We have an incredibly dumb $9 million referendum happening here in the next few months with an appallingly written question, "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?".
I'm sure you will have had to re-read that again.
The irony of the question is that you have to vote Yes if you don't want to see increased child-abuse in the country.
Someone very smart realised that of all the things we could be asking the citizenry right now, this isn't really the top of the list given that the current government and the opposition overwhelmingly voted in favour of the current legislation, and the Prime Minister has said that no matter what the outcome of the referendum is, it won't change his mind.
A website has gone up where users can add whatever they like as subjects for referenda. I'm loving it.
The current Prime Minister has just been on a junket to Samoa and has taken a couple of high-profile New Zealand rugby celebrities with him, both of whom did election campaigning for him last year. These celebrities were last seen together in a factory in Auckland telling factory workers that they shouldn't work in the factory, they should own the factory. Apparently you get to own the factory if you vote for a right-wing party. With currently 1100 people a week being made unemployed, i'm hoping those factory workers still have their jobs.
For my own personal sanity i'm going to start collecting some of the more aberrant reporting i'm seeing on this saga. Chris McGreal from The Guardian writes (from Jerusalem):
"But military and political analysts say that Hamas can block the Israeli strategy simply by refusing to agree to a ceasefire, no matter how bad things get. The military would then be stuck inside a potentially anarchic Gaza Strip, attempting to stop Hamas rockets, every one of which fired into Israel would amount to a victory for the Islamist group."
Chris needs to do a little more research and a little less conjecture. The Israeli government has broken a 6-month ceasefire that began on June 19, 2008, as reported by the New York Times on June 18, 2008. The Israeli invasion that began November 4, covered by The Guardian, obviously breaches that agreement. Given that this date was election day in the US, and an upcoming election in Israel, is it cynical to think this was seen as an opportunity?
The implication of the above paragraph, from the article, is of Hamas holding the key to a successful ceasefire, even though it is Israel who has breached the previous agreement. There is also a somewhat strange logic that the reader should be pitying Israeli forces (I can't in all consciousness call them a defence force) if they have to continue fighting in Gaza. These are not two equally trained and armed combatants who have decided to war with one another, it is an invasionary force with a great deal more firepower than anything within Gaza, and it is an invasionary force targeting civilian areas.
Until the last 2 weeks, 20 Israelis were killed by Hamas rockets in the last 8 years. As i write this, the current estimated death toll is 820 Palestinians, and Israel is discussing an increase of force. I won't even discuss the idea that rockets being fired by Hamas "would amount to a victory", it's too ridiculous.
One of my favourite editorial/articles from The Onion was always Herbert Kornfeld. I've been catching up on some articles and see there's finally been a Midstate Office Supplies website set up with some awesome product descriptions that I wish were how all products were described. However, Herbert giving some colleagues a seminar in this article is a must-read:
"And that's where all those pretty geraniums along the sidewalk came from!" shrieked Lois.
"No doubt," I said. I aksed them what tha lesson be from all this.
"Are you trying to get us to go to church or something?" Nick aksed.
"Shut tha fuck up, Nick," I said.
"Out of bad situations, good things can result, and that can apply in the workplace, too," Lois said. "You can find worth and meaning in your job if you know where to look."
"Hell no, that ain't what I wuz sayin'," I said. "Damn, woman."
Gary nailed it. He said it was 2 show how bumpin' tha H-Dog wuz, an' how lucky tha Midstate staff wuz 2 have tha One An' Only Funky Fresh Ovahlord O' Tha A.R. Universe in full effect. How much motivation a homie need? I raised a fuckin' office plant from tha dead by hollerin' at it an' feedin' it root beer an' Skittles, y'all. Thas off tha hook. Sheeit. Mad props 2 Gary fo' recognizin' tha ultimate truth. H-Dog out.
Quote for the day:
Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.
-- Jeffrey Zeldman
I've just been reading a great article in the Guardian Unlimited Film section from Shane Meadows about his new film This is England (which i'm hoping will include the song of the same name by The Clash).
There are a couple of choice quotes from the piece, but the interesting thing for me were his thoughts and ideas of what it was like growing up in a small town in the 1980's when you're part of a subculture, and in part, the attendant iconography of the objects that become meaningful.
Late in 1985, when I was 15, I got my first pair of Dr Marten's boots. For a while they had to be hidden at a friend's place, because at the time my Father wouldn't allow them to be 'under his roof'. What they meant to him and what they meant to me were completely different things - for him they were the accoutrements of fascism, while for me they were the symbol of anti everything - benign, insipid, popular, 'normal' and fascist. All of this meaning I had to walk around to my friend's place for the first 6 months of owning them to be able to wear them when we went out anywhere.
When we did go out, if we saw someone else wearing them, we (or them) would stop and have a chat about whatever, there was a good chance that we might have just met a brand new friend. The fact is, ideologically, or at least musically, there was a 99% chance we would be into exactly the same things. If you're my age, you might even remember that you could tell a lot about who you were meeting depending on the colour of their laces. Black and Red could mean Marxist and Anarchist, White could mean fascist or a 'hippy punk' preference.
When I was teaching, I used to tell my film or media students about this and for the most part they would laugh out loud unanimously. Maybe it was oversensitivity on my part, but whatever it was, it used to annoy me that they thought it was so funny. It wasn't funny. It was heart on your sleeve, life and death serious. Why? Because we all felt alone and sincere.
Shane Meadows talks about the multiple subcultures in his small town of Uttoxeter, and although my small town didn't have anywhere near the same diversity, I know exactly what he means when he describes his small town - pull the word Uttoxeter and insert Tauranga - during the weekends.
"In a town as small as Uttoxeter, though, there weren't enough people for each sub culture to fill their own parties or clubs, so most weekends everyone would turn up at the same village hall disco and end up fighting."
It's 20 years later, and a lot of the ideas, values and things I most value hold true to the things I learnt back then. Unlike then, I often wear a suit now, the footwear of choice are still the same.
"The big difference between now and the period in which my film is set is our level of isolation. In 1983, people still cared about society as a whole but now they'll keep their mouth shut as long as they've got the house, the job and the car they want. If you were a kid in 1983, you wouldn't have a PlayStation to sit indoors alone with. You got your entertainment from mixing with a variety of different people. While making the film, I realised that all of my fondest childhood memories surrounded human contact: mucking about with mates or going camping. In 2007, people put less emphasis on that sort of thing and more on planning their careers and their TV viewing. As far as I'm concerned, if you're working from nine to five then coming home to watch shows that your Sky box has recorded for you while you were out, you might as well be on a fucking drip."
Amen.
For those who have somehow managed to find themselves the recipient of esoteric knowledge or, the "world's foremost expert on an obscure subject" badge. In which the recipient is the leading expert in a field that few others share an interest in. More available here
I'm quite a big fan of Fellini's work, especially 8½, and came across these Fellini caricatures this afternoon. Fellini's work is always playful on the surface, sadly not enough people scratch below.
In a nice moment of synchronicity, Ben Goodger has a post on his blog isolating some of the problems the mozilla.org faces (growing pains, really), some of which i've been thinking about for the last week or two. A lot of the issues can, I believe, be solved by using more consistent systems of information delivery and documentation. I'm not a developer and can't speak at all about the systems that developers need, this is just my own point of view as a QA tester in New Zealand and hapless champion of Mozilla products. The two main things I would find most useful, and solve problems I have encountered, are Consistency and Documentation. Mostly I want these to achieve autonomous testing, whereby I know exactly where to go and what to do. The other point of view i suppose i'm also thinking about is for the merely curious, those who want to try out a nightly trunk or branch build to see where development has progressed.
Consistency
When I first started testing, the learning curve for getting involved with testing was made easier by the members of the QA team in the QA irc channel, as it still is today. However a number of time difference problems arise when you're living so far away from Mozilla HQ and you need information that can't be answered by one of the other channel participants, and is usually not found in Mozilla wikis or pages. In my mind it's the human Mozilla HQ participants that make all the difference. Why? Well, often testing and development mean that you need up to the second information - information that currently needs other human beings to answer.
Many of the problems I and others faced, initially, is simply put, the 'barrier to entry'. No matter whether you have just downloaded Firefox or Thunderbird, or you've been a hard-core user of either since their very first release - you should be, and mostly are capable of testing. Most of the standardized tests allow anyone to test candidates, but it's getting to the testing that is often the most painful when the information you need has to come from someone who knows where to go and what information you will need. There is no one consistent site of information for testing purposes. You can visit the Mozillazine QA site or you can scour various wikis or Mozilla web pages for information. Half of the problem lies with the fact that a great deal of that material remains static and the information is by no means comprehensive, it is also very time-consuming to find what you need.
Prime Example One: Which build needs testing?
Initial pointers to builds are often posted to the QA Mozillazine page, however, it is often the QA leaders who know where most effort is being placed for the particular candidate and platform - and problems, if any, associated with testing particular candidates. Lest we forget that product candidates are cross-platform. For example, i'm on a G4 using 10.4.6, but who is testing a PPC candidate on a Blue and White G3 using 10.3 or 10.2? And given the introduction of the Intel Macs, who on earth is testing the Universal build candidate - and for that matter, are they testing it on a PPC or Intel Mac? Now that Boot Camp and Parallels Workstation are here, the possibilities for more testing problems may or may not be introduced on the Mac. Information needed is sometimes knowing, are there any particular 'gotchas' with the build? For example, is it known amongst the testing group that this particular build has problems with SVG graphics or an error with a key-command? Instead of wasting time with something that is already known, or worse yet, filing a new bug that is already known about, something far simpler than searching bugzilla and/or searching for or visiting multiple web pages needs to exist.
Two things I would love to see created.
I would love to see an RSS feed that is directly linked to Litmus logins that give me an up to the minute itemized list of the following statistics:
- How many people are testing
- Which platform are they testing on
- What build are they using?
If I have that information I know that more emphasis needs to be placed on testing a Firefox (Universal or regular PPC) candidate or Thunderbird build. I would also like links that get updated, when needed, that point me to all of the builds that need testing. For example, I currently have Ubuntu on a different drive I can boot into, is there a PPC linux build of Firefox or Thunderbird that no one *at all* is testing? (sadly, not that there are any being built right now). My time is valuable, if there are 10 testers working on 'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060328 Firefox/1.5.0.2', then wouldn't I be better serving the testing community to work on a Linux build or something else?
The other thing i would like to see is the creation of a basic document (old-school, friendly FAQ) about testing for people who would like to help (i'd be more than happy to write this or contribute). This document would include, at a minimum:
- Static url's for testing candidates
- Explanation of Bugzilla
- Explanation of Litmus
- A preferred methodology of testing
- Reasons for testing candidates
- What is a Branch and what is a Trunk and why on earth do these numbers not match the version i'm testing?
I would also love to see a QA interim bug site before you even engage the Bugzilla beast. What I mean by this is a daily/build page that bug testers can contribute to, for example questions such as,
"Has anyone seen weird colour changes while typing in the find input field using the Universal build of Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.2) Gecko/20060328 Firefox/1.5.0.2?"
Information like this would benefit from being verified as a problem by at least one other person.
Often these kinds of questions need input from others, is this a bug or maybe something peculiar to this build, or even my computer? I can ask in the IRC channel, but depending on time differences and whether others are actually actively engaged with checking activity in the room, well, you might not get a response at all.
This page could also include those 'gotchas' with builds I mentioned previously. For example, if the testing group know that this particular build has problems with SVG graphics, it can be listed on the page.
These are just some things i would love to see happen and would like to help realise. I'd love some feedback on what other community folks think is wanted or needed.
I just saw this exchange between the 'Journalist' Simon Dallow and Gerry Brownlee, the deputy leader of the National party on Agenda. One kind of agenda was certainly on display. If this is objective media reportage i'd hate to see what happens next. I always thought Dallow was a conservative little prig, but this was just stunning.
GERRY [....] no one can argue that and we are very pleased to be leading in those agenda issues, next week will be a great week for us, we will culminate that week by being able to form the government after the votes are counted on Saturday night.
SIMON We're all certainly looking forward to it. Gerry Brownlee and Pete Hodgson thank you so much for joining us on Agenda today.
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