A grapetiser

Basic Instructions to whatever...

I just want to say, that Basic Instructions is a really cool cartoon that I recently found on the web. I've added it to my RSS feed, and there is lots of cool humour there.

It can be found at www.basicinstructions.net

South Africa should follow suit!

Scott Adams told me about this story, and I have to agree with him.

If in South Africa we gave the death penalty to all the government officials that took bribes that cost lives, then we probably wouldn't have much of a cabinet left.

I think it's high time SA started taking a much firmer stance on corruption.

Scott Adams also says this:
3. I’d be amazed if the death penalty deterred anyone who was in the frame of mind of committing a heinous crime.

This is very interesting to me, and it is a reason that a lot of people give for pro-death penalty debates. But I have to agree that those people that are already in a frame of mind that they can kill, are probably not thinking clearly enough to do take these things into consideration.

Sharks vs. Bulls

Well, I am actually a neutral.

But to me, the Bulls played extremely harsh, and I think they were really fortunate to not to have had two yellow cards against them.

Had Habanna got the yellow for the really, really, harsh tackle initially, the game could've looked a lot different.

Had Bakkies received the yellow for a really (but not as harsh as Habanna's) bad high tackle in front of the referee, the game would also have been the shark's.

The last Bull's move included a forward pass, and hands to get the free ball. However, the sharks did not use the oppertunities that they had, and in a way that doesn't make the deserved winners. But on the day, and through the season, I felt the sharks were better, and I would've liked to see them win it.

HOTORNOT I hate you!

I've been had... I was really stupid and didn't read, and clicked too quickly.

Bottom line is, everyone on my Gmail address book has been mailed inviting them to HotOrNot. How evil is that? I am pretty sure I've sent my boss an email from Gmail before (I'll be lucky if I never had).

I am so embarrassed... So, my humblest and most sincere apologies if you got an invite to HotOrNot from me. I will remove myself now... Hey... that's not a bad idea...

Hmmm I am not seeing an option for deleting, but I am now "inactive". :-/

UFO: Alien Invasion releases version 2.1.1

Well... the last version was almost a game. I hope this one will be almost complete.

I know it's got lots of music and lots of cool graphics. It seems they may have implemented the 3d geoscape, but I am yet to confirm it. (Downloading... ... ... ...)

If you have a strong connection and the 260mb download doesn't stop you, I am sure you'll be amazed at this game.

I'll post again as I get it downloaded. (or if I get it from one of you guys)

Sunset in Cape Town

Yesterday, I was supporting our soccer team (Pep's) in Phillipi. This was the sunset over table mountain. Absolutely incredible. Somehow it was lost on a lot of the people, but my eyes are sometimes just focussed on the beauty surrounding me. It is in times like this that I feel most happy and serene.

Unfortunately my phone's camera isn't the best (maybe in September after my upgrade), but this is why I always wanted a nice camera on my phone.

Krabbel trouble

This is Afrikaans scrabble. I won it. :-) Writing "Staker" there on the right. A "staker" is someone who is participating in a strike.

The wonder of cellphones and the internet... You can immortalize your victories forever! Bwuahahahahaha!

Anyway, the game was very tight, because in the 1st round someone else played out with "Ysterman" (Ironman). So it is pretty hard to get back from the 50+ bonus scores.

Hope you all win your games... but not against me.

Google gets Green

I use google earth... but I *know* I will not enable this layer.

To me the really interesting part of this post was this comment by amg96:

You know what. I am pretty fed up with all of the down with humanity people. Every single one, especially Al Gore, is a hypocrite when it comes to minimizing your precious "Carbon Footprint." Why don't you all move into a forrest or desert island, protect it the best that you can, and leave the rest of us alone.

Yes, there happens to be a COROLLATION between global warming and CO2 levels. But the warming trend started before industrialization, and there have been warming and cooling cycles on the earth way before man was here. Want to know why??? Because the Earth's revolution around the sun oscillates closer and further every 200,000 years or so. Also the magnetic poles of the Earth also shift causing a thinning of the atmosphere during a shift which also leads to temporary warming.

What happened to all the chicken littles who cried, "Oh no, we're headed for another ice age in the eighties" Guess that didn't happen did it!

To paraphrase George Carlin, how do you know that we weren't put here to create styrofoam., or to use trees, or dig holes, use oil, whatever. Don't you all think that we are just a product of evolution. Are you so holier than God to think that we are outside of nature? How pompous to think that we can save a whole planet. The planet will be here long after we are gone, because you know why? Survival of the fittest, and if we're not the fittest, then syanara to humanity, baby!

If you don't like big polluters, then don't support them. Stop trying to use the government's police force, because someday you might be on the receiving end of that force. Ride a bike, live in a cave, don't use the sewer system, don't use the power system, but STOP PREACHING WHAT YOU DON'T PRACTICE!!

Yes, we should try not to pollute because nobody wants to breath polluted air or drink polluted water, or see the cute fuzzy little animals die out, but why is it that no one seems to care about the insects, or how about this -- who gave you vegetarians the right to kill plants for food or kill bacteria and viruses. Why don't you all just become breathans and live off the air!

I'm all for space exploration. There are plenty of planets and stars out there, and why don't all the tree huggers live on Earth and the rest of us can live on other planets and do as we will. If we have to use some trees for houses or kill some animals and plants for food, or mine some coal (or use wind - hey I'm not unreasonable), then let us do it in peace, and stop trying to bully the rest of the world. If it wasn't for business, you wouldn't have 1 tenth of the things you have -- you would have to make your own clothes, hunt or grow your own food and build and maintain your own shelter, forget about your own energy! Think a little before you try taking us all back to the stone ages!!!

For one, this is news to me, but in other news... Scott Adams (writer of Dilbert - *waves* hi to Scott, because Google Alerts will now let him know of this post) has written that fossils are BS. Another post which to me, made a lot of sense and are saying that for all these years, scientists have come to a conclusion, and are justifying their conclusion with facts. Instead of looking at the facts and then drawing a conclusion.

For me the Flying Spaghetti Monster is living proof of this "fact".

My Magic Bunnies and Hunters

Ok... Some quick definitions...

A bunny is someone who I've played 5 times or more, and against whom I have a 60%+ winning ratio.

A hunter is someone who I've played 5 times or more, and against whom I have a 60%+ loss ratio.

Ideally though, to define bunnies and hunters you'd probably want about a 2/3 ratio, and about 8-10 games played. But those stats wouldn't have included so many people. :-)

These stats are as 2006/12/16 (I've played in some prereleases since then and have won 8/9... eagerly awaiting those updates), and consist of Limited and Constructed.

Opponent	Loss	Tie	Win	Games	Win Ratio	Bunny/Hunter
Bunnies
Bethany Culbert			5	5	1.00	Bunny
Izak van Zyl Marais	2		6	8	0.75	Bunny
Jeffrey Manuel	2		5	7	0.71	Bunny
Tiaan G. Towsen	4		7	11	0.64	Bunny
Emile C. Wilton	3		5	8	0.63	Bunny
Andre' Ferreira	1	1	3	5	0.60	Bunny
Andre' Rademan	2		3	5	0.60	Bunny
Brian Harris	2		3	5	0.60	Bunny
Hunters
Detlef Romatzki	4	1	1	6	0.17	Hunter
Kestell Laurie	6	1	2	9	0.22	Hunter
Herc Du Preez	6		2	8	0.25	Hunter
Nico J. Boshoff	8	1	4	13	0.31	Hunter
Jacques Eloff	4		2	6	0.33	Hunter
Durham Smith	9		5	14	0.36	Hunter
Peter Norman	7		4	11	0.36	Hunter
Dwayne Kimber	3		2	5	0.40	Hunter

Of these stats... what interest me the most is probably Nico Boshoff. I thought I beat him a lot more... but I guess it's because especially against Nico, you tend to remember the wins more. But it's also interesting how often we've been paired together.

I hope to get Dwayne off the list, then my Hunters is less than my Bunnies. I also know I beat Kestell in the draft, but he that win is only step one of quite a few to get him off the list.

The US date format vs. The rest of the world

Ok, this is one of my pet peeves.

31 January 2007 should be written like this: 2007/01/31. It's what makes sense mathematically. Same as 103 is written as 1 in the "hundreds" a 0 in the "tens" and 3 in the "ones". 2007/01/31 has "2007" in the "years" or even "20" in the Millennium, "07" in the "years", "01" in the months, and "31" in the days.

01/31/2007 and 31/01/2007 both makes little sense. Because I've been reared with 31/01/2007, it's natural to me... also the same as the one that makes mathematically sense, just the other way around.

But this is what I can say for the US system. A computer checking the month while you are typing the days is much more comfortable if you've already typed the month. So trying to type 31/01/2006 when 05/02/2007 is the "default" is somewhat tricky if the validation is done real time. You first have to change the 02 to 01 (or another month with 31 days) before you can change it to 31.

Fortunately most date input boxes aren't programed to validate real time, but Powerbuilder is. And it sux... suxx. suxxx.

But my suggestion is everyone dates MMYY/mm/dd.

Firefox 2 quirks

Well well... Firefox 2 has been released.

However it has one peculiar quirk that I hated... the close buttons on all the tabs. But in true open source fashion this is customizable. My personal favourite is to have it have a close button on the active tab only.

To do this... I've found out from this site.

• Open a new tab and type about:config in the address bar and press enter.

• In the filter field type browser.tabs.closeButtons.

• Double-click on the entry and enter the corresponding number below:

0 - Display a close button on the active tab only
1 - Display a close button on each tab (default)
2 - Don’t display any close buttons
3 - Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)

• Click OK

• Close the about:config editor or tab

However, the option 3 apparently doesn't work properly. I use 0, and I am very happy.

Proudly South African

Well...

I found this really interesting. And I am very glad that we have South Aficans who are so liberal, and so ahead in their thinking about South African politics.

This reminds me of the EU that wants to ban the Swastica, but the Hindu people oppose it because it is also a symbol in their religion that resembles peace and stuff - I don't really have the Hindu angle covered, but yeah... (I should really add a link here, but I am a lazy blogger).

I agree though with John Smith not signing it. But had it been the black guy's old flag... I dunno. We all have such double standards. ;-) Racism is all about double standards.

Jhb and CT traffic in terms of Dnd allignments

Well...

My sister-in-law moved from Johannesburg to Cape Town recently. And well, the way people drive always become a topic of conversation.

Now I thought about it this morning, and since I've driven in both Jhb and CT, I feel I can comment on the subject. For me, Cape Town drivers are very "lawful" to use the DnD terms. The Jhb drivers are far less lawful than the Cape Town drivers, but they are in fact more "good".

To explain this with examples I'll have for Cape Town:
The guy who sits in the right hand lane doing pretty much the speed limit (Speed limit is 120, and they'll be doing 115 or so). Very lawful. But not very considerate.

Or for instance you'll put on your indicator to pass the truck... but since you've had to slow down to 80 to not drive into the truck, the people coming from behind at 115 won't give you a gap. You'll be behind that truck in CT until there is a natural gap in the traffic or until the truck turns off.

For Johannesburg it's the other way around:
They go 140-160, but they are considerate. Or in suburban areas they'll be doing 80, but if you want to get out of your parking spot, or need to get past that truck or whatever, they'll give you that gap you need.

It's like they understand that the traffic is so bad, that not giving a gap worsens it more than actually giving the gap.

It's the concept Mr Nash (Beautiful Mind anyone?) in real life. What's best for the individual, isn't necessarily better for the whole. Jhb understands that, CT doesnt.