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Archive for October, 2005
Smash an iPod
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Some lunatic has requested donations, purchased a brand new video iPod and filmed himself smashing it in an Apple store. The reason for this frenetic activity and waste of money: for providing satisfaction to people who always wanted to see that thing smashed and seeing the reaction of the people who just cashed in half their paycheck to buy one of these. Entertainment? I’m not too sure. In a country where a new iPod costs a fair bit of money and is accessible to only a small segment of the population, I view this as a typical example of capitalist excess. |
New ABSA Internet banking site
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
It seems all banks in South Africa are refurbishing their existing banking sites to be more user-friendly and up to date. I’ve never been too happy with the Nedbank site, but the ABSA facility was intuitive and easy to use. The new ABSA site is an improvement over what they had before and works even better!
Car-free day
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
Today is meant to be a car-free day in major cities of South Africa. The initiative by the government is supposed to determine shortfalls in the public transportation chain. The public has been requested to participate by trying to use an alternative means of transport to get around today. There are reports of electric cars and hot air balloons being used. In my opinion, there is no useful public transport in South Africa. Trains and buses travel between areas of the city that no longer house the majority of businesses and industry. I think the government has reason to be alarmed – a plan of action needs to be put in place for the 2010 World Cup. I find the initiative interesting. A follow-up once certain actions have been put into place is absolutely essential. Subjectively, there seems to have been little alleviation of congestion on the roads this morning: the majority of cars on the highway (mine included) transporting only one person.
Batman Begins released on DVD
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I watched a |
UJHB project day
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
I spent yesterday judging projects developed and presented by final year computer science students at the University of Johannesburg. The difficult task of selecting 6 finalists from a total of 42 projects was made rather difficult given the overall high quality of work on display. The most interesting aspect was the broad range of technologies utilized, everything from GPRS communication to biometrics. The winning team provided a fully functional, packaged solution for access control utilizing fingerprint scanners together with back-end reporting and management. The second placed team combined GPS and GPRS to provide a vehicle tracking and management system. In third place, a computerized data capturing system for use in manganese production. I was impressed with the quality and professional appearance of the systems, but can’t help thinking how much easier a lot of the development work has become given the proliferation of visual design toolkits and availability of open source code. In my day, menu systems and screen handling had to be coded from scratch using C or Pascal, never mind the coding of the actual application and database management routines. The progress in IT is certainly amazing!
Season end
It ended the way it was expected: Fernando Alonso’s dominance in this year’s F1 Championship has to be acknowledged. As the youngest ever F1 world champion he has certainly done an admirable job. My personal interest in this year’s competition faded rapidly – no time to spend in front of the TV to catch the action! The races I saw were tedious affairs at best. My highlight this year: watching the season opener in Melbourne live!
Drivers
1. Fernando Alonso with 133 points
2. Kimi Raikkonen with 112 points
3. Michael Schumacher with 62 points
Teams
1. Renault with 191 points
2. McLaren Mercedes with 182 points
3. Ferrari with 100 points
I hope next season will offer a bit more excitement and stronger competition from all teams. A one horse race is only good if it involves the prancing horse. 
New James Bond
The fact that Pierce Brosnan no longer had an interest in portraying James Bond has been known for a while. For the next Bond movie, Casino Royale, no replacement was announced until today. The new James Bond is Daniel Craig. I can’t recall having seen him in anything so far. I hope the producers stick to the original Ian Fleming books. Casino Royale is one of my favourites – if done according to the book by Fleming, any Bond actor would do!
Windows Mobile 5.0 driver from ThinkOutside
6 years ago
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Can’t use this yet – the Windows Mobile upgrade for the LOOX 720 has been postponed until early next year. At least it’s available when I need it! The updated driver for the ThinkOutside Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard provides some additional features, especially for adding special characters, etc. |
Interest rate remains unchanged
6 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
After a good run this year it seems that our hopes of future interest rate cuts are diminishing. The South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee has decided to leave the current interest rate unchanged. The prime lending rate will therefore remain at 10.5%. At least we don’t have to cough up more…for now.
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