tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20677586374831197662024-03-05T14:45:58.088+02:00Conspicuous frugalityBernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-85723227238755212302018-11-23T13:36:00.000+02:002018-11-23T13:36:24.184+02:00Response to Pierre de Vos article on Discovery Bank's racist share schemeThis is a response I wrote to a <a href="https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2018/11/21/discovery-bank-equity-scheme-constitutionally-spot-on">Pierre de Vos article</a> defending Discovery's scheme. Unfortunately the Biznews mods haven't approved my post. Maybe it isn't ragebaitey enough?<br />
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<blockquote>
Pierre, I think I can answer your first question. The reason so few people who hold one set of views but not another that superficially resembles those, is that different principles are at work. None of these people are denying that race or other foci of identities exist. What they/we object to is codifying the mere existence of those foci into inequality before the law. I think you simply misinterpret an admittedly sometimes poorly expressed objection: we oppose race-based redress measure not literally "because it requires racial classification", but because of what use that classification undeniably is intended to be put to: creating inequality of opportunity, by treating people differently before the law.<br />
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Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by "construct" or "anything essential", but I believe you are mistaken to say that race, gender, or sexual orientation are "constructs and do not say anything essential about who we are as individuals". Or at least, they are not <em>only</em> constructs. What is a construct is how much these categories should matter in various contexts.<br />
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On to the meat of your article: you are a constitutional law expert and I am not, so obviously I must defer to your legal analysis. But I need not defer to your moral analysis. What you have convinced me of with this article is not that Discovery's share scheme is just, but that SA's constitution as written (or maybe only as interpreted in the tests it has been put to?) is contaminated by ideas I want as far away from me as possible. I used to think that the constitution is "basically okay, in no need of repair or other tinkering", but now my view is changed, if it (or maybe rather its interpretation) approves of the unequal treatment before the law of people based only on superficial identity differences. Andile Ramaphosa (Cyril's eldest son) must be in the top 100 of privileged people in this country, but merely because he is black he should attract even more privileges wherever he goes, being able to step into jobs or win tenders or pursue academic qualifications, opportunities which are closed to me merely because my skin is white, even though my net worth is maybe a thousandth of Andile's? If you cannot see that this is obviously not right, then I don't know how to persuade you. Perhaps you will point out that the "overwhelming majority" of prospective Discovery Bank clients are not Andile Ramaphosas. But how exactly are Andile, and more broadly black members of the middle and upper class, discriminated against today? Which opportunities are denied to them <em>because they are black</em>? Where are they denied respect <em>in ways that giving them free shares will remedy</em>? How does this compare to the opportunities denied to white youngsters born after 1994, who get told they are "not demographically representative" and can't have this job / can't go to medical school / can't win a tender?<br />
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Perhaps I should leave my disagreement here: "You do not have to show that the scheme is necessary to achieve the redress goal, but only that the measure must be reasonably capable of achieving the desired outcome of redress." I wonder if it may turn out that Discovery know something about black consumers' financial habits that they can't afford to talk about publicly. Something that, were it more widely known (or admitted), would undermine the condition that this scheme be "reasonably capable of achieving the desired outcome." Time will tell, but don't say I didn't warn you if in 5 years you squawk about Discovery "oppressing" its black customers through higher interest rates on loans or something like that. Without ever explicitly having to base that credit decision on race.
</blockquote>Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-78434561147384887762018-07-19T18:32:00.000+02:002018-07-19T18:32:23.336+02:00Ways the City of Cape Town lies to you: registering off-grid solar power systems<ol>
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Lately the City of Cape Town is driving me up the wall with its intellectually dishonest defenses of its increasingly invasive regulations. I suspect this is in no small part due to the Democratic Alliance's strong results in the last few local elections. They simply don't feel that they need the consent of the governed, so they make up whatever regulations and bureaucracy-serving edicts they see fit, with little to fear from a captive ANC-phobic electorate. They cynically wield this fear (largely justified, but prostating ourselves to the DA is not the only way to protect ourselves from ANC predation) as a weapon - a thought-terminating cliche.<br />
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My criticism in this post is centered on the front page article of the Constantia Bulletin, 19 July 2018, by Karen Watkins. As usual, this Watkins article reads like a press release from whomever she was interviewing. Exactly zero probing and challenging of rationales, barely even lip service to counter-arguments. This would no doubt be different if the article were about some pseudo-scientific BS like "electromagnetic hypersensitivity".<br />
<ol>
<li>Presumably quoting Xanthea Limberg, Watkins writes that "off-grid systems, or systems not connected to the grid directly or indirectly through a building's internal wiring, such as a solar-powered pool pump, must still register with the City so that they are not mistaken for an unauthorised SSEG installation".<br /><br />My response: not being mistaken for an unauthorised SSEG installation does not constitute a reason to force residents to register such systems. In our legal system, we are generally presumed innocent until proven guilty. Under that principle, a couple of solar panels on someone's roof should be presumed to not be an unauthorised SSEG installation until proven otherwise.<br /><br />In fact there's a very large class of households that the city <i>must</i> realise cannot be the home of an unauthorised SSEG installation: all those with prepaid meters. Prepaid meters are (or were, at least, when they were a new thing) designed specifically not to allow reverse power feeding: they do not allow power to flow from someone's rooftop PV installation onto the City's distribution grid. That's one very easy way to eliminate many cases of "mistaken for an unauthorised SSEG installation".<br /> </li>
<li>"Ms Limberg urged people to register their systems for the safety of occupants and City staff, for grid stability and quality, the legal risk and grid cost."<br /><br />Bullshit, Ms Limberg: a solar power system that is not connected to the grid does not endanger City staff <em>at all</em> - that's inherently what "not connected to the grid" means. The safety of occupants is a valid concern, but maybe that should be up to the occupants to negotiate with the property owner? And who says there even are occupants besides the owner or the person who installed the oh-so-scary photovoltaic panels?<br /><br />Registering generating systems also has <em>zero</em> effect on grid stability and quality. Registering only creates a paper trail; it doesn't move electrons around in an electricity grid. Besides, we're talking about <em>systems that are not connected to the grid!</em><br /></li>
<li>"Dr De Decker said the City could readily see transgressors on aerial maps and could check the address to see if owners had the necessary approval."<br /><br />Maybe just bad journalism from Watkins, because Dr De Decker is a system installer and has a commercial incentive to scare people into engaging their services. If instead this is a true reflection of the City's intentions, I would be very curious to know if such action would constitute a legal search. Spying on us like this, which is ostensibly justified to produce maps, but more recently also to inform municipal rates valuations, sans any concrete suspicion of wrongdoing, does not feel like justice. It feels like enduring the Stasi of East Germany.<br /></li>
<li>"Dr De Decker said ... She explained that if several houses were generating and using solar power and a cloud passed overhead, there was a resultant surge of electricity demand on the City's power. The City has to make provision for this as it puts pressure on the electrical transformer in the area."<br /><br />What nonsense is this? The Sun shines best at noon, which is nowhere near the morning and evening demand peaks which do stress the electrical infrastructure. And at worst, the full demand of these houses suddenly appears on the grid, just as it would in the absense of solar power and for which the electrical infrastructure is sized anyway. This sounds just like the thought-terminating cliches that I expect from a municipality, so I have to wonder if Dr De Decker is simply repeating City materials.<br /><br />If anyone incurs problems from sudden fluctuations in load, it is Eskom. I fail to see how City-owned infrastructure suffers from such fluctuations. And in any case, most solar power systems I've seen come with a storage system: a bank of batteries, that can certainly absorb the miniscule load variance that a cloud passing in front of the Sun would cause.<br /></li>
<li>"There is currently no fee for registration itself" <em>HAHAHAHA</em> and I have a bridge I'd like to sell you, it goes all the way to the moon you see, if you believe that there won't be a fee in future, once people are registered and captive to the City's predations. </li>
</ol>
David Lipschitz, apparently the only person not bought into his own lies in this story, "believes this new legislative requirement will drive more people away from providing electricity for themselves and, worse, it will drive away a massive opportunity for homeowners and business owners to put in bigger systems than they need so they can supply excess electricity into the grid, day and night." Indeed. Just finding out about this requirement today has made me lose interest in installing any solar panels on my roof. Luckily I've barely spent any money on supplies so far.<br />
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But I'll have my petty revenge. From now on, when I turn on my water heater so that I can shower in superarctic temperature, I will do it when it is least convenient for the City's "grid stability" pseudo-concern: at 7am or at 7pm.<br />
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Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-59766592046683366982018-05-04T12:07:00.000+02:002018-05-04T12:07:27.633+02:00My objection to the City of Cape Town's proposed budget changes<p>I just sent this objection to the City via <a href="https://www.dearcapetown.co.za/">www.dearcapetown.co.za</a>'s one-stop whinging interface:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
The City's "ideas" for plugging its funding hole are going from bad (drought levy) to worse (meter fees). Not to mention arbitrary and irrational.
</p>
<p>
Water meter fee: It is arbitrary, irrational, and unjust to charge residents for the historical accident of what size connection was used (typically decades ago) to connect the property to its water meter. The proposed fees are far in excess of any reasonable "cost of capital" considerations. To me it seems fair to apply "punitive" usage-based increases to water usage: what happened to the "user pays" principle we usually hear so much about?
</p>
<p>
At some point the City must consider asking the "poor" (poverty is not binary) to pay a little more too. It is not fair to ask me to pay R150+/month for 1-2 kiloliters/month when people defined as "poor" merely by the value of the property they live in pay zero for up to 6 kiloliters/month. This is not an "anti-poor" sentiment (I am "poor" too by the income metric) - there is nuance and a middle ground here.
</p>
<p>
Electricity meter fees: Similar objection to the water meter fee. Charges should be usage-based, not existence-based. The already progressive property rates should be considered to already incorporate costs of maintaining infrastructure such as electricity distribution networks. If this bogus fee gets passed, I will see an effective 250% increase in my average monthly cost of electricity over the last two years. Just the meter fee alone exceeds what I was paying on average (based on actual usage, not the City's bogus "average" based on selectively tallying purchases) a year or two ago. Do I have to sell my home and register as indigent (which I would qualify for except for my home's valuation) to get the City to stop financially abusing me?
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Like everything I do, I left this to the last day. If you see this in time, please support Cape Town residents' push against the City's abusive budget proposals. Send your own objection, perhaps inspired by some points you agree with in other objections, either via <a href="https://www.dearcapetown.co.za/">dearcapetown</a>'s one-stop shop or by <a href="mailto:budget.process2018@capetown.gov.za?Subject=CoCT+draft+budget+2018/19">directly emailing the City</a>.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-87801968455823455382016-07-03T00:46:00.001+02:002016-07-03T00:46:54.118+02:00Pelican 22 engine runThis last Saturday I went to Air Force Base Ysterplaat to attend an <a href="http://bark.org.za/">amateur radio club</a> meeting. Before the meeting the museum unit hauled out the last airworthy Avro Shackleton for an engine run. This thing just barely fits in the hangar; it clears the steel pillars by less than a meter on each side.<br />
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I remember seeing this plane (and/or others of its type) flying during airshows, and I think I've even seen it depart for or arrive from its former maritime patrol missions.<br />
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The engines seemed to have some trouble starting, but they did eventually all get up to speed. Engine #1 in particular really didn't want to get out of bed, but the crew persisted and eventually it ran on its own power, although it seemed then to run significantly faster than the others before the cockpit crew did something and brought it back to a similar speed as the others. One of the volunteers keeping this thing alive mentioned something about "over-revving", so I hope the engine didn't take any damage from this run. He also confirmed my suspicion that the engines weren't doing so well, and explained that that was why they cut the engine run short. (I was at a similar engine run in 2014, which seemed to last much longer than the 10 minutes here.)<br />
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I hope this wasn't Pelican 22's last engine run.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-40143872847131370132016-06-23T02:40:00.000+02:002016-06-23T02:40:57.914+02:00Fire in a damI always enjoy the drive from Cape Town to Worcester via Villiersdorp, although it is a bit longer, so I don't go that way often when I visit my dad. About halfway is the Theewaterskloof Dam, that I remember being completed to some fanfare when I was a child. Wikipedia says 1980, so what I remember is probably the post-completion Nationalist euphoria.<br />
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On one trip in September 2010, I remember it as a gloomy, overcast day, I noticed something odd while driving past the dam:<br />
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There's a stand of dead tree stumps still standing in the dam (I could have sworn there was; I can't find it in satellite pics), and seeing one aflame right in the dam was quite bizarre. I wonder if the fire started when a lightning bolt hit the stump, or if it was a human-made fire.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-45330436782849021472016-06-22T05:36:00.000+02:002016-06-22T05:36:47.259+02:00A scorpionBack in September 2010 I once hiked up Lion's Head with Sonja and Aleks in the evening (but apparently nowhere near full moon??) and on our way down I spotted a scorpion on the footpath.<br />
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I think it was the first one I'd seen in 20 years, and it was a glorious one. About as textbook an exemplar as I could hope to see. According to some pub wisdom it might have been a non-venomous one, judging by its large pincers and relatively small tail. (I wouldn't stake my life on pub wisdoms, though.)Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-57750674096662092402016-06-20T22:14:00.001+02:002016-06-20T22:14:47.438+02:00Book review: The Rules of DatingAbout a decade ago I bought this book - it seemed interesting. It's definitely been food for thought, and while my first impression was that it seemed like mostly good advice, over time my opinion has reversed and I now consider it the memetic equivalent of eating glass shards.<br /><br /><br />Many of my current thoughts are expressed in <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1alce0/i_want_to_know_what_men_think_of_this_new_rules/">a reddit thread about a "modernized" edition of the book</a>.<br /><br /><br />Overall I now think that the book contains kernels of truth, but its message gets terribly corrupted by the time it gets put into practice. There's also a sampling issue: I don't yet know what it is about this book, but it seems to positively attract unempathic users as its readers / practitioners. Wherever I've found fora where women focus on this book, I've found a vast majority of them to be deeply broken people. Sometimes they're broken in an innocent kind of way - they're hurting, and they're trying to find a way not to hurt, and they find themselves there. But to me the majority seem to be broken in a way that telegraphs misanthropy / misandry / psychopathy - a danger to others, if not always actively evil. This book should rather be taken from shelves and burned, lest it be the instrument of more people getting fucked over. As for the redeeming kernels of truth in the book - well we'll just have to find some other way to teach those truths. This book isn't it.<br /><br /><br />My most serious concrete concern about this book is that it seems to encourage women to think of and actually treat the men they date, and claim to want to marry, as relationship objects. I don't think the more darkly dysfunctional fans of the book really see men in general, and the men they date in particulat, as persons, people with feelings and needs and desires of their own. Instead these men are just objects to be used to check that "Married" checkbox, to fill that dark hole in their souls, and to reassure themselves that they're desireable.<br /><br /><br />As for all the tactical advice, taken merely at face value? That's probably not the worst part of this book. Having a life is indeed a good thing (and a little bit of faking it till you make it is forgiveable - but don't be just a fake!) as is communicating <em>in moderation</em> (but maybe not to the point of observing radio silence). I think there's a point that <em>wants</em> to come out of the book, but nobody really addresses it properly anywhere: training people (men, in this case) to treat you well. It's fine to "punish" people when they treat you badly, but don't forget to also <em>reward</em> them when they treat you well! I think this latter point tends to escape most Rules fans. Even though the book itself hints at it in its advice on how to act <em>after</em> the Rules Girl has gotten herself a husband. But I think reward should be applied more liberally than just as a treat for performing the grand trick of marrying the girl.<br /><br /><br />TL;DR: burn this book.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-73865855092169577752016-06-14T04:42:00.000+02:002016-06-14T04:46:18.805+02:00Caught a mouse!About a week ago while I was cooking something or talking on the phone I thought I saw a little mammal skit across my kitchen floor. Probably a mouse, I guessed, and sure enough, in the next few days I started noticing signs of mouse co-habitation. No, it didn't nest in my couch or do any other damage (AFAICT). There were the semi-creepy noises coming from the chest-of-baskets and from my daily compost bucket - but I never saw the source of these poltergeist sounds. Then I found mouse poop in one of the baskets and I laughed a little, thinking, "Oh, so it's my turn now."<br />
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But Mr/Ms Mouse (say, what <i>are</i> mice's pronoun preferences?) revealed their hiding place when s/he tried to drag a bit of toilet paper into a gap behind the tiles above my stovetop. With the hiding place exposed, I hatched a plan to catch the little squatter.<br />
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Like in a caricaturized mousetrap, I set little cubes of cheese along a path to the far end of an ice cream tub lid, which teetered on the edge of the kitchen counter over and old pool chlorine bucket.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hipster ice cream - not just vanilla</td></tr>
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Within a few minutes of my first trap, I heard a <i>thunk</i> and felt so proud that my humane trap had worked so perfectly. It was so easy. <i>Too easy.</i> As I turned around to open the back door, I heard another, softer <i>thunk</i> and already half-knew what had happened: the mouse had simply jumped out. Must have been gathering its strength for a minute and then bounded out. Or maybe it ran around the perimeter fast enough that it could stick to the side walls and escape with a gravity-defying parkour stunt. I wish I had seen it.<br />
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Luckily I have taller buckets too. My second trap worked just as well overnight, and didn't yield to the mouse's parkour prowess. By the time I got up, the mouse had found its way into the bucket again, and this time I was able to convey it outside. It learned to fly as I tried to make it my neighbour's problem, but the universe conspired against my subterfuge and I mis-timed the release, and the mouse landed on my side of the wall. I haven't seen or heard it since, though, so I'm sure it's telling all its buddies at the mouse bar about that one time that an alien abducted it.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-27286351437210211762016-06-14T04:02:00.000+02:002016-06-14T04:44:09.863+02:00Arbeit macht freiI'm writing this as I have a cathartic fire going in the yard, burning much more wood than I really need to braai some kebabs. Cathartic because about two weeks ago I threw in the towel and decided to come to terms with a disappointment. I should have done this a long time ago; I've just been hurting myself trying to do this with acceptance-lite where I try to muddle along with crumbs while wanting bread. Bummed at probably losing a friend in the process.<br />
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So no, I'm not exterminating peoples; I'm distracting myself from my disappointment by getting busy. I've been sieving the gravel from my driveway, and made more progress in the last two weeks than in the last two years:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foreground-background: Clean gravel, gravel + soil, cutting, newly spread gravel</td></tr>
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(I'm sure it doesn't look like much to anyone else. Take my word for it: shaking all that gravel over my sieve is backbreaking work. Many evenings after an hour or three of this my back aches. It's getting less now as my body gets used to it - just as the project nears completion.)<br />
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Even as I throw myself into the physical labour, my head spins with what-ifs and second-guessing my interpretations of events. But at least the exercise keeps the feeling-like-shit at bay and gives an outlet to the desire to physically "get it out of my system". Physical exertion seems to have that magic ability.<br />
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My dark web drug marketplace (no, not really anything to do with drugs, I'm no DPR) also has been making progress. I've had a few <a href="http://www.philosophistry.com/archives/2009/01/what-is-a-black.html">black triangle moments</a> by now. I still haven't completely figured out the <i>important</i> bits of the site, but the unimportant ones that I have need doing too at <i>some</i> point so that's what I do.<br />
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Even my ceilings are looking better. I've scrubbed them to remove marks left by swatting mosquitoes. And a few spiders are homeless too. I'm not exactly a neat freak, so this is new territory for me. Hell, even a blog post.<br />
<br />
<b>TL;DR</b> I asked for something, didn't get it, coming to terms with it only now, getting busy as a distraction.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-76100882865200253952015-07-23T00:42:00.000+02:002015-07-23T00:42:32.734+02:00Inaccessible accessibilityA few years ago the City of Cape Town spent some money upgrading the area next to the Plumstead railway station. A new parking area, prettier paving, a raised pedestrian crossing.<br />
<br />
Also, ramps up and down the sidewalk to get onto the crossing. In theory this is good, providing better access for the wheelchair-bound to the station. But then I noticed something:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9yjAlVPA8vx1sesdpG15jaKbYeTY8USX-s-9tA38_DQZZsgFWOq0bbSYIG0xCHJKTmmr2N_HYJarNut47Z2mE5S60UDpUDkjnInLXX3XMGMSgWUakZkvTX-Zgh-AaQhc9iKwGiuQoC5E/s1600/inaccessible-crossing.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Wheelchair ramp with a lamppost right in the middle of it." border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9yjAlVPA8vx1sesdpG15jaKbYeTY8USX-s-9tA38_DQZZsgFWOq0bbSYIG0xCHJKTmmr2N_HYJarNut47Z2mE5S60UDpUDkjnInLXX3XMGMSgWUakZkvTX-Zgh-AaQhc9iKwGiuQoC5E/s320/inaccessible-crossing.jpeg" title="" width="289" /></a></div>
<br />
Someone had planned the ramps, apparently without regard to where the lampposts were. And now we have a wheelchair ramp with a lamppost right in the middle of it. That money spent on the ramp seems wasted now. I wonder if anyone thought anything of it during the construction?Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-53209292020444237582015-05-22T14:44:00.003+02:002015-05-22T14:44:44.732+02:00#HandsOffOurInternet: My response to the Draft Online Regulation PolicyI am submitting the text below as public comment on <a href="http://fpb.org.za/profile-fpb/legislation1/514-draft-online-regulation-policy-2014/file">South
Africa's Draft Online Regulation Policy</a>. Read more at <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/africas-worst-new-internet-censorship-law-could-be-coming-south-africa">the
Electronic Frontier Foundation's Deep Links blog</a> and at <a href="http://www.r2k.org.za/handsoffourinternet/">the Right2Know
Campaign's website</a>.<br />
<br />
This is the first time I
am submitting comment to draft law. Normally I consider myself too
unimportant and too uninvolved in lawmaking for my commenting on draft
law to be a good use of my time. But this draft policy is simply so bad
that I feel compelled to comment, lest the FPB underestimate how
offensive this draft is, by even one person's response.<br />
<br />
My
stake in this matter is both as an occasional content creator, and as
an ordinary South African who feels offended at the idea of a supposed
constitutional democracy's government insisting on inserting itself into
every transaction between consenting humans (adult or not), where it is
not wanted. Wherever government impinges on my life, I have stress, and
by impinging itself onto every instance of sharing a creative work, it
maximizes the harm its regulative efforts do.<br />
<br />
I
cannot respond to every element of the draft which I find problematic.
There is simply too much. In almost every sentence I find an offensively
obstructionist, parochial and regressive provision. This is the year
2015, and the draft harks back to PW Botha's 1986 government. It too
seemed to have the view that every publication which is not explicitly
allowed, must be forbidden (or at least classified).<br />
<br />
What
I want the FPB to do instead (although cynically I cannot expect this
to occur) would be to repeal its empowering laws and then disband
itself. The few shreds of law that I would like to see remain can easily
be absorbed into other ministries' laws - but as for the vast bulk of
it, I wish it were simply gone.<br />
<br />
The first thing the FPB
should, in my opinion, do is to toss the Draft Online Regulation Policy
in the metaphorical bin where it belongs, and start again. It might
start again by amending the Film and Publications Act. Ideally by
replacing 90%+ of its content with blank space. Any concerns of
platform-neutrality are immediately addressed if the FPB had the
commitment to democratic principles to give up on its (false) ideal of
classifying every publication. Mandatory classification of publications
is a Soviet bureaucrat's lifeblood, not the sort of stuff that a modern
democracy is made of.<br />
<br />
The FPB must choose. It must
choose whether it wishes to be an embarrassment to South Africa, Africa,
and humanity as a whole, or if it wants to be a respected entity in a
respected democracy. Sticking to this draft policy is the former, and
abandoning it and trying again is a step in the direction of the latter. It must choose between regulatory capture, and meaningful civil liberty.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-66916657665469241412014-07-15T03:13:00.000+02:002014-07-15T03:13:19.854+02:00A mallet made from wood pruned from backyard treesA year or two or three ago, I pruned one of my Australian brush cherry trees, and had a few forearm-sized logs lying around. Recently I saw an episode of <cite>The Woodwrights Shop</cite> where <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2365021538/">Roy makes a mallet</a>. It's a perfect match: the short piece of a random log becomes the head, and a slightly less short piece of cork oak (from a tree I planted in about 1987) becomes the handle.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSqzetO9_8CReHCOTRGCVybdXGaOQ9YtuL49CNRo_LiImhwb1_iaxn8oU_ec7BmzzB0ZvF5kLm8w3jglDWINuZ_bdG2ziOJXQ6N1EXgMOvNc4GcSYfn8eoYM1QDYKQGONIsdPUNaIA3uY/s1600/disassembled.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSqzetO9_8CReHCOTRGCVybdXGaOQ9YtuL49CNRo_LiImhwb1_iaxn8oU_ec7BmzzB0ZvF5kLm8w3jglDWINuZ_bdG2ziOJXQ6N1EXgMOvNc4GcSYfn8eoYM1QDYKQGONIsdPUNaIA3uY/s1600/disassembled.jpeg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Usually one wants longer, straight logs, but for a mallet, short pieces are good enough, so it doesn't matter if the logs aren't very straight.<br />
<br />
The brush cherry is clearly a dense wood - one notices immediately that even a seasoned piece is rather heavy. Upon working it, it becomes clear that it's also quite hard. Mortising the hole took a lot of effort, especially lacking a mallet to drive the 1 inch chisel. (I simply used another random length of long I had lying around - again wood from the same tree that's the source of the mallet's head.)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKP7tRahWO5Q3mkOmX8Aw3gF_JmzFK9qe52a1DZcVyu7Y0VGrEXC1-5a-EXMTd2ih1GYNYvfIia0YhSkC0DpLQbBsKS9kuzlOvbcyOtLclos89GwGyRJFWZob875SVbQgJuRTY18PjKNg/s1600/head-mortise.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKP7tRahWO5Q3mkOmX8Aw3gF_JmzFK9qe52a1DZcVyu7Y0VGrEXC1-5a-EXMTd2ih1GYNYvfIia0YhSkC0DpLQbBsKS9kuzlOvbcyOtLclos89GwGyRJFWZob875SVbQgJuRTY18PjKNg/s1600/head-mortise.jpeg" height="197" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I've left the handle slightly oversized, since it might not have finished doing all the shrinking it's ever going to do. Maybe in a year or 10 I'll bring it down to final size so that so much of it doesn't stand proud of the head:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdNeKbrulOY9A2qEimZx7gtY4z_xER4n2-TTXjb6keo3N78ixy9b_PXgQXt7_j_B0y0YDGDuVwG9gG0IveXnZws7aKloiEOPcWATcV0y8kymUNDmZhH02JYL1QnC8W3EwPTUfy13dahw/s1600/assembled.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdNeKbrulOY9A2qEimZx7gtY4z_xER4n2-TTXjb6keo3N78ixy9b_PXgQXt7_j_B0y0YDGDuVwG9gG0IveXnZws7aKloiEOPcWATcV0y8kymUNDmZhH02JYL1QnC8W3EwPTUfy13dahw/s1600/assembled.jpeg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The taper is quite visible on the handle, and when I make another mallet (a bigger one - this is just a baby) I might use a more acute angle. On the other hand, the rather strong taper makes it easy to knock down the mallet if I want to, yet is gentle enough that the mallet doesn't spontaneously disassemble in use:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJn5npWrJeoednxiCSqlsatms3FjrSJKBWQUBa0r9JUVMSF34qcrDWIkQUTQhlg4MzFrjfEZHV-QBAvgR9vP_rDml7AWGDSLjI05mC3nsLtX-tgBVd819LLiHH0lWE5GnxqWMzWnOoD8/s1600/handle.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJJn5npWrJeoednxiCSqlsatms3FjrSJKBWQUBa0r9JUVMSF34qcrDWIkQUTQhlg4MzFrjfEZHV-QBAvgR9vP_rDml7AWGDSLjI05mC3nsLtX-tgBVd819LLiHH0lWE5GnxqWMzWnOoD8/s1600/handle.jpeg" height="96" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This little mallet seems perfectly capable of doing its job. It's light enough to not be tiring to use, and the lightness permits better control than a more anvil-like model would. But I can foresee a need for a heavier, anvil-like mallet. Something to drive a 1 inch chisel to mortise some extra-hard wood. That would've come in handy while making this junior mallet.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-33936512078477784462014-01-23T05:36:00.000+02:002014-01-23T05:36:24.581+02:00Biltong cabinetA few days after Christmas I noticed silverside beef going for R50/kg at Pick n Pay, so I bought some, figuring that I'd make biltong out of it. Only one problem: I didn't have a biltong cabinet! What I do have is wood and tools with which to work it. So off to the garage I went and found two scraps that seemed just right to become the frame of my biltong cabinet-to-be. What became the top and bottom was an oak plank I bought for R10, and the side pillars came from a random piece of oak I think I found in my garage when I moved into my house. The random piece from the garage has come full circle; here I'm gluing it onto the cabinet top and bottom with some dowels for a better joint:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1q53vTOxvOz8RR81t32aIIiADfNkW2uOx_5OF7dMXtJGGp7OLuE-NPt9E_2eZrZk_-Jb2trU0KGiARyrfRFBIEwyY2TxW_7LIQo0i1hWDth0qLHPrVKYpFpOEQtyoA8OVX5Jm7IZBtjs/s1600/biltong-cabinet-gluing.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1q53vTOxvOz8RR81t32aIIiADfNkW2uOx_5OF7dMXtJGGp7OLuE-NPt9E_2eZrZk_-Jb2trU0KGiARyrfRFBIEwyY2TxW_7LIQo0i1hWDth0qLHPrVKYpFpOEQtyoA8OVX5Jm7IZBtjs/s1600/biltong-cabinet-gluing.jpeg" height="232" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gluing the biltong cabinet frame together</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Gluing it up was a bit tricky at first, because the frame was so wobbly at first. But once the first pillar was glued and set, the others followed more easily. I use a loop of webbing tied loosely around the article I'm gluing, and then twist the loop with a stick to tighten it, finally locking the stick with another random piece of wood so the webbing doesn't untwist.<br />
<br />
Because I was in a rush, I simply lined the inside of the frame with one contiguous piece of fabric. I want to redo the lining, and install a door in one of the side panels. The current access (through a hole sawn in the top, which also holds the ATX PSU fan) is very inconvenient. Also, the holes I drilled for installing the skewers from which the meat hangs are perpendicular to the pillar's face. Because the plan of the cabinet is not square, these skewer holes aren't collinear, which makes it difficult to impossible to install the loaded skewers into the cabinet. (I ended up poking holes through the fabric just to be able to install the skewers.)<br />
<br />
Still, the cabinet does its job: it keeps insects out while allowing air movement past the drying meat, and despite several days of rain, my strips of silverside dried quite nicely. It took about a week for the meat to become recognizably biltong-ish.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfM-XHfRmC-L90iYxPBYMTZGf9wa5HgTIUqmBwyhV52MCSibNJJ-Pne6igBH08imfVmzKsJRRqkkIUrEXxeKGlHAj0Fycsy6TQ-X-pPSWT0uasGXayteOvRzvuA9zPNFQlLjlEbsnmhkk/s1600/biltong-cabinet-working.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfM-XHfRmC-L90iYxPBYMTZGf9wa5HgTIUqmBwyhV52MCSibNJJ-Pne6igBH08imfVmzKsJRRqkkIUrEXxeKGlHAj0Fycsy6TQ-X-pPSWT0uasGXayteOvRzvuA9zPNFQlLjlEbsnmhkk/s1600/biltong-cabinet-working.jpeg" height="166" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A cross-eyed stereogram of the cabinet in operation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I ran the fan when I remembered to put the PV panel in the Sun; the panel is a bit too big for the little fan; its maximum-power output voltage is 15V (at 0.46A) while the fan only wants to draw 0.2A at 12V, to the fan gets overdriven somewhat. So far it has survived the abuse.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-320680141710662752013-12-09T20:52:00.000+02:002013-12-09T20:52:00.499+02:00DefeatI'm out of runway. My freelancing stint never really took off the way it was supposed to. It's my failure: I simply didn't pursue work hard enough. So it's taken two and a half years to eat through my savings buffer that I was willing to sacrifice for this experiment, and now I'm at the end of the runway and the lift isn't there. Own damn fault.<br />
<br />
Oh well, it was like a nice long holiday. I got <a href="http://www.bpj-code.co.za/6002x_Certificate-108198-ungraded.pdf">a little certificate out of the inaugural 6.002x course</a> that is now part of edX. I finally earned my amateur radio licence. Worked a lot on my gEDA fork. Wasted a bunch of time playing the mother of all Freeciv games with an eye to animating the replay of a minimap-like view. Spent a good bit of time with my niece over the 2011/2012 summer. Learned a lot about bitcoin, and refreshed my knowledge about cryptography in general in the process. Figured out how to take credit card payments for merchants through <a href="http://www.payfast.co.za/">Payfast</a>.<br />
<br />
But it was too much fun and not enough work-work. Dull, boring, and frustrating work that yet pays the bills. The straw that breaks this camel's back is when I started noticing that Rocketseed (my ex employer and my anchor client over the duration of this freelancing experiment) started taking their time paying me. When Zanap was still in charge of accounts, I'd get my money within a few days of sending her the invoice. But the new regime was to pay me on the very last day of the month (or even missing that) even when my work for them was done, committed, and pushed by the first few days of the month.<br />
<br />
I don't have the energy anymore, in this iteration of the experiment, to try and encourage more prompt payments. Besides, getting my invoices paid quicker only puts off the problem for a short while: my living expenses are slightly higher than what I'm earning. Unless a miracle happens and tomorrow my inbox is overflowing with people asking me to conjure up some C for them, I need to do the realistic thing and take the low-risk option now instead of doubling down on my bet like a gambler.<br />
<br />
So I'm now on the job market. Let someone else figure out how to turn value into money, and just give me a regular payslip. What I've been doing hasn't been working, so it's time to try something else. At least for a while, so I can build a new runway and try again later.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-45002515252114834772013-12-06T04:42:00.002+02:002013-12-06T04:42:52.888+02:00Is bitcoin an ecological disaster in the making?I've been thinking a lot about bitcoin mining lately, even considering building some mining equipment with Nasier. As exciting as it is, I have a new doubt over the enviro-ethical value of the bitcoin protocol as it exists today.<br />
<br />
Right now, the total energy put into mining bitcoin is still small. The network hash rate is perhaps 7PH/s. If we take an average mining efficiency of 100MH/J (maybe generous, but I really only want an order-of-magnitude calculation here) then it means there must be 70MW dedicated to mining. It won't stay at just 70MW though.<br />
<br />
The current block reward is 25BTC, or about 250000ZAR. Every 10 minutes in the long-term average. That's the limit up to which mining costs can go before it becomes uneconomical - the point where miners decide to just switch off their machines. Right now capital costs are important, because average mining equipment efficiency is still increasing, which obsoletes current mining equipment in a matter of months. I don't think we can expect consistent increases in mining efficiency for much longer: Avalon's gen2 chips are made with a 55nm process, and I've seen talk of 28nm chips. Once we reach an efficiency wall, the only way to access a greater hash rate will be to consume more power.<br />
<br />
Once we reach that point, there will be little incentive to <em>replace</em> older equipment with newer; the incentive for profitable miners will be simply to add more equipment to their operations. Capital costs then shrink as the economic lifetime of mining equipment increases to years instead of months, and electricity prices will become the dominant cost.<br />
<br />
Domestic electricity costs no more than R2.50/kWh. 250kZAR per 10 minutes can fund the consumption of 100MWh every 10 minutes - that's <strong>167kWh every second</strong>, or roughly half my monthly electricity consumption every second. In standard units, that's <strong>600MW</strong>. Notice that this <strong>doesn't depend on average mining efficiency</strong>, but only on the block reward and on the price of electricity. Cheaper electricity only makes it worse!<br />
<br />
Are you okay with that? I'm not sure if I am. Does the standard banking industry, whose death due to bitcoin we sometimes pine for, use that much? I doubt bitcoin would <em>replace</em> the banking industry's carbon footprint; it would rather <em>add</em> to it. Also, things get much, much worse if bitcoin rises to the <a href="http://falkvinge.net/2013/03/06/the-target-value-for-bitcoin-is-not-some-50-or-100-it-is-100000-to-1000000/">$100000+ that some think is possible</a>.<br />
<br />
Block reward halves every 210000 blocks, or every 4 years. <a href="http://bitcoinclock.com/">Next halving is in 2016.</a> So we may see only two years of gigawatt-scale mining - <em>if the price of electricity in bitcoin stays constant</em>. What happens to the half of the exahash-scale mining network that would go offline due to being uncompetitive? Does it instantly turn into a 51% attack network, having to make ends meet by conspiring with double-spenders?<br />
<br />
In the very long term, the block reward becomes insignificant or disappears completely. So I'm happy that bitcoin mining won't be an ecological travesty in eternity. But in the meantime, this looks like a serious problem to me.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-59188391618218775822013-10-04T18:51:00.001+02:002013-10-18T14:15:43.058+02:00Microwave steakPeople react as if I'm proposing to put a baby in the microwave to keep it warm in the winter, when I speak of my microwave steak recipe. It really isn't a travesty; it works quite well in making a delicious steak ready to eat!<br />
<br />
Here's what I don't like about conventional methods of steak preparation:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlTPYCaqMgFlx_phCEivWsVKKNdQ5zguaFvR87qMWLeVZ40YPoRw5pgrEx6gaJppuba4Eue5RGLhxnPYOvGswo_HOXiZd40VxhU-pflRWcBOzA940maX40jFhT0zqk2H8pLFpwUS7V91E/s1600/steak-unnuked.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlTPYCaqMgFlx_phCEivWsVKKNdQ5zguaFvR87qMWLeVZ40YPoRw5pgrEx6gaJppuba4Eue5RGLhxnPYOvGswo_HOXiZd40VxhU-pflRWcBOzA940maX40jFhT0zqk2H8pLFpwUS7V91E/s1600/steak-unnuked.jpeg" /></a></div>
<br />
You end up with an incinerated outside, and a rare inside, and this gradient gets worse the thicker the steak is. The underlying problem with all fry-only methods is that they all involve heating the inside <em>by transferring heat through the outside</em>. This process inevitably results in an outside that is significantly more cooked than the inside. Some (<a href="http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/how-to-cook-a-fucking-steak">but not all</a>) cooking methods call for using lower heat. Maybe that works, but even if it does, I like my method better even if it's just for the way it hacks the laws of physics.<br />
<br />
The crucial feature of microwave heating that my method exploits is that microwaves can penetrate the interior of the steak. If one were to simply nuke the steak for a minute or two, the steak would cook from the inside out, rather than from the outside in as when one fries it. Mixing the two methods gives me the ideal steak:<br />
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<br />
Medium rare throughout the whole thickness. Sometimes I've been lucky and there's been no perceptible gradient, other than having a very thin (<1mm) outer edge.<br />
<br />
I've found these numbers to work well for me, assuming a single, modest steak (around 150g, just right for breakfast):<br />
<br />
1. Heat a saucepan, using maximum heat on my "small" stove plate. Wait until the bottom reaches the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect#Leidenfrost_point">Leidenfrost point</a>. (Drip some water into the saucepan to see if it beads up without flash-boiling.)<br />
2. Nuke the steak at 100% power for about 30 seconds. While it's nuking, wipe the bottom of the heated saucepan with an oiled piece of paper.<br />
3. Fry each side for a minute - which is just about how long it takes for the steak to stop sticking to the saucepan.<br />
4. Thick cuts may justify another 30 seconds on each side.<br />
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Update: It seems <a href="http://www.cheftalk.com/t/45222/i-cook-my-steaks-with-the-microwave">there are other people who use the same technique</a>, although I should point out that "sear to seal the meat" is BS.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-70172402108410945432013-08-24T16:12:00.001+02:002013-08-24T16:12:17.721+02:00Fighting the demon, staying motivatedA few years ago I did the unthinkable: I asked the Internet to diagnose my ills. Specifically, I had somehow, though not specifically, landed on <a href="http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/detecting-depression" title="Not this list, but one probably quite like it">a list of symptoms of depression</a>. Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism? Check. Persistent sad or "empty" feelings? Check. Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex? Check. (Sex, LOL.) It seemed pretty clear to me that I had been depressed for years at that point - and that I had probably caught it (it's contagious, did you know?) from someone I interacted with on a daily basis.<br />
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I didn't like this diagnosis. I don't want to be depressed. I didn't want to face a future of a hollowed-out personality like the person I'm sure I caught it from. So somehow I managed to "snap out of it" through what felt like a conscious decision. Almost overnight my affect improved, and I started recognizing the seductive depression-thoughts: "You aren't pretty/accomplished/popular/etc. like those other people - in other words, worthless!" Or the most insidious one of all for me: "I'm smarter than all these other people, and I'm nicer than them too, therefore the tragedies of the world hurt me more. Being depressed as a result of how horrible the world is means I'm smart and nice."<br />
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Yuck, no more. I'm ashamed of having thought those ways for so long. So much time wasted. During the same period of my self-diagnosis, I was very much into psychology stuff in general. Every day during the long hours I spent at work in those days, I'd be poring over Wikipedia articles and other web pages. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion">Cognitive distortions</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbti">MBTIs</a> (I'm quite solidly an ISTP, apparently). <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening">Active listening</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_communication">Models of communication</a>. <a href="http://homepages.wmich.edu/~bowman/c2bframe.html">The meaning of a message is the response it elicits</a> Understanding that, and coping with the ways that <a href="http://www.loot.co.za/product/joost-elffers-the-48-laws-of-power/xmnt-167-g330?referrer=22060849355">others' goals may not be aligned with mine</a>. And always a background of more mathy/techy concepts to mine and repurpose. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory">Game theory</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback">Feedback</a>.<br />
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So I have the intellectual tools now to fight the demon. I'm now aware that it's (like) a parasitic personality with "who I really am" as the host. (I don't really like "who I really am" as a concept - it makes a value judgement and mandates a static identity, neither of which I like.) But I still have to fight it - almost every day. I was just an emotionally vulnerable teenager when it started (and was probably a good host from the start), so it had its claws deep in my self-concept. Consciously, I reject that now - I don't want that to be part of "who I really am".<br />
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When I notice my mood darkening, I have a few options. Just feeling like I have options helps me to feel like I have some control over my life. Sometimes I go for small victories: I'll go to the garden and clear a little patch of weeds. Sometimes I just bail out and go to sleep, hoping to reboot overnight. And other times a walk with the dog does the trick to clear my mind. I suspect that going freelance has made it harder to find distraction from depressing thought: other people have their own needs, and the fact that they make demands on one's attention serves as an anchor - a sort of social regression towards the mean. I haven't figured out yet if IRC serves as a substitute to provide the grounding effect of having real-life people around. I think it might be channel-dependent: I'm happy when I'm in <a href="irc://irc.atrum.org/Chatania">#Chatania</a>, and less so in an unnamed channel I've finally given up on. Reddit seems to be affectively neutral, but it does tend to suck me in a bit as a displacement for boredom. I like <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/">/r/changemyview</a> best so far.<br />
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I wish I could more regularly find the muse to do more productive things than reading Internet news, politics, and psychology porn (admit it - that's what these media categories are). There are so many things I could be doing - I could be working on my <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/geda-gaf/berndj.git">gEDA fork</a>, or working on that damn MPH website that's been a steady irritant for two years now, or completing some of my <a href="http://www.bpj-code.co.za/images/woodwork/">woodworking projects</a>. Even just blogging a little more regularly would feel more productive than getting my next hit of Internet. (Thanks A. for taking Essay Saturday seriously and prodding me into action with <a href="http://pastebin.com/rZ8ppK0G">your entry</a>.)<br />
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I'm off to go after a few small victories now. Making muesli and steak 2-course breakfast, then checking on my garden, and maybe sawing some firewood from pruned branches.<br />
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P.S. Diet must have an influence too. I seem to have more psychic energy since I've started having steak for breakfast. (Remind me to blog my microwave recipe.) And copious amounts of raisins too.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-48958063436419755922013-05-02T02:26:00.000+02:002013-05-02T02:26:41.572+02:00Building a furnaceI'm building a little furnace for backyard foundry duty, so I can cast parts for some of my zillion other hobbies. I'm not happy with all the brute-force furnaces out there on the Internet, that achieve all their melting power with a MOAR PROPANE! mentality, so I want mine to be one of those virtuous circle devices that work better the harder they work. Enter the air preheater:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnv4OClJeMqoUD2-kCUw7tYTd0x3naOgqV6uzdcVzAMl2v4UZIccOUu_pdU97Cn6cTpQA5KSzsInhDeCqL1htJ8QfbIANsQ5um_CL9zQb379aHlWQap1KqBkoyuAJSElmQ6xyhTpjwHMQ/s1600/furnace-sides-top.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnv4OClJeMqoUD2-kCUw7tYTd0x3naOgqV6uzdcVzAMl2v4UZIccOUu_pdU97Cn6cTpQA5KSzsInhDeCqL1htJ8QfbIANsQ5um_CL9zQb379aHlWQap1KqBkoyuAJSElmQ6xyhTpjwHMQ/s320/furnace-sides-top.jpeg" width="286" /></a></div>
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Those holes in the side wall are air channels, for the incoming air to soak up some heat from the furnace wall instead of just letting it sink to ambient, unused. Unfortunately the side wall didn't slip out of the bucket as cleanly as I had hoped, and some fireclay got stuck in the corner, breaking out of the bottom of the wall when I turned the bucket over:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGssYY1t9SpWKv5F8YMll7KSsljBG7z8NeuVxOLwjz2O3XbmzxBBiF0QpSw2xq8QdMM1HNakBbEpwEose1e3ukQBb6zJYT7eHEN5RcEZ9fL1Rm5uVu6to3rkdGxRyH7bwUW7pAfMafSM/s1600/furnace-sides-bottom.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGssYY1t9SpWKv5F8YMll7KSsljBG7z8NeuVxOLwjz2O3XbmzxBBiF0QpSw2xq8QdMM1HNakBbEpwEose1e3ukQBb6zJYT7eHEN5RcEZ9fL1Rm5uVu6to3rkdGxRyH7bwUW7pAfMafSM/s320/furnace-sides-bottom.jpeg" width="284" /></a></div>
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I'm glad the channels ended up mostly where I wanted them - parallel to the inside wall right to the bottom. (I made a little jig to help me line up the steel rod, that I used to make the channels, with the inner wall.)<br />
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Next I need to build a floor for this furnace, again with internal channels to communicate with the ones in the side wall. A roof might be nice too, but that can be (<em>has</em> to be) a separate part. I probably won't put air channels in the roof, in order to avoid plumbing problems - and so it will be possible to run this furnace without its roof.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-40002980770658105522013-01-31T03:35:00.000+02:002013-01-31T03:35:37.736+02:00Refreshing science fictionMost sci-fi I see is either insufferably militarist, or hopelessly naive, and besides, most mainstream entertainment is boringly unambiguous. Not so with <a href="http://www.c-themovie.com/"><cite>C 299,792km/s</cite></a>. You should probably not read further if you want to see the movie, there are spoilers below. But watch it again after reading the rest; I understood some things better only the second time, after I'd read some comments on the movie's vimeo page.<br />
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Here we have a grave, almost reluctant Malleck leading a mutiny on the Kestros IV, clearly a space warship. While certain in her conviction that her act is just, she is not merely juxtaposed as The Captain's moral opposite. The Captain seems like a reasonable man who merely does not (yet?) share Malleck's ideology: that humanity can do better than build space warships to blow stuff up and wreck planets.<br />
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My favourite line of the movie is "That's alright, I don't need them" - in response to the Captain's warning that he can't give her his "launch codes" (presumably for some superweapon). It's the first in-story hint that this is not the usual evil-terrorists-commandeer-superweapon trope-tripe that Hollywood loves dishing up. Immediately after, the film cuts to the retro-style <cite>Beyond the infinite</cite> "documentary" that's woven into the in-space arc hints at this beating-swords-into-ploughshares theme by negation, when Dr Harold Newman laments, "Since Man has been building tools, he has used them as weapons". It becomes clear with time that Malleck seeks to use the weapon as a tool, exactly as Newman vainly hopes (about untold amounts of energy), "or, to reach new [worlds]."<br />
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No doubt there are some hidden treasures in the film I've missed. There is a scene where Operator Hale searches for Lieutenant Kai, and a screen scrolls a list of names with short blurbs, some of them a bit bizarre. For example, there is "Unresolved conflict has led to extreme silliness" and "Bread crumbs are not as healthy as once [blurred]." No doubt some in-jokes among the film crew - and perhaps a nod to some of the Kickstarter campaign's funders?<br />
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Overall, I love the film. I wish there was more of it. Some people seem to be troubled by the acting, but it doesn't bother me. In fact, to me it adds authenticity - the characters are technocrats and soldiers, not orators and superheroes. The only scene I find a bit fake is where Kai figures out that something fishy is going on - that the ship is not awash with radiation but is, in fact, hijacked.<br />
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Even soldier Kai is human. There is a delightful scene near the end where he figures out what Malleck's motive is, and cracks the slightest smile, as if to say, "Yes, I like this script better than the wargames I signed up for!"<br />
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Watch it now, and then figure out a way to <a href="http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/460/Jamais-Cascio-Open-the-Future-page02.html#post31">subvert your environment</a> so that the world can become a better place.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-25067396787108483382012-12-17T04:05:00.002+02:002012-12-17T04:05:38.080+02:00Yesterday's mistakes and mystery words<i>guerre</i> is a war. I should have inferred this from the capitalization of the phrase <i>« Seconde Guerre mondiale »</i>.<br />
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<i>lors de la guerre</i> then becomes "<i>lors de la</i> war", or "during the war" - a compound "transitive" preposition. (TIL about the idea of <a href="http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/prepositions.shtml">transitive and intransitive prepositions</a>.)<br />
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<i>fut</i> is some past tense thing; seems to be the <a href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/French/Grammar/Tenses/Past_historic#Irregular_Conjugations">simple past of <i>être</i> (to be)</a>.<br />
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<i>se déroula</i> is like de-rolling - unrolling, in this use more abstractly as in "to unfold, to proceed", or, as Google translates it, "took place". I can't quite figure out the <i>se</i> part.<br />
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<i>d'août</i> is just the month of August!<br />
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<i>était</i> is the imperfect past tense, again of <i>être</i>.<br />
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<i>près de</i> is what you get when you <em>press</em> things together: they end up <em>close to</em> each other. Specifically, <i>près de 40 000 militaires</i> are nearly 40,000 soldiers.<br />
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<i>il s'agit</i> frustrates my attempt to find its idiomatic role. It's clearly the "it is about" meaning of <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agir#Verb">the verb <i>agir</i> - to act</a>, but I can't coax Google to translate "it is" back to <i>s'agit</i> without adding an explicit "about" which clearly doesn't belong in the context of "it is the largest deployment".<br />
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<i>depuis</i> is just "since".Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-76530178426821608842012-12-16T05:49:00.004+02:002012-12-16T05:49:58.112+02:00Learning a new languageI feel like I want to learn a new language, but I can't quite decide which one. Since sometime in my teenage years, when I happened upon my sister's copy of <cite>Basic Italian</cite> (ISBN-10 4833700301), I've wanted to learn Italian, and for a short time in 2004 I could get by with a few Italian words and a lot of handwaving.<br />
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But Italian is relevant to pretty much only one country: Italy itself. So I've been on a search for another language to learn. Ideally one with some chance of economic benefit. I'd considered Spanish (which would open not just Spain, but several South American countries), Chinese (likely to become the dominant economy in the world, but just so damn foreign, and that writing system!), French (some use in parts of Africa, France itself has a decent economy) and Lithuanian (a linguistic interest sparked by a former Venusian interest). For now I'm leaning towards French, so I've bookmarked a few pages and now I think I should read a French Wikipedia article (or at least its introduction) every day.<br />
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Today's article is <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op%C3%A9ration_Ath%C3%A9na">Operation Athena</a>:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
L'opération Athéna est la contribution des Forces canadiennes à la Force internationale d'assistance et de sécurité (FIAS) lors de la guerre d'Afghanistan. L'opération fut divisée en deux phases : la première se déroula de juillet 2003 à juillet 2005 dans la région de Kaboul et la seconde d'août 2005 à décembre 2011 dans la région de Kandahar. L'objectif global de l'opération était d'améliorer la sécurité et la gouvernance de l'Afghanistan. L'opération Athéna à Kandahar a constitué la plus longue mission de combat de l'histoire des Forces canadiennes. Avec près de 40 000 militaires canadiens engagés, il s'agit du plus grand déploiement des Forces canadiennes depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale.</blockquote>
I'll document my progress learning the language by translating what (I think) I understand. Obviously this technique relies quite heavily on the French language's influence on English, and Latin's too. Here goes:<br />
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Operation Athena is the Canadian Forces' contribution to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) deployment to Afghanistan. The operation was divided into two phases: the first, from July 2003 to July 2005, to Kabul and surroundings, and the second, from the end of 2005 to December 2011, to Kandahar and its surroundings. The objective for the global operation was to assist with security and government of Afghanistan. Operation Athena at Kandahar was the longest combat mission in the history of the Canadian Forces. With about 40,000 Canadian troops engages, it was also the largest global deployment of the Canadian Forces' Second Army.<br />
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Mystery words:<br />
lors (de la) guerre<br />
fut<br />
déroula<br />
d'août<br />
était<br />
près<br />
il s'agit<br />
depuisBernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-78188297487695004722012-11-09T14:43:00.000+02:002012-11-09T14:43:02.980+02:00Rolling JubileeIt's heart-warming to read about people apparently hacking the system to do good. In this case, to make the world a better place by forgiving distressed debt - <a href="http://rollingjubilee.org/">the people's bailout</a>.<br />
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Then again, I can't help but wonder what effects this campaign will have, if it goes beyond a bit of hipster activism. It's like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle - you can't participate in a market without affecting it. The interesting questions here are, how big a player in the debt market is OWS likely to be, and what is the price elasticity of demand for debt?<br />
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Also, while at 5 cents to the dollar it doesn't seem worth getting worked up about it, I'm never quite comfortable with do-gooders taking on a burden that isn't theirs. And yes, that means I don't believe in charity - or at least most of it. Of course there are narrow-interest causes that are appropriate to fund by charitable donations, but others, like this problem of almost ubiquitous quasi-odious [1] debt, are broad social problems. Broad social problems should be addressed by broad social mandates - exactly the sort of thing governments are intended to do. If <em>everybody</em> bears the consequences of a social problem, then I think everybody should also contribute to its solution. By means of, say, income tax. And then you can segue into another interesting topic - how the burden of income tax should be distributed.<br />
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And that's the irony here: OWS is all about contrasting the burdens of the 99% with the privileges of the 1%. Like the phenomenon that many wealthy people are able to structure their income such that they pay a far lower effective rate of tax [2] than not-so-wealthy people do. And then OWS go ahead and voluntarily tax themselves with the cost of forgiving debt.<br />
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It still seems like a morally positive thing to do, and I still hope they shake things up.<br />
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[1] Nobody held a gun to anybody's head and <em>made</em> them take a $100,000 student loan for a liberal arts major. Other examples may seem more legitimately odious.<br />
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[2] Tax in general, not specifically income tax. Which is part of how they do it - by structuring their income such that more of it appears as capital appreciation, which attracts the far lighter capital gains tax.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-11607985596413742332012-10-25T01:37:00.002+02:002012-10-25T01:54:13.139+02:00I got mugged, then got (most of) my stuff backToday I experienced my first mugging - in fact, my first violent-violent crime (to borrow from Whoopi Goldberg's "rape-rape"). I was walking my dog Vissie through the extended neighbourhood, hoping to take some more stereo train photos along the way. Here's the last train picture I got; unfortunately my muggers are not in the frame; it all happened so soon after the last pic I took that I must assume they are behind me in this image. Exif data says I took it at 17:41.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKZU5XC-WojUKNLInahb5S4bijKkBeweS2Mn9A87QZj8idXr2clatXtmPJDPoaPVnyD3_Y6ikWwwZMVgh7_UHr93utLV12eycRugjq9aYxETuY12sHszPTWe_eusYzsfwKoA9NxmrRtM/s1600/mugging-last-train-20121024.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeKZU5XC-WojUKNLInahb5S4bijKkBeweS2Mn9A87QZj8idXr2clatXtmPJDPoaPVnyD3_Y6ikWwwZMVgh7_UHr93utLV12eycRugjq9aYxETuY12sHszPTWe_eusYzsfwKoA9NxmrRtM/s320/mugging-last-train-20121024.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The purpose for all the train pictures I'm taking is to be able to construct a 3D model of these old 5M2A trainsets for an openBVE route I'm slowly working on - the route from Cape Town to Simons Town. It's surprisingly difficult to get a pair of photos of the same motor unit (I'm concentrating on these - the coaches are boring) with a reasonable angular separation. My camera (you hear that, mugger assholes? MINE!) "thinks" so long between pictures that by the time it's ready to take the second of a set, the train has usually moved a whole length or so. The name of the game then is to find open areas (to get the undercarriage unobscured by station platforms) where the trains tend to move slowly, due to having just left a station, or due to approaching the junction near Heathfield station.<br />
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Back to the topic. I was walking my dog. For the last year or so I've been maintaining a map of which routes I've covered. This is what the map looks like today:<br />
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The red line is today's route, followed by a blue trail to the police station after my foray into Parkwood. The red 'X' marks the spot. So these two out-of-frame guys grabbed my camera and dog-walking-stuff bag and, I guess, pushed me over. My memory of the details is fuzzy. But I must have realized what was happening just a split second before it went down, because I was able to hold on to one guys, then perhaps the other, grabbing his ankle to make him fall. I hope he tasted a mouthful of sand. I heard of of the guys say "Steek hom!" ("Stab him!"), and I recall thinking, "Shit just got real", looking out for where the knife is. I didn't see one, and in any case, my inner reptile had taken over and decided it was a good idea to pull ankle boy to the ground.<br />
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Unfortunately they got away. (Fortunately I didn't get stabbed in the process.) They weren't all that far ahead, and I was able to get up relatively quickly. Reptile decided to throw some conveniently nearby ballast at them, and if my aim had been better, I might have hit them. I just about had the distance. My aim was off though, and the second stone landed on somebody's garden shed's tin roof. (I feel like I should pay a visit and apologize, or at least explain. It feels dishonest to apologize for something I know I'd do again if I rewound the situation.)<br />
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I'm a bit bummed that Vissie doesn't really seem to be a hunting dog. She didn't respond to "Go get them!" (Not that I'd expect her to do that - she's quite territorial at home, but doesn't really bring that aggression along on walks.) In my fantasies I'd have a giant Dobermann like family friends' horse-like Spencer chasing them down like helpless prey and barely holding off from making mincemeat of my attackers.<br />
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So I had to do the pursuing myself anyway. I rounded the corner of houses, followed the muggers along the canal as they climbed down and out of it the other side (perhaps to pin me on the near side with my dog, but I quickly found an easy way over). Then over the M5 / Prince George Drive, still carrying significant traffic, luckily not having to wait too long to get my gap.<br />
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These assholes probably didn't expect a white guy to follow them into Parkwood, a pretty dodgy-looking area. I've given the cleaning lady at my ex work a ride home after year-end functions a few times, so I knew it was going to be "interesting" feeling like there's a target painted on my back going in there hoping to confront my muggers. I managed to follow them a few blocks before I finally lost sight of them, but not before launching another missile at them (which hit a shopkeeper's car instead, dammit).<br />
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So there I was, just me and my little dog sticking out like a sore thumb in a pretty depressed area. It's really no wonder that some of the people living in Parkwood engage in opportunistic crimes. Whingeing white people from leafy suburbs like mine, Plumstead, should really think hard about the effects of NIMBY anti-activism.<br />
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Feeling rather down, having moved past the momentary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model#Stages">anger stage</a>, I knew it was time to fess up. Today wasn't the shopkeeper's best day either. When I went back to that red car I hit, the guy working on it told me it was the shopkeeper's, and that he had just finished "fixing it". I'm not clear on the nature of this fixing - but clearly the man had just finished doing some work on the car for the shopkeeper, when my piece of rubble hit it. Like a bird pooping on freshly washed washing.<br />
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During this car-checking male bonding ritual, a little girl came over and said I should "go up there" and get my stuff. No ways, we all (the adults around) reckoned this would be a trap. So we continued talking car, as I was trying to get to a (reasonable) fee to make things right.<br />
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Lo and behold, that's when a young lady with a baby on the arm appeared and gave me (most of) my stuff back. She didn't want to give a name, saying only, "Die boere ken my, hulle ken my goed" ("The police know me - they know me well" [1]). I don't understand how that happens, but yes, somehow, someone, somewhere decided that I should get my stuff back, so I did. Whether it was the muggers' mom or some other "strong woman" type who made it happen, I don't know. I certainly don't think it was remorse that made my muggers capitulate on what, to me, was their unassailable position - they had my stuff, and I had lost sight of them. Courtesy of <i>someone</i>, I have two pictures I didn't take. Here's the first post-mugging shot. Exif says 17:52:<br />
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The LCD seems to be fine, as is the lens motor and, in gross, the camera exterior. As you could infer from the mugger-cam above, the lens cover is jammed though. There's sand in the crevices between the body panels, so I'm hoping that a teardown + clean can restore lens cover action. If not, I'll have to remove it entirely. I'm optimistic that the optics are still okay - a post-retrieval test showed a blurred but recognizeable scene, which isn't that surprising, given the jammed cover.<br />
<h4>
Regrets</h4>
The shopkeeper eventually told me "it's okay", and reassured me that his car is insured. The damage is minor, having only chipped some paint off the trunk and rear bumper without denting any panels. It's one of those vexatious "benefits" of owning a car: occasional minor damage that costs the world, relatively, to fix. While I don't really regret throwing stones at my muggers while still at the railway tracks, I really misjudged this one. I'm a bad person and I should feel bad! (I do.) I don't recall having seen any people in the ballistic cone, so things could have been worse (hitting an innocent person), but I definitely should have reigned reptile brain in on this one. In a sense I'd like to make right with the shopkeeper. I'm not sure how. I'd feel a little unsafe going back into Parkwood with a wad of cash to give to him, but other than that I have no connection to him - no name, no phone number. And I don't want to get scammed out of an unreasonable amount in compensation. It's hard for me to trust people from such a different socio-economic background, which is why I didn't give the car fixing guy the R350 he thumbsucked (down from an initial R900 - see what I mean?) as a cost to fix. (I did, in fact, have a few hundred rand in my pocket - my muggerazi forgot to check there!) People can be a little <i title="dishonest">skelm</i> if they perceive you to be "rich", IME.<br />
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If I had been more fit, I could have caught up with my assailants sooner and re-confronted them more on my terms rather than on theirs - Parkwood with its "no I didn't see them" ethic. (Thanks to the kids who haven't yet been brainwashed by this shit and pointed me in the direction these guys had run.) If you're fit, you can tire your prey, and then take advantage of your greater metabolic capacity in a fight.<br />
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My physique isn't imposing - at all. If I turn sideways I disappear. Of course it's unwise to go around vigilante-style looking for trouble, but it's hard to imagine greater strength being a disadvantage. Being able to more effectively resist attackers might have let me avoid the unplanned road run I had.<br />
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Do I regret my choice to stay in South Africa, when I could live in Europe instead? I am a German (dual) citizen, so <em>getting there</em> (and staying, and being able to work) is not a problem. I don't know. I'm sure today's incident will affect my feelings, and make me doubt my wisdom in staying here. Time will tell.<br />
<h4>
Along the way</h4>
Getting out of Parkwood wasn't too hard - I was only a few blocks in. I didn't really feel welcome there, hearing a few "hey, whitey!" calls, but didn't feel particularly unsafe. Just... not exactly welcome. (I got the same vibe once before after dropping Wilma off at home there after some work function.)<br />
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In Southfield I encountered a Metro Police officer, and after asking for directions, had a little chat. It was remarkably reassuring, talking to this dad-like someone who was willing to just listen to my story. Perhaps it was partly also my first in-person reconnection post-mugging with the developed side Schrödinger's city, with <em>authority</em>.<br />
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Thanks to the lady who was watering her garden and let me drink from the hose. All the exertion had dehydrated me, so my throat was dry and it was rather unpleasant feeling like a piece of biltong.<br />
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Diep River SAPS let me lay a charge, this time without my having to squeeze blood out of a rock. I guess I cope with things by making jokes, as I kept poking fun at how I'm reporting "Amount (1) Description (Sock)" among the items stolen. (It was one of an expired pair, that I used to hold spare batteries for my camera.) Either my jokes aren't funny, or the police aren't allowed to laugh at jokes that complainants make.<br />
<h4>
Future</h4>
I expect that I'll be dealing with some post-crime neurosis, like not wanting to walk the 'hood, as my internal risk heuristics recalibrate. I'll probably get over it and over revenge fantasies and other psychological fallout after a while, as it has in the past when crime has affected my life.<br />
<br />
While I was getting over the initial shock of having just been relieved of my camera, the thought going through my head wasn't so much, "They stole R1000 worth of my stuff!", but rather, "There are photos on that memory card that I don't have at home!". Keep it in mind, folks, when you go out with your camera. Download photos to somewhere off-camera regularly. Back up your computer too, while you're at it, and store the backup media at a friend's home. And for goodness' sake, don't fall for the "store it in the cloud!" panacea-talk.<br />
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[1] "Boere" is a somewhat derogatory term for "police". It translates literally to "farmers", referring to the mostly Afrikaans-speaking "boerevolk" whom many saw as the protagonists of Apartheid. Back then, police officers were almost exclusively white, and stereotypically Afrikaans-speaking.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-78455065932839879492012-10-20T02:04:00.001+02:002012-10-20T02:04:56.223+02:00Giant Cape Gooseberry capes<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana">Cape Gooseberries</a> do well in my garden. They germinate readily, crop well, and yield almost 100% - pests try, but almost completely fail to get to the berries. Berries are good to eat even after falling to the ground and waiting there for a few days. That's when they're at their ripest, and sweetest!<br />
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Now that their fruit are ripening in the Southern Hemisphere spring, I'm checking each of my plants almost daily for sufficiently ripe fruit. One ice cream box is already full of caped berries; I'll have to process them into jam soon, or cart them off to my mother and get my share of the spoils: gooseberry cake! Here's how the ripening berries normally look while still on the mother plant:<br />
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The one resting on the base of my thumb will be ripe enough to eat in a few days to a week or so. Or to store in the fridge: another welcome trait of this plant - the berries keep well.<br />
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But this isn't all I found on this stand. (It's a few individual plants that are hard to tell apart.) Hiding in the foliage were these strangely giant capes:<br />
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They're about twice the normal size! The berries inside feel no bigger than normal though, so I'm not expecting a bounty of berries the size of a crab apple. Would be cool though! (And there's still time for these green fruit to develop. Maybe the berries will still fill out their calyx and surprise me.)Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2067758637483119766.post-92136745868800003762012-09-27T23:13:00.001+02:002012-09-27T23:14:24.787+02:00Dark UX patterns from SARSI have some idiosyncratic reasons for preferring the manual income tax return submission process over eFiling [1], and now I'm noticing some dark patterns. It isn't necessary for anyone to deliberately install such patterns in order for them to exist. Entropic forces are sufficient.<br />
<br />
Already on the first page of my return I notice an error: apparently I'm married! If I didn't tell them I was married (I don't recall ever having done so), then who did? The SARS eFiling manual submission process sabotage robot? But not to worry, this is simple to fix: a cross in the correct box, in black ink.<br />
<br />
The guide that arrived with the return warns, "If you have made a mistake in completing a field, do not correct it by completing the correct information outside the field, or making notes in the margin, as all this information will not be considered as valid and won't be taken into account in the calculation of the assessment, Refer to the section 1 above - Introduction, to obtain a new return" - and guess what? The clock keeps ticking! Back before SARS "simplified" the tax submission process, returns were not personalized (I didn't ask for you to do that SARS, I'm not bewildered by sections that don't apply to me) and they were all in the same format. This made the protocol for getting a new return simpler: one could get one at any SARS branch. Now, instead, we have at least one unnecessary turnaround (waiting for SARS to mail the personalized forms) to retard the process.<br />
<br />
And hey, guess what? On page 2 already it's clear that SARS sent me an incorrectly personalized return! "You have stated that you do not have a local savings or cheue account at any bank in South Africa. If this statement is incorrect you may be liable for an administrative penalty of up to R16000." The whole page reads a bit like "Mark here with an 'X' if you have stopped beating your wife".<br />
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Page 3 brings another incomplete section. After all the raving about the wonders of personalized returns, there's no evidence of the IRP5 certificates my now former employer would have submitted. This is really a pain in the behind, as <a href="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14265">I can't read the IRP5 certificates</a> that sit in my archives. I guess I'll have to reverse-engineer my gross salary for the part of the 2012 tax year that I was en employee.<br />
<br />
Or maybe just take a day out of my life and spend it at the local SARS office and have one of their agents do the eFiling for me. I'm sure I can find a book to keep me company.<br />
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[1] Until I checked now, I was under the impression that SARS eFiling was really operated by a private company, and not by SARS itself. I now doubt this, as <a href="http://co.za/cgi-bin/whois.sh?Domain=sarsefiling&Enter=Enter">the whois information indicates SARS as the domain registrant</a>. Still, who operates the web server - SARS or Internet Solutions? whois suggests it may be the latter; the IP address for the server is in an address block allocated to IS.Bernd Jendrissekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14105959071015403480noreply@blogger.com0