Let's address the rather large elephant in the room, shall we?

If you're reading this and you're a white South African, congratulations - you are privileged and have benefited from Apartheid. You know it, I know it and so does everyone else.

That's the plain and simple truth of it - yes, I know that many white people are not "rich" in comparison to many other people (take Julius Malema for one) but that doesn't mean that you're not privileged.

In comparison to the millions of people living below the poverty line in a country that is slowly being eaten by corruption; a sort of social ennui and simple complacency, to claim anything other than privilege is at best naive and at worst irresponsible.

No, not all Whites are evil and no, not all Blacks are poor. And no, not all Coloureds are marginalised (though that's a whole different story) and not all Indians are... well, I can't say that I know any generalisations about Indians.

Regardless, the fact remains that generalisations sometimes spring from at least a grain of truth.

Honesty

If we're honest with ourselves (and really, if we can't be honest on the internet, where can we be?), many Whites were flagrantly evil prior to 1994 (after which, many of them were simply scared of what might come) and if we stick to the theme of honesty, I don't think anyone could claim that the majority of Blacks weren't and aren't poor.

For the Whites

Speaking now to anyone White, South African and reading this, now's the bit that you probably won't enjoy.

With this imbalance in mind, what more is there for us to do? We pay our taxes, we pay VAT and we pay the exorbitant markup on petrol so that our roads are fixed - why should we be expected to do anything more? Who is Desmond Tutu to chastise us as a race for not doing enough to cure the country?

More complex than any of those questions are the feelings and opinions that start to bubble to the top in thee discussions - what Tutu referred to as justification.

"Well, I worked bloody hard to get where I am today, why can't they?"

"I already pay taxes, now I'll have to pay for the NHI - why should I do anything else?"

"How do I know it will be used properly?"

These are all valid in their own way but in a more worrying way, are the harbingers of certain doom in a nation. Social responsibility is for everyone, not just those who are in positions of power.

You worked hard to get where you are? Congratulations. Now work even harder to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to work as hard as you did.

You already pay taxes? Well, so do I. So do many millions of people who earn enough to pay tax. Know why those people you saw toyi-toying or shouting support for the ANCYL don't pay tax? Because 20% of nothing is still nothing.

How we you know funds will be used properly? What have you done to ensure that funds are used properly? Have you filed complaints? Have you joined an organisation? Formed a watchdog to monitor public funding?

There are so many ways in which you (as a privileged and educated member of society) can help to ensure that funds are properly managed - if not in the public sector then simply in this one, all-important fund.

As for there being nothing else that you can do, I put it to you that until you can walk into any informal settlement, grab a passing person (who is very, very likely to be considerably poorer than you) and genuinely say "I am doing my utmost to fix the problems in my country", there is still work for you to do!

Who is Desmond Tutu?

And if you're seriously asking "Who is Desmond Tutu to ask this of me?" - he's the man most likely to tell you the truth.

Every politician will lie to you in one way or another, telling you either that their administration is different or that money is being spent wisely (out the window of their brand new X5) but throughout the years of our country, Desmond Tutu has earned a distinct place of honour in South Africa.

He is (was?) respected by both sides of any debate and very few have ever accused him of trying to gain something for himself.

Don't lose the sense there is by now turning on him because he said something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Deep down, you know it's the truth - even if you don't want to admit it to yourself.

So what do we do?

We brainstorm. We come up with a way for the problems to be solved - and then we implement it. With enough safeguards and balances to satisfy the most paranoid of investors, this kind of fund could do a massive amount of good.

Failing that, come up with another idea - something that will help (even a little) to drag the country out of the state that it's in. This is a call to action and it's something that most people profess to want to do and let's do that instead (as well?)

If you are here, reading this and you honestly don't think that there's anything you should be doing to make your country a better place, perhaps you'd be happier somewhere else and well, you're welcome to go there anytime.

Lastly - don't take this as chastisement or even a mild rebuke. I invite you to comment, tell me where I'm wrong (I am, I'm sure) and give me something constructive.

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Post tags: apartheid, desmond, South Africa, tutu

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It's Day 3 and so far I haven't grown tired of anything on the 4HB - the recipes are many and the food is pretty good (Not sure if it'll continue like that but I guess we'll see)

I'm getting into the routine of everything now - wake up 6:30 (which I would anyway), drink +- 1l cold water, cook breakfast, eat breakfast.

I've decided to measure every two days rather than every week as I know how low my tolerance is for this sort of thing - I need frequent reminders or I'm simply going to stop.

I'm feeling better than I have for a while which is nice and I've stopped having the urge to snack (because I'm eating SO FREAKIN' MUCH).

In other news, I went for my first run-around-the-block yesterday and it nearly killed me! I stopped exercising about 8 months ago and this is the first real bit I've done since then.

Holy crap, I am unfit! I'm aiming to do this around 3 times a week until I can handle longer distances so look forward to many blog posts about how sore I am.

I am an exercising baby at this stage.

So, on to the good, the bad and the ugly. Measurements!

July 28

Weight: 84.5

BMI: 25.0

L Bicep: 35

R Bicep: 35.5

Waist: 97

Hips: 99

L thigh: 56

R thigh: 56

Total: 374.5

That's right baby - down all over the place At the moment I'm skeptical and unsure if the gains will stay or not. I also really need to find a way to do body fat measurements.

I will start replacing some of the weight loss with muscle building soon so I don't expect to see such drastic changes in weight over the whole course but as Tim says - Inches (CM) are what counts!

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It sounds interesting, touting high-protein, low carbs and some quite interesting ideas.

Measurement is important to the 4 Hour Body and since I do so enjoy seeing actual physical results, I'm glad to have something to compare with.

Measurements cover:

• BMI
• Weight (once a week)
• TC (total centimeters)
• Some other more technical ones that I don't have access to yet.

So, here are today's figures: 

July 25

Weight: 88.5 kg

BMI: 26.1

L bicep: 35

R bicep: 35.5

Waist: 97

Hips: 100

L thigh: 58

R thigh: 58

Total: 383.5

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Unfortunately, I'm beginning to adopt what I will delicately put as the "typical IT guy" physique and that just won't do. So, personal goals then - which I need to do my damnedest to stick to.

1. Do 50-100 pullups by month end (I'm not going to limit myself to 3 minutes, that's for insane people like Norio)
2. Lose between 0.5 and 1.0KG / week for the month of July (new goals to follow in August)
3. Cut down calorie intake per day by 1000 for July, 1500 for August, 2000 for September
4. Maintain list of measurements (starting 11/07/2011)

Comments? Crits? Encouragement? Hit up the comments.

That's it, simple and easy. Now we see if I can stick to it. Time to start removing the insulation from my abs

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I choose an idiot and I blog about them. It's a simple formula and the subjects usually provide themselves pretty easily. I don't think anyone would argue that there's a dearth of idiocy around.

Today it's Incredible Connection.

I guess it's partially my own fault for using them in the first place but dammit, they were cheap.

I bought a laptop from them 8 months ago and it's been something of a problem child. I've already had to send it through for a hard drive replacement and now the bloody power supply has packed up.

I (being the naïve customer that I am) thought this would be a trivial thing to fix.

I'd bring my charger in, they'd verify it was broken and give me one of the many they have in stock.

The first two steps were right on the money but that's where it all goes wrong.

What actually happened after the charger was verified as broken is it was taken away and sometime on Monday or Tuesday it will be sent to Joburg.

Then in a few days another technician will look at my still broken charger, verify that it's still broken and send a request for a new one when he has a spare moment.

In 15 working days, I should have a charger.

Now, do Incredible Connection offer a spare from one of their many? No.

Do they have any sympathy for the fact that my laptop battery doesn't last 15 days? No.

Do they actually give a toss that instead of a laptop I have now got a very expensive paperweight? No.

The singularly unhelpful technician who shrugged when I asked what I should do with my laptop for 15 days really helped.

What a terrific way to piss off a customer.

Congratulations, R300 worth of charger has cost you any future business and any residual goodwill I may have had.

Idiots.

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Post tags: idiots, incredible connection, laptop, warranty

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As anyone who saw the South African fans leaving in droves this evening could tell you, support is the slipperiest substance known to humankind.

Tonight something fairly tragic happened - Bafana Bafana lost 3 - 0 to Uruguay and were shunted (almost) out of the first round of the Soccer World Cup. Now, whether you feel that some potentially dodgy calls by the ref were to blame or that Bafana truly did play a far sloppier game than Uruguay, the universal truth I'm sure is that it's depressing.

I watched with millions as Khune (a man we'd all come to know, respect and love) was given a red card and taken out of the game and I watched (and felt like crying) while Uruguay's phenomenal number 10 laid another goal on us, effectively sealing game.

More tragic than any of this though was as I also watched, with mounting disgust, the thousands of "soccer fans" flee from the site of their country's defeat before the game had even ended. As one of my friends on Twitter observed "probably gone to take their mirror flags off their cars".

That's bad form people, supremely bad form.

You're not a supporter because your team is winning... you're a supporter because they're your team.

Bafana will not go gently through the rest of this tournament... so why should you?

This is the same team that South Africa united behind against Mexico and dammit, this is the same team we should unite behind for all the rest of the games!

Bafana never stopped believing in you, Mzansi so why have you stopped believing in them?

Until the last whistle of the last game

Until the last Bafana player lies defeated in the mud

Until the last bit of spin leaves Jabulani lying still... I will support Bafana Bafana, I will support my country and my blood will be Green and Gold!

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So, here's a brief HOW TO for installing OpenQRM on Ubuntu Server 9.10. This HOW TO assumes you've already installed the virtualization platform of your choice, either XEN or KVM.

Step 1: Installing Prerequisites

Boy there are quite a few of these for OpenQRM so let's take care of that first:

apt-get install php5-mysql libphp-adodb mysql-server mysql-client syslinux tftpd-hpa dhcp3-server nagios-images nagios-plugins nmap libxml-simple-perl open-iscsi aoetools expect puppetmaster subversion bind9

This will install everything you need to run OpenQRM. Nifty no? You may not end up using all these packages but OpenQRM requires them to at least be present before it'll install properly.

One note, and it's an important one - OpenQRM by default expects a blank root password for Mysql so don't set one or if you already have a root password, change it for the moment to blank.

Step 2: Getting the package

Head over to www.openqrm.com and grab the latest package. It's available in both Source and .deb format but I've chosen the deb as it's much simpler to get going. It's about 64mb in size so not exactly terribly huge.

As of writing, the latest version was 4.6.

Step 3: Installing!

Installation at this point couldn't be simpler:

dpkg -i openqrm_4.6-ubuntu1_amd64.deb

That's it - all done. I hope you enjoy using OpenQRM as much as I am

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Post tags: mysql, openqrm, server, ubuntu

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On one hand, I don't feel as screwed over as the Wachowski Wangs made me feel. But on the other, I'm left with a sort of empty feeling.

Was this really the best way they could think of to end Lost? I mean yes, technically Lost (and the events on the island) were not purgatory but cutting it that fine and making the flash sideways purgatory is a little much don't you think?

Purgatory was discussed (and dismissed if I recall) quite some time ago so it's not like the guys didn't have enough time to think up an alternate ending or two.

Eh, my brain is all over the place here so here's a quick and easy summary. I'll need to watch this again before I have a final judgement.

The Good

• Oh, how fuzzy did I feel to see them all sitting in the church together? It was heartening. And seeing Sun and Jin get their memories back must have been one of my favourite moments on TV.

• Kate shot the smoke. Hell yeah.

• Seeing Bernard and Rose again? Priceless. I totally forgot about them!

• The gut-wrenching feeling when LockeSmokey threathened Rose and Bernard. Every time he pulls that knife man... every time!

The Bad

• Essentially, nothing is really resolved besides the most recent of questions. Yes, there are answers to questions that can be inferred but just once it would be nice to have something given to you by the people over at Lost.

• It was purgatory all along. (You damn dirty apes!)

• Shitbrick. 6 years? I feel a little robbed. Two, maybe three seasons and I'd be happy but 6?

The Ugly

• Locke's feet. I mean really. I know it's not nice to mock the crippled but they were nasty.

• The lovey-dovey feeling of everything. Ick. I'm a sucker for a good bit of love but I don't think it should be used as a kind of modern day Deus ex machina. It pissed me off in Harry Potter and it pissed me off tonight.

• Vincent. Fucking Vincent didn't get to go to heaven? Damn that sucks. If there was ever a definition of a good dog...

That's not nearly all but it's all I have time to think about now. I need to go through the last episode and rewatch as well as the (probably excellent) Lost Journey video.

Thanks for the ride Lost, it was super. Regardless of how you ended, I think this is definitely one for the record books.

Still firmly a Lost fan,

Rob

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You don't know me and I don't know you. Now, I know that doesn't stop you from assuming that I'm just as ignorant and racist as you are but please don't.

If you should see me in the street handing a South African flag to a child or putting flags on my car's mirrors - feel free to keep on driving rather than taking time out of your busy schedule of burning crosses and badmouting entire races to tell me that MY COUNTRY'S flag is ugly.

Also, when you're talking about "those blacks" as you so endearingly put it, please at least try to pretend that you have a few brain cells to rub together. And no, it isn't any better when you don't actually say blacks, kaffirs or darkies but simply run your hand up and down your pasty white face to indicate that somehow whoever you're talking about is just not as good.

I know you think you're not a racist - after all, some of your best friends are darkies right? I'm afraid I have a surprise for you - you're just as bad as the KKK or Julius Malema.

In closing, dear racist jerkoff, please don't assume that because I'm also white I'm just as bigoted and stupid as you.

Thanks,

Rob

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So far I've had:

• Deep Blue Sea - 5/10 Terrible plot, horrible CGI but Samuel L Jackson has a great moment.
• Screamers - 3/10 Horrible plot. I mean truly horrible.

Did you know Screamers actually has a semblance of a plot? It's a terrible plot to be sure but it is there.

I think next I'll tackle Tremors 1 - 4.

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