Madia Thomas Blog

Gautrain stole my money

2012-02-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

Last month I bought a 35-days pass to travel between Midrand and Rosebank, when 1 trip was left, I loaded another 35-days pass and paid R923.00, they took my money, but I can't utilize it, I noticed that they were deducting R26.00 from my card each time I use the train, I reported the matter to the Gautrain office at Rosebank, I was told to wait while they are analyzing my card, this took 10 minutes, on the report, it clearly shows that I have loaded that 35-days pass and they were deducting money from my account, this racist guy named Herman told me to fill a very long form and provide a dompass to him, before he can even help me.

I don't carry a pass around, I thought that legislation that blacks must carry pass around has died with apartheid, even the solution they are giving me isn't helping me at all, they suggested that I must buy a new card, load it with a 7-day pass, then they will refund me the difference into my bank account, after 5 working days, where the fuck do they think I will get extra money from?

I feel cheated, all I want is for Gautrain to deduct trips from my 35-days pass, refund money they deducted illegally from my card, and life must just go on, I wonder if the person who made this rules even completed Grade 12, they are plain stupid.

It looks like this Gautrain project is been run by retards who don't know what they are doing, you can build first world class infrastructure, but if you gave it to monkeys, they will bring it down.

Bad service from Afrihost

2012-01-29T23:31:00.000-08:00

Khoro.com is hosted by Afrihost.com, the company that claims to be the best hosting company ever, on Saturday, 27th of January 2012, I received an email from Afrihost.com , notifying me that they are upgrading their power generators on Saturday, 28th of January 2012, around 23:00, and there is nothing to do on my side, after 40 minutes everything will be back to normal, it's Monday, 30th of January 2012 09:53 now, and Khoro.com server is still not up.

I called them 10 minutes ago, and they demanded that I pay them R400 per hour in order for them to switch the server on, they switched off the server, but now I am the one who must switch it on or they must charge me just to switch on the server.

This server has been running for over 6 months now without any problem, all of a sudden they decide to take it down, and demand that I pay them money in order to fix the mess that were created by them, I tried emailing Gian Visser, the owner of the company to help, I also tweeted him, for the first time since I started using Afrihost.com , he isn't responding to any communication from me, surely R1,450 per month is not that much business for him anymore, I trusted them, now I am losing all the trust I have with them.

I am so disappointed.

Madia Thomas,

Creator and co-founder, Khoro.com

Religion, cults and politics

2011-08-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

When discussing science and other subjects which requires some knowledge, few people participate.

In order to participate in a debate about physics, you need some knowledge on physics, to participate in economics topic, you will need some economic background or understanding, to discuss about sports, you need some knowledge on that sporting code, and buzzwords used in that sporting code.

Enter religion, cults and politics, write an opinionated piece which is either black or white about those subjects, suddenly every Tom, Dick and Harry has an opinion of what you have written about, that doesn't worry me too much, everyone is entitled to their opinions, what worries me too much is that people discuss this topics with their hearts, not heads, they won't admit that they are wrong, when they realise that they are wrong or can't communicate valid arguments, they resort to violence and name-calling to put their message across.

Even some topics which requires some knowledge like economic systems can be simply turned into a religious war, e.g when discussing them, some people will deliberately overlook the advantages of their preferred economic system over another system, each economic system has its own advantages and disadvantages, each has succeeded and also failed, but if discussed religiously, you won't know about those advantages of other economic systems, and disadvantages of your preferred economics system.

When engaged in a debate, it's always important that you listen carefully to your opponent, learn from them and know what they are going to say next, unfortunately you can't do that when you debate topics religiously, main aim of debating isn't to win at all cost, you must learn a thing or two, even if you don't admit on the spot, you must learn from your opponent.

In my career, I have witnessed over a dozen of religious flame wars, e.g Java vs C++, then C#.NET vs Java, ASP.NET vs PHP, etc, and each one of them divides thick-glass wearing computer programmers into two camps, each throwing stones against each other, at the end of the day, they are both tools, they both have their advantages and disadvantages, all have their place.

Which is better between a screw-driver and a hammer, anyone? Answer: depends on what you are doing, if you are unscrewing, a screw-driver is the best tool, but not when working with nails.

SMS is a rip-off

2011-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

The cost of SMS is just too much compared to social networking inbox or direct message or whatsapp, I did some calculations on how much it was supposed to cost to send an sms, It's shocking when you realise that we were supposed to be paying R2 for every 6400 smses, check calculations below:

1MB = 1,024,000 bytes, 1 SMS is 160 characters(bytes), which means you can squeeze exactly 6,400 smses in a MB, and pay only pay R2/MB if you don't have data bundles, way cheaper if you have data bundles, but somehow our service providers are overcharging us for it.

Why are service providers charging us so much for something that is so cheap?

My blogger first experience

2011-07-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

I am not a great fan of customized software, but I must say, I am impressed with blogger, with software like this, I think every human being with access to internet, and have something to say, must own a blog.

Setup was a breeze, customization also easier, I also like the fact that it gives power users like me more power to do more, I quickly jumped to HTML and JavaScript, added Twitter widget, and it works.

I will use this blog to write whatever interests me, and I will discuss in detail my www.khoro.com status of the day.

I formally welcome myself to the world of blogging, I will try by all means not to be too technical.