Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the Telecoms Action Group’s ad that appeared in today’s Mail and Guardian. It’s great to see South African consumers (how I dislike that word) getting together. And a sign of just how frustrated people are with Telkom and the current situation. TAG still has some money left over, so… Continue reading Congratulations TAG
Wikipedia translation tool
I’ve decided to do some more work on the Wikipedia translation tool I started in 2005. Amazing what having another deadline will do to you. I started it originally for helping me with translating Wikipedia country templates from English to Afrikaans, and it’s easily to extend to other languages as well (not only FROM English… Continue reading Wikipedia translation tool
Some goods news about GMO’s
Thanks to GMWatch, via the SAFeAGE newsletter, I came across a list of good news stories in the global campaign against GMO’s. With permission, I include it in full below. When it comes to GMO legislation, South Africa usually rolls over for the multinationals. So, it’s particularly pleasing to see some good news in my… Continue reading Some goods news about GMO’s
Organic food ‘worse for the environment’ – Economist
Being involved in the Ethical Co-op, I’ve had a number of people gleefully tell me about the series of articles in the recent Economist, criticising Ethical food, in particuar organic, local and Fairtrade foods, the first two of which are key policies of the co-op. I was quite looking forward to reading their argument, and… Continue reading Organic food ‘worse for the environment’ – Economist
Tai chi humility
Tai chi can be humbling. Today I completed my tai chi instructor’s course. I started practising tai chi in 1995, and the instructor’s course just under two years ago. That should be enough to stoke my ego and more importantly, I should be pretty good by now, right? Not really. In the last month or… Continue reading Tai chi humility
Acid Alex
A few days ago I finished reading Acid Alex, by Al Lovejoy. TheChiz has a great review, and an interview with the man himself. Dave Chislett (The Chiz) says that In terms of popular culture and understanding a couple of generations of white South Africans, this is the most important book ever written about South… Continue reading Acid Alex
Running Kubuntu 6.10 on my laptop
About a month ago I first installed Kubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) on one of my home office machines. I really liked it. Last week, I decided to ditch the old version of Mandriva I’ve been running for about 18 months on my primary machine, a Toshiba laptop, and give Kubuntu a try there too. This… Continue reading Running Kubuntu 6.10 on my laptop
Ekiga – the free, open, Skype alternative?
A while back I wrote a piece entitled Greed and need, or why I’m excited about Wengophone, the ‘open Skype’. That piece goes into more detail about why I’d like to see an alternative to Skype, and mentioned Wengophone, a Free, open standards competitor to Skype. There seem to be four main alternatives to Skype… Continue reading Ekiga – the free, open, Skype alternative?
An exercise in narcissism
I know blogging can be a fairly narcissistic activity, but the lack of comments in the past few weeks on my posts was starting to puzzle me. Not enough to investigate further though – I just assumed I’d been relegated from the E list to the F list of bloggers. It’s only when I tried… Continue reading An exercise in narcissism
Sithengi
After missing out so often, I made sure to attend some of the films showing at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival (otherwise known as Sithengi). I’ve seen four films so far, two shorts, and two feature films. Both shorts left me disappointed, especially Alive in JHB, a 6-minute piece about aliens landing in Johannesburg… Continue reading Sithengi