SATNAC Reflections Part 2

So SATNAC is finally drawing to a close - there were more academic presentations yesterday and today. Unfortunately the bad Internet connection situation has continued - although it has improved dramatically from Monday. The download speeds are still rather crap though. To be honest, there has been very little value from SATNAC - most the work is either uninteresting (because its not our field) or seems rather poor. That is not saying that there are no good papers; but they seem to be too few. Maybe if SATNAC was about security or DRM I would be more interested.

The closing function was in an "English Pub" theme - i.e. the food was not that great (although there was malva pudding) and it was not as well decorated as last year's District 6 theme. More on the entertainment on a later post ...

SATNAC Reflections

So SATNAC started officially on Sunday evening with a very flashy, techno-rave style opening dinner. Most importantly, the food was good, and we all stuffed ourselves (except Paul, who does not like to eat too much in the evenings). And we all got a lot of freebies - a bag, a sweatshirt (which everyone was asked to wear to the opening function), a jacket and a mug. I also got a Huawei radio this morning ... not sure if everyone else got that one ....


SATNAC is not really an academic conference - if one looks at the program for the first day. The majority of the sessions involved corporate big wigs discussing technology using huge buzzwords like convergence. It was boring, somewhat dumb and more or less a total waste of time.

The academic presentations at the end of the day was not much better - except for Paul's presentation, none of the presentation really had much substance. Take for instance the presentation "Detecting Uncooperative Ethernet Elements using Accurate Round-Trip Time Measurements" - how this project differs from the "ping" command is yet to be established.

Surprisingly, even though SATNAC is a telecommunication, the Internet connection is very unstable (or maybe unsurprisingly considering that we are talking about Telkom). Another interesting fact was that, Windows machines had difficulty in using the WiFi, but Linux didn't have any such problems.

Finally, another addition to the Appletiser index - and a cheap entrant at that. Last night, we had supper at the Monk's Cowl Country Club (there seem to be a number of sports facilities in this part of the country, much more than the number of people living in the area). The food itself was good, although I did get my food very late (every one finished before I got my food ....). We all put it down as a mistake on the waitresses part and she was very embarrassed. Appletiser index entry:
Monk's Cowl Country Club: 6.50

The Appletiser Index

You have heard of the Mac index; I now give you the Appletiser index. The Mac index gave an index on how expensive a country is based on Big Mac prices. You can do the same regarding how expensive a restaurant/take away is comparing the price of drinks - hence the Appletiser index. This was primarily motivated by the cost of Appletisers at the Chapagne Castle Sports resort - the domicile of SATNAC 2005.

So the first entry - Champagne Castle Sports resort: R13

For comparison, the cost of an Appletiser at Loxley's in Rondebosch is R11 and the Independent Armchaoir Theatre is R9.

Up the mountains we go

On Sunday the DNA lab flies off to Durban and then drive up to the Drakensberg for a Telkom sponsored holiday, otherwise known as SATNAC. Not presenting a paper this time, just a poster, which was done by Duncan and Marlon (the honours students I am supervising as they can reuse most of it for their honours poster). But the highlight of SATNAC is not the papers really but the dinners (the opening and the closing), the huge supply of good, free, food (and drinks) and the free bandwidth (seeing that it is sponsored by TELKOM.

On the TELKOM note, looks like the made a very quiet retreat from suing the Hellkom founder, but I think wearing a Hellkom t-shirt to SATNAC would be ill advised.

Signs : The Oracle

In the past few days, UCT has been promoting "Heritage@UCT" - a drive to let people know the history about some of UCT's main landmarks like Jameson Hall, the rugby fields (Nelson Mandela was awarded his honorary doctorate at the rugby fields to accommodate more people), the Rhodes statue etc. I think its a brilliant concept, and wish it was actually extended to some of the other buildings and places on campus (like who is Robert Leslie?). As for The Oracle - that's the name of the fountain on Jammie Plaza ... you learn something new everyday.

Movie: The Great Dictator

So Chris and I took advantage of the armchair's pizza and movie offer, and decided to go watch Charlie Chaplin's classic "The Great Dictator". The movie is a parody of Hitler revolving around Hynkal, the dictator of Tomania and a jewish barber. Produced during WW2, it carries a strong anti-war message with the famous last speech encouraging soldiers to lay down arms to build a better future for all, and is often rated as one of the best anti-war movie ever made. The comic genius, that was Charlie Chaplin shines through and the movie is a great laugh even when dealing with a very sensitive topic. Hitler had apparently watched the movie, but what he thought of it is not known.

Black Saturday of South African Sport

If you haven't heard; Bafana Bafana are out of World Cup 2006. So, even though we are hosting 2010; we won't be playing in 2006. Bafana Bafana have had a very poor run lately, they lost in the COSAFA cup semis, they lost 4-1 to Iceland and then they lost 3-1 to Burkina-Faso. Even worse is the chance that Bafana Bafana could still not qualify for the Africa cup of Nations (also in 2006). On the brighter side, the under 23s did thrash Uganda 4-1 - the 2^nd goal (from Lewis IIRC) was an amazing display of teamwork and good finishing ... maybe that's the team we should have sent to Burkina-Faso.

Also, we lost the Tri-Nations on Saturday when the All Blacks thrashed the Wallabies. For the first 20 minutes in the second half, South Africa had hope when the Aussies fought back from 20-0 to 20-19; but then a certain sub named Dunning gave away 9 points in less than 5 minutes; and after that it was all downhill. But even though we lost; this was probably the best Tri-Nations performance from the Springboks.

Oh, it was also Sarai's b'day party on Saturday ... the aftermath of alcohol consumption is best left untold.

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So, I have finally taken the plunge and started a blog. Have been meaning to for a while (before I went on my European trip) but lazyness has always won out (as per usual). I was surprised that I could not get alapan as an username; but I suppose even though my name is rare; there are still people who actually have alapan as a name.

So what will I ramble on about?

Not to sure - definitely will have movie and anime reviews for Ronald; comments and thoughts from places I travel to; reviews of gigs I go to (when I actually do); Formula 1, sport etc ... all the usual crap really.

Movie: 7 Samurai

The Independent Armchair Theatre usually screen old movies on Monday night. Its 10 bucks for a ticket or 30 bucks for a ticket and a pizza from Diva's (delivered to you). I was thinking about the legality of the whole operation - after all you are not really allowed to show a movie to the public without a license ... but since this is quite an old operation, they either have a license or no one cares about them.

On monday they showed 7 Samurai, which is one of the great classic movies about a village in feudal Japan that hires some samurai to protect them against bandits. Its a long movie (over 3 hours) but definitely worth watching.