• Runtime error messages are cryptic and un-helpful (see the title of this post). Often they’re just summarized into texts like “error in database constraint… could be null, foreign-key, primary key… please check all the code you’ve ever written”.
• System.Collections don’t support basic stuff like tuples and sets.
• DataTables can’t handle null values. I mean: They call this DRO!?
• I tried to edit some SQL in a Table Adapter. It suddenly switched the parameters for the auto-generated method without warning me – silently breaking the application and giving me hours of debugging.
• The design view for aspx files in Visual Studio is useless since it always requires manual editing afterwards
• I wanted to copy a database. Since the copy-function was broken in Enterprise Manager (You get an error message and using the “copy error message” function renders an “error copying error message”) I made a backup and wanted to restore it in a new database. The dialog for this operation silently switched the target for the restore several times – even the database files: to overwrite the production database. Pretty lucky to notice this, since it was hidden in another tab.
• Visual Sourcesafe isn’t a proper versioning system. You might as well just use a network share and depend on ntfs file locking. Where’s the collaboration!?
• There’s only a very limited amount of free or open applications available for it. And especially Umbraco which is the flagship of .NET CMS systems is full of errors and tells you to pay up as soon as you’d like the pro stuff – like say a proper development/deployment system.
• Umbraco crashed our IIS – all we did was use the copy-content function!? How exactly is it that a webpage is allowed to take down a whole server?

I could probably ramble on about this. The bottom line is simply: I would never choose their technology over stuff like Subversion, Apache, Java or Python. And the whole ASP.NET framework is far from Ruby and Django – but of course it’s a lot older… it’s so 2003. I would have filed a few bug reports, but I guess these guys don’t have a bugzilla. Too bad.. I’ll just have to leave my feedback on this public blog.

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:

“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.”

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.

Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.

Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.

Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out – with the owners having no choice – the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.

All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in great detail here:

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html

Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving Usmanov please add a comment.

I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.

Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters – as tight-knit and homespun a football community as any – can be heard saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can compete with Chelsea.

I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.

Apple is already a leader in innovation and engineering, and we are applying these same talents to become an environmental leader.

See, that was exactly what GP wanted them to say in public. And now Greenpeace applauds this and gives thanks to all the people – Greenpeace isn’t taking the credit for this, they’re giving it to Apple and the Apple fans who used the campaign to tell Apple how much they’d like to see them as an environmental leader.

I sincerely hope that this will be a new beginning where Apple can set a good example and Greenpeace can cheer the other electronics companies to follow this example. We need everybody to follow troop:

• Using the precautionary principle to substitute everything that’s potentially dangerous
• Taking back all used products globally
• Designing products that last longer
• Making reuse and upgrade of products much more simple

We have limited natural resources and a very dirty business exporting toxic electronics waste to poor countries.

09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

I don’t get it

1. Large parts of the earth have grown unpopulated due to starvation and war. The borders around rich countries have been totally shut.
2. Energy mainly comes from solar power, water and wind. Nuclear energy has been abandoned because it has grown too expensive and dangerous compared to the other technologies
3. Most people in the west speak English as their primary language
4. The old Internet has been replaced by a new technology, which is regulated by governments. The old Internet ceased to exist because of the need for more reliable protocols after it got totally hammered by way too much information flow. IPv6 finally got fully implemented in 2015, but it didn’t do the trick.
5. The U.S. has suffered so much economically that it had to give up being a superior military power. Instead it relies on co-operation with the rest of the rich countries
6. No-one will have gone to Mars since problems with limited resources, climate changes and desperate countries constantly battling out will be way too heavy for the rich countries to out-weigh.
7. A new great leader will arise. Probably he will be the president of the E.U., and he will have visions that bring most parts of the European countries together to battle their common issues
8. Wild life will be limited to special reserves where humans aren’t allowed
9. Fish is very rarely eaten since it is expensive to catch, since most fish are almost extinct
10. South America has finally gotten it’s act together and has become a wealthy part of the world because of its good natural resources and a union very similar to the E.U. People will remember Hugo Chavez as a hero after he got killed by some U.S.-funded assassin, but U.S. interference will not be an issue anymore.
11. Cars are banned in most big cities. Limited resources and a hard energy policy has forced cars out of the market. Chinese cities are among the first to embrace this, but soon after, the rest of the world follows
12. The Middle East and Africa has totally lost and have been shut out of the rest of the world. A brief but hard war has resulted in a very big Islamic state which has taken control of big parts of the poor world. The rest of the world keeps out, but there has been a major breakup, and a new cold war has emerged, where both parts are aware of the great dangers.
13. Free movement by plane has become very expensive, and the advancements in communication has removed the needs for flying.
14. GMO has become legalized, but it has ruined much of the eco-system. The eco-system in general is very monotone.

My general theory is that resources (not just oil, but also many metals) have become limited and some very violent but brief wars have changed the structure of the planet so that only a few big unions are in control. Climate changes have also made sure that the food reserves are very limited, and democracy has gotten really fake, but is still used as the main excuse for doing most things.

Watch the trailer

Anyways, this movie has spawned some rather stupid reactions. So I guess it was worth the making. First in line to make a press comment: Pia K, who said she felt “abused” by the movie. Pia K, you weren’t abused. You’re just too stupid to get it. Other politicians from “both wings” of Danish politics have been out criticizing the movie. Nobody apparently gets it: All of you politicians appear like blond sluts in the media, vulnerable to such mocking attacks. Whether or not it’s your fault or the media, the broader perspective is, that this is just one big circus and we (the people) need serious political substance very badly…

My answer to that: Yes, Apple isn’t the biggest issue, and yes, it’s a good target because of media attention. But that’s not the purpose of the campaign, and people saying that have completely misunderstood everything. Now, the big issue is: E-waste. Now THAT’S actually a big problem. And Greenpeace wants to help solve that problem, but that’s very difficult since the producers of E-waste are so numerous. We have to start somewhere.

One thing that could be done about this: Innovation. We need better products free from chemicals that make them dangerous when being disposed of. Secondly we need products with a long life cycle. That means iPods capable of upgrading.

But another part-solution to the problem is called producer responsibility. Since it’s not being legally enforced in more than a handful of European countries, it’s up to Greenpeace to push for more legislation and voluntary producer responsibility. We need manufacturers to implement full product take-back in order to have an economic incitement for making recyclable products.

Apple’s part in all this? They HAVE to push forward. E-waste is a giant problem. We need action, and since other companies are actually pushing forward, we want to stimulate Apple to join the competition. So far Greenpeace has come up with Guide To Clean Electronics. This creates some sort of economic incitement for becoming cleaner at least. But work will continue, and hopefully soon people will see the purpose of Green My Apple in more than just words of encouragement.

1:14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
1:15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
1:16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.

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“I know not whether I baptized any other.”
Poor Paul is confused. First he says that he baptized no one. Well, except for Crispus and Gaius. And maybe Stephanus and his household. He can’t remember if he did it to anyone else.