Administrative notice

Looming full-time employment (and a significant daily commute) mean that blogging could become less frequent.

XP SP2 free CD

If, like me, you are stuck on a dial-up connection, and need to get a copy of Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can order it on a free CD from Microsoft.

Handball

I have been intrigued by team handball ever since I watched it on TV (I think it was during the All Africa Games held in Johannesburg).

More information, and the Wikipedia article.

eBucks password

I have a valid eBucks pin. However the eBucks website requires a password. I've been battling to figure out how to get from my pin to my password. I'm probably missing something obvious, but this is driving me crazy. If anyone knows, please email me, and I'll post the solution here.

Daily Links - 27/08/2004

• Jaw bone grown on man's back
• The evolution of Olympic throwing techniques
• Olympic stadium architecture
• Should South Africa follow Australia's example in restricting the sale of property to foreigners?
• Innocent American man freed after 40 years in prison
[via LRC blog]

Daily Links - 26/08/2004

• Some individuals are apparently outsourcing their jobs [via Mises Economics Blog]
• Sentech vs Telkom
• Innovation Hub takes shape
• RSS starts attracting investors
• Wave energy makes waves
• Install Perl, DBI and Perl MySQL driver on Windows
• Getting Windows to recognize a CD-RW drive that has been misidentified as a CD-ROM drive
  

Daily Links - 25/08/2004

• Choose your poison: Vitamin D deficiency or skin cancer. See also this for a discussion on the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and skin colouration
• Some links that I need to store:
• Wiki Engines
• Websphere and Wikis
• SnipSnap
• JSP Tutorial
• A new wireless internet provider

Pressure question answered

Colin at the corner office, has answered my question about the effects of altitude and air pressure on the transporting of goods:

To answer GP's question: it is a transport issue. My aunt's sister and her hubby did a stint a few years ago as truck drivers in the USA. Transporting packets of potato chips (crisps) from California to elsewhere can be a problem: if trucks take the mountain passes to get inland, the packets explode at high altitude, due to the much lower atmospheric air pressure. If I remember their story correctly, potato chips have to be transported around some of the mountain ranges, so's to keep the chip packets intact.

(more)

Daily Links - 24/08/2004

• Outsourcing game playing
• More comments on dolomite and housing in Gauteng.
  
• When I went to the Kruger National Park, I didn't see a single lion, much less a buffalo kill
• Why Olympic beach volleyball sand doesn't come from a beach
• Reuters has picked up the story of Paul Meintjes, who, after dying seven weeks ago, remains dead
• Are South Africans willing to take risks overseas because they have learned to live with risk at home?

Daily Links - 23/08/2004

• Scalpers find customers in Athens despite low attendance
• South Ossetia - another Caucasus conflict
• Wayne Wides on new development in Buccleuch [pronounced Ber-kloo]
• South Asian nationalisms 57 years after partition

The memory game

Via PZ Myers, a profile of Elizabeth Loftus, a research psychologist who has done much to debunk 'repressed memory syndrome'.

Weekend Links - 21/08/2004

• XP SP2 blues [via Scripting News]
• European reactions to US troop redeployments
• A silly "mercy" rule that tries to protect losing Olympic softball teams from humiliation
• Maine - an American presidential election swing state.
  
• This paper details a paradox in American presidential politics - states that take more money from the federal government than they contribute tend to vote for the Republicans.
• What makes a stock "cheap"?
• "How the Google IPO didn't change Wall Street"

I' m working on a project proposal, so blogging will be light for the next few days.

Rubberneckers

On Wednesday, a petrol tanker crashed into a bridge on the R21 airport road (northbound) near the Olifantsfontein offramp.

I drove past on Friday afternoon, and traffic was slow near the scene of the accident, so that the amateur civil engineers who drove past could inspect the damage to the bridge for themselves. Idiots.

Tshwane and Ekurhuleni

If you are unfamiliar with the names check out the following pages that list the towns that constitute these huge municipalities:

• Tshwane
• Ekurhuleni

Traffic jams [inane ramblings 2]

I noticed that the SAfm traffic report today had information about three big Gauteng municipalities (Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni), Durban and Cape Town.

It got me wondering...are there rush-hour traffic jams in Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, East London and Pietermartizburg?

Daily Link 19/08/2004

South African Inventions [via Way South]

There appears to be some controversy about who actually invented the dolos. See this.

Daily Links - 18/08/2004

• Free stuff from websites making a comeback?
• A brief history of cheese
• Remote dorm room set up services take off in America
• Fairly entertaining examination of some popular diets
• Do welfare states encourage people to learn specialist skills?
• Outsourcing UK medical typing to India

Daily Links - 17/08/2004

• Wired News decides to change Internet to internet
• Why Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team
• A hot sauce addict explains why he adds the stuff to everything he eats. See also part 1.
• Article on high-speed switches
• A file and document management wishlist

Daily Links - 16/08/2004

• A Kentucky Fried Chicken knockoff in New York. I remember a similar case involving McDonald's in South Africa a few years ago. [via Anil Dash]
• Wayne Wides on South Africa's first Olympic gold this year
• Whenever someone brings up the topic of high-rise housing, I think about the housing projects depicted in American TV shows, with crime, drugs and "welfare queens".
• Call-centre outsourcing gathers steam in Europe
• Interesting article on Joburg's Harrison Street

Psychology dropouts

• They think that UML is a programming language.
• They think that "JAVA" is an acronym.
• They think trigonometry is taught as a separate subject at university.

Scary how little employment agencies that "specialize in IT" really know.

Random observations

The Simpsons episode where Homer got a chat show and spoke about inane stuff inspired this post.

1. I have noticed that when I go down to the coast, my half-used shampoo bottle (I use Johnson's Baby Shampoo) is crushed. When I open the lid, it pops back into shape. Presumably, this has something to do with altitude and air pressure differences between the coast and Gauteng. It could also have to do with my poor packing technique, but I doubt it. Do manufacturers have to take this into account when transporting goods? I shall do research and post feedback to this blog.
2. There are few things more annoying than having car hooters or emergency sirens in radio commercials. There was also the Wheatus song, Teenage Dirtbag, that included the sound of a car accident - very distracting when driving. Another annoyance is doorbells on television.

Daily Links - 13/08/2004

• The A-Team finally cleared [via belle waring]
• VoIP - "one of those rare new technologies where the reality was far outstripping the hype."
• MKULTRA - a defunct CIA mind control research program
• Article that proposes the abolition of the American Electoral College
  

Commentary

Commentary.co.za has lots of new content, which I am catching up with now.

Darfur

Col Lounsbury has a detailed analysis of the situation in Darfur.

Daily Links - 10/08/2004

• 1/3 of 2003 UK graduates out of work
• Top 10 software programs [via Anil Dash]
• Morons watch DVDs while driving
• Gauteng's "land shortage". Check this post out for links to more information about the dolomite problem.
• I am pretty sure that Durbanites were thrilled about the public holiday, with all the Gauteng money being spent there.
  
• Good riddance to the Nats
• I'm going to get the whole XP SP2, since it's difficult to download patches when reinstalling Windows
  
• DataDots defeat Australian chop shops
• 60-70 % of online news readers are male
• Lightning as art
• Doom 3 review
• 702 interviewed the police chief in the Pakistani town of Gujarat who denied speaking to the media about an alleged "Al-Qaida plot".

Back

The traffic back from Durban was hectic.

Away

Back next week.

Daily Links - 05/08/2004

• Earning big money as a translator in Japan
• New weapons freeze and microwave enemies
• Why one New York building may have been on an alleged al-qaeda hitlist
• A polling technique examined
• Word of the day: autodidact
• The SA blog world has been speaking about an al-qaeda threat to Gauteng. Check out the corner office for a roundup. Also check out Fodder.
  

Daily Links - 03/08/2004

• POLITICS.ZA now has an RSS feed
• Sniffer dog dies of suspected overdose
• Renewing a driver's licence.
• Niger uranium forgery details emerge. [via mostly AFRICA] See also this analysis by Juan Cole
  
• Q&A on Cape Town informal settlements
• Rhodes University weblogs [via Commentary]
• Should car prices come down? [via the corner office]
• Employee error costs Canadian bank millions [via the corner office]
  

Daily Link - 02/08/2004

• Interview with Bart Simpson's voice

Daily Links - 01/08/2004

• Is Nancy Reagan opposed to Bush's re-election ? [via UnFairWitness]
• DA's American analogue - Democrats or Republicans?
• US Department of Energy analysis of Sudan [via LRC]
• 30 billion Windows crashes a year
• New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners [via antiwar.com]
• Secular Iraqi Shiite politicians snub Iran, ally themselves with Sunnis