Category: this is south africa

Goodbye Yoshi

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Last Saturday morning, we headed down to the 2 Oceans Aquarium for an exclusive members only event to say goodbye to The Queen Of The Aquarium.

After more than 20 years wowing visitors to the Aquarium since arriving in Cape Town as by catch on a Japanese trawler, Yoshi the Loggerhead Turtle is about to be released. She’s grown from the size of a dinner plate when she arrived to a 187kg behemoth today. She’s 25 years old now and ready to go and see the big wide world, meet a handsome Mr Turtle and hopefully contribute to the numbers of Loggerhead Turtles worldwide. She’ll be satellite tracked for up to 3 years, so we’ll still know where she is and what she’s up to for a while yet.

The first thing I noticed when we arrived was that the training that the aquarium guys have been doing to build Yoshi up for her big day has definitely had an effect. Her behaviour was very different from usual: she was very active, very busy. Usually, when we’re there, she’s dozing like a beagle in her favourite corner. Not today.

The kids had a great time making Yoshi souvenirs at the craft tables before Communications & Sustainability Manager Helen Lockhart and Turtle Conservation Coordinator Talitha Noble gave us a great presentation all about turtles and Yoshi’s time at the aquarium, and then there was a pretty decent breakfast as well.

We had a great time.

I was waiting for tears as we left – I’d even brought tissues in preparation – but no-one seemed very sad to see us go Scoop was remarkably stoic and we made it out with no huge issues.

Obviously, we’ll miss Yoshi, but she’s definitely off to a better place (no, not like that). For all that she has been a great ambassador for the Aquarium and for turtlekind, Yoshi’s true home is the ocean.

Godspeed, Yoshi!

Some few photos here.

Take Down Notice

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Here’s an interesting one.

I was contacted by my hosting provider this morning about an ISPA Take-Down Notice (TDN) regarding a post from 2009 on 6000 miles…

Now, first off, let me say that I fully understand that my hosting provider has signed up to the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) of South Africa, and as part of that, they are obliged to follow the rules of that organisation. Those rules state that when a TDN is issued against a site that they host, they must ask that site to remove (take down) the content, and in the event of the site not doing so, “disable the whole site”.

I mean, it’s completely over the top, but that’s what they agreed to, and (presumably) that’s what I agreed to when I signed up with them.

What alarms me is the way in which the ISPA handles these requests: basically, you can force removal of any content on any South African hosted website simply by filling in a form. No evidence required.
Literally, all that the ISPA will do with that form is to check that you filled in all the fields, make sure that the ISP involved is in their association and decide whether the remedial action requested is feasible (e.g. “take down a post” vs. “set light to all the servers in Johannesburg”).

They will then pass it on to the ISP concerned, who are bound by the terms of their ISPA membership to act upon it, and that’s how anyone can fill in an online form and have the content of any SA-hosted  website without question.

The ISPA even boast about how successful their policy is:

In approximately 95% of all cases, lodging a valid take-down notice results in the removal of that content.

“Valid” in this case meaning that you fulfilled those three criteria above, not that the reasons for your request have any veracity or are in any way reasonable.

Of course, as the website owner, you can contest the notice, but notably only after you have taken down the content in question:

If you wish to contest this take-down, you will first need to comply with it and then take this up with the complainant, who’s [sic] information is supplied below, should they not be compliant in finding an amicable solution you then will need to make this a legal matter and address it in court.

Given that the post in question here is about a guy whose company tried to rip me (and it would seem, plenty of other people as well) off for (in some cases) several tens of thousands of Rands (and is apparently still at it), I can’t see this “amicable solution” happening.
And is the legal thing really worth it? Only if it’s sponsored by someone with a lot of time and money, I suppose. Does anyone have any experience of fighting these sort of cases – please get in touch (Email: 6…@6…o.za).

Looks like the only way immediate way around this is to host the “offending” content somewhere away from the unreasonably draconian paws of the South African ISPA then.

Like… I dunno… Google Drive for example.
MAYBE I WAS A BIT TOO SUBTLE HERE.
CLICK THE GOOGLE DRIVE LINK TO SEE THE DELETED POST!

Tech disaster

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It’s not been a good day for the computers in our house. My laptop is playing up again, despite the best efforts of clever individuals, and the power supply on the kids’ desktop (which my dodgy laptop replaced) gave up the ghost halfway through an important game of Minecraft or some such. (Do you get ghosts in Minecraft?)

With the holidays around the corner, we’re going to have to move quickly to find a fix (or 2), both because everyone stops working soon, and also because I’m sure that there’s plenty more Minecraft to be played once school’s out for summer.

I was going to share a picture of Yoshi, the Aquarium’s 187kg, soon to be released turtle, whose goodbye event we went to yesterday. But with limited connectivity, the photos from yesterday are firmly ensconced on the hard drive and – once again – I’m writing this on my phone. Even with SwiftKey, that’s a shlep, so please excuse my brevity.

More tomorrow? Ag, who knows?

Black Friday at 6000 miles…

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South Africa has been completely taken over by Black Friday. More so this year than all the other years, as Americreep continues to insidiously envelope the entire world, bit by bit.
Next year, we’re going to do Thanksgiving as well. Turkeys.

Probably.

I’ve ignored the phenomenon completely, save for marvelling at all the camera lenses I (still) can’t afford at Orms. They’ve knocked a bit off a lot of nice stuff, but as with a lot of SA retailers, there are none of the HUGE discounts which are the norm in the USA today.

I’m here to remedy that, with an incredible 6000 MILES… BLACK FRIDAY DEAL for my regular readers. And also for everyone else.

In a moment of madness, I have decided to give you all up to 90% (Ninety Per Cent) off your 6000 miles… read today. Forget the 10% that [a jewellery store] is willing to discount your necklace. Roll your eyes at the 50% that [a well-known supermarket] is giving you off your instant coffee (limit of 6 per customer). And laugh loudly and falsely right in the face of [the online retailer] whose site isn’t even working.

lol wut? Remind me how your business works again? (aside from repeatedly breaking promises on delivery times)

Anyway, enough of taking the piss out of the opposition. I am offering ALL POSTS on 6000 miles… for an incredible NINE TENTHS OFF for TODAY ONLY!!

To take advantage of this amazing offer, simply read ANY POSTS on the site between the hours of 12 midnight this morning and… er… 12 midnight this evening, and pay JUST 10% of the usual fee of R0 (£0, $0). You will not find a better discocunt anywhere today.

Remember: IT’S JUST FOR TODAY: BLACK FRIDAY!!! BUY! BUY! BUY!

bye bye