A social experiment in arbitrary commentary.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:10 am
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Watched Crash for the second time. The plot is brilliantly put together, with intriguing links between the characters, which, in my opinion, makes the movie. It is unfortunately somewhat unbelievable, but gets its message across, once again illustrating that South Africa is more progressive than many modern Western societies when it comes to racial discrimination.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:08 am
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The ANC have a mailing list for sending out their weekly ANC Today online publication.
For some reason, I received the following [amusing] email in my inbox from the "ANC TodayCustomer Service"...
| From: anctoday- |
posted by zoointhesky at 4:55 pm
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Ever bumped into someone you haven't seen in a couple of years and remarked on how they've changed? You pick up immediately the changes in hair style and colour, wrinkles and body shape. Now if you'd spent those years in the company of the same person, the changes would be less apparent over the years.
I had always suspected the courtesy and common sense of drivers on the road in South Africa has been declining over the years. It became immediately apparent, after I'd returned from a year and a half stint in Europe, that this was indeed true. The level of road rage has increased, the agressive behaviour has increased, and the painfully rude manners of most on the road have reached unbearable proportions.
Agreed, I'm generalizing. But that's okay - because it is "in general" that affects all of us on the road. I attribute this trend to the increase in the number of vehicles (more condensed housing estates), and the poor show the traffic department has displayed in enforcing the rules of the road and road-worthiness of vehicles, especially those transporting passengers - busses and mini-bus taxi's alike.
Unless more effort is made by all, it will spiral into unbearable proportions, to the point where our roads are like intersections in India, without the bicycles.
And the list continues...
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 9:45 pm
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Aha! Another wicked Web 2.0 app to add to the tally. Just what I've been waiting for - a central, online location to add and edit documents that I'm working on. They're all personal for now (i.e. no-one else would be interested...), but I'm sure at some stage I'll expand with some additional wiki's to try get my own online collaboration groupies going.
That's until Writely gets going again, of course...
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 11:11 pm
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This is all nice and dandy until someone hacks the AOL servers and finds the file that matches up user names with the numbers in the published search records, and then publishes the list...
Come on guys - get a grip.
By the by, does anyone out there have a Consumerist invite for me?!
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 10:43 pm
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It's great to see at least some of South Africa's sports teams performing on the playing field. Or the court, in this case.
What's really cool is that Cape Town is hosting the 8th World Masters Squash Championship in October this year.
I'm not sure how they work out the rankings. SA's highest ranked in the PSA Workd Rankings, Regardt Schonborn, cannot be found in the SA Men's Rankings... ?
"The 8th World Masters Squash Championships will be hosted by Cape Town, South Africa from the 13th-21st October 2006. Your previous host cities have included Espoo (2003), Melbourne (2001/1995), Sheffield (1999) Johannesburg (1997) Edinburgh (1993) and Auckland (1991).
Cape Town, initially a refreshment post for traders on their way to the East, has grown into one of the world’s great cities. The majestic Table Mountain watches over the city centre, whilst her estimated 3 million citizens made up of a diversity of cultures, colours, creeds and histories, spread themselves around far and wide.
From the top of Table Mountain - a "must on your to do list”, - to Cape Point, where two great oceans are said to meet, from the world class vineyards and wineries northwards, to the Southern Suburbs where the Opening Ceremonies of Rugby World Cup 1995 and Cricket World Cup 2003 took place and proposed hub of WMSqC 2006.
It is also the home to Western Province Cricket Club (WPCC) with their six glass back courts and historic Kelvin Grove Club, which nestles between the rugby and cricket grounds, where the main venues for your Championships will be.
Villagers, Varsity Old Boys and if required, Diocesan College’s (Bishops) courts will also be used. All are within a 3km radius of WPCC. A shuttle service will be available throughout the day, free of charge for players and will run on a regular circuit between all the playing venues.
The Championships will be held under the auspices of the World Squash Federation and will once again be for both men and ladies in five year age group categories from 35 yrs through to 70+yrs and for the first time the inclusion of a 70+ section for the ladies, entries permitting. There will be Plate, Consolation Plate and Classic Plate events for all age groups – thus assuring every player of a minimum of 3 matches.
The Championships will open with a traditional Cape Town welcome on Sunday the 15th October 2006 and will close with a vibrant African farewell on Saturday the 21st October 2006. In between, at the Mid Week Function, you will be given the opportunity to sample some of South Africa’s finest and most popular wines."
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 10:31 pm
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Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:13 am
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And so here it is!
The preview doesn't give much away, and leaves much to the imagination. But I guess teasers are just that: teasers... :-)
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 11:41 pm
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ScienceCareers.org | Forty Winks: Science and Sleep: Levine: 28 July 2006
I've never tried smoking in my sleep before. But, yes, I could imagine that it would deprive you of a couple of winks...Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:22 am
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What they don't tell you is this dumb-ass popped his main cut-away before the AFF instructor deploys the main... This is what they train you not to do.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:16 am
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The landscape of the software industry is changing dramatically.
Some [of the older generations] say that the more it changes, the more it stays the same - with specific reference to terminal applications that saw us through to the 90's, thick client applications of the early PC era, client server models notable of the new millennium, and now thin Web 2.0 based applications emerging as the way forward. The "application-in-a-browser" model smacks of 3270... without the awful UI.
The key difference, however, is undoubtedly the commodotisation of the PC. The current generation is building on software models that will see similar commodotisation of software products in the not so distant future. Sure, Microsoft is a factory that has driven the price of software down through economies of scale like no other. But a market with a single dominant player can only sustain itself for so long.
Enter Google. Their unstated, ambitious goal of toppling the odds in favour of free software for all, not considering current open-source and free software efforts, will be a bitter pill for many to swallow. Yes, open-source has led the way in "free development for all", but it currently falls short of producing real business altering productivity software as it stands today.
We cannot say for sure that what Google is steering towards will be free. "Don't be Evil" may translate into "Do as I say, not as I do". But I'm willing to bet my grandmother that alternative revenue streams offered by online software will result in these business altering productivity software being free in the not so distant future.
Email is the perfect example. Without wanting to restate the overstated, online email services are, for all intents and purposes, free. What's next?
Well, let's take a quick tally of Google's emerging arsenal:
There are others, but these for me pack the most punch when it comes to software that users have become so dependent on in Microsoft Office. Rumours are that Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to accommodate this new software model, including Ray Ozzie, the new Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. Microsoft has been preaching the Software-as-a-Service business model for some time now, so I'm sure they will release several industry eye-openers when the time is right. Let's hope so.
There are many, many more free web based applications out there. I'll touch on some of them in later blogs. But for now, personally, I can't wait for the battle field to open up.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 11:13 pm
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After becoming an Apple convert over the last month, I was bitterly disappointed in the functionality offered by the .Mac online services.
It claims to be "Your life. On the internet", but after signing up for a Trail Account, the interface was dismal, the features limited, and the overall response painfully slow. Understandably, the target audience is the typical online user with a fair amount of bandwidth (not so common here in South Africa) and a habit of traveling and a need for transparently available information.
But we're starting to become accustomed to the cool decor and responsiveness of Web 2.0 type applications - with Ajax and the likes - and large vendors are no longer able to hide behind the simple HTML of the yester-year, a mould that was smashed by Google's Gmail (apart from its cruddy look and feel).
It would be great to see Apple's trendy product image filter through to its online services offerings. And I believe it to be a necessity in order to survive the onslaught of Web 2.0 apps appearing in the coming years.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:28 am
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Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 10:48 pm
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Okay - so how wicked is this? I've just configured my (lately unused) Flickr account to tie in with Flock.
I've dragged the pick above (our puppy Lulu) from the Flock display bar into this blog posting. I'm gonna publish to see if it works...
Later.
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 9:04 pm
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I've just installed Flock - the new and nifty browser on the block. It rocks. I'm writing this blog entry directly from the browser, which will post it off for me. Flock is the first browser I've come across to have functionality that's worthy of mentioning that supports the new Web 2.0 and it's social networking mass take-up.
Now - time to try out the rest of those cool features...
Blogged with Flock
posted by zoointhesky at 12:55 am
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