Johannesburg girl wins top prize at Google Science Fair in the USA

Some fantastic news from the Google Science Fair 2106 in the USA, if you have not already heard the news.

Kiara Nirghin (16) from Jo'burg won it with a project on using orange peels to store water.

https://www.googlesciencefair.com/en/

And here is an earlier report about the finalists.

http://googleforeducation.blogspot.co.za/2016/08/sixteen-science-and-engineering.html?m=1

Please pass on the news to other people involved in Science Expo and Science Fairs in South Africa.

This is really encouraging for all our young scientists.

Michaelmas - Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael

29th September 2016

Michaelmas

http://mobile.evangelizo.org/gospel.php

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Symeon the New Theologian
"The angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father" (Mt 18,10)

I give thanks to you, my God, because you have enabled me to live, to know and to worship you. For life is “to know you the only true God” (Jn 17,3), O Creator and Author of all, unbegotten, uncreated, without source, unique, and the Son begotten of you, and Most Holy Spirit proceeding from you: threefold unity worthy of all praise... What glory or light of immortality is there among angels and archangels, Sovereignties, cherubim and seraphim and all other heavenly hosts; what joy is there, what radiance of insubstantial life if not the incomparable light of the Blessed Trinity?... Mention to me any being, corporeal or incorporeal, and you will find that God made them all. Should anyone talk to you about any beings whatsoever, those of heaven, of earth or those of the underworld, for them, too, and for all, there is only one life, one glory, one hope, one kingdom, one only treasure, joy, crown, victory, peace or splendor of any kind: and that is to know the origin and cause from which all has originated, all has come to birth. He is the one who upholds all things above and those below; He is the one who orders all the spiritual beings, He is the one who reigns over every visible being... These increased in knowledge and redoubled their fear when they saw Satan fall and his associates carried off by their presumption. Those who fell forgot it all, slaves of pride that they were; whereas all those who retained their knowledge, supported by fear and love, clung to their Lord. Thus the recognition of his lordship Resulted, too, in an increase of their love because they now saw better and more clearly the dazzling radiance of the Trinity.

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Nuclear deal between South Africa and Russia

There has been much talk about South Africa's intention to build 9.6 GWe of new nuclear powered plants. Another agreement with the Russians was signed on Monday the 22nd September on the sidelines of the 58th IAE General Conference in Vienna.

Here are are some links to the  agreement.


https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rosatom.ru%2Fjournalist%2Fmain%2Fb6da9b004590ed359d669d9207a61cab&edit-text=

The original article in Russian can be found at
http://www.rosatom.ru/journalist/main/b6da9b004590ed359d669d9207a61cab
 

Google maps, starred places and the four historical forts in Pretoria

Having stayed in Pretoria for over ten years, I thought it would be interesting to  make my children aware of some of the military history of the city going back to the time of the Anglo-Boer War. I tried to find the exact location of the four famous forts in Pretoria and then use the GPS feature on an Android phone to go and find the places. The fourth fort, Fort Daspoortrand  gave me the most problems when I had to repeatedly cross the N4 Bakwena Highway trying to find my way through Gerotek, PMP and all the military fences in the area.

When you "star" a place in Google maps, Google tries to locate the place closest to the nearest registered road. As such it moves your place from where you have marked it.
I tried to  put in a place marker for Fort Daspoortrant at-25.73305 , 28.076740 which is near the mountain north of Lotus Gardens. The "Maps" application on an HTC phone (Wildfire) seems to pick up the place marker without problems, but google maps via Firefox running on a Linux Ubuntu machine ignores the heading of the bookmark (Fort Daspoortrant) and locates the old Boer Fort on the Montana side of the Waterberg mountain! It then associates the Fort with Zander Street. This is a sure way to confuse anyone relying on an accurate place-mark to find the old Fort.
If you try and report the problem to Google, it is almost worse than trying to report an electricity problem to the Tshwane municipality: you are sent from site to site without ever finding a suitable place to report the error.
A good wikipedia article about the forts can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretoria_Forts

Cell Phone Contact Management

For manipulating contacts from an Android phone on Windows, MyPhoneExplorer has some very good features. See:
http://www.avitricks.info/2012/03/whatsapp-pc.html

Tshwane Municipality Domestic Post Paid Electricity Tariffs

The Electricity in the Tshwane Municipality is charged on a sliding scale.
The following explanation gives an idea of how to work out what your domestic electricity is costing you:

Question: Please could you also show how these rates that you have included convert 1057 kWh to R1316.16.

Answer (from NothembaG@TSHWANE.GOV.ZA): The electricity rates table is as follows:

    Band           2011 July 01 to 2012 Jun 30   2012 July 01 to 2013 Jun 30 
i)   1- 100 kWh      R0.9694                               R1.0179
ii)  101-400 k        R1.0294                               R1.1385
iii) 401-650 kWh   R1.0844                               R1.2037
iv)  >650               R1.1554                              R1.2825


I will use the example below: 1057kwh for 27 days.

27/30 *100kwh  = 90 kwh which will be charged with the first tariff rate

27/30*300kwh = 270kwh

27/30*250kwh = 225kwh


1057kwh – 90-270-225 = 472 kwh will be charged with the last rate


I have forwarded to you how the calculations were done, you just add 14% vat to get R1316.16.  R1154.53 *14% = 1316.16

Banks

I noticed that a complaint had been laid with hellopeter about an increase in bank fees at FNB.

 http://www.hellopeter.com/first-national-bank/complaints/safe-custody-fees-increased-625-without-notice-8479hellopeter.com/first-national-bank/complaints/safe-custody-fees-increased

 I have had a similar experience with FNB's exorbitant increases. Have others also experienced this? Maybe the time has come for people to form a society in which we draw up contracts for our accounts with banks such that our rights are protected. At the moment the legal documentation that we sign when we open a bank account is heavily weighted in the bank's favour. If enough people insist on having their own terms, then perhaps we will be a force that the banks will have to listen to. If a particular bank does not listen to us we can boycott that bank and sell any shares in that bank that we might have owned. What do others think?