Category: learning curve

Artistic QR codes

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From here.

You can’t go far these days without seeing a QR code for something: a restaurant menu, a website link, an entry form for something or other. But a lot of them are a bit… robotic and dull.

These ones aren’t boring. These ones are amazing.

AND THEY WORK! (Scan them with your phone if you don’t believe me.)

Mind. Blown.

Obviously, these were designed by AI, because everything is designed by AI these days, but still: absolutely incredible. An amazing twist on an old technology*.

* not that old, I know

Not a great start

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It’s not been a great start to the day. No one single thing that’s brought me down*, just a collection of unfortunate events and occurrences that have made the morning worse than it really needed to be.

At the present time – well, any time, I guess – I could do without these sort of mornings. But really, right now, we need the cream cheese of hope and positivity on top of the carrot cake of despair which is daily life in South Africa at the moment.
That mild, sweet veneer keeping your thoughts away from what lies beneath.

Mornings such as this one act as granny’s invasive finger, swooping in over your shoulder and stealing the thin layer of optimism, leaving you with the realisation that all that is left is the god-awful, soggy, weird vegetable gateau below.

I’ve never been a fan of carrot cake since being forced to eat it in Mrs Finch’s History class back in the 1980s in the homeland. Apparently, it was a staple during wartime rationing. Christ, I’d have switched on all my lights and waved welcomingly to the Luftwaffe. Horrific.

On the plus side today, we have a lovely bergwind. This is nature’s way of telling you to open all the windows and get the damp winter out of your house, of getting you to do all your washing because it will dry in minutes, and of warning you that there are probably a couple of days of very wet weather on the way.

That would be the weekend.
I am already prepared with firewood and some Wonderbag potjie plans.

And on the other plus side (two in a day?!?), things are moving fast towards our trip Up North. Mrs 6000 is away next week on a work thing, then there’s just a week until she heads away again, and then just one more week until we go and join her in the top half of the world. It’s soon.

See? Replacement cream cheese. We’re all good**.

* Although bumping into the Greenpeace loonies at the shopping centre didn’t help
** T&Cs apply

Error screen frustration

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I got this on the internet the other day:

I’ll be honest, I can’t recall which site I got it from, but looking at the second line, I’d be willing to guess that it was some South African thing.

All those phrases are expressions of a mixture of alarm, surprise, disappointment and shock.
Like you’re feeling when you get that page. Accurate then.

And I do get it: they’re trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but given that I was clearly trying to do something online and now I can’t, I’m unlikely to be in a particularly receptive mood for their attempts at humour.

Not the right time. But ok…

But then, step forward my bank. Now, I think my bank does a pretty good job a lot of the time, and I know that’s an unusual stance for someone in SA. But that also means that when thing don’t work, it’s even more frustrating. And to add insult to injury, pour salt into the would and fuel onto my ire [yes, that was deliberate], they then come up with this twee little line:

Oops. We didn’t bank on that happening!

Which is exactly what you want to see as you desperately try to buy electricity before your last unit expires and this time (for once) it’s your fault that all the lights have gone out.

The exclamation mark is almost enough to send me over the edge.

No apology. No instruction on what you might try next. Just this enraging, misplaced attempt at humour. It’s also completely out of character with the otherwise austere, businesslike approach from the bank. Which is what I want in a bank. I’ll get my comedy elsewhere, thank you. You just look after both of my Rands (hey, it’s been a productive month) and make sure your app works when I want to give them away so that I can boil the kettle.

Just a reminder

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You occasional/annual (when I remember) reminder that:

“There is snow on the mountains because it is cold.”

NOT

“It is cold because there is snow on the mountains.”

It seems to be a Cape Town old wives tale that the snow on the local mountains is somehow responsible for the chilly temperatures in the city.

Here’s the view from our bedroom (long lens, yes) yesterday.

But this isn’t a tricky “chicken or egg” situation. It get cold and then it snows.

Not the other way around.

Second worst job in SA

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Social Media Manager for Eskom being at number 1.

But Social Media Manager for the City of Cape Town must be in at number 2.

Because there’s not enough electricity to go around nationally, the City is obligated to cut its power to certain areas at certain times to reduce the strain on the overall system. There are timetables for that process, and we’ve been through this a lot before on here. And while the national “supplier”, Eskom, has different stages of loadshedding which apply to the rest of the country, Cape Town can use its pumped-storage facility at Steenbras to sometimes lessen the effect of the loadshedding for City customers.

Less so on the weekends, because you can’t just keep creating free energy. That’s not how physics works.

The City tries to provide up to two stages of load-shedding protection where feasible. At the high stages of load-shedding, it becomes more challenging. Over weekends, when the demand is lower, the City often sheds close to the same stage as Eskom to build reserves for the week ahead. It does the maintenance of the Steenbras plant too.

The City then announces or updates its plan via social media and then the people get angry at the City.

Usually, people get angry because they are inconvenienced by the loadshedding that the City has announced, somehow failing to realise that this loadshedding is often less, but perhaps more importantly NEVER WORSE, than for the rest of the country.

What I am saying is that it’s not the City’s fault, but they still get the blame.

And when these people aren’t inconvenienced, because of the City’s intervention?

The City getting a lot more blame this weekend because there’s a big rugby game (URC Final, Stormers v Munster) in Cape Town on Saturday evening, and there is (nationwide) loadshedding. For some reason, people who are going to be loadshod during the game seem to think it’s a personal vendetta by the City, and they’re not happy.

Wouter Swart doesn’t have a single friend whose house he might be able to watch the game at.
And that’s sad.

Ilse Engelbrecht says that she’s in the same boat, but then she gets called out by Lionel. He says that she’s lying, and reminds her that she’s invited round to their place. Looks like Ilse was going to be watching the final with Lionel and she was just after some internet attention.

Yes, Vanessa. Every single TV in Cape Town will be off. There won’t be anywhere with electricity in the whole of the Western Cape. No-one will have a clue what’s going on. As usual.

Come now, Babs. It’s not about tonight’s rugby match. It’s a longer term problem. I’m surprised that you haven’t been aware of it before. And… wait… in what way are the away fans being treated badly?
Surely anyone who has come over to SA for the match will… er… be at the match? Or do you really think that a) Loadshedding is an issue in the south of Ireland, and b) the City of Cape Town somehow has some control over that?

Are you quite mad, Babs Ryan?!?

I did a teeny, tiny bit of research and it seems that it’s actually Eskom that has instituted Stage 5 at 17:00. . And yet it’s CoCT that’s being spiteful?

Honestly, Ronel Cripps. Get real, man.

And then, this:

Always, as Elise Mayer Bouwer tell us, “on an weakrnd”.

Look, I used an AI-powered translation machine thing and it thinks (after quite some deliberation) that Elise is aghast that there is loadshedding on a weekend. Is that unusual? Well, let’s have look at how loadshedding has actually been spread across the days of the week this year, shall we?

Aaand… yes. It does seem that it is always on an weakrnd:

via theoutlier.co.za

…and every single other day as well. Except – actually rather annoyingly – Tuesday 21st March.

So yes, technically, Elise is correct. But I don’t think that her assertion is particularly valuable. Narima is the one who has spotted the bigger pattern here:

And it was a strong start in her comment. That top line is 100% accurate.
But then back onto shooting the messenger in the second half. Muppet.

Look, I get that loadshedding is annoying. It annoys us all. But I can’t help but think that you’re barking up the wrong tree by taking potshots at the City in all of this mess. While they might not be perfect, you’d do well to understand that they’re not responsible for loadshedding. And maybe you need to take a look outside our comfortable little bubble and see what sort of a state the rest of the country is in, before you go wishing for some sort of change in local governance. Because I can assure you, it’s really not very pretty.