Northern Sotho is the only official South African language without an active Wikipedia. The project sits in the incubator, where it interestingly has far more articles than all other SA languages bar English and Afrikaans (540 vs Swati on 187). Mohau Monaledi has been driving the project, and has contributed 1310 edits, more than everyone… Continue reading Northern Sotho Wikipedia needs help
Category: Metal (Technical)
The Windows treadmill
I own a laptop that came bundled with Windows Vista. I installed Linux as fast as possible, but left Windows as a dual-boot option mainly to check that things behave nicely in Internet Explorer. And a good thing too, because they usually don’t. I also keep it because I own some junk hardware that also… Continue reading The Windows treadmill
We are Stars
The 3rd in Don Kurtz’s excellent series of lectures moved outwards, towards the edge of the universe. While the first was a brief romp through the history of astronomy, and the second focused on the wonders of our nearest star, the 3rd looked outward towards the stars and beyond. There’s $600 million spent on each… Continue reading We are Stars
Global warming and the Sun
The second in Don Kurtz’s excellent series of lectures focused on the plain, ordinary old sun. Now reaching middle-aged, 4.6 billion years old with about another 5 and a half to go, the sun is wondrously active and mysterious. Unlike the earth, which rotates at the same speed at the equator and the poles, because… Continue reading Global warming and the Sun
Of burst bladders and tokamak stellerators
The tokamak stellerator is going to save humanity! In essence, this was the conclusion of a highly enjoyable lecture by Donald Kurtz, the first of a series of three lectures at the UCT Summer School, entitled The Stars are Ours (named after a novel by Andre Norton, who I’d previously mistakenly assumed to be a… Continue reading Of burst bladders and tokamak stellerators
From Hardy to Helena
I’ve recently upgraded my Lenovo Y510 from Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy, which I’ve been running since around May 2008, to Linux Mint 8, Helena (which is based on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10). I used to upgrade to the latest Ubuntu every 6 months, but it got a bit tiring keeping up on the upgrade treadmill, running… Continue reading From Hardy to Helena
Obstreperous Olive
I’ve just come back from Obstreperous Olive, the latest incarnation of the famous Geek Dinner. It was lots of fun again, with talks ranging from Fritjof Capra’s systems thinking, Umberto Eco’s Mouse or Rat essay on translation, Clean Code and whether to dump someone with clinical depression. That was just at my table. The actual… Continue reading Obstreperous Olive
Which is the best search engine?
If you’re tempted to leave Google, and wondering if Yahoo have upped their game, or whether Bing is revolutionising search, take a look at Blind Search. You can enter a search term, and get the three sets results you’d get from Bing, Google and Yahoo, without knowing which is which. You can then vote for… Continue reading Which is the best search engine?
MTN, Vodacom and Cell C square up against a Faraday Cage
Hold the Nobel Prize for Science. Visting friends last night, they excitedly told me that they had a Faraday Cage. U had put her phone in the cage and tested it by trying to ring it (it connected outside the cage), but couldn’t get a signal. Wanting to see this wonder in action, I put… Continue reading MTN, Vodacom and Cell C square up against a Faraday Cage
Renewable energy feed-in tariffs approved
NERSA, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, has approved some quite generous renewable energy feed-in tariffs. In short, renewable energy feed-in tariffs mean that developers can invest in renewable energy, and sell excess energy back to the grid (Eskom) at a profit, a price more than it costs to generate, and guaranteed for a… Continue reading Renewable energy feed-in tariffs approved