Yes, that’s a veld fire in the District Six area.  Obviously, we don’t know what caused it, but as everything in Cape Town is extremely dry after some pretty intense heat that we’ve been having lately, it probably wouldn’t take much for a cigarette end carelessly flicked out of some motorist’s window to set that off.

Of course, this being Cape Town, the wind blew the fire across the road:

Now, for those unfamiliar with the area, just behind that other building in the office park lies the N2 freeway.  Hate to think what visibility is like for those motorists right now.

And then of course, the smoke plume gets blown over towards the CBD:

Two things to consider: the aforementioned visibility problem on the N2 (which you can’t even see in the above shot!), and the fact that it’s now 15:30 and people are starting to bugger off from work.

Rush hour this afternoon is going to be FUN.

(At least I leave the office at 18:00 and drive AWAY from the fire…)

(Image courtesy of The Daily WTF.)

1. The driver picks the music.
2. “Aww, I like this song!” trumps rule #1.
3. If you stop at a township, you have to take a shot.  Pun not intended.
4. No car flirting in the Transkei, there are only trucks on the road.  [Ron -- this also applies to anywhere on the N3!]
5. Fist pumps are acceptable, and indeed welcomed.
6. Don’t say “I’m going to crash early tonight” when still on roadtrip.  ”I’m moeg” will suffice.
7. If you are not the driver, you don’t need to see.

I’ll add more as I think of them.  If you have any good ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments below…

1. Buy packets of biltong in bulk.
2. Bring packets of biltong upstairs to Development.
3. ?????
4. PROFIT!

Development, naturally, doesn’t mind one bit.

Life is not about finding the right person, but creating the right relationship.
It’s not about how we care in the beginning, but how much we grow and nourish one another in a relationship.
Some people always throw stones in your path.  It depends on what you do with them — build a wall or a bridge?
Remember you are the architect of your life.  Search a beautiful heart, not a beautiful face, because beautiful things won’t last forever, but a golden heart does and will prosper you and add value to yourself.
It’s not important to hold all the good cards in life.  But it’s important how well you play the cards which you hold.  Often when we lose all hope and think this is the end; it’s just a bend, not the end.  Have faith, keep faith and see what will happen to you.
One of the basic differences between God and man is: God gives, gives, gives and forgives; but man gets, gets, gets, and forgets.
Be thankful.
It’s the least you can do. 

In other news — yes, I know I’ve been slacking with updates.  I’ll fill you lot in with what’s been happening in my life lately, soon.

Around 2-3 weeks ago, floods in Thailand took around 25% of the world’s hard drive manufacturing capacity offline:

Disk manufacturing sites in Thailand — notably including the largest Western Digital plant — were shut down due to floods around Bangkok last week and are expected to remain shut for at least several more days. The end to flooding is not in sight, and Western Digital now says it could take five to eight months to bring its plants back online. Thailand is a major manufacturer of hard drives, and the shutdowns have reduced the industry’s output by 25 percent.

Western Digital, the largest hard disk manufacturer, makes more than 30 percent of all hard drives in the world. Its plants in Ayutthaya’s Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate and Pathum Thani’s Navanakorn Industrial Estate together produce about 60 percent the company’s disks. Both were shut down last Wednesday. (Western Digital also has a major plant in Malaysia that hasn’t been affected by the floods, so some production will likely shift to that plant.)

Fourth-ranked hard-disk manufacturer Toshiba makes more than 10 percent of the world’s hard disks, and half of its capacity is in Thailand. Toshiba’s plant has also been closed due to flooding.

Key disk component suppliers have also been hit. Nidec, which makes more than 70 percent of all hard drive motors, has temporarily suspended operations at all three of its plants in Thailand, affecting 30 percent of its production capacity. Hutchinson Technologies, which makes drive suspension assemblies, has also suspended operations due to power outages, although it says it will shift operations to its U.S. plant.

Seagate, the second-largest hard disk manufacturer, has two plants in Thailand, but neither is in the flooded parts of the country. Seagate notes that “the hard disk drive component supply chain is being disrupted and it is expected that certain component in the supply chain will be constrained.” Translation: Component prices are going up, at least for some parts.

Economics 101: if supply is constrained and demand remains constant, prices are going to shoot up. This has already happened now.

So with hard drive production being affected so heavily, what does that mean for us consumers? We run the possibility of seeing high prices and limited availability at one of the most important times of the year. Indeed, some retailers like Newegg and NCIX have already begun limiting the number of drives a customer can purchase (Newegg is currently at a limit of one drive per customer while NCIX has announced a limit of two) as they gear up for supply shortages and price increases throughout the channel. Speaking of price increases, we have seen a spike of 15% to 30% in the cost of some models over the last 72 hours.

This couldn’t have come at a worse time since Christmas shoppers will see higher prices on everything from notebooks to PVRs. Flash memory isn’t safe from this turbulence either so expect its prices to increase as consumers begin looking for alternatives to HDDs. So gear up folks because the days of cheap storage space are about to end….for a few months at least. Our hearts and prayers go out to the people suffering through this disaster.

And I’ve confirmed that this has hit our local suppliers as well. I priced a rig for a friend of mine in mid-September, and quoted a 1TB Western Digital HDD (from one of South Africa’s more reputable online stores) for R 864.12. That same HDD, from the same store, is currently R 1,127.46, and that price is not going to drop anytime soon.

To make our lives even worse, ASUS has confirmed that they only have HDD inventory until the end of November. This has the potential of affecting their supply of notebooks, desktops, etc. – which could result in those prices rising as well. We could well see more knock-on effects elsewhere as well.

TL;DR – now’s not a great time to buy HDDs.

I did snap this shot of central Cape Town while I was there though:

And I’m going to start by dispelling the most common one: Koeberg (our nuclear power plant about 40 km up the West Coast) did not do a Chernobyl/Fukushima on us.  Although most of Cape Town went down (in particular, the CBD, Cape Flats, Southern Suburbs and South Peninsula went down), the northern and West Coast areas (Bellville, Durbanville, Table View, Bloubergstrand et al) stayed up.  Trust me, if something ever happens at Koeberg, those guys are the ones who will be the first to know about it – one way or the other.

According to several reports on our local news sites, the issue was with the Eskom supply line from the Muldersvlei area.  From what I’ve heard, there are two supply lines: one was down for maintenance, and while this was going on, the other one tripped.  This isn’t first-hand information, and the South African press is slightly notorious for getting facts wrong, so I’d take this with a slight pinch of salt – that being said, it’s entirely plausible to me.

As I type this, power to the CBD has been restored, we’re off the generators, and other parts of the city are either back online or are being brought up.  I should be fine for World of Warcraft raiding tonight then.  (I hope!)

For those interested in the geeky side of the power failure: Andrew Trench put together a map of the power failure as it was mentioned on Twitter.  It’s quite interesting viewing, and just shows one the impact that social networking has had on our lives (if the Arab revolutions earlier this year weren’t proof enough).