Subscribe via RSSAnyone who has not lived under a rock for the past century or so, knows that there are a lot of things wrong in the world. War, poverty, inequality, Justin Bieber... the list goes on an on. Readers of this weblog (which, sadly, has been quiet in recent weeks due to the fact that yours truly had to deal with a ridiculous workload) also know that South Africa has more than its fair share of these troubles.
Many of these troubles have their roots in South Africa's turbid history. During the Apartheid years the armed wing of the ANC fought against the white government underthe name "Umkhonto we Sizwe" (translated "The Spear of the Nation"). Since 1994, the term "Spear of the Nation" has been a staple of ANC rethoric, right up to president Jacob Zuma himself, dressed in a traditional Zulu warrier outfit, wielding a spear to kill a bull during the ANC's centenary celebration. "The spear once used to fight apartheid is now used to protect our nation", said Zuma at that occasion. He has also never objected to being called "The Spear of the Nation" by his most fanatical followers.
Unfortunately for Mr. Zuma, any term applied figuratively is open to interpretation. Which is where artistic license comes in. Currently the Nation is in an uproar over the depiction of said Spear, as interpreted by painter Brett Murray and displayed in the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. In his work, titled "The Spear", Murray depicts Zuma with his family jewels hanging out of his pants, leaving no doubt about the artist's opinion on the matter.
The ANC is of course furious, has called the painting "the work of a sick mind", and has demanded that it be taken down from the gallery, removed from any and all websites, preferably be destroyed, and never be visible in any form, shape or size to anyone ever again. But it gets better: Zuma himself today commented on the matter, explaining why his is "hurt" by the whole affair. In short, Mr. Zuma feels offended by the painting, because "the image depicts him as “a philanderer, a womaniser and one with no respect". Zuma states that "the ANC takes exception "to the symbolism the portrait uses in order to portray the ANC through its president" as responsible for "abuses of power, corruption and political dumbness" – the theme of the exhibition.
Rrrriiigghttt... Let's have a good look at these issues in order then, shall we?
A philanderer
phi·lan·der- intr.v. phi·lan·dered, phi·lan·der·ing, phi·lan·ders -- 1. To carry on a sexual affair, especially an extramarital affair, with a woman one cannot or does not intend to marry. Used of a man.2. To engage in many love affairs, especially with a frivolous or casual attitude. Used of a man.
Zuma certainly has quite a reputation in this area: the man has 20 known children, and heaven knows how many more illegitimate ones that nobody has heard of. The latest publicly known occasion on which he had a child out of wedlock was early in 2010.
A womanizer
Zuma has a history of sex scandals, is a polygamist and has recently married his sixth wife. Any questions?
One with no respect
Zuma has been on trial for rape, but claimed that it was "consensual sex" (in other words, "She wanted it"). The court decided to accept this statement (much to nobody's surprise) and considered the matter settled.
Abuse of power
As has been covered extensively in these weblog posts, shortly before his installation as president of South Africa, Zuma faced numerous charges of fraud, corruption, embezzlement, racketeering and what not, most specifically centered on a very shady arms deal which is still being investigated, but these charges were summarily made to disappear on a technicality, so as not to obstruct his entry into the presidency. Since then he has managed, among other things, to get his friend and former accountant Schabir Shaik (serving time for fraud on Zuma's behalf while being in his employment) out of jail, put his bodyguard in charge of the police service's spy unit, and has reinstated crime intelligence boss Mdluli (also a regular of these pages) following the latter being under investigation for murder, embezzlement, cronyism and theft. 'Nuff said.
Corruption
I'm afraid that that particular list is a bit too long to reference in this brief blog post. Feel free to Google.
Dumbness
Well, that one is really too easy. After all, Zuma reached instant international fame when he admitted to having had unprotected sex with a woman (see "A womanizer" above) whom he knew to be HIV positive, but took a shower afterward to prevent infection.
So yes, I would say that both Zuma's analysis and that of the ANC as to how Murray's painting has generally been received is spot on. Somehow both Zuma and the ANC immediately got the thrust of it (you see what I did here) which suggests a rather intimate familiarity with the matters so accurately target by The Spear.
And yes... the truth does hurt sometimes.
Too bad, guys. Deal with it.
Update, Monday 21 May, 14:00:
Oh, it gets better and better. The ANC's Secretary General has labeled the painting as "racist" (what makes this painting racist and why he has resorted to the ANC's usual favorite defensive argument only now remains unclear) and now even the Film and Publication Board has been roped in, in an attempt to have the painting classified as pornography and banning it from public view on those grounds. The fact that this would make any depiction of the human anatomy pornographic seems to be lost on our esteemed leaders. The definition of pornography involves the explicit depiction of erotic behaviour with the intention to cause sexual excitement. If the painting in question is judged to depict erotic behaviour, then this is a harsher condemnation of Zuma's track record in the sex scandal department than the artist could ever have come up with all by himself.
Having said that, looking at the picture from an artistic standpoint instead of the political one would not be a bad idea. Personally I think that this is a gobbingly ugly painting, and that (if truth be told) it does exceed the boundaries of good taste. On the other hand, at least it does depict our esteemed president as being reasonably well endowed; something for which he could at least be somewhat grateful, I suppose.
Then there's its nature as a work of art. Art, according to the Miriam-Webster dictionary, is "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects". The purpose of art is to generate an emotional response, and some artists go to great lengths to provoke such an emotional response.
Therefore, and apart from the question of whether or not Zuma and the ANC like to have been depicted like this (especially given the accuracy with which the painting seems to have addressed their shortcomings) is irrelevant. The question of whether or not the painting is within or not within the boundaries of good taste is irrelevant as well. By any definition, it is art. It is not pornography.
In the words of Tselane Tambo, daughter of the late ANC icon Oliver Tambo, perhaps it would be a good idea if Zuma just would get over himself. The poor don't like being poor, the homeless don't like being homeless, and Zuma doesn't like art inspired by his behaviour. Tough.
She does have a point.
satisfiedI just spent fourteen hours straight at the computer. For the third day in a row I've been living on a programmer's diet of cafeine, vitamins and loud, thumpy music, and about four hours of sleep a night. I must be mad.
I'm in the middle of a big and urgent job, which involves a lot of programming in general, and huge amounts of messing around with PHP and SQL in particular. It's a fun and exciting project, but the time frame is horrible. I've been pushing myself to the limit because roll-out is tomorrow and the specs keep changing, but I'm doing some of the best work I've ever done, which is cool. But I'm wrecked and as yet several hours away from completing the project.
Still - why is it that any project that involves the streamlining of some business process invariably ends up in an attempt to sort out someone's administrative mess? Clients ask me to develop a system, for example, that puts their entire inventory online and available for resellers, only to have me point out that half the info they want online, or the criteria they want it sorted on, isn't there. And it doesn't help either that most of them use a bunch of spread sheets as a database. Different spread sheets. Which partially overlap, partially conflict, and partially ignore some of the data that should be in there. So massaging the data set into something that it should have been in the first place could be a bigger job than the 40+ hours of coding I've put in over the past three days.
So what is an exciting project is inevitably let down by the massive amount of button sorting that goes with it.
Anyway. Back to the grindstone... The night ahead could be a long one..
Update, Friday morning 10:20:
Job done! Woohoo. I've put in close to 40 hours in a hair over three days. And now I'm done.
Suddenly I don't know what to do with myself... :-)
workingGood morning, class.
Last time we discussed the trend of South African politics toward the type of censorship that has for many decades kept the oppressive Chinese regime in power, and preserved their norm of corruption in government and their lack of interest in the needs of the people. We will discuss the discrepancies between Communist ideology and its practical manifestation as a tool to support de-facto dictatorships in one of our future lessons. Today's subject will be the application of law and justice in the modern South Africa.
As we saw last time, the head of the South African Crime Intelligence Unit, Richard Mdluli, has lately been in the spotlight in relation to matters that in a lawfully governed country would have earned him an immediate, indefinite and unpaid suspension, not to mention arrest and incarceration. Mdluli is currently under infestigation for an unresolved murder, installing many of his friends and family members in well-paid important positions in spite of the fact that none of them had any qualifications at all to make them suitable for such a position, and the use of government funds to buy a number of very expensive cars for the private use of himself and his cronies, among other things. The much-maligned Protection of Information Act (the "Secrecy Bill") which is about to be introduced in South Africa will serve as a valuable tool to politicians like Mdluli to declare goings-on like these a "national secret" and punish any "deliberate breach of national security" with imprisonment of the perpetrators.
Of course Mdluli is not the only one involved in these practices which, we should keep in mind, have very much become the norm in the "free" and "democratic" South Africa since the ANC's rise to power in 1994. Of course the previous regime was far from perfect in this respect either: corruption occurred under Apartheid as well, and the oppressive nature of that regime made it easy to cover up those and may other (and worse) crimes, as censorship was the norm in those days. However, most of these occasions were the work of individuals or small groups of individuals more often than not. Today, on the other hand, we see a nation-wide practice of corruption, embezzlement and cronyism being considered normal and acceptable, and being perpetrated quite openly as if nothing about it is wrong.
For example: cooperating with Crime Intelligence boss Mdluli is police minister Nathi Mthethwa, who is doing everything humanly possible to shut down an investigation of the Hawks into the secret slush fund from which Mdluli and God knows who else have been helping themselves to vast amounts of pocket money.
A question there in the back? Yes?
Ok, let me briefly answer that. The "Hawks" are a supposedly independent unit charged with investigating and bringing to justice every case of corruption as the one we are now discussing. They are the successors of the Scorpions, a similar anti-corruption unit that was summarily disbanded by president Jacob Zuma shortly after his installation as president, in order to prevent any further digging in his own shady track record of corruption, embezzlement, fraud, and especially a very dodgy arms deal. Subsequently Zuma vowed to stamp out corruption in government. The details of this are outside the scope of today's lesson; those who need to know more about it are encouraged to read up on it in the various news archives and consult Google.
So. To continue. It appears that police minister Mthethwa also dipped into the secret slush fund - which, incidentally, is intended to finance covert crime intelligence operations. Instead, Mthethwa used it, among other things, to have his house renovated to the tune of 200,000 Rand. To put that figure into perspective: the average worker takes home a monthly wage of roughly between R2,000 and R4,000 before taxes. But wages vary wildly, and at least half the population survives on occasional labour for 50 to 100 Rand a day, if they can get. If not, they have nothing all. A loaf of bread costs about ten Rand these days, and literally uncounted millions live below the breadline.
Needless to say, all these officials still are, and are likely to remain, in function. Mdluli was suspended earlier, but was then quickly reinstated after what appears to be a directive straight from the presidency. Again, this is not surprising. A month before the fraud and corruption charges against him were summarily dropped for no apparent legal reason at all, Mdluli sent a letter to president Jacob Zuma, promising him that he would "assist the president to succeed next year" if he was reinstated in his job. Because Zuma, as mentioned earlier, knows all about having criminal charges summarily thrown out of court (charges similar in nature but much larger in scale against himself were made to disappear in a similar manner) it only took days to put Mdluli back into office.
Of course Mdluli subsequently made the usual claim that the suspicions against him were the result of a "conspiracy" to discredit him. Nobody was surprised about this, either: it's the standard response that literally all black South African government officials make when their dodgy dealings are brought to light. However, the the Institute for Security Studies was more critical, and has described the matter as the biggest threat to the rule of law in South Africa since former president Thabo Mbeki tried to protect corrupt police commissioner Jackie Selebi by firing the head of the National Prosecuting Authority. Selebi is currently serving a 15 year prison sentense for his crimes, but predictably his health failed as soon as he was convicted, so he is expected to be out very soon. Convicted fraudster Shabir Shaik who, serving as Jacob Zuma's financial manager, embezzled large amounts of money on Zuma's behalf, suffered a similar breakdown of health when he was incarcerated. Soon Shaik was said to be "terminally ill" and "dying", and he was released from prison on humane grounds mere months into his sentence. He then recovered miraculously, and subsequently was seen playing golf, shopping, partying, and driving the obligatory luxury SUV. So far Shaik has yet to show any apparent signs of ill health.
In closing: the soon to be adopted Secrecy Bill will olf course mainly serve to prevent practises like this coming to light. The ANC prides itself on their past role in the "struggle for freedom", but as it turns out, that freedom is mainly the freedom for ANC heavies to do as they please, law or no, and the "free" South Africa is in fact nothing but a free-for-all. Freedom of press and freedom of information will officially be a thing of the past when the Bill is signed into law. This is expected to happen shortly after the upcoming elections. Again, no surprises there.
That's it for now, class. Your homework for next week: study the South African Constitution, and especially what it says about providing freedom and equality for all. Then read up on the plans of the National House of Traditional Leaders (also an institution that prides itself on being stalwart freedom fighters in the "struggle") to do away with gay rights, and on their campaign to remove the clause from the Constitution which protects people on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Thank you. Class dismissed.
sadI must admit: I am a little bit ambivalent about eco-mentalists. On the one hand, they have the right idea: we really need to research and invest in sustainable ways to exist, rather than to simply consume our environment. On the other hand, they have completely wrong ideas about how to do that. A good (and infamous) example is the much-touted Toyota Prius, a hybrid car which is supposed to be environmentally friendly, but in fact might have a worse environmental balance than most other cars, including a Hummer.
So. Over to today's news then. Realizing that something had to be done, Swiss engineer Raphael Domjan built a boat powered by the latest in photovoltaic solar cell technology and took it on a two year trip around the world to demonstrate to one and all that this could be done in a sustainable way. According to Domjan, the idea "was not to perform a feat but an eco-adventure, with the aim of passing on the message that change is possible."
So. Let's have a look at all this, then. Photovoltaic cells (solar cells that generate electricy) are generally based on a very pure form of silicon, the raw materials for which are relatively rare, and require huge amounts of energy to refine, while the efficiency of the cells still leaves a lot to be desired. Another problem with solar cells is that they only produce useable quantities of electricy while exposed to sunlight, which means that one needs to generate all of the required energy for a 24-hour cycle during daytlight hours, and store that electricity in batteries, which also come at a huge environmental cost. Batteries are chemical devices that are made from materials that (again) require huge amounts of energy to acuire (a process that starts with mining the ore and other raw materials) and then degrade over a life span of at most a few years, at which time the batteries either have to be discarded (at a huge cost to the environment) or recycled (a process which, again, consumes more energy).
In short, photovoltaic technology consumes a lot of non-renewable resources.
Raphael, I don't really have a gentle way to say this, so I'll just go ahead and drop it on you. There is an even more environmentally friendly and sustainable way to power a ship, and it's been around for a while already.
It's called a sail. :-(
disappointedWhen the first iPad was released, I was seriously underwhelmed. Yes, I know that somehow I lack the urge to pursue whatever the latest craze in shiny gadgetry is. And honour where honour's due: Apple know how to design their products to completely max out the wanna-have factor like nobody else. From a usability standpoint, however, I have never liked the iPad. It would be so much better if it had a hinged cover that you could use to put the iPad screen vertically on your desk while working and, when you're done, close to protect the screen. And then if inside that cover there would be a keyboard and peripheral connectors, and, ehm... Oh, wait...
But now, after several years of iPad-ness, Logitech has stepped in and done the logical (did you see what I did here) thing. They have made a keyboard that doubles as a cover for the iPad. You stick your iPad into the keyboard so that it now resembles a regular laptop screen, and when you're done, you use it as a cover for the iPad.
Now what does this remind me of... Hmmm.....
amusedThere are times when South Africa just seems to go from one public outrage to the next. The uprour du jour is about Gauteng's new road taxes, which are set to start by the end of this month. To recap what I wrote on the subject earlier, the South African National Road Agency Ltd. (SANRAL, a 100% government-owned semi-private agency) has summarily converted all major public roads in the Johannesburg area and the outlying traffic arteries in Gauteng into toll roads. The official reason stated for this rather draconian measure is that they have spent fortunes "upgrading" our roads and that it's only fair that we repay them for this mammoth task. The truth is, however, that when the soccer world cup games were scheduled to take place in South Africa in 2010, SANRAL hastily scrambled to catch up with over a decade of road maintenance. No adequate road maintenance had taken place since 1994-- all that had happened since was a steady steam of emergency patchwork jobs, with the net result that Gaugeng's road network had (and has) deteriorated to a state that befits a third world country, and is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous road networks in the world, not to mention a huge drain on the economy and it's citizens' private finances as the situation rapitly spirals further out of control.
However, because this frantic cleanup operation was left to the same geniuses who had caused the problem in the first place, the results were rather unsurprising. By the time the soccer world cup games took place, only a few major road sections (the ones leading immediately to and from major soccer stadiums) were beginning to approach a state that might be called 'getting there' (the job could by no stretch of the imagination be called 'done') and the rest of the work was either far from completed, or hadn't even started yet. Even today, as I write this, less than half of the projected work has been completed. I know stretches of road that have been in the process of being resurfaced for the past five years.
Most of these delays are the result of gross incompetence, and a hiring policy that is aimed merely at "creating jobs" rather than at getting the work done. Large numbers of unskilled workers are hired, and then basically left unsupervised for months on end. They stand around doing nothing, or at most very little, and productivity is practically zero.
The main problem with this is of course the resulting excess cost, which can only be called ginormous. The budget has been exceeded by no-one knows how many times, and the projected cost to complete even the work that has been started (let alone the work that still has to be undertaken) can only be called astronomical. Since road maintenance (like all other infrastructure-related costs) are paid out of tax revenues, according to a budget that is made up and published every year, this means that SANRAL has a huge problem. Ongoing incompetence and mismanagement has squandered their budget and then landed them in huge (and I do mean huge) debts, so they need money fast-- and lots of it.
The simplest and most immediate solution would of course be to squeeze more money out of the taxpayer (since tax revenues are essentially free money to any government or governmental organization) but the problem is that this would blow most of the entire tax budgets on one single entity in charge of maintaining a few pieces of asphalt, and even SANRAL understands that they would not be able to get away with that. Also, they need the money now, and not next year, even assuming that they could get more money out of the tax budget. What to do?
The fix that SANRAL came up with was to convert all major public roads into toll roads. Just like that. Never mind the fact that motorists already have paid for road maintenance through their regular income taxes and are paying on a per-use basis through a surcharge on fuel whenever they stop at the pump. From now on you either pay whatever SANRAL demands, or you don't have access to major public roads. And since there is really no alternative to using them (back roads either are too narrow, crowded or slow, or simply do not connect A to B at all) the money will start to pour in.
Except for one fact... which is that while South Africans are used to being the victim of crime on a daily basis, they do balk at being subjected to highway robbery by the government on a scale so industrial that it requires automation.
The idea is that all motorists in Gauteng must go (on their own time and expense) to a SANRAL office, and apply for registration (at a fee to SANRAL). Then said motorists must buy an E-tag (an RFID-based challenge-and-response system installed underneath the car's windshield) from SANRAL, and then sign an agreement to have SANRAL debit their bank accounts automatically, every time they pass a toll gantry. What motorists think of this plan is clear from the fact that they have stayed away in droves, and that in Gauteng alone less than 10% of all motorists have registered so far, and those have done so very reluctantly.
There are various reasons for this. First off, there is the simple fact that SANRAL, and through it the South African government (which, to all intents and purposes, is the ANC) has simply decided to drop the consequences of their own incompetence squarely upon the shoulders of the motorist, rather than to clean up their own act and fix their blunders. And because motorists have no recourse, no alternative and, in short, no escape and is simply forced to either pay up or stay home, the toll system smacks of extortion more than anything else. Which, of course, it is.
Then there are the conditons which SANRAL imposes upon their victims customers. To call their terms and conditions "one-sided" would be like calling a world-wrecking natural disaster "inconvenient". In fact, the conditions can be summarized in one sentence: motorists have no rights and no recourse, and SANRAL has no obligations and no responsibilities.
And last but not least, the fees charged are atrocious. We're not talking about one or two cents per kilometere here. No, it's 30 cents per kilometer for E-tag owners, and for those without one (visitors to our lovely shores, for example, who will now be required to stop at a SANRAL office and buy a day pass) it's 58 cents per kilometre. Some hotspots charge as much as R6.50. As a result, depending on where you live and work, your commuting expenses may go up by hundreds of Rand a month, and this in an economy where most South Africans only just manage to make ends meet, and now all of a sudden making a living has never been more expensive.
I have written about this before, and others have consisely summarized the matter as well, but let me quickly repeat the highlights here:
enragedFor quite a while now, the Protection of Information Act (more popularly known as the Protection of Corruption Act, the Secrecy BIll or the Censorship Bill) has been edging closer to being signed into South African law, any and all attempts to protect freedom of press and fair investigation notwithstanding. Under the provisions of the Act, government officials are pretty much free to classify any information they consider inconvenient, embarrassing, or otherwise better kept out of public view, as "secret". The bill is flawed in many respects, and has been worded in such general terms that it allows indiscriminate use to suit any individual purpose or private agenda. For example:
15. (2) State information may be classified as ‘‘Secret’’ if the information is—There are many such provisions, similarly loosely defined, but you get the idea: any information which would be disadvantageous to anyone if it became public knowledge (in the opinion of Those Who Lead From Behind) may be suppressed. And when it comes to the amount of firepower available to embarrassed politicians in case the fecal matter does hit the rotating blades, we're not talking peanuts, either:
(a) sensitive information, the disclosure of which may endanger the security or national interest of the Republic or could jeopardise the international relations of the Republic;
(b) commercial information, the disclosure of which may cause serious financial loss to an entity; or
(c) personal information, the disclosure of which may endanger the physical security of a person.
33. (2) It is an offence punishable on conviction by imprisonment for a period not less than 10 years but not exceeding 15 years, subject to section 1(6)—To summarize: anyone who reveals any information about any of the dodgy deals common in a country where most politicians are also entrepreneurs or have vested business interests (which essentially makes them both player and referee) will find himself in court, facing a ten to fifteen year jail sentence. And don't think that the Court will be free to uphold the law in general and the Constitution in particular, because article 46 (which is too lengthy to quote here) clearly limits the court's freedom in these matters, essentially allowing the interested governmental parties to keep such trials behind closed doors-- this of course apart from the simple matter that the articles quoted above simply allow any interested party to classify the trial itself as "secret".
(a) to unlawfully communicate, deliver or make available State information classified secret which an offender knows or ought reasonably to have known or suspected would directly or indirectly prejudice the State[.]
sadToday I'm 46 45 (sh*t, I'm getting so old I can no longer remember my correct age) and it is a day like any other. Except for the burned out shell of what used to be a shiney, new Audi A4 sitting right next to my garden gate. On its side. With the front wheels gone and the rear axle and exhaust lying next to it. In the middle of a large patch of molten tarmac and wilted grass.
Sometime during the night (I must have been sleeping deeply) I did hear some funny noises outside. Several bangs that sounded like explosions but were not really powerful enough to be distant blasting and not really sharp enough to be local small detonations. There were also a lot of sharp cracks that did not quite sound like gunshots. I decided that it was probably those bladdy Indian guys across the road playing with fireworks again, and I drifted back to sleep. There were other noises as well and lots of flashes of blue and red light, I think, but not enough to wake me up. By the time the alarm went off I didn't even remember any of it.
Until I opened my front door and looked outside. There seemed to be something standing next to the garden gate. So I stepped out into the driveway to have a look.
Eh? What the...
okayI have never been good with accounting, bookkeeping or other administrative jobs. I have battled with them since the age of 15 when I suffered sat through basic accounting classes at school. However, one of the aspects of being self exploited employed (which means you essentially run a business) is that you need to keep track of what goes where, because once a year the tax man will want to see how much he can take you for, and he'll assume you're defrauding him until proven otherwise.
Until now I've tried to keep it simple. I write invoices using a word processor, and keep a balance of income and expenses in a spread sheet. But while I tried to keep it simple, it isn't. I have to date, number and calculate the invoices by hand, and I keep battling with spreadsheets to make things come out even. On the basis of some ill (but no doubt well intended) advice I've tried to use Quickbooks, but that sent me running for the hills, screaming.
So now I'm trying to get my head around Turbocash, which has the advantage of being Open Source, popular, and free, and apparently it's both very easy and very good. The intro that I was presented with seemed encouraging:
"Some of the worlds biggest software companies are built on the pretext that accounting software is complex, difficult to use and you should pay someone for assistance. Glossy adverts ring out for you to buy an expensive package and sign up for a costly annual call centre support contract. This is a myth! When did you last call for help on your spreadsheet? Why should accounting software be any different?"Well, that's good, isn't it? Simplicity is what I'm looking for. I decided that step one (believe it or not) would be to RTFM, starting with the help file. First off, the intro. Where it says:
"The examples used in this documentation is based on the 3-digit main account code, 3-digit sub-account code and 6-digit debtor and creditor account codes. The default number of characters for the account codes in a Set of Books is determined by the Set of Books selected when creating, converting or copying a Set of Books."Ehm.... The 3-digit main account code? The 6-digit Debtor and creditor account codes? Set of Books? WTF?
"Note that the number of Account digits for Debtor and Creditor Accounts are as follows:Simple. Easy. Straightforward.
3-Digit General Ledger Accounts - 6-Digit Debtor and Creditor Accounts.
4-Digit General Ledger Accounts - 7-Digit Debtor and Creditor Accounts.
5-Digit General Ledger Accounts - 8-Digit Debtor and Creditor Accounts."
intimidatedIt is one of the adages of computer sciences that, in theory, any Turing complete machine can emulate another Turing machine. In practice, however, there are physical limitations to be considered, such as the fact that this emulation has to happen within the bounds of finite memory, the so-called "universal computer" having, among other strictly theoretical aspects, infinite memory.
As a result, operating systems come with minimum system requirements that cannot be ignored with impunity. For example, it is impossible to run Ubuntu Linux on an 8-bit CPU (the architecture that was used in the 1980's home computers that ran programs in BASIC, and the original IBM PC that ran MS-DOS. Everyone knows this. Right?
No. Wrong.
Über-geek Dmitri Grinberg, who clearly has too much time on his hands, did it, and documents his project in detail:
"It takes about 2 hours to boot to bash prompt ("init=/bin/bash" kernel command line). Then 4 more hours to boot up the entire Ubuntu ("exec init" and then login). Starting X takes a lot longer. The effective emulated CPU speed is about 6.5KHz, which is on par with what you'd expect emulating a 32-bit CPU & MMU on a measly 8-bit micro."Lord Grinberg, I bow before thee, and hereby proclaim thee King of all Geekdom. Live long and prosper!
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