March 2012 – Page 2 – Willem's Planet

March 9, 2012March 9, 2012

Friday/ who let the dragons out?

iPhone 2012 01 168 sm — This stuffed dragon is from the Carrefour department store here in Shenzhen. I took the picture a few weeks ago.

We’re in the final testing phase of our SAP project, and some ‘dragons’ have emerged that have to be slayed. One can even find – as we are – that standard SAP transactions are not working as expected. It all depends on the volume and combination of data that had been converted and the system settings and resources that have been put into place. So it pays to be paranoid when testing software*.

Test it again even if it was tested before (in a previous phase of the project), even if it’s out-of-the-box functionality from a top-notch vendor and even if you ‘think’ it will work. Of course, no project has infinite resources, so you have to apply what time and personnel you do have, as best you can !

*I am thinking of the Andy Groves quote ‘only the paranoid survive’. Grove was CEO of Intel from 1987 to 1998 and a pioneering figure in transforming the company into a giant. He insisted that people (working together) be demanding on one another, and is said to have been an idol of the late Steve Jobs from Apple.

March 9, 2012

Thursday/ baijiu boxes

I like to check out the baijiu* packaging in the grocery stores here. Some are downright spectacular. And at 50% alcohol I am sure one soon starts to experience the fantasy worlds depicted on the boxes that the liquor is presented in.

*clear white liquor drink typically distilled from rice (southern China) or sorghum (northern China)

March 7, 2012

Wednesday/ oranges and little yellow mangoes

There is a wonderful fruit market here at the local shopping center at work. The oranges on the left are sweet and seedless. The little yellow fruit on the right are mangoes, but I’m not sure of the cultivar name. There are hundreds, says Wikipedia. The little ones have the same tough skin, and taste the same as the bigger, rounder ones that have a red ‘blush’ .. that wild tropical mango taste. I have never quite grown fond of the way mangoes taste, though. Maybe I just have not eaten enough of them to appreciate them!

March 6, 2012March 6, 2012

‘Super Tuesday’ in the USA

Tuesday is long gone in here in China (it’s 1.00pm Wednesday) – and almost gone in the USA. But the politicos at politico.com are posting up-to-the-minute tallies of the precincts in the outcome of the Republican primaries in the ten states of ‘Super Tuesday’. Wikipedia says the phrase Super Tuesday goes back at least to 1976 in US presidential primary elections. Right now the state of Ohio is most closely watched, where it’s a neck-and-neck race between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

March 4, 2012March 4, 2012

Monday/ tracking cyclone Irina

Cycle Irina is churning off the South African coast and likely to remain over open water between Maputo and Richards Bay for the next 24 hours, says a weather report. So it makes for very rough seas and a marine storm surge on the coast. Currently : Wind: 55 MPH — Location: -29.4S 34.5E — Movement: S

Check out the Google Earth tracking map with this link to www.wunderground.com.

March 4, 2012

Sunday/ a flat fish for dinner

iPhone 2012 01 1021 sm — Here's the fish. We don't know the name. It might be a flounder of some kind.

My colleague and I ordered fish for dinner at a restaurant here. A good bet is always one of the flat white fishes. They are quick to cook – you pick one from the fish tanks outside! And the bones stay in one piece. We are not sure if it’s a kind of flounder, or maybe a sole. The fish is very white inside when cooked, and it is served up with a sesame oil-soy sauce and a garnish of spring onion. Very tasty.

iPhone 2012 01 1025 sm — .. and here's the restaurant. The blue at the bottom are fish tanks with fish, shrimp and other shellfish.

March 4, 2012

Saturday/ Tokyo to bid for 2020 Games

Tokyo is making a bid for the 2020 Olympics, and there was a section about it on NHK TV. They hosted in 1964 and will be able to use some of the facilities after upgrading it – such as increasing the capacity of the 54,000-seat National Stadium to 80,000 seats.

Which other cities are putting in a bid? Here are all of them. Baku and Doha are certainly not as well known as the other three! Rome withdrew its bid after the government dropped its support, citing the financial difficulties of Italy and that the money is needed elsewhere.

March 2, 2012March 2, 2012

Friday/ Kleine Zalze pinotage with dinner

de kleine zalze sm — Stellenbosch is smack bang in the middle of South Africa's wine country. Look for the Kleine Zalze estate to the right of the airstrip (aeroplane symbol)..

de kleine zalzee — My glass is almost empty! The Kleine Zalze is not a fancy Pinotage - it comes with a screw top - but we liked it well enough.

Three of us went to the Dameisha Sheraton for dinner, but this time in the Italian restaurant instead of in the lobby downstairs. And what wine did we have? A pinotage from the doorstep of my South African homestead Stellenbosch where I was a student, and lived for some time later on. Pinotage is probably South Africa’s signature red grape, around since 1925. Even so, some South African winemakers will not have it in their vineyards. Says Wikipedia : ‘A common complaint is the tendency to develop isoamyl acetate during winemaking which leads to a sweet pungency that often smells like paint’. Ouch.

March 1, 2012

Thursday/ the horn means there’s fog

This morning the air was foggy and the streets were soggy. I knew about the fog Thursday morning even before I rolled out of bed. A fog horn that must be close by on the coast sounded a few times in the night. Fog horns emit sounds at around 50 Hz, and humans can hear sounds between 20 Hz and at most 20 kHz. (Check out the cool animated picture of a sound wave that I found on line). And my research also found that blue whales can hear sounds as low as 5 Hz, while on the opposite end there is the Jamaican fruit bat, that can pick up ultrasound squeaks pitched at 130 kHz. Whoah Mr Bat! What fine ears you have!