The Table Mountain Challenge – brilliant

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On Saturday I took part in the Table Mountain Challenge and it was one of the coolest things that I have ever done. You can check out the route here but basically, the run goes all the way around Table Mountain – 35km. I can’t emphasize enough how cool it was – try to do it if you can.

I took part in a team of 3 with two girls I know from Knysna. I did the third leg which is about 17km with some serious climbing and descending (more info on the race site). We came 87th out of 411 and 4th in our category which was a great achievement considering we had no expectations.

I really enjoyed the run and came away with some awesome memories. The weather was great (overcast but not too cold), the scenery was unbelievable, and the rest of the participants were in high spirits. I enjoy running and I love hiking so I knew that I would enjoy the run, but I was surprised how much I loved it.

My favorite mental image is getting to the top of the mountain at Llundudno corner with a view of the ocean on my left, stunning yellow flowers on the fynbos all around me, and a long line of fellow runners stretching out ahead.

It turns out that I am an OK trail runner too – I came 27th out of 361 for my leg. I beat my target time by 25 minutes!

This pic doesn’t involve me but it shows some of the beautiful scenery we were running through.

Perspective is fun

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Visual illusions are fun. Here is a page listing several which rely on perspective to create a cool illusion when you look at a scene from a specific angle. I have seen this used to create cool chalk drawings, but these indoor images are also pretty cool.

Absolutely beautiful photos from China

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I recently came across some incredible photos of Chinese landscape. China is such a huge and strange (to me) country that these photos really caught my imagination. The culture, and clearly the landscape, is so alien to me.

The only real insight I have into Chinese life was the book Wild Swans which describes 3 generations of women from a single family through the 20th century. Very cool book. I always find it very interesting to see how different other cultures can be, even though they are driven by the same basic human qualities.

Anyway, enough bla-bla. Enjoy these great pics and here is a link to the page where some more can be found. I’m sure that some have (at least) been color-retouched but they are still great.

Interesting new door design

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Wired has this brief article about a new door design. The door is made of horizontal strips which can slide out independently. Sensors will open the strips just enough to let an approaching person through the door. Apparently this saves energy and is better at keep dust out.

Pretty cool, but I think that it could be a little disconcerting to walk through – at least in the beginning.

Cool photos of Jupiter and Neptune from the Voyager probes

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Wired has this cool photo essay selected from 30 years of imagery from the Voyager space craft. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have been cruising through space for more than 30 years and Voyager 1 is now right on the edge of the solar system (way past all of the planets). Signals from Voyager 1 take 13 hours to get back to earth – even though they travel at the speed of light!

There is some interesting information on the article and some stunning photos. The two examples below are really cool.

This is a close up of Jupiter showing the turbulent atmosphere.

And this photo shows Neptune. What a beautiful planet!

Interesting article about a frozen Incan mummy

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National Geographic has a pretty cool article about the almost perfectly preserved bodies of 3 Incan children sacrificed on a mountain top 500+ years ago.

Because they were sacrificed at such high altitude, the cold and thin air has kept their bodies remarkably preserved.

From the article:

The mummy, called La Doncella or The Maiden, is that of a teenage girl who died more than 500 years ago in a ritual sacrifice in the Andes Mountains.
The girl and two other children were left on a mountaintop to succumb to the cold as offerings to the gods.
The excavation of the mummies at the mountain’s peak was the world’s highest archaeological dig.
La Doncella was found dressed in a ceremonial tunic and adorned with a headpiece, tokens of her new status as a messenger to the heavens.
The girl had also drunk corn liquor, likely to put her to sleep, scientists say, and her mouth still held fragments of coca leaves, which the Inca chewed to lessen the effects of altitude sickness.
“[They] weren’t being sacrificed to feed the gods,” Reinhard told National Geographic News in 2005. “They were being sacrificed to enter into the realm of the gods. It was considered a great honor.

This is a pic of the mountain on which these mummies were found. Looks absolutely beautiful out there.

Why I don’t like paying car guards (most of the time)

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When I was about 5 I decided that I wanted some money of my own. I knew that in order to earn money you have to do hard work so I went out into the garden and worked really hard at climbing around a tree. After about 30 minutes I went inside and told my mom that I had been working really hard and that she should pay me now.

To my dismay the answer was no. Why not? Well she didn’t ask me to climb all over the tree, and my climbing was worth nothing to her – so why should she pay. Good point.

I feel the same way about 95% of car guards. I almost never want them to watch my car, and I almost always think they are adding no value. My car has been broken into while the car guards were right there.

The guys are providing a service I don’t want and expect to be paid for it…

Tshwane metro council ordered not to do business with white owned businesses

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This article on News24 is about an order to the internal purchase division of the Tshwane metro council (a major municipality) stating that:

“No white businesses may in future be considered when the council purchased goods for less than R30 000. The same applies to tenders.”

From the article:

A council official who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job, said white businesses were approved in the past if their quotations were cheaper.

“We were told last week to buy only from black businesses. I paid between R6 000 and R7 000 more for goods to comply with the new requirements.

“This is going to become an expensive order,” he predicted.

Quick calendar app

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I often need to take a quick look at a calendar. Normally that leads to a double click on the time in the Windows task bar. But even that only gives me a view of one month. It sucks.

I banged together a quick app which will show me the an easy view of the current, previous, and next 7 months – just look at the screenshot.

I purposefully wanted to keep it very simple, so that’s all it does. (I actually added a little text file to bold the South African public holidays. You can easily add any dates you like to that file.)

Now when I want to quickly check out dates I just use Launchy to open this app. Very quick and very easy. Escape closes it and I’m done in seconds.

Download (Note that .Net runtimes are required – should already be there)

Source

Waterfalls on Table Mountain

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Jules and I went for a cool walk on Table Mountain on Sunday. There had been quite a lot of rain over the last few days so there was a lot of water on the mountain. We got these cool pics at a point where the path went behind a waterfall.

This was at a point where I had watched a tourist being rescued by helicopter a week before (I posted about it here). We looked down from the point where she had fallen – very hectic. She must have been pretty careless or unlucky, but I suppose that accidents do happen.