About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

07 July 2012

The Man behind the SKA Bid

A few weeks ago, South Africa won the majority of the bid to host the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Radio Telescope; after a process that took close to a decade to complete. The Mail & Guardian has a brilliant profile of Dr Bernie Fanaroff; the lead in the bid project. Like many prominent persons in government posts, he has a very interesting profile - a mixture of struggle credentials and true achievements.

01 July 2012

Movie: The Avengers

I finally got round to seeing the culmination of the Marvel universe movies; and in 2D too (yes, I much prefer 2D)!

As to be expected from superhero movies, reality needs to be left at the door. And so is logical reasoning, even taking account of the assumptions made in the movie seem to be thrown out.

That said, The Avengers script is a lot less nonsensical, and does manage to tie the various other superhero movies together quite nicely. The first two thirds is fairly mundane; but as the main battle begins, so does the very impressive action sequences and very slick story telling. It didn't really need the mundane bits to help it stick; so hopefully future renditions just skip that lot.