Biased News?

In the last week, much has been said about SABC's supposed biased news coverage. I am not defending the SABC, but honestly, when has news coverage ever been unbiased? Even in the day of the Internet, the persons who have the biggest influence in how people learn of events around the world are the news editors. They have the power to decide which story is "newsworthy" and how much exposure the story should get. Coupled with the reporter's own views on the subject, limited time and space, news is hardly unbiased.

The best example of how varied the same story can be, is to read/listen/view the same subject delivered by different news organisations, and even then it's difficult to draw the correct picture. So the SABC is not alone, but maybe they have just taken it a bit too far ...

Cycling to Cape Point

Sometime last week, Hans-Peter, Reinhardt and I thought it would be a good idea to cycle all the way to Cape Point and back, so we decided on Sunday, with great weather prospects for the weekend. On Saturday night, Reinhardt chickened out, citing strong winds and a 50Km ride each way. HP and I decided to go anyway - and Reinhardt was (slightly) wrong on both counts.

The first half of the ride was quite good, at a very decent speed, without really needing to stop - though we did stop at St James and Glaincairn. Since HP had not come this way before, we even decided to stop at Boulders for a while. The ride upto the nature reserve was not too hard either, although we did stop a lot more. There was a slight breeze, but it was quite pleasant actually.

It all changed once we got inside the nature reserve - the wind speed really picked up, and made cycling uphill really really difficult. In fact, towards the very end, we ended up just walking up the last bit to the parking lot on top of Cape Point. We had lunch up at the restaurant, which was a bit over priced, but food wasn't too bad. After quite a long stop over (about 90 minutes), we cycled down to Cape of Good Hope, which was really living up to it's other name of Cape of Storms now.

Cycling back towards the entrance was interesting. Parts of the way, we did get some help with the wind on our backs, while other places, the crosswinds together with steepish hills and tired legs made it a lot tougher. There was an accident towards the entrance of the reserve (I think the driver of one of the vehicles was injured), and we were basically the only ones to get through (which drew lots of comments from the drivers who were blocked). Ironically, the wind died down once we were out of the reserve, and it was quite calm for our trip back.

We ended up only cycling to Simonstown and then catching a train. Firstly, it was already 17h30, and getting dark. Secondly we were too tired, and cycling another 30Km would have been quite difficult. So overall, we did about 90Km (hence a lot more than Reinhardt's prediction), in just under 6 hours of cycling. But the whole trip, with all the stops was about 9 hours - a whole day. It's by far the longest distance and time I have cycled in one go. It was a great day actually ... but I think we would have been able to cycle back if we didn't have to contend with the winds inside the reserve.

Sport on TV

As a concept, sport is pretty simple: a competition to determine who (or which group of people) are best at a certain task, usually associated with keeping fit (well my definition anyway). When it becomes complicated, is when people are willing to pay to watch other play sport, because then sport is no longer just a competition, but it is also entertainment. Big name sports draw money to the game, because there are a lot of people who want to watch those games, because the games are a social event, entertainment event etc.

In the past few months, there has been a quite storm developing in Cricket - players are starting to complain that they are playing too much - that they will not be able to perform on their best of their abilities all the time, because it will be mentally and physically challenging. Off course administrators see it differently, as they see whinging millionaires who want to work less for more and them missing out on the goldmine that is presented by the cricket watching billion plus viewers.

What neither side is looking at however is the spectators themselves - the very people that pay to watch the game. Right now there are two international series - West Indies vs India and England vs Sri Lanka, and because of the time differences, it is possible to watch televised cricket for about 18 hours a day! During the official cricket season, it is possible to watch televised cricket for the full 24 hours. The question becomes - who is watching?

It's not cricket only after all. There is football from the World Cup, there is motor racing, there is rugby, and a few other major televised sports. But people have to work, go to school, go socialise outside watching sports. Viewer number will drop, not because people are not interested, but because there is too much for too little time. Very soon, it will be the highlights shows that will draw the crowds and not the events themselves.

So, is there too much cricket right now? Personally yes - because it is coming to the point that, at most times, I don't bother other than just looking at the overall results and reading the match (or day) reports. I do not need to be entertained for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year ... then it will no longer be entertainment.

Railroads

As a kid, I really really liked trains and railroads. While I did not ever own proper model train kits, I had numerous smaller ones, which I regularly connected up to cover large parts of the house. In fact, the large family homes for both my parents in India, has access to large roofs and they all had train lines on them ... and so did the gardens, and ... you get the idea.

I have maintained my fascination with trains, although less with engines and carriages but more with the actual dynamics of making things work. It was the same when I was a kid - designing the route was more cooler than the actual train. Trains was also what hooked me into Transport Tycoon - and they were mostly all what I built (well I had planes to take passengers and mail, trains to take everything else). And the best part of transport tycoon was the complex scheduling mechanisms possible with signaling - although, getting it right was always a mission.

I got hold of Railroad Tycoon II (Platinum Edition) a while back from Dave Nunez's massive collection, but I only started playing it a few weeks back ... and I have been hooked. Initially, I found the game quite slow (until I worked out that you can change the speed ... duh) and quite uninteresting. But the latest scenarios have been eye catching - building railroads through the Alps, or the Orient Express, or across India.

Still there are parts of the game that are very unappealing. Firstly, routing is automatic, so I can't get to play with the signaling. Then there is some of the economic aspects - as an investor you cannot buy stocks of other railroads, nor invest more into your own railroad! And there are no tunnels!

I hear that Sid Meier is developing a new Railroad Tycoon - one with tunnels! Until then I will carry on with what I have ... currently building train lines across Australia ... but it's the last scenario that I am really looking forward to - building Cape to Cairo - a feat, as far as I know was never achieved. There is also a Railroad Tycoon 3 ... but since 4 is aparently so close round the corner .. might as well get that.

ISSA 2006

Well, I suppose I should be happy that I got a paper accepted at this year's conference; but to be honest, the standard of reviewing leaves a lot to be desired. I suppose part of it is bad gripes for not having a paper accepted as a full paper (it was accepted as a poster, and we subsequently withdrew it) - but I still think I got a raw deal out of it.

ISSA has only two reviewers, and the second reviewer for my paper started off praising the paper with comments like "a good paper clearly describes a significant problem, provides interesting solution" and "clearly presents advances beyond the related prior work". The reviewer then criticises my ordering of chapters and suggests a more traditional security paper layout where the security analysis is done before the design. I had it the other way round, since my new design was the subject of the paper, and I felt that a security analysis before the design was pointless ... but anyway. And then, the reviewer comments: "Do not accept the paper in the present format. To present as a paper authors should improve the manuscript", and rejects the paper! So it seems, that the entire paper was rejected because the reviewer did not like my layout :/

But overall, the review process was rather short and abrupt - only two reviewers, contributing about a page of review in total. This is clearly not to the standard that is seen at more prestigious conferences - I have had over 6 pages of review in most of the papers I have submitted to ACM or IFIP-Sec. And the reviewers' knowledge of the subject under review is also a bit suspect at times. And this seems to be the problem with most SA conferences - the review process is too shallow and I think that, ultimately, quality really suffers.

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!