Bike Ride

So after a long time, I finally got back on my bike this weekend. With the good weather, and a long 1Km downhill after a relatively hard slow uphill, it was very enjoyable. The fact remains though, at this stage I am quite slow - managing only an average of 16Km/h over 24 kms on Sunday (though it was better than 15.3 Km/h over same distance on Saturday). If I remotely want to consider doing the Argus next year, I need to do atleast 20Km/h - and that will take some doing.

But regardless - the aim is to get fitter, and ejoy the downhill. Doing 47Km/h at the bottom of the hill by Wynberg Park was fun! And sunrise from Kirstenbosch was spectacular.

Awesome F1 Laps

This weekend is the British F1 race - fond memories from last year, when I actually watched the race from the famous Copse Corner! Saw this link on a F1 forum on Schumi's qualifying lap from 10 years back at Monaco ... it's amazing!

Goth Metal revisited

So a while back, I posted about a band called Barathrum. Anyway, I had some time recently, and decided to have a listen to album at the Look and Listen store ...

The music itself was quite good - sounded a bit like Metallica to be honest. But as for the songs themselves ... lets just say that they make Barry White sound smooth and angelic. Personally, I really had to restrain myself from bursting into laughter ... maybe their live act is interesting, but on CD, it just didn't work for me.

Movie: Proof

Initially, I did not really want to watch this movie, because I thought it would be yet another movie like "The Beautiful Mind". I am glad, that due to scheduling conflicts, I did go watch it. The acting was superb, and although the story was good. And unlike, the beautiful mind, which was a biopic, this dealt with a much shorter timeline, and was less complex.

But the question it poses has been bugging me since I watched it - there is a notion, that the best work academically is done by the young - the under 25's - and once a person goes past that age, it's all downhill. Yes, I am still 20 months away from that age, but that's not a very soothing feeling. Maybe 40 or 30 is not the age to be afraid of ...

Movie: X Men 3

Superhero movies are not that different to action movies, except for the facts that

1. They have cool characters that do things that you wish you could


2. Have some resemblance of a plot


3. A bad guy that wants to rule the world

Off course X-Men 3 fulfils all these criteria, and unlike most superhero plots, there are a lot more people who have super powers, which makes things a lot more interesting. But to be honest, the movie seemed to lack something, it was loud, with massive CG effects, but personally, it just did not click.

It's a lot of fun, but not a classic.

Car Auction

ABSA was holding a no reserve, repossesion auction in Milnerton, and sensing the opportunity for a bargain, I decided to attend. The variety was quite interesting in itself, from cars that were damaged beyond repair to cars that were almost brand new. I did go to the inspection on Wednesday, which was useful in identifying the cars that I could possibly bid for, but the ultimate test drive was not possible.

The auction itself was an interesting experience, and I noticed that some buyers ended up spending more than the car's reported trade value. But there were a lot of deals to be had, and quite a few cars were sold below half the reported trade value. Ultimately, I realised that my budget was a bit too small for the purpose of buying a car at an auction esp. as I was bidding against car dealers, but for more expensive cars, and an adequate budget, auctions could be a great place to pick up bargains.

African Film Festival at the Centre for African Studies

This week is aparently Africa Week, and in celebration, the Centre for African Studies is having 3 days of short films this week, mostly short documentaries (about 30 minutes in length). Today's lineup was all South African with "Little Miss Tiny", "My Son the Bride" and "The Spirit of the Uhadi".

The first film was about beauty pagents for kids, very wierd, and more in the style of something from Special Assignment/Carte Blanche etc. The second story was part tragic, part uplifting and quite humorous focussing on gay relationships in townships. However, I think both of these were quite amateurish in nature, and needed a lot more polish.

The last film was a documentary on Thandiswa Mazwai's quest to learn more about traditional Xhosa music and culture. For this, she went back to rural Transkei to learn from Madosini, one of the most well known artists in this genre. I had never heardof Madosini, but then she puts it best herself - she is more well known outside South Africa than inside, and a quick Google search reveals quite a bit of that ...

Heavy Metal, Shock Rock, Goth Metal etc

Two weeks ago, I came across an album by a Finnish band called Barathrum while looking for Seether's new album at the Cavendish Look and Listen. The album was called Okkult, and what really drew attention was their song titles like "Virgin Blood Spiller", "Bride of Lucifer" and "Whores of Hades". According to Wikipedia, they are a great band, but I can't find any of their songs online, and paying R180 is a bit steep for a music CD.

But the search for the Okkult album led me to another Finnish heavy metal group, Nightwish, and I was truly blown away. I don't think that they are not strictly heavy metal, as they feature a lot of opera, but the songs are just great.

The Finns seem to have a great number of these bands. There is off course The Rasmus, who were great at the Coca Colab Massive Mix, but they are pretty tame and ordinary when compared to the winners of this year's Eurovision contest - Lordi. I watched one of their videos online, and thought it was quite good. I would like to hear some more of them actually.

The past two weeks has also revealed some other shock rock/heavy metal bands, most notably the American band GWAR. Wikipedia has quite a good review of them, and their names really stand out.

So my appeal - anyone have albums from these bands? I have some Rasmus and Nightwish, but not much else ....

Movie: Mission Impossible 3

In general, action movies have a few criteria:

• Lots of explosions
• Lots of guns
• Car chases
• planes, helicopters and other vehicle stunts
• A roof chase scene
• Funky gadgets
• Lots of babes, either in distress or wielding guns; and finally
• a bad script

Except for the 2^nd to last point (there was only one beautiful woman in the movie IMO), MI-3 fulfils all of those criteria, especially with regards to roof top action. It's not a great movie, but it's not a bad action movie.

Stupid Windows

A picture is worth a thousand words ...

Sport and Development

Over the weekend, the UCT Badminton Club hosted the inaugural UCT Schools Challenge, a schools only badminton competition played in a cup format. I am quite proud of the turnout considering it was my pet project, and 66 boys and girls participated from about 10 different schools. It is my pet project, and like the UCT Open, I hope that it becomes an annual event.

Badminton was once a very popular sport at UCT, and during the bad old days of apartheid in the 70's, UCT was once the strongest clubs in the country featuring a number of South African players. In fact, the UCT Sports Team of the Year trophy is called the Doug Butterworth Trophy after a past chairperson of both the UCT Badminton club and the WP Badminton Association. But being a white dominated sport in the past has meant that the sport is in dire need of "transformation" in some parts of the country. Furthermore, because it is not a professional sport in South Africa, there is very little money in the sport. This is despite the fact that it is also an Olympic sport, but then look at swimming and sponsorship and it is easy to see that money only flows to Cricket, Rugby and Soccer.

Regardless of these hindrances, badminton is a huge sport in Oceanview, a predominantly coloured community in the Cape Flats. And there are two very good reasons for this. First and foremost is Dorian James, currently one of the top four South African players (and off course a two time winner of the UCT Open ;)). His rise to the top (and also his brother Enrico) has meant that the community has something to celebrate. Secondly is the involvement of Chris James and Francois Wessels in the development of the sport in the community, pushing it in to the schools. This has resulted in even more results with virtually the entire South African U19 squad coming from Oceanview.

It is the last fact that has really inspired other kids - to see that their friends have come to the level that they are traveling around the country and overseas. In the Schools Challenge, the largest percentage of the kids were from Oceanview, and they had teams in both the girls and boys semi-finals, with one of the boys teams loosing the final is a very close deciding match and one of the girls teams winning the finals. It is in them, that the results of development can really be seen, and ultimately measured.

F#$%*&@ Stormers

What a crappy sporting weekend ... Ferrari and Schumi gets beaten by Fernando the most boring grand prix of the year so far (resulting a crappy return on expenses for food at sports cafe). But it was spoilt already by the really pathetic performance of the Stormers in their Super 14 match against the Bulls. I mean, come on ... a maximum of 31 points deficit was all that was asked, but no ... all the Stormers could do was score 10 points and let in 43! And the Stormers players were bitching about not being included in the Springboks squad ... there is the reason! Admittedly part of the fault does lay in with the Sharks, first for not beating the Bulls and secondly for letting in the late try from the Western Force but rationality has never been a strong feature for sports supporters ;)

Movie: Inside Man

Spike Lee is a brilliant director, and in my opinion, he is one of the rare directors that has managed to merge entertainment with a distinct political viewpoint that often challenges the viewer's opinions on the subject matter. 25th Hour for example was about racism and xenophobia wrapped up in a story about drugs.

Inside Man is largely about a bank robbery - the ellusive, perfect bank robbery. But, there are so many other facets about the story - the treatment of victims, xenophobia and racism and the very touchy subject on profiting from the plight of others - in this case, profiting from Nazi clients during WW2. Until the end of the movie, this is not even the focus - but it is very much the central core of the movie, and like othe Spike Lee movies, this also raises uncomfortable questions - how much sympathy should we have for people (or companies) that made money out of exploitation. It is a touchy question, because some of the economic powerhouses are involved.

The movie cast is a list of mega stars - Denzel Washington, clive Owen, Willem Dafoe and Jodie Foster. It is a great story, very clever, well told and definitely ranks as one of the best movies about robberies.

Movie: Mrs Henderson Presents

Take a very rich, well connected, old lady (Judy Dench) who has been recently widowed. Since her only son was killed in WW1, she has basically got a lot of time and money but nothing to do. So she buys a theatre. And, because ordinary shows are not going to make as much money - she pulls her connections and debuts the show with a difference - nude still models around who the shows will run. In conservative London, this is a big hit - and once WW2 starts, it becomes more popular with all the young men off to the army.

That is the gist of the story - it is hilarious, well acted and has a nice, simple but sentimental story.

Movie: Brokeback Mountain

This movie is incredibly slow (as many movies in this genre are), it has beautiful cinematography, it has a great story - but because it is so slow, it is also incredibly boring. I can't really say more, because I spent more time fast forwarding (the DVD) than watching at some points,, and I think I know very well why Crash won best picture oscar - because it was entertaining also!

Telkom: The Ripoff

Also known as the "continued experiments with Skype"

So, I decided to arm myself with 10 Euros of Skype credit (the only ammount you can purchase) and try to phone some places - chief being my family back in India. To test it out however, I decided to call my Mom in Durban first. The 3 minute 19 sec call (just before 6pm) cost me 22 euro cents or approximately R1.67 according to xe.com. The quality was not great unfortunately, but was still audible, and understandable - although there were quite a few dropped packets.

Comparatively, if I used a Telkom Payphone, it would have cost me R4.50 on a Telkom pay phone and R2.66 on a land line. As for using a cell phone, it would have cost me just under R10 according to the rates on the Vodacom website. Thus, Skype beats all of them at the rates game!

As for India there was some serious lag ... about 4 to 5 seconds. But hell, the cost made it worth it.

Skype Conference and Laura Croft

So I had the Skype conference this morning, and it really went well. At least 3 hours of video conferencing with minimal lag (a few dropped packets here and there) - it was a pleasure. Presenting a 19 slide slideshow from 12 000 Km away was also very interesting, and it all went well. Off course having a receptive conference organiser was also part of the deal, and my thanks to the DMP for great organising!

As for Laura Croft ... totally unrelated really. I read an article at Wired today, where the writer discussed the idea that the success of Laura Croft is not necessarily due to horny teenage guys lusting over big boobs but more of the thrill of rescuing a woman from danger. It's quite an interesting read - and does ring true somewhat. But I still think, that the big boobs do have a big factor ... I don't think small boobs and an ugly face would have sold as well ....

Skype

So I have finally joined the Skype revolution, and boy was I impressed. Helped with the extra bandwidth allocation from ITS (I think) I had a long (over 30 minute) video call with absolutely no problems. My friend on the other end (Tobias) actually commented on the smoothness of my video link!

Anyway, the whole point of this Skype exercise is to participate over the Internet in the Digital Media Project (DMP)'s 10th General Assembly, where I have submitted a proposal that will hopefully be adopted as a standard! Due to financial reasons (cost was estimated about R15 000, which I had to pay by myself, and did not have at the time) I could not attend physically - so this Skype solution was proposed by the organisers.

Which brings me to my next pet project ... there are a lot of conferences in the world, and due to financial reasons, student participation from UCT at these conferences are minimal, restricted usually only if the student is presenting a paper (and even then I have known students not to get funding!). But, if research is to be truly "world class", participation at major conferences is a priority in many fields. And this is where Skype comes in. Skype seems very good at video (can even do full screen), and there is usually good bandwidth availability at conferences. Surely, it would therefore be easier to hookup a connection at these conferences and "broadcast" it back to UCT, where interested parties can then take part in the presentations and even forward questions to the speakers! This would be a step up from the blogging that Carl and I did from Siggraph and ACM-CCS respectively last year, and certainly more useful.

I know a few conferences might object, but assuming we have their blessing, this could certainly be a good step forward in engaging researchers around the world! So, as a start, I would like to invite anyone who is interested in the DMP to come around and join me (but I think it would be rather boring for most people). I am also willing to do a Skype broadcast from ISSA if anyone is interested and I am allowed to ...

Music: Superdan & Apocalypse Cows

Wednesday night was Sara's first gig as part of her new band - Supadan at the Mercury Lounge, and a whole bunch of us went along to support. Supadan themselves are not a new band, but it was the first time I have seen them live. The music is best described as Hip-Hop with quite a bit of Jazz and Rock influences. To be honest, the music was nothing special, and I thought the stage show as such does need a bit of work. But, it was very enjoyable, and I would love to go see them play again. I hope they sort out the reverb on Sara's mike though ... couldn't really hear her because of the reverb.

Apocalypse Cows was the band that followed Supadan, and they can be best described as heavy rock accompanying cacophony. Indeed, the lead singer very much reminded me of the bard Cacofonix in Asterix and Obelix. Whether he actually utters words into the microphone or its just one scream after another, is up for debate ... but we did not stay behind long enough to investigate. The only positive is that they had a good heavy rock sound (in terms of the music). But, they need to get a better singer or failing that, better songs.

Internet for the masses, Chuck Norris and the Wonders of the World

In an earlier post I mentioned the availability of free Internet access to all Cape Town library members. I didn't want to work yesterday morning, and took the opportunity to have a relook at the system at the Mowbray library. Incidentally, the company tasked with providing this service, Sm@rt Cape, is also rolling out trucks with PCs for the wider poorer communities in Cape Town.

The system is completely open source, using Firefox, Open Office 1.1 (should really be using Open Office 2.0 in my opinion) and runs on Linux in what seems like Enlightenment window manager for X. I didn't spend too much time on the system, but it was pretty easy to use, and I do not think it will require too much training to use. In particular, there is no need to learn complicated menu systems (there are no menus), and there is a clock counting down how long you have left on the system. I was however not impressed with the Internet speed, and websites took forever to load - so long that I just gave up in the end. The only other complaint I have is that there is no taskbar, something that could confuse a lot of novice users of the system who know how to multitask - but are not sure on how to get around multiple windows.

Later on in the afternoon, was the annual UCT RAG Floats Parade. For the second time in its 80 year history (first being last year), it was held on Main Road between Rondebosch and Mowbray. It was also held in the afternoon, and like last year, there was a mini carnival held at Mowbray Town Hall - this year featuring some top bands like the Finkelstiens and 340ml. From outside, the carnival was not much of a success - there was hardly anyone there, and to charge an entry fee for such a small carnival was suicidal in my opinion.

The floats this year were of poor quality this year, despite have longer time to actually do them. The amount of student participation in the floats was shocking (some floats barely had people in them), and most floats was rife with adverts from various companies. In fact, some residences went so far as making the company the subject of the float - definitely a sign of the modern times - but not really a wonder of the world.


Varietas' music dog was one of the best floats, featuring a spinning disc and lots of students, mostly playing various instruments. But a wonder of the world?



Chuck Norris made an appearance, with a number of Kopano boys strutting their stuff as Chuck Norris. I don't know (or understand) what the recent fascination with Chuck Norris comes from, but he appears to be everywhere.




EBE's (the engineering students) had some real engineering with a plane that could tilt from side to side. It was definitely one of the better floats. The Marquard space shuttle was small, but atleast they kept to the theme.



Smuts had the most commercial float - scoring not one but two sponsors. Whether McDonald's qualify as a wonder of the world can be debatable, but Scooters Pizza's 3 for 2 deal might just qualify ;)