Daily Links - 31/07/2004

• What John Kerry did in Vietnam
  [via antiwar.com]
• Australia's aborigines
• "How the 18-34 male is reinventing advertising"
• Cars running on cooking grease
• Nick at NjaloNjalo appears to be an expert on Cape Town's informal settlements. Richard at way South has some queries.
• Tsvangirai trial update from MOSTLY Africa.
  

Daily Links - 29/07/2004 & 30/07/2004

• The Darfur crisis in the Arab media.
  
• British teenager spoofs emergency-preparedness website, gets into trouble
• Will airships move soldiers in future?
  
• Helping troops to stay awake
• Movie advertising moves online
  
• The Evil Eye in Greece, and the rest of the World
  [via Wikipedia]
• Nanotech hype
• Egypt and Sudan make nice
• Fidel Castro quotes Slate column on Bush
  
• Secret Service agent forces journalists covering the Democratic convention to stand as a mark of respect for god flag
• Robot scientists

Daily Links - 29/07/2004

• A Wikipedia article that explains what the "SAT" is.
  
• Brain scans used to investigate crime [via The Corner Office]
• French book that explains how to be lazy at work lands author in hot water

Sudan

Laurence Caromba has a post about the situation in western Sudan. Interesting stuff, but the "black" versus "Arab" take may be problematic. Check out this article [via MOSTLY Africa], and this post by Col Lounsbury [previously linked to here], on that issue.

The Gadaffi angle is also interesting:

characterising the Darfur war as 'Arabs' versus 'Africans' obscures the reality. Darfur's Arabs are black, indigenous, African and Muslim - just like Darfur's non-Arabs, who hail from the Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa and a dozen smaller tribes.

Until recently, Darfurians used the term 'Arab' in its ancient sense of 'bedouin'. These Arabic-speaking nomads are distinct from the inheritors of the Arab culture of the Nile and the Fertile Crescent.

'Arabism' in Darfur is a political ideology, recently imported, after Colonel Gadaffi nurtured dreams of an 'Arab belt' across Africa, and recruited Chadian Arabs, Darfurians and west African Tuaregs to spearhead his invasion of Chad in the 1980s. He failed, but the legacy of arms, militia organisation and Arab supremacist ideology lives on.

Daily Links - 27/07/2004

• Tomato Paste
• Coffee science website [via Gene Expression]
• New R5 coin
  
• Content matters - Anil Dash on winning search engine spamming competition
• Is the universe a simulation?
• Baby killer locked away for life
• Americans abandon land lines [via Anil Dash]
• Miners in developing countries rely on primitive technology to detect gases
• I'm hesitant to become an academic because I don't want to end up like this guy. [via Anil Dash]
  

Daily Links - 26/07/2004

• Admiring article on Leon Trotsky [via antiwar.com blog]
• The N1 and N2 as representations of Cape Town
• "How Microsoft Lost the API War"
• Microsoft and weblogs
  
  

Weekend Links - 24/07/2004

• Holocausts of Communism Test - [via LRC]
• Transolar Games, the creators of the classic Quest For Glory adventure games
• Interesting Guardian article on dealing with troublemakers. Part 2.
• An article that defends rote learning.[via Seeker's Digest].
  
  Fortunately, when I was in school, memorization was being phased out. I did, however, have to memorize Afrikaans poems in standard two (which made me loathe the subject, because we'd get beaten by the teacher if we slipped up).

Daily Links - 23/07/2004

• Someone else agrees that pigeons are vermin
  
• Open source news
• The state (no pun intended) of American federalism.
• The diamond cartel isn't for ever [via Anil Dash]
• Why Microsoft is unexciting
• Is South Africa arrogant when dealing with the rest of Africa?
• America's "indebted spendthrifts"
• Residential property - a good investment?
  

The Leigh Matthews case

The kidnap and murder of Leigh Matthews is big news around here. Very sad, and I hope the scum who carried out the crime are caught.

The kidnap-murder has received lots of media attention. If Leigh Matthews had been, say, a middle-aged Chinese refugee, instead of a nubile rich white girl, her killing would probably not have received the attention that it has.

• A Google News Search for "De Hua Lin" returns 1 result
• A Google News Search for "leigh-matthews OR leigh-mathews kidnap OR kidnapped OR kidnapping OR murder OR johannesburg" returns 179 results.

An article in the Mail and Guardian online speculates about why this particular case has grabbed the media (and the public's) attention.

Update:Check out The Fishbowl for a post on the ANC's reaction to the crime.

Daily Links - 21/07/2004

• Pretty-looking site about spicy foods around the world [via Anil Dash]
• Unix's Founding Fathers [via Scripting News]
• Instant paperbacks [via LRC]
• Crowds producing art
  
• Microsoft gives part of cash pile to shareholders
• The benefits of a strong Rand
• The infamous Stander gang is in the news again
• Someone decided to draw cartoons based on spam subject lines. Check it out if you are bored. [via Anil Dash]
• "Salary Talk Made Easy"
• This story by an excitable airline passenger has drawn some sharp words. The Pilot comments.
• Warmongers eye Iran, urge support of terrorists in proxy war. See also Fodder on this topic.
  

One more link -
Andrew Black at Southern Cross comments on the dearth of South African public intellectuals.

Daily Links - 20/07/2004

I mistakenly used Internet Explorer to write yesterday's Daily Links post, and it crashed just as I was about to publish. So today's post (written with Mozilla Firefox) will have a few extra items:

• Dutch Tulip Bubble information
  
• What makes a sport, a sport?
• A foreskin restoration expert, who is called Piehl ...hahaha
• Cook Sister on braais
• France outsources to Senegal
• Bracing for XP SP2
• Volunteers who redesign bad websites
• An interesting article on an American organic grocery chain called Whole Foods [via Anil Dash]
• Getting around website registration
• The MMR vaccine scare - do doctors understand how to do science? [via Crooked Timber]
• Apparent IQ and brain structure link [via Sailer]
• Speaking of IQ...I know some ostensibly bright people who have been taken for rides by Work from Home scams, or been duped into paying for rubbish newsletters (OK I only know one, but the point is that suckers do exist). I therefore have no doubt that some will fall for this new variation on the Nigerian 419 scam (assuming that the email is genuine, of course) [via commentary]
• Anil Dash on leaving New York. I can't imagine getting so attached to a place.
  

Shooting update

The Durban shooting that I blogged about yesterday, made today's paper. Utterly senseless murder:

...a Chinese family currently on asylum in Durban are mourning the loss of a family member, who was killed for an empty lunch box at the intersection of Albert and Queen Streets.

Police said De hua Lin, 48, had been walking with his brother-in-law, Mokung Chen, from Chen's clothing shop in the Berea Station when they were attacked by two youths on Friday evening.

The youths had tried to grab a plastic bag from Lin but he refused to let go of the bag, which contained an empty lunch box and papers. One of the youths shot him in the face killing him instantly.

The robbers discarded the plastic bag after discovering it contained nothing more than an empty lunch box and papers.

Back

Some observations:

1. The N3 is an excellent road.
2. The Free State needs better FM radio stations.
3. Durban is a nice little city, though a chap was gunned down on Friday evening while walking in the city centre during rush hour, when I was buying food nearby. I couldn't find any references to the murder in the papers, when I searched using Google News. Depressing that this sort of thing isn't apparently considered newsworthy anymore. I suppose the body count wasn't high enough [link via Jo'blog].
4. Blogger has improved its HTML editor. Spell checker still needs some work.
5. Everything in Durban is a short drive away. Very convenient.
6. First time I saw the University of Natal Campus - it's pleasantly situated.
7. Some women are nothing but trouble.

Away

Had to go to Durban for a family crisis. Blogging should resume next week.

Daily Links - 15/07/2004

• I hadn't noticed that The Corner Office is up again, at a new address [via Commentary]
• Cooking by Numbers [via The Presurfer]
• US lawmakers investigate breaking up of pay-tv "bouquets"
• Neuroeconomics [via Mises Economics Blog]
• Cherryflava has a post on Cape Town's ranking as the fifth best city in the world by an American travel magazine
• AmbiDextri on an illogical new ICC ruling
• War Nerd on Fallujah [via Sailer]
• Some American soldiers watch Fahrenheit 9/11
• Cape Town crime watch programs terminated after being snitched on by private security operative
• The Pilot on airports
• The condensed version of a new book by a serving US intelligence official
• Fodder has a post on why the Iraq war was inappopriate inaporopiate wrong

Update: One more link (11:15 PM)
Col Lounsbury's Moroccan secretary seems to be trying to snare him. It's not unusual for Moroccan girls to want rich foreign husbands, from what I know of them.

Daily Links - 14/07/2004

Although I've had Mozilla Firefox installed for some time, this is the first post which I'm writing from that browser. I have no choice because my copy of Internet Explorer, apart from having lots of holes, keeps crashing. I'll have to get another RSS reader as well...

I've been busy with some studying, but here are some interesting things that I've found on the web:

• Antifreeze 101 - why does it taste so good?
• F1: 'The balance between art and science has been lost'
  
• The child author phenomenon
• More Mozilla extensions
• Cook sister on biltong. I know of at least one child who choked on the stuff, so I wouldn't give it to little children.
• Scammers scammed [via Isangqa]. A very popular story, it appears.
• Geolocation on the web
• Bill Cosby: grumpy old man
• Blogging survey [via Pharyngula]
• Fodder on a campaign to promote local tourism, by locals
• Scanned version of Cape Times article on blogging
• Chirac fooled by apparent hoax
• Multichoice complaints
• Spam - new methods
• Self-healing computing
• Wikipedia article on Maoism
• A Maoist sect's review of SimCity 3000

Weekend Links - 10/07/2004

• "Saddam gassed the Kurds..." or did he? [via Isangqa]
• Two blogs in the sidebar get mentioned in Wired News, Anil dash for his search engine manipulation win and Billmon, who is suffering from blogger burnout
• F1 rules to slow cars down outlined
• Article on mercenaries, some South African companies get mentioned
• New study concludes that myopia is caused by lifestyle [via Gene Expression]
• US medical professionals take steps to stop mistakes
• Cape Town's crime problem
• Why does Saturn have rings?
• Bleeping out dirty words on American airwaves

Schooling in South Africa

Southern Cross has a post on South Africa's unequal education system.

Daily Links - 07/07/2004

I got tired of chasing plumbing faults in SimCity 3000, and, in any case, I achieved my goal of a million sim population. Back to surfing the net:

• Blogosphere vs. Usenet See also this.
• Paid search engine inclusion coming to an end
• Laurie Mylroie, conspiracy crackpot and warmonger [via On Lesotho]
• The story behind the new Nandos a campaign [via Cherryflava]
• US medical professionals who refuse contraception to patients
• Why John Kerry chose John Edwards
• America faces shortage of VINs [via Anil Dash]
• Gene Expression has lots of new posts to wade through
• Wired on Mozilla extensions
• The big news story around here is the Diepsloot riots. Frankly, I'm surprised that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. Here's a story by a reporter who got a little too close to the action.

Sim City 3000

I just got SimCity 3000. I know it has been out for a long time, but I never played it, and I am having fun building a metropolis. Regular blogging will resume shortly.

Daily Links - 03/07/2004

• The Axis of Fish Eggs
• Toyota and Honda dominate US vehicle quality survey [via LRC]
• Wikipedia article about Shinto
• US military paranoia about Coke cans
• Jo'blog
• A Game a Day [via Refdesk, via Time]

Bonus Links - 02/07/2004

• AmbiDextri links to stories about the South African football match-fixing scandal
• War Nerd column on torture

Weekend Links - 02/07/2004

• A biltong experiment
• The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp [via Crooked Timber]
• Mozilla downloads increase
• "The Road to Tech Mecca"
• Some interesting information about lobsters
• The founder of the National Review seems to have changed his mind about the invasion of Iraq [via LRC]
• The Reiger Park Dreamers is a new member of the Southern Africa Web Ring
• The Pilot answers some questions

Daily links- 01/07/2004

• Chinese "assassination attempt" on Falun Gong protesters near Joburg?
• Interesting to see a Microsoft-owned website promoting Mozilla Firefox
• How the instant reviews of Bill Clinton's book were accomplished.
• Patent Hit List
• The Fallacy Files [via Gene Expression]
• A new media column on Wired
• A profile of Iraq's interim president
• Tshwane metro mayor wants Parliament to move to Pretoria.