I think this is a joke, but it looks like a somewhat serious question. If so, this guy is an idiot. And not just a common idiot, but a truly moronic person who shouldn't be allowed near a computer. Thank you, www.thedailywtf.com.

The coolest thing about this new Whidbey exception model is that the IDE actually throws exceptions *about your code* at design-time instead of runtime.

Today I was having a fun discussion about MySQL. A number of people were pointing how how bad MySQL is (one Anti-MS person said “It's worse than anything MS has made.”). One of the big problems with MySQL is how it handles datatypes. It doesn't. Pass it invalid data, and it silently “fixes” it (read corrupts) so that it works in whatever column you specified. This allows people to pass whatever they want as a date, for instance.

Now, those reading who've done any real work with DBs and applications are probably saying “uh oh” right now. If I declare something as int NOT NULL, I mean it. Don't take NULL and magically conver it into 0 or empty string. Don't turn my varchar into a DateTime of 0000-0-0. If I do a query that has invalid data, *something is wrong*. Throw an error. Let the developer know.

This went back and forth for a while, until someone responded angrily and said “You: I want errors. Me: F* you, I want it to work.” This is exactly like some VB developers are thinking when they do “On Error Resume Next”. What do you think? Should a DB work like VB and “On Error Resume Next”?

I say, lets take this one step further! Why should the filesystem give us errors? “rm -rf something”? Something isn't found? Well, just use the next item found, alphabetical order. That way, we can “just work” instead of giving back nasty error messages. Sigh.

I was looking for some lyrics today and ended up here: http://music.imbc.com/iMBCMusic/iMRefAllOfMusic.asp?ArtistID=3603

Seeing the MP3 button, I hit download. The next intermediate page had the title: “More Click Better Life”. Well, yea, I suppose they're right :)

Earlier this week, I paid the local security providers (guards who supposedly guard the neighbourhood). The next day the guy came with my receipt, so I told him to leave it in the mailbox. He said, “I can't do that. I need you to sign for it.” Not sure why they do this, but whatever. Best not to argue with the guys who walk around with shotguns, know where you live, and so on, right?

So I'm handed a sheet of paper with a bunch of names and numbers on it, and told to find my name. OK, there we go, #1088. He looks in his folder and finds receipt number #1088, and then has me sign it. Then, he gives me the receipt I just signed. So I ask him “Why do you have me sign this paper, if I'm going to keep it?” “Umm, well, we have you check your name off on this list, so that we know you signed the receipt.” Alright, I'll check my name off... crazy but whatever. Oh, what's this, my name's already checked off, as are most of the names on the list. “Ahh, well. You are normally supposed to check off your name.”

And this guy gets paid to walk around and do this? It just really makes me wonder what kind of thoughts go through some peoples' brains. I wish I could have a short glimpse into some of these minds and see how it works. I mean, do they feel a fog over their mind? Or is it like they just don't care? Or does it feel like I do when I think about anti-matter warp drives: I have some clue as to how it's supposed to work but really don't know much details and probably wouldn't understand them if I did? 

OK, I hardly do any politics here, so here's my one shot, considering the US elections failed. What a bad omen for the new few years eh? Anyways, instead of just complaining, I think we (people of the Earth) should step in and help. A bunch of other countries should get together and hold and intervention for the USA. Just like a friend on cocaine (or something bad) -- you perhaps watch and warn the first time it's a problem, and after that you just get involved.

Other nations should just step in and say, “We're sorry. We love [some] of you. We can't let you continue to do this to yourselves.” And then we would put someone else more competent in charge. Maybe Tommy Chong. “It's only for your own good” is what we'd tell the states. Faced with a world-wide show of love and support they'd definately see their folly and agree, right? Maybe not, judging from the voting maps. If you look at the voting maps, Bush is very much skewed towards people with pitchforks and gun racks in their pickups, while non-Bush is skewed towards people with an IQ above 110. Then again, we'll probably see a few more soverign countries blown up anyways, so there's probably not much to lose.

OK, I'm done.

OK, I've had it. Ever since XML came out, certain people have been misusing it all over the place for no reason at all. *XML IS JUST A FORMAT.* It's not magic. It's not cool. Use if it makes sense. However, it is actually a REAL format; adding < and > to a document doesn't make it XML. LinkPoint needs to learn this.

LinkPoint (owned by First Data) is a rather large company to process credit cards. You would think they'd have people who actually have some clue as to what they are doing when it comes to their programmatic interface eh? Check this code sample out:

I chose MySQL to use as my database, since I was writing on Linux, in C, and it just seemed like the easiest path. Can someone please say “you were so wrong”? MySQL has to the worst DB engine out there. It doesn't (ok, just added) even have support for SUBQUERIES! Barely has support for multiple charsets. And... binary(20) is NOT a binary field 20 bytes long. It's a char(20). You can't execute multiple commands in a single query. It's embarrassing to open source really. I don't know who could argue that MySQL is competition for SQL Server or Oracle and keep a straight face. Check this list out: http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html (I really love the part about date handling.)

On the other hand, it's very secure. www.kalea.com.gt <-- No checking of user input whatsoever. (BTW, my little article about Kalea made me a top search result for Kalea Guatemala -- while their site doesn't even show up.)  They take your querystring, concat it to their query, and off it goes. But guess what? Good luck trying to hack it. MySQL is so poor, doing SQL injection and achieving anything fun is nearly impossible. So much for adding prices to their site :). Oh wait, you can do a DoS by using the BENCHMARK expression and then encode/Sha1/etc.

So what am I going to do? Switch to SQL Server as soon as I get a release candidate done. I'm going to load Mono into my C app, and then transition into managed code and use some nice TDS libraries and have a good day with a database that actually works well. Had I done that to begin with, I'd be a few hours ahead of schedule instead of behind schedule...

I went downtown to the newest mall built in Guatemala: Miraflores -- yet another example of a design that'd make anyone with any amount of architectural sense sick. Built by the bright people over at spectrum.com.gt. At any rate, being somewhat bored, I decided to watch a movie. The theatres in the new mall aren't that bad.

As I walk into the mall, I see a very interesting sign: No pets, guns, cameras or video cameras allowed. While I can understand the first two items (although, seeing a rabid Akita hunting people in a Gap would be amusing), what crackhead came up with the new [video] camera idea?

At the information desk, I verified that indeed, they did mean no cameras allowed. What possible premise? Security. Apparently taking photographs of public places is somehow a threat. So I pushed a bit more... “How exactly does this improve our security?” “Um... hmm... uh, I think there was a problem at another mall, so they're just doing it in case.” In other words: “no freaking clue”. I also asked if they check people for cell phones, since you could have a camera phone and covertly take pictures. She assured me they'd find people doing that and confiscate their phones.

Later on I find out that the cinema has a $500 reward (which is probably 2x the monthly salary of the people working at the cinema), for finding anyone recording the movies. At the beginning of movies, they play a stupid commercial about not to pirate movies, and compare it to stealing a car (again showing how spaced out the MPAA is). They actually have people with night-vision scoping the audience out during the entire showing.

Now, I'm aware that they do this in the states. The stupid part is that in the USA, movies come out before you can buy them on DVD, download DVD-rips (ok, not always), or rent them at your local movie rental store. Not so in Guatemala. The movie industry is quite backwards, and releases shows much later in different parts of the world (hence their retarded DVD region coding crap). Well, by the time a movie hits Guatemalan theatres *there is no market for screeners of that movie*!

I selected one movie to watch, but my sister told me they had rented it two weeks ago. Others I had seen in theatres in the USA or downloaded DVD-rips of months ago. Some were even at Blockbuster, less than 1km away. All of them are readily available by street vendors (in your choice of VCD or DVD). Yet they still find it necessary to go to extra lengths and “prohibit” cameras to stop this huge screener racket. Silliness. I'm sad to think that some of the population here might A) actually believe them B) not be offended that a company tries to take away their freedom to carry a camera around.

In the sake of prosperity for the country, I'm planning some fun with these people:
1: Photograph and chart the entire mall.
2: Post pictures and schematics here. [For added bonus, mark up the schematics with writing in a script they don't understand.]
3: Distribute flyers at the mall with a URL; email Spectrum.
4: Enjoy the response.
And:
1: Get some empty rolls of toilet paper or other cardboard items.
2: Add a red LED to these items.
3: Distribute at the theatre.
4: Watch employees go nutty thinking they're going to get $50,000 in reward money.
5: Have even more fun when I refuse to surrender my cardboard box.

Just need to find the time...

I opened Windows Media Player 10 (which STILL doesn't have a shuffle feature that works) and saw this:

Kalea is a furniture store in Guatemala that pretends to be more upscale and “cool”. Some of their items are pretty nice, others are just marked up 300% for no reason. At any rate, for a while, they had no functional website (just an “under construction” page). Well, I recently checked their site (www.kalea.com.gt), and was joyed to find out that, alas, they have a product listing. Yay! Now I could see if there is anything new or good to buy without driving downtime and wasting time in the store. Was I wrong.

First, the product gallery consists of one crappy photo of the product. Second, the description (in all caps for no apparent reason), consists of one short line, such as “Wooden console. Metal legs. Polished wood finish.” This, coupled with the crappy pictures, ensures you have no idea what the product is. I've looked at tables and I have no clue if they are small two-foot night stands or great hall dining tables. Silly. But even so, I could probably get some clue if they had a product I was interested, and then go down to the store to inspect and buy. Not quite.

Kalea has decided NOT to put prices on their site. Instead, they expect you to “request a quote” for every item you might be interested in. Now, their prices range from $30 - $1500 (or more) for furniture, and sometimes their prices are just outright crazy (say, their rugs, which are 3 times more expensive than the exact same rug in a store across the street). Thus, knowning the price becomes even more critical. “Hey, that looks like a nice light. Oh wait, $300 for a lamp? Forget it.” Also, before sending a quote, they ask you to fill in a form full of your info (rather than just an email address). So, I wrote them “Why the hell are there no prices”? Here's their response (they responded in English):

”Thanks for writing. The registration is needed so we can have your real information. Our website is intended for information only, this is a e-business site and not e-commerce site. If you can see, the cart is used to make a quote (Cotización), we will receive the list of products that you are interested on, and in a short time we will send you an email with the quote. We are using our site as a catalogue of products, they can be at sale, promotion, or not in store (but we can export them for you), so the prices may vary, and that is why we don´t post them.”

Don't you love that last line? I guess they've never heard of databases that have the UPDATE command, or perhaps that you can actually edit data. Also amusing is the phrase “this is a e-business site and not e-commerce site“, as if I'm supposed to say “Oh, I'm sorry; now I understand.“ Sigh.
 

Does anyone else play the game of “sarcasm chicken“? It goes something like this:

Alice: Well, user's are still opening virus attachments.

Bob: Let's install better anti-virus software on all client machines.
Alice: Well, still, it's not enough. Maybe all attachments need to scanned at the server first.

Bob: Hmm, maybe we should have virus-scanning at the ethernet layer, you know, stop it before it gets into the computer, right at the switch.

Alice: Yea, even better, we could also have a heuristical scanner inside the TCP/IP stack.

Bob: Well, true, but attachments also have to be saved. So maybe the file system could make all new data written unaccessible to the user until an admin approves it or until it's virus scanned.

Alice: Could be, but if the OS gets attacked... what about having it at the disk level? That way we'd have hardware support, and that's a lot harder to hack.

Bob: Hardware support? That's a good idea, but we'd have to buy new hardware.

Alice: Hmm, maybe we can patch the BIOS to.... <g>

Bob: <g>... I was gonna ask if you were serious...

Has this ever happened to you? It starts as a joke, and you keep it up a bit, and then you start to think the other person might actually be serious and well... This is a good outcome. It's no fun if you have to explain your “joke“, esp. on a public DL.

I don't get a whole lot of spam on my primary account. The bit that I do is usually filtered out by Outlook 2003. However, one message got in, and I read it. It was for an adult matching service. What's so different is that they used ASCII (OK, HTML, since they used a font tag to make one part a different colour) art of a naked woman, instead of including a JPG. Spam on a budget?

HTMLartWoman.html (1.31 KB)

According to the film companies in the UK, terrorists sell pirate DVDs to raise funds. So, forget all the benefits that I mentioned the other day, now, buying a DVD off the street means supporting terrorism. That really does it explain it all, eh? Pirates are painted as evil vile villains, and terrorists also fit that bill, so why not connect 'em? I'm just surprised it took someone so long to come find the link. I wonder how long it'll be until we learn Saddam has stockpiles of counterfeit DVDs, just waiting to flood the market and make the economy collapse... The industry makes it quite clear that there are more people than just terrorists (no, really?) who are pirates.

My favourite quote from the article was “By purchasing pirated DVDs, many consumers are unwittingly helping to fund hardcore criminals with links to people trafficking, drugs, guns and money laundering” -- wow. I'd hate to think what people who sell pirated copies of SQL Server do!

They also make a lame attack at the quality of pirated wares, saying “They were rubbish, they were shaky, out of focus, camerawork was bad, they had muffled sound”. Well, sir, it looks like you bought a SCREENER, something no decent pirate would sell. Oh wait, they're evil, vile criminals. So I suppose the moral of the story is: Don't buy unprofessional pirated DVDs 'cause they suck. Find a pirate who knows what they're doing, and in the process, stop funding terrorism.

For those of you who played D&D (here's a funny video to see what it's like), you might recall that there were magical tomes that could increase or decrease your abilities, just by reading them. Of course that's impossible in real life since we'd need powerful magic... right? Well, as I have unfortunately learned, no. A while ago, I had to maintain someone else's app. I believe in the process of reading this app's code, I have lost a few IQ points. Let's take a look, shall we?*

All the code in this app uses horrible variable names. In a 250 line block of code (a single method -- the writers must have thought there to be huge drawbacks to using methods), the first line starts off by declaring the variables. A sample looks this:

dim objconn,objrs,strDatabase,mysql,mysql1,sqlstring,rstemp,dbConn1,objrs1,query

This is a truncated line. They actually declare about double that much. Regardless on how you feel about declaring everything at the top of a file, this is bad. They don't use these variables at the same time. For instance, they'll open objrs, do something, and then close it, then open rstemp and repeat. There aren't actually two objects in use at once. They just declared extra variables for fun. Or maybe they thought they had to give the variables a rest. I don't know. And I don't think they did either. Of course, it's better than using no variable names at all.

They have a process to read values from a comma-delimited file. So, one line at a time, they use VB's split function, storing the result in a variable named “split“. So far so good. Then they proceed to use constants for the next 100 lines to refer to different fields, giving way to wonderful code as so:

if split(6) = “true“ then
  objrs1.open “SELECT * FROM Table WHERE Field1 = “ & split(2) & “ Field2 = '“ & split(9) & “'“
  split(4) = objrs1(“SomeField“)

At a few places in the app, a field is selected from the DB for absolutely no reason:

someId = Request.QueryString(“someId“)
rs.Open “SELECT SomeId FROM Orders WHERE SomeId = “ & someId, objConn1
someId = rs(“SomeId“)

That's right. They select a single field (an int), constraining it to the current value of their var, and then set the var to the same value. Maybe there's something special in SQL that I'm not aware of. To their credit, there's actually a check for rs.Eof first (omitted for clarity of stupidity).

Here's a brilliant idea for performance: Don't use SQL's COUNT. In quite a few places, they'll execute a semi-complex query that returns, on average, 10,000 rows. But why bother with SELECT COUNT, when we have SELECT *?

The entire app is built like this. The people who wrote this should have their text editors confiscated.

* Some variable names have been renamed to protect the innoce-- mentally challenged.

Since I'm about to leave Guatemala after living here for over six years, I thought I'd jot down some experiences as to remember them.  I'm not making this up.

At a store, my father asked for some soap.  He was told that they currently did not have any, and that they wouldn't for two weeks.  My father suggested that if they were selling so much soap, perhaps they'd order more.  The storekeep smiled and said “Well actually, we never sell soap for the second half of the month.  Our records show that we only sell soap for the first two weeks and then none for the rest of the month.  So, we only buy for the first two weeks.”

I went to buy a microwave at the biggest Sony distributor in the country.  In the front of the store they had a very interesting microwave with some really advanced features.  I asked how much it was, and was told that I couldn't buy it, since they didn't have any.  When I pointed out to the salesperson that they did, in fact, have one, and it was right there, he said “That's our display unit.  If we sold that, we wouldn't be able to show it to other customers.”

As I was driving home this morning, I was thinking about localization issues for different situations.  I realised that it must be really hard to have certain word games, like hangman, in some Asian languages like Chinese or Korean (shouldn't be a problem in Japanese, so long you stick to the alphabets).  So, without further ado, I sat down and wrote a very simple Chinese Hangman game.

There is only one word because I'm lazy and wrote this in 20 minutes and didn't feel like putting a real word library in.  Maybe for v1.1.  “Chinese” is somewhat misleading.  In fact, I used Korean to get the characters, since I suck at the Chinese IMEs, and didn't feel like using my digitizer.

Since it's written in .NET, you can play online, just by clicking here (32K)!

Update:  Some of my slower friends have given me feedback that this game is hard, since you have to guess the exact word.  That's the point.  The game is just a joke.  That's all.  Don't actually expect to play it (although it is fully functional!).