Blackberry

I got a Blackberry Curve for work - and have been using it for about 3 weeks. As a smartphone it is horrible - screen is small, navigation within the screen is horrid, and in general doesn't have much going for it. And the famed keyboard - I find it too small, and tend to make a lot more mistakes than with my iPhone while typing. 

But it's not all bad - the battery life is amazing; it is quite responsive, and the enterprise integration for email and contacts work very well; and viewing office documents is easy. That doesn't mean that the iPhone doesn't do these things well (except for the battery life); but the Blackberry does show what focused purpose devices can do.

Regardless, I am not giving up my iPhone - maybe the Z10 would have changed my mind - the iPhone remains the superior platform.

Winter Sculpture Fair

I saw the advert for the Winter Sculpture Fair, by accident on a billboard at Hyde Park Corner - accident, because I took a wrong turn. I was intrigued enough to Google for it, when I got out of the car - and the attraction of good food in an interesting location was too good to pass up.

Unfortunately the good food part didn't turn up completely. By the time, M and I got there (about 1pm), most of the food was sold out - and the remaining stalls had long lines waiting for food. There was also a lack of parking - since all parking was on the side of the road, outside the venue - and the parking easily stretched 1.5 km! This is the first such event, and should there be future events, it could do with a bit more organisation in these regards.

All that said, the Nirox Foundation's Sculpture Park is an amazing venue. Rolling green lawns, with amazing landscaped gardens and ponds, make perfect spot for picnics - although picnics are usually not allowed! There is a warning regarding a stray hippopotamus, on the outside fence - but that was nowhere to be seen. 

It is a large park, which takes quite a while to walk around. Unfortunately, there are no labels as to the title of the work, the artist or any other information. Some sculptures - such as the bakkie made of plastic clothes hangars were easy to identify - the more abstract pieces less so.

One of the cool things about sculptures, is that is very tactile - and whether allowed or note - some of the larger installations led young children to use them as their playground. That alone brought some extra life to installations.

Some of the abstract pieces were at least cool to look at - such as the fractal heads - I counted 8 - but perhaps there were more I couldn't see.

The hunter and her dogs was my favourite installation - it is quite simple in some respects - but at the same time, the complexity of balancing the dogs on one or two legs is more impressive - and the level of detail up close is amazing!

The head of a doll, in a mattress (stripped of all the foam) was weird (and there are a line of such doll heads). Quite a few of the installations featured skulls (human and animal) - and it seemed to be strong theme.

There were a few installations which leveraged off the water features. I particularly liked the reflection of the dog in the pond water.

Noam Chomsky on Worker's Rights

Dave's Worker's Day post had a link to a very interesting (but dated) video of Noam Chomsky speaking about worker's rights, specifically related to the contribution of trade union movement to human rights - and the suppression of trade unions in the US; and its impact on human rights. You need to skip about 30 minutes for the Noam Chomsky part of the presentation (which is actually the only bit I watched).

The part that stood out for me was the discussion on trade unions contribution to human rights - specifically in the context of keeping the government honest, and businesses focused on things other than profit.

In the South African context, the contribution of the trade union movement in challenging apartheid is well known, and acknowledged. But post-1994, apart from Vavi, the trade union movement - specifically COSATU  - has often faded into the background. In fact, as demonstrated last year at Marikana, it seems that COSATU has specifically shirked its responsibility regarding human rights. Vavi actually stands out like a sore thumb - continually asking questions about corruption, and whether you like his economic positions - he has held principled stance.

Even if you don't agree with Noam Chomsky's positions on worker rights - the discussion itself is enlightening; especially with regards to the "non business world" view. That alone is a reason to watch it - and it certainly makes one think - should worker's movements (like COSATU) even consider joining political movements in the first place?

Amazing Phishing Email

I got this email, this morning - perfectly formed and almost indistinguisable (click for a larger size). Pity, I am not a customer ...

The headers, and specifically Gmail's processing makes interesting reading (highlight my own). I wonder why it is a classified as a "Softfail" when the rule is clearly violated ...

Return-Path: 
Received: from dc1.DFMCASTROL.com ([58.48.109.18])
      by mx.google.com with ESMTP id iv6si3639532pac.241.2013.05.01.15.45.30
      for ;
      Wed, 01 May 2013 15:45:36 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning  

ibsupport@standardbank.co.za does not designate 58.48.109.18 as permitted 
sender) 
client-ip=58.48.109.18; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=softfail 

(google.com: domain of transitioning 

ibsupport@standardbank.co.za does not designate 58.48.109.18 as permitted 

sender) smtp.mail=ibsupport@standardbank.co.za
Received: from User ([74.93.82.193]) by dc1.DFMCASTROL.com with Microsoft 

SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
  Thu, 2 May 2013 06:28:03 +0800
From: "Standard Bank"

Worker's Day Irony

May 1 is celebrated as Worker's Day in South Africa, and in various other guises across the world. Worker's Day specifically is about the celebration of "the role played by trade unions, the Communist Party and other labour movements in the struggle against apartheid". Like most public holidays in South Africa, it is also used by most middle class households for shopping, and consequently the shops and shopping centres are usually full. It is therefore ironic, that a holiday that celebrates and commemorates the struggles of the working class, means that a significant port of the working class ends up working. At least they get paid more for working on a public holiday.

Muizenberg Catwalk

One of the popular walking paths in Cape Town, the Muizenberg Catwalk stretches from Surfer's Corner to St James. It offers some stunning views, and is a fairly easy and accessible path.

Movie: Oblivion

In Arthur C Clarke's Space Odyssey series, a mysterious space object ends up being the guiding force behind humanity. Oblivion is in some respects the ultimate tribute to sci-fi movies, with a number of interesting references, and a mish-mash of plots borrowed from some of the best out there.

Ultimately, it actually works; although there are some elements that doesn't make as much sense - like the seemingly inconsistent manner of earth's destruction, and the really stupid final scene. But overall, it is an interesting and entertaining concept that is worth watching.

Blue Bird Food and Goods Market

M's friend wanted to meet at a neighborhood market round the corner from the apartment in Muizenberg tonight, so we went round. It's amazingly busy, with a number of food stalls that overwhelms the senses. There is a lot more food than goods, and has a very cool vibe.

Moyo's Courtyard at the Clock Tower

I haven't been to the Clock Tower side of the V&A for a long time, so I am not sure when the Paulaner Brauhaus gave way to Moyo. On the courtyard, there is quite a cool collection of "street food" booths, an installation of hydroponics and solar panels; which is quite impressive to see. Some of the booths have interesting names, and if it wasn't for waiting staff and Moyo being emblazoned everywhere, it would even look authentic!

Metallica

When they were last in South Africa 7 years ago, James Hetfield promised that they would be back. 5 years after their last studio album, they were - better late than never I suppose. I had bought tickets in Cape Town simply because the Golden Circle tickets in Jo'burg were sold out; and the Cape Town concert was later split into two, performing at the Belville Velodrome instead of the Cape Town Stadium. Given the half full Bellville Velodrome on Thursday night, the motivation for the move was quite clear ... although the sparse crowd was still quite surprising.

The concert started with local band Van Koke Kartel. Although 50% of the band is also part of Fokofpolisiekar, I didn't find the music as catchy and energetic. That is not to say that the performance wasn't energetic; but there was something missing.

After a fairly length break (of about an hour!) Metallica finally arrived, and the venue at least didn't feel half-full. Metallica have progressed to the stage of aging rockers, a fact acknowledged by James Hetfield after playing one of their early classics. The concert however wasn't devoid of modern gizmos, with a very impressive video wall and pyrotechnic sequences. 

It was a "greatest hits" type of show, with a performance spanning about 2 hours. All the big hits were performed, with a lot of energy from both the band and the crowd. It was a great concert performance, and definitely enjoyed attending!

The Shinning Girls

At the book launch last week, Arthur C Clarke winner, Lauren Beukes, commented on how easy it is to describe the plot of her new book - "Time Traveling Serial Killer". Unlike unlimited powers of time travel, the villain, Harper, is fairly restricted to when he can travel, and the medium of time-travel is quite interesting.

Set in Chicago, across a period of approx 70 years, Harper kills women - specifically shining women, whose murders seem to power the time travel itself. You meet the victims, usually twice - Harper first stalking them in their youth and then on their day of their death. And like all good serial killers ought to do, Harper, leaves some trademark signs - that are indistinguishable across time.

The story of the hero, Kirby, the lone survivor, and her pursuit of Harper, is woven alongside Harper's exploits. Like Zoo City's Zinzi, she is a strong female lead character/detective who has her own demons to fight and she pursues the killer as much for vengeance as for justice.

In the M&G review, the reviewer comments that The Shining Girls, leaves no comment on society, and doesn't "change your consciousness or your life". No, it doesn't; but that doesn't detract from a very well written story with a great plot. That alone should be the reason to read a book; not every great book needs to be a dissection on the human condition.

Blacks Only Comedy Show - Sandton 2013

As it seems traditional, David Kau started the show with a census of the audience  (of a sold out show, of over 4000); including a request for all Chechens with backpacks to leave the room. Apart from recent events, South African politics was a major theme from all the comedians on the bill, with Zuma, Zille and Gwede Mantashe being popular targets. And as ever, David Kau was brilliant as a host and MC - and his own routines were sometimes far better than the featured comedians!

The show started with KG, from Cape Town - who played on the link between his name and his large size. Apart from the seemingly mandatory fat jokes, his best jokes revolved around the issue of struggle credentials - how is it, he asked, that there seems to be only so few people with struggle credentials; as every one with a tender seems to have struggle credentials, but not the other way round. It was a sobering reflection on corruption, a topic that was mostly left out from the other comedian's repertoire. The equally large, Jason Goliath (another person, who played on the link between his (real) name and his size), was up next. He has an amazing, preacher/motivational speaker style delivery. He largely stayed off politics, but rather told stories with humourous twists - like how, he, a big fat guy, won a tennis tournament in school - as well as some amazing interpretations of a scene from Taken 2 (with corresponding accents).

The two feature performers were on either side of the break - starting with Marc Lottering. Unlike Jason Goliath's large booming voice, Mark's was softer, but still delivered in a preacher style. There was quite a few jokes around social media (on Twitter and Facebook) and a cut out to an audience member who was taking a photo on her cell phone, while Marc was talking about how every action was now being photographed and uploaded to Facebook and Twitter was particularly ironic.

The standout performance of the evening was ventriloquist Conrad Koch and his puppet Chester Missing - a blistering political analysis and commentary across the spectrum. It was the act that brought out the biggest laughs, and pushed some big boundaries. I have seen a few skits on Late Night News (on e-TV), but a live show is so much more impressive. There have been a few well known ventriloquists (Jeff Dunham comes to mind), and I think a full show of just Chester Missing's political analysis would be just as impressive.

Dylan Oliphant, a recent winner of best newcomer, delivered one liners in the style of Jimmy Carr - pushing undiscovered boundaries, and sometimes the jokes took a while to decipher for many in the audience. He doesn't yet command the stage to the same degree - but this is a performer who can easily become the next big thing. Issac Gambu finished of the evening, in a performance mainly in Zulu and Xhosa (and thus I didn't understand most of it).

At over 3 hours (including the interval), it is a show that does bring great value for money; and features excellent performances. Sandton Convention Centre is a central venue - although the bar service is slow and leaving the venue itself is quite congested.

Another Interesting Phishing Email

Earlier this week, there was an interesting mass phishing/spam email sent to a group mailing list, presumably from the "webmaster" of the webmail service. What I particularly like about it, is how legitimate it sounds, and the use of the ruse of applying better security (in this case, implementation of Sender Address Verification, anti-virus and encryption).The original address seems to be a California server on Comcast (although the IP address is apparently in Nigeria?); but the reply back is to an ISP in Chile.

Dear Subscriber,

Please, we are currently performing a database maintenance and upgrade on our webmail log for a better performance of our services to all subscribers. We are very much and indeed concerned about stopping the proliferation of spam. We have implemented a Sender's Address Verification (SAV) to ensure that you do not receive unwanted email(s) and to give you the assurance that your messages to message center have no chance of being filtered into junk email folder.

Also a DGTFX virus has been detected in your email account folder. Your email account has to be upgraded to our new and Secured DGTFX anti-virus 2013 version to prevent damages to our webmail log and files. To help us confirm and protect your account and our webmail log, please, fill the columns below and send back to us to validate your webmail account or your email account will have to be deactivated from our webmail log to avoid the spread of this virus.

Email Address:
Account Username:
Account Password:

You will be sent a password reset message in the next seven (7) working days after undergoing this process. We guarantee and assure you of more quality services at the end of this maintenance exercise and we apologize for the inconvenience this process might caused. Note also that your password will be encrypted with 1024-bit RSA keys for your password safety.

We sincerely apologize once again for this inconvenience and appreciate your help in this emergency situation.

Regards
---
----
Webmail Technical Team

Market on Main @ The Maboneng Precinct

The Maboneng Precinct is a very successful inner-city renewal project, filled with restaurants and art spaces (together with living and office spaces). Unlike Newtown, it's far more compact and seemingly more for the residents as opposed to tourists.There are some interesting architecture buildings and interesting public art installations - which is reason enough to go and have a walk around.

The premier arts space is Arts on Main, which reminded me of Tacheles in Berlin - a teeming with just a whole lot of different art works and artist spaces. Market on Main takes place on Sundays (10am to 3pm), in the Arts on Main complex and it has quite a nice vibe. The art and crafts are not curio pieces (in fact I don't think I saw a single curio piece), and there is an amazing variety of food. It's a great place to just walk around and relax - and have some awesome brunch.

Cycling Again

It has been over 4 years since I rode my mountain bike. Last week, I got it out of the garage, got a major service done, and finally took it out for a ride. Except for the ride around San Francisco bay, I haven't ridden much - and it was a nasty shock to see how unfit I am, and how much of a workout you get from cycling - especially on rough gravel roads. But at least I have a benchmark to compare against - I want to make it a regular occurrence.

Hashi

Hashi is a new "fusion" Japanese/sushi restaurant in Rosebank, next to the Gautrain station. It is owned by a couple from South America, Venezuela if my memory serves me correctly; and it was great to see that Ceviche was on the menu and quite good too!

Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of fusion in the menu; the sushi on offer is certainly a lot more varied than the standard offerings; but had neither the quality or value of a place like Takumi in Cape Town. The presentation was beautiful; but it ended up being quite an expensive lunch. Would be nice if there was more variety in things like ceviche; otherwise not really a lot going for it.

Software Fragmentation

Software version fragmentation refers to the disparate versions of software installed across the user/install base. Fragmentation occurs primarily because the end user does not update or patch their applicable software to the latest version. Fragmentation has been in the popular news lately - firstly with regards to mobile operating systems (where Apple's iOS is probably the least fragmented mass used software platform, and Android seems to be heading the opposite direction); and secondly on Java virtual machines (which is actually under reported, as most reports only cover the PC based JVMs, and not the other JVMs out there, such as mobile JVM or embedded JVM; not to mention the non SUN/Oracle JVMs).

Not being on the latest version is not necessarily a problem - the recent JVM vulnerability was most widely exploited on the latest versions. Likewise, there are now very few exploited vulnerabilities on deprecated Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows 2000 - and there are many of those out there. But for the majority of cases, not being on the latest version implies that there are potentially vulnerabilities that can be exploited in the software.

While operating system and JVM fragmentation is discussed quire frequently, fragmentation in common applications is, I think, a bigger problem. Consider Adobe Acrobat Reader - the latest version is 11.0.2, but how many users are actually on this version? How many are on version 9 or earlier? In an investigation I did for a client earlier this year, less than 0.5% of the install base for either Adobe Reader or Adobe Flash were on the latest versions - and over 50% of the install base was at least 2 versions behind. Not to mention, that some really old versions of the software existed across the user base.

The problem with keeping software up-to date is that it seems to be incredible difficult on a large scale. It is not that there are no auto-updates - but there are lingering problems with dependencies (updating the JVM requires all applications that run on the JVM to also work, or integration of applications like Adobe Reader and Flash in other applications); and some users just don't update. There are other mitigations, such as Host IPS, but there is not a lot of widespread usage of these technologies. 

It seems that the platforms that have managed to get the least fragmentation, are the tightly controlled and integrated platforms - that connect to the Internet, and offer updates easily. Is the Apple, X-Box, Playstation model the way of the future?

Cirque du Soleil - Dralion

I first saw Circue du Soleil on TV about 10 years ago. At the time, I wasn't that impressed - after all it seemed more like a variety arts show with fancy costumes and some choreographed acrobatics. So, when P suggested we go to the Dralion show, touring South Africa, I wasn't overly enthusiastic.

TV and even video doesn't really do the Cirque du Soleil show justice. Each of the individual acts within the show - from the aerial hoops, to the juggling to the trampoline - are all in the standard circus repertoire. However, each of the acts seem to push the boundary for each discipline to, sometimes unbelievable, levels. The trampoline is an easy example in this regard - it was not only the standard acrobatic skills showcased in the trampoline, but the performers themselves were seemingly effortlessly scaling walls and jumping over tall structures. Likewise, in every act, there was something jaw-droppingly different/insane that made these acrobatic endeavours standout.

And the circus acrobatics are encased with clowns (which I do think got a bit tiring at times), amazing costumes and live musical performances. All these put together, this makes it a special type of circus and far more interesting than what I saw once on TV. I have been to a number of circus/acrobatic shows across many countries - Cirque du Soleil is certainly something special.

Movie: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

As Lincoln's credits were rolling, M commented that we needed to watch another light hearted, frivolous movie to make up for the heavy atmosphere of Lincoln. So, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, on its last week in South Africa was the selected frivolous movie. The movie has a poor script, nothing spectacular in its acting and mundane dialogue. That said, the concept of taking a classic fairly tale, and turning it into a steam-punk revenge story is cool, with some spectacular make-up and costumes - especially for the witches. It was a great, frivolous action movie - exactly what was needed :)

Movie: Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis' gives such a commanding performance as Abraham Lincoln, he effectively makes the viewer forget that this is an actor, playing a role. As a movie about one of the most significant events in history - abolishment of slavery in the United States - it brings forward the amazing nuances of the actual event - the balancing act between just ending the war, and ending the war with the abolishment of slavery, the horse trading required to get the action done, the archaic positions put forward by those who oppose the abolishment (but thoroughly endorsed by the general public). It is a story about a man who seemed to carry all the burdens of the world on his shoulder - and still persevere.

And the movie is supported by a host of excellent performances - most notably by Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field and James Spader. In terms of sheer amount of amazing acting performances, there is probably no other recent movie with such a great ensemble. It is a movie with a great script and amazing oratory (something missing from most modern political engagements). It is a movie definitely worth watching.