Norman's anti-fatware crusade

The trouble with education

"For the south-east gales will blow. O'er the waves that smile below. And our flag shall answer to the breeze." So goes the refrain of the chorus of the venerable school song of The Grey School in Port Elizabeth that we sang at assembly each morning, and I clearly remember in one of my junior years we were taught about weather and prevailing winds. Everyone agreed that in Port Elizabeth the "south-east gales will blow". The exams came along and one geography question was: "What is the prevailing wind in Port Elizabeth?". I could have simply answered South-East, but I had done a lot of practical observations and research and learned that most of port Elizabeth's wind is south-westerly. Wanting to be accurate, I answered "South-West". I was marked as incorrect. When I tried to protest and say that most wind is from the South-West I was laughed at and ridiculed by what seemed to be the whole class and my answer left as incorrect. I don't know if the teacher knew whether I was right or not, but an admission of my answer as being correct would have been a huge embarrassment to him, so I just kept quiet after that.

What I learned that day is that at school, or anywhere else where exams determine your marks, you must learn the answers that the examiner wants you to learn. Real understanding and real facts are irrelevant. This sad fact can be seen where "straight-A" students soon forget much of what they were supposed to have learned.

Forty years later I did a course on "How to Study" at an organization that runs courses on a variety of subjects related to life skills. At one point in the course we were shown to make a clay model of a pencil. The purpose of the clay model was to demonstrate how we can get a better understanding of a pencil by making the concept of a pencil more real. We were shown by the instructor a model of a pencil that had an eraser attached onto the one end. When being examined I modelled a more modern pencil without the eraser but I was told that I had omitted to add the eraser. The eraser had nothing to do with the purpose of the model. I was made to add the eraser. In the graduation event I was asked to say what benefits I had derived from the Study Course. I said that it had reminded me that it is not what you understand that counts for exams, but rather knowing what the examiner wants and demonstrating your knowledge of that. I should not have said that, because firstly it was the purpose of the course to teach you how to really understand what you are learning, and secondly it pointed out that the instructor was wrong. She never spoke to me again.

What I have observed, that I find both amusing and disturbing, is that many people have been taught half-truths at school and university and they go on in life believing those half-truths to be absolute facts. Unfortunately, teachers and professors are products of the same education system. Students should be taught that nothing should be believed until verified for themselves by means of critical observation, mathematics or logical analysis against axiomatic facts.

Quotes by John Paul Getty

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing
almost anything better, faster or more economically has
his future and his fortune at his fingertips.

John Paul Getty

My father said:
"You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal.
Let the other fellow make some money too,
because if you have a reputation for always making all the money,
you won't have many deals."

John Paul Getty

Julius Demands Change

J.Zuma Software?

Jacob Zuma should be a computer programmer because he has the logical cognitive intelligence required for programming.

In many complex logical statements the question of the result being true or false is answered without testing the full statement. In fact, many computer programs stop testing a logic statement as soon as the logical result is known even if there may be many ANDs, IFs and ORs remaining to be tested. In program compilers this is called "Shortcutting".

Jacob Zuma knows this principle very well. He also knows the basic axioms that are self-evident truths.

* He knows that the constitution states something to the effect that a man is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

* He also knows that if one is not guilty of any crime there is no reason to be accused.

* If not accused of a crime then there is no reason to appear in court.

The obvious shortcutting of the logical statement: " OR AND ". Innocent because not proven guilty. And if innocent then the further logical tests are redundant and should be ignored.

I am also a computer programmer and I think JZ is very clever. Anyone who thinks JZ should be tried for crimes that he is innocent of should realise that they are wasting taxpayers money and harassing an innocent man.

I am still left, however, with lots of questions about the fraud and corruption which cost South Africa billions of rands and which Jacob Zuma was one of the central figures. But those things are beyond the understanding of us simple computer programmers - they are just not logical.

Ayenshe Software

Ayenshe Software details are never disclosed yet the publishers insist that it is 'Open Source' because the code is never locked away or deleted, and no matter how badly the code modules have performed, they will always be reused. It promises to be able to do wonderful things for everyone, but has a record of frequent crashes that have produced disappointing results and wasted billions of rands of taxpayers money - much of it going to the many overpaid and under-qualified programmers, but most being wasted on hardware that will never be used.

And even though the software is suspected of having serious bugs, the Ayenshe Software publishers maintain that its latest release is so good that it does not need testing. The software is in such great demand by millions of Ayenshe fans that the latest version is due to be released for public service next month.

One other dangerous aspect of the Ayenshe software is that it is immune to most anti-virus products. The one product that showed promise of success was deleted by the Ayenshe company.

Vote for change - vote for honesty - vote for true software freedom - vote against Ayenshe.

Note: Any similarity between the fictitious Ayenshe company, and Microsoft, is purely coincidental. Microsoft software is well tested, and they encourage the use of all anti-virus products.

Inflation allowance

We can all abide with inflation running at 4.1% a year. But that is the daily inflation rate in Zimbabwe.

The compound effect over a year is to make prices over 2.3 million times higher. It is hard to imagine. Robert Mugabe must think it is good because he has appointed Gideon Gono as governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for another 5 year term. I wonder what Gono's 5-year salary package looks like.

Just bought a newspaper. The marked price: US$2/Zimbabwe $20 000 000. The next month it will probably be 64 million.

If it weren't for the good citizens of Zimbabwe, who are suffering the bad effects of Mugabe rule, it would be a big joke.