World Cup fever has finally hit Cape Town. We may be a little slower than the rest of the country, and I’m sure there are still a few Fuck Fifa parties being held in the odd dungeon around the city, but for everyone else, there’s a pulse not unlike 1994. Except, in 1994 it was… Continue reading Ayoba!
Wolof reaches 1000 Wikipedia articles
A sixth African-language Wikipedia has reached the 1000 article milestone, with Wolof now sitting at 1068 articles. Two other African languages, Somali and Kabye, are also closing in on the milestone, both having moved quite quickly into the 800’s, passing the relatively stagnant Igbo and Kikongo. African Language Wikipedias Language 1/1/2007 3/8/2009 30/5/2010 Swahili 2980… Continue reading Wolof reaches 1000 Wikipedia articles
From Helkom to Telkom to Arushka
Relationships are a mirror of our selves, a gift to reveal a little more deeply what’s going on. While happy relationships are more fun, unpleasant relationship can reveal more. Today began with an encounter with the object of my most bitter and unpleasant relationship. Telkom. At the very mention of the name, my face creases… Continue reading From Helkom to Telkom to Arushka
Talking Heads
I attended Talking Heads this evening, part of the Infecting the City Festival, courtesy of 2 Couchsurfers who were staying with me, and were part of the festival. Billed as speed dating for the brain, the format sees you sit at a table for 20 minutes each with 4 different, hopefully interesting, people, from all… Continue reading Talking Heads
The Windows treadmill
I own a laptop that came bundled with Windows Vista. I installed Linux as fast as possible, but left Windows as a dual-boot option mainly to check that things behave nicely in Internet Explorer. And a good thing too, because they usually don’t. I also keep it because I own some junk hardware that also… Continue reading The Windows treadmill
We are Stars
The 3rd in Don Kurtz’s excellent series of lectures moved outwards, towards the edge of the universe. While the first was a brief romp through the history of astronomy, and the second focused on the wonders of our nearest star, the 3rd looked outward towards the stars and beyond. There’s $600 million spent on each… Continue reading We are Stars
Global warming and the Sun
The second in Don Kurtz’s excellent series of lectures focused on the plain, ordinary old sun. Now reaching middle-aged, 4.6 billion years old with about another 5 and a half to go, the sun is wondrously active and mysterious. Unlike the earth, which rotates at the same speed at the equator and the poles, because… Continue reading Global warming and the Sun
Of burst bladders and tokamak stellerators
The tokamak stellerator is going to save humanity! In essence, this was the conclusion of a highly enjoyable lecture by Donald Kurtz, the first of a series of three lectures at the UCT Summer School, entitled The Stars are Ours (named after a novel by Andre Norton, who I’d previously mistakenly assumed to be a… Continue reading Of burst bladders and tokamak stellerators
From Hardy to Helena
I’ve recently upgraded my Lenovo Y510 from Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy, which I’ve been running since around May 2008, to Linux Mint 8, Helena (which is based on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10). I used to upgrade to the latest Ubuntu every 6 months, but it got a bit tiring keeping up on the upgrade treadmill, running… Continue reading From Hardy to Helena
Rawlicious
I’ve recently got a copy of Rawlicious, the raw recipe book from Peter and Beryn Daniel, of Superfoods fame. I did their Elements of Health course last year. The recipe book (I have to stop myself calling it a cookbook each time) is superb. It’s visually stunning. It includes little snippets of nutritional information. It… Continue reading Rawlicious