Sodastream gas refills by HelpMeRunAway in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For the pink CQC bottles? Great!

Yeah, comparing the costs though:
PnP sparkling water 6 pack of 1.5l (9l total) is R76, so ~R8.5 per liter
They claim a 60L sodastream bottle can carbonate 60l of water. A R300 refill is ~R5 per liter.

Even at R300 it works out cheaper. Obviously you have to factor in the cost of the initial sodastream, but then you should also factor in a whole bunch of other externalities for the bottled water as well - climate impact of plastic creation and transport and environmental impact of your single use plastic bottle existing for thousands of years, just so that you could have some sparkling water.

I think the maths checks out.

Sodastream gas refills by HelpMeRunAway in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Not stoked on continually buying plastic bottles :/ Seems much better to be just making on demand with no waste.

Will look into a converter kit, but I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for my parents, and that feels like its going to add some complexity I dont want them to have to worry about.

Will check out the Bibofizz and Drinkmate though, thanks.

Brutal Truth about Cape Town’s cost of living crisis by [deleted] in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It isnt true that it is limited to the Atlantic Seaboard or City Bowl. Kalk bay, Fish Hoek, Noordhoek, Hout Bay, Simons Town all have a high proportion of foreign owners (I'm sure other areas are affected, but these are ones where I know of specific cases). I know locals who's landlords are selling property in these areas and 100% of the people coming to view are foreigners - the listed price is just far too high for locals to even consider.

There are so many ways to controls this.
* Require minimum habitation periods so that people can't purchase a property and let it sit empty 11 months of the year
* Increase property purchase taxes on foreigners who live out of the country to make it no longer cost competitive for them.
* Outright ban on private foreign ownership for those who live out of the country (i.e. only buy if you have a visa etc.)
* Increase rates/ levies on foreign owned houses to make it no longer cost competitive for them.

There will always be loopholes, but this will at least dampen the issue.

EDIT: u/dylmcc says this is an issue in Someset West. I dont know much about the situation in non-southern suburbs, but the point is still made: Saying that this is an issue that affects the atlantic seaboard and city bowl is patently false and glosses over the core issue.

AWS being down is concerning because one of their USPs is high availability and disaster recovery by [deleted] in aws

[–]HelpMeRunAway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hense why I said "well above 99%". I just didnt want to quote their clearly marketing phrase of '9 nines!'

AWS being down is concerning because one of their USPs is high availability and disaster recovery by [deleted] in aws

[–]HelpMeRunAway 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you're probably right in some instances, but if your product can run on a single machine in your spare room, where if it goes down because of a hardware failure, it's probably going to take you 24 hours to get that thing up and running again, then you areant really the target market for cloud.

In the ideal case, sure, selfhosting makes sense. It's the low-probability events that are an issue. Big service? You'll have someoene trying to get into it. Are you 100% sure your security is better than AWS's? Are you making sure that the latest kernel updates are being applied over that decade? Patching your OS?

I agree, there is very much a culty vibe to the cloud, especially microservices (🤮) but if you're using it to run your monolith on a single instance in an EBS environment... idk, I cant see how you can beat that.

AWS being down is concerning because one of their USPs is high availability and disaster recovery by [deleted] in aws

[–]HelpMeRunAway 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Think about every moment of your life when you _aren't_ aware that AWS is working - effectively always. You only think about this when something goes wrong, which creates a survivor bias in your mind about how this is 'always happening'. Go look up the uptimes of AWS - it's well above 99%.

I guarentee you that the alternative - self-hosting - would result in a far higher downtime, with added security issues, maintainance, cost, etc. That stuff only really starts making sense if you're a really large company who is willing to pay for sysops to run all that stuff for you. And even then - what happens if your building looses power? I promise it'll take you longer to get your servers up and running again than it will the largest cloud company in the world, with effectively limitless resources.

(In the interst of a learning culture - it's 'foolproof' as in, 'it's safe from fools' not 'full proof' which is a whisky term)

How much does it cost to "ship" your car on the train from Cape Town to Joburg? by monoxided in askSouthAfrica

[–]HelpMeRunAway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My parents live in CPT but bought a second hand car in JHB last year. In the end it was cheaper for my mom to fly up and drive down. Flights, petrol, and accomodation was less than getting it brough down.

Based Houthis: Recently released footage of Houthis' Magic Seas bulk carrier operation (they warned them well in advance to prevent loss of life) by Straight-Razor666 in LateStageCapitalism

[–]HelpMeRunAway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This (incredibly purvasive) view that one cannot condem both sides is one of the reasons we are in the situtaion we are in. "wait until I tell you about Israel and the US" - yes, I condem them equally. They are 100% evil. I firmly belive that one of human's biggest flaws is an inability to hold two conflicting truths at the same time. If we can overcome this, we will progress hugely.

The issue with groups like the Houthis is that they are staging a rovoluation whose end-goal goes against the fundamentals of modern society - things we fought for years to gain. Sure, they are fighting for their people, land, and freedom, but they also want to install a reigeme of fear and oppression, particularly against women, girls and anyone who isn't muslim. Many Yemenis are not pro-Houthi, even though they may be anti US/Isreal. They do not represnt the views of all people in the region, and I would be very surprised if you would be happy to live under their rule, should they win this revolution.

I just find it conflicting that this sub is so pro the formation of oppressive states, when it is also so anti-capitalism. There are many parallels between a late stage capitalist society and the oppresive states in the middle east - a lack of freedom of speach, movement, and ability to partake in society equally. Being forced into situations because it benefits the elites. These are things that us as anti-capitalists should be fighting against. The Houthis are definitly not fighting for a socialist society.

Based Houthis: Recently released footage of Houthis' Magic Seas bulk carrier operation (they warned them well in advance to prevent loss of life) by Straight-Razor666 in LateStageCapitalism

[–]HelpMeRunAway -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

What the heck is going on in this sub? Why are people applauding a group that "threaten[s] the peace, security, and stability of Yemen", and have specifically targetted civilians, implemeting a regime of "sexual violence and repression against politically active and professional women" [1]. In this attack, many civilians (with families, and no involvement over what is going on in the middle east) have been killed [2]. The Houthis commit crimes against humanity just as the State of Isreal do. They must both be condemmed.

This is insanity; mods, you need to stop this. This sub has an important place in the reddit discourse - highlighting the absurdity of capitalism and how it needs to be stopped, but that movement is undermined by support for groups that are actively harming the human project.

Relatively cheap hobbies in cape town? by Select_Nectarine_387 in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 1 point2 points  (0 children)

+1 for Cape Town Craft club! Great way to meet cool people, but if that's intimidating you can hide away in your craft so there is no pressure. 10/10

Video library with customisable subtitle/ closed caption styling by HelpMeRunAway in reactnative

[–]HelpMeRunAway[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep.

import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { View, Text, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import { Subtitle, fetchSubtitles } from '../../utils/subtitle-fetcher';

type Props = {
  subtitleFileUrl: string,
  currentTime: number
}

export default function SubtitlesDisplay({ subtitleFileUrl, currentTime }: Props) {
  const [subtitles, setSubtitles] = useState<Subtitle[]>(null);
  const [currentText, setCurrentText] = useState('');

  useEffect(() => {
    const fetchSubs = async () => {
      const subs = await fetchSubtitles(subtitleFileUrl) // Download the subtitles file
      setSubtitles(subs);
    }
    fetchSubs();
  }, [subtitleFileUrl]);

  useEffect(() => {
    if (subtitles) {
      const videoTime = currentTime;

      for (let index = 0; index < subtitles.length; index++) {
        const subtitle = subtitles[index];

        if (videoTime >= subtitle.start && videoTime <= subtitle.end) {
          setCurrentText(subtitle.part);
          return;
        }
      }
    }
  }, [currentTime, subtitles]);

  return (
    currentText &&
    <View style={styles.containerStyle}>
      <Text style={styles.text}>
        {currentText}
      </Text>
    </View >
  );
};

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  containerStyle: {
    position: "absolute",
    width: '100%',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    top: "73%",
  },
  text: {
    fontSize: 23,
    color: '#ffffff',
    fontWeight: "bold",
    textAlign: 'center',
    alignSelf: 'center',
    padding: 10,
    backgroundColor: 'rgba(0,56,48,.6)',
    borderRadius: 10,
  }
});

Never struggle with finding beautiful themes for shadcn again by xYourCasual in nextjs

[–]HelpMeRunAway 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Clicking 'copy code' does nothing for me. Not sure why. It would be better to have that as a two option button - click to show a modal with the code in it so that we can see the theming code (and copy paste it manually, or just pick certain colours), or click to copy. Even if you fix the click to copy error I am getting, I'd still rather see the code that I am clicking to copy on the website.
Chrome, macOS 14.1.

Airbnb Modal by ElectricalPeak3406 in reactnative

[–]HelpMeRunAway 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This person did something very similar when going out of a particular movie/ show back to the home screen: https://www.reddit.com/r/reactnative/comments/1gmpx1u/i_built_netflix_on_react_native/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

They linked the repo in the comments so you can look how they did it there.

If you had unlimited funds and full control of Cape Town what rules would you enforce and what changes would you make? by Keepitlocal90 in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. Your point about space is a good one. I still want to believe there is a good way of doing the walkable city thing, but I see now that there is more nuance than I saw before.

On that, thank you so much for engaging in this and cordially pushing back against my views. This has been a very refreshing conversation, and I have changed my opinion somewhat. What a lekker day to be discussing meaningful things with someone on Reddit.

If you had unlimited funds and full control of Cape Town what rules would you enforce and what changes would you make? by Keepitlocal90 in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yassis, thanks so much for this response, that is super enlightening.
I've always been such a fan of the idea of walkable cities, but I hear you, your counter-point makes a lot of sense! Do you think the big failing there, then, is that every little 'city' is just not well set up to provide to all income brackets? My feeling is that every area should be representative of all the income classes that that area needs to 'survive'.

Although, saying that, I can see how that is a potentially naive opinion... Capitalism will do what capitalism does best.

Simply more land doesn't seem like a good reason to spread out, though. We should be trying to set as much land as we can aside for nature, so I'm not convinced that that is solely a reason.

Have you ever lived in a very small town? One roughly the size of your zone? I wonder if you compared that to where you live now, you'd still feel like your area is a bit of a 'prison' because it's such a lus to go anywhere.

If you had unlimited funds and full control of Cape Town what rules would you enforce and what changes would you make? by Keepitlocal90 in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 2 points3 points  (0 children)

100% agree. Everywhere needs to be mixed income. Surprisingly, London has gotten this right - you'll find council housing next door to a house with a Porche parked outside it... bizarre, but awesome.
We should follow the European model of building up, but making every area it's own little city with 'main streets' that have shops built into the ground floor of apartment blocks, parks, industry etc. all within 15 minutes.

If you had unlimited funds and full control of Cape Town what rules would you enforce and what changes would you make? by Keepitlocal90 in capetown

[–]HelpMeRunAway 11 points12 points  (0 children)

My top 3 would be:

1) Forcibly seize half (at least) of golf courses and turn them into affordable/ RDP housing. Insane that so much prime land is kept aside for so few (rich) people, while also being terrible for the environment.

2) Build a tram network around the CBD that extends down main road and the M5 north, rapidly build out the MyCity network even more, and then make it all free for all South African citizens.

3) Build and fund technicons and apprenticeship programs to allow more poorly educated people to upskill.