November 18th, 2009 admin
Captcha If You Can
I understand what captchas are for, and why we need them, but they seem to be getting out of control. I recently visited a site which had the captcha displayed here.
For the record the first word wasn’t ‘stirred’. I saw the option for an audio captcha and wondered how you pronounce ‘Ohehyahtah’. If that indeed was the second word. Too good to miss. I pressed the button and found that the audio captcha is just as bizzarrely impenetrable as the text. The mp3 file of it is here, and it reminded me strongly of an early David Lynch film]. Back to the text: after refreshing the words two or three times I was eventually able to get to the next stage.
The next stage involved typing a random string of letters into a box – approximately 200 characters. The web page did kindly suggest that I could cut and paste them into the box, which I did, but really, what this did was turn a quick attempt to give someone some feedback on their blog into a task akin to hacking into NASA.
Security shouldn’t be that hard. It should be as unobtrusive as possible. Roll on the next anti-bot paradigm.
Posted in General IT, Life, Security | No Comments »
October 24th, 2009 admin
 Knot the way to do it Now every so often I complain about my job. No, really. I do. But then something happens to make me realise how lucky I really am. And one of those moments happened just yesterday.
I’ll set the scene. Its just after two major typhoons have torn apart the Philippines. Its wet and rainy and the residual wind occasionally rattles the windows. I’m slogging away in front of my computer on a fairly mundane task, and having a bit of a hard time concentrating. I look out of the window. And I see some rope going past. Rope with a knot in it.
This particular rope doesn’t look very safe to me, but then again what do I know. I’m not a sailor, and this could be some kind of special frayed knot type thing which is actually very safe. Interested by now, I take a look out of the window.
Read the rest of this entry » |
Posted in Life, Philippines | No Comments »
October 3rd, 2009 admin
So I was working from home the other day, around mid-morning, when I heard a mighty crunch from outside. I looked out my window and was confronted with the scene to the left.
I snapped a picture, and watched as a crowd started to gather, and then after about 5 minutes, the driver emerged from the car, shaking his head. He made a great show of examining the lamppost and chatted happily with the assembled crowd.
Two things disturb me about this photo. The first is that I can’t figure out how he managed to crash. There was no traffic around. Traffic on that road only goes about 15km/h. The lamppost was clearly visible and easy to avoid. I can only conclude he lost control of the car, or suffered some kind of seizure.
The second thing is … the lampost is in the middle of the road! I’ve been looking at that for the past year and it never struck me as odd until now. I am clearly innured to this sort of general strangeness.
Anyway, the conclusion to this story is that a couple of hours later a policeman wandered by and took notes. Then a guy arrived with a tin of yellow paint and painted the base of the lamppost yellow. Apparently then, the guy just hadn’t seen it.
Posted in Life, Philippines | No Comments »
September 12th, 2008 admin
Don't do it ...
I’m continually startled by the way people use email in the Philippines. Using a Yahoo address is phenomenally popular, even for business. I could forgive a mom and pop company from using momandpop@yahoo.com.ph, but when you get top management handing you cards saying ceo_888@yahoo.com.ph there is something clearly very wrong.
In no particular order, here are a few reasons why you should NOT use yahoo for your business email address. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Life, Philippines, Security | 1 Comment »
September 9th, 2008 admin
This is the ultimate breakage: a breakage in the beer chain! In a country where cheap beer is a lifeline out of the inefficiency and brokenness, the danger of an interruption in the beer supply cannot be overestimated. Nevertheless I’ve been noticing dwindling supplies of bottled San Miguel Beer in Manila over the last few weeks, and now virtually every supermarket I visit has empty shelves. A national disaster. No San Miguel Pale Pilsen, no SMB Light, and …. no Super Dry <whimper>.
That’s not to say there’s no beer at all, mind. There is canned beer, which has always been inexplicably more expensive than bottled beer — around an extra 30%. And of course because of this, its the only beer left on the shelves. And there is foreign beer of course, but who in their right mind would pay 120 pesos for a can of Heineken, when the local brew is a sixth of the price and tastes much better.
I’ll investigate further. Questions will be asked. Hang in there fellow Manilans.
Posted in Life, Philippines | 1 Comment »
August 5th, 2008 admin
I’ve been thinking of setting up a company to set people up with Open Source workplaces, and every year that goes past makes me think that the time is almost here.
There are a number of factors which are conspiring to make Linux a viable alternative:
- The fact that Linux, via distributions such as Ubuntu, Mandriva, Suse et al, are now easy enough to install and intuitive enough for the Everyday User. I set my girlfriend up with an account on a spare laptop and just let her play. Soon enough she was asking for it on her laptop as well.
- OpenOffice. Enough said. Hardly anyone uses the full feature set of Word, so why do we slavishly upgrade every time a new version comes out? Well actually we don’t … Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in General IT, Life, Linux | 1 Comment »
July 18th, 2008 admin
Not sure if I’ve ranted about ID cards in the Philippines yet. Seems like every building you go into, you have to leave a photo ID and sign in. I hate leaving my passport with them, but that’s the only photo ID I have. I normally try and argue my way in. Once I left a calling card which seemed to satisfy them. Once I left a credit card, to my amazement and astonishment — just testing the boundaries of stupidity you understand. Several times I’ve had to call whoever it was I was meeting and get them to collect me from the lobby.
No more. I think I’ll just make my own ID card now — no one said they had to be official. Enter … auto badge generator page … http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/badge.php
Love it.
Posted in Life, Philippines | 1 Comment »
June 2nd, 2008 admin
The more astute readers will notice that its been over a month since I posted anything. Clearly the blogging apathy has hit, which any blogger will recognise as something which happens once the lustre of your shiny new blog begins to dull. But there are more sinister forces at work. I fear I may have been infected by the Philippines Treacle Syndrome.
This deadly wasting disease is most prominent on a Friday afternoon. It causes ordinary tasks to take several times longer than they usually should. Here are some examples:
Buying Ibuprofen in Mercury Drug:
You walk into the store. There are 6 staff in the shop, and 2 customers. You stride to the counter, behind which are 4 of the staff. They instantly stare intently at pieces of paper in front of them. Some try to run out the back door. Some duck under the counter. Eventually one will have to talk to you …
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Life, Philippines | No Comments »
March 22nd, 2008 admin
Last week I had to go to immigration to renew my visa. I’d been there a couple of months ago, and although the process was long-winded and expensive, it didn’t cause me too much pain. Therefore when I revisited the office last week, in the Intramuros district of Manila, I was entirely unprepared for the seven circles of hell which awaited.
Last time I’d got there at around 11, and had to wait until 3.30 for my visa, which had effectively taken up a whole day. This time I hopped into a taxi at 7.30, before the inevitable traffic jams had a chance to build up, and was there at 8am when they opened. My first surprise was that I wasn’t allowed in the building. At all. Two months ago I’d had no problems when I turned up wearing shorts, but since then they’d put up a cheaply photocopied notice saying “No shorts or sandals”, and were refusing to let anyone thusly attired in the building. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Life, Philippines | No Comments »
February 20th, 2008 admin
I was in Church the other weekend attending a mass. As I’m not a religious person, my attention was beginning to wander. Some birds had taken up residence in the roof, so I was watching them for a while, which struck me as mildly odd.
Then the choir started up to lead the congregation in a hymn. The words to the hymn appeared on a vast screen suspended from the ceiling, so that the congregation could follow along with them. As I watched, a dialog box popped up, suggesting that the virus sofware was out of date. Someone hurriedly dispatched it. It appeared again, suggesting that the trial period had expired and that it might be a good time to buy the software. It was dispatched again. Oh for a camera.
I did wonder if the congregation would start singing along with the words on the AV dialog box, but unfortunately they remained focused on the words of the hymn. Admirable. But broken.
Posted in General IT, Life, Philippines | No Comments »
