Few things provoke a road-rage-like state in me more effectively than the driver in front of me nonchalantly tossing crap out of their window. It's disgusting.

To the woman driving her blue Puegeot 206 in front of me today, tossing pistachio shells out her window at every red light: you are a pig.

How would you like it if passing pedestrians chose to dump their rubbish in through your open car window?

Thought the title would get your attention. But I promise I'll hit both topics in this post, no false advertising here, nosiree.

We ended up in Mr Price Home earlier today, picking up wedding presents for a friend (they had a registry there). Two things struck me while waiting in line.

The first was a decidedly bizarre (in my mind) range of bedding. The big promotional poster had two reasonably attractive young women (I'd guess in their late thirties) laughing and frolicking (I have no better word for it) in their pyjamas on a large bed. Individual items carried different imagery but kept to the theme. My first thought is that it was a misguided attempt to convey the fun awaiting the person who decides to make a purchase from the range. But upon further thought I realised that Mr P may well be onto something. Perhaps what they're really trying to do is tap into the market segment made up of men who desperately want to own bedding favoured by lesbian women in their mid to late thirties with a tendency to frolick with their partners in front of a photographer. Cunning. I can't say for sure, but I'd be prepared to put money on this being an entirely untapped niche market.

The second thing I noticed was that Mr Price has absolutely no understanding of multithreading. When we arrived and asked about the gift registry, they dug up and handed us a printed fax with a list of items on it. There are already two serious problems here. The first is that, being a fax, there is at least one other copy. We asked and were told that they fax copies to each store as people arrive and ask about that particular registry. The problem with this is that there's no way to prevent multiple purchases of the same item on the list. You may have asked for two towels guys, you may well receive a dozen. The second problem is that we're holding the only physical copy in that store. As a result, if someone were to show up asking for that registry while we were shopping, they'd either be told "we don't have that registry" and leave (no sale) or they'd be forced to wait for a new copy to be faxed over (at which point you're back to the first problem I mentioned: duplication).

If they're going to stick with registries being available at all stores they need some sort of centralized mutex. This doesn't scale well. An approach along the lines of optimistic updates (assume no clashes, check before committing the customer to the purchase) would probably scale better (for reasons that probably explain why the existing approach isn't a huge problem right now: low traffic) and work reasonably well. If you're prepared to limit it to a single store then you could do away with synchronization entirely by breaking the list up into sublists for individual items. Then the person who wants to buy something just takes that item's proxy (in the form of a piece of paper or something) with them. It's absence prevents others from buying that item and because each sublist contains only a single item there's no contention.

See kids, CS prepares you for anything ;-)

On the way out I was sorely tempted to just breeze past their security guards (that link may not remain valid for long, the original is here).

This week's prize for idiocy goes to the V&A Waterfront here in Cape Town.

We had dinner there this evening, after failing to purchase tickets for a movie we were going to watch. It's a pretty standard Capetonian paid parking scenario: ticket at the entrance, pay before you leave. Somewhat more heftily priced, but otherwise pretty standard.

Except that of the five pay stations at the exit we used, four don't accept the "new" R10 or R20 note. These notes have been in circulation now for at least a couple of years, so they're hardly new. And the average parking ticket at the Waterfront will set you pack at least R10, so this strikes me as a completely ludicrous state of affairs.

Fucking idiots. There are no other words for it.

Anyone else noticed the recent advertising blitz by the cosmetics companies targeting men? Shit like "You think you look rugged, she thinks you're working too hard."

I can't begin to tell you how much it gets up my nose. Nay, fucks me right off.

I went for a quick swim at the gym this morning. Afterwards, in the change rooms, I watched transfixed as one of the guys hauled out a hair dryer, complete with various attachements, and then proceed to spend the next 10 minutes crafting one of these mohawks that are so popular at the moment. You know, the one that looks suspiciously like you spent the night with your hair crammed up someone's butt crack.

And it wasn't even an isolated incident. At the same time one of the other guys commandeered another mirror to do the same thing. Admittedly, he wasn't nearly as well equipped and had to make do with his hands. Clear this troubled him because eventually I was done and when I left he was still standing in front of that mirror trying to decide whether or not hair #25,132 should lie slightly to the left or stand at a 27.2 degree angle.

Now I'd imagine that one popular "defence" might be that there's nothing wrong in trying to look good. Bullshit. This is fallacious. "Looking good" in this case means meeting an arbitrary set of criteria driven by a combination of current fashion (few things are more arbitrary) and (to a much larger extent) a group who have decided that men are the next market to be exploited.

But who can blame them? Look at how successfully they've managed to exploit women.

I'm busy rereading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series (highly recommended).

Despite having read it once before, despite owning it, and despite the fact that I'm through the first two books suggesting I can actually read (and therefore might be able to read the spines of the books correctly) I was half way into book three before realising I was in fact reading book two having just finished book one and three in that order.

And for the past few days the closest I've come to realising this is thinking "Hell but this is one long flashback."

Eish.

There's a little Italian restaurant in our neighbourhood that used to have a pretty good reputation.

A year or so back I decided never to return after standing at the door being ignored for 20 minutes. We decided to give them another go this evening.

What a mistake. The service when I arrived to fetch our food (we ordered takeout) was lackluster (at best). The food was terrible, and the portion of lasagne I ordered was basically a single layer thick. When I phoned to complain (things don't get better if you don't complain, although complaining is no guarantee they will) they brushed me off with some nonsense about portions all being measured. Fair enough, perhaps that's the intention, but you have a complaining customer on the phone. Don't try telling them they're wrong. Try to make them happy.

This is the last they'll be seeing of us.

For the record, the restaurant name is Bardelli's in Kenilworth Road.

Proof, as if somehow it were needed, that the only difference between a first world country and a third world country is how you pimp your shit.

Along the sides of many of our roads you'll find "entrepeneurs" pimping someone else's shit. Amongst this rubbish you'll find the occasional, somewhat colourful, collection of faux leather bean bags. And when I say colourful, make no mistake I mean colourful. Everything from black through bright yellow and into shades of luminous green (that I suspect are pimped as a lime variant).

So it amused me no end, nay, I'll even go so far as to say it tickled my fancy, to notice the enclosed banner ad for, gasp, beanbags.

Admittedly, they're Sumo Lounge hightech bean bag furniture, made from the latest space-age materials, easy to clean and a boon for fans of static electricity. Hell, if you live in the right state they may even arrive complete with the model pictured in the ad enclosed (batteries not included). In fact who do you think you are trying to wear that excuse for a lifestyle solution without owning one two many of these?

In all honesty, when I first caught a glimpse of it while idly flipping between Firefox tabs looking for something to read, I thought I'd finally stumbled across a creative ad for a porn site. But alas, no, 'twas not the case.

And stop right now. Don't even try to figure out that connection. You'll just do yourself an injury.

For some reason this got up my nose and I've been unable to "get past it".

I'm not big on tradition. I understand that most tradition originally stems from a codification of rules, techniques or caveats that made sense at some point (and sometimes still do). But tradition for tradition's sake makes me see red. I spent most of my first month in Europe (on a school tour) arguing with my guidance counsellor about this. But I digress.

But recent events have taken even this lunacy to new heights, indeed to a level only before reached by eagles doing shrooms, or vice versa.

Friends recently got engaged. Well, no, actually, they got engaged today, but it's been in the works for, in truth I don't know how long, but it sure feels like fucking eternity.

This is how the insanity progressed. First, they came to a point of mutual agreement on the subject of marriage: yes indeed marriage it was. So they agreed to get engaged. Apparently willingness and reaching mutual agreement are necessary but not sufficient conditions to call yourself engaged. No, a ring is required. Fair enough. So they set out to find one because, control being as important as it is, there was no way he could be entrusted to choose one. Having found a ring he was now instructed by she that he was to "surprise" her with a proposal. However, the anticipation proved too much and she spent most of the intervening days (weeks? months? I've lost track) trying to determine when he was going to "pop the question".

And she's not without her skills so today was in fact no surprise at all. But, they informed us today, their nerves nearly didn't stand up to the anxiety today brought.

So now begins the long haul to the altar, with all of the fretting about who to invite and how much money to throw at the event. I think I'm going to be sick.

Or kill someone.

In Seattle last week I kept passing a billboard advertising the 2007 Toyota Camry.

WTF? It's April 2006. I'm sorry, I'd like to call bullshit on this one.

There's this whole other consumer world that I occasionally catch a glimpse of but don't have the faintest idea how to relate to.

Ringtones and cellphone backgrounds to start with. I just don't see the appeal. Ringtones in general suck, regardless of how much you've paid for them. Ff your phone supports WAV, MP3 or a related format ("true tone" in said alternate reality) then find a friendly geek (or better yet figure it out yourself, it really isn't that hard) and get creative. The best ringtones I've heard have been home made.

As for cellphone backgrounds. I gave up on desktop backgrounds a long time ago and none even back then I didn't buy them. If I'm not springing for a picture at upwards of 1024x768 in 32bpp colour I'm certainly not forking out cash for something an order of magnitude harder to see. "Cool picture of a tiger ... er walrus ... er naked ... er right no, shit what is that?"

And speaking of desktop backgrounds. I've started seeing ads for animated desktop backgrounds. One that seems to come up repeatedly looks like a painted picture of a palm tree on a beach with white doves flying randomly from side to side. 15 seconds of that and I was ready to throw my laptop out the window. Can you imagine that as your background day in and day out?

Why do people buy this stuff when they could pay for something worthwhile? Like caffeinated soap or lip balm :-)

Recently someone forwarded me a copy of something posted in the knowledge base wiki of my previous employer.

It struck a nerve and my immediate prediction was that it would be removed (or requested that it be removed) shortly. Sure enough, a day later someone has taken offence and as a result it has been removed.

The problem is, the wrong people took offence. And they took offence for the wrong reasons. So perhaps I should attempt to explain (and you should bear in mind that this is my own view on these things).

First and foremost I believe that a company that can't poke fun at itself can't hope to be a company people want to work for. Want in this case means people work there for reasons other than money. Hell, if Microsoft can do it anyone can.

Secondly, what is this "tea" that is being barometerized (apologies to the OED for that)? My former employer started a tradition of Friday teas very early on. The basic idea was to get everyone together once a week to chat over snacks provided by the company. New people got a chance to mingle and no-so-new people got a chance to look up from their keyboards (or whatever other people do their jobs with) to run a pattern recognition algorithm over faces that didn't garner an immediate hit.

Over time teas grew in size and quality but inevitably something triggered a company-wide financial review and one of the first casualties tended to be Friday teas. Looking back over the past few years FTs seem to have followed a predictable cyclical pattern. Over time FT would wax gibbous before peaking, only to suffer a "financial adjustment" and be reset (back to "bread and water" level) before starting the cycle over again.

The people who took offence in this instance took offence because they thought this poked fun at the quality of "Friday Tea" and they put a lot of effort into it (something I'm not sure many people realised). On the surface it does but I'd wager (again, based on personal experience) that that's not the true target here (or at least not the root cause of this posting). The problem comes down to what I'd label "consistency" and not quality. Ultimately the problem is a company that doesn't realise that it's the little things that count. That spending a few extra hundred bucks on something as silly as tea wins you back a whole bunch. Or to put it more bluntly, counting pennies instead of counting people.

I'll admit that very few companies seem to get this right. But this crowd got it right for a long time. I think one of the difficulties of growing is figuring out how to deal with this. Throw in a large (listed) American company and things get even tougher, especially if they're not making money and you are.

Perhaps this should be the first of James' Drunken Blog Rants.

Tentatively back online after a weekend and Monday filled with power outages.

There are all sorts of stories floating around, including ones put forward by Eskom themselves that try to pin the problems on heavy mist and "pollution" after recent fires. The only sensible story I've heard is that one of our local Nuclear power cells underwent a "controlled shutdown" late last week and it will take until tomorrow to bring it back online. Luckily it was "controlled". I don't want a third arm, I'd have to cut holes in all of my shirts.

It always amazes me how people react to power failures. It's like they don't know what to do with themselves. Roads back up because they have no idea how to deal with traffic lights at intersections that no longer work, and I swear a bunch of people respond by getting into their cars and driving off only to realise there's nowhere to go. These people seem to end up circling their neighbourhood in a weird "Shaun of the Dead" like state.

It's as if the entire world turned into a shopping mall replete with the usual mindless herbivores that seem to inhabit them. A whole bunch of people suddenly have no idea where they're going or what they plan to do, but dammit they're doing it first and by God if you cut me off I'm going to lay my head down on my hooter until I expire.

Me, I'm just glad my disks came up in one piece.

In the spirit of documenting some of the idiocy that surrounds us, here are two gems from the news today:

More than 300 Muslim pilgrims were killed in a stampeded during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. Apparently, the stampede happened during the final phase of the Hajj, the symbolic stoning of the devil on the Jamarat Bridge. All I can imagine is that someone miscalculated, had the stone-throwers form a circle and nobody knew when to stop.

Seriously, when your religion places your life in peril, perhaps it's time to reconsider?

And in the UK yesterday a University student was arrested and hauled before the local magistrate court after he asked a local (presumably horse-mounted) policeman if he realised his horse was gay. The charges? Making homophobic remarks.

Maybe he was afraid the horse might make a pass at him?

Shite people. Get it together.

regal You shall look even sexier with a fashionable item. defend

Don't you hate it when spammers get medieval on your ass?

Sony really stirred up a hornets' nest with their "rootkit". Serves them right but it's symptomatic of a larger problem that's looming just over the horizon: DRM. The idea seems innocuous enough: make sure that an artist's rights are protected by preventing illegal copying of their output.

Unfortunately, organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA, with their already stellar records for trampling over the rights of individuals in the name of making money, appear to be chafing at the bit to make sure you can do only what they feel is right (which usually means makes them as much moolah as possible).

But that's a whole other kettle of fish. Back to Sony and their little gift of love. The EULA attached to the CD's that contain this little bundle of joy makes for some interesting reading. I don't know how much of this could actually be enforced in a court of law (legal systems are anything but absolute: everything comes down to playing the odds) but even putting that aside there are some scary things here. Some stupid things too which probably means rather than trying to make your life as difficult as possible someone just didn't think this through.

Although, the fact that their EULA waives your right to a jury trial might be taken as an indication that somebody did think this through. It might also just be a standard clause in a whole class of legal docs that Sony based this on and it's a side-effect of cut-and-paste (or, more accurately, copy and delete-whatever-we-don't-want).

I think I may have just had a conversation with a complete stranger without them even realising it (that I was a stranger, not that we had a conversation).

The phone I rings. I answer, don't immediately recognize the voice and can't immediately make out what the guy on the other end greeted me with. This often happens. I start many telephone conversations without a clue who's on the other end but it usually resolves itself pretty quickly. So I just go with it. The other guy starts telling me something about getting together to watch rugby later today. This is not unheard of in our circle so it all still kind of makes sense, but it's odd that I still can't recognize the voice.

The human brain is remarkable. How often have you heard only snatches of a sentence but still known what was said? Your brain takes it all in and starts doing some sort of semantic pattern matching in the background. Eventually it figures out that you heard "What elements does that list contain?" and not "White elephants dancing in a train".

A few minutes into the "conversation" my brain finally informs me that (as far as it can tell) the opening greeting didn't seem to include my name, but rather seemed to include someone else's. At this point I realised that this was probably a wrong number, and if the conversation didn't end pretty soon the jig was going to be up.

So I did what any mature, responsible adult would do in the same situation: I attempted to bluff my way through to the end of the conversation, hoping it wasn't too far off. And as far as I can tell, I succeeded. The remainder of the conversation went something like this:

"So if you're keen to watch rugby later, come round."

"Uh. Okay, thanks."

"So how are things?"

"Uh, busy, but aren't they always?"

"Yeah, I suppose. Okay then, might see you later."

"Sure, yeah. Cheers."

"Cheers."

*click*

We have a local magazine program called Top Billing. At least I think that's what you'd call it. Like any good magazine program it's also backed by an actual magazine. I can't imagine it's worth the paper it's printed on.

It's basically a load of tripe, but this evening I noticed they've taken it to a new level. Their next show will include a segment covering the shooting of the next issue's cover.

Pretty soon they won't need any actual content. The show can report on the previous issue of the magazine which can discuss upcoming segments on the show about topics covered in the magazine which ... you get the idea.

Bah.