Sergei Müller

Justin Bond’s Lustre

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:17:16 +0000

Last night I went to the Soho Theatre in London for Justin Bond's cabaret show called Lustre.

I had no idea what to expect because it was the first time I've ever been to a cabaret show.

Coincidentally… this would also be my first time to a theatre show in London.

On the whole, it was great. The venue was small, but didn't feel crowded. Acoustics were great and the performers seemed to connect really well with the audience.

Justin was accompanied by Our Lady J on piano and her performance was something to experience. I haven't seen piano playing skills like that in years. Here's a clip of her performing Pink Prada Purse.

Also performing was Novice Theory who rocked out on the accordion and seriously impressed everybody who attended.

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

Obama 2008

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:50:18 +0000

Callie Shell had the privilege of photographing Barack Obama during his 2008 Campaign for the US Presidency.

View her website for some great photographs.

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

Computer History in Legos

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:33:14 +0000

"German engineer and computer pioneer Konrad Zuse posing in front of his almost-finished masterpiece, the Z3."

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

African Swim

admin — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:04:35 +0000

Currently enjoying African rap on Adult Swim thanks to a tweet by Maluka.

Check it out.

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

Brendan Adams Trio

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:42:22 +0000

Brendan Adams Trio from South Africa rocking a very melodic song called Butterfly Chronicles.

Check out more of their work at http://www.brendanadamstrio.com

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

3 steps to stop smoking.

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:08:03 +0000

After my move to London (just under 2 years ago) I started smoking quite regularly instead of my usual social fag or two.

I put this down to a stressful work environment and to missing my family, friends and home in SA.

Anyway… I’ve been smoking for nearly 2 years now and I’ve recently decided to quit.

This is mainly because of health reasons, but also because I’m tired of living a lifestyle that causes friction in relationships and in socialising with / meeting new people.

So this is how I stopped:

I made my excuses and enjoyed the numerous smoke breaks at work.
I then developed some severe chest pains and a nasty cough that made me rethink things.
So… I got shit scared because of known heart problems in my family and gave up cold-turkey style.

So… I’m confident that I’ll keep up this no smoking thing… but if I fail miserably I’ll be sure to confess here.

Coincidently - a buddy of mine has set up a new group on Facebook.

Check it out.

dConstruct 2008: The Urban Web

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:32:40 +0000

Stephen Johnson’s talk The Urban Web was quite interesting.

While I find that his product, outside.in is quite good, I did feel that much of the talk sounded like a sales pitch.

Let’s hope the rest of the day focuses more on new developments / technologies in the social media industry.

Apart from that one niggle, the conference is going quite well - even though I mistook a delegate for one of the Madgex team.

Check back for more after the next talk.

Posted by email from Sergei (posterous)

Ushahidi launches to monitor crisis

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:39:53 +0000

Ushahidi, which means ”testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was
developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election
fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi’s roots are in the
collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis.

The core engine is built on the premise that gathering crisis
information from the general public provides new insights into events
happening in near real-time. It is being developed by a group of
volunteer developers and designers, hailing primarily from Africa. So
far there are representatives from Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Ghana,
Netherlands and the US.

Ushahidi plans to make the Ushahidi mapping tool available globally for
free. After initial testing with NGO’s the tool will be distributed to
interested parties and organizations, and the Ushahidi team will
provide technical customizations and support as needed.

Here are 2 of the current deployments of the system:

Kenya
South Africa

Berocca Blogger Relief

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:26:11 +0000

This is absolutely brilliant and much needed when one is maintaining in the region of 3-4 blogs daily.

I think I’m definitely running on empty and might have to pop on over and request a relief pack.

Check it out for yourself.

Banking woes in Britain

admin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:25:33 +0000

I’ve been living in London for just over a year and one of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced so far is definitely the UK banking system.

The first frustration I experienced was the simple task of opening a simple current account. This was severly delayed & forced me to live off my South African credit cards. - which obviously charged ridiculous withdrawal charges.

The 2nd frustration was some problems receiving a pin number for my card and the 3rd was getting Internet banking working.

Well… After all this I thought my troubles were over, but today I had even more.

I went to the bank to get a letter stating stating that I’m covered indefinitely for travel insurance. I just needed this to apply for a Schengen Visa for Germany.

Apparently nobody is allowed to type up a letter containing my name and the fact that I actually pay for travel insurance.

This means that I now have to purchase additional travel insurance just to apply for a Visa.

Again… Even though I’m already covered.

Barclays… Please get your act together.