Bad news, Tech news, other stuff

Bad stuff

It's been a bad couple of days for blogging, so much has been happening that it just hasn't been very high up on my priority list. My best friend's mom died last Thursday. Shaun and I grew up in each other's homes, and Aunty Anne was like a second mother to me, as bad as it is that she's gone, what is really painful is seeing how it's hit Shaun. She's been sick and suffering for a very long time, and through all of that she never complained and continued to be an amazingly giving and loving woman. We went to the funeral in Witbank on Monday and it hit me really hard.

Aunty Anne, we will miss you dearly and will never forget you. You touched the life of everyone that knew you and you were one of the most amazing people I ever knew.

 

My own Mom was admitted to hospital with pneumonia on Tuesday morning. It's not life-threatening or anything, but it's not fun seeing her in hospital. She's in the same hospital I spent a lot of time in as a kid, and walking those halls (and stepping out into the gardens) brings back a lot of memories.

On top of that, I've been reacting badly to my immunosuppressants over the last couple of weeks, and this got particularly bad on Tuesday. I really struggled through work on Tuesday, and had to take yesterday off. I'm feeling much better, but the doc has taken me off those and just raised the dosage on my others, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully by next week I'll be feeling 100% again-for the first time in months.

 

Tech stuff

To keep this from being a totally depressing personal rant, I have two tech things to mention. The first is YouOS, an experimental web-based desktop (not quite an OS). It allows you to have a Windows-like desktop with multiple web-based applications running in windows. I tried the demo, and while it's a bit sluggish over our lousy connection speeds, I could imagine the idea working very well in countries with decent, prolific broadband. While any PC running this would obviously already be running a 'proper' OS, it offers some interesting future possibilities for file availability across machines, especially across machines of varying capabilities (for example your cell phone, PC and PSP).

 

The other little tech tidbit is that Goal Technology Solutions is about to start offering their Broadband Over Power lines competitor to Telkom's ADSL in selected Tshwane (Pretoria) suburbs-and at significantly lower prices than those of the monopoly. They will also soon be offering 'traditional' ADSL at much lower prices than other ISPs. It looks as if we may finally be seeing a fixed-line competitor to Telkom.

 

Other stuff

I thought I'd mention that my friend and ex-colleague, Andrew Paterson (who also happens to be something of a Commodore-64 nut) is remaking the C64 game 'Space Crusade' on the PC with funky new graphics for the Retro Remakes competition. He's blogging his progress at AndrewPaterson.blogspot.com, go pay him a visit. Good luck Andrew-and don't you think it's time to start playing games that come on media other than tapes? :p

Cost of the war in Iraq

Just a quick lunchtime post to mention an eye-opening site by the National Priorities Project that reflects the cost of the war in Iraq in 'real time' and compares it to domestic programs the money could have benifited instead. They actually provide a nifty little javascript counter that I would have liked to include in the post, but blogger doesn't like script in posts. Bad blogger, bad!

Leon- South Africa lagging in 2010 World Cup preparation

It seems I'm not the only one worried about our progress. Tony Leon, the leader of the DA is also concerned.

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World Cup - no the next one.

One of the hottest topics at the moment is, of course, the Soccer/Football World Cup being held in Germany. The South African team didn't make it anywhere near qualifying for the cup, and to be honest it's probably just as well since we'd make an ass of ourselves in the first rounds. Instead, I've been following the Croatian team, who sadly got knocked out of the competition last night by drawing 2-all with Australia (they needed a win to progress to the next round). Of course the World Cup holds particular interest for South Africans, since our country was selected to host the next World Cup, in 2010.

There has already been much debate as to whether hosting The Cup would have more positives or negatives for South Africa, and I am of the opinion that pulling it off successfully would definitely have an overall positive effect on the country. The trick is that little adjective 'successfully'. While hosting an event as prestigious and popular as the FIFA World Cup can be hugely beneficial to a country's economy and public image, being the first country in history to have the rights to host the competition taken away would most likely do irreparable damage to both of those elements.

Many super-patriots at this point would start grumbling that I'm just negative and a cynic. Sometimes that's true, but in this case I'm just being a realist. Two years ago I was one of the avid supporters that shot down any suggestions that we might not succeed, insisting that we could build the required stadiums and infrastructure, and that our government had it's act together enough to have everything ready in time. Unfortunately it's now two years on, and we're still in exactly the same position!

None of the required new stadiums have been built (in fact unless I'm mistaken construction on these stadiums has not even begun). We still do not have the new roads or public transport required to get people to and from games and their as-yet unbuilt accommodation. As far as the Gautrain is concerned, demolition has begun in areas such as Hatfield that will play host to terminals, but that's about it. On top of this FIFA enforces strict technological compliance requirements in terms of broadcasting and telecommunications which we are nowhere near meeting.

'But we have four years' I hear the die-hards whimpering. Well I have news for you, there's this little thing called the Confederation Cup, a tournament of 8 teams that is held the year before the World Cup in the same country that is to host the World Cup. In other words, our stadiums, infrastructure and other elements have to be ready in 2009. Oh, but wait, certain infrastructure and technology elements have to be completed, tested and handed over to FIFA two years before the World Cup, that means 2008. So we have less than two years to cut through the endless piles of political red tape our newly-over-beaurocratic government is shitting out on a daily basis and build roads, telecommunications and broadcast networks, accommodation and countless other things. The way things are progressing at the moment (something like a rusty battleship through frozen molasses) that's not very likely. Strangely enough based on recent comments it would appear that our politicians are under the misguided impression that they own the World Cup, rather than FIFA, and that FIFA somehow needs them. Unless something is done very, very soon we are headed for a political and economic catastrophe that South Africa will find it very hard to escape from.

Looking at the infamous efficiency and attention to detail of the Germans, and the incredible experience they are undoubtedly giving the hundreds of thousands of soccer fans that are flooding their country to enjoy The Cup, I doubt very much visitors in 2010 will be satisfied with paying a premium to board in tin shacks and squash into minibus taxis for a 2 hour long commute on the congested N1 to watch a match.