Month: December 2004

Native American History, its overlaps with South Africa, and the villainous Ronald Reagan

I’ve just finished reading a book on Native American history, The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson. The US government is not in my good books right now, and books like this don’t help! As one Amazon reviewer points out, the book does focus more on the settlers crimes, the massacres, the betrayals, rather than… Continue reading Native American History, its overlaps with South Africa, and the villainous Ronald Reagan

Donald Trump

I’ve just finished reading a biography about Donald Trump. My excuse for such a deed is that I’ve been watching The Apprentice, the reality TV show where a number of applicants get to compete against each other for the dubious privilege of working for Donald Trump. The book, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald… Continue reading Donald Trump

Guinness, Shiatsu and the CES

I belong to the Cape Town Community Exchange System, a local currency (or LETS). The system has been fascinating for me, as its caused to me to think about how our economic system works (or not). For someone who’s never had any formal economic training, the system allows me to examine the implications of various… Continue reading Guinness, Shiatsu and the CES

Linux wins out over FreeBSD for our MySQL servers

Sadly not because of any extensive benchmarking. There are two main reasons we’ve made the decision to go with Gentoo Linux. our sysadmin couldn’t get FreeBSD installed on the 6GB dual Xeon servers. Apparently not all the drivers for the hardware are available yet. with our main database server in torrid shape, we need to… Continue reading Linux wins out over FreeBSD for our MySQL servers

Same-sex marriage

Interesting news that the Supreme Court of Appeals has approved same-sex marriages. I say interesting because although I support the ruling, it raises interesting questions for me personally. I am unmarried, although I have a child, and am in a stable relationship – at least as much as I believe is possible 🙂 For me,… Continue reading Same-sex marriage

Google Ads and Search

I’ve added Google ads and the Google search bar to my site, more out of interest than in expectation of a vast revenue stream. The process was remarkably easy – it’s good to have a pleasant surprise technology-wise for a change. The search bar doesn’t yet search the greenman domain properly, as Google still have… Continue reading Google Ads and Search