This doesn't translate well into my blog:

If you and your boss were talking, and I marched into the room and, in the middle of a sentence, I told you both to keep quiet because I wanted to talk, would that sort of interruption be rude?

Most people would say it was.

What if I didn't march into the room, but held a megaphone outside the room you were in, and summoned you that way?

What if I had issued you with a device that shouted that you must keep quiet, stop what you're doing, and come and talk to me?  Would that be any different?

And what if you have a device that does the same, except it just plays a nice song?  Is that any different?

It's called a cell phone.

If you're busy talking and I want to speak to you without waiting, I go somewhere else and phone you.

Is it rude to phone someone?

Why do people rush to get off the toilet to come and talk if the phone is ringing, but they tell you to wait if you stand outside the door and yell persistently for them to come out?

I choose not to submit to the electronic leash.  I will answer it if and only if it suits me.

If you and your boss were talking, and I marched into the room and, in the middle of a sentence, I told you both to keep quiet because I wanted to talk, would that be rude?

Most people would say it was.

What if I didn't march into the room, but held a megaphone outside the room you were in, and summoned you that way?

What if I had issued you with a device that shouted that you must keep quiet, stop what you're doing, and come and talk to me?  Would that be any different?

And what if you have a device that does the same, except it just plays a nice song?  Is that any different?

It's called a cell phone.

If you're busy talking and I want to speak to you without waiting, I go somewhere else and phone you.

Is it rude to phone someone?

Why do people rush to get off the toilet to come and talk if the phone is ringing, but they tell you to wait if you stand outside the door and yell persistently for them to come out?

I choose not to submit to the electronic leash.  I will answer it if and only if it suits me.

What is the difference between "quality assurance" and "quality control"?

Good question.

The answer is, in English, nothing.  The two are synonymous phrases.  They have, however, been appropriated by bureaucrats to mean two different things in bureaucrat jargon that has infected countless poor individuals around the world for decades.

The terms also lack an important element - a real adjective.  Good quality?  Bad quality?  There are plenty of organisations who do their best to maintain bad quality in their services.

See http://tinyurl.com/Quality-crapspeak for more on the bureaucrat usage.

The latest ProMed reports a case of a Brazilian boy who survived rabies.  Like all previous survivors except one, he received vaccine as prophylaxis, but prophylaxis was incompletely administered (no immunoglobulin.)  Apparently unlike the previous survivors, the virus was isolated from the patient.  He was treated with the Milwaukee protocol first tried on the non-vaccinated girl in Wisconsin who survived.  To what extent this is a result of the protocol is unclear - rabies after failed prophylaxis appears to have a higher survival rate, especially for bat rabies.
 
The ProMed report [22 Nov 2008] - Rabies, human survival, bat - Brazil (02)
 
Milwaukee Protocol 2.1 with its checklist can be obtained at the Children's Hospital of Milwaukee Rabies Registry page.

A few articles referenced in the protocol or the ProMed article or discussing the protocol:
 

cave canem? cave etiam vespertilionem!

These are a few of the crapspeak words/phrases that irritate me the most:

Learners - they are really pupils
Strategic - my arse (for Americans who don't speak English, "ass" refers to a donkey)
Value-added - like a tax
Quality - is a "quality item" of good or bad quality???
Service delivery - an excuse for bad service
Niche market - a market in a corner
Drill down - for oil???
Comprehensive - full of it
Project manager - he manages projects
Fixed-dose - I have never prescribed a variable-dose tablet!
Grass roots - where we find garbage, snails, and other crap
Culture - the culture of crapspeak is a niche market that adds value to strategic learners

Useful items to include in a game of Bullshit Bingo in your next meeting.

For those who don't know what Bullshit Bingo is, it's a form of Bingo where you have a card with words or phrases instead of numbers, and then wait for those words/phrases to be used in meetings or speeches.  When you hear them, you cross them off.  Once you have a full line (across, down, or diagonal) crossed off, you shout "Bullshit!" and you've won.

Here's an example of a Bullshit Bingo card:


You can make such cards (each person should get a slightly different card, so not everyone has the exact same words in the same positions) and distribute them at your next meeting.

A few problems with the recently released 2007 National HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey [PDF] aka Antenatal Survey.

It appears that the new stats have been produced using a new methodology to work out its conclusions.

Two people who know what they're talking about when it comes to these stats wrote a letter to the SAMJ, which can be found here [PDF].

Rob Dorrington, David Bourne. Has HIV prevalence peaked in South Africa? – Can the report on the latest antenatal survey be trusted to answer this question?  SAMJ October 2008, Vol. 98, No. 10

Reported here by IRIN:

Reported here by the Treatment Action Campaign.

A note on the correct use of the terms "method" and "methodology" which do NOT mean the same thing:

Politix.

As most people know, Zimbabwe is run by an illegal government.

The Guardian in the UK has published a video showing how civil servants voted - under the watchful eye of a supervisor!

It also reveals that those who didn't vote would be hunted down and killed in the event Mugabe had lost.  Although with a rigged election, how could he lose?

Some time ago we heard about Chinese weapons being sent to Zimbabwe to help Mugabe assist his subjects to vote.  Well, here are scanned documents of various shipping lists etc:
Zimbabwe Chinese weapons shipment documentation [2008]

As the WikiLeaks site explains:


And then for those interested in Telkom, there is Telkom South Africa contracts and filings [2008] - "A collection of contracts and corporate filings from South Africa's "Telkom" telecommunications corporation, which reveal, among other matters, how Telkom aggressively protects its monopoly status."

Ah, Telkom, aggressively providing a service.  [What to replace that with???]

Over at PLoS Medicine, there is an article entitled "Ethical Implications of Modifying Lethal Injection Protocols"


Harm?  Isn't death "serious harm"?


We no longer have the death penalty in South Africa.  And when we did, it was never the electric chair.  Imagine load shedding during an execution?


BTW, the myth that if someone fails to die during an execution he/she gets freed is just that - a myth.

Looking at the post on my blog prior to the one on crappies, I really like Hellkom's image I got from their site.  I think I'll post it again.


It looks very professional.

A few months back, smut was killing the sugarcane in Australia.  Now bacteria are killing the crappies near Ashby, MN, USA.

Most crappies were small, "but 10- to 15-inch crappie were also observed."

It's not all bad news:

"Assuming good numbers of adult crappie remain, they'll be very successful in producing lots of young crappie in 2008 to fill the void ..." - ProMED-mail, 15 Sept 2007

As of this morning, I am free of Telkom.  Good riddance.  Maybe in a new town.  Here the people are not able to communicate and not able to get my line working.

Just so I don't lose them, the work orders from Telkom:
7CEZ260707
121CEZ020807
ARS129288
677CEZ280807
Finally, the disconnection: 637427/53

I don't need it ... I've got internet via Vodacom's 3G, and my cell for talking, and I'm very happy with both.  Even in Umtata, I've found the quality of service to be excellent, on a par with Vodacom elsewhere in the country.

It doesn't look like 5.5 weeks is an abnormal amount of time to wait for service from Telkom.  Hellkom describes many such cases.


Very useful stuff on the Hellkom page - price comparisons, good advice, links to suppliers and detailed info on the telecommunications industry.

Well, I hope the people responsible are reprimanded for their uselessness ... but I doubt it.

I just wrote the following letter of complaint to Telkom on their submission page.


Now I wait.  Not for long.

Telkom staff in Umtata expect you to remain at home waiting for them, if they choose to pitch up to check your line.

If you specify that you're not at home and need to be called when their technician comes out, surely they should call when their technician comes out?

No.

If you specify that you need to be called, and
    they come out without calling you first, and
    they find nobody at home ...
       this is called denial of access, and the job can be closed as completed.

It is now more than 5 weeks since I reported my dead line for the first time.  I've had to report it several times.  The first time the job was "completed" I explained to the technician, who had not pitched up, on the phone that the previous technicians had already been and said the fault was an underground cable.  So the work order was closed.  The second time they pitched up and I wasn't home.  They phoned to complain, and I was in a meeting and couldn't take the call.  Leave a number to get back to them?  No.  Call again?  No.  Close the job and call it "completed" - yes.

I am now on my third request in 5 weeks to have someone attend to my line.  After getting in touch with their office in Johannesburg, they apparently did fix the underground cable, then closed the job as "complete" ... but they still need to set up some other connection to that.  Or at least that is their excuse for needing to come today.  And they haven't pitched up.

What am I to do?

This afternoon, it will be 28 days ago that I reported my phone being out of order.

This morning I tried to phone the local Telkom office.  047 535 1133, if anyone else wants to try and see if they can find a literate person on the other end.  Usually the number is never answered - this time it was.  Or you can always try OFaultB@telkom.co.za

I asked about the status of my phone line, and was told by the woman who answered that I had to report the number to Telkom's fault line.  I told her I had.  She said I should report it again.  I told her I'd reported it several times - with weekly enquiries.  She said I still had to report it again.

The problem is that each time I report it, they are perhaps unable to read the report here in Umtata.

I asked if I could speak to her manager.  She said no, he was out.  I asked for his name, and she refused to give it.  I asked for her name, and she refused to give that too.  After a while, she did mumble a name, and when I asked her to repeat it, she mumbled it again.

When I asked her to spell it, she refused, saying she couldn't.  On clarification, she said she was unable to spell her name.

Was she just hiding her identity to avoid reprimand if I got hold of her superiors?

Or was she really illiterate?  Was she really incapable of spelling her own name?

If the local Telkom people here in Umtata can truly not spell their own names, the following scenario would explain the mess Telkom has made:

• 2 technicians figured out the problem, but the first couldn't communicate that in any sort of record, and neither was able to use a telephone to communicate with me
• 1 technician was unable to find my place because he can't read street names
  
• 1 technician could not read a watch, and perhaps judges time by the temperature, arriving well after 10am when she said she'd be there at 8:30am.
• Weekly e-mails can't be understood if they can't be read, and phone calls don't get responded to because they get logged in a central place by literate people, and the local Telkom people can't read the logs

Is that really the state of Telkom in Umtata?

Judging by their actions, and by their telephone skills, maybe it is.  Or maybe they're just too incompetent to do their work.

Headless Snake Bites Hapless Man


So says Scientific American, which also refers to the NEJM article:

Dead rattlesnakes can bite? Mayo Clin Health Lett 1999;17:4.
PubMed

Suchard JR, LoVecchio F. Envenomations by rattlesnakes thought to be dead. N Engl J Med 1999;340:1930.
PubMed
Excerpt at NEJM

So be careful.  Don't be bitis.

Skillie might have a new friend, if I can persuade Wolfgang to adopt.

Yesterday, a baby puff adder was found in Jeevs' garden.  Very cute, and about 25cm long (an estimate - he didn't stretch himself out for us.)  Species name: Bitis arietans - you have to be careful because they bitis!  Apparently quite common in Mthatha.

He was very cold, and hiding under a box, safely stowed away in the back of a bakkie.  We put him in a smaller box, and took him inside.  He took a liking to one of the pieces of the box he could hide in - maybe just because we were inspecting him and he didn't like that.

Luckily he wasn't in the mood for biting, although we didn't touch him while he was able to get a nip in.

Here is is getting into his little corner:


More:


A close up:


Even more:


All the way in:


People here are terrified of snakes ... this one is sweet, though, and well behaved.  He's quite safe to look at if you're careful - snakes don't carry viruses that can transmit to humans.

Now it appears that the Post Office has joined Telkom in making a mess of things in Umtata.

They've locked my postbox, and on their website the postbox number is listed as unpaid.  I've logged a complaint on their website, but will try to visit them tomorrow to show them the receipt.

Perhaps they don't keep records themselves.

Update 10 August: The unpaid status doesn't seem to affect them.  They didn't need to see my receipts.  They think it's a lock problem ... so hopefully it'll be sorted out soon, and the unpaid bit will be ignored.

I've just been informed that there will be another Anna Vissi concert in South Africa, this time on 14 October, in Johannesburg.

Thanks George!

See the Άννα Βίσση blog.

On 25 July I reported that my telephone was out of order - there was no dial tone.

On Sunday 29 July, which I thought was quite fast, someone from Telkom came to check the phone and the line.  He checked the line where it entered the house, and it was dead there.  No signal.  He then disappeared, and later came back after some investigation and told me that the problem was with an underground cable that had broken.  They'd be seeing to it.

Later in the afternoon, person #2 phones, and wants directions to my place to fix the line.  I told him someone had already been, but he knew nothing about that, so I gave him directions, and waited.  Nobody came.

This morning (30 July), at 7:30am, I was phoned and told by a lady, person #3, that she was coming to fix my phone.  She said she'd be there at 8:30am.

At 9:50am I left for work to attend a meeting; their offices didn't answer the phone, so I couldn't let them know.  When she did arrive, nobody was there, so she went back.  She phoned later to say that we'd have to make another appointment, because it must be something wrong with my phone.  I told her that the first guy from yesterday (29th) had said it was an underground cable.

I'm also not sure how it can be my phone if it's dead where it enters the house.

Updates later.

Update 1 August: I got an SMS today saying that the fault had been resolved.  When I got back home, the line was still dead - nothing has been resolved.

Update 7 August: On the 1st, I reported the problem again online.  I got an SMS with the reference number.  I've heard nothing since.  Tomorrow it will be 2 weeks waiting for Telkom to solve the problem.

Over at LumenGentleman's site, the Summorum Pontificum Contact Database has been set up.

So far, only 3 from South Africa - one from Onderstepoort, the country's veterinary centre, and two from the Eastern Cape - me and someone from Grahamstown.  Quite far, and I'd hope for something closer, but I've never visited Grahamstown, and I might if they have the Latin Mass in its extraordinary form.

I went to Mass here in Umtata tonight.  This time they said the creed.  Communion was via the "take and dip" method, with no extraordinary minister of the Eucharist assisting - the chalice was on the altar, the priest down below.  Interestingly, half the congregation didn't self-communicate.  And at least they said the creed this time.

If you're from South Africa, and want to see more use of the 1500 year old liturgy, the one used at Vatican II, also known as the Tridentine Mass, the old Latin Mass, the Liturgy of Pope Pius V, celebrated according to the missal published by Blessed John XXIII, then go and register as a contact.

Driving in Umtata is quite amusing, and quite dangerous at times.  Probably a collection of the worst drivers in South Africa, probably excellent drivers compared to the rest of Africa.

I think a very high percentage of drivers here either have no licence, or they bought it.  If you're a government official, or work for one, the rules of the road don't apply to you, as the newspapers recently pointed out.  But they don't apply to anyone else either.

The yellow lane is a passing lane for taxis in many parts of the country; here, that holds true, but the oncoming lane is also a passing lane for taxis here.  As soon as it's dark, and you can no longer see the lines on the road, they become irrelevant, as I discovered in yesterday's power failure (almost as common as roads here in Umtata.)

When I had nearly reached my destination, driving in the middle lane of two, with cars passing me in the parking spaces on my left, I luckily didn't know whether I needed to turn left or right, so I turned left and parked.  Had I tried turning right, I'd have ended up in the funniest traffic jam I've seen.

In normal society, if the traffic lights don't work, they should be treated as a 4-way stop.  In Umtata, you just don't stop.  Other traffic has to wait for you.  It's a bit better at real 4-way stops.  There you just have to push your way into the intersection.  If you're second in line, you can get through without waiting your turn simply by going through on the tail of the car in front of you.  Generally, the unwritten rule here is that if the car entering the intersection hasn't yet obstructed your path, you can still enter and go.

The traffic jam was a perfect example of how rush hour traffic in Africa works.  Everyone has the right of way, everyone can go first, so everyone does.  And by refusing to allow anyone else right of way, it ends up as a huge mess.  Nobody can move.  Eventually the police arrived and I assume they sorted it out, after solving a dispute between a car and a Fidelity Guard van whose noses were almost touching, each refusing to move for the other one.  I left after getting a few photos - not ideal ones, in the dark - with my cell phone's camera.


A bit blurred, but you can make out the green van with Fidelity on the side.



Some cars had opened their doors.  The drivers had to explain to those who didn't have right of way how they should drive.

Will Africa ever learn?

Taken from HIV treatment in a conflict setting: outcomes and experiences from Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, by Heather Culbert et al in PLoS Medicine, 2007 May;4(5):e129
PubMed link
Article on PubMed Central
Article on PLoS Medicine

Patient 1
Followed in the clinic since 2002, on ART since December 2003. Lives in Rwanda.


Patient 2
Followed in the clinic since May 2003, and on ART since December 2003.


Sad, very sad.