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LOL, A Nigerian wants to buy my PSP

I listed my PSP on the auction website www.bidorbuy.co.za and had my first response from a Nigerian.  Here is the just of the query:

  Dear Seller, My Name is Raymond. Am holdinding somes stores in Holland,London and West Africa . I was in need of this item for anadverstiment am going to pay for the shipment from your residentialaddress to my stor. The payment will be made to you viaPayPal,WesternUnion Auction Payment,or Online MOney Gram,fast andsecure. If this is ok by you kindly get back to me with your fullname,address and phone number including email address and the totalcost of sending it through UPS/FEDEX/DHL to Lagos inNigeria.You will be making the shipment once my payment has beenapproved by the third party.Waiting to hear from you soon.

Let’s run an authenticity check on this little GEM shall we!

• Atrocious spelling and grammar “holdinding some stores” … ya right
• Reference to seller, my name is there so this must be an automated posting
• Payment “MOney Gram,fast and secure”
• Phishing for my email address, name and phone number to make contact
• Send the device to Lagos/Nigeria – I thought it was for a store in Holland and how exactly is my device cheaper than a purchase in Holland?

If you’re interested in the PSP go here, Nigerians however are not welcome!

Pretty Good Privacy

The Story of PGP

“Encryption is an old science, and as computers became more and more powerful, the number of people working with encryption grew and grew. Government officials grew increasingly concerned about the widespread availability of encryption techniques. Although encryption has perfectly valid uses for everyday citizens, it’s also a powerful tool for criminals. In 1991, Senate Bill 266 (a sweeping anticrime bill) had a minor point that required government-accessible back doors in all encryption tools. While this bill was still under discussion, Phil Zimmermann combined some common encryption methods to produce the software he dubbed Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP.”

 

More in Sunny SA

Teacher in tears after four minutes of terror

 ”This can’t be real. Please don’t let these children do anything stupid.”

These thoughts raced through Johannesburg school teacher Shelly Lennox’s mind as three armed robbers held her at gunpoint and ordered her Grade 11 pupils to hand over their cellphones, wallets and watches.

Children duck and dive as bullets fly

Scores of primary school children were dragged off the street by hysterical parents and teachers as police and a gang of robbers exchanged gunfire during a high-speed chase through a Pretoria suburb.

The incident involved men who are wanted in connection with a spate of armed robberies.

The shootout left a 38-year-old Mountain View shopper critically injured and three alleged robbers seriously wounded.

Bystander ‘shot by cops’ during cash heist

 A motorist was shot in the head at a Philippi filling station on Tuesday morning – allegedly by police who apparently mistook him for an armed robber who had held up a cashvan moments earlier.

SA needs 60 000 new jobs a month

South Africa needs to create about 60 000 jobs a month if unemployment is to be halved by the year 2014, according to the SA Employment Report released on Tuesday.

The formal sector was a currently growing at about 30 000 new employees a month, said Mike Schussler, an economist at the stockbroking firm Tlotlisa-Securities and author of the report.

The gross domestic product (GDP) had to grow at 6,5 percent to achieve the 2014 target.

Releasing SafeNote

I’ve written a small program that encrypts the contents of text files in order to ensure certain sensitive information stays sensitive. I use this program to encrypt a file with all my banking details and the millions of web usernames and passwords I have accumulated over the years.

It is in the software section here, feel free to use and distribute it however it may not be sold commercially.

The program requires the .NET Framework 2 – try running the software first to see if it works, if you get an error then most likely you don’t have the framework. The link above also gives you a download for the framework.

I’d really appreciate any raves or constructive criticism, email me and let me know here: swforsyth{at}gmail.com (replace with @)

HIV Microbicides?

Hope for HIV Microbicide:

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Researchers are closing in on a breakthrough microbicide gel to help prevent HIV infection in women, scientists said on Monday, but a lack of funding by major pharmaceutical companies is hampering research.

“I think for many years the microbicides research field was a little bit tentative about making too much noise about the potential of this technology,” Helen Rees, executive director of South Africa’s Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit, said on the sidelines of an international conference in Cape Town.

“At this point the microbicides research field is feeling that there might well be the possibility of having an effective microbicide in the next few years,” she told Reuters.

However Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang questioned the ethics of the trials 

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Monday voiced concern about the ethics of current clinical trials on microbicides…..

Yet she throws her toys when the news questions her much touted african potatos and garlic treatment for HIV … W.T.F?

Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a way of measuring the immediate effect of the breakdown of carbohydrates on blood sugar. The quicker a carbohydrate breaks down, the higher the index. A higher index means more demand on the pancreas and a consequently higher demand to secrete insulin. Carbs that break down more slowly and release glucose at a slower rate into the blood have a lower glycemic index.

The glycemic index can be roughly divided into 3 groups:

• High – GI is greater than 70
• Medium – GI between 56 and 69
• Low – GI is less than 55 (Better for your pancreas)

Pure glucose is used as a base line against which to measure these foods and has a GI of 100.

Low GI foods are better for people with diabetes or who are trying to lose weight, foods that are released slower by the body are less likely to cause the pancreas to panic and release lots of insulin. Slow release foods are also less likely to fill up the liver and muscle stores and have excess stored as fat.

Glycemic index is not a perfect indicator due to the fact that, although it tells a valuable story, it doesn’t take the whole nutritional picture into account. Primarily GI is based on the effect of a fixed portion of carbohydrate on blood sugar but fails to take into account the real life question of “how much can I eat?” Glycemic load is more complicated to understand but it looks at the effects on blood sugar taking volume into account.

A good example is a 100g piece of watermelon, it has a high glycemic index (GI: 72) because it is broken down very quickly however as it is not very dense and contains a lot of water, the glycemic load is relatively low (GL : 3.6). I prefer GL as a nutritional indicator over the GI although part of the equation for GL includes that of the GI.

There are many excellent sources of nutritional information if you'd like to know more. I would seriously recommend Patrick Holford as an author – he provides a wonderful set of books on child nutrition, recipes and the like.

One book worthy of particular praise is Optimum Nutrition for your Child’s Mind (ISBN: 0-7499-2685-6)

Useful links:

• Home of the Glycaemic Index (http://www.glycemicindex.com/) The GI database link on this page will give you a list of GI/GL values for most foods.
• Glycaemic Loads of Food (http://www.holfordhealth.com/c/tools_glycemic.asp)
• Glycaemic Load of Common Food (http://www.mentalhealthproject.com/content.asp?id_Content=1065)
• Glycaemic Index on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycaemic_index)
• Glycaemic Load on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycaemic_load)

Monday’s News

Welcome to the First Pediatric Grand Rounds…..

 

Excellent Work Clarke, keep it up.

A thief with half a heart…

Pretoria residents JP and Olga Botha thought they would never see their seven-week-old son again after a car thief drove off in their vehicle with the infant in the back seat. But they were pleasantly surprised when they called the number of the cellphone the attacker had disappeared with…

Women’s groups angered by Zuma court case

Human rights institutions and women’s organisations from 21 African countries have spoken out against the proceedings at the Jacob Zuma rape trial, expressing outrage at the behaviour of the defence lawyers, the media, the courts and the former deputy president.

Zimbabwe offer to white farmers

Zimbabwe says it is prepared to give land to white farmers who had their property seized under land reforms. (i.e. Come and fix up the farms that are nothing but empty dustbowls and we’ll take them again when they are worth something…..)

Chernobyl, 20 years later: “Nuclear Nightmares”

Xeni Jardin:  At the Pixel Press website: “Nuclear Nightmares,” a stunning series of photographs by Robert Knoth with reporting by Antoinette De Jong.

The photo-essay documents the ongoing human impact of Chernobyl on those who survived, their children, and the extended communities around them.

This photo (link to full-size), taken by Knoth in Minsk, Belarus:

Twin brothers Michael and Vladimir Iariga, 16 years old. Michael, with hydrocephalus, is five minutes older than Vladimir, who is deaf.

(…) Some areas in the closed zones around Chernobyl are so contaminated that they will have to remain closed off for up to 900 years.

Link 

The Land of the Dying Fin

Last week’s bad news, the world’s doomed future:

Fin whale to return to Japanese menus
By Andrew Darby, THE AGE
April 15, 2006

Fin whales, the world’s second largest whale and to many whale-eaters the tastiest, are likely to make a comeback on Japanese menus.

Despite last summer’s anti-whaling protests, the country’s whaling fleet returned to the north-western port of Kanazawa yesterday with a haul of 10 fins and 853 minkes.

It was the largest single slaughter of whales since the moratorium on commercial whaling came into force in 1986, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell said.

Bastards!

Sugar: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It is interesting that the majority of nutritional books start with the role sugar, or more specifically carbohydrates play in the body.

The Good:

Physiology 101:

At rest, the metabolism of the brain accounts for 15% the total metabolism of the body even though the brain weights roughly 2% the mass of the body. This means that brain metabolism is about 7.5 times higher than the average for the rest of the body. This energy glutton is satiated mainly by glucose, glucose is brain food and the brain depends on the blood supply for its constant stream of sugar. Unlike muscle cells, the brain has a very small buffer reserve of glucose, stored in the form of glycogen. Ceteris parabis (all things being equal) cut off the supply of glucose in the blood and the brain will survive for less than 2 minutes.

So the even and critical supply of glucose is supplied via the circulatory system in the blood. The blood sugar levels are directly influenced by what you eat and by how efficiently the body can shuttle the sugar too and from its internal stores. Excess sugar in the blood is transported to liver and muscle cells by a hormone known as insulin. When blood sugar gets too high, the pancreas secretes insulin and this facilitates the transport of glucose into the liver and muscle cells. If there is too much glucose and the liver and muscles stores are full, insulin then stores glucose in adipose (fat) tissue.

The liver is an Important buffer organ which initially stores up to two thirds of the glucose absorbed from the gut and then later, as glucose stores are used up and blood glucose starts to drop, it releases glucose steadily back into the blood.

The Bad:

Millions of years of natural selection have adapted our bodies to extract the most nutritional value from a variety of non-artificial food sources. The sugars in fruit are balanced with vitamins and fiber to slow the glucose absorption making for longer lasting energy foods with far greater nutritional value. In the modern world we have a huge variety of “artificial” or refined sugars that put massive strain on the body, have lasting and serious side effects and give very little back in the way of vitamins or nutrients.

Refined sugars have a very powerful shock effect on the body, especially in children where it can leave them see-sawing between highs and lows leaving them with a range of very potent psychological effects from hyperactivity to ratty, tired and unable to concentrate. This is especially noticeable in schools where children are able to buy junk foods like doughnuts, chocolates and fizzy drinks. In the United States, schools with outsourced lunch programs have noticed dramatic drops in delinquent behaviour and attention deficit problems when they switched from cheap junk foods to more nutritious and wholesome foods.

What makes refined sugars so bad?

Apart from having no nutritional value, refined sugars break down very quickly in the body leaving an excess of glucose floating around in the blood. This creates a panic situation in the body where the pancreas releases a large amount of insulin to compensate and try and store some of the glucose. Often there is overcompensation on the part of the body, glucose levels can actually drop below their baseline levels and this leaves the brain with too little glucose.

I have a five year old and have been to enough children’s parties to notice the effects of refined sugar on little kids. At first they are all tearing around like Duracell bunnies but then as the effects of the sugar wear off, they all drop like stones. By the end of the party, the initial joviality has deteriorated very often into irritability, tears, sleepiness and nausea. Parents very often downplay these symptoms seeing it more as their children having “played hard” than the damaging effects of sugar overload.

The Ugly:

The shock effect on the body from the foods we eat are having a very damaging effect on the health of our global society. Type 2 Diabetes is on the increase worldwide and many experts agree that the causal factors have much to do with poor lifestyle habits especially dietary.

How to Help The Health of Your Family:

Children are especially susceptible to the effects of refined sugars. The goal of any responsible parent is to slowly start decreasing the refined sugars in your child’s diet and replace them with nutritional sources of carbohydrates with slower releasing sugars.

Here are some practical tips around today’s topic on sugar that can have dramatic effects, both on a physical and mental level, on your child.

1. Never skip breakfast. It is not an old wives tale that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After a period of fasting during sleep, the body needs to replenish vital glucose stocks. Breakfast is the meal that will stand as the nutritional foundation for the rest of the day. Build a poor foundation and don’t be surprised if the walls come down.
2. Eat a nutritional breakfast. Throw out the white bread and the sweetened cereals and don’t buy into the marketing hype about corn flakes or sugar coated pops (with added vitamins) being a good start to the day. This is rubbish as we will see a little later in an example case study. We will look a little later at glycaemic load of foods and what foods to avoid. For now feed your child some fresh fruit followed by any combination of the following: rolled oats porridge, fish, lightly poached or scrambled eggs (not fried!) and brown or wholewheat bread or toast.
3. Slowly replace refined sugars with better sugars. Fructose is an ideal sugar replacement and is available in most pharmacies and health shops. Fructose is a more complex molecule than glucose and although it will eventually be broken down into glucose, it will do so slowly creating a better more sustained release. Fructose, in my humble opinion, is also a far nicer sweetener than sugar. Also try and stay away from other high release sugars such as honey and syrup.
4. Lunch time and Fruit. Limit access to rubbish foods. If your child is at school and does not have the money to buy chocolates and fizzy drinks but rather has a nutritional and delicious packed lunch then that is far better. Rather than giving a jam sandwich offer a whole-wheat one with peanut butter (preferably unsweetened). Give your child fresh fruit and/or vegetables at every meal. A tip here is buying your fruit on the weekend, chop it up, add a little orange juice to preserve it and put it in the fridge. This will act as a very good and convenient source of fruit for your children and takes the preparation time hassle out of supplying the fruit.
5. Avoid artificial or sweetened drinks. Children very often prefer plain water by choice however if they are hankering for juice then provide pure 100% fruit juice half diluted with water (should be as little preservative as possible – if the expiry date says good until 2010 then it’s a no no).
6. Watch for signs of glucose imbalance. Children, especially active children do not have the reserves that adults do and as such they are often prone to nutritional dips throughout the day. If your child starts to play up and get irritable an hour or two before meals then top them up with some fruit or a slice of delicious seed bread and natural butter. Very often the bodies’ desire for glucose will leave the child asking for juice or sweets and that is a warning sign.
7. Top them up after sports. This ties in nicely with point 6, when picking your child up from sports, take a banana or sandwich along – this will help top up the reserves of glucose used up from the muscle and liver reserves and prevent a glucose imbalance related problem.

In Conclusion

Let’s take a look at a little case study. Eric is in primary school and his parents have been warned about possible concentration problems and hyperactive behaviour. The head mistress recommends that Eric’s parents consult their family physician about a possible course of Ritalin.

Examining Eric’s diet we see a disturbing pattern emerge. Eric’s parents, often in a rush to get to work on the whole provide their child with a bowl of corn-flakes (very fast releasing). To this Eric adds two or three heaped spoons of sugar and another for good measure in his tea. Eric drinks normal tea which has the stimulant caffeine as well as tannins which can block the absorption of nutrients in the gut.

This is Eric’s foundation.

The body breaks the food down very quickly and the blood stream becomes flooded with sugar. The pancreas panics and starts secreting insulin at a massive rate. The body fills up as much of is internal reserves (liver and muscle) as possible and then starts converting the excess to fat.

Halfway through the morning Eric’s blood glucose is too low. He gets a headache, gets ratty and cannot concentrate in his lessons. His behaviour now is a disruptive influence in the class room and he is not alone amongst his peers. In classrooms that swell in size every year this is a huge problem. Teachers, often in desperation, call for drugs like Ritalin to restore a little order.

Break (recess) is near and Eric’s body craves glucose. He is desperate to get his hands on that Coke and Mars bar. Eric’s parents provide him with recess money as they are in too much of a rush in the morning to make him lunch.

At recess Eric buys the hot-dog (on a white roll), the Coke or Fanta and the chocolate. Once again his system is flooded with glucose (which temporarily satiates the bodies craving). The body once again reacts in shock to control the massively elevated blood sugar levels and the cycle is repeated again.

Without flogging this example, you can now see just how detrimental refined sugars can be. As a parent it is your responsibility to take control of what your children eat. If you lead hectic work lives, prepare food the night before or on weekends. There is no excuse to send your children out on a rickety nutritional foundation.

For next time

Next time we will look at the concept of Glycaemic Load and what foods are good and what foods are bad. We will also touch briefly on how to combine your foods to better nutritional effect.

Thanks

Stuart

Today’s Links

3quarksdaily: looks at the little role that silence (or the lack of it) plays in our otherwise hectic life.

Giant Deep-Sea Volcano With “Moat of Death” Found: National Geographic highlights a strange underwater ecosystem and the animals that live there.

Creepy killer’s blog:

You may have heard the disturbing news story about the Oklahoma murderer/pedophile/cannibal—just to make it a little creepier, he had a blog. – chilling stuff!

The effect of porn on male fertility: It appears that moderate viewing of porn and coffee drinking makes the man a little more manly.  It’s amazing what gets reviewed in the name of science.

Nutrition for You and Your Child, Part 1

One of the few joys of being a terminal insomniac is you get to have a lot of free time on your hands. As I sit here at one in the morning, completely awake and feeling quite chipper I decided that for the next little while I am going to dedicate a lot of time on this blog to nutrition.

In the wake and pace of modern life, we salvage what little precious time remains and often unfortunately squander a lot of it to the detriment of ourselves and our children. I have heard so many times from people I know and from my patients back when I was doing clinical work that being healthy costs money and takes time. Both these facts have some elements of truth however the biggest hurdle is effort, plain and simple. After a hard days work, often the last thing we are thinking about is nutrition, the child is ratty so we bung in a pie or a TV dinner and then often collapse in a heap in front of the next in the line of many a modern day distraction … computer, TV or newspaper. Our children perform poorly at school so teachers in an effort to control the swelling classroom numbers bung them on Ritalin – at home they may be little monsters running riot or having tantrums, show signs of aggression, bed-wetting, fatigue, insomnia, poor concentration or inability to complete tasks. We are familiar with the effects various of food stuffs on the body, who doesn’t know some story of eczema or allergy clearing up after removing an offending type of food (such as dairy or wheat) from the child’s diet?

The psychological effect of food is less well understood, and often as parents we are left feeling powerless, hoping that negative psychological traits or learning disabilities might be a phase the child will outgrow yet never guessing that modern investigations point the finger almost squarely at poor nutrition. Let me at the outset clarify what I mean by the word poor here. Many children suffer from deficiency related problems yet are often over fed. An increase in convenience, processed and refined foods mean that although we are eating more than enough in quantity, the nutritional effects of that food are marginal and often these types of foods lead to undesirable side effects such as weight gain and physiological reactions such as chronic rhinitis or eczema. It might be better to term the phrase wrong or undesirable foods. In this vein when we get going and start looking at the different food groups, additives and food combinations I will introduce a rating system to help you see what foods are good, what foods are OK and what foods to forever banish from your home.

So over the next few weeks I want to explore the consequences of our nutritional actions on our children and ways (yes with a little effort and cost) to combat all the negative aspects mentioned above, improve learning and concentration and restore a little balance to an otherwise out of kilter lifestyle. I hope to unravel some of the scientific geek speak when it comes to terms like glycaemic index and glycaemic load and offer some practical tips and recipes to help get you and your child back to a healthy way of eating that won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

If you have any questions relating to any of the postings, leave your question in the comments and I will answer them there – in this way we can all learn a little together.

Google Calendar and some Interesting Links

It is finally here, GOOGLE CALENDAR – it is, well awesome and finally I have a reason to dump my Outlook and switch back to Thunderbird….No wait I think I just may move everything to Gmail.

National Geographic has a lot of very interesting articles, here are some I came across today for your macabre perusing pleasure:

• Catfish hunts on land, scientists report – an eel like catfish with the ability to hunt in an aquatic as well as on a terrestrial environment.
• Flesh-eating baby “worm” feasts on mom’s skin – an article about a limbless amphibian that grows a thick fatty epidermal layer for it’s kids to feast upon.
• The practice of binding books in human skin

It looks like light-bulbs as we know them may be on the way out,

A natural light source that could put the traditional light bulb in the shade has been invented by US scientists. The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply.The material, described in the journal Nature, can be printed in wafer thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights.The OLEDs do not heat up like today’s light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer. (view)

Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases from Canada’s Leading Medical Journal.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful and also quite ironic given the amount of money that is poured into cancer research if good ‘ol Vitamin C was an effective treatment.

Early clinical studies showed that high-dose vitamin C, given by intravenous and oral routes, may improve symptoms and prolong life in patients with terminal cancer. Double-blind placebo-controlled studies of oral vitamin C therapy showed no benefit. Recent evidence shows that oral administration of the maximum tolerated dose of vitamin C (18 g/d) produces peak plasma concentrations of only 220 µmol/L, whereas intravenous administration of the same dose produces plasma concentrations about 25-fold higher. Larger doses (50–100 g) given intravenously may result in plasma concentrations of about 14 000 µmol/L. At concentrations above 1000 µmol/L, vitamin C is toxic to some cancer cells but not to normal cells in vitro. We found 3 well-documented cases of advanced cancers, confirmed by histopathologic review, where patients had unexpectedly long survival times after receiving high-dose intravenous vitamin C therapy. We examined clinical details of each case in accordance with National Cancer Institute (NCI) Best Case Series guidelines. Tumour pathology was verified by pathologists at the NCI who were unaware of diagnosis or treatment. In light of recent clinical pharmacokinetic findings and in vitro evidence of anti-tumour mechanisms, these case reports indicate that the role of high-dose intravenous vitamin C therapy in cancer treatment should be reassessed.

God and Temporal Lobe Epiliepsy

Two of my friends claim direct divine intervention in their lives, the main religion in question being Buddhism this time however I don’t believe religious denomination in this case matters.  Both people have temporal lobe epilepsy and one of the more common symptoms of this type of epilepsy, along with auditory or visual auras, is hyper-religiosity.

Here is a good description of what T.L.E. is like for a sufferer.

Here’s a typical story: “I get the strangest feeling—most of it can’t be put into words. The whole world suddenly seems more real at first. It’s as though everything becomes crystal clear. Then I feel as if I’m here but not here, kind of like being in a dream. It’s as if I’ve lived through this exact moment many times before. I hear what people say, but they don’t make sense. I know not to talk during the episode, since I just say foolish things. Sometimes I think I’m talking but later people tell me that I didn’t say anything. The whole thing lasts a minute or two.”

The features of seizures beginning in the temporal lobe can be extremely varied, but certain patterns are common. There may be a mixture of different feelings, emotions, thoughts, and experiences, which may be familiar or completely foreign. In some cases, a series of old memories resurfaces. In others, the person may feel as if everything—including home and family—appears strange. Hallucinations of voices, music, people, smells, or tastes may occur. These features are called “auras” or “warnings.” They may last for just a few seconds, or may continue as long as a minute or two.

Experiences during temporal lobe seizures vary in intensity and quality. Sometimes the seizures are so mild that the person barely notices. In other cases, the person may be consumed with fright, intellectual fascination, or even pleasure.

The current work of Michael Persinger (a neuro-psychologist at Canada’s Laurentian University in Ontario) is the artificial stimulation of the temporal lobe – his theory that the sensations of “having a religious experience” is a side effect of brain activity.  He believes that the stimulation of the temporal lobe may be responsible for other “supernatural” feelings, those for example lying behind phenomenon such as alien abductions and near death experiences.

In the case of my friend with temporal lobe epilepsy, he is aware of the problems and refuses to take medication for the problem saying that rather than the religious experience being an effect of random synaptic firings, his karma allowed him to be born with the necessary equipment  to have these type of experiences (a blessing in this case).

I guess it is an old case which came first, the chicken or the egg. 

I think I just got an idea for a masters project

Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

It’s 10 p.m. (not a school night) and my son and I are on the edge of our seats as we creep round the next corner expecting a nasty little goblin to leap out at us.  Having a beautifully crafted katana in one hand and knowing that we can let loose with a barrage of fireballs if we so choose brings a sense of comfort in an otherwise chilly and gloomy place.  After snapping my 5th lockpick trying for the goodies in the chest with my son roaring furiously at my juvenile attempts my wife comes stumbling out of bed to see what all the noise is about.  A quick wag of the finger and ‘Mommy this is not a game girls would like!’ (He knows his mum so well, but Goodness knows where he learned that…) and were off again, this time at the request of an old monk to find the emperors son and last remaining heir.  Finally when the non-negotiable bed time came round I had to swear blind that I would not try something sneaky like continuing with my quest when he was asleep – I guess these are things a sneaky dad might try.

Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is a game that comes round very rarely - a breathtaking, vast and unbelievably interactive RPG with eye-watering realism and textures that leave you standing gawking at the scenery until a well deserved slap from you co-player gets you moving again.

Gaming this year is divided into those who have it and those who don’t.

p.s. It’s worth the graphics card upgrade you’ve been thinking about.

More Career Changes to Come

In my ubiquitous quest for personal meaning I may be making one final change to my career stream as from next year.  I have contacted UNISA and found out what would be required for me to make the change to Psychology.  As I have a degree already I require only psychology modules and as I have majored in psychology as a part of my Masters I should be able to go straight into the honors program.  This means I could get back into the social and health services within the next 2–3 years whereas if I were to proceed with the business degree I am looking at another 6 years of study on a genre’ that really holds very little appeal.

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
Viktor E. Frankl

ID and the Fish

Protected: Accepted At De La Salle

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Echoes

Death,
Shrouded in the cloaked guise
Of life peers at me from a distant shore
Another time bound only by the constraints
Of mind,      
Like imperfections glittering
In the mind of the glassblower
My understanding
Ripples as an echo
Through the mind of the cosmos
A silent portent to
Human frailty.

© Stuart Forsyth
03/2001

Healthy Skepticism and Snake Oil

Terra Sigillata hosts the 31st meeting of 'the skeptics circle', a unique event where all the critically minded from the blogsphere gather to bring a little common sense to the Internet.

I came across a very disturbing article yesterday, apparently an American preacher Ernest Angley is having flyers handed out in Lesotho as part of his 'miracle crusade'. He is going around telling the uneducated and the poor that he can cure their HIV/AIDS and their cancer. This pathetic excuse for a human being has realised that selling snake oil in a country rife with problems like AIDS is very lucrative indeed and hey if you aren't cured then presumably your faith was too weak. Throughout history people have been preyed upon by the peddlers in false hope and the charlatans, it is a pity that something can't be done to stop this or somehow inform the uninformed. They will peddle their last cent, perhaps taking food away from their children in the hope that this white man from America is able to offer them some last chance as avoiding what has undoubtedly killed many people they know.

As much as I'd love to keep writing, my textbooks are sitting on my shelf and staring at me in an unfriendly and ominous manner, time to hit the books.

A Shower a Day Keeps the AIDS away

Perhaps we should also remember our minister of health's view that the african potato and garlic are effective treatments for AIDS.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad!