Saturday, October 15, 2011

A year has come and gone

It has been a year since I posted the first entry on knightlynotes and even "half full" me ( in reference to my optimism) could not have guessed at the kind of impact it would have had. I had been writing freelance articles in Watt Now, the official publication for the SA institute of Electrical Engineers but I had opinions on many issues unrelated to engineering. Opinions on technology, movies, politics, society... to be honest, on just about anything. I had often thought of concentrating on just one genre or registering multiple blogs for the different topics but I knew that I would have never had the time to devote enough time to them. I actually expected to only have just enough time to possibly add one, maybe two entries a month. With 72 published posts in the last year, it would be fair to assume that that was an under-estimation!

Today, I would like to step back and review the year that passed with special mentions and updates on some of my favorite posts and the many doors that knightlynotes had inevitably opened.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

New 7 Wonders of Nature: Vote Table Mountain!



I must be honest. When I first heard about the online voting campaign to vote for the “New 7 Wonders of Nature”, I though, “What a load of bullshit!” (Yes, I always think in inverted Comma’s). After numerous “Idols” disappointments and coping with the knowledge that the candidate I believed to be the best representative for our ward, losing the recent municipal elections, let’s just say, my faith in any voting process could do with a coat of Micatex. Because, all it boils down to, in the end, is a popularity contest. People will vote along national, ethnic and egotistical (I went there, so it deserves to be on the list) lines. If you are hoping for the sweeping phrase that tells you how I now refute all that I wrote before, don’t hold your breath! I still think that capitalism and ‘popularity contests’ are beneath the surface of this campaign, but that does not mean that I believe it has nothing to offer.