Friday, October 9, 2009
Bash.org
Thursday, September 17, 2009
State of the nation...
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Comebackability!


Sunday, July 12, 2009
The power of sport
Last night I couldn't help but reflect on the feast of sport we've been indulged with over the past 3 months... First half of India landed unexpectedly on our shores, were welcomed with open arms and jam-packed stadiums and put on a great show. Then the circus moved to England where the T20 world cup saw Pakistan, a country with huge internal strife at the moment, rise above the odds and capture their first major sporting trophy in over a decade. All the while the Super 14 was drawing to a dramatic finish up in Loftus, with crazy dutch-saffers giving English soccer hooligans a run for their money. As I write, up in the mountains of France, a living legend is making his return to the Tour de France, adding another chapter to what is already an inspirational story of determination and courage. But there were three stories in particular that motivated me to blog today.
Lets end on a positive note (in fact my inspiration for blogging today). Yesterday I settled into what's left of my couch at 3pm to watch what I expected to be a 1h30min Federer festival. What I witnessed instead was an epic afternoon of tennis. As I sat through the 90-odd minutes that was the final set, I couldn't help but remember the 2008 Wimbledon final, a match that many call the finest of the modern era. Federer is now in my mind the greatest player that ever lived and barring Andre Agassi my favourite player of all time, but after seeing the determination to win, the courage to fight and the way he was gracious in defeat, I am now a Andy Roddick fan. Days such as these are few and far between, but yesterday I really wished we didn't have a need for a winner and a loser in professional sport.
But yesterday was more than a great game of tennis, it was a great display of sportsmanship. The players, the officials and particularly the crowd... there was just this emotion, this aura around that tennis court that was plain to see, even on a television set thousands of miles away. That's precisely what I love about sport, that's why I'll wake up at 6am on a Sunday to watch F1, that's why I'll go watch any live cricket at Newlands, that's why I pay a ridiculous monthly fee for satellite tv, for the magic and the power of sport. Nothing else on earth has the power to unite people of all races, cultures and creeds... Just you wait till next year, bring on 2010!
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Flying Donkeys
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Planet Earth Needs a Bodyguard, not Miley Cyrus!
Firstly, India's Minister for the Environment has rejected any notion that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future, or even consider any sort of emission caps. He also asserted that India's current priority is to focus on poverty alleviation and economic development. This was basically a message to developed nations not to expect any concessions when the major developed and developing countries meet in Copenhagen in December for negotiations on the follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol.
Now, while those are fine priorities to have, the thing that really irritates me is their refusal to realise that if climate change is not halted or at the very least seriously slowed, life will become infinitely harder for the very people they are currently trying to save! Farmers will lose crops to desertification, the monsoon will shift south leading to severe droughts and the sea levels will rise, causing the destruction of thousands of small fishing villages. These will all affect the poorest people disproportionally. How can these people not see this? Instead of investing in renewable energy, they are ramping up production of coal-fired power plants which will be in operation for the next 25-30 years at least! It makes me sick.

And on a semi-related-but-not-really note, just after reading the previous article I saw a headline (I didn't bother going further) that Hugh Jackman and Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus will be teaming up for a remake of "The Bodyguard". Now leaving aside my personal loathing of the insane, fabricated hype around Hannah Montana (I mean seriously, this is the most trite and clichéd character being sold to us as the second coming of Judy Garland or something!), the Bodyguard was not a bad movie - why remake it so soon?! Add to that the not insignificant age gap between Jackman and Cyrus which means that the entire love plot is out the window and you realise that this will be not so much a remake of "The Bodyguard" as a remake of "Man On Fire" with a slightly older girl. It's just stupid. And I swear I'll throw up if I ever hear Miley Cyrus sing "I Will Always Love You"!
That is all.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Love, Life and Loss in Simsville

For the past few days I've been following the tale of Alice and Kev, a pair of homeless Sims created in Sims 3 by Robin Burkinshaw, a student of games design in the UK. Robin has created an extremely dysfunctional father and daughter pair and has basically let them loose on the open world neighbourhood of the game and is running a daily picture-blog of what goes on in their lives. The premise is fairly novel, but what really stands out is the way the story takes such interesting twists and turns with a minimum of interference by Robin, following their own AI need and wants. It's an excellent experiment that is often surprises you with the poignancy of some of the moments.
The blog has become quite popular over the past couple of weeks, being featured on the official Sims web page as well as on BBC and various other blogs including Boing Boing. And this is where something I thought was quite interesting started happening - the story started getting some very strong emotional reactions from the readers. Most seem to have formed a very close attachment to the character of Alice (who has quite a rough time of it) and are rooting for and sympathizing with her, almost as if she were real. Some even marvel at the fact that a game makes them feel like that, for example:
Sara
OMG!!! This is SO sad!!! Now I’m afraid for my life…
saw
very nice comment, i am literally almost crying here, this is one of the saddest stories ive heard, even if it is from a computer game!
Sol Invictus
Good god, I feel so sorry for Alice. I know she’s a fictional Sim and everything but everything that’s happening to her is truly miserable. It makes one think of the similarly difficult lives that many among us live out here in the real world.
I think that this is an example of how modern games are really stretching the established boundaries of video games, and importantly how the general public views them. I'll be posting a more comprehensive discussion of why I think that video game worlds are actually becoming increasingly like our real one in a couple of days, but in the meanwhile I recommend you head on over to Robin's Alice and Kev blog and take a look for yourself. And be sure to read a few of the comments as well, it's half the fun!


