Would you work for a company that relied on handwriting analysis to vet potential candidates? I wouldn't¹.

^{1 unless I was desperate for a job}

Mahmoud al-Zheimers

2006-07-23T22:25:00.000+02:00

America's Daily Show examines the Bush Administration's interesting stance on human life:

Watching the clip above makes one wonder how South African politicians would react if they were subjected to parody. Oh wait nevermind...

Middle East

2006-07-16T00:42:00.000+02:00

I'll refrain from commenting on the developments involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran since:

I don't consider my opinions informed enough on the issue.

There are too many thought police around.

However, on the issue of Iraq, I do have a question: What the f*$# was the Bush Administration thinking when it decided to invade Iraq?

2010 World Cup pessimism

2006-07-02T17:38:00.000+02:00

For some reason, a lot of people I've spoken to seem to think that South Africa won't be able to handle the 2010 World Cup. The media has picked up on this meme. I just don't understand why there is so much pessimism.

South Africa is not the first third-world country to host the championships.

The 2002 World Cup was held in South Korea, which is technically still at war with North Korea.

The government seems to have been asleep at the transport policy wheel in the last few years, but four years is enough time to start working on the issue. While it is obvious that we have transport problems, in a worst-case scenario, I'm sure that a temporary fix could be thought up in time for the few weeks of the World Cup.

Crime can also be stabilized and reduced, if the government developed the will to carry out its primary obligation - the protection of its citizens.

It is possible, but highly unlikely, that political instability could be a problem in 2010.

I just don't understand why there is such a surprising degree of pessimism around the 2010 World Cup. I see the challenges it presents as a way of shaking up arrogant and unaccountable parts of the government, and as presenting a great opportunity for improving South Africa. Losing the World Cup after it was awarded to us would be a disastrous vote of no-confidence in South Africa that simply cannot be allowed to happen.

This blog is not dead- it was just waiting for Telkom

2006-06-23T19:07:00.000+02:00

Waiting for an ADSL connection in South Africa is hugely annoying. Luckily I don't rely on a home internet connection for my livelihood, otherwise I would have been in huge trouble.

While Telkom may still be redeemed once they get some competition, I hope the SABC gets broken up - soon.

Enough with the "engineering" already

2006-05-06T17:13:00.000+02:00

Engineers are highly trained professionals who apply scientific methods to solve practical problems, at least that's what I think of when I hear the term.

I am no engineer, but if I was an engineer, I would be a little pissed off that every other monkey who fixes computers or throws together websites calls himself an "engineer".

When it comes to "software engineering", I think that the term needs to be abandoned, in place of a better description (although to be fair, most of the professional programmers I've met call themselves "developers" rather than "engineers").

Post inspired by this (rather dense) article.

The plague of diminished expectations

2006-03-24T05:13:00.000+02:00

Over at Commentary, there is a post about Eskom's affirmative action policies. While I don't know whether the complaint has any merit, it did get me thinking about affirmative action in general.

I recently met a financial advisor, who happened to be black. He was a fairly pleasant person, but he didn't give me good advice. In fact, he didn't give me any advice at all. I still seriously considered giving him my business, because I felt sorry for him, because he was black and previously disadvantaged.

I am sure that there are black financial advisors who are highly competent, and white financial advisors who are totally incompetent. But if a white advisor had given the same level of service as the person who I met, I would not have even dreamed of entrusting him with my money.

Fortunately, I met another advisor who gave much better advice, and I appointed him instead.

I had lower expectations of blacks than of whites, and so I was willing to excuse poor service merely because the person was black. This kind of attitude, perpetuated by affirmative action, cannot be good for South Africa as a whole, nor is it useful for those who truly want to compete on an equal footing.

Which brings us back to Eskom, and affirmative action in technical fields: the laws of physics and engineering are hard and unforgiving and offer no quarter to the forces of political correctness.

In "softer" fields, incompetence can be overlooked in the name of political correctness, but if a road falls apart due to poor maintenance, or a generator breaks down due to negligence it's pretty hard to make excuses, since the mess is visible for all to see.

The hard failures we are seeing in the engineering sector may not actually be related to affirmative action, but they are visible (and very difficult to cover up), and they do highlight the need for hiring only the best, and most competent people, regardless of race.

IEC Website ASP.NET bugs

2006-03-02T21:46:00.000+02:00

I was just wondering why the IEC website seems so buggy.

It appears to be running in debug mode, so I am pretty sure that the detailed ward report was being blocked earlier because .NET thought the query string looked suspiciously like an XSS (cross site scripting) attack. It now seems to have been yanked from the site. Fixing the problem should not be too difficult.

Of course, things are probably different in the trenches and I'm sure that people are working hard to fix the errors, but it would have been nice if the bugs had been ironed out before the elections.

Getting ready to spoil my ballot

2006-02-12T12:15:00.001+02:00

I look forward to 1 March, when I will enter the voting booth and express my disgust at the poor quality of candidates fielded by both the ANC and the DA in my ward.

The vacuous idiot who I mentioned in my previous posts has been nominated by the ANC (or by people who joined the ANC to nominate him), and the drones will vote for him regardless of his rather ~~dubious~~ missing credentials. The DA candidate is no better.

I'm sick of power cuts that take 6 hours to fix, and streetlights that are out for weeks. I am sick of a municipality that wants to waste huge amounts of money on meaningless symbolic gestures, rather than spending it on service delivery. I am sick of driving to work on a deathtrap of a road, because the provincial government wants to allocate transport spending to a white elephant.

To a lesser extent, my action will be also an attempt at protest against a governing party that is becoming arrogant and corrupt, and a political opposition that has failed to move out of its "Fight Back" reactionary mindset and provide a viable alternative to the ANC. It will ultimately be a futile gesture, but it will make me feel better.

A Gulf wedding

2006-02-12T11:32:00.000+02:00

Here's an interesting description of the celebrations at a Gulf Arab wedding by a female guest.

The cartoon scandal - trolling1 writ large

2006-02-04T06:38:00.000+02:00

The Muhammad cartoon scandal has been big news.

Many bloggers seem to have embraced the cartoons with relish including our own Commentary. Other bloggers have pointed out that freedom of speech means the freedom to attack Islam, and claim that the fallout from the scandal provides justification for Muslims to be removed from Europe if possible.

In my opinion, Muslims have fallen straight into the trap set by the Danish newspaper, by reacting in a predictable way. Instead of tactfully dealing with the issue, they allowed it to be blown out of proportion, and gave the Danish newspaper and closet racists an opportunity to play the role of martyrs to free speech.

You will note that I said that Muslims have reacted in a "predictable way". The faux outrage of those who claim to be surprised when Muslims are offended by their prophet being portrayed as a terrorist, is either disingenuous or hopelessly naive.

The cartoons were obviously printed as a deliberate provocation.

^{1 Troll: definition (Trolling is also free speech)}

Update: This sums up my feelings about the whole business: If newspapers have the right to offend then surely their targets have the right to be offended. [via]
Update 2 (2006/02/06): It appears that the same Danish newspaper refused to publish drawings lampooning Jesus Christ in 2003, on the grounds that they were "offensive and not funny" [via].

Database hot air

2006-02-03T20:57:00.000+02:00

One of the weird things I have discovered as a software developer, is that almost every developer I talk to has a different opinion about what constitutes good database design and manipulation (using SQL).

From those who eschew referential integrity in the name of performance to those who insist on always using autonumbers/identity columns for primary keys. From those who ruthlessly denormalize, to those who refuse to use inner joins because "nested selects are faster", it's easy to get dozens of opinions.

It's pretty hard to justify many of these arguments, and from a maintenance/data integrity perspective, some of these are awful.

Why are databases surrounded by so much hot air?

Links 30/01/2006

2006-01-30T22:02:00.000+02:00

Digg - A website that allows users to choose the best technology stories.

JavaScript games

A JavaScript RPG (may work on IE only)

List of "Web 2.0" applications

2006-01-22T18:40:00.000+02:00

There are lots of innovative things being done with web applications. While the term "Web 2.0" sounds like a throwback to the old .com bubble, it is still interesting to see what's out there.
[via Digg]

Riots, racism and minorities II

2006-01-22T14:24:00.000+02:00

While surfing the net I came across a story about an incident at a pool in Melbourne where lifeguards were beaten by members of a minority group. I previously blogged about the reactions of bloggers to the riots in Sydney which were triggered under similar circumstances, so I decided to see what bloggers were saying about this latest riot. I was, once again, not disappointed.

Once again, also, Australia provides an interesting contrast to South Africa, where there is very little racist scapegoating of the white minority when some members of that community are accused of a far worse crime:

"Three female employees of a dry-cleaning operation were put one by one and still alive into a large washing machine containing chemicals before being tied up and strangled, the Vereeniging Magistrate's Court heard on Wednesday."
source

It is wrong to use the behavior of members of a group as an excuse to attack that entire group, and, once again, I think that South African whites are fortunate that attitudes towards minorities here are far more tolerant than they appear to be in parts of the First World.

Gay group tries to contaminate blood supply

2006-01-16T22:22:00.000+02:00

I think that homosexuality is a private matter, and, that gays should be allowed to have their "alternative lifestyle" without interference from outsiders.

However, I find the behavior of the "Gay and Lesbian Alliance" (GLA) to be disgusting. Assuming that the group actually exists - some gay groups are trying to spin it as a one man show- its members should be held accountable for their irresponsible actions:

"We want to force a complete shutdown of the system because if gay blood is not allowed, then it should be shut down," said Baxter"

It's bad enough for a high risk group to donate blood, but it is criminal for that group to deliberately get HIV+ men to donate blood:

"GLA's David Baxter said on Monday that it was extending its campaign to defy the SANBS rules and was calling on HIV positive gay men to lie about their health and also donate blood"

If anyone gets infected as a result of this ridiculous campaign, I hope that the bastards who infected him/her get charged with attempted murder.

See also.

Right lane hogs

2006-01-10T21:20:00.000+02:00

Commuting to work on a busy highway, I have found that obeying the rules of the road and staying in the left lane, unless overtaking, results in a smoother, more comfortable, and safer drive than driving in the right-lane. I also doubt that I am significantly slowed down by driving in the left lane during peak hours.

I hate drivers who, for no reason, decide to hog the right lane and disrupt the smooth flow of traffic. Unless I am mistaken, there is no penalty for hogging the fast lane. Perhaps the authorities should introduce fines for right-lane hogs.

Matric standards

2006-01-08T19:03:00.000+02:00

The matric pass rate in South Africa was 68.3 % in 2005. The minister of education said

"...that in 1994, the year the 2005 matriculants began grade one, 495 408 full-time candidates wrote the senior certificate exam and 287 343 passed. Eleven years later, 508 363 full-time candidates wrote the senior certificate and 347 184 passed."

Unless I am mistaken, that means that the matric pass rate went from 58% to 68% in that period. In 2004 the matric pass rate was 70.7 %.

While I am willing to accept that the matric pass rate has improved because of underlying improvements to the education system, I do have to wonder if standards have dropped over the years as well. That, along with the allegations of upward mark adjustments in 2005, make the matric certificate seem even less valuable than it was in the past.

We need to guard against debasing an already somewhat valueless (to most school-leavers) qualification like a matric certificate just for the sake of improving pass rates.

Is the ANC going to remove useless scum from Local Government?

2006-01-07T13:40:00.000+02:00

The ANC leadership is apparently planning to do something about the poor quality of local government politicians, something which I complained about previously. [via]

I have an excellent test case in my own area, and it will be interesting to see if he gets nominated, given the new policy.

Have a great festive season

2005-12-24T00:34:00.000+02:00

2005 is almost over, and I'm going on holiday.

I will be back in 2006.

1984

2005-12-24T00:16:00.000+02:00

I read George Orwell's Animal Farm when I was in high school, but I didn't get around to 1984 till this week when I downloaded it¹. It was an impressive book, and I can see why it is so influential.

Note:
^{I hope it was 1984. I once downloaded and read a fake Harry Potter book, although I did figure out is was a fake after a couple of hundred pages.}

Fuel shortage

2005-12-19T22:45:00.000+02:00

There is/was a petrol shortage in parts of the country, and Vaz Lube puts the blame squarely at the feet of government regulation.

I have no reason - and I don't know enough about the causes of the shortage- to dispute his claim.

On the plus side though, the panic buying didn't seem as bad as one would have expected, at least in Gauteng. There was also no price gouging (because it isn't allowed).

It would be interesting for someone versed in economics to explain whether panic buying is better dampened by the higher prices that would follow a shortage or by the knowledge that the government will control prices, so there is no need to rush to the pump.

See also, my previous post on the topic, where I explain my somewhat irrational reasons for supporting for petrol price regulation.

In house systems for IT companies

2005-12-14T20:39:00.000+02:00

Reading this article by Joel on Software about developing a shipping system for his company's products, reminded me of my own experiences when developing small in-house systems. It's easy when the customer understands the technical and business requirements of a system, the scope is well-defined, and you can get immediate feedback. Too bad all systems can't be like that...

Free Linux CDs

2005-12-14T19:13:00.000+02:00

You can order free Ubuntu Linux CDs on the internet. You may have to pay a handling charge of less than R20 to the post office, but apart from that, the CDs are free, and you can order enough for your friends and family. This really does work, and is very useful for us in South Africa, because of out limited and expensive internet access.

My first experience with Linux was with the SUSE distribution in 2000. I later installed Mandrake. My computer's graphics card (a SiS 6326) needed a lot of tweaking to get it to work properly. With a new computer and VMware (I am not willing to re-partition my hard drive yet), I hope that my experience with Ubuntu Linux will be better.

PS. To Install VMware tools for Linux this link is useful.

December blues

2005-12-13T22:34:00.000+02:00

The next two weeks are going to be extremely hot and boring for many of us, as we wait for the festive season to arrive, and for the 2005 work year to end.

Arrogance versus Maintainability in Software Development

2005-12-12T22:13:00.001+02:00

One of my pet hates is the "we are smarter than everyone else" attitude of some developers. "Drag and drop programming" is sneered at, while exotic architectures that ignore important principles of software design, and fundamental principles of database design are promoted.

Of course these gurus leave their messy systems to lesser mortals to maintain, and move on, as problems begin to pile up.

Post inspired by this Daily WTF.

Web Software

2005-12-12T20:09:00.000+02:00

A blogger has posted his best Web 2.0 Software Picks. [via Digg].

An updated list of my top apps would be (not all would qualify as "Web 2.0"), or even as web apps, but they do make my life easier (see also previous entry):

Gmail.

Mozilla Firefox

Sharpreader

VMware

Wikipedia - still a useful resource despite the threats made by attention seekers and by people who just don't get it [via]

Google

eMule

American right-wing blog watching: Sydney race riots

2005-12-11T19:52:00.000+02:00

I will be watching the blog-world's reactions to the race riots in Australia with a lot of interest, especially in the more conservative precincts of the internet.

Update 12/12/2005: At least one of the links above didn't disappoint. The more I read of the thread, the more I felt that SA whites are extremely fortunate. It appears that tolerance towards minorities is skin deep in much of the first world.

See also

Update 2: Some of the people who try to justify the race riots claim that activities by Lebanese gangs justify the attacks on "wogs". If that is the case, then I wonder how they would react if, hypothetically, black mobs in South Africa decided to go on a racist rampage when, say, a white farmer throws a black farm worker into a lion enclosure?

Random thought: Shoprite Checkers and branding confusion

2005-12-10T17:36:00.000+02:00

I don't keep up with marketing issues, but I find the whole Shoprite/Checkers/OK business very confusing.

Two wheeled morons

2005-12-10T12:03:00.000+02:00

Cyclists and motorcyclists are often militant about their "right" to use our roads. But, as any Gauteng motorist will tell you, they often are a danger, both to themselves and to other road users.

Driving on a busy freeway, I always check my mirrors and ensure that I have a clear space around my car. But, more than once, I have been shocked to hear a loud roar as a motorcyclist slips past my vehicle, in the same lane, without me even realizing that he was there. A friend recently had his car badly damaged by a kamikaze on a motorbike.

Bicycle riders, too, are often a danger to themselves, and others. While I have sympathy for those who need bicycles to get to work, recreational cyclists, who are often inconsiderate morons who train during rush hour on busy roads at twilight, need to be fined and taken off the road. Companies that sponsor cycle events should also be exposed to negative publicity whenever someone training for their events gets creamed.

Of course, it is politically correct to blame motorists for cycling accidents:

Most accidents on bikes, except in our rural areas, occur in cyclists between the ages of 7 and 17. Statistics improve once they reach their mid-teens by which time they have learned some road sense. Unfortunately the same is often not true of those driving cars, mini-bus taxis and large commercial vehicles. Since generally motorists in this country are not trained to take notice of cyclists, cyclists must learn to take notice of them!

Anyone who has done their driver's licence in the last decade or so will know that the idea that they are not trained to look for cyclists is rubbish .

Perhaps the time has come for drivers to become militant about our right to use the road and to push for cycles to be banned from major routes, and for motorcycles to be taken off our freeways.

If you thought our public transport sucked...

2005-12-03T21:13:00.000+02:00

...read this first hand account from India.

Trouble at government propaganda organ?

2005-11-29T00:37:00.000+02:00

According to an article in the Sunday Independent, top reporters are fleeing the SABC in droves.

More here and here.

Durban - South Africa's next IT hub?

2005-11-20T20:19:00.000+02:00

The Sunday Times has an article about Durban's prospects as the "Sillicon Valley of Africa". Like many Sunday Times articles, it seems a little less than objective, and the emphasis on "public-private partnerships" and call-centres does ring a few alarm bells.

That said, I have a soft spot for Durban, and I hope that the city does become a hi tech hub. Something I often hear from Durbanites is that their city lacks opportunities for skilled professionals, and anything to solve that problem should be welcomed.

If the Durban project succeeds, it will be an interesting case study for us in Gauteng where we have a similar project the - Innovation Hub.

Hiring IT graduates

2005-11-19T21:43:00.000+02:00

I work for a company that believes in giving job opportunities to new graduates (in particular, those with IT-related degrees), and to technical support staff who want to transition to software development. They are hired at very low salaries, and, as they prove themselves, they earn more. The system seems to work, and my employer has a very low staff turnover.

The job market is -or was two years ago- tough for young South African graduates to break into. Companies seem to want to avoid the risks inherent in taking someone green and training them. Their scepticism is probably warranted, given the number of low-value certificates that are produced at IT colleges. But university graduates with good records are often tarred with the same brush as graduates from fly-by-night colleges.

Recruitment agencies also seem to dislike graduates, probably because they get lower commissions¹.

Interestingly, the only developer who left my company since I started there, was hired on the basis of previous experience (he has no formal IT qualifications). He turned out to be, quite frankly, a professional liability. There was a secret sense of relief when he left us for a better paying position.

On the other hand, the smartest, strongest developers, who are driving the company forward (and earning it lots of cash), and who were hired straight out of university, remain at the company. They could probably have been snapped up by any company at a salary of R6 000,00 p/m after graduating. Today they are unlikely to change jobs, even if offered four times that amount.

Of course, there will be duds if one hires junior people (it's depressingly easy to cheat and coast one's way through university), but the risk is reduced if you pay them less.

Joel on Software has a good point:

In fact, one thing I have noticed is that the people who I consider to be good software developers barely ever apply for jobs at all. I know lots of great people who took a summer internship on a whim and then got permanent offers. They only ever applied for one or two jobs in their lives.

...

By the way, it's because of this phenomenon-the fact that many of the great people are never on the job market-that we are so aggressive about hiring summer interns. This may be the last time these kids ever show up on the open market. In fact we hunt down the smart CS students and individually beg them to apply for an internship with us, because if you wait around to see who sends you a resume, you're already missing out. [Read the rest]

I think that Joel, and my own boss, are on to something.

Notes:
¹ If you are heavily reliant on employment agencies for IT recruitment, then you are asking for trouble, since most are ignorant.

Are opportunists infiltrating the ANC at local level?

2005-11-17T20:56:00.000+02:00

Over the last few years, the ANC branch in the area where I live has slowly changed its composition. Crooks and assorted power-hungry scumbags have managed to climb to the top.

Over the last few weeks, I have heard that another unqualified individual has started angling for a nomination. If he gets it, he will probably be elected to the metro council.

Although I don't condone the rioting that seems to have become a common occurrence in South Africa, I do understand the frustration of people who have no practical alternatives to an ANC which has been infiltrated by careerists who don't care about their constituents' welfare.

Gautrain: a white elephant?

2005-11-08T20:29:00.000+02:00

With the increasing costs of the Gautrain project, questions are being asked about its viability.

A Rich Man's Highway?

2005-10-30T23:04:00.000+02:00

The Sunday Times Metro section has an article on the proposed PWV9 highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. According to the somewhat breathless piece, the route has been revised to run further west than originally planned, between Sandton and Hartebeespoort, rather than parallel to the Ben Schoeman Highway.

I don't have enough information about the route to make a definite comment, but I do hope that this new highway doesn't become a road for the elites to zip between their golf estates and workplaces, leaving the poorer western parts of Pretoria and Centurion without a good transport link to the province's economic hub.

More powerful searching

2005-10-22T23:33:00.000+02:00

Imagine if a search engine could infer meaning from the text it crawls. So a search for "negative review of MOVIE XYZ" would come up with negative reviews, even if the reviews themselves didn't contain the actual words "negative review". It's probably not a new idea.

Update 8 November 2005:
Google seems to have launched a movie review site. [Via Scripting News]. See this example.

Trucks on the R21 and minimum speed enforcement

2005-10-20T20:01:00.000+02:00

The R21 is an important highway between Pretoria and the East Rand. It provides the only practical link between Johannesburg International Airport and the the Tshwane Metropolitan Area (Pretoria and Centurion), and is one of the only highways in Gauteng that remains relatively uncongested, even at rush hour.

There are minimum speed limit signs on many stretches that indicate that vehicles must travel faster than 60 km/h. There are also lane-use restriction signs that prohibit the use of the right-hand lane during rush hours by trucks (although when these signs are demolished in accidents, they don't seem to be replaced by the authorities).

However the minimum speed limits seem to be seldom enforced. Many trucks crawl along, sometimes at under the minimum speed limit. Today, a couple of Zimbabwe registered trucks (lots of trucks from that country use the highway for some reason) caused an enormous backup (and lots of hard braking) because they were traveling extremely slowly in the left-lane. There wasn't a traffic officer in sight.

The problems caused by trucks on the R21 need to be addressed by the authorities.

Greasemonkey - Change web pages to make them more user friendly

2005-10-09T21:45:00.000+02:00

After reading about it over the last few months, I took the plunge and started using a clever extension for Mozilla Firefox called Greasemonkey, that can be downloaded from http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/.

After installing it on Firefox, one can download or write user scripts to add features to web pages, making them more usable.

I am using scripts I downloaded that make Gmail more user-friendly by adding "delete" and "mark read" buttons (instead of having to use a dropdown).

I also have a script that allows a form submit by pressing CTRL+ENTER in a textbox, and one that shows Amazon prices in Rand, in addition to Dollars. Another script converts URL text into hyperlinks automatically .

There are apparently also similar similar options for other browsers, but for now, I will stick to Greasemonkey. I have switched between IE and Mozilla/Firefox for the past few years as my default browser, but I finally have a reason to stick with Firefox.

Web developers are going to complain about users being able to mess with their site designs - with good reason - you could make some sites stop working if you install the wrong script - but uninstalling is easy. I would recommend Greasemonkey to experienced web surfers, who are looking for a way to improve their online experience.

Misc.

2005-09-27T03:03:00.000+02:00

Driving home today on a major highway on Monday, I found myself in an area of almost zero visibility, caused by fine debris being blown about by the wind. Scary stuff. Also lots of power failures, but despite much thunder and lightning I haven't seen a major downpour yet.

A popular financial services company is discussing its employees' personal lives, specifically their hobbies, in its advertising campaign. I don't see the relevance of their personal lives to whether they are capable of doing their jobs.

Besides, I was at a weekend sporting match earlier this year, and a large group of people wearing clothing items branded with the company's name (I, and others, assumed they were employees) got drunk and one assaulted a female spectator. The police confronted them. Not a good advertisement for the company if it believes that I should base my assessment of its products on the after-hours conduct of its employees.

An interesting analysis of South Africa's floor crossing sham. [Via Fodder]

Odds and ends

2005-09-17T12:40:00.000+02:00

I just fixed my modem (I had to rely on a laptop with power problems to connect, so I could rarely stay online for more than a few minutes).

Hopefully I will be able to stay connected long enough to be able to post some stuff.

I'm currently checking out Ruby on Rails for web application development, and working with VMware Workstation.

While my experiences with VMware Workstation, a program that lets one run multiple virtual machines on your computer, have been overwhelmingly positive, I haven't been able to get Rails to install yet because of the Internet connectivity problems I have been experiencing.

I'm mainly testing Rails because I want to see what the hype is about, but VMware has already proved to be enormously useful for maintaining multiple development environment configurations.

South Asian immigration to South Africa in the context of the recent London bombings

2005-07-23T15:59:00.000+02:00

I wrote last year about immigrants from South Asia. Although ostensibly here legally, I have heard that their immigration status is often secured by bribery.

In the wake of the recent mayhem in London, I have to wonder whether immigration by South Asians, especially Pakistanis, to South Africa, needs to be monitored more closely. While many of them are hardworking people, are we willing to run the risk that they, or -perhaps more likely- their children, will become disaffected at some time in the future, and turn to radical Islam?

By the way, while Muslim leaders in Britain have condemned the bombings, their South African counterparts are still seemingly equivocal in their responses to terrorism.

Update - 07/08/2005
The Sunday Times had a feature article on the topic of South Asian immigration today, with a focus on Bangladeshi immigrants.

Looking for web content authors

2005-07-23T11:08:00.000+02:00

This blog hasn't gone dormant - I had the flu and couldn't connect to the internet.

If anyone knows of professional web content authors in South Africa, please email me. (I don't need a web site, I need someone to write copy for a corporate website.)

Gauteng from space

2005-06-28T04:25:00.000+02:00

Check out the amazing satellite images of Gauteng from Google Maps, linked to by Commentary.

Software essay list I

2005-06-26T20:55:00.000+02:00

I have been busy for the last few weeks, hence the lack of blogging.

Joel Spolsky of the Joel on Software website has a compiled some essays on software development into a book. Based on the books he chose for his book list, I expect that his choice of essays will be as good as his choice of books.

I would recommend that you buy the book, if possible, but, if like me you don't have the cash for the book, you can read the essays online.

Here are links to the first few essays from the book:

More to follow...

Good clean fun

2005-05-28T09:54:00.000+02:00

I watched Noot vir Noot, the Afrikaans TV music quiz show, last night. It has been going for years, and, although the music is not the type of stuff I would normally listen to -I only decided to watch because one of the contestants was quite pretty- it is nice to see that there are still television shows that can be enjoyed by the whole family.

Don't believe everything that you read in the papers

2005-05-16T21:35:00.000+02:00

There was a fairly big news story today, and I happen to know some of the people involved. Because of this, I know that the coverage, particularly from the newspapers has been ludicrously inaccurate.

The amount of bullshit produced by the mass media is astounding.

Ooh shiny!

2005-05-15T12:28:00.000+02:00

I attended a wedding ceremony the other day, and the chap officiating described the event as a "sanctimonious occasion". No one else seemed to have noticed the malapropism, and most were probably impressed that he used a difficult word in his speech.

Big words impress people. Jargon intimidates the feeble minded. Fancy graphics can mask crappy functionality.

Too many people value style over substance and pay the price in the long run.

Blindingly obvious observations about corporate website content (that some people still don't know about)

2005-05-07T09:09:00.002+02:00

I surf the net looking for information that is useful or interesting to me. I use web applications to get things done. I expect that most people do the same. I am not awed by eye-candy, but I appreciate an aesthetically pleasing website as much as the next person.
Presentation is important, but if your corporate website doesn't have useful content the it will probably be a white elephant.
If your website's navigation scheme makes it difficult for search engines to follow your links you will lose business.
If you use obscure jargon to describe your business, instead of saying what you do in simple English, you will probably lose search engine hits
If you have spelling and grammatical errors on your site, your company will look unprofessional, and even the best site design won't compensate for that

Monopoly

2005-04-27T23:54:00.000+02:00

I played Monopoly with some friends today. We used the newish version of the game, which has updated property names. The best part was that no-one cheated- making this the first time I ever participated in a clean game.

The only thing I dislike about the new version is that it takes time to get used to all the additional zeroes on the banknotes, and there were a few mix-ups during the game, as 50000 notes were confused with 5000 notes. I don't get why the values were inflated- they are still unrealistically low, and they just make the game more difficult to play

Poor traffic enforcement

2005-04-23T12:17:00.000+02:00

Minibus taxi drivers seem to be able to get away with dangerous driving without much being done to stop them.

Taxi drivers are not the only inconsiderate and reckless road users; the following dangerous habits also need to be cracked down on:

People who, seeing a line of cars in the right-lane of a two-lane highway, passing a truck, decide to use the left-lane to overtake these cars. They then try to force their way back into the right-lane when they reach the truck, causing the other vehicles in the right lane to have to brake suddenly.
Truck drivers who violate lane restrictions and minimum speed rules.
Morons who don't treat broken robots as four-way stops (from what I've seen, Durbanites, in particular, ignore this rule)
Idiots who do u-turns on highways by crossing the median island
Pedestrians who run across highways.
People who drive in the emergency lane.

That old time religion

2005-04-21T21:46:00.000+02:00

I would like to congratulate Roman Catholics on the election of their new pope.

According to reports, he is conservative, which is exactly what is required from a religious leader.

Religion needs to call people back to the straight and narrow, and not follow them into debauchery. I also believe that many people have a poorly developed sense of right and wrong, and that the fear of eternal damnation is an excellent way to curb whatever criminal predilections they might have. Therefore, the election of a pope not given to wishy-washy moral relativism is a good thing.

Most useful computer stuff

2005-04-18T23:07:00.000+02:00

Like many people, I install or use lots of different websites and programs, looking for stuff that makes life easier and computing more enjoyable. The following are my top websites and applications:

Google. Still the best search engine

Gmail. The Google approach to email.

Wikipedia. An open encyclopedia.

Mozilla Firefox. A free web browser.

eMule. Filesharing client, similar to eDonkey.

Blogger. Quick and easy personal website creation.

Royal wedding

2005-04-10T12:11:00.000+02:00

I can't believe I'm writing about this, but after hearing cruel remarks the whole week about the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, especially on 94.7 Highveld Stereo (the low-point was when a DJ played a horse sound-effect while discussing the woman), it was refreshing to see a sensible article on the topic.

Flags for web browsers

2005-03-30T21:29:00.000+02:00

Many programming environments have a feature called "flags", that allows one to mark lines of code, and jump to them when required. This is a brilliant, and could be extended to the web. Those of us on dial-up connections often view the "printable version" of a web page, so that we can read offline at our leisure, instead of clicking through a paged article.

The problem is that printable versions are long and it is easy to lose one's place in the article. I wonder if would be possible to add a feature that replicated the flags feature for web browsers?

Filthy

2005-03-30T21:05:00.000+02:00

I will never understand why many otherwise clean people don't wash their braai grills, assuming that "the heat from the fire will kill the germs".

I have no idea if the heat from a braai fire can kill germs, but I have severe gastroenteritis, and I suspect that I got the virus that caused it from an unwashed braaistand which had been lying on the floor for weeks.

It could just have been a coincidence that I got sick after the braai, but I cannot help but wonder if my discomfort could have been avoided if I had just avoided the meat.

Charmless politicians

2005-03-30T20:38:00.000+02:00

I watched an etv interview with the South African cabinet minister who is heading the SADC observer mission to Zimbabwe, and I was struck by how absolutely defensive, imperious and charmless she was.

I makes me wonder how many of our elected officials would survive if they had to campaign for their seats directly, and try to appeal to voters. My guess is that quite a few would not even try .

Chilligate1

2005-03-20T15:06:00.000+02:00

In the highly unlikely event that you missed the Sunday Times front page, a number of chilli products have been contaminated with Sudan dye, a carcinogenic food colorant.

Although the Sunday Times seems to be sensationalizing the story a little, I will be keeping away from chilies for the next few months, and from brands mentioned in the article for a long time (unless I find out that there was a flaw in the testing process).

^{1 Apologies for the title, I know that some people find adding the suffix -gate to any scandal to be annoying}

Update: Local bloggers react to the story. The consensus seems to be that the story was blown out of proportion by the Sunday Times.

Inane observations about management

2005-03-19T13:09:00.000+02:00

One of the careers I thought about pursuing was management consulting. Other opportunities arose, and I'm quite happy as a software developer (which requires a substantially different set of skills).

1. It is obvious that some training (even of an informal type) in management is essential for everyone, from team leaders up, in any industry.

2. Without a well-defined structure, an organization staffed with the best people will degenerate into a group of rival power bases, where having a power base, and using that power base to protect oneself is more important than doing the right thing for the organization. The unfortunate outsiders who do not have a power base are punished by management for the mistakes/incompetence of those who do have a power base. This often seems to happen in family businesses, for example, where the management is too timid to confront family members, often to the detriment of the company.

Links 12/03/2005

2005-03-12T11:54:00.000+02:00

Two related articles:
- Pulling a job, dotcom style [via]. (the wrong way of doing things).
- How to start a startup (the right way?)
Student history essay bloopers [via]

Wasting money

2005-03-09T20:21:00.000+02:00

Laurence, and a lot of other people at Commentary are upset about the "renaming" of Pretoria.

The city centre will retain its name, so the name "Pretoria" will not vanish entirely. The City of Tshwane has been in existence for around 5 years, so registering it as a place name is not a big issue. In fact, apart from the name being registered, it appears that little else will change.

What will be interesting is whether the area that comprises the entire municipality is registered as "Tshwane", or just the old city of Pretoria, which is a part of Tshwane. Registering just the old Pretoria as Tshwane will probably cause confusion in places like Centurion, which were not part of Pretoria, but are part of Tshwane.

I also was taken aback when I read this report that the name change may cost 1.5 billion Rand.

I grew up in a rather underdeveloped part of what is now Tshwane, and despite the promises of the municipality, the infrastructure remains in a poor state, and it is economically underdeveloped. 1.5 billion Rand would be a nice sum to kickstart development, instead of being wasted on a symbolic and meaningless gesture.

By the way - it seems politically foolish for the ANC to give the opposition a hot-button issue with which to mobilize support.

How to make street renaming simple

2005-03-06T11:30:00.000+02:00

According to the Sunday Times Metro, the Tshwane council wants street names in Pretoria to change. It doesn't really matter to me, since the only time I visit the Pretoria city centre is when I need to drive across the city (Pretoria doesn't have a complete outer ring road), or when I need to visit government departments (hardly ever).

I also think that Paul Kruger and his contemporaries are long gone, as are the people who they wronged, and renaming the streets of the city centre would be a waste of time.

Also, the potential for confusion is real, especially when street renamings are arbitrary. The ideal situation would be for a logical grid system to be used in renaming the streets - all north-south roads could be named with even numbers, and all east-west roads with odd numbers. Or something like that. And the number of street renamings should also be limited to those figures who are truly offensive.

But, politicians, being politicians, will probably opt for political names. Streets named after figures like DF Malan, and HF Verwoerd are the most embarrassing, and richly deserving of renaming. Unfortunately, these names are also often the names of main roads in many towns.

The potential chaos caused by a renaming can be mitigated if a nationwide mapping between old and new names is established. For example, all HF Verwoerd streets in South Africa could be renamed after say, Oliver Tambo. All DF Malan streets could be named after Beyers Naude, following the precedent set in Johannesburg. It will ease the transition between old and new names, and, if people are given a small list, they are more likely to adopt the new names quickly, and with minimal confusion. A lot of arguments against street renaming will also be blunted - old business cards, phone books and maps will still be valid - all the user would have to do is look at one list -valid for the entire country-, and they would know what the new street names are.

Jo'blog responds on rape post

2005-03-05T19:16:00.000+02:00

Despite what some people think, anal rape is not supposed to be part of the prison experience, nor is it an acceptable form of punishment, in South Africa, or anywhere else.

Calling for someone to be raped is sick. I stand by my previous posting on this topic.

Why I like petrol price regulation

2005-03-05T12:37:00.000+02:00

I don't know much about microeconomics, so I'll have to take Vaz Lube's word that government regulation of the petrol price is a bad thing. It probably even leads to higher overall prices because of decreased competition, I don't know.

And, frankly, I don't care. I like the convenience of being able to fill up anywhere, and knowing that I'm paying the same price as everyone else in the area. I like the idea of going into a garage - any garage- and saying, "full tank-unleaded" without worrying about the price. I don't need the hassle of looking for lower-priced petrol, and calculating whether the cost of driving across town to fill a half-tank of petrol will be offset by a 20 cent/litre saving. Life is complicated enough already without worrying about being gouged by petrol station owners. I don't care if average prices come down, I only care about knowing, with 100% certainty, that I am not paying more than the average price.

It's probably stupid, and economic blasphemy for me to say so, but in this case, I feel better off having the government set petrol prices using a convoluted formula, than leaving things to the whims of the market.

Local blogger advocates prison rape

2005-03-04T21:11:00.000+02:00

"I hope he lives. I hope he goes to prison. I hope the inmates fuck him a new ass...! "
Jo'blog

Human Rights Watch on prison rape in the US

An article on prison rape in South Africa

Even the normally odious National Review is on the right side on this issue.

How not to sell your products

2005-03-02T07:29:00.000+02:00

If you sell components to developers, and build your own site using those components, you had better be sure that your site works properly.

Update - 21:00: The site is fixed, but the manual download page still has broken links, and the newsgroups load, but very slowly.