Duff Beer!

While in Brisbane, a good friend of mine (Hadi Nematollah) introduced me to Duff Beer (of The Simpson’s fame). Although I am not really  a beer drinker, I can say that I was not put off the taste. Not a bad deal, $25 for a six-pack of novelty beer. Bonus points for being drinkable!

I thought that I might just describe today how I got lost in an interesting maze of Handbrakes to Schools in the Indian Himalayas.

So, I was doing my normal morning Internet browse, off discovering what new and interesting tidbits of information I could discover. On Freshmeat, I learnt that there was a new version of Handbrake, a popular (and very, very awesome tool) for converting DVDs into other formats so they can be viewed on iPods and iPhones.

Cool, I thought. Upon reading the changelog, they listed a couple of changes to ‘ghb’. What was ghb, I wondered? Well, a Google found that GHB was infact Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid. Indeed, Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid was not what I was looking for, but it did start the wild search party.

From learning all about GHB and it’s affects, Wikipedia was only more then happy to teach me more information. Xyrem, manufactured by Jazz Pharmaceuticals is a orphan drug. What’s an orphan drug? Well, it’s a pharmaceutical agent that has been developed specifically to treat a rare medical conditions.

Since the market for any drug with such a limited application scope would, by definition, be small and thus largely unprofitable, government intervention is often required to motivate a manufacturer to address the need for an orphan drug. One of the interventions that can be undertaken by a government is to create a government-run enterprise to engage in research and development, otherwise known as a Crown Corporation.

An example of a Crown Corporation is the Australian based National Broadband Sceme, which is owned and operated by the Department of Communication and the Digital Economy.

On the DBCDE site, there was a media release sent out: “A reminder for Australians affected by floods about the Satellite Phone Subsidy Scheme”. Naturally, it was time to have a look at who was offering and what the price of satellite phone are. $1,000+. One of the coolest phones being the Thuraya XT. (ZOMG! It has a color screen!)

Looking for how much it actually costs to have a satellite phone (ie, monthly charges) I found a page listing where the Thuraya phones are used.

Leading me to an isolated village situated in the Indian Himalayas, Kargyak. In September 2009 the Surya Civic Association finished construction of the specially designed “passive” school-building heated by sun, fully ecological and also compatible with local structures also in terms of appearance.

It’s pretty cool and I suggest you take a look.

Please click to enlarge the image.

My only reason for ranting is that if I wanted to buy a Mac, I would right now be spending more then $11,386.99… not only that, but I still would not have all the hardware that I want in my new machine. I mean, come on guys. I can build something my self in three hours for $3,300 that is faster, has almost twice the amount of storage (and more redundancy). Infact, the only thing the Mac can offer me on their online configuration that I really want, is my 8GB of RAM…

Seriously? You have to be kidding.

I must however admit, the iPhone was a good invention though, Steve.

I love OS X. I do. Seriously. But until everyone stops calling their Mac not a PC… I will still be laughing at all people who own a Mac. A cheap Mac will set you back about $1,000. A cheap (new) PC will set you back $400. Must be another win from Apple. *sigh*

This move, however, has not been without quite a number of funny mishaps while moving from our current billing system (ModernBill) to Parallels Business Automation (”PBA”). The following text is going to go into quite a bit of technical information, so if you don’t know what XML is, well, you might just want to close this window go to Wikipedia’s article on XML and look it up!

Observe this image very closely:

So what I have done, is I have made a set of files with 100 customers each. Every separate file gets imported by running the command on the PBA server ‘hspc-import.pl’. Here, I am running the 59th file (the files start at 00). hspc-import.pl is complaining that the email for person “Becky A. Douglas” is not defined, however, when I go to edit the file, the email is infact correct, and it is definitely defined. Just like it is for the clients before her.

This issue has had me baffled for weeks trying to solve this issue. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Sometimes changing the name in the XML file will just magically solve the issue, as if it was not there to begin with.

So what I do, is I get on Skype and call our Sales Engineer at Parallels, and tell him what the issue is. He points out a few issues with the XML file (which is fair enough, but why did all the clients before these “just” import without any issues?).

I take into account the issues that he pointed out, and go and create a new set of import documents to get our clients into our new billing system. I run all the commands again to start the process rolling, and now the issue is coming up again!

But now something very, very bad is going on! The import is actually failing faster then it was before the fixes that were suggested by our Sales Engineer. So I back track and change a few lines in the XML file. Instead of the top of the file saying this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data>
<account>
<type>CUSTOMER</type>
<status>active</status>
<is_corporate>0</is_corporate>
<name>Bob Smith</name>

It now says this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<data>

<account>
<type>CUSTOMER</type>
<status>active</status>
<is_corporate>0</is_corporate>
<name>Bob Smith</name>

After adding exactly 15 new lines after the <data> child in the failing XML file in the import batch, you wouldn’t believe it. The import actually succeeded.

So now my new motto is, “Every bug in the world can be solved with just fifteen newlines!“.

<Beeth> Girls are like internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken.
<honx> well, you can stil get one from a strange country

I laughed.

Some things were designed just to not run on a Windows platform. It gets me thinking – what if someone went and actually installed a trojan onto one of these babies? Scary if you ask me.

I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a phone call I had forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it.
A man answered, saying, “Hello.”
I politely said, “This is Jason Braemore. Could I please speak with Rachel Carter?”
Suddenly, the phone was slammed down on me – I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so rude.

I tracked down Rachel’s correct number and called her – I had transposed the last two digits of her phone number. After hanging up with her, I decided to call the ‘wrong’ number again…

When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled, “You’re a scumbag!” and hung up.

I wrote his number down with the word ‘scumbag’ next to it, and put it on my speed dial. Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I’d call him up and yell, “You’re a scumbag!” It always cheered me up!

When Caller ID came to our area, I thought my therapeutic ‘scumbag’ calling would have to stop. So, I called his number and said, “Hi, this is John Smith from the Telephone Company. I’m just calling to see if you’re familiar with the Caller ID program?”
He yelled, “NO!” and slammed the phone down.

I quickly called him back and said, “That’s because you’re a scumbag!”

One day I was at the store, getting ready to pull into a parking spot. Some guy in a black BMW cut me off and pulled into the spot I had patiently waited for. I hit the horn and yelled that I had been waiting for the spot. The idiot ignored me. I noticed a “For Sale” sign in his car window… so I wrote down his number.

A couple of days later, right after calling the first scumbag, I thought I had better call the BMW scumbag too.
I said, “Is this the man with the black BMW for sale?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Can you tell me where I can see it?”
“Yes, I live at 1969 West 35th Street. It’s a yellow house, and the car’s parked right out in front.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“My name is Don Hanson,” he said.
“When’s a good time to catch you, Don?”
“I’m home every evening after five.”
“Listen, Don, can I tell you something?”
“Yes?”
“Don, you’re a scumbag.”
Then I hung up, and added his number to my speed dial. Now, when I had a problem, I had two scumbags to call…

But after several months of calling them, it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. So, I came up with an idea. I called Scumbag #1…
“Hello.”
“You’re a scumbag!” (But I didn’t hang up…)
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Stop calling me,” he screamed.
“Make me,” I said.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Don Hanson.”
“Yeah? Where do you live?”
“Scumbag, I live at 1969 West 35th Street, a yellow house, with my black Beamer parked in front.”
He said, “I’m coming over right now, Don. And you had better start saying your prayers.”
I said, “Yeah, like I’m really scared, scumbag.”
Then I called Scumbag #2.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello, scumbag,” I said.
He yelled, “If I ever find out who you are, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” I said.
“I’ll kick your ass,” he exclaimed.
I answered, “Well, scumbag, here’s your chance. I’m coming over right now.”

Then I hung up and immediately called the police, saying that I lived at 1969 West 35th Street, and that I was on my way over there to kill my gay lover.

Then I called CKVU Channel 13 News about the gang war going down on West 35th Street.

I quickly got into my car and headed over to 35th Street.

There I saw two scumbags beating the crap out of each other in front of six squad cars, a police helicopter, and news crew.

(This joke is from http://www.joe-ks.com)