Whingeing About The Economy: PE

I'm tired of hearing how bad things are in PE. The economy is dead, there’s no business, there’s no work, there’s no, ……., whatever!!!

Port Elizabeth

 Now forgive me if the ‘experts’ don’t agree with you’ all, but looking at economic commentary, it would seem you guys are not in such a pickle as you would have the rest of us believe.

Fukushima - Let Engineers Engineer

Fukushima – the shit that happens when engineers must bow to committees.

The events transpiring in Fukushima over the last several weeks raise the question of culpability. Who is ultimately to blame?

Fair enough, it took a natural event to cause the devastation, BUT, in a nation that is used to earthquakes and tsunamis, and the only nation on the planet to have been targeted by nuclear weaponry, I would think safety concerns would by in the forefront of design engineers’ minds.

I believe we are seeing here a similar situation to that of the space shuttle ‘accidents’, of which “Challenger” is the one closest to everyone’s’ hearts.

Rocket Science

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

How often I hear this term used to describe a process, method, task, or whatever.

I must be very stupid, because I come away feeling confused. What is the person using this term trying to convey to his audience. Someone, (evidently I lot brighter than I) am informed me the term is used to describe something that is quite simple and easy to do.

Now I’m even more confused. Surely that is conflicting statement. After all rocket science is just that, simple and easy. Humans somehow managed to build rockets quite some time before they built internal combustion engines. And we are led to believe, at least from discovered artefacts, these people were not very technologically advanced. So surely the terminology intending to describe a simple procedure should be “It’s Just Rocket Science.”

After all, rocketry is based on a small set of rather basic principles, action/reaction. Energy exerting a force (action) in one direction, results in an equal and opposite force (reaction) in the opposite direction. If my somewhat flaky memory serves, that sounds pretty much like primary school science to me. Fine, there are engineering aspects involved, especially if one wishes to launch an overweight lump of steel and more exotic metals into lunar orbit. Fuels can be somewhat unstable (that means they have a tendency to go bang at inconvenient times, but then so does nitro-glycerine).

Still, this doesn’t change the fact rocket science is pretty simple. As an 8 year old kid, my friends and self built rockets. Very simple devices, home made or otherwise ‘acquired’ black powder (laws were a little more relaxed in those days), strong lightweight tubing (used firework tubes were great – recycling even back then!), epoxy putty nozzles, a balsa wood stick to provide guidance. Using only basic diagrams available in any encyclopaedia.

Simple stuff. Quite a few even worked!

Elections Again

Here it comes again, Elections. Well sort of, seeing as these are local government, in other words municipal elections, and the population is asked to choose ‘parties’ to run their towns and cities.

Well quite honestly, I don’t know who I will vote for, or for that matter if I’ll even bother to vote….

OF ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE

Something we should all have. Surfing the internet without a good AV program is akin to having unprotected sex with multiple known HIV positive partners.

There’s a plethora of apps to choose from, some are free, some you pay for. I’m one of those people whose a firm believer in the principle ‘you get what you pay for’. I do not see how anyone can produce an effective anti-virus app, distribute it for free, and THEN KEEP IT UP TO DATE. Heuristic scanning can only ever be a partial measure.

FOOD MUTTERS

Damnit I’m pissed off with the quality of our food locally these days.

SA produces some of the finest fresh produce in the world, and we peasants back home get to eat the scrap. And it’s not about price and choice – there is no choice.

Not suitable for local consumption

Fruit is tasteless and hasn’t been ripened properly (in the sun on the tree) It is now 18 YEARS since I had an orange worth eating, and those I had to buy at the co-op packing plant in Kirkwood in the Eastern Cape, and they were what some of you oldsters may remember as ‘Outspan’ or ‘Uitspan’ Oranges. Recently I had half a bag of so called oranges (I don’t know where it came from), tried to eat one – chucked it. The rest I tried to turn into juice – less than half a glass from half a bag. Fuck that.

51 Rhinos – One Poacher One Bullet

51 Rhinos killed this year - March 2011

This disturbing statement was heard on the news today, prompting me to put aside my prepared ‘rant for the day’ in favour of what is definitely a more serious and poignant subject.

51 Rhinos poached in South Africa already this year!!!!! How long before there are none left to kill?