Sterkfontein Dam

Near Harrismith, Sterkfontein Dam is one of South Africa's largest.

LinkedIn's Skills

A few months ago, LinkedIn introduced "Skills", and the ability for your contacts to endorse such skills. On the surface, it's a cool idea; similar to tags for a profile, and gives a quick overview of a person's capabilities.

There are however some shortcomings that I have noticed over the past few months, both from profiles of my contacts and the endorsements I have received myself. I don't think skills and endorsements are used actively yet; but since LinkedIn is effectively a living and breathing CV; getting it right would be nice.

Firstly, having an endorsement doesn't necessarily mean that the person is capable of making a judgement for such an endorsement. There are many types of contacts on LinkedIn, and not all endorsements are equal.

Secondly, there is no mechanism to make a negative endorsement. Thus, maybe someone thinks they have an actual skill, but in reality, they don't. Some of it seems to be pure embellishment, some of it misguided and some of it just lying - negative endorsements could help leveling the playing filed a bit.

Lastly, while some skills are well defined; my own experience of people populating the skills is rather broad. Thus, skills have become broad terms like "security" or "sales" instead of actual depth. Not all people are specialists, but there seems to be too many generalists.

Movie: Argo

It is a strange premise - to create a movie, about a fake movie, that was used to effect a rescue during one of the biggest diplomatic "rows" in recent history. To its credit, Argo does provide a 1 minute synopsis of what led to the Iran hostage crisis; and throughout the movie; it seems strange that the crisis took place because of the US' reluctance to give up a despotic dictator to stand trial (fairly or unfairly) in his own country.

It is an audacious tale, and while some of the events may be embelished, it does capture quite accurately the mood and the time period. I am not sure if the movie was trying to make a political statement; but by being so unflinchingly patriotic to the US, it does end up making a political statement - even getting negative pushback from the Canadians. 

Ultimately, it works well as a spy thriller; with great acting and action. I am not sure it deserves the raft of awards it has got/been nominated for; but then there is the patriotic thing ...

Counterfeit Ad

When you have spent thousands on your splashy ad at the airport, what you really want is the statement "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" emblazoned in the middle.

Blue Ocean

I am not referring to the sales jargon; Cape Town's oceanfront has the picturesque blue hue; that just requires you to stare at it ...

Plateklip Gorge

It is one of the most popular routes to walk to the top of Table Mountain, though certainly not the easiest. I haven't been up for over a year, so I specifically flew into Cape Town early enough to do so.

It was not the best day to do the hike; with a strong wind blowing. The wind would become the struggle, higher up the walk, with it feeling like I was in the midst of a storm about 2/3rds of the way up. There was even a cool vortex at the mouth of the gorge!

Ironically, right at the top of the gorge, it was perfectly calm. Table Mountain however was eerily quiet, with not a person in sight (the cable cars weren't running). With the table-cloth bearing down, there wasn't much of a view; but it was still spectacular.

Movie: Les Misérables

I have not seen the stage production, but there are a number of well known songs from Les Misérables. Just the production elements in this movie are amazing - from the very begining where slaves are pulling a ship in a stormy sea into a drydock, to the end, with the revolutionary battles - it is hard to imagine how this movie could have even been staged in a theatre in the first place!

Despite being a long movie, it is well paced with superb performances. Anne Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is possibly one of the singularly best personal performances in a movie I have seen for a very long time. It is no wonder that she is up for so many award; and the movie is worth watching for that scene alone.

Movie: The Master

The credits had just started rolling, and I had two reactions - WTF was that about, and why did bother staying through it? The Master seemingly has no plot, but rather a set of seemingly a set of events that take place featuring Joaquin Phoenix' character, who is suffering from PTSD after WW2. But I did not get out of the movie with an idea on what the story was, what the point of the movie was, and the movie did not even seem to convey some argument for or against cults.

All in all, it was a waste of 2 plus hours.

Vodaworld's Customer Service

I promised my mom a new phone, and so we went to Vodaworld to get one on Saturday. I had gone earlier, and had already ruled out Android phones (too difficult to use, IMO) and given the general dearth of dumb phones (except the really cheap and nasty ones) - it boiled down to two choices - iPhone or a Windows Mobile enabled Nokia. Key factors I considered were large and clear lettering; and easy to use interface for the functions my mom uses most - text messaging and the phone itself. Thus app availability, navigation, music and even camera were not really under consideration. Ultimately, it came down to price and availability - the iPhone 5 was too expensive, and the 4S was not being sold anywhere; and the Nokia 610 was being sold at a fairly reasonable price.

That is if we could get one - the Nokia shop rep said that they had none in stock, but the Vodacom 4U store did. So we went back, stood in line, only to be told that they didn't have one in stock. In fact, all the stores in Vodaworld said the same; they didn't have one in stock (although they all had Nokia 510s, but none on display). When we went back to the Nokia store, they had no 510s on display - but they also informed us, that the 610 was actually being phased out to be replaced by the 510 (which doesn't really make sense; but ok). So the flagship Nokia store is full of phones, that are no longer being made, but doesn't actually stock the phones that are being sold. And people wonder, why Nokia is in trouble?

So back to Vodacom 4U to buy the 510, and then comes the sim swap - swapping the sim card for a micro sim. Again, wait in (a different) line, only to be told that they don't do pre-paid simcards; but rather to go to the Vodacom Shop opposite. Which off course proceeded to repeat the pattern - they don't do sim-swaps but rather go to the 4U shop (which is were wer are coming from!) or Customer Care. 

Vodacom Customer care was busy - and the waiting line was for 80 minutes! That's a lot of customer problems, being solved very slowly. Luckily to do a sim swap, you can just buy a micro-sim, and call the customer care number to do a swap. Which is what I proceeded to do (and took a matter of a couple of minutes).

This was supposed to be a painless exercise - after all this is Vodacom's showpiece for their customers. Given that so many new phones require micro sims (and so many people want to do sim swaps, as evidenced by other people in the lines), why doesn't Vodacom open up a dedicated channel for this purpose. And Nokia, please copy all the competitors, and actually showcase the phones you have to sell in the market - isn't that what you are trying to do?

Movie: Django Unchained

This was one of the movies I have been really waiting to see, and I wasn't disappointed. A brilliant script (with the expected witty banter), superb acting and over the top violence, it was a classic Tarantino movie. If Inglorious Basterds was the final word in Nazi movies; Django Unchained may well be the last word in slavery movies.

Unlike Tarantino's previous revenge movies, Django Unchained is also a love story, which serves as the central story theme. The real star of the movie is however is yet again Christof Waltz's character; once again a German hunter; this time a bounty hunter. There are also brilliant performances by Leonardo de Caprio, Samuel Jackson and Jamie Foxx as Django. In fact Samuel Jackson's character is as much a villain as the white slavers.

It is graphically violent, and perhaps not as brilliant as Inglorious Basterds; but it is quite close.

Oracle JRE Vulnerability and Security Miscommunication

There is a very dangerous bug in Oracle's Java Run Time Environment which enables an attacker to access data outside the JRE's sandbox environmnent. This is something that should be communicated about, and the patch should be applied, ASAP. These facts are undisputable.

However, some tech writers and commentators clearly don't understand the difference between the Java Run Time Environment and Java itself. The most notable article was this one in Forbes, which paints the language as the vulnerability; and not specifically the run time environment. In fact, it makes specific reference to "Java the language", and also pulls in all sorts of systems that have run time environments - although these environments do not necessarily have the vulnerability (since they are likely to be running a different version of the run time environment).In fact there are lots of different types of JREs, and not all of them are made by Oracle (with the notable ones being IBM and the open source OpenJDK project).

To be fair, for most consumers, there is little to distinguish between a JRE and Java the language. I think that there is a red herring in referring to all the possible installations of Java instead of where the problem actually is. There are some great guides on how to see if you are affected and how to fix it; such as this one by Krebs (although he also refers sometimes to the language and not the JRE).

NIST CVE: http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2013-0422

Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/alert-cve-2013-0422-1896849.html

Hot Air Balloon Rides

For some reason P has been obsessed with hot air balloons; going up on New Year's Day and then again today. She arm twisted me to wake up ridiculously early (3:30 am!) to come along.

I was glad that I went; it was an amazing experience. So much slower than airplanes, it harks back to an earlier time when it wasn't all about speed and efficiency.

It's not cheap, but well worth it; at least once. See here for more details.

 

Electronic Boarding Passes

Kulula now allows electronic boarding passes; which was a pleasant surprise this week. They are specifically useful on smartphones, and passbook integration for iOS would be cool.

Surprisingly Comair's other airline - the British Airways franchise doesn't :(

Cape Town from above

Flying into Cape Town in the evening is a beautiful sight on a clear day; especially around 1 hour before and after sunset.

Wireless-G Account Issue/Security

Nashua-Mobile recently launched an uncapped WiFi service with Wireless-G in South Africa. The registration process was a bit hazy - with Nashua Mobile not knowing the process itself; but once that was sorted, the rest of the registration process was pretty smooth; although still quite convoluted!

When it came to logging on though; it was a damn pain. For some reason my login just didn't work. After a few attempts over a few days, I have up and called the help desk. While friendly and enthusiastic, they recommended a few setting changes to my iPhone. Instead, I tried using M's laptop instead; and had the same issues.

Thus, I decided to just reset the password and behold; it worked. It wasn't that the password was wrong (I could log in to my account); but rather it seems it was too long (15 characters) or it couldn't handle special characters. In fact there are a few security weaknesses beyond not accepting long passwords; they store the passwords in plain text and email and SMS the passwords to you. The helpdesk person also asked for the password so that they can "try" to log on!

I will send through a note to them; let's see what comes out!

Shoe Polish Services

Shoe polishing services are probably one of the oldest small business initiatives; and I have seen them all over the world. In South Africa, they are an institution at the major airports; and to be honest they are often the only reason I have polished shoes! In fact I find it strange that they are only available after security in the departures lounge - I think it would also be a good service in the general public areas and at the luggage pickup area!

The airport initiative is one of the most successful small business startups; and the guys are always friendly. This afternoon there was some friendly banter between the guys; first on one of the guys pointing out that one of his colleague's cleaning equipment was not up to scratch to which the colleague retorted that the others were just jealous that he gets so many customers, leading to higher wear and tear!

I find it quite interesting that you often get the most personal and likable service at small businesses; and it is not because they have a wealth of personal information backed by data mining. It is perhaps a lesson that bigger organizations may need to learn.

Good Phishing Email

I like coming across really good phishing emails; primarily because I try to think on how to actually identify the email correctly. This morning, I got the following, reputedly from ABSA bank:

Your registeration with us has been cancelled due to our new terms and conditions, please read below to view how to re-register or visit your branch

Read Here

 It had all the hallmarks. Let's start with the sender, sent from a legitimately sounding address "absamail.co.za", which was not detected by Google as a bad domain. The mail relay is "Vodamail", which is somewhat suspicious - but Vodacom's ISP does have a large set of corporate customers, so a Bank is not too surprising. And lastly, all the sending address (196.11.146.165) seems to be a South African IP range. I looked on some registration records, but couldn't get much beyond the hosting ISP.

Aside from the sender details, the text itself is short and sweet; and even has a friendly "visit your branch", to give it some credibility. And for the "Read Here" bit, I didn't get a URL overlay (although I can't find any direct bugs; other than a misplaced "HREF=3D", which is apparently a MIME encoding component (from a casual Google search).

The URL has off course nothing to do with ABSA, and is hosted in Romania. I assume it has a drive by download and other nice things - I didn't go and check.

Movie: Life of Pi

I read the book about 5 years ago (a welcome distraction from writing my thesis); and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I don't remember all the details, the story was memorable and was therefore really looking forward to the Ang Lee's movie adaptation. I found it quite true to the book, capturing Pi's adventure in the lifeboat brilliantly; and the narrative of an older Pi telling the story to a struggling writer worked very well.

It is a beautiful movie; with some stunning cinematography of the open sea. It also manages to capture the post colonial India quite well; with the contrasts of the various cultures that meld together. And the acting was equally impressive; and thus it does set the movie up for at least a good share of award nominations.

Probably the biggest discussion point of the movie (and I don't recall this being in the book), is the claim made by Pi's uncle to the author, that Pi "had a story that would make me believe in God". The movie is not a religious experience which leads one to become a devotee to one of the many Gods explored in the movie (Pi himself professes to follow Hinduism, Christianity and Islam). And there is at least one movie review that criticises the movie for not delivering such a religious experience.

I think the argument posed by the filmmaker is completely different. In fact the argument is not even on whether God exists, but whether one should believe in the concept of God.  In the filmmaker's vision, it is an argument between a rational but cold facts; and a fantastical and irrational story. Those are the two stories that the Life of Pi presents. With the presentation of those contrasting visions, the version that is preferred by all is the fantastical, irrational one. My opinion on the outcome is, that the filmmaker was merely explaining why there is a belief in God; because it is so much easier to accept the fantastical and irrational story instead of the cold rational story.

Movie: Looper

Although Looper is a movie about time travel, very little time is actually spent on the mechanics and the potential inconsistencies posed by time travel. It eventually boils down more to two love stories - a man and his wife and a mother and her child. Set in a near future, where cities are ruled by crime lords; the hero is a drugged up thug who works for one such crime lord, as an assassin. 

In a longer term future, time travel has been discovered, banned and effectively only used by crime lords to dispose of bodies to a past; where they are disposed off by asssassins known as Loopers. It is a novel plot on an old science fiction classic, and most of the time travel conundrums are addressed fairly well. 

While Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis are the main heroes (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the younger Bruce Willis); the really great performance is delivered by the young Pierce Gagnon (Cid) who ties all the storylines together. 

It's a good sci-fi action movie, and certainly worthwhile watching.

Parker's New Year's Eve Show

After last year's successful New Year's Eve show, M and I decided it would be a great idea to do it again. This year, the club didn't seem to be packed; but Montecasino itself was fully stuffed. Like last year, the show included snacks (various finger food); and while the price was higher than last year - it wasn't a massive hike.

The show was hosted by Joe Parker, who seems to rehash his old jokes quite often. He does supplement it however by picking on various audience members; with the main target last night being the big table in the front centre of the stage.

The first act of the evening was also, I think the weakest - Martin Evans (introduced as "from Cape Town, via London"). A lot of his material comprised of the differences between Jo'burg and Cape Town; and frankly it didn't seem anything significantly newer than previous comedians' material in this regard. 

Introduced as the "token black guy", Nqoba Ngcobo, left no sacred cows in some of the darkest humour. Aside from John Vlismas, I haven't heard any other South African comedian push the boundary so far, so well. His set started rather softly and ended with a bit of a slapstick; but in between was pure comedic gold; with some of his material definitely unsafe anywhere other than a comedy club. And even if we discount the jokes that pushed the boundaries; there was also brilliance in his other material; with the standout being the a tale told almost completely with cricket jargon.

If Nqoba Ngcobo was the token black guy, Melt Sieberhagen was the token Afrikaner guy - minus the two tone khaki. He drew the biggest laughs; and his jokes were the most memorable of the night and even the ones that he recycled from last year's show fitted in perfectly.

One of the highlight's of last year's show, Schalk Bezuidenhout, performed a 10 minute, unscheduled set before the main act. I had heard most of the material before; but his treatise on why "7de Laan" is crap got some of the biggest laughs of the night.

The highlight of the evening was definitely Deep Fried Man; who has had an incredibly successful start to his comedy career. His set, comprising mostly of songs set to (mostly) pop music; was some what reminiscent of Wierd Al; but with significantly more meaningful lyrics. A lot of the material was on White Guilt and race relations (something missing for most of the evening, funilly enough), but told very elequently and a brilliant fit to music.

Unlike last year, we decided not to hangout inside the club, and got to the very crowded Montecasino Piazza which featured a very impressive fireworks show to bring in the new year. All in all, a good night.