And now for something completely different - only it is not.
ITWeb records more of the same-old-same-old ... (By Audra Mahlong, senior journalist, Johannesburg, 3 Mar 2010)

Local technology companies can expect increased access to procurement opportunities as the Department of Science and Technology (DST) attempts to boost local industries.

ITWeb has "SA's second satellite delivers", By Farzana Rasool, ITWeb journalist, Johannesburg, 24 Feb 2010

Sumbandila Images [The Bridle Drift Dam in East London as pictured by Sumbandila, South Africa's second satellite.]

SA received the first live images from its second satellite, Sumbandila, this week.

SA's progression into space started over a decade ago and the country expects to make further strides in this area, says Lunga Ngqengelele, acting head of communications for the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

These images represent just the first development expected from the satellite, adds Ngqengelele.

This is beautiful! Fantastic. Wonderful. I wish we could see the images in high-res!

ITWeb By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent, Cape Town, 23 Feb 2010

While the Department of Science and Technology's (DST's) budget has been increased to R4.6 billion from R4.2 billion, there has been a rigorous pruning of most of its major programmes, says Democratic Alliance shadow deputy minister of science and technology Marian Shinn.

As a scientist all I can say is not in my name!

The Top 500 have published their results. The CHPC appears once again -> http://www.top500.org/site/history/3006

The following table shows previous lists and the number of systems installed when the list was published. Site Efficiency in the table is SUM(Rmax)/SUM(Rpeak), expressed as a percentage.

This is the Tsessebe SunBlade X6275 and X6250, Xeon X5570 and E5450 with Infiniband QDR/DDR

Our 16 core Tyan (GB Eth + 512 GB + Win HPC) does 43.7490 GFlop - that is 2.73 GFlop/core compared to 9.7 GFlop / core. We have 68.6% efficiency - I think it is due to the network being pedestrian.

OK CHPC you win on performance, but I bet we beat you on cost per GFlop and number of customers per GFlop :)

I guess that the CHPC will be out of the Top 500 in June.

computing (Written by Iain Thomson in San Francisco, 11 Feb 2010)

Sonas system will scale to 14 petabytes

IBM has introduced a network storage array based around its supercomputing platforms, and aimed at medium and large enterprises.

The Scale Out Network Attached Storage (Sonas) system uses between one and 30 storage 'pods' containing a storage node, a storage controller and 7,200 or 15,000 drives. These can be scaled up to a claimed 14.4 petabytes of storage.

Creating value by enhancing software engineering in the Western Cape

Background to the Colloquium

Enhancing software engineering in the Western Cape is essential if the region is to achieve its potential of becoming a world-class, global exporter of software and other ICT-related products and services.

Carl Sagan led me to review the existence proof of the 5 perfect Platonic solids as a schoolboy. Beautiful maths but completely useless - this theory caused self-inflicted confusion for thousands of years.

Why is it relevant in a blog about computers and science? Well, the Not Even Wrong Popperian logic brings the relevance to science in an obvious way.

For IT policy makers, it is the sin of starting from a theory and grasping for whatever evidence to back up the theory.

What are they

In order for a solid to be a platonic solid, the figure must use the same regular polygon for all its faces and have the same number of faces meet at each of its vertices. The platonic solids and their regularities were discovered by the Pythagoreans and were initially called the Pythagorean solids.

According to one of the opposition parties South Africa does worse and worse every year in its ranking on benchmark indices. Now while I am sceptical of these indices, they are quite concerning. For example, if the developed world took its own medicine with regard to economic "reform" it will probably be in the poor-box too. To be concrete I heard that every kid in South Korea has a laptop to do their homework (Korea's "laptop penetration index" exceeds SA) - while this may make them better students, apparently they do not play outside. Dunno if this factoid is true, but it illustrates the point. I have fretted on indexes here, here, here, here, here and here.
I have not cited the source so as to prevent the messenger from detracting from the message - but I assume the research is correct.

Here is an article from the IEEE discussing Certification and their the Certified Software Development Master / Professional / Associate program. Whether you agree with certification or not, included is a nice history.

Here is a picture of a South African investor: say your company turns over R2 million per year (in my mind then you are a micro industry, however you are now one step beyond seed financing, and probably in the realm of angel investors.)

In all likelihood you have generated cash by remorgaging your home. If you are stupid enough to go to your bank for a loan of say R500 000 to grow your business they will want
(1) the rest of your house as surety - that be the home of your spouse and kids
(2) require plus 50% of equity