So after exactly no-one asked me when the Weekly Head Voices would be back, or why they stopped, I decided to reverse my almost-decision of quitting. This hiatus made me realise that the WHV are one of the few tenuous connecting lines between me and a tiny group of readers, people I am quite fond of, dotted around the world.
Sunset at AfrikaBurn 2015.
Again inspired by the information-and-entertainment-dense way that Swimgeek manages to do it, I’m going to try this in bullet form.
The public’s unwillingness to learn basic scientific concepts and scientists’ inability to communicate those concepts lead the public to reject promising research (such as genetic modification), ignore serious problems (such as global warming) and embrace dangerous nonsense (such as anti-vaccination rhetoric).
— Proposition from the Ph.D. thesis of Dr Wynand Winterbach, via Francois Malan on Facebook.
(This important message was brought to you by cpbotha.net, trawling facebook for interesting tidbits so you don’t have to!)
Exactly ten minutes after having made a single discreet phone call, a truck arrives at one’s house with thousands of pieces of lovingly chopped braai wood. The amount of one’s choosing is then lovingly yet efficiently stacked right by the holy altar of meat scorching, after which the truck leaves on its next mission.
(P.S. The wood is rooikrans.)
Currently listening to Chris Sneddon’s mix on musicForProgramming();
For this last hour it has been exactly the right levels of everything to drown out distractions from my surroundings whilst not acting as a distraction in itself.
(Yes, I’m doing small status updates here now. It’s an experiment.)
Jack Black brewery’s Lumberjack is an amber ale craft brewed in Cape Town. As bottle designs go, this one is pretty metal:
Amongst a number of impressive-sounding statements, the back of the bottle concludes with:
Lumberjack has a sturdy malt driven backbone packed with loads of roasted malt. Huge hop additions intensify the piney-citrus aromas of this full flavoured ale. A beer for the brave.
After reading that, who does not want to drink this beer for the brave?! Based on extensive testing, I can report that this is indeed a full-bodied beer that deserves and rewards your full attention.
Six jumping castles for the little ones, beautiful food and Lourensford wine for the adults. Lourensford Harvest Market is on every Sunday at Lourensford Wine Estate.
We might just make it through this autumn in one piece!
This is the 90th edition of the weekly head voices. I just looked up the very first edition – it was way back in August of 2009! (That was apparently about 285 weeks ago, meaning I’ve averaged about one post every 3.17 weeks.)
To celebrate, have some bullets:
Just in case you sometimes doubt that the internet is, in spite of everything, an awesome force for good in the world today, I present the following evidence (via @alper):
WARNING: EXTREME PC hardware-related nerdiness ahead. Read at your own risk.
My most awesome employer to date (that’s the vxlabs of course!) decided to treat me with a brand new workstation. On Tuesday, February 10 of the year 2015 the new desktop PC arrived. (Around these parts, we have a long tradition of writing about new computer acquisitions, see for example 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2013.)
Because this event has sparked quite some interest amongst the various groups reading this blog, management has decided to present workstation-related information in a Q and A format.
I found myself in Stellenbosch this weekend, so I drove by my old student house. Fifteen odd years ago, the house used to go by the name The Far Side. It was usually inhabited by five fairly attractive yet dangerously intelligent male engineering students, who were, quite unexpectedly, also extremely modest. (In those days, prepending “male” to “engineering student” was mostly redundant.)
Well, it seems The Far Side has gone through a little transformation of its own:
I wish you all a zen-filled 2015! (I think zen trumps straight happiness, because zen means that you’re on your way to understanding and making peace with the mechanisms underneath the happiness, all the way down.)
So much has happened since I last stood on this soap-box. However, as Noeska explains, this means I have even less to write about than usual. (for those of you too busy to click: things further back seem far less relevant now, so less motivation to write down)