New quote of the moment:
"So we want to know if there are any economic conditions under which Eskom will not request unreasonable increases in electricity prices?"
- Mr Thami Bolani, from the National Consumer Forum (article here).
Bravo Mr Bolani!!!
And on an entirely different note, I was reading the Ferial Haffajee and Helen Zille exchange over the whole 100% male Western Cape cabinet issue. And Zille made the most perfectly awful comment:
"As for “race”, the top 12 positions (including the Speaker and deputy Speaker) are equally divided -- six people of colour and six whites. This is not a result of quotas."
- Helen Zille.
Oh dear!! *cringes*
-
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
This week's idea
I am a bit Pinky and the Brain-ish in that I am usually hatching some plan or another, thinking up some grand idea. It is not usually to take over the world though. Sometimes it is a business idea, or something I think should be changed, or some problem I am trying to think of a solution to (like how to make home affairs work).
It is just what occupies my mind when I am doing things that don't require thought.
A classic example is a question a digsmate and I posed to each other a few years ago: If you were given oodles of money, maybe a hundred billion rand, and told to use it to fix the AIDS problem in South Africa... how would you spend it? What would you do? I thought about it a lot and we discussed it. And she eventually gave the best answer I have ever heard to a question like that. Her answer actually still informs my thinking on those sorts of issues today.
There is always something to keep ones mind busy. A few weeks ago it was the problem of young people leading purposefully reckless liefstyles because of the possibility of an AIDS grant. And people with AIDS not taking care of themselves so their CD4 counts drop low enough to get the grant. That is a scary thing, isn't it?!
Anyway, my idea for this week is on running a science enrichment class. I was helping a young man who is repeating matric. We were going over some science and maths. He didn't have a science teacher for matric - can you beat it! His teacher moved to work at the Department of Education, and the school never replaced him! Sheesh, useless.
We were chatting about Faraday's law and electromagnetism and what not. He is a smart kid, he catches things quickly, and he is an interested student... asks questions, is keen. A pleasure to help really.
Anyway, it got me thinking of this week's grand idea. Something I would really like to do is to start a science enrichment class. Maybe on Saturday mornings. For kids in Grade 11 or 12, who are pretty good at science and hoping to study science at university. But go to schools that aren't great.
It wouldn't be primarily school syllabus based, though we could do some things in line with the syllabus. We would just do all sorts of fun science things...
we could make electromagnets, muck around with electric circuits, we could have an astronomy evening, we could read some Richard Feynmann, we could do fun intro's to univsity work, go on outings to interesting sciency places, use excel to make pretty graphs, learn sume rudimentary computer programming, make mobius strips, that sort of thing.
Maybe for a group of five or so kids. When I am finished with this whole university thing myself, I think I will try and do it! :)
It is just what occupies my mind when I am doing things that don't require thought.
A classic example is a question a digsmate and I posed to each other a few years ago: If you were given oodles of money, maybe a hundred billion rand, and told to use it to fix the AIDS problem in South Africa... how would you spend it? What would you do? I thought about it a lot and we discussed it. And she eventually gave the best answer I have ever heard to a question like that. Her answer actually still informs my thinking on those sorts of issues today.
There is always something to keep ones mind busy. A few weeks ago it was the problem of young people leading purposefully reckless liefstyles because of the possibility of an AIDS grant. And people with AIDS not taking care of themselves so their CD4 counts drop low enough to get the grant. That is a scary thing, isn't it?!
Anyway, my idea for this week is on running a science enrichment class. I was helping a young man who is repeating matric. We were going over some science and maths. He didn't have a science teacher for matric - can you beat it! His teacher moved to work at the Department of Education, and the school never replaced him! Sheesh, useless.
We were chatting about Faraday's law and electromagnetism and what not. He is a smart kid, he catches things quickly, and he is an interested student... asks questions, is keen. A pleasure to help really.
Anyway, it got me thinking of this week's grand idea. Something I would really like to do is to start a science enrichment class. Maybe on Saturday mornings. For kids in Grade 11 or 12, who are pretty good at science and hoping to study science at university. But go to schools that aren't great.
It wouldn't be primarily school syllabus based, though we could do some things in line with the syllabus. We would just do all sorts of fun science things...
we could make electromagnets, muck around with electric circuits, we could have an astronomy evening, we could read some Richard Feynmann, we could do fun intro's to univsity work, go on outings to interesting sciency places, use excel to make pretty graphs, learn sume rudimentary computer programming, make mobius strips, that sort of thing.
Maybe for a group of five or so kids. When I am finished with this whole university thing myself, I think I will try and do it! :)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Full fat
I have been scarce lately, I know. Mostly because work has been swamping me.
But as a quick just for fun blog post... something odd I noticed yesterday:
Full cream milk is called full cream, while low fat milk is called low fat. Wait, what? Well, they are just cleverly named, right? So the emphasis on full cream milk packaging in not that it is full of fat, but that it is creamy... the emphasis on low fat milk is not that it tastes horrible in tea, but that it is healthy.
I never never noticed that before. Until yesterday, when I was buying maas at Pick 'n Pay. Because the mass was labeled "full fat." And I thought "full fat!! gross!" and then I realised "full cream" is actually "full fat" anyway.
So why does Clover put "full cream" on their milk and "full fat" on their mass? Hmmm... ! Best not speculate I suppose!
The reason I was buying mass is for a wonderful recipe, which I will post here in case you want to try it.
Cheese Bread
500 g self raising flour
500 g maas (see pic* above!)
about 3/4 C grated cheddar cheese (and some extra for sprinkling on top)
1 pkt white onion soup (brown is okay too, but I usually use white)
1 t dried parsely
* Chuck it all into a bowl and mix it together. Add some milk if the mixture needs more liquid.
* Spray 'n cook two loaf pans and put the mixture into them.
* Put it into the oven (pre-heated to 180 degrees C) and cook for about 50 mins to an hour.
* About 40 minutes into the cooking, sprinkle some cheese on top of the rising loaves of bread, just to give it time to melt and go crispy.
* When you think it is time to take it out, just test it by sticking a knife in an making sure if comes out reasonably dry. Because the cooking time depends on your oven etc. and you don't want gooey bread!
Easy and really yummy! And it looks really impressive to guests, if they see you make your own bread :)
Enjoy!
* Pic from here.
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