An historic moment in the Arab world

As a democratic revolution led by tech-empowered young people sweeps the Arab world, Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera's director-general, shares a profoundly optimistic view of what's happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond. In the first talk posted online from the TED 2011 conference in California, Khanfar describes the powerful moment when people realised they could step out of their homes and ask for change. This article first appeared in The Washington Post. You can watch Al Jazeera English online in the USA, and on satellite in Europe and Africa. In South Africa even the cheapest DStv bouquet at R20 per month includes Aljazeera. Having compared it with Sky, CNN, CNBC, CCTV and BBC World, I prefer Al Jazeera for their non-hysterical tone and in-depth coverage. And despite what Fox Lies News and George Bush tried to tell everyone, they aren't run by Al Qaeda or Hamas. http://english.aljazeera.net/

Highway Robbery by SANRAL

Meet Nazir Alli, the CEO of our national roads agency, SANRAL. He is the person responsible for the highway robbery that is being imposed on Gauteng highways: additional toll gates on existing roads. He also lied to the public at a press conference by saying that the highways would save motorists 20% on their travelling time, and a 10% reduction in travelling distance.
What a load of rubbish. The highways have been around for decades, so how does the imposition of tolls reduce the travelling distance by 10%? Is he an incompetent moron or just a liar? And before the construction began the speed limit was 120km/h: now it's been reduced to 100km/h. It defies the laws of physics to explain how this reduces travelling time by 20%.
There is even a petition web site against the tolls roads. There are more lies on the SANRAL web site, which is hosted in the USA. It denies that the toll system is double taxation. This is technically true because it is actually multiple taxation: we pay a tax on fuel (roughly R2,47 per litre of petrol) which is supposed to cover road construction and maintenance. Then we pay a vehicle registration fee every year to be permitted to drive on the roads, and of course there is plain old income tax and VAT.
But all of this money is not enough for the ever-greedy gravy train, which wastes money on corrupt tenders, fancy perks for bureaucrats, and salaries for CEOs like Nazir Alli. His job is to tell the lies that would otherwise be told by the Minister of Transport. Very cosy. And this from the guy who in November 2009 presented a paper to CESA:

Ethics not part of a process; it is the framework within which business must be conducted - Nazir Alli
Nazir Alli, CEO of SANRAL presented a paper on the ethical issues in Engineering Practice in which he asked if CESA has the courage of its conviction as well as the relevance of the organisation around ethics and fraud. Alli states that SANRAL has a duty to the public and that SANRAL’s view is that good governance is the solution with all the liabilities and accountabilities that go with it and that this is the framework in which business must be conducted. He also requested CESA to look at performance indicators in the fight against corruption. He also stated that Oil, Arms and Construction are the most corrupt industries in the world and encouraged members to make use of the SANRAL tip offs hotline.

He also told a reporter:

He said, “There was a study done by the South African Chamber of Commerce which says that we were losing R15 million an hour due to congestion,” he said. “Either we do nothing or else we do something about it.”

His "solution" is to redistribute the congestion (at a profit of course). Public transport is either too unreliable or too unsafe to use instead of a car. I can't see myself taking my laptop through to Midrand and back every Friday. Instead I'll have to pay an extra R75 for the privilege.
Another thought: The Luddite part of my character wants to just screw up the whole system by driving at 60-80km/h in the middle lane of the 100km/h road just to screw up everyone else's journey, including all those blue light convoys. I can't wait for the Madam and Eve cartoons about this.

Why We Get Fat

This book could not have come at a better time for me. Because of my cholesterol levels, I was told in November to cut down my fat intake and eat a more healthy diet. What I wasn't told was that most "low fat" foods replace the fat with sugar or other processed carbohydrates, which are more fattening that the fat itself.
Gary Taubes explains this in his latest book, "Why We Get Fat", which draws from research over the last 100 years, and debunks many popular myths about healthy eating. It's available from Audible. I wish the narrator would not replace the word "causal" with "casual" or "causality" with "casualty" (they mean different things and aren't wrong in the original text) but apart from that the audio book is very readable and accessible, and I have ordered the hardcover book which should arrive next week sometime. I may even lend it to my doctor. Once I have lost or gained weight as a result of changing my eating habits, I'll report back. I have decided not to have any sugar in tea or coffee, and not to eat any bread until my weight goes down to a healthy level.

If you need any motivation to cut down on junk food, sugar, carbohydrates and so on, you could always watch the movie "Supersize Me". Scary.

The phone is in the washing machine. Not good

Mobile phone design has still got a long way to go: why are they damaged by water so easily? I left my phone in my trouser pockets and then put the trousers in the washing machine. After about 20 minutes my wife rescued it and we left it to dry out for a few days. In the meantime I needed a phone.
I found one from a most unlikely source: the Game store in Cresta. Their shop "assistants" are usually noted for their surely disinterest, but this time I managed to find someone who could help, and R760 later I had a smart new Nokia 5130 XpressMusic phone. Unfortunately it has some built-in Vodacom features, but still works fine on the MTN network. Of course MTN were unable to help, being either "out of stock" or the queues were too long. It took a few tries to get the MMS and WAP settings, but I persevered and I'm back on the phone network.
As a laptop owner I really don't see all the fuss over smartphones, as this phone plays podcasts and audio books well, has 2GB of MicroSD storage, and can make calls, and send text messages. It even has an Opera browser although the screen is tiny. It's still good enough for getting the cricket scores though. And it's about 15% of the cost of a smartphone.
Update Wednesday: Now that the phone has dried out it seems to be working, although the screen flickers a bit. I retrieved all my data from the phone, including some cotacts I had lost. I guess the "old" one (8 months of use) is going to get relegated to being a "standby" phone because the 5130 does a better job of playing music files, even though it is half the price. Weird.

IBM turns 100

This centennial film features one hundred people, who each present the IBM achievement recorded in the year they were born. The film chronology flows from the oldest person to the youngest, offering a whirlwind history of the company and culminating with its prospects for the future. More at www.ibm100.com

Standard Bank's surprise Cheque Deposit Fee annoys customers

I hate it when companies introduce unpopular charges and then weasel their way out of explaining it to their customers. Did they think that no one would notice? Or that they'd be happy about it? Or that their business customers would shrug it off?
I searched their web site press release page, and found nothing. How surprising. It's in their 2011 Bank Fees document, but that's about as far as it goes. It has a section on deposit fees, but deliberately avoids mentioning the cheque deposit fee, although it mentions that cash deposits at an ATM are free. Evasiveness is not that different to dishonesty.
A complaint on HelloPeter is answered equally evasively, with no one owning up to the new fee structure or admitting anything. How nice. I'm sure "agrityre" at HelloPeter must be delighted. "Emile" on Facebook was thrilled. He wrote

GOOD GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IS THERE NO LIMITS TO THE WAYS IN WHICH YOU WILL RIP US OFF???????????????

Now my biggest customer is having to charge R12.49 for any cheque payments under R1000, even if the cheque is from another bank. That's because R12.50 without VAT is R10.964, so rounding it off to the nearest cent and then adding VAT gives either R12.49 or R12.51. What a nightmare.
Update 27 Jan: My customer received the following notification via email from Gary Larsson, Account Executive, Standard Bank Business Banking - Sandton:

On 1 January 2011 Business Bank introduced a cheque deposit fee of R12.50 for each cheque deposited. Following further feedback received on this matter, we have decided to suspend the cheque deposit fee with immediate effect and reverse all cheque deposit fees that have been incurred by yourselves from 1 January 2011 to date.
Please note that this is a fee suspension and not a fee withdrawal. The intention remains for the Bank to promote alternative forms of making and receiving payments that are more affordable, more secure and faster to use.
Where it becomes necessary to review our position on this matter, we will do so and advise you accordingly.

That's the closest we'll get to the bank admitting that it screwed up. I guess they can always blame it on "the man with the melon hat". That's why I no longer bank with the (sub)Standard Bank.

Face to face with a false defrag program

I don't encounter malware very often, and this program reminded me how bad it can be. Michael Kaur from the Malware Removal Instructions blog sent me a copy of this program, since I requested it. It's a nasty piece of work, installing itself surreptitiously in your system, and then pouncing when you reboot.
When you boot up it runs its "scans" and then falsely tells you lies about your machine. I prepared my "FRAGG" test machine and made sure the files were fully defragmented and everything was in order, so I knew all the "errors" it reported were bogus.
I had to deactivate the Microsoft Security Essentials program in order to be able to install the malware, but once it was installed my machine was effectively held to randsom. It wouldn't let me run any other programs, or even copy files to my USB memory stick.
Even the payment information is bogus. To prevent the malware from spreading on my network, I had unplugged the network cable before installing it. Nonetheless the malware managed to dupe Internet Explorer into believing that the payment URL was legitimate (the domain is not registered) and secure. Who knows what they'll do with my credit card details? I'm not about to try to find out.
I eventually had to boot up from an Ubuntu boot CD just to copy the files for this blog post. Then I wiped the hard drive using DBAN, to make sure the darn thing was gone. Nasty. Fortunately there are helpful web sites like the Malware Removal Instructions blog to clean up your machine, if this stuff manages to get past your antivirus program. What do you mean you don't have one??? I suppose you don't do backups either ...

My Blackberry isn't working

This is the modern day version of the parrot skit. Brilliant!