7.5km of awesome.
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Robin Knox-Johnston on board Suhali
I’ve become increasingly fascinated by single handed (solo) sailing and specifically single handed circumnavigations. The first person to sail around the world single handed was Joshua Slocum in 1898. His journey took 3 years and he made many stops along the way.
Sixty eight years later Francis Chichester, who Later became Sir Francis Chichester for obvious reasons, decided to try his hand at the journey. He left Plymouth on August 1966 and returned 226 days later after stopping once in Australia. He was 67 at the time and was the first person to circumnavigate with only one stop.
This meant there was only one thing left to do… Circumnavigate, single handed, without stopping. Two years later, in 1968, Robin Knox-Johnston left Falmouth and 313 days later arrived back in Falmouth to much fanfare.
It’s far too easy to romanticise these journeys but reading the books written by these men is both inspiring and scary. It’s often in the minutia that the true risks involved in these kinds of endeavours are exposed.
I found this in the “Pilot’s Notes” section at the back of Knox-Johnston’s book “A World of My Own”:
“There was a small diver’s lifejacket on board, but again I did not use it. It got in the way for one thing, and if I had fallen overside, although I would have swum in the direction of the nearest land, one has to be realistic, and it would probably have been best to get it over quickly.”
I think those two sentences sum it up better than any book every could.
Defining moments
May 13
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about defining moments. Those splinters of time that shape who we are and act as decision making references for the rest of our lives. I find it odd/sad that some of the people I talk to don’t have defining moments or perhaps they do but just aren’t aware of them.
Here are mine:
Fishing
I was probably about 8 years old. We were on holiday at the Brede River. Like most boys that age, I really wanted to catch a fish. We had tried unsuccessfully from the jetty but firmly believed that the real fishing was out on the boat, after sunset. The dads had made promises that always seemed to dissolve into comfortable couches and post-braai bliss… and it was our last night there. I decided that I was going to go and catch a fish off the jetty, and, in the absence of bait, I decided that bread, mooshed up onto the hook, would have to do. The parents were understandably sceptical, but I was adamant and marched down to the jetty in the dark and cast my line into the water. A few hours went by and I had caught nothing and eventually started falling asleep and decided it was best to go back inside.
I remember walking back into the house thinking how awesome it would have been to be carrying a huge fish! At that very moment, thinking about how great it would have been to catch a huge fish, it dawned on me that no one ever catches a huge fish unless they put their line in the water. You have to be in it to win it.
Bravery
I haven’t witnessed much bravery in my life. I’ve never seen someone run into a burning building to rescue a puppy or lift a car to free a trapped driver. Sometimes however bravery takes the form of personal courage. Courage to stand up and do the right thing, even if doing so may make you look like a loser in the process. I was 15 and my little clan of nerd friends had a favourite whipping boy called Andrew. Andrew was often the butt of our jokes. One particular day, in the absence of Andrew, the jokes got progressively meaner. Then someone piped up and said “Come on guys, that’s not cool… lets stop”.
I realise that that might seem trivial when compared to rescuing puppies from burning buildings, but if you’ve been a teenage boy you probably know that sticking up for the “loser” isn’t the cool thing to do. In that moment I realised how brave my friend was, and more importantly, how I wanted to be like him.
Your happiness is your responsibility
I think I was about 19 years old. I had recently broke up with my girlfriend, it was New Years Eve and all my friends were out of town. I got so bored and depressed that I decided to just drive around. I wasn’t suicidal or even close to tears… but in that uber-pathetic moment I decided that I was the only one responsible for my happiness. Simple.
Web Based Accounting Software
After many years working as a developer in a bunch of different industries I found myself working on a web based accounting package for a British company. It was painful work and the boss had overcommitted and we were working stupid hours with pizza as “overtime”. One evening, while working late, I decided that this wasn’t for me. I’d only been there for 3 months, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had been putting my heart and soul (and life) into other people’s businesses all over the world for the previous 5 years and I was finally done. I resigned in the morning. I was never going to let a job take priority over my life again.
For about a year I floated around doing odd freelance dev jobs, I even got a job as a barman so I could meet cool people… I made a lot of friends, I managed a band, I lived in a digs with some cool people and some psychopaths. It was fun.
I can be a Butcher
About mid way through my year “off” I decided that I could do anything. Nothing was above me, and similarly, nothing was beneath me. Not that I consider butchers to be at the bottom of some food chain, it was just that being a butcher was probably the furthest thing from what I had done up until then. I never did become a butcher, but I’m pretty sure I could be flippen awesome at it if I wanted to.
A loaf of bread or a pie
At about the same time as the “I can be a butcher” moment I found myself rather broke. There was a shoprite up the road from where we were staying. I walked there, hungry, with only a few rand in my wallet. I had to decide whether to buy a loaf of bread or a pie. I bought the pie.
Many people would consider that reckless. It was reckless I guess, but, I wanted a pie. I had faith that tomorrow would somehow bring more money or feed me. I’m still here so I guess I was right.
I don’t want to make light of it, but I also know what it’s like to live off almost nothing. I know that I was incredibly happy during that time, my life didn’t suddenly fall apart the minute I cancelled my medical aid and couldn’t afford to buy one of the “nice” toothbrushes. That realisation has helped me be a little more willing to take bigger risks in life. In it to win it.
Water
I really like hiking. Especially on Table Mountain. I’m not nearly as fit as I should be, as my waistline is testament to, but I do occasionally just go for walk. It was during one of these spontaneous walks that I ended up about 6km away from my car without any water in the middle of a ridiculously hot summer’s day. (This was on the contour path near Platteklip with my car parked at Kirstenbosch). I came across this tiny little trickle of water, seeping down a rock. I was so hot I ended up basically licking the mossy rock to try and get some moisture out of it. I spent a good 30 minutes getting water in tiny little doses. (I just want to make sure it’s clear here, I was never in any real danger… I was just hot and tired… worst case scenario was some sunburn.) I was incredibly grateful for the water and in the heat I got all philosophical about water and nature’s provision. I started off again towards the car. About 300m down the path I came to a river. Not exactly the Holy Ganges, but enough water that I could actually fill my water bottle will real water, not sandy moisture. What did I learn from this? It’s tough to explain. Perhaps the simplest way to put it is to just say that sometimes in life you need to be make sure you’re not being an idiot by walking a little further down the road.
Death at Sea
Almost 2 years ago I went on a little sailing trip. Myself and another guy sailed a tiny little yacht from Hout Bay to Knysna, and then back to Mossell Bay. (It’s a long story). The reason we couldn’t go in at Knysna was because a huge storm had kicked up and the Heads were closed. The boat didn’t have a functioning radio, life raft or EPIRB. The flares were old and our engine was dead. At sunset, when we realised the storm wasn’t going to die down, we decided to sail to Mossel Bay where the harbour was protected by a breakwater. The swells were picking up and at some points our tiny boat was pretty much dwarfed by the water around us. We were sailing a yacht designed and built for the Vaal Dam in some of the strongest wind and biggest swells I have ever seen. We were being pushed around like a matchbox in a pool full of cannon balling fat kids. The boat’s keel was creaking as if it wanted to snap off (something that would result in almost instant sinking) and then suddenly, in the pitch black, howling night, we hit something. HARD. The entire boat stopped dead for a second. I still don’t know what it was but I do know that I have never felt closer to dying in my life. I imagined myself floating in the middle of the sea, with my tiny life jacket trying to get dodgy flares to work even though the chances of someone seeing them were pretty much zero. The keel didn’t break and after 5 days at sea we eventually got to Mossel Bay in the early hours of the morning.
What did I learn? I don’t know… But I want to do it again. It was fucking awesome.
Finally got around to watching this video…
“Listen to your users, absolutely. But giving a shit about your users is way better!”
“We only get to play this games once… one life…”
We place our trust in the organisations we deal with on a daily basis. Many of these organisations have access to large amounts of our personal information. We assume that there are systems in place to protect consumers against the theft of that information by staff members. We assume that if a staff member did steal data, that the bank would treat the matter with urgency. We assume that the bank would press charges against the individual and try and recover all the stolen information.
We assume incorrectly.
About two weeks ago I was called by a guy called Riaan Geldenhuys. He is supposedly a financial planner and wanted to meet up to discuss policies etc. I was intrigued as to where he got my details from so I played along and then eventually asked him where he had found my number. His answer was, in context, quite shocking. He was an ex-Standard Bank employee and had a “list” from when he worked at Standard Bank.
If we ignore for a second the absolute idiocy of this guy actually telling me that, I was obviously left wondering what other information he had on me… I told him that I would report him and that I hoped the bank took him to court. He said he was “sorry”.
In a world where information theft is rife, bank fraud (using information theft) is all too common and everyone is legally married to at least two people they’ve never met, I would have thought that my reporting of this matter to the bank would have resulted in an urgent phone call from the fraud division, asking me for all the information and then a subsequent call a few days later telling me that this Riaan guy was going to court. But no. Typical of their lackadaisical concern for our privacy, the banks auto-responded and then a week later told me they were “looking into the matter”. I let them know that “looking into the matter” wasn’t good enough for me… I wanted to know that at the very least my, and their other customer’s, stolen information had been retrieved. Another week goes by and still, nothing but auto-responders and “we’re looking into it”s.
Eventually, in an incredibly bitter fit of resentment I succumbed and wrote about the issue on HelloPeter, a site I usually avoid because of their reputation of extorting businesses who can’t afford to pay to defend themselves.
Surprise, in a few hours I had a phone call. Now I was told I needed to go into a branch and fill in a form. When I made it clear that the chances of me doing so were similar to, well, just about anything very very unlikely, they then realised that they didn’t actually need me to go into the branch… With promises of swift action I wrote another long email, detailing the entire saga and hoping that it would finally result in some form of action.
Then this morning I am asked to email them either my bank account number or my ID number. The irony of me sending either over unencrypted email to the very bank that breached that information in the first place seemed to be lost on this new individual I was dealing with. Never mind the fact that I had given Standard Bank my account number numerous times, and never mind the fact that I am the only Jonathan Endersby in the country and never mind that really, my bank account has nothing to do with them investigating this Riaan Geldenhuys guy because lets face it, their internal audit logs are obviously quite sloppy, so assuming that they would specifically find detail that Riaan Geldenhuis had looked at my account is, well, optimistic.
To complicate (or obscure) matters, the bank (or at least Clinton who works in their Fraud Division) insists that the only way that anyone would have gotten access to my information would have been via an auditable system which has logs. I explained the retardedness of that statement, detailing how the emails I’ve sent with my information were obviously not tracked because they are apparently lost. Next I asked whether all their email is also linked to this magical system, because I’ve worked in a few banks and I know that the sales teams are big fans of Excel spreadsheets generated the Sales Manager and then emailed to pretty much everyone, including the tea-ambassadorial staff (corporate refreshment executives?). I suspect it is probably one of these lists that was stolen. Anyway, according to SBSA, if they can’t find access logs for Riaan Geldenhuys, “there is nothing we can do”.
Clinton also said that he was looking into whether Riaan Geldenhuys, financial planner guy, was ever employed by Standard Bank. He said they were investigating whether he was ever employed by Standard Bank by speaking to the division he worked in. Yes, that is exactly what he said. I almost shat my pants thinking that this guy is investigating fraud for Standard Bank. I’d like to assume he simply meant that they were speaking to HR, but I have suspicions.
To cut a long story short, I’ve lost hope that the bank will ever take this matter seriously and pretty much assuming that they have better things to do, like close at 3pm, than investigate information theft… I mean, it’s possibly only my id number, salary, home address, mother’s maiden name, signature, phone numbers, previous places of employment, information about the various insurance companies I use, who I invest with, previous addresses and all the account numbers for the various services I use…. I mean, you can’t do much with that information, can you?
Change is constant. With increased international capacity it was inevitable that ISPs would eventually enter a price war. It was MWEB, a traditionally not-so-forward-thinking ISP, who shot first.
Uncapped internet for a price that didn’t seem insane – Terms and Conditions apply... It didn’t take long (a few minutes actually) before the nerds were frothing at the mouth over what seemed to be overly-burdensome (and in some cases just-plain-stupid) regulations. Rules like “No unattended downloading” being one of them… while in principle most people understood the ethos, the unfortunate reality is that rules shouldn’t be _made_ to be broken… and telling an old granny she can’t go make a cup of tea while her email downloads is simply not intelligent.
The problem is simple. Internet Service Providers have a limited resource and they are selling it on as an unlimited resource… It’s the all-you-can-eat ribs special, only in a digital world, where the limit to how much you can eat is simply a question of how big your hard drive is.
Most of the nerdosphere understood that ISP’s would have to enforce some limitations, and in fact, most ISPs worldwide have some form of Acceptable Usage Policy. The difference being that the kind of numbers that constitute abuse are generally in the range of hundreds of gigabytes/terabytes per month, and then only after consecutive months of “abuse”.
The problem in SA is that the business model is really hard to get right because it revolves around a number of unknowns:
1. What can we offer that’s good enough to a) Attract customers. b) Be called uncapped. c) Not piss off the nerdosphere. ?
2. How many customers can we sell this to?
3. What will the average usage of those customers be? (Ubernerds download a lot more than your Granny)
4. If we scale up operations because of a surge of new customers, how can we be sure those customers will hang around to support the increased running costs?
Additionally, ISPs are obviously terrified to not enter the market because not having an uncapped option will inevitably mean losing pretty much every customer who isn’t living under a rock.
So, possibly with a fair dose of fear and trepidation, a number of other ISPs quickly entered the market with their own offerings, all clambering to try and get that business model right.
Some ISPs even appear to have decided to start selling the product before they figured out what that business model would be. A bold move that cost the likes of Afrihost a fair amount of pain when they realised they needed to implement a soft cap (they call it something else) at 60gb. That 60gb number wasn’t anywhere on their website because it appears to have not existed when they launched… it was only after seeing the real usage numbers that they realised they needed to implement some additional limits. (After downloading 60gb your connection is throttled, and then once you hit 120 it’s throttled further etc etc)
So we come to what is really the crux of this debate. What is uncapped? Currently the uncapped market is unregulated and very unstable. The rules are changing on an almost daily basis and pretty much anyone can offer anything and call it uncapped. Someone could have a product that calls itself “uncapped” but that limits you to 1kbps after the first megabyte. This is not good for consumers.
The market is in need of a lot more transparency or a regulator. There are really only two groups that could play the role of regulator: The Advertising Standards Association and the Internet Service Providers Association. I’m ignoring ICASA for obvious, incompetent and toothless, reasons.
The ASA unfortunately doesn’t have the knowledge to regulate such a highly complex industry and any attempts to do so would probably have very negative effects for all involved.
ISPA on the other hand does have the know-how but hasn’t publicly said anything about the matter. All of the ISPs currently offering Uncapped ADSL are ISPA members. I think the only reasonable solution is for ISPA to get a bunch of its members together and lock them in a room until they can all agree on what the minimum provision for an uncapped account should be. This would need to be measurable limits and not warm-and-fluffy, open to interpretation, language. They may even decide that calling these sorts of accounts “uncapped” is dishonest, perhaps it should just be called something like “Managed Cap 60″ etc.
I look forward to the day that we have true uncapped internet in this country and I salute those ISPs who are trying their best to bring us closer to true uncapped internet. They are brave businesses operating in an increasingly brutal space.
Most importantly we need the ISPs to be honest about what they’re selling. If they’re selling something that has graduated throttling (like Afrihost is doing) they need to say so before they take the customers money. Afrihost doesn’t currently say this on their website, but their CEO has published (very bravely and honestly) the planned (and he understandably pointed out that it was plan that might change) approach on the mybroadband forums. I’m sure that this info will make it onto their website as soon as the dust settles.
Publishing the exact structure/behaviour of their uncapped product is a brave move that hopefully will force other ISPs to do the same. It’s only when all ISPs are showing their hands that consumers will be able to make an informed decision.
I think the world would be a better place if we replaced all the self-help books with Dr Seuss.
You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So… get on your way!
A person’s a person, no matter how small.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go. Oh the Places You’ll Go!
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
Today you are You, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.
I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you’ll move mountains.
I’m afraid that sometimes you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.
Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. Oh! The places you’ll go!
Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.
I’m glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.
I want that last one read at my funeral.
My mobile phone has a weird bug. The wifi works perfectly and then I leave the house and it never switches over to 3G unless I reboot the phone.
That’s a pretty annoying bug, but what makes it even more annoying is that the problem was actually fixed 8 months ago with the release of Android 1.6. There are also a whole bunch of cool updates as part of that 1.6 release, but still, I’m stuck with version 1.5.
So why not upgrade? Well, the problem lies with a company called Leaf. Leaf are the HTC importers for South Africa. Sadly, if all Leaf did was import the phones we’d be fine, but the over-reaching company gets involved in the process of managing the software on the phones and this is a job they fail at miserably.
When I phoned Leaf to ask when there will be an update made available they said that they were busy “testing” and that I should wait 3 to 4 weeks… This sounds reasonable but unfortunately I can’t believe them. You see, Leaf have a long history of completely stuffing up Android phones in South Africa. This dates back to many many months ago when Leaf first launched the HTC Magic (my phone).
Regular Android phones have an application called “Market” which contains thousands of applications (much like the Apple App Store). You can find all kinds of things like Google Sky Map (hold it up to the sky and it shows you which stars you’re looking at) to apps that make farting sounds. Great stuff, generally.
But when Leaf launched the Magic it came bundled with an app called “Open Market” and no regular “Market”. Open Market had a few (ie, like 30) really really bad applications on it… I think the top rated app was something with wallpapers of dogs. When pressed for an explanation Leaf said that Google didn’t give them permission to use the Market app. After chatting to some people from Google who work on Android it sounds like this “permission” excuse was made up. The more likely explanation is that Leaf were hoping to start selling applications via their Open Market app. Yes, Open Market is developed (used losely) by Leaf. Once they realised that nobody cares about them they buckled and said they were working on an update that included Market… they suggested we wait 3 to 4 weeks while they tested the new version. This was in May.
Eventually, late in August, 5 months after promising something in 3 to 4 weeks, Leaf quietly released an update on their website. The phone was finally what I’d paid for… a fully fledged Android phone… but only for a few weeks as Android released version 1.6 a few days later.
One of the big attractions of Android, and certainly why I bought my phone, is the Open Source and constantly evolving platform… The idea that your phone’s operating system isn’t frozen in time for 2 years and can get updates (automatically if you want)…Unfortunately Leaf are just plain incompetent and don’t seem to care that they’re selling a device that isn’t quite what the customer paid for… Our phones are stuck in time… and, when pushed for an answer we’re told again “3 to 4 weeks”.
When I eventually lost my cool and tracked down Peter, Leaf’s marketing person, he said I should send him an email and that he would get me some answers in a few days… He then got his PR agency to phone me and promise that they would get me some answers the next day… Perhaps ironically it has been 3 weeks and I’m yet to get anything out of them.
So here are the questions I asked Peter in that email 3 weeks ago.
- When will the HTC Magic get a 1.6 ROM
- Why has it taken so long? (8 months and counting)
- What is Leaf doing to correct the problems with the process and how are they going to convince consumers that buying via Leaf is a good idea?
Until Leaf can answer these questions I would advise against buying any HTC products in South Africa.You’re just not getting what you paid for.
The end.
ps. I heard that Leaf are bringing in two new HTC phones, the Legend and Desire… Both look like sweet phones, it’s a pity that if Leaf will probably ruin it for anyone who buys the phone by never releasing any updates. Cash in hand baby, cash in hand.
Getting jacked at Nobu.
Feb 23
I desperately want to be thrilled by food. I am an addict and the drugs don’t work.
Like any addict, I am always looking for the next fix… something that will alter my perception of the world, align the planets and the let me commune with the animals. I’ve had Buffalo Ribs in Canada that could make a grown man cry, I’ll eat Vida E’s overpriced little milk tarts over and over again because they are simply perfect everytime. There’s a place around the corner that does an awesome steak roll for R55 and comes with the most amazing sauce. I’ve had boerewors rolls that tasted like heaven. I’ve had instant coffee out of a flask on the top of table mountain, and it rivalled the best… and I’ve eaten at some pretty swanky places (including my own couch, courtesy of my fiance who knows a few things about foood).
When an addict hears about a new dealer on the scene with new, supposedly awesome, crack… the addict does what addicts do… They go and get them some…
This is the point in the story where you find me sitting at a table, having just found of that the ambiguous, nothing-to-write-home-about, cocktail I’d just consumed actually cost R90… I had previously joked about it costing R70… har – fucking – har… and I’m paying for two of us.
The wine list goes around and of course with R90 cocktails the wine was going to be priced crazily… We settled on a bottle that cost R280, for wine that probably sells for less than R60…The waiter said that the by-the-bottle prices were slightly cheaper. They weren’t… we figured this out afterwards. Some snacks are brought to the table for us to “try”.
We all went for the Bento Box special. R195 for a box of 6 dishes. 1. Deep fried calamari pieces (nice) 2. White fish (boring and possibly overdone) 3. Rice and misc veggie (boring) 4. Two tiny pieces of fish rolled up and served on a bed of greens.. (boring) 5. Ceviche (overdone <— How do you achieve that?) 6. Five pieces of sushi: Two Nigiri (boring) and Three small Maki with the tiniest amount of fish (bleh)
The desert was actually nice. Malva pudding sliver with a melon ball sized dollop of citrusy ice cream and some very tasty creme anglaise.
I ordered coffee… it was okay. Not R26 okay, but okay.
The bill arrives and I bring up the fact that they’ve charged us for the snacks they brought to the table… R120 for 12 bleh little taco snacks (there were 7 of us) and R40 for the bowl of steamed beans they brought us at the bar when I was savouring my very expensive, very regular tasting, cocktail. Oh also, R35 for having a tab opened.
So after feeling relatively jacked by the generally boring food, I have to add the not so lovely feeling of being jacked by the waiter bringing random shit to the table and expecting us to pay for it. This was corrected.
It’s said that if you have to ask how much the yacht costs you can’t afford it… and perhaps all the shiny rich people who were at Nobu this evening didn’t think twice paying for their not-so-complimentary taco-snacks and overpriced, boring food… and that’s fine… but I’m not them, and if you’re reading this you probably aren’t one of them either. You’re probably an addict just like me looking for the next fix…
And if you’re like me you are actually willing to spend R450 on a meal that blows your mind and makes you connect with the trees and unicorns. Sadly we’re going to have to keep on looking because it isn’t at Nobu.
I guess I’m not drinking the kool-aid on this one. All the 70’s décor and odd Japanese cliché entrance chants can’t make up for the fact that Nobu was, quite sadly, “regular”… regular and very overpriced.
Perhaps I’m just too poor to eat at places like Nobu? I think though that this is more about feelings and boring food than the wallet damage. I guess Nobu will probably always have a steady stream of stupidly-wealthy hotel guests to fill its tables, but I do not believe that they aren’t hoping desperately for some regular bread-and-butter income from the few million Capetonians living on their doorstep. I don’t see that happening unless Nobo figures out that while there are some of us willing to spend healthy amounts of cash on good food, we expect that food to be better than all the other places we regularly eat at.
ps. I still think Willoughby’s has amazing value for money and you should try Mango Ginger in Observatory for that awesome steak roll. We had lunch at Madre’s Kitchen in Stanford this weekend… stunning.