When I was young, I would find it very difficult to ask anyone for help. I remember many stalemates with my father, where I would stubbornly not ask, and he would stubbornly not offer. A university job cold soliciting advertising for the student newspaper helped immensely! Not asking for help is a meanness of spirit,… Continue reading Trust and asking
South Africa’s first electric car
I keep telling my son that by the time he can drive, cars won’t be the destructive beasts farting all over our planet they are now, but will run on clean electricity, and you’ll be able to stand behind one breathing clean air. The first part of the puzzle is being put in place with… Continue reading South Africa’s first electric car
Hei Hei Hei
It’s been a while since my last “I’m learning” post. Let’s see. There’s been: Learning Toki Pona (December 2009) Learning Languages Revisited (March 2009) Tune Xhosa with Ian (December 2007) Learning Mandarin Chinese, and some insight into my brain’s inner workings (June 2007) So what’s the latest language I can add to the “learned and… Continue reading Hei Hei Hei
Wiki Cape Town, Joe Slovo and a storyteller
There was a Cape Town Wikimedia meetup this week, and I got to meet a couple of new people. Victor, a Wikimedia storyteller from San Francisco, is in Cape Town, mainly to document the inspiring story of a school in Joe Slovo Park that have successfully lobbied FNB Connect for free access to Wikipedia pages.… Continue reading Wiki Cape Town, Joe Slovo and a storyteller
WordPress spam, Akismet and Cookies for Comments
This blog gets about 1 spam comment a second. Not bad for an obscure blog with, as I write this, only one post open for comments. Akismet, the spam plugin does a great job of keeping the spam out, although recently a few more spam posts have been sneaking through for moderation, perhaps two a… Continue reading WordPress spam, Akismet and Cookies for Comments
May 2013 African language Wikipedia update
There’s a current proposal to close the Xhosa Wikipedia for lack of activity, so I thought it’d be a good time to see the progress of the African and South African language Wikipedias. Heading the list of African-language Wikipedias by article count, Malagasy is still racing ahead in creating new articles, mainly thanks to articles… Continue reading May 2013 African language Wikipedia update
South Africa slumps in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index.
The 2013 World Press Freedom Index came out recently, and sadly, South Africa has slid alarmingly since I last blogged about it in 2007, and even more so when compared with its peak rating in 2003. Note that a lower score is better. Year Score Ranking 2013 24.56 (-12.56) 52 (-10) 2012 12 (0) 42… Continue reading South Africa slumps in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index.
MySQL, MariaDB and relative asymptotics
In 2002 I wrote a book on MySQL. At the time, I was working crazy fulltime hours for IOL and I was exhausted by the end of the process. I’ve been approached quite a few times since to write an update, or to write other related books, but have never had the energy, time or… Continue reading MySQL, MariaDB and relative asymptotics
Speed Comparison of South African Media Websites
I’ve noticed that each time I’ve visited IOL recently my browser takes a noticeable performance knock. Trying to browse it by opening lots of tabs, as I do with most sites I visit, is out of the question, and it’s probably the worst-performing site I have visited recently. I decided to run speed tests of… Continue reading Speed Comparison of South African Media Websites
You like my blog?
With my regularly updated blog jam-packed full of brilliant content, naturally it receives more compliments than Lady Gaga’s Twitter account. Happy New Year by the way. And Christmas. One fan went a bit overboard, submitting what seems to be every one of the compliments spammers regularly use to deceiver bloggers. Here’s the heartfelt comment: Thanks… Continue reading You like my blog?