Indoor Cycling

I impulsively purchased an indoor cycling trainer yesterday. It's been a while since I rode my bike and I've really missed it. Now thats it's winter, it makes good sense getting one. Check out my pictures.

Cheap Puffy Chips

One of those days, feeling nostalgic, wishing for the chips that the old lady would sell to us, from outside the school, through the wire fences. The chips we all know, which were sometimes brown, sometimes red, but most often, bright orange. These chips contained too much preservatives and tartrazine and would make us a little 'weird' after eating them at break. The same lady would sometimes sell toffee-apples and sweets that were too high in unnatural sugars, the kind of sweets which induce addiction, yet we were still to young to notice. The sour sweets that were available on Tuesdays, helped develop the first of many recurring ulcers in many children, not forgetting the premature ageing and slight balding.

Altogether though, we were much more liberal in our eating habits than what we are now. We didn't get fat... our metabolism would just not allow that.

Furnishing Begins

Saturday saw the arrival of my first items for my flat/town house - my couches. The bed was also delivered, but I had to send it back because the base of the bed couldn't fit into the room.

Liberated Soul

Ever walk in shopping mall and felt like nothing could take away your good mood? Ever wander down the office corridors, without a care in the world, feeling free, happy and liberated? As you walk people look at you and think, "Why the hell is he so darn jolly?" Today, I had an extra bit of silly grin on my face, an extra bit of taste-for-life. Yesterday, saw me feeling kinda sad, kinda emotional, but today, I swept that sadness away, looked out the window and smiled! I feel liberated! It's no use wasting precious earth-minutes being sad,live life and experience it.

granny of the electonic age

i was so very surprised to receive an email from my grand-mother, the mother of my mother. again, let me mention that this is an email from my granny, a woman who has never before used a computer, a women who watched movies at a place called the 'bioscope' and had to watch tv in black and white. shes 70 something years old and i think that it's amazing that she's getting with the times.

76% Nerd

I took a test that I stumbled upon and it confirms that I'm a partial nerd. You can take the test yourself at www.nerdtests.com. My results were as follows:

Overall, you scored as follows:

23% scored higher (more nerdy),
1% scored the same, and
76% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Mid-Level Nerd. Wow, it takes a lot of hard nerdy practice to reach this level.

Retraction - Save The Ozone - Eat A Cow

Due to an anonymous comment posted in response to 'Save The Ozone - Eat a Cow' I formally retract that post. Vegetarians, Vegans, Hindus and Buddhists are upset and I would like to stabilise the balance that once was.

cool sneaks

How cool are these sneakers? I wouldn't really mind the Goofey (non pun intended) ones.

Black Pants Phenomenon

Are black pants like magnets that attract every little piece of white lint, fluff and dust in the universe? More specifically, is this a characteristic only of my black pants? In a shop, black pants never seem to have lint, fluff or dust stuck to them. So, is it only in my wardrobe that dust exists? How do I reverse the polarity of my pants to make them repel dust?

Save the Ozone - Eat a Cow

Fact, cows fart methane. Fact, methane is a contributor to global warming. My solution, eat more cows. If we had the vegetarians, vegans, Buddhists and Hindus of the world on our side, we would be able to reduce lethal methane emissions.

Converging Products

Fridges that have a TV in their doors have been around for some time now. It's really weird that manufactures have integrated these two things. Ideas like these, I believe were conceived by Dilbert and his fellow engineers. I have been thinking, trying to see what other completely useless ideas I could come up with for manufactures to develop.

Computers with a built in braai (I love to surf the internet while braai-ing)
Shoes with a built in polisher and shiner
A bicycle with a water cooler
A toilet with a submerged LCD screen

About Me

I love life. I enjoy the outdoors, the feeling of being free, the smell of the grass after it's just been cut. I love waking up to fresh brewed coffee, the sound of birds as they fight for food. I like the sound of rain as it falls during a thunder storm. I like to look out the window and breathe mist and draw little shapes on it. I don't really like to sing in the shower, I like to hum and whistle though. I like to dip peanut butter and jam sandwiches into my coffee. I like hot chocolate on cold days, warm socks and blankets while watching movies with no story line. I wake up to the sounds of 5fm every morning and fall asleep when my eyes can't stay open any longer. I don't like the busy, morning, Johannesburg traffic, so I listen to music to soothe me. I like to wear sneakers on weekends, shorts and sweaters. I like my hair short, but I used to have an afro. I laugh and smile and cry sometimes. I like to write my own random musings sometimes and read those of others often.

Fever Blisters

In three weeks, I woke up with my fourth fever blister...

Funny Pepsi Ad

Perfectly Proportioned Donut Hole - A reply

I sent an email off to a Statistics lecturer. He was helpful in letting me know that I was completely off track...


Original Letter:

Hi Lecturer

I wonder if you could point me in the right direction please...

I've been trying to find some information relating to donuts on the internet and particularly the mathworld.wolfram.com website. My question is this, "Is there a perfect proportion between inner and outer donut circumferences?" I found information regarding the torus at http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Torus.html but nothing on in relating to what I search for... I think.

I know that this is a geometry type question, but I hope that you can help in some small way.


Reply:

I’m not aware of any ideas of “perfection” relating to tori. There has been a lot of work (both mathematical, psychological and artistic) on the aesthetic preference for geometric figures divided according to the “golden ratio”. I’m not sure if this ratio has any influence in respect to tori. Certainly there are aspects of topology that distinguish different tori according to the difference in proportion of the circumferences that you mention but that isn’t my area at all! I wonder what a doughnut with a golden ratio of the outer to inner circumefrence would look like? My feeling is that it would probably be quite fat. Not sure. Maybe read up on the golden ratio (or Google both) and see what you find!

Lecturer

Hectic Social Life

Already a new month, already almost halfway through the year. Oh boy, time flies...

Of late, I've found my social life steadily increasing. It's been great going out, staying out late and sometimes, even on work nights. Cocktails, shooters and wine, toasts, celebrations! Things are not as hectic as they were during the time that I was 18 or and at tech, but way better than a few months ago. Even though winter is looming, we still find time and opportunity to go out and have us a good time...

Where Metro Borders Homo

Question posed, can a modern day guy be a metrosexual man, without being ridiculed and called a homosexual? If a man uses a dedicated brand of face cream instead of body lotion, goes to a hair-dresser instead of the barber-shop or knows the difference between aubergine and purple does it imply something about his sexual orientation?

Mens magazines, in fact, advertise and market themselves to encourage male grooming. Anti-ageing face creams, post shaving cream are now more popular than ever before. GQ magazine, May 2007, page 25, shows a man holding a Louis Vuitton satchel (man-bag). Media encourage metrosexaulity yet society distort this an make the poor guy seem gay. A nice frilly shirt is now regarded as a 'man blouse'.

I know that the end of your neck-tie should be midway through your belt-buckle. I know that your tie should be two shades darker than your shirt and that under no circumstances should your socks be white Michael.

Going to enjoy my body massage now...

Perfectly Proportioned Donut Hole

I've been thinking about donuts again, about the caramel topped ones, with the sprinkles on them, the iced ones and the chocolate ones... mmmmm... mouth-watering goodness with all the unhealthy toppings that we've all come to love and expect.

My affinity towards donuts comes from the hole that gives a donut its unique appearance. I want to know if there is any particular size that the circumference of the center hole must be, in proportion the the outer circumference.

If anyone can help, please post a comment.

shouts to Darren

Congratulations buddy on achieving your BComm Degree. It's a great achievement and you should be very proud. Heres wishing you great success in the future. It's been long and I wish that you now reap the rewards and bennefits

The World Before Technology

Imagine life without the internet, cell phones, computer and instant messaging... Well, imagine no more, all you have to do is remember...

Think back to the 80's and 90's, when cellphones were the size of bricks, computers were IBM gray, monitors had up to four colours and were too expensive and IM existed in the form of 'Win-Popup', if you were fortunate enough to have Windows 95 and not MS-DOS.

Things have changed dramatically and yet most people don't even use most of the applications at their disposal.