I was privileged to be the “featured” speaker at the inaugural dinner of Cape Town’s Girl Geek Dinner Event on the 8 March, 2011. This post includes an outline of the talk, as well as invaluable “archival” publications from the prehistory of computing in South Africa.
Category: Jacques van Niekerk · Technology · Travel
I’ve finally had it with Ubuntu’s default email client. Since I installed Karmic 9.10, I’ve been determined not to have to run Microsoft Outlook in a virtual machine simply to get e-mail. The only Ubuntu mail client with built-in support is Evolution. And it is a singularly shit piece of software.
Category: Daily Stuff · Technology · Ubuntu
I ordered my Kindle the very day that Amazon announced the international release of the device. On the 19th, as promised, I was informed that it had been shipped, and would arrive within a few days. I had in the meantime left on a business trip, but on my return on the 25th of October, [...]
Category: Books · Daily Stuff · Technology
I completed a research paper on the knowledge management aspects of software industrialisation last year.
Category: knowledge management · Society · Technology
Category: Daily Stuff · Technology · Travel
The promise of the “new media” seems unfulfilled. Here we are, in the future, and the realisation of high-tech’s potential hardly lives up to my expectations – where are the flying wings, where are the holidays on the Moon ?
Category: Society · Technology
In consideration of changes in career focus – what does it mean to me ? Has it already happened ? What are the possibilities ? Hard skills vs soft skills. Where next ?
Category: Daily Stuff · Society · Technology
In considering the idea of Google’s floating data centres, I realised that there may be a natural (pun. intended.) and compelling reason to integrate our own energy consumption patterns with the energy distribution systems present in the biosphere. Gaia. Entropy. Systemic. Complexity. Shiva dances. Button-pressing concepts.
Category: Blue blue sky · petabyte age · Technology
During a recent meeting, discussing the design and architecture of an upcoming product, we drifted into a brainstorming session with a great many big ideas floating around (the best kind of meeting!). The conversation led me to an insight into why Twitter and similar micro-blogging platforms should be used by everyone. First – let’s take [...]
Category: Society · Technology · Web
A recent article by Wired’s Chris Anderson, entitled the “End of Theory”, has sparked more than one refutation in the blogosphere. Even though the article is almost certainly somewhat breathless in its announcement of the end of the scientific method, it served to bring a very important fact to the attention of a wide audience. [...]
Category: Technology
