learning curve – Page 205

Future patients of UCT medical student “totally fine” with his exam preparation techniques

Posted on November 11, 2015

The future patients of a UCT medical student have declared that they are “totally fine” with the wacky way that he prepares – or rather doesn’t prepare – for his end of year exams.

While most students have their heads buried in textbooks in the lead up to the examination period, Thandani took to social media platform Twitter and shared the exciting news that wasn’t ready for any of the three examinations he took earlier this week. Indeed, for his final exam, he “literally didn’t touch any of the work”, instead choosing to rely on a helpful bye from a higher power, after a quiet word from his mother.

However, potential future patients of Thandani who we interviewed suggested that they were “totally fine” with his apparent disregard for their health and well-being. Around half of them said that when visiting Dr Thandani in the future, they would go in hoping that GOD would perform a miracle for them, while the others merely suggested that they would check his recent timetable and avoid consulting him on any of the work his class had covered this semester, “just to be on the safe side”.

We spoke with a senior lecturer at UCT and she seemed confused by our attitude to Thandani’s apparent nonchalance:

“Well of course we tell students not to study. GOD will carry them through their exams, as long as they pray hard enough. It’s standard procedure in the department.”

When we expressed our alarm at the way medicine was being taught at UCT, she told us that we had actually ended up in the Theology Department:

“No, don’t worry. That often happens. Easy mistake to make. Medicine is just along the corridor – third door on the left. They do proper studying and stuff down there. All a bit technical for me.”

Sadly there was no-one available from the Medicine Department to speak to us as they were all at a homeopathy seminar. We are still trying to contact them, so please expect some future revision to this post.

Which is more than you’ll get from Thandani.

Ban #SlideTheCity? No.

Posted on November 10, 2015November 13, 2015

OK. Long story short:

There’s an event coming up this summer in SA called “Slide The City”.
It makes use of some really long (300m+) inflatable slides for people to slide down streets in various cities.
It uses water to make the slides slippy.
We don’t have huge amounts of water in SA right now.

If you look at the facts above, then Slide The City (STC) – while still sounding like a whole lot of fun – doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, does it? And that’s why there are not one but two online petitions calling for it to be banned. I’m not helping you out by linking to them, but I will share the fact that one of them is called: Stop the City of Cape Town From Allowing Slide the City Events During a National Water Crisis. All the facts, all in one catchy title. Perfection.

Except that Cape Town and South Africa have issues with potable water. And STC doesn’t use any potable water. Here’s city spokesperson Priya Reddy:

“Non-potable spring water is being provided. Forty kilolitres charged at the applicable tariff will be transported to the organisers’ holding pool by tanker. Treatment of the spring water will be performed by the organisers on site.
We applaud the public’s rightful concern over the prospect of wasteful consumption of our most precious resource, but would like to assure them that the use of drinking water for this event was never contemplated.”

40 kilolitres isn’t actaully a lot of water, either. It’s about what one average household uses in a month. I’m not saying that we should waste 40 kilolitres just for the sake of it, but I can’t help but think that there might be better ways of saving water than going lumbering after a single event in Cape Town.
A single event which re-circulates its water so as not to waste any, and then gives it back at the end of the day:

In Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, Knysna, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth, the water is put through the filtration system and then put into tankers and delivered to the municipality to be used where they need it most.

Could it… could it really be that someone hasn’t actually done any homework before launching an online petition?
Could it?

As someone wise commented earlier:

“#SlideTheCity must be a bad idea, because water” say the knee-jerk, bandwagon-jumping, fact-ignoring, petition-signing slacktivist brigade.
— 6000 (@6000) November 10, 2015

Still, online ~~lynch mobs~~ petitions can sometimes carry a disproportionate amount of weight, so maybe the City of Cape Town will take note. Once they’ve removed the large plank from their own eye, that is:

Just a sample of their twitter feed this morning. And I’d happily wager that any of these burst water pipes wasted more water than any Slide The City event.

Not that I am suggesting the just because water is being wasted somewhere, that makes it ok to waste more. Not at all. In fact, the fact that so much water is being lost to burst pipes and naughty people should encourage each of us to use water more sparingly.

But going after Slide The City, who are providing entertainment for literally thousands of people at a very, very limited cost to the environment? I’m sorry, but that just smacks of an ill-informed, cheap points scoring exercise.

Disclaimer: 6000 miles… has no affiliation with Slide The City. I just wish people would actually think before they sign online petitions.

UPDATE: Slide The City duly cancelled.

How to spend money

Posted on November 2, 2015November 2, 2015

So there I was, just wondering what to do with this MASSIVE PILE OF SPARE CASH I have filling up the living room at home, when this helpful article came along. Because, having just dropped a cool 178,472,341.54 South African Rand on my new yacht…

Her generous outdoor spaces playing host to a wide range of amenities and ample space for sunbathing and relaxation; the spacious, covered al fresco dining area offering stylish furnishings and ample seating for any time of day whilst on the lower aft deck a large garage houses a large tender [careful now, Mr Malema] and a variety of water toys and diving equipment to keep even the most restless travellers entertained.

…I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the rest of my cash.

Until, like I said, this helpful article came along, nestling under the “Luxury Yacht Advice” heading. These articles are so full of useful information, as those who remember the classic “6 tips for storing wine aboard your superyacht” will recall.

One yacht owner tells me of the occasion he uncorked a double magnum of 1990 Tignanello. “The bottle itself looked stunning,” he says. “We had moored at dusk just outside Stromboli off the coast of Sicily, and the moment the bottle was uncorked one of the island’s volcanoes started erupting, and there we were with a grandstand view. We stormed our way through the vino and it was the most spectacular sight I have ever seen.

Yes. I once stormed my way through almost a whole 70cl bottle of 2011 Klipdrift outside the 7/11 on Wynberg Main Road one Friday evening and there were some pretty amazing sights that night too, so I can totally relate.

He also believes a superyacht is not the ideal place to be serving one’s 1961 Château Lafite. “Not that we do ourselves badly,” he hastens to point out. “I’ll go to Corkers or Sardinian Wine Services and order wines such as Ornellaia, Tignanello and Sassicaia for the reds, some fine Antinori whites, Whispering Angel rosé and plenty of Bollinger. I can always drink the Lafite when I get home.”

Well, of course. Who’d risk the Lafite out on the open water?
Something we can all learn there, I feel.

But back onto the issue of my MASSIVE PILE OF SPARE CASH and what I’m going to do with it: well, it’s all going on razor wire and bulletproof cling film for my yacht’s windows, apparently.

See, the problem with yachts is that they’re purposely designed to be easy to get on and off. And they’re not very fast – my new one has a top speed of just 16 knots, which is less than 30kph. All of which is great when you’re lazily wandering from port to port somewhere on the French Riviera, but less good when you’re trying to not let pirates storm your yacht, steal your Bollie, your Klipdrift and your other posh stuff.

Hence this sort of delightful addition to your larny boat:

Sure, it might look a bit ugly, but it will not only keep Captain Blackbeard off your superyacht (unless they cunningly go round the end of it), it’s also brilliant at repelling #FeesMustFall demonstrations, the presence of which on your poopdeck can have a serious detrimental effect on your standing in superyachting circles.

Two seagulls, one stone. Winning.

Enceladus

Posted on October 31, 2015October 30, 2015

NASA’s Cassini probe has just done a very close fly-by of Saturn’s 6th largest moon, Enceladus.
The results of that are yet to be released, but The Atlantic has an amazing photo set of some of the stuff Cassini has spotted on its way over to the 504km diameter “snowball” moon.

There are some closer pics too, but they’re almost disappointing in comparison to the distant shots, with Saturn’s rings in the background. Still, go look at them all.

Flight tips for idiots

Posted on October 15, 2015October 15, 2015

Overshare. No, I’m not (just) talking about the locker room conversations about the after-effects of your recent curry, I’m talking about the stuff people choose to post on their social media accounts.

People have amazing lives, don’t they? The happy happy joy joy stuff that gets shared on Facebook tells us so, be it yet another amazing dinner at that amazing restaurant, the amazing results of your amazing child at their amazing school, or the amazing trip to that amazing place that you’re about to take on that amazing plane. We’re all guilty of it to a greater or lesser extent.
But overshare can be dangerous – be it sharing pictures of your children (I think that this one is a bit dramatic, but that’s more down to the extrapolation by the author; the points within are valid) – or, as Brian Krebs told us recently – putting a photo of your boarding pass onto the internet. Because then people can find out loads about you, just by using the barcode and an online barcode reader like this one.

Besides his name, frequent flyer number and other [personally identifiable information], I was able to get his record locator (a.k.a. “record key” for the Lufthansa flight he was taking that day).
I then proceeded to Lufthansa’s website and using his last name (which was encoded in the barcode) and the record locator was able to get access to his entire account. Not only could I see this one flight, but I could see ANY future flights that were booked to his frequent flyer number from the Star Alliance.

The Star Alliance, by the way, is a group of 27 member airlines, offering mutually beneficial deals to passengers using their services. It has nothing to do with Darth Vadar. Yes, I was also disappointed.

No-one is going to be able to kidnap your children if you share your boarding pass, but with full access to your travel plans, they could easily change details of your flights, steal frequent flyer miles or work out when you are out of town. And together with that photo you shared of your amazing new 72″ TV, that last one could be valuable information.

The thing is, it’s rather unlikely that anyone would ever use this information against you. But without victim blaming, if they did, you should be fully aware that you could have stopped it happening by just not showing off about your amazing trip to New York.