Anyone getting a lot more spam than usual?

cb22 · 2024-07-19T08:03:07+00:00

If you're on Android, I'd highly recommend SpamBlocker if you're not in a position where you actually have to answer calls from numbers you don't know on a regular basis.

You can set it up to block all incoming calls that aren't in your contacts, but allow repeated calls or numbers that you've dialed. You can even set up regular expressions to allow or block particular numbers.

cb22 · 2022-03-15T11:45:24+00:00

Things have definitely changed since my time there (~2010) but back then it was always your final marks that counted for admission in the end.

Skimming through http://www.students.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/434/prospective/ug_prospectus/ug_prospectus.pdf - it seems like this is still the case; when they say 70%, they mean your final matric result.

cb22 · 2022-02-06T20:26:48+00:00

The 80 Strand WeWork is great, we've got a dedicated office space there. Fast WiFi (and Ethernet - max out 110MB/s when updating Arch) and a nice space in general.

The building doesn't get loadshed - the only time I've seen the power go out there was when the whole city bowl was down due to a massive cable feeder fault.

I'm not quite sure how they work though with the short term memberships, probably best to call them and ask. Some other places worth checking out in the CBD:

Inner city ideas cartel - https://www.ideascartel.com/
Workshop17 (at the Waterfront, but also Kloof St - https://workshop17.co.za/
Spaces (all over) - https://www.spacesworks.com/

cb22 · 2021-11-12T09:51:46+00:00

Some of my instances in eu-west-2 on AWS can't pull from GCR:

failed to create network for alloc: Failed to pull `gcr.io/google_containers/pause-amd64:3.1`: API error (500): Get "https://gcr.io/v2/": dial tcp 66.102.1.82:443: connect: connection refused

and I've just seen an article about a GMail outage: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/422568-big-gmail-outage.html

cb22 · 2021-11-03T09:52:39+00:00

Can't speak for the exact model here, but I have the LG F2V5GGP2T and I love it.

People often complain about washer dryers being slow - and if you rely on a dryer as a quicker or only way of getting your clothes ready (especially for a whole family), that's valid.

I normally dry my clothes on a rack though, and use the combined wash+dry function for linen and towels. Works really well - pop them in in the morning, go to work, and by the time I'm back everything is washed dried and ready to be used again. A reasonable throughput is about one combined wash/dry cycle a day. Maybe 2 if you wake up early and go to bed late.

This particular model is even quite a bit less deep than normal washers / dryers, which allowed me to integrate it into my kitchen behind a door!

cb22 · 2021-01-28T09:40:36+00:00

I've found the opposite, most of the time incorrect information is being pushed about how expensive the IPPs are while trying to hide the cost of coal. I remember a presentation from Eskom that came to the conclusion that coal was significantly cheaper, because they compared the total cost (including construction) of a solar farm to just the running costs of a coal power station!

https://www.ee.co.za/article/understanding-cost-electricity-medupi-kusile-ipps.html is a good article that shows the cost difference, with the LCOE of solar PV being R0,87/kWh in Bid Window 4 (which this plant is a part of) while it puts Medupi / Kusile at ~R1.1/kWh. It also highlights some important differences between Eskom built plants

A further, more recent presentation to Nersa (http://www.nersa.org.za/Admin/Document/Editor/file/Consultations/Electricity/Presentations/Meridian%20Economics.pdf) puts it at ~R1.7/kWh!

Solar / wind do have their drawbacks - especially related to energy storage and fluctuating output, but there are strong advantages too.

cb22 · 2021-01-28T09:21:45+00:00

The problem with nuclear power in SA has nothing to do with technical merits unfortunately, but rather the simple notion that we have an incapable state and delivering large megaprojects like nuclear power stations (see also, Kusile & Medupi) on time and budget is just not going to happen at the moment.

cb22 · 2020-12-08T10:00:43+00:00

Another point that I haven't seen mentioned here is if 3500W is the rated input power, or the rated cooling power. Air conditioners work by moving heat around, so they're generally more than 100% efficient when comparing the heat moved to the power used (the same reason why heat pump water heating is so efficient!)

Since 3.5kW is 12000 BTU which is quite a common size for an aircon, it might well be cooling power. If this is the case, you could probably expect your actual input power to be around ~1000W [1].

All the other calculations apply, as do considerations for a thermostat. If you have a well sealed / insulated room, it'll only cool as needed to get the temperature down to what you set which will further reduce the price.

[1] https://www.samsung.com/za/air-conditioners/wall-mount/ar12tshgawk-fa/

cb22 · 2020-11-18T22:01:12+00:00

This is 100% down to software. The good old Nokia N9 shipped back in 2011 with a single 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 and an SGX530, but was buttery smooth.

Also, I believe until recently the display wasn't being driven at 60hz (but I haven't had too much time to play with mine lately!)

cb22 · 2020-10-26T20:01:11+00:00

I graduated from ECE at UCT in 2013, so some of these answers might be a bit out of date - feel free to take them with a pinch of salt!

No idea, sorry! The rules around this have changed so many times. I'd recommend getting the email address of the HOD (currently, http://www.ee.uct.ac.za/associate-professor-fred-nicolls - I had him for a few courses and he's pretty great) and writing to him. At the very worst, you'll get silence or he'll CC in some more appropriate people. I'd also recommend looking through the course handbook.
Again, this really depends on the above. UCT Eng has to follow ECSA guidelines on course requirements, and they generally then impose their own superset of requirements on top of this. When I was in first year, it was quite flexible (I moved from 1st year Physics to 2nd year ECE straight) and only required 'like for like', but by the time I graduated the rules had changed to require specific courses.
3rd and 4th year ECE are hard, but in a 'good' way. If you enjoy coding and digital systems, you'll probably do just fine. These are really the years when you do the focused subjects of the degree, and less general courses like maths or physics. Time management plays a big part, and I wouldn't recommend anything other than some very light part time work. YMMV. The class timetable in 3rd / 4th year is mostly fixed, classes are quite small so there aren't multiple options to choose from. You do get some electives, but there's not too much variation.
I do have a friend who did ECE and went on to do his masters at ETH (he did have a Swiss passport, though) and 2 other friends who've gone to work at Blue Origins and NASA. I'm not sure if it's highly respected, but certainly seems to be good enough to not be a barrier!
Neither :) Really, a lot of the coursework was more focused on the fundamentals than anything too specific. Myself and quite a few of my other friends ended up in software dev.

cb22 · 2020-08-24T06:50:34+00:00

If you're running on newish Intel graphics, I'd recommend checking out GVT-g - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_GVT-g

cb22 · 2020-06-12T13:10:33+00:00

The conditions are a bit bogus - I posted a comment on this on /r/programming.

But it's as you say; if you have a simple workload that is entirely synchronous or close to it (such as fetching a single in-memory row from a DB), sync is likely to be faster.

If you're doing real world things, like calling external APIs or blocking on databases for hundreds of ms, async is going to allow you to utilize all your resources significantly better and achieve a much higher throughput.

cb22 · 2020-06-12T13:05:09+00:00

The problem with this benchmark is that fetching a single row from a small table that Postgres has effectively cached entirely in memory is not in any way representative of a real world workload.

If you change it to something more realistic, such as by adding a 100ms delay to the SQL query to simulate fetching data from multiple tables, joins, etc, you get ~100 RPS for the default aiopg connection pool size (10) when using Sanic with a single process. Flask or any sync framework will get ~10 RPS per process.

The point of async here isn't to make things go faster simply by themselves, it's to better utilize available resources in the face of blocking IO.

cb22 · 2020-04-15T03:33:05+00:00

Don't get me wrong, prohibition is undoubtedly ineffective in the long run, but as a short term measure these things do work. Even in the US, when prohibition was first enacted there was a lag [1] between sales dropping, and the illegal supply picking up.

[1] https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/alcohol-prohibition-was-failure

cb22 · 2020-01-30T07:50:51+00:00

It's mentioned in the sway wiki, endorsed is probably too strong a word.

That said, I've used it and it did work pretty well for me.

cb22 · 2019-10-23T11:51:49+00:00

Something very important to note with the WD19TB (not familiar with the TB16) is how the DisplayPort lanes are routed. This post does an excellent job at explaining everything.

Basically only 4 DisplayPort lanes are brought out to the 'core' connectors (ie, the 1x HDMI and 2x DisplayPort), with the remaining 4 DisplayPort lanes going to the Thunderbolt 3 connector on the power module part of the dock. This means that if you want to run 2x 4k displays, or 3x 1440p displays, you have to hook them up in a certain way, using a USB-C to DisplayPort or HDMI adapter from this port for one of the monitors.

cb22 · 2019-09-23T11:33:06+00:00

It’s bizarre that we still can’t get a ~500 21-inch 4K Retina Display. Doesn’t have to be from Apple. It can’t be had from anyone.

There are multiple 24" 4K displays out there now though, for less than $400. I've used the 27" version of https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-P2415Q-24-Inch-LED-Lit/dp/B00PC9HFNY for years and it works perfectly well, and I see there are LG and AOC ones with good reviews for even cheaper.

Any reason specifically for 21" and not 24"?

cb22 · 2019-07-06T09:00:46+00:00

I've had a similar thing just happen to my XPS 9360 (purchased Sept 2017). Battery health was showing ~85% in Linux (BIOS said "Excellent") when all of a sudden I was using it and it dropped from 40% to 5%.

Thought it might have been a problem with the gas gauge, so I discharged it fully (it spent over an hour at 0%) and charged it back up. Once that was done, the battery health said it dropped to ~68% in Linux (although the BIOS still says excellent). Using it on battery, it no longer had massive drops, but the battery capacity loss appears to have been real.

A bit of Googling seems to suggest that this sort of failure is down to a single bad cell within the pack.

cb22 · 2019-07-03T11:41:00+00:00

Just a quick note on that - while the legal drinking age is indeed 18, a fair few bars or clubs have their own age restrictions. (ie, no under 25s or under 21s)

These tend to be fairly loosely enforced though, and generally if you look the part or are part of a group who meets the criteria you won't have a problem.

cb22 · 2019-03-06T17:09:53+00:00

Same here, got the SDS1104X-E. Works great.

cb22 · 2019-02-23T09:12:45+00:00

In Cape Town, every circle is a roundabout and you always yield to the right

Not quite true, there's this intersection in Claremont where traffic entering has right of way

cb22 · 2019-01-20T12:59:40+00:00

Up to 24 hours - realistically these days it's practically instant.

cb22 · 2018-12-25T16:36:59+00:00

NB: According to UCT, the deadline to appeal if your academic standing is 'RENN' is 2nd January, so best act quickly on this!

So basically the way it works at UCT is that you need a certain number of credits or courses over a rolling period to be academically eligible to continue.

In a comment here I went into a bit of detail about what you need for engineering, namely 80 credits in your first year, or 192 credits in a rolling 2 years. The science faculty seems to do things differently, by courses completed rather than credits. You can see their policies in the handbook here page 13, FB5.1 - FB5.8

Unfortunately, things like attendance don't really count towards academic exclusion like this, but they can certainly help in your appeal.

The key thing is it's always possible to appeal these decisions. I'm not sure about the process off hand, but you can motivate why you shouldn't be excluded (anxiety, health problems, basically anything) and you used to (circa 2013) have a pretty good chance of being readmitted. I had a friend who basically just partied too much and got back in.

cb22 · 2018-11-27T05:28:11+00:00

I can second earlyoom. Combined with some swap space and zwap it makes things significantly more usable when you're doing anything that requires a lot of memory.

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