Late this afternoon, I was conferred the "Super Sexy Hero of the People" award, by the Self Appointed Chancellor, Ian McGregor.

The award recognises the hard work and dedication I've shown to the cause. To date only three people have received the award, including the Self Appointed Chancellor, myself and the founder of the award, Mr. Jachin Sheehy (a former colleague) and the current IT Chief of the embattled media organisation, the Fiji Times and the editor of the famous blog, Strange Pants.

I have invited Mr. McGregor to write up details of the award, so I hope to receive something from him soon.

If you like me hated the SMS text scrolling at the bottom of the TV screen during the Hong Kong and Adelaide Sevens, then welcome to the club. You would also have noticed the same thing during the coverage of Coca Cola games.

It's sad watching all these poor sods wasting their hard earned dollars on something that stupid. Not to mention the unwelcome distraction whilst trying to concentrate on the moving pictures above.

I did find an ingenious solution (below) to the problem during the Adelaide Sevens. I can't say if I have applied for patent on this one, but rest assured, I am working to refine it.

FIGURE 1: The annoyance in as seen on TV

FIGURE 2: The solution to the annoyance.

Some of you have asked for pictures of my baby. Well...here goes: http://aunik.sarnil.com

It took me a whole weekend to find an easy to use gallery, and in the end I settled with Imago. It isn't the easiest one to use, but that isn't because it is complex. It's just that it doesn't really have much in the way of a gallery management tools. There's a lots of FTPing and editing of xml files to be done for any significant additions to the gallery.On the upside it's very lightweight. Easy in terms of deployment.

The wife wants more features for the gallery, and easy management tools, so I might turn to the combination of Flickr and nFlickrViewer this weekend (my initial plan..don't know why I decided against it).

Anyway, enjoy my baby pictures. In case you haven't already figured, we have decided on the name for him; Aunik. What do you think?

UPDATE
I couldn't make nFlickrViewer work on the site, and with little time to experiment or force the issue, I took the easy way out. I placed the Flickr gallery inside a frame on a html page and voila! Instant Flickr gallery.

I've just finished watching a wonderful movie, Brick Lane. It's a must movie for those that enjoy alternative cinema.

Those that know me know my passion for foreign, alternative and art-house cinema. They also know my particular disdain for bollywood and most hollywood movies.  Whereas most people would occasionally watch and alternative movie, it is quite the opposite for me. I avoid most hollywood crap and haven't seen a bollywood movie since 2004.

With such taste in cinema it is really difficult to find anything from these genres in Fiji. Most movies in these genres aren't very popular and tend to mostly travel the film festival circuits around the world.

So how do I satisfy my desire for these movies? Simple! Either torrent or download using Rapidshare. These downloads are DVD rips essentialy making them illegal.

But it isn't just about the movies. It's about PC games as well. Earlier this year, I really wanted to play the latest version of Sid Meiers Civilisation. So I decided to visit Amazon.com and buy meself a copy. Nope, couldn't do it. Amazon tells me that it can't send the game to Fiji due to publisher restriction. Bugger! I wasn't going to be detered though and after a few minutes of googling, I located a version for download via Rapidshare. I bought a EUR16 account from Rapidshare and within a day of downloading, I had the game. Where as it would have cost me in excess of USD50 for the game from Amazon, I had the Rapidshare account for much less. With this account valid for about 3 months, I got busy and downloaded a whole bunch of other goodies difficult to find in Fiji.

I take the view that piracy in my case is justified because most what is easily available in a developed country is simply not even on offer here. Even if it is, it costs way too much anyway.

What do you think? Show me the error of my ways...

Past few weeks have been pretty intense for me. First it was an anxious wait for wife go into labour, then it was the delivery itself and now it's been two weeks of pure joy (but still intense). The anxious waiting was hastened by a pill from our doctor as it seemed that our little one was not making any moves to exit. The little bugger was "smoked out" as I like to put it amidst protests from the wife. The actual labour wasn't as bad as I expected and had seen them in the movies, etc. The midwife and our Dr. Brown were excellent professionals, resident at the Suva Private Hospital.

Being a first time father, has taught me so far that newborns are high maintenance toys. They mostly spend time sleeping otherwise wetting diapers and wailing for milk.

They however are the cutest and most adorable little things and you can end up spending lot's of time simply staring at them enjoying their beautiful forms.

The video shows the near crash landing of the Lufthansa Airbus A320 in Hamburg. Brilliant piloting I say.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23316266-954,00.html 

My lazy post of the day involves this interesting article I read last weekend...

If you are not telling your customer when they are wrong, it is not their fault the project is a mess, it is yours.  It is not their skills that are lacking, it is yours.  Anyone (sales people, managers, software architects, developers, politicians, etc.) who is doing their job right has learned to say no effectively.

The article perfectly narrates a long held view of mine.

http://realworldsa.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com/deathtotheyesmanworkaholic.htm

The image on the left is from the information plaque (see below) at the new MH shopping center and supermarket in downtown Suva. Absolutely nothing is labelled on the center floor map. I am not sure what it's real purpose is. It appears to be nothing more then a token gesture of trying to provide information on the various floors of the new center. Given not all shops and floors are open yet, it may only be a temporary placement. I sincerely hope it really is only temporary. In the meantime, I reckon the sign on the plaque should read, "Information: for building architects only".

If the function of this plaque is to inform the shoppers and visitors to the center about what to find where, then the form isn't designed to function as such.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the smart and sophisticated shopping center upstairs. It seems to me a little piece of Myers/David Jones/Farmers put together. It is well lit, smartly laid out, with decent range of goods on offer. The staff seem to be friendly and ready to help as my wife and I discovered when shopping for a baby pram. The only drawback is the louder then normal music that constantly plays in the background. The music is always some stupid Hindi or Western pop. I would much prefer a soft elevator music that doesn't get in the way of differing tastes. In this case if the form is meant to be a smart, sophisticated shopping experience then the music is definitely not helping.

The supermarket on the ground floor is in sharp contrast to shopping experience upstairs. It isn't laid out well at all. I get the feeling they tried to cram everything in limited space. Some of the aisles are definitely not wide enough for two trolleys. Check out experience is absolutely slow! The first three times, I only ventured to buy 2 or 3 items, but I had to wait at least half an hour to checkout. The line wasn't long, but the shoppers ahead of me, all for some reason seemed to be buying a $5 Vodafone recharge voucher. The cashier had to leave the checkout counter to a central counter which housed all the Eftpos and Vodafone voucher terminals. How stupid is that! If I were the floor manager, I'd create a separate kiosk to handle such customers. If you've ever experienced the shopping at MH Superfresh in Tamavua, you'll see what I mean.

I didn't set out to review MH shopping experience in this post, so I'll stop now.  The idea was really to discuss form and function, so here are a couple of articles that expand on the phrase:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function
• http://www.digital-web.com/articles/form_follows_function/
  

Sometime ago, I watched a series of animated short films on ABC Asia Pacific, titled Human Contraptions. It took a satirical view of issues such as law, sex and art amongst other aspects of the society. I found Andrew Denton's narrations in the films to be just as witty as the old Andrew I knew before he started doing Enough Rope.

The other day I found this little video on youtube which can be compared to the Human Contraptions series. Similar blend of satire minus the witty Andrew Denton narration.

Do share links to Human Contraption videos if you find them.