The weirdest thing happened last night. I received a call on my mobile at about 5am, from an English guy, which went a bit like this:
Pom: Hi there, could I speak to Jeremy please?
Me: Speaking…
Pom: I'm calling to let you know that you haven't confirmed your enrollment in the Faculty of Commerce at some university in Epsom.
Me: … I'm sorry, wha? I think you have the wrong number.
Pom: Oh OK. Sorry about that.
[Hangs up.]
[2 minutes later]
Pom: Hi again. I checked my records and this is the correct number. This is Jeremy Higgs, right?
Me: Yes.
Pom: And you live in my correct suburb?
Me: Yes…
Pom: Well that's all correct then. Would you like to confirm your enrollment for this year in the Faculty of Commerce?
Me: Well, uh, I'm a student at UNSW in Sydney, Australia. I don't live in the UK.
Pom: Oh. We have you in our records as a student here.
Me: …
Pom: What time is it over there?
Me: … 5am.
Pom: Blimey! I'm very sorry about that.
The name of the university escapes me at this time, but it was just an absurd conversation. How on earth would I have been entered as a student at a university in the UK, with my correct details?
However, the cynic in me says maybe it was an attempt to try and get me to hand over personal information or a scam. The only thing I let him know was my name and suburb (which he already knew), so what was the point?
Weird…
I finally watched The Corporation last night. It's a documentary on the basis of corporations and their "behaviour" in the world today.
I simply LOVE the "symptoms of a psychopath" checklist - it's a pretty frightening look at what these businesses get away with.
Charles has been keeping himself busy recently by assuming the position of "unofficial Atlassian spy" and posting on The Unofficial Atlassian Weblog, which choice tidbits of information, like:
So, for all of your Atlassian-rumour needs, check it out!
Mat and I decided we would chime in an publish some pretty graphs and statistics for The Little App Factory, since Gus Mueller, Martin Pittenauer and Allan Odgaard have already done it. 
So here we go: "Pretty graphs and current direction"
I have a couple of things to add:
- Connoisseur sales have been OK, but nothing stellar. Unfortunately, when I started my full-time work placement in July last year, I found the time I had available to do programming shrank by orders of magnitude. Things are under control now, and I'm currently working on a new version that will introduce some handy features and clean up the rough edges.
- We only have a couple of products, but it's amazing how many other unrelated tasks take up our time (setting up JIRA, fixing the registration, crash reporter and update frameworks, tweaking the website, overhauling support and documentation, the beta program). It's incredibly easy to get lost in it all, and I find myself behaving like a headless chicken, running between each of the little projects.
- I'm excited about the products we have in the pipeline (!). One of them is something I feel has been done and done again in the market, but never *quite* right. However, as Mat said, before we can start on this, we need to get the Connoisseur and iPodRip updates out.
A friend sent me a really interesting article today about the recent victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. I've been reading up on this, mainly because I know little about the whole Israel-Palestine conflict, and this is a very… refreshing and enlightening view.
What really surprised me was that, despite the militant side of Hamas, Izzeddin al-Qassam, it has done much work to improve living conditions (in a country where 64% live under the UN poverty rate):
People who voted for Hamas emphasize not only the heroic acts of its combatants, but also its reputation for clean conduct, modesty, and honesty, which have been pointedly contrasted with the corruption of the Palestinian Authority.
Read Neve Gordon: "Why Hamas Won"
I came across a BBC article today on a row over the printing of a few caricatures in a Danish newspaper, one of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad with a headdress shaped like a bomb. Although this occurred last September, it seems to have caused a bit of outrage. I see two reasons for this:
- Representations of Muhammad are banned by the Islamic faith (to prevent idolatry)
- The caricatures (or at least one of them) portray one of the key figures in the Islamic faith as a terrorist
That's pretty harsh, if you ask me. The caricatures were re-published in other newspapers across Europe, and many Arab countries and groups have expressed their outrage. I say "rightfully so". The chief editor in charge of the France Soir paper (which re-published the caricatures) was recently fired in response to the publishing of the caricatures, and people now have their knickers in a knot because they feel it goes against the ideals of democracy, free speech and freedom of the press! Fair enough, but what about respecting other people and their beliefs?
If Jesus or the Virgin Mary were published in such a way (let's say with a bomb strapped to the chest) in an Arabic newspaper, the Western world would be up in arms about it! Swap the perspective on that and we might understand why so many Islamic people are furious. Free speech and democracy are fine, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to go around disrespecting people and their faith.
Funnily enough, there's a Wikipedia article on this.
(via Fraser)
UPDATE:
Ehsan Masood wrote that:
As a writer, do I have the right in law to caricature other people if the net result is merely to cause offence? Absolutely. But will I exercise that right knowing that these "other people" are also likely to be my friends and neighbours, my parents' neighbours, my children's friends, people I have known for decades? The answer is self-evident. No.
I think that pretty much sums it up…
