Entries Tagged 'Personal' ↓

Old Town Square

Prague is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. If you ever have the slightest chance of visiting it, do so. It will be an unforgettable experience.

When visiting a country, I want to have the facts beforehand to prepare myself, and it is notoriously difficult to find all the practical info you need, even online at Tripadvisor, Travelwiki, etc. So I’ll just tell you exactly what you’ll need and what you can expect as a South African.

Money
You will be needing Czech Koruny (CZK) to pay for things in Prague, since attempting to pay in Euros is often considered an insult and will not be accepted in most places. Buying Euros with the intent of exchanging it in Prague is foolish, there are exchange kiosks everywhere but they will always rip you off unless you exchange more than 5000 euros. Buying Czech Koruny in ZA will take a while for them to order it for you, and you will lose money on the exchange rate (ZA banks give you 1.6% less per rand than the actual international exchange rate on all currencies) and you’ll pay 1.5-2% commission on top of that.

Far easier and cost effective is to take your Visa/Mastercard and draw money at a Prague ATM when you need it. The service fee is about 75CZK per withdrawal and you will get the actual international exchange rate instead of the ZA banks ripoff rate.

Communication
If you just want to be able to SMS, enable SMS roaming on your Vodacom SIM by SMSing “ROAMON” to 123. You will be able to receive and send SMSes from ZA as normal.

Otherwise, buy a Czech SIM card at the airport for 200 CZK  which gives you 200 CZK worth of airtime. You can ask the salesperson to switch you to a plan that’s more optimized for local calls/messages or more optimized for international communication. I asked the salesperson to load my SIM with a 100MB data bundle from the balance on the SIM, which worked out to under R1/MB. Not bad for mobile data in a European country. A data bundle is vital if you have a smartphone with a GPS. This will make navigation a pleasure.

Navigation and transport
Get yourself an iPhone, seriously. GPS + google maps + cheap Czech SIM is such an epic win combination it’s not even funny. If you have the 3G, take along a good old fashion analogue compass since it is sometimes hard to judge in which direction you are going in a cramped city. Pick up a map or two from your hotel and the subway stations, different maps show different information.

Prague has four major modes of public transportation: Trams, Trains, Bus and Taxis. Avoid taxi’s if you can, especially hailing one from the street. Czech taxi drivers are notorious for trying to rip you off, and a trip from the airport to your hotel could cost 750CZK where you could do it on 40 CZK using the bus/train. A public transport ticket available from dispensers at the subway entrances are valid for all Trams, trains and busses. A 18 CZK ticket is valid for 30 mins, 28 CZK for 75 mins, 100 CZK for 24 hours. If you have a large suitcase, you will need a “half-price” ticket for the luggage along with your own. The tickets must be stamped the first time you get on a tram/bus/train otherwise you could be fined 500CZK. It is easy to figure out how the trains and trams run from a decent map, so do that as soon as you get some time. To get from the airport to Prague, buy a 28CZK + 13CZK(luggage) ticket and take the 119 bus to Dejvicka. That’s the first terminal for the green subway line. From there you can take the subway into the city and onto other subways/tram lines using the same tickets.

Food and Drink
Maybe I just visited the wrong restaurants, but coming from South Africa, Czech food did not impress. Czech is big on pork, poultry, dumplings and more recently on fish. Even though I never had a bad meal, nothing really stood out and wow’ed me. Beware of non-itemized bills. Even though most eating establishments are friendly and honest, there are some tourist traps that will try to exploit you using sneaky methods. At some places, if you don’t ask the waiter to take the bread basket on your table away, you could be charged for it per-person. The one evening we ate at Staromacek restaurant near the old town square which is a “traditional czech restaurant” and they charged us 180 CZK for two bread baskets that we didn’t even eat of. We didn’t give the waiter a tip, because he tried to hide the charge from us by putting it in the middle of a list of non-itemized amounts and not notifying us of it.

As far as beer goes, Czech is big on Pilsner. Stay away from tourist traps that charge 50CZK for 500ml (50cl as they like to say), you can easily get it for 35CZK or less if you just walk a couple of meters towards Charles Bridge or away from the old town square. A good price for the same glass of beer is anything from 25CZK to 30CZK. The Pilsner was a little bitter at first, but I soon fell in love and was sad to leave it behind when I had to come back. Be sure to visit Novomestsky Pivovar (www.npivovar.za), they brew awesome dark beer and also light beer. Kozel is also very nice if you can find it.

There are three czech spirits you will most definitely read about: Becherovka, Fernet Stock and Slivovice (plum brandy). You might also see that Czech is one of two places that still legally sell proper absinth. The downside is that any absinth you buy in Prague that costs less than your left testicle is utter crap, so buy the “King of Spirits” brand with a picture of Van Gogh on the front if you can afford it, otherwise just don’t bother. Definitely try a shot of Becherovka, it is quite unique. You can buy a 700ml bottle at a tourist shop for 330CZK or in Tesco for a lot cheaper, like 260CZK. E.g. a 1l bottle costs 420CZK on the street and 320CZK at Tesco. Fernet Stock is like Jagermeister, except that it doesn’t dissolve your teeth. Slivovice is like our own “mampoer”. These spirits definitely impressed and is well worth trying out.

Accomodation
I don’t have much experience with backpackers/inns/etc, but I can say that the Czech people are very generous with their hotel star ratings. A night’s stay in a “four star” hotel is cheap enough and you’ll sleep comfortably but don’t expect too much. I stayed in Hotel Athena Palace and can definitely recommend it for its hospitality and location.

General Impression
Unbelievable experience. Prague brings you closer to your own humanity in that it shows you more about who we are as a species and what we can achieve. If that doesn’t make sense, you’ll have to go and see for yourself. Apart from the obvious tourist attractions, the two most unique and special places I was in Prague is Reon‘s art gallery on Petrin Hill and the cathedral/park with giant statues at Vysehrad. Even though Prague is very obviously tourist oriented, you can still visit places where you’ll feel like a part of the land if you just go a couple of km’s by tram.

As always, questions/comments welcome.

Here’s a wallpaper I made inspired by the Wikipedia article on humans using the image located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skeleton_diagram.svg .

I placed the skeleton on a black background, gave him a slight reflective shadow and shaded him a light orange colour. Yours for free.

So here it is, my exposed human desktop wallpaper:
[1920x1200 HD] http://psichron.za.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/background1920x1200.jpg
[1280x800] http://psichron.za.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/background1280x800.jpg
[1280x800 right aligned] http://psichron.za.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/background1280x800.2.jpg

I was reading up on human origins for a new light-philosophical blog where I’ll write down all my (mis)interpretations of life so I can come back in 10 years and see what I thought right now. It’s located at http://sa-zen.blogspot.com/ (South African Zen).

A couple of friends and I traveled to Germany in July earlier this year, and I’ve been meaning to make a blog post about the German train system ever since. Understanding the German transport system can be intimidating for a foreigner, especially if you are on a budget and can’t afford to just take a taxi everywhere. Their transportation website (www.diebahn.de) is only partially translated, and attempting to ask a local German at the airport for directions will probably not go too well unless you are fluent in German. (Hint: They don’t like English speaking people, so if you talk to somebody immediately identify yourself as South African and they will be much friendlier towards you.)

Here’s a quick summary of the article for the impatient:

• Travel in groups of 5 or multiples of 5. Many train/tram/bus tickets allows up to 5 travelers on a single ticket at the same price, thereby letting each member of the group pay only a 5th of the ticket’s cost.
• If you are going to be looking around the city, buy a day ticket that allows access to the local trains, trams and busses.
• If you are traveling outside the city boundaries, buy a regional ticket(Länder-Ticket) such as the Hessenticket. This ticket costs 30 Euro, is valid for 24 hours, allows you to travel anywhere inside a region/province (e.g. the entire Western Cape as a ZA equivalent), and can be used by up to 5 travelers on a single ticket (Effectively costing 6 Euros per person to travel the entire Hessen state.).
• Also look out for regional tickets that are valid for a whole weekend, check online.
• Don’t take a chance, always travel with a ticket. If you are caught, you will be levied a fine of 40 Euros.
• Do not be late! The trains wait for nobody, not even if you’re running towards it while screaming and waving.
• The train tickets are valid for trams and buses within the ticket’s designation region.
• Take the Regional Express if you want to get somewhere fast.

As we landed on Frankfurt airport, we realized we had no idea how to reach our hotel in the center of Frankfurt only a couple of km’s away. The first step is exiting the international arrivals terminal and waiting for a (free) shuttle to the train platforms. At the train platform terminal, go downstairs to the actual train platforms to get access to uncrowded ticket dispensers and get your bearings. The ticket dispensers has two columns of about 10 rows of buttons you could press for about 20 types of train tickets you could buy, and this is for the local trains only!

The rule of thumb when buying tickets are as follows: Buy a day ticket (Tageskarte) if you plan on sight-seeing later the day. Buy a single-fair ticket if you only plan on getting to the hotel and sleeping off the jet lag. Buy a group ticket if you are a group of 5, this will save you a lot of money.

The trip from the airport to Frankfurt should cost you about 2 Euros. Stop, take some time, and read the big boards with yellow timetables on them on the train platform levels, and familiarize yourself with the railway’s layout by finding a map of the railway lines printed on a wall. Your first objective should be to find the train platforms, all the information and a couple of uncrowded ticket dispensers will be there (You will severely upset the locals if you hog the ticket dispensers on the top levels while trying to figure out what you should be buying). You will probably be taking the S9 to Frankfurt and getting off at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). Be ready to board the train. Notice how everybody around you are ready to jump on the train as soon as it stops, like athletics runners before they are set off, so make sure your group is together.

Once in Frankfurt, you can buy a day ticket or group day ticket to travel within the city region (designated area 50 I think.) You can use this ticket to travel on the trams and subway trains between stops, and you can usually find a map of all the stops at a train/tram stop. Pop into your hotel lobby and pick up a brochure with a map of the city, it will be very useful. Also ask the receptionist where the nearest supermarket is, and for the location of other areas of interest.

When traveling outside the city area, buy your group a regional ticket like the Hessenticket mentioned earlier. I couldn’t find a single source on the internet that confirmed whether you can actually travel with 5 people on a single ticket, and the answer is: Yes you can! Ie, if you are 5 travelers, you can pay 30 Euros together (or 6 Euros each), and if you are a single traveler you will pay the full 30 Euros yourself (which is something I’ve had to do once when I got separated from my group in the middle of the German countryside.)

The Hessenticket will give you access to all local trains/trams and buses, anywhere inside the Hessen region. Check Wikipedia, Hessen is quite big, larger than Gauteng. If you want to take the scenic route, take the local trains like the S-bahn and other smaller trains from stop to stop. You will make a LOT of stops along the way, but it will be worth it as you get off at train stations to switch trains, and see all the little German towns. If you are in a hurry, you can take the larger Regional Express (RE) train, which only stops at the main train stations, and can take you from Frankfurt to Kassel in about 2 hours (The scenic route took us about 5 hours…). You will know which train is the RE when you see it, it has two floors and is much bigger than the S-bahn trains.  The Hessenticket does NOT give you access to the “ICE” high-speed trains, they are VERY expensive (over 50 Euro for a one-way trip per person.) but the Regional Express should be sufficient.

If you need internet access in Germany, find an internet cafe. It is really not that expensive. Their GPRS billing system does NOT work like ours, you get billed per minute and not per MB like here, so you won’t be able to mxit in Germany for cheap if you buy a German prepaid simcard.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment to this post and I will reply as soon as possible.

German Flag

On 30 October, 2008, The University of Stellenbosch’s IT department decided to cut the network links between residences. This follows after intermittent network instability issues started occurring, possibly due to network software distributed by students.

The student software, titled “Rooihub” was mostly blamed for the network issues, but no evidence was available to back these claims. The following e-mail was sent to network users the day before network routes were severed:

Date: 29 October 2008

After numerous complaints of an unstable and frequently unavailable network, the Management of Information Technology in collaboration with the Student Council agreed on the following: All the network traffic between residences will be blocked If the cause of the unstable network cannot be identified soon. This is necessary to minimize the load which the assumed ”rooihub” users are causing on the network’s performance. It will also ensure more stable access to central services such as email and WebCT.

There was no other e-mail or warning from the IT department, only this mail that states “rooihub” is suspected of causing problems. In fact, the Stellenbosch University IT department is known for not communicating important network issues to its (paying) users.

The IT department had several alternative options available:

1. E-mail network users and warn them not to make use of “Rooihub” software.
2. Block the UDP port that the software used.
3. Configure switches for better handling of possible packet floods.

The decision to cut inter-residence traffic is severely lamented by network users, and is criticized by  individuals who also note that they should be entitled to a non-crippled service since they pay for it. The poor choice in solving the problem is wholly un-academic and not on par with the standards of first-class tertiary institutions. Limiting network functionality undermines the academic environment and stifles innovation.

Ironically, at time of writing there are several websites, including Wikipedia, which cannot be accessed due to misconfigured proxy settings.

As noted by a former member of the student council: “This is the kind of thing that happens when people see something as a technical problem rather than a political one.” IT’s unfortunate behaviour does nothing but damage to Matie pride.

UPDATE: As of 2 November, 2008, the network is once again unstable and unusable. This is after inter-residence links were severed. This just makes it more probable that the network issues are due to bad configuration or hardware rather than the “rooihub” software.

By far the most fascinating aspect of Spore is the Spore Creature Creator. If you enjoy customizing every single little aspect of your very own race of 7 legged fish-men, then you will probably waste hours on just this aspect of the game, and admittedly it is impressive.

Cellular Stage:
The first stage of Spore was done remarkably well, in terms of actual game play, this is probably where you will have the most fun. You start off as a little single-cell organism and grow as you feed on other cells. The coolest part of this level is being able to “see through” to the higher levels of life.  You can see the outlines of giant, blurry scary creatures lurking in the background until you eat enough food to reach their level, and then you pop into their reality – your previous predators now suddenly smaller than you. This continues for a while until you’ve accumulated enough genes to start evolving legs.

Creature Stage:
Here you evolve the major features of your creature and determine its ultimate shape and attributes, while attacking or befriending neighboring creature burrows. This stage is slightly repetitive maybe, but still entertaining. Make sure your creature looks exactly the way you want it before advancing to the tribal stage, and get wings.

Tribal Stage:
As with the creature stage, you befriend or destroy neighboring settlements with the addition of rudimentary tools,weapons and instruments to enhance your creatures. More entertaining and diverse than the creature stage.

Civilization Stage:
More diverse than the tribal stage, you need to manage cities and people. You can build land, air and sea vehicles. Less fun than the tribal stage and can get slightly repetitive.

Space Stage:
Irritating as hell! The spore developers realized it would take you about 4 hours of gameplay to reach the final stage, so they try to squeeze 30 more hours out of this level. You fly around in a single spaceship, establishing trade routes, terraforming planets and conquering rival civilizations. The only problem is that, every time you want to go on your own mission, 5 alerts pop up informing you that two of your planets are under pirate attack and three are in immenant danger of ecosystem collapse, all requiring your immediate attention. So you spend 95% of the time flying to random solar systems, killing pirates and frying infected creatures, and in the mean time you’re told to try and reach the center of the galaxy to discover some ultimate treasure that the Grox (An evil, super-powerful alien species who literally collonized every planet within a 5000 planet radius around the galaxtic center) are guarding.

You can build a 4 ship fleet, but the other three ships -have- to be allied units, and of course they are useless at both attack and defense, so they get vaporised within seconds (and this pisses off your allies). So you pretty much have to battle your way through the Grox alone for a couple of hours (while ignoring the total collapse of half your and your allies’ planets because they are too useless to defend/take care of themselves.) And when you finally reach the center of the galaxy you find:

**Spoiler alert!**

A space-ship with the name “Steve”, who is basically a parody of god, telling you that you are now “One of us” and giving you 42 staff’s of life or something. This amazing gift allows you to completely terraform a planet in one go. Super useful for my militaristic race of space conquerors who rely on the hostile takeover of planets of course… Biggest let-down ever. So, returning home again through the hordes of Grox, you complete a couple of missions to fill up the green experience bar at the bottom of the screen, just to find that you actually had no reason to do so since nothing happens when it is complete. Yes, apart from reaching the galactic center and having a chat with Steve, there is no point to the space stage whatsover.

Conclusion:

This game is seriously overhyped. Get it if you like games like the Sims and like designing your own creatures, vehicles and buildings. Otherwise, the only part of it that’s really worth it is the first 25 minutes.

Throughout the movie, some of the beach scenes and actors/actresses looked suspiciously familiar – typical Western Cape surroundings. Living about 1000m from the Afrikaans Taal monument, I almost fell off my chair when I saw this:

Afrikaans Taal Monument featuring in Starship Troopers

Epic

This straight-to-DVD movie wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. Definately far better than Starship Troopers 2, you will probably enjoy it if you are a Starship Troopers fan. Yes, it contains senseless nudity just like the shower scene we so loved in ST1, it even has the same giant brain bug. If anything, it’s worth seeing just for the challenge of spotting the particular parts of the Western Cape where the scenes were shot.

If anybody knows which church this is (It also features in the movie), I’d be very happy if you could let me know:

Unkown (ZA?) Church

Now these points of data make a beautiful line…

stillalive.mp3_ (Rename to .mp3)

I have often said that the crude and harsh sounding Afrikaans language would be perfect for the heavy metal genre. Just look at the magnificent success of germanic bands such as Rammstein (my all-time favourite). With the recently released album, “Swaar Metaal”, Kobus! brings a revolution to mainstream Afrikaans heavy metal. 30 seconds after first being introduced to Kobus! , I was a devout fan.

Quit a wave of “revolutionary” music to hit South Africa lately

update:I attended the Kobus! gig at Cornerbar on the 22nd of June, and it was damn cool. Watching Francois turn into a demon-chicken-monster on stage was life changing. I grabbed a “Volk van Main” shirt from Francois the moment they walked off stage. See you at the Kobus! gig in Stellenbosch at Klein Libertas, 1st August!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: >>>Download “doodstraf” here. < <<
Read a review here.
The Kobus! home page.

Here is the Afrikaans lyrics to some of my favourite Kobus! songs, as transcribed by pjd and I:

Just get the lyrics here: http://volkvanmain.freehostia.com/albums.html
( English lyrics here.)

Geocaching is a type of global treasure hunt. Each geocache has a set of GPS coordinates and is hidden out of public view. The idea is to find a geocache, take something from it, put something back, and record your visit in a log book and on the website.

There are at least two geocaches hidden near my house, in the Paarl Rock and Taalmonument reserves.

How could a pirate resist the lure of treasure? Yesterday Zelphar and I set forth to find the nearest cache. Due to a mixup with coordinates on my part, we only found it today…. Here is a picture of me at the cache site in explorer mode: http://www.div0.co.za/public/treasurehunt/668F0002.jpg
Here is the map we used:
http://www.div0.co.za/public/treasurehunt/real2.jpg