The original FARRAGO, A BLOG.


		30. 28 July: Sunday BLOGGER BEWARE Jonathon Delacour: A short blog entry, according to the Rules of Blogging, can be no longer than a half-screenful.	Email me _______________________________ FARRAGO: n. (pl. -s or US -es) medley, hotchpotch. _______________________________ LEAVE A MESSAGE HERE: The message board has moved here. Please feel free to use it when the YACCS commenting system is down. _______________________________ NOW LISTENING TO: _______________________________ WEATHER: Cape Town, South Africa. _______________________________ SEARCH: powered by FreeFind _______________________________ RINGS AND OTHER JEWELLERY: << L DykeWrite # >> Powered by RingSurf! << x Blog x Philes x >> _______________________________ REFERRERS: _______________________________ FARRAGO SAYS: ______________________________ ... after all it is written in the stars ... ______________________________

		29. 27 July: Saturday MUCH ADO ABOUT BLOGGING ENTRY NUMBER 2: I found this Gigablast link at =conduit=. Nice search engine with good search results. A bit more functionality would be handy, such as specifying a date range for your search. But, nice! It also adds your submission immediately. ENTRY NUMBER 1: Since when is having a wishlist such a big taboo in blogland? And why does it warrant so many angry comments? And why are people so critical about the content of other people's wishlists? Personally, I like paging through other people's wishlists as they reveal a fair amount about the person whose wishlist you are paging through. My wishlist will probably reveal my "secondary taste" in books-'n-things. The books I REALLY want to own are already on my bookshelf. My wishlist is there for when the ship anchors at Table Bay harbour. So what? [shrug] From Cal Watch: "Also, a note about editing blogs. I don't do it, aside from typographical and syntax errors, because my gaffes should still be seen and help make me better. I mean, the Daily Cal would look a LOT better without the corrections made every single day. But the mistakes are there for all to see. (This is not in reference to anyone in particular, by the way, just a general observation.)" What the heck does it matter if you fix spelling errors or remove some really unenlightened post you made? HUH? Tough if someone links to something really silly that I said and it has been edited to sound a bit "smarter"! Venom seems to be much of what some bloggers spew forth. Who died and made these people blogpilots?

		28. 26 July: Friday INTERGALACTIC BLOG Anyone who followed the link to the "planet's largest artificial intelligence effort" on Wednesday has probably realised by now that it is a load of ... erm ... uh ... well, go figure out for yourself! But, if this is what artificial intelligence is about, I don't hold out much hope for little school-going 'puters. Or did I miss something? There are so many of the distributed computing programs going on at the moment, here is but a sample of them: "SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data." Or: Then there is the folding@home project, its goal is to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases : "Diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis, Mad Cow disease, an inherited form of emphysema, and even many cancers are believed to result from protein misfolding. When proteins misfold, then can clump together ("aggregate"). These clumps can often gather in the brain, where it is believed to cause the symptoms of Mad Cow or Alzheimer's disease." Or: Make some money with Porivo. "The Porivo PEER runs in the background of your PC, contributing it's spare resources (such as otherwise wasted processing power, RAM, and bandwidth) to test the performance of Web sites. The Internet is a dynamic environment and the performance of Web-based applications depends on a variety of factors. Internet congestion, network bottlenecks, your ISP and geographical location, the characteristics of your PC, and the performance and capacity of back-end servers all play a role in the speed of Web sites. Each PEER in Porivo's network serves as a "beacon," testing the performance of Web sites and paving the way for better performance." (Why do I never trust the sound of such offers?) Or: Help to find a cure for cancer. Phase 1 is over, phase 2 is on its way: "The screen saver project has been an enormous success. It has involved well over a million and a half personal computers in more than two hundred countries, yielding in excess of 200,000 years of CPU time. With such power it has proved possible to screen three and a half billion molecules against a range of cancer targets and, in a three week burst, against the anthrax toxin." (See here too for a project being carried out by Oxford University's Centre for Computational Drug Discovery.) Or: Use the virtual brain to predict the stock market: "Following its success in central Europe, the stock forecast system MoneyBee® is now available in English. Distributed by the Germany based company i42 GmbH, in Mannheim / Rhine, the acclaimed MoneyBee® software can now be downloaded for free at the MoneyBee® stock prediction website - www.moneybee.net. Once installed, the software connects via the Internet to create a vast virtual mainframe computer for stock forecasts. The system's predictions are based on Artificial intelligence (A.I.) and have so far proved incredibly accurate: two German sample portfolios easily predicted Dax and Nemax indices." Or: Start your own @home initiative by getting this: "This free download contains all the software you need to setup a project similar to seti@home. The client and server were written in java and will allow you to enjoy a diversified cross-platform user base. Distributed computing works under the premise that 80% of a user's cpu time is unused. By installing this light weight client on their machine you can unobtrusively harvest their spare CPU cycles by running in the background. The best part about this distributed computing model is that it is open source and can be freely modified. This zipped file contains a windows installer for both the client and server, along with a JDBC driver for MySql." I think it is perhaps time to start a blogging@home project. Or: FightAids@home: "Your PC helps generate and test millions of candidate drug compounds against detailed models of evolving AIDS viruses—an accomplishment previously impossible without expensive supercomputers. FightAIDSatHome accelerates AIDS research by using Entropia's global Internet computing grid, which runs both commercial and research applications on PCs." Or: The current largest known Mersenne prime number is 213,466,917 - 1 (found on November 14, 2001, and containing 4,053,946 digits). Help find the next one in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). Or, or, or ... * With all that said and done, which good cause are you going to lend your machine to? I believe that the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence will have much further reaching effects on the world as we know it than any of the other more benevolent programs. May it happen in my time here on earth! I am off to search for martians. See you tomorrow ... *Further information here: Internet-based Distributed Computing Projects

		27. 25 July: Thursday STILL BAH HUMBLOG ... It takes 5 light years to recover from a night out with colleagues. I am still not here. Real life was an interesting experience, but I long to be back in the safe arms of cyberspace.

		26. 24 July: Wednesday BAH HUMBLOG Welcome to the Planet's Largest Artificial Intelligence Effort. I am going to investigate this (and others) and will be back tomorrow to report on my travels.

		25. 23 July: Tuesday ONCE UPON A BLOG ... THE STORY OF EVE It is Christmas eve. The apartment is furnished in exquisite minimalist taste. Serene, pristine, almost clinical. She sits on the large white couch with a small scented candle flickering on the coffee table. The only other lights are the glistening coloured lights of the hi fi, softly playing Alanis Morissette. The hi fi is her Christmas tree and Alanis is singing carols. Next to the candle lies a small, but delicately wrapped gift that arrived in the mail this morning. She wonders why this gift was sent to her when all the world knows how she abhors what has become of this tradition, when she despises the mind control that goes with organised religion. Does she know how you told me you'd hold me Until you died, 'til you died But you're still alive. She pours herself another glass of red wine. As she unsteadily brings the glass to her mouth she spills most of the content down the front of her white t-shirt. There it is now. That gaping, bleeding wound. A church bell sounds somewhere and she looks up from the growing stain on her t-shirt to the clock on the VCR. It reads 0:00. Would this then be the appropriate time to open the gift, she wonders. The gift is just out of reach and she has to get up to get it. She is unstable on her feet and stumbles. She hits her head on the corner of the coffee table. In her last few compos mentis minutes she reaches up from the floor and brings the gift to her chest. She was found in her apartment three days later, clutching a fragile silver crucifix against her blood stained chest. The CD was still playing. It's not fair to deny me Of the cross I bear that you gave to me You, you, you oughta know ...

		24. 22 July: Monday SAMP AND BLOGS SA Blogs: The search continues ... I found a list of South African bloggers on a South African site. Their list of South African blogs can be found here. The specific one I want to mention is Sosatie, edited by Gus Silber, no less. (Since when are blogs edited?) From Sosatie: "Hello, howzit, and welcome to Sosatie, the first indigenous and authentic South African weblog. Contrary to your every reasonable expectation, you will not find hints and tips for the proper cooking of sosaties here; rather, you will find a series of frequently updated links to points, places, and items of interest that may or may not cast light & heat on the strange, wonderful, maddening and mixed-up sosatie we live in. So plunge right in, get a feel for the flavour, and make yourselves happily & heartily at home. Please note that Rapid Phase is not responsible for the content of external websites. (This is your weblog, too; all contributions welcome.)" Urgh! Go and pay it a visit. It does not look like a blog at all, but is very vaguely interesting, nonetheless. For non-South African readers: sosatie = kebab, but sounds like "society" (well, almost). And while I was browsing around a few other South African sites, I came across my all-time favourite indigenous recipe, samp and beans, which is also a staple food in South Africa and is used as an alternative to rice: Samp and beans 750 g samp 10 litres (40 cups) water 1 packet (500 g) white kidney beans salt and pepper 12,5-25 ml (1-2 T) vegetable or other fat Rinse the samp twice under cold running water, place in a large bucket, cover with fresh water and soak for a few minutes. Remove shells or anything else floating on top. Drain the samp, place in a large saucepan and cover with 10 litres of water. Heat to boiling point, reduce the heat immediately and cook for +- 4 hours. Meanwhile, soak the beans in boiling water, rinse and add to the samp. Cook until everything is tender and cooked. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the fat. The site where I found this recipe also has a number of other indigenous recipes. Worth a visit (click on the image to go to the site).

		23. 21 July: Sunday YOUR MONEY OR YOUR BLOG! ENTRY NUMBER 3: Sardine fever brings feeding frenzy "DURBAN -- Hundreds of thousands of hungry sardines began their annual swim to the plankton-rich waters along KwaZulu-Natal's coast this week. And, eager locals rolled up their trousers, skirts and sleeves and gathered their buckets to greet the tiny fish -- their mid-winter grilled, fried and curried delights. The arrival of these fish in the shallow waters off beaches in the south of the province, had in just a couple of days netted enough seafood for thousands at towns such as Port Edward, according to eyewitnesses." Ah, this makes me miss Durban, where I grew up. I recall my mother warning us about going into the sea because sardines attract sharks. Yeah, true. But the sardines also attract dolphins and the most interesting people ... ENTRY NUMBER 2: Jail to charge inmates for bed/board "Three hots and a cot at the Dakota County jail will no longer be free. Beginning Sept. 1, the county will charge offenders $20 a day toward the $90 cost to incarcerate them. The fee will only be charged to sentenced inmates — not people awaiting trial. The county will be among the first in the state to charge inmates in what is dubbed "pay for stay" — a practice that has become increasingly common nationwide. A state law allowing county jails and workhouses to charge the fee goes into effect Aug. 1. Sherburne County plans to charge $35." I hope those wardens remember that "the customer is ALWAYS right". And just as an aside: $20.00 (about ZAR200.00) is enough to stay in a cheap, but very adequate bed and breakfast in Cape Town. Okay, okay, so that would not include three hot meals ... ENTRY NUMBER 1: "New in the US, Spray Barbecue has introduced Spray-BQ Spray-On Barbecue Sauce is six flavors: Bourbon, Mesquite, Smokey Bold, Brown Sugar, Original, and Tequila. They retail in 17-oz. plastic spray bottles in gourmet food stores. " (Image links to spray-on information source.) I cannot wait for this to hit the South African market. I will try the Bourbon flavour first ... I am not so sure about tequila flavoured steaks, though.

		22. 20 July: Saturday BLOGGING ON THE TURNTABLE ENTRY NUMBER 3: I talked to the trees and Bloggonzo listened to meeee .... ENTRY NUMBER 2: "One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately." The site says: "The entries on this list fall roughly into three categories: Critically bullet-proof artifacts whose weighty presence on the shelf is complimented perfectly by their perpetual absence from the CD player. Critic-mandated vanity archives should be bundled up and spirited off to the used record store under the cover of night. Albums by new artists that have only their newness and the marketing efforts of music conglomerates to recommend them. Almost invariably, these recordings pale in comparison to those of the artists they imitate. Alternately, new albums by established artists that are slavishly hailed as the big comeback get high points with us. Like nature hates a vacuum, Jaguaro despises the Next Big Thing. Nostalgic favorites that maintain their place by tradition and neglect more than actual merit. These are the CDs people never get rid of because they may want to play them some time in the indefinite future (certainly not now). We assembled this list with the help of many discerning people whose musical dark nights of the soul resulted in selling trips to the used record store and even the destruction of offending albums. Some contributors went so far as to level threats against other contributors whose entries were deemed inaccurate or offensive. We admire and encourage all such behavior. Contributors include Deborah Scherer, Peter Gorsuch, Sarah Pearson, William Chace, The Reverend Spenser Hoyt, Leviticus Sloan, Jimothy Jackilus, Azdak, Duchess, John Hoole, Betty Cruikshank, Dr. Evil, Chris Shymko, Jud Richards, and Pat Hutchins. The entries are conveniently ranked according to the level of priority that removing them from your collection should take. Though the final list is not exhaustive, make no mistake -- it is definitive. Please drop us an e-mail and share with us how removing these albums from your collection has changed your life!" I am pleased to announce that I used to own (got lost in a move) only 2% of this most awful collection. And I think both of them fall into the 3rd category: The Police - Synchronicity (number 7 on the list) "That this album is considered a classic is quite a feat for a collection of songs that Keith Richards deemed suitable for a dentist's waiting room. Certainly, no album dealing with topics such as stalking, psychological abuse, betrayal and silent desperation has ever sounded so homogenized or made less thought-provoking pronouncements. To enjoy Synchronicity is to consider one's self to be socially enlightened without having to dredge up any real empathy." Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (number 64 on the list) "Those who were raised on this album have put it in long term storage since it became a resurrected hit on campus and could be heard blaring from every goddamn dorm room in between "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Margaritaville," which resulted in sickness, depression, and even academic failure for those who would rather remember Floyd as a childhood soundtrack, but were then no longer able." And I still own: The Who - Tommy (number 22 on the list) "A couple of decent songs wrapped around a lot of filler. You know, there was a time when big operatic themes and bombast were pretty cool. That time was last century." This shows my age ..... and, NO, I will NOT divulge which other albums I own!! [blush] I think these guys missed a few. ENTRY NUMBER 1: I have just had another look at that garlic ice cream recipe. NINE egg yolks? (You didn't think I was really going to make it, did you?) What do they want me to do with all that egg white? Garlic lemon meringue pies?