Just read a comment by kass-cole on Le Défi Media website following the terrible events of yesterday in Port-Louis:

“dans moris mank dimune competent,et bane ki competent zot pas gagne zot chance et tous bane protezé et bane non competent ki gagne travail dans bane secter important [...] ab li normal nous bizin xpect bane defaillance .”

and, a few minutes ago, the Minister of Public Infrastructure, National Development Unit, Land Transport & Shipping, Anil Bachoo, said the following on radio (I’m quoting from memory…):

“anyone who has an idea why Port-Louis is flooding and can help to find a solution is going to be heard. For the time being, we don’t have a solution.”

I was having a conversation with some friends yesterday on that very topic : the lack of competency. And I think, as kass-cole observed, that there is an element of politics in it. It’s not normal to nominate incompetents. But, when I think about it, most competent people in the country, and they are a lot of them, suffer from being unknown to the public and, by extension, to those above.

Do you think that, if those with competencies were better known, they would have been invited to join committees and participate in the running of our Republic?

Or is Mauritius doomed?

(Image courtesy of mayukichan on deviantart)

I started blogging in March 2004 and, like a lot of bloggers, I blog a bit less now.

Here are a few of my highlights from 2012:

• I Say No to having to go to political meetings on 1 May and listen to dubious politicians,
• Infotech 2012 feels like an empty box and this is why it needs to be rebooted this year,
• Enabling Nvidia Optimus on CentOS Linux 6 to enjoy 3D on a Linux distribution designed for work,
• What Mauritius can learn from the USA on being friendly, a doer, learning and saying what we think,
• Made In Moris?!? on how some have still not understood that Kreol Morisien is a full-fledged language,
• No HD for Euro 2012 matches on CanalSat on the pain of watching football in glorious low resolution,
• Wanted: an E3 Flasher on my PS3 in Mauritius on how I would love my PlayStation 3 to be mine again,
• Great carnival, worst traffic jams ever! on how we miss out on fundamentals in Mauritius,
• Playing lottery is a very bad investment is how improbable it is to win anything when playing lotteries and
• Neil Armstrong is flying to the moon… as an example to young people to work hard to make their dreams come true.

Feel free to revive the posts, comment on them and share them on social networks too.

Enjoy!

Watched Another Earth on CanalSat today with Christina and the kids and we were all amazed by the quality and the beauty of this movie!

It’s about a tragic accident, seeking forgiveness, love and another planet earth.

The script is written by Brit Marling, the main actress, and she also is the producer of the movie.  For someone who is only 30, this is an epic achievement as both her writing and acting are wonderful.

I give Another Earth a very deserving 9/10. Watch it with an open mind and I’m sure you’ll love it.

On 31 December, my mission was to make people dance from 22:00 to 03:00 in the morning. Fortunately, I could rely on Mixxx, a fantastic and powerful DJing software available for free for all platforms (Linux, Mac OS X and Windows).

Mixxx performed admirably during the five hours.

On Linux, Mixxx supports MP3 out of the box but as I had quite a lot of AAC (i.e. M4A) files, I had to compile it from source. Here are the commands I used on my Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS box:

sudo aptitude install scons qt3-dev-tools libqt4-dev g++ bzr libportmidi-dev libsndfile1-dev libtag1-dev libmad0-dev libid3tag0-dev libmp4v2-dev libfaad-dev portaudio19-dev

scons -j2 faad=1 shoutcast=0 tuned=1

sudo scons prefix=/usr/local install

The first line is to install all the required dependencies, the second is to compile Mixxx with AAC support (faad=1) and specifically for the processor I was using (tuned=1). The third line is to install it in /usr/local

Have fun DJing with Mixxx :-)

Just finished watching Ted with Christina and the kids and we all loved it!

It’s a hilarious movie on a 35 years old man, played by a very good Mark Walhberg, having, as best friend, a teddy bear named Ted! As you can easily guess, his girlfriend, played by the gorgeous Mila Kunis, is not at all happy about this bizarre situation.

Mind you, this movie is not really a movie for kids. Ted swears, talks bullshit and even has “sex” during the movie. So be prepared to ask your kids to close their eyes while you mute the sound track from time to time. Nevertheless, some of the scenes like the one with Flash Gordon or the fight scene are fantastic!

I give it a solid 8/10.

Merry Christmas to all of you :-)

 
Gangnam Style is the most popular video on YouTube ever… as if I needed to tell you.

The video has been seen 978,000,000 times already. Simple maths tell us that it will probably reach 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) views in a few days.

Interestingly, one of the reasons this song and video are so popular is that PSY, the author, does not try to stop copycats. Thousands, including people here in Mauritius, have done their own interpretations of the song and posted them on YouTube. This has contributed massively towards the buzz for the official video. Naturally, PSY has managed to earn quite a lot of money, mainly by participating in TV commercials in Korea and elsewhere.

Piracy actually has helped sales and made an artist earn his living very very decently. Food for thought.

An update

The video has just reached 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) views on YouTube on 21 December (yeah, the day the world was supposed to end…) Read this very informative article on what Psy raps about and what Gangnam means.

All young people living in towns need to vote for the Municipal elections tomorrow. You live in a town and, as a adult, it is essential for you to have a say in how you want your Municipality to be managed and what kind of services you expect to obtain.

Tomorrow is a unique opportunity for young people to directly influence the future of our towns and, ultimately, of the country at large.

Youth decide now. You decide now.

I want the Internet to remain open and free. I don’t want some people and some governments to impose stupid rules on billions on us.

Read more here and here.

Take action now!

(Jump to 00:25:00 in the video)

A disproportionate number of founders in Silicon Valley come from dysfunctional families. They grew up bringing order to chaos. They tend to throw hand grenades into their own company when the company is not chaotic enough (when everything is working well…)