FatGeekUK

IT, as in IT work.

I have been a professional coder (don't laugh) for over 20 years. Yesterday, My son(Alex, 12) and I where in the car, and as is natural, our discussion got around to copyright. Where it has been, where it is going, why it is as it currently is. During the discussion, I realised, I have run my career all wrong.

I am working on a project that is using Django.

We have decided to use ‘South’ which is a migration framework which tries to do for django what rails has out of the box.

This is the first posting of many in what will be a series of rants against django, python, stupidity and pride.

First off, lets look at south.

Django models explicitly define the field structure of the table that is going to hold the objects. Now, I quite like that. It means that if I want to find out what fields a model has, I can look at the object definition. Rails does not have that. fields are defined in the db, and, only in recent rails versions is a comment added to the beginning of your model files detailing the structure.

Now, along comes south. and because the structure is explicit, it tries to do something neat. It will attempt to auto-generate the migration for you by introspecting the previous database structure and comparing to the current one. When I encountered that I thought it was lovely, neat, useful, clean.

BUT IT DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK.

It recognises when you ADD things but not when you take them away. So, if you remove a field, when you generate the migration, it sees it, updates its own copy of how the structure should look, but does not emit the code to remove the field from the database.

Ok you think, thats ugly, but not too bad right? The structure of your objects is still correct, you just have an unused column in your table? yeah? huh? huh?

NO.

Your models are broken because even though the structure of your objects is declared explicitly in your model code, when Django instantiates the object from the database, it IGNORES the defined structure in the model, and instantiates the object with all the fields from the database table. And then continues to use those fields as if they are meant to be there.

What TOSH.

Next time….. “Django templates, or ‘how to go quietly, or not so quietly insaner’”

Money, where is it going? and how does it get there?

Today, I discover that the fastest way to pay a bill is with my debit card. AND THAT IT TAKES 3 BUSINESS DAYS.

Think about that for a minute.

I remember seeing a program about how cheques ‘cleared’ in the ‘olden days’ (1970s).

When a bill was payed at a bank with a paper cheque, it was gathered up with all the other cheques, and sent down to London, where the paper cheques where whisked between clearing branches of the appropriate banks, this process took at most 4 days.

Now, in the time where I can communicate securely with almost any point on the planets surface with a delay only measurable in the milliseconds, it takes one day less.

How about cash you ask… SURELY, that is processed more quickly, no clearing is needed. Nope! Cash takes LONGER, between 3 and 4 days.

It is not only those payment methods, the old ones, the one that used to take 4 days to shuffle physical paper around the country? That now takes between 4 and 7 days to clear.

What is going on?

Well, I have a theory.

Banks control all money transactions, and if they can interpose a delay between the point of taking the money and the point of putting it somewhere else, why, they can USE the money in the interim.

This delay has nothing to do with technology, nothing to do with what really happens.

Banks control that delay to enhance their liquidity.
If, every month, they handle the transfer of a salary payment into a persons account, and for that payment, they ‘hold’ the money for 5 days, thats a sixth of the month (if you include weekends).
So, they effectively HAVE 1/6 of that persons wages, all the time (when averaged over everyone)
Not only that, but that money is transferred multiple times, each time, being ‘held’ by the banks. Oh, what a lovely scam.

And how can they improve profitability in these uncertain times? INCREASE THE HOLDING TIME.

Who is watching this? who is controlling this?
Shockingly, nobody (that I know of)

Our washing machine has started to make startling and alarming noises, so Wendy phoned British Gas.

Not strange, we have insurance cover for many of our whitegoods and plumbing with them.

While arranging a visit for the washing machine the good little telephone person asked Wendy if we had insurance to cover our mains water supply. She replied no. Wendy then passed the phone to me, to see if I wanted to add this cover to our current contract.

Having had a problem with my water supply in a previous property I was interested. So, the operator went through the boilerplate she was required to.

When she got to what was excluded from cover….

Damage caused by tree roots.
Damage caused by third parties.
Accidental damage.

Hmmmm….. so, what is actually LEFT?
What could happen that WOULD be covered?
Not much really.

Maybe if I took a pickaxe to the thing myself….

But not, if it attacked by someone else, or a tree root damages it or a meteorite hits it (is that an accident or act of god? blame is essential?!)

So, nope, I will not be paying to guard my mains water supply from acts of self.

I pride myself on being able (in some little way) to put words down in roughly the right order. But I can’t do any better to express my outrage, disgust and horror.

Bankers are still a bunch of parasites

Nuff said.

SIGINT is Signal Intellegence. It is the art and science of extracting meaningful information from the fact of communications. Not the contents of communications, but the fact a particular set of communications took place.

Historically it has been an important branch of intelligence gathering. The problem is that the communications game has been changing.

Today the BBC tell us that European governments are attempting to make us all more secure by watching all our communications.

Set aside for a moment whether I think this is a good idea (Sorry, I can’t, I don’t think this is a good idea) and think about whether it is effective.

If we all HAD to use email for communications on the internet, or specific closely regulated websites, then sure, maybe this would help. But frankly, we don’t, it isn’t and they can’t.

There are soo many different ways to communicate and soo many ways of decoupling the sender of a message from the eventual recipient that no amount of sigint gathering of http endpoints or email traffic logs will help.

With Twitter, Facebook, IRC communications, not to mention TOR and SSH, steganography and bit torrent. There is just no way to effectively track communications from sufficiently motivated people.

So, there are several possible reasons for trying it.

• They KNOW it does not work, but want to monitor traffic from people NOT sufficiently motivated. (Read Little Brother for some sobering thoughts, or read up on Carnivor, Omnivore)

• They think it will work, because some vendors have told them it IS possible (see We Lied for examples of this in the past)

• They KNOW this does not work, but this is a distraction from the real level of monitoring which is soo much more invasive (but just as doomed)

• Some other reason (Hey, I ain’t a genius here, maybe I got it wrong)

So, what are we to do?

• petition government?
• setup a TOR node?
• buy shares in data storage providers?

Who knows. I just fear this will not be the end of the attempts until people are reminded that some things just can’t be stopped.

We have recently moved our gas supplier from NPOWER.

When with NPOWER we have been having meter readings, some estimated but many actual readings.

In addition, we have been paying by direct debit.

So, I was very surprised to receive a demand for almost 500 pounds.

While disputing this, we receive the ‘final demand’ for this amount.

I phone them, and it is explained that although they control the amount of the direct debit, the bills and direct debit are not calculated from the readings. Yes folks, the amount of gas you use has no bearing on the amount you are charged, OR it turns out, the actual cost of a unit of gas.

They weight each months gas usage differently so as to smooth out the bills across the year. This means that spring is exactly the wrong time to change gas supplier. And the mathematics of the situation make it impossible for mortal man to dispute their assertions.

It also conveniently makes it annoying to attempt to change the supplier as you can never know how much they are going to deem you owe.

Whatever happened to paying for what you owe? Or is that just too simple?

I have just finished watching U-571. An American made film about capturing of enigma equipment during the second world war. Now, I went in, KNOWING that I would be annoyed, but willing to forgo historical veracity for the sake of a good story, and in that frame of mind I was able to enjoy the film.

But, it came to the end, and before the end credits, the following came up on screen.

This film is dedicated to the bravery of Allied sailors and officers who risked their lives capturing Enigma materials from U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic.

May 9, 1941
Enigma machine and coding documents captured from U-110 by HMS Bulldog and HMS Aubretia of the 3rd Escort Group

October 30, 1942
Short weather cipher captured from U-559 by HMS Petard

June 4, 1944
Enigma machine and coding documents captured from U-505 by U.S. Navy Task Force 22.3

Now, I have nothing but admiration for the finesse with which the American producers of the film have spun the facts there.

First, what does H.M.S stand for? What part of the American Military? Which military? which Nation? well, I dunno, it does not SAY… but, when it is a U.S. operation, they say. In actual fact, HMS stood for HIS MAGESTIES SHIP. The designation given to ships from the ROYAL NAVY, thats BRITAIN folks, not an American in sight.

Also, the main source of intel regarding the Enigma system was not gained from these boats. It was gained early on, before the fall of Poland by the POLISH intelligence agencies, and smuggled out from Poland when it fell. Smuggled to England, where the staff of Bletchley Park worked to crack the ciphers with the help of Colossus and Alan Turing.

Yes, no doubt the people on all of those missions displayed great heroism, but the portrayal of the importance of this event and who actually made a difference, well… Frankly, if we where not already winning by 1944 when the American operation took place, well, we probably would not have won.

Ok, Mr Angry is stepping down, after having vented his puss filled spleen.

This is my first ‘Mr Angry’ post in a while.

But, here goes…. RANT on!!!

I just received a phone call for Wendy (the missus).

I picked up the phone, said….
‘Hello?’

silence…

‘Hello?!’

click…

‘Hello, may I speak to Mrs Morris please?’

ARGHHH….. flippin’ call centres.

I hate that 5-10 seconds. I really do. We should do something about it.

That pause was because the call centre operators do NOT ring the number. Their computer rings, listens to the line, and when I answer, and it detects that there is a PERSON on the end of the line, it THEN (and only then) looks for someone to talk to me, and connects me to them.

All very efficient, but it is based upon the idea that THEIR time is worth more than mine, and they can waste MY time (admittedly only 10 seconds or so).

Now, SOMETIMES, their computer system will not have anyone to answer at that particular second. And you know what it does? Does it apologise? no, does it play a message saying it will call back? NO, it flippin HANGS UP. Institutionalised SILICON RUDENESS!

But I say NO! I say, my time is worth more to me! This is my windmill. This is my cause.

If I receive that call in the future, I don’t know exactly how it’s going to go…

I am considering a number of strategies.

1) As soon as I don’t hear a voice, I HANG UP.
2) Refuse to connect the human (once on the line) until I have talked to a supervisor and explained my position, and that NO phone call with a 10 second silence will be countenanced in the future, THEN hang up.

Cory Doctorow in a recent BoingBoing posting says…

That Starbucks in Britain are filthier than their US counterparts because the US customers are conditioned to clean up after themselves while the British customers do not.

Well, maybe, but its deeper than that.

My most local Starbucks is in the Trafford Centre.

When the centre opened I went there and wanted to try out the Starbucks.

I had been conditioned by all the coffee shops shown in US shows to expect somewhere that was actually COMFORTABLE.

US coffee shops are third places, comfortable places, places to sit, talk, socialise.

The experience I received in Starbucks in the Trafford Centre was different.

The seating was hard, cold aluminium chairs, set close together in a cramped area.

This does nothing to foster a thirdspace atmosphere. So, maybe, UK starbucks are dirtier because the company does not foster the same social experience as the US stores.

Not having gone to a Starbucks in the US, I don’t know if the same experience is evident there, but its just a thought.