I was browsing eBay the other night looking for posters of TV...
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A day in Alexandria
“Can we show you places?” I was in Alexandria at the end of August. Two students approached me at the Maritime Museum. The one who asked the question wore a blue hijab, her friend’s was purple. She explained that she was studying to be a tour guide. I was unsure about the offer. The last [...]
What can you do with a Nokia N8?
Quite a bit, actually. TEDx Cape Town is happening tomorrow and since it was at this event that I won the Nokia N8, I thought I’ll give an overview of more than a year of owning this phone. I feel grateful to the organisers of TEDx Cape Town for the prize, but the device [...]
DASO poster: results may vary
The DA Students Organisation released a campaign poster yesterday showing a topless black woman and white man in a loving embrace. It has provoked a huge response on Facebook and Twitter. If you take the time to read through the Facebook comments, the way South Africans respond differently to the same image is quite interesting. [...]
Trip to Lake of Stars
There’s this bit in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink where he talks about doctors who get sued for malpractice. You’d expect doctors who make the most mistakes to get sued the most, but a study found that that’s not the case. Some doctors who make lots of mistakes never get sued. The reason is that they spend [...]
Big in SA
Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, a folk musician from Detroit, recorded two albums in 1970 and ’71. Sales weren’t great and neither were the reviews, so he gave up on his music career. He stayed unknown in America, but went platinum in South Africa. In 1992 the Australian pop band, Indecent Obsession, released “Indio”. It was not [...]
Somalis in Bellville
If boerewors, Afrikaans, Ford Cortinas and bad taste come to mind when I say “Bellville”, you might be surprised to hear that that an estimated 5000 Somalis now live in its downtown area. The Bellville CBD at the bottom end of Durban Road is home to the largest Somali refugee community in South Africa. Not [...]
We need a virtual bookshelf
Kindle or audible? That’s the question I asked myself two weeks ago. I wanted to get Tim Harford’s Adapt but didn’t want to wait for a hardcopy of the book to be shipped to South Africa. So I could either download it as an audiobook from audible.com or get the e-book from Amazon and [...]
5 life lessons we can learn from playing Diablo
1. A limit on wealth can boost generosity The first thing that struck me when I first played Diablo II online was the generosity. It was bizarre. Players approached me, asked whether I needed weapons, and then dropped a pile of rare katars and wrist blades. They didn’t even wait to be thanked. Someone would [...]
Turning work into leisure
A friend recommended This American Life to me at the start of this year and since then, I’ve been hooked. It’s a radio show that’s been going since 1995. Each week has a different theme and you can download it as podcasts. What makes it so good is that they transform topics you wouldn’t expect [...]
Why Afrikaans needs vampiere and ongediertes
Afrikaans faces a dilemma. How can it remain relevant to a younger generation while maintaining linguistic standards? Writers of Afrikaans teen fiction are using slang and English words in order to appeal to the youth. Purists obviously see this as a debasement of the language. It’s known as taalvermenging , a contentious issue that regularly [...]
