Category: Rants

Things that piss me off.

Benny Hinn is a swindler and a thief…

Benny Hinn is a swindler and a thief and it is high time that honest, god fearing christians spoke up against him. The ridiculousness of the church (as a community) not calling him on his outrageous fraud —  because he’s a ‘christian’ and they don’t want to ‘judge’, is perhaps only slightly more stupid than far right christians believing that George Bush is ordained by god to return America to its christian roots.

There is only one thing more insipid than people who are stupid enough to give their money to this charletan, and that is people who know better but prefer not to rock the boat. Good men are doing nothing.

“Everyone had to donate $1 000 because an exceptional blessing rested on $1 000.”

Read the News24 article here.

(Note to the reader: These sorts of antics, and the church’s general acceptance of it, do nothing to redeem the church, or its religion, in my eyes. Feed for poor, clothe the naked, for God’s sake.)

Is there crack in the groundwater?

Every few months or so I begin to ask myself the age old question; Is there crack in the ground water?

This time it’s over the property industry, particularly the rental people. We’re looking for a nice cosy garden apartment and we have a fair sized budget, it shouldn’t be all that hard.

But there are forces conspiring against me:

Firstly, the steaming pile of web un-usability that is GumTree really needs to catch a wakeup call. My single biggest gripe is simple; now that all modern web browsers support tabs you really should allow users to open up a particular item in a new tab. Instead they use some nonsensical javascript navigation that even I, who remember, am the Elvis Presly (the fat narc’d up one) of javascript, can not make sense of… I mean, I understand how it works, I just can’t understand why they did it. Funnily enough, there are actually html anchors for regular links and they’re set up properly, but then they also have this javascript onclick event that strongarms the browser and forwards you to the same page the anchor tag does. You know in case your browser happens to support javascript but doesn’t support html.

(I know there are firefox plugins that allow me to selectively disable javascript for particular sites but as you can imagine, other elements of their site break horribly without javascript)

Secondly, it’s the lazy lazy property people who seem to be about as effective and hard-working as the employment agencies. Why would you be more than happy to have tens of potential customers drive out to some block of apartments, struggle to find the place, only to find that the place is a cesspit? TAKE A FRIGGEN PHOTOGRAPH AND PUT IT ON THE INTERTUBES!!! It’s free! It has got to that point where I no longer trust listings without photographs, but then the optimistic care bear that resides in the cockles of my heart says things like “maybe it’s a really nice place and the granny selling it pre-dates chemical photo-lithography“… maybe indeed, until I discover it’s a property agency with a website.

Thirdly, if you’re paying attention you’ll see how this is close to number 2. If you’re going to take pictures of your “apartment”, please include 1 or 2 pictures of, I don’t know, YOUR APARTMENT and not 3 photographs of your garden… and only your garden. I can think of only one reason why you would post 3 pictures of your garden and none of the inside of the apartment… 1960s decor!

Fourthly, NINETEEN SIXTIES DECOR! There was a lot of drugs being consumed back then… I think there must have also been a lot of crack in the groundwater because seemingly normal human beings thought that bright/dirty orange melamine kitchen cupboards (complete with plastic air venty hole things) were a good idea. Also, puce bathtubs. As much as I like the idea that someone named a colour puce, I don’t want to bath in that in case I fall asleep and wake up thinking I’ve accidentally overdosed on nutmeg and vomited in the bath, again.

Fifthly (I don’t care if that’s not a word). Please use accurate descriptions without making up new words that are left to interpretation. “Non-modernised” is not a widely used term. Google only found 411 examples of it being used, and mostly by ponsy antho students. Unless you actually mean that there is no flush-based-human-waste-disposal-system I think you might be better off using the words “Old” or “Dilapidated”. While I’m on the topic of descriptions “Near KFC” is not a selling point. Also, “Upmarket” and “Classy” are now terms exclusively reserved for woman in the service industry.

Lastly, (fine, sixthly), If you are in the business of selling property and you put ads for said properties on the internet please don’t be surprised when I get pissed off at you for replying to my email by asking me to call you. Firstly, (here we go again), YOU SHOULD CALL ME, I’m the customer. Secondly, PLEASE DON’T CALL ME, I like the impersonal vapid communication that is the internet. It means I can shoot up to numb the pain while I type my reply to you, you stinking crack addict.

Good Robot, Bad Robot.

I dealt with two robots on Friday. One good and one Bad.

The good robot was at Cavendish (A nearby shopping mall). When I drove into the parking garage I noticed that above every parking bay was a little sensor with either a red or green light on it. Red meant taken, green meant free. This means that from the one side of the garage you can easily spot an open bay… Combine this data with a direction system and you have digital arrows above the lanes that point you towards open bays. I drove in, the arrow said turn left, I turned left, another arrow said turn left, I followed and then bam, there’s my open bay. I realise that the electronics and software involved in something like this is all really not all that complicated, but when put together it forms a flawless system that just works ™. I love technology like this; stuff that is so simple yet so effective. No more driving around aimlessly looking for that mystery bay, no more getting stuck at dead ends with 6 cars behind you. The only tragedy of systems like this is that it’s so simple to “use” that we’ll take it for granted within no time.

Henk Kleynhans wrote an interesting post a few days ago about why software developers should do tech support. I agree with Henk and I think I have some additional insight. One of my biggest projects was building a pretty large system that managed the day to day business of a very large online travel company. It was a CRM, ERP, Accounting, Web Analytics etc etc application that was for the most part born out of being at the coal face and seeing what people were struggling with or what took more time than necessary. No one could have written a system specification for the final product… You just would not have been able to see all the opportunities in the beginning of the project, and you almost certainly would have ended up developing tons of functionality that someone thought was a good idea but would never have been used. The key to that project’s success was having a “no rules are good rules until proven so” attitude. This meant challenging every single process until it was as refined as it possibly could be. It meant that sometimes I would have to bang heads with some of the most ingrained procedures in the business, but ultimately the system was, and still is, a success. I still get a kick out of hearing people who initially moaned heartily about its introduction, now wax lyrical about its many virtues and how it saves them so much time etc.

Anyway, those three years, plus some “formal” education in the Business Analysis world, taught me to do what I’ve always done: Question Authority. If there was a procedure in place and it wasn’t immediately obvious why it was there, I had to find out why. And this is where I want to add to what Henk said. Not only should developers be taking tech support calls (which will essentially root out bugs and bad usability) but they should also, in the absence of good business analysts, be actively involved in the day to day running of the business, constantly on the look-out for better ways of doing things or areas where some software could improve the lives of the customer and the business operators.

There was nothing wrong with the Model T Ford. Tech support/engineers might have tightened some nuts or strengthened a part that kept on breaking, but essentially it would have stayed a Model T Ford. The engineers and designers who built the new Audi R8 have improved on decades of learning. It took engineering principles of “how can we make this quantifiably better?” and design principles of “How can we make this work better, feel better, look better etc” to end up with the R8. Henk’s developers are already on this journey with some of the functionality they’ve introduced… they’ve seen a problem that has two solutions. 1. The easy one, make the customer change some settings. or 2. The hard way, Figure out how to solve the problem once so that the customer doesn’t even know you’ve solved their problem. This is the same as the pretty lights in Cavendish… within a few years this sort of technology will be ubiquitous and young drivers will probably wonder why we need little arrows telling us where to go… I mean, a parking lot is easy, you drive until you find an open spot, right? Well, as anyone who’s ever been stuck in a busy parking lot knows, it is a painful experience.

Which brings me to my Bad Robot.
The City of Cape Town still thinks I live in Pinelands and still sends my electricity bill an address I used to live at about 10 years ago. This is despite numerous faxes to the contrary. Once again I found myself on the phone arguing with a call centre employee. They are unable to change my address over the phone because they need a fax. They can’t do it over the phone because I could be anyone. They can do it with a fax because a fax has a signature. They have no idea what my actual signature looks like. Ergo, anyone could send them a fax with a bogus signature on it, ergo, no safer than just doing it over the flipping phone.

I asked the girl if I could speak to her manager. I wanted to relay the vulnerability to someone more senior in the hopes that they might say “Hey, you know what? You’re right, that is a dumb rule”. Nope. The manager was busy (har har) and besides, “She can’t change the rules either”. “So who can change the rules?” I asked. “Nobody, they are rules” she said. “Nobody? I asked… “Surely Thabo Mbeki could change the rules, so maybe someone else high up in the municipality could change the rules too?”. She didn’t understand my example. She was a bad robot. She refused to question her rules, and in her painfully little world the rules were rules and you NEVER change the rules. I like to console my pain with the thought that the very fact that she can’t question rules is the reason that she works as a call centre employee and probably always will. It’s sad, but I guess the world needs droids.

Oh, and their fax number isn’t working. YAY!

over and out.
j.

Why Jesus doesn't like art… or want Zimbabwe freed.

Graffiti is and always has been a part of society… go read up about it. We’re talking thousands of years… even before Jesus.

Now obviously my title is rather exaggerated and designed for the express purpose of increasing my readership, but the thing is, I really am starting to get pissed off at those “Jesus Saves” people walking around painting over what they deem inappropriate.

First there was the international graffiti competition held in Cape Town where some of worlds best contemporary artists painted f-ing amazing murals on walls that made you want to stop your car and take a deep breath. 2 days later the Jesus Saves people painted that incredible wall full of art work grey. Not white, grey.

I was willing to tolerate that since graffiti is supposedly against the law… never mind the fact that supposedly these guys got permission from the owner of the wall.

Then there was “FREE ZIM!“, a piece of artwork so poignant and powerful that it made me seek it out and photograph it. It said everything that needed to be said and was a constant, daily, reminder to thousands of Capetonians of exactly what had to happen in Zimbabwe. It was also beautiful, with stencilled birds taking flight reminding me of the phoenix to our north.

Then in the height of the xenophobic attacks against Zimbabweans (and other foreigners) the “Jesus Saves” crew painted over it in a dull grey that angers me intensely every time I drive past.

Which leaves me to say, like some graffiti artists mural’d on a nearby wall: “Jesus must hate art”.

ps. For the kids out there who are going to start screaming about tagging. I am not talking about tagging. I am talking about art. Tagging is the equivalent of taking a shit on the pavement and expecting people to think you’re cool for doing it.

Momentum Insurance = Liars

Catch up: In case you missed it, 10 days ago my car was broken into and a bag containing pretty much all my clothing was stolen… 10 days ago I reported the theft to momentum insurance. 10 days later I have nothing but a bunch of empty promises and a few lies. Read all about it here.

—————-

Yesterday (Tuesday) Tselane (the team leader) told me that she definitely would call by the end of the day (yesterday) with an answer with regards to my claim.

She never called.

It’s now the end of Wednesday and another 24 hours has passed and once again Tselane has gone home without calling me like she said she would.

I called to speak to either Tselane or Carina and neither of them were available so I left a message… but this time I was smart.

After leaving my message and just before Thabiso, the message center person, was due to put down his phone I asked him why he didn’t give me a message number. Remember, Carina said that the message centre staff *ALWAYS* give the person who leaves a message a message reference number… This was her way of squirming out of not calling me back when I left repeated messages for her to call me. Well guess what, the message center people don’t give out numbers unless you specifically know that such a number exists and ask for it.

Thabiso’s exact words were “I didn’t think you wanted one“… well, Thabiso, how would I have known one even existed? Shouldn’t you have asked me?

I asked to speak to Thabiso’s supervisor who, surprise surprise, is not available. Funny that… So once again I’ve left a message for someone else at Momentum to call me and we’ll see what happens… I won’t be holding my breath. The supervisors name is Andy.

Momentum, if you want proof of all this, go listen to the call. The message number is 6264743. I asked.

A list of people at momentum who don’t return their calls.

1. Carina – The Consultant

2. Tselane – The Team Leader

3. Andy – The Call Centre Supervisor (We’ll see in a few hours)

IDIOTS!

I started this whole thing upbeat… remarking how I was lucky to be in a position to be insured and have money to buy new clothes in an emergency. I’m now more angry at Momentum Insurance than I ever was at the idiot who stole my stuff. I don’t pay the guy who stole my stuff a few thousand rand every month only to be ignored and lied to. Thieves and Liars the lot of them.

—–

Update: Thursday:

More and more ridiculous by the day. In the past week I’ve left about 10 messages with the message center people at Momentum. Not once have they given me a number without me asking for it… This morning was the best one. I spoke to Nonte (ref: 6268767) who went completely silent for about 20 seconds every time I asked her why she didn’t give me the number. I’m not exaggerating.

Me: Why didn’t you give me the message number

<silence for 20 seconds>

Me: Hello? Hello? Why didn’t you give me the number?

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: No, I’m asking you why did you give me the message center number?

<silence for 20 seconds>

Me: Hello? I can hear you in the background… Why aren’t you speaking?

<silence>

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: No. I want to know why you didn’t give me the number?

<silence for 20 seconds>

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: okay, yes.

Nonte: 6268767

Me: Okay, so why didn’t you give that to me earlier?

Nonte: Because I thought you were in a hurry.

I.shit.you.not.

It’s like I was dealing with a robot who went into a cpu intensive loop every time I asked her a question that wasn’t in her pre-programmed database of question/answer pairs.

Tselane is apparently busy. Carina called me at 7:30 this morning. (I wake up at 7:30)

I finally got to speak to Carina and she said that Tselane asked her to call me and tell me that they haven’t forgotten about me but that my claim is being escalated to some other person who isn’t available… So it’s now 8 days since I was told that I would definitely have an answer by the end of that day.

I give up.

Momentum Insurance is starting to annoy me…

(If you came here via Google you should probably check out this page… The story gets worse)

Carina didn’t call yesterday like she said she would… she didn’t call today like she said she would… and every time I call Momentum she’s “on the phone”.

Is this really the kind of service I give you THOUSANDS of rands a month for?

j.

Update: OMG, I AM PISSED OFF.

Just got a call (it’s Tuesday morning) from Carina at Momentum… She is now spinning herself into a web of ineptitude. She claims she never got my message and then when I pushed her for a reasonable answer for why she didn’t call on Wednesday (or Thursday) like *she* said she would, she said she was waiting for me to call her.

My exact words to her were: (And I’m quite proud I didn’t swear)

“Oh ABSOLUTE RUBBISH!! Besides the fact that I did call multiple times on Wednesday and Thursday, what possible reason could you have for waiting for me to call you? You have all the answers here Carina… you are the only one who can move this forward.”

Add to that the following:

ONE: My car was broken into on monday. I phoned on monday afternoon/evening (about 6pm) and they fixed my window that night. On Tuesday I gave Momentum all my details including where and when I bought my undies and whether I paid cash. Apparently my claim was only submitted on Thursday… When I flipped my guava about this Carina said that I only called her on Thursday… but I never even spoke to her on Thursday. (Remember, I tried to but she wasn’t available.)

TWO: Then I questioned her about this and (after ruffling through some computer files) she said that she only got my info on Tuesday… only on Tuesday, like, I dunno, THE DAY AFTER IT HAPPENED, which was also 2 days before Thursday…

THREE: Then she floored me by saying “I only called you after your broker asked me to call you”. I don’t have a broker. She couldn’t back this statement up.

FOUR: As to why she didn’t call on Thursday after I left repeated messages she said “What was your message number?“. HUh? My whowhatnow? “The message center people will take your message and give you a message number“… Um. No they don’t. I have a txt file open on my computer within which I record ALL the info with regards to this escapade and not once have I typed a message number. Oh, and by the way. SINCE WHEN IS IT UP TO THE CUSTOMER TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A FRIGGEN NUMBER TO PROVE THAT YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR DAMN JOB!

FIVE: I was plainly honest with them from the very first moment. I told them I had a large bag stolen off the back seat of my car in the middle of the day parked on a busy road. They are now treating me like a criminal by phoning up 5 other insurance companies to verify that I don’t have insurance with them as well.

DON’T YOU THINK THAT IF I WAS A DODGY BASTARD TRYING TO STEAL MONEY FROM INSURANCE COMPANIES THAT I WOULD HAVE JUST LIED AND SAID THE BAG WAS IN MY BOOT?

Idiots.

Update 2 – End of Business, Tuesday.

Zolani, Carina’s Team Leader, whom I spoke to when I asked to speak to her supervisor, *promised* me she would have an answer for me by close of business today. She has not called. Should I be suprised? Momentum Insurance just seems to go from bad to worse. This is after my claim was, in her own words, “escalated to a team leader”… Escalation my ass… Leader my ass.

Idiots!

Autodesk is mom jeans

Where do I start?

Ok, firstly, the Mom Jeans thing is a polite way of saying “you suck”. It comes from the Hillary meme.

I’ve been planning on building a multiple hard drive mount for ages… Yes I’m a nerd, get over yourself.

Basically I want to build something that can hold up to 8 drives and cool them efficiently. This will sit next to my server and be plugged in via 1m sata cables (as soon as I can find someone in SA who has them)

Being the nerd I am I’ve done some sketches and technical drawings of what I want to put together, but since I am such an incredibly raging nerd I figured I would download the autocad trial and model it properly so that I would have a very accurate cutting list. (The chassis is going to be made out of wood)

I go to the autocad website and click download trial. It says that this offer is only available in the united states and canada… and they do IP based filtering to enforce that.

Now please, for the love of science, WHAT THE EFFF?

What is so special about your trial software that other countries can’t have it? Seriously? Oh, they’ll SELL it to me no matter where I live… but if you want the trial you have to be in North America. What kind of stupid, idiotic, short-sighted, ignorant pea brained idiot thought this up? There I was thinking autocad is so cool and I’m going to use the trial to model my little weekend project… and I end up thinking you’re a bunch of idiots. Well played autodesk, well played.

Obviously I could connect to a shell server in the US and download it from there and then pull it down to South Africa, but, THAT WOULD BE BREAKING THE LAW!!!

Or I could just download the full version that won’t expire via bittorrent.

Doing either would be illegal.

Obviously I did neither.

j.

(As a side note: Yes, I realise that autocad is windows software and I will need to run in it a virtualised windows environment. I could not find any open source alternatives that looked like they would do the job. May the nerdosphere have mercy.)

(As a secondary side note: Autodesk, why do you do this? May I offer a suggestion? Your software is very specifically for a particular set of specialised industries that rely heavily on it. People like me just want to model our little weekend projects. I’m sure there are plenty of people just like me who have probably broken the law (unlike me,obviously), propagating your piracy problems. Why don’t you offer a free lightweight cad program that can be used by hobbyists. I’m sure you know what kind of feature sets would be applicable to hobbyists and what kind of features you could only make available in the full version. This would result in an entire community of people who love your software and your company. Those kinds of people do not pirate. )

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!

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.

The freak brought a hammer…

Hammertime!Anyone who’s been to my flat a few times should know the freak from downstairs. He’s the resident conspiracy theorist nutjob who regularly knocks on my door threatening to call the cops unless I stop “moving the chairs around”. This happens regardless of whether I am in fact moving chairs around.

To give you some background; this is a guy who told Joe at Futurex that he likes fishing trade shows because they give away hats, told Jean that “they (we don’t know who) are out to get him” and told Neil (in the lift) that he steals things from the flats of people who have moved out.

Needless to say, he’s not a fun guy to have at parties, and to be honest, perhaps even a little scary.

So today while I sat at the dinner table with some friends having a quiet dinner he knocks on the door…We open it. He has a hammer and tells me to “get a carpet or else”… perhaps he brought the hammer to help install a carpet? or perhaps the hammer was part of the “or else” option? However I don’t want a carpet. I like my wooden floors.

Anyway, I calmly told him to leave while encouraging him to follow through on his threat of phoning the police and reporting me for disturbing the peace. Did I mention that he was only wearing shorts? I had impressionable females in the the room and he’s half naked and wielding a hammer… and I’m disturbing the peace?

I tried to close the door but he pushed it back open and again threatened me. I have an amazing ability to stay calm in situations like this but to be honest I was a little scared since he was giving me the crazy eyes. However slightly deeper than my desire of self preservation was a small hope that he would in fact take a swing at me — “Claw Hammer Wound” is the journalistic equivalent of a Home Run. I eventually got the door closed and sat back down to try and enjoy the rest of my dinner.

After discussing it thoroughly with the dinnersphere we decided it would be best if I reported it to the police. He might be harmless… he might be a psychopath. So tomorrow I will take a drive and make a report… I’m not sure if it constitutes “assault” but it must come pretty damn close. I’d really just like it if he never knocked on my door again.

Until then: if I am discovered dead in my bed with head trauma caused by a blunt object, have a look in 404 Schoonmill, I think you’ll find a claw hammer with traces of of my DNA on it.

ath.