Get the big picture stupid!

Bill Clinton beat me to "Its the economy stupid!". So I will just say "Get the big picture stupid!".

An expert is defined as a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. It is election time once again in the Philippines. This is the time when everyone suddenly becomes an expert in everything.

Supporters of one naughty, self-confessed murderer/philanderer candidate authoritatively concluded that one candidate's late husband was murdered because he has uncovered corruption in his office. His plane crash was not an accident, these experts say. These experts also authoritatively claim that the widow is not fit for the job she is running for.

Supporters of the same candidate are suddenly DNA and history experts,  too. They say another candidate is the daughter of a past president and that she is a sister of a vice presidential candidate. These supporters are now also experts in determining the sincerity and fitness for office of a candidate just by his clothing and appearance. All these despite his unpresidential demeanor.

I have to give it to them. These experts are really experts in fomenting hate towards a candidate whose biggest fault to them is his 'lack' of charisma, his marriage to a broadcaster, and his being left out in the planning/implementation of the country's biggest military/police debacle. He is not faulted for reneging his citizenship, his penchant for cursing, for his illness, nor for his plunder.

To these experts, there are no conspiracy theories anymore. They have all been proven true.

Why the rabid hate on anyone who supports other candidates. Are they that committed or are they that 'kumitid ang utak'?

These experts refuse to see the bigger picture by forming conclusions from a large array of seemingly unrelated sources.

But to them, borrowing from Bill Clinton, I say this. It's the bigger picture stupid!.

It's easy to be frustrated with an aspect or two of our everyday lives. Traffic, for instance. When we get stuck in traffic for 4-5 hours each day, we are naturally frustrated. This frustration, by transference, is redirected to the candidate of the present administration.

Why is there so much traffic? There are too many cars. 

Why? Many can afford a car now. Many can afford to ride Uber despite the surge pricing. 

Where do they go? They go to high-end malls, gorge up in buffets, splurge on sales. 

Why? Unemployement is low, disposable income is high, business is doing well.

Why? Investment confidence is high, plunderers are in jail.

When Yolanda struck in 2013, it was the strongest typhoon in the world then. It is easy to get frustrated with the recovery efforts, because you somehow believe more could be done. But even ADB believes that Yolanda recovery efforts are faster than the Aceh recovery from the 2004 tsunami which left over 120,000 dead.

It is easy to get frustrated when you know of drug problems within your neighborhood, when basic traffic discipline is but a dream. When you think of it, the things that the expert supporters want are characteristics of a good local government official. These are what their candidate has as evidenced in his audience with a large business club yesterday.

The bigger picture is that we're better off now than six years ago. We must continue and sustain that. Their candidate is good for the local government, but we must doubt his grasp of the bigger picture.

Acronyms ulit?

Have you noticed why there is often CHAOS in the office? It's because the (Chief Has Arrived On Scene). Everyone PANICs because they are (Pressured and Not In Control).

They deal with people from Infrastructure Development and Information Operations Technology Systems (IDIOTS). Working with them is no PICNIC because the (Problem's In Chair, Not in Computer).

Those people are Database Utility Management Builders (DUMB), Application Software Systems, Hardware and Online Links Encoders (ASSHOLES), and They Have Insufficient Cerebral Knowledge (THICK).

Is it because of the Mean Assholes Needlessly Attracting Generally Everyone's Resentment (MANAGERs) who give them STRESS (Shit To Remember Every Single Second)? Or because of the software which causes Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious, Not Outstanding, This Expensive Software (LOTUS NOTES) and IT Blames Microsoft, While Expecting Breakdown, So Plead Help for Everyone to Reduce Errors (IBM WEBSPHERE).

But still people work as a TEAM because (Together Everyone Achieves More), and they have PRIDE (Personal Responsibility In Delivering Excellence) in themselves.

And people believe in YAHOO! (You Always Have Other Options) like GOOGLE (God’s Other Online Gateway Linking Electronically).

IT's Kafkaesque

Have you experienced the crushing weight of bureaucracy?

In Kafka's novel, 'The Trial', made into a movie in 1962, a parable is told - 'bureaucrats, the system of administration and its power crush the individual. The individual becomes a choking victim of society when by chance - or misfortune - he is drawn towards the gear of its system.'

Here's Kafka's parable "Before the Law" (stills and text from the Orson Welles movie 'The Trial')

---

Before the law there stands a guard. A man comes from the country, begging admittance to the law. But the guard cannot admit him.

"Can he hope to enter at a later time?"

"That is possible," says the guard.

The man tries to peer through the entrance. "He had been taught that the law should be accessible to every man."

"Do not attempt to enter without my permission," says the guard. "I am very powerful, yet I am the least of all the guards. From hall to hall, door after door, each guard is more powerful than the last."

By the guard's permission, the man sits down by the side of the door and there he waits.

For years he waits.

Everything he has, he gives away in the hope of bribing the guard, who never fails to say to him, "I take what you give me only so you will not feel you have left something undone."

Keeping his watch during the long years, the man has learned to know even the fleas in the guard's fur collar. And, growing childish in old age, he begs the very fleas to persuade the guard to change his mind and allow him to enter.

His sight is dimmed, but in the darkness he perceives a radiance streaming from the door of the law.

And now, before he dies, all his experience condenses into one question, a question he has never asked.

He beckons to the guard. Says the guard, "You are insatiable! What is it now?"

Says the man, "Every man strives to attain the law. How is it then that in all these years no one else has ever come here seeking admittance?"

His hearing has failed so the guard yells into his ear. "No one else but you could ever have obtained admittance. No one else could enter this door. This door was intended only for you."

"And now I am going to close it."

Be My Enemy - The Waterboys

Well the dawn is howling
And the mainframe shakes
Feel like I've been sleeping in a
Cellar full of snakes
My wings have been clipped
My shoes have been stuck with glue
Well if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

Now I've got goons on my landing
Thieves on my trail
Nazis on my telephone
Willing me to fail
They were all sent by someone
(Obviously/Well I know it was) you!
Well if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

I've a bucketful of Babylon
I got a handful of lead
I'm gonna put them in a gun man
Point it at your head
Because you stole all my friends
And you gave me the buffalo blues
Well if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

Now from the slime on your tongue
To the nails on your toes
From the scales on your skin
To the stains on your clothes
You're gonna have to make me do something
That I do not want to do
But if you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

My hands are tied
I'm nailed to the floor
Feel like I'm knocking on the
Unknown door
There's a gun at my back
A blade at my throat
I keep finding hate mail
In the pockets of my coat
Well I've been trying to grow
I been cooling my heels
I've have been working the treadmill
I've been working in the fields
And I can't get to sleep
I can't catch my breath
I can't stop talking and
I Look like death
But I will put right this disgrace
I will rearrange you
If you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

If you'll be my enemy
I'll be your enemy too

Be my enemy!

Central bank websites: technologies and frameworks

An informal research on web server technologies used by central banks was conducted in 2014. The study used technology information profiler tools that collect information on the usage of various technologies for building and running websites. Free research data on aspects of the Internet like market share of webservers, OS, scripting languages, and content technologies were also used. Specifically, the service provided by Builtwith, w3techs, and NetCraft were used to pore through the techs used by central banks that appear in the list of the Bank for International Settlements.

The study revealed the following:
1. More than 80% of the central bank websites use either Apache or IIS.
2. 40% of the central bank websites use ASP or ASP.Net, while 20% use PHP.
2. Of the 190 central banks websites, only 26 use Java.

In other developments, recent indications point to the increasing use of open-source technologies in central bank websites.  Moreover. the recent award won by the Bank of Canada as the best central bank website show that open-source technologies can be an effective web technology solution.