My favourite anti-Wikipedia sophist, the Register’s Andrew Orlowsky, is at it again in an article entitled Who owns your Wikipedia bio?. He reminds me of Ali-G, in that its the reaction of his victims, more than the nonsense he speaks, that provides the humour. A notable example for Americans was when Ali G (actually it… Continue reading Wikipedia as role-playing game
Swedish innovation
The Scandanavian countries strike me as the most progressive in so many ways, with Sweden being particularly abundant and innovative. It didn’t get to be like that for no reason. Its government spends 4.27% of its GDP on research, more than any other country in the world besides Israel. Unlike Israel, and many other countries… Continue reading Swedish innovation
The archetypal Gemini
Sometimes I have to laugh at myself for fitting the cliches so well. Without getting into whether I’m actually a flighty Gemini or a bull-headed Taurus, or whether its all a bunch of bollocks, I clearly fit the image of someone with 101 interests, and who gets bored if I’m stuck on one thing too… Continue reading The archetypal Gemini
Looking for the whaling ship Nisshin Maru
The following Greenpeace request came across my path. If anyone wants and is able to help them track down a whaling ship, read further. The ship we are seeking is named the Nisshin Maru, gross tonnage 8,030, length 130 metres, radio call sign JJCJ. She is the factory ship and will be accompanied by three… Continue reading Looking for the whaling ship Nisshin Maru
The pet food underworld
For the last few months I’ve been buying a cat food called Petite Anges. It’s made locally, is as good for the cats as the most expensive brands (and better than a lot of others – I checked the ingredients quite carefully), and is a lot cheaper. Until recently that is. It seems they’ve been… Continue reading The pet food underworld
b2evolution upgrades and antispam
Hopefully most of my gazillion readers have noticed the new look, but I’ve also been upgrading the blog’s backend. It now runs off b2evolution’s new(ish) Dawn release, which brings noticeably faster performance, and huge antispam improvements. With a couple of backend hacks as well, I’m down to deleting about one spam entry a day (I… Continue reading b2evolution upgrades and antispam
Music, aging and 101 reasons for a Black Celebration
I have many CD’s. If I had to listen to them all, one after the other, it’d probably take me months to listen to any of them twice. I can see why some old people get stuck in their musical ways – they just have so much of their own familiar music to listen to… Continue reading Music, aging and 101 reasons for a Black Celebration
Holes
I’m having fun tightening up my holy-as-a-sieve server. Being a clueless systems administrator, and the fact that the server is shared with one or two others, makes this quite challenging, but I’m enjoying bumbling around. A post on FreeBSD Server Administration entitled Contact form abused through BCC field triggered something in my memory, and I… Continue reading Holes
Dysfunctional site of the day
I still have plans to start a hall of shame (I’ll think of a better name) of dysfunctional websites in South Africa, not to humiliate the perpetrators, but to encourage them to make their sites more usable. Reasons for being dysfunctional include the all-too-common only working in Internet Explorer, broken links and general poor navigation.… Continue reading Dysfunctional site of the day
Pictures of my new home
I’m finally settling into my new home. It has the most stunning views over the city, harbour and mountains behind. The pictures of course don’t do it justice. And Cape Town in the summer has that energy to it, the city gets full, and the mountains call… Being within walking distance of Table Mountain is… Continue reading Pictures of my new home