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.