Reviews by dimi

Project Syndicate is an international non-profit organisation which provides exclusive, original op-eds by experts on a range of current affairs such as geopolitics, economics, and development. Laudably, PS disseminates its articles for free or at a discount to poorer news sources all over the world, which it is able to do thanks to donations, and the subscriptions of more moneyed news organisations. The organisation’s unique model protects against sensationalism and ensures the high quality of its content.

There’s a rickety table in a shop that no one’s put much effort into making welcoming, if you feel like being depressed while you eat. The food itself is edible and cheap, so Ka Lok is at least acceptable for budget sushi takeaway.

Asami’s Durbanville is a sushi and Asian restaurant, which offers a wider range of sushi than other establishments in Cape Town. Takeaways are promptly prepared, and the stylish setting, reminiscent of authentic Japanese sushi bars, is great for a night out. The food isn’t amazing but it is probably the best sushi you will find in the Northern Suburbs.

Daredevil easily has the worst creative team of the Netflix Marvel shows. The dilemmas aren’t interesting, the characters aren’t convincing, the dialogue is often cliched and wooden …

The interpersonal drama that’s supposed to underpin the action is clunky. Charlie Cox (playing Matt Murdock / Daredevil) and Élodie Yung (former flame and bad girl, Elektra Natchios) almost–but not quite–make the material work, and occasionally Cox and Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page, the love interest) will have a moment, but for the most part the actors aren’t good enough and don’t have the chemistry to pull off the weak material they’re given.

Considering that they exist almost entirely as filler and drivers of contrivance, Elden Henson (playing Murdock’s friend, Foggy) and Woll should have had less screentime. Vincent D’Onofrio’s portrayal of the antagonist, Kingpin, has been praised but I find it too hammy–perfect for a stage. The broadness and intensity doesn’t work for the television format, and certainly not for the sort of show that Daredevil attempts to be. Much of the second season functions as an extended backdoor pilot for The Punisher, which is unfortunate. Daredevil doesn’t have the gravity or intelligence to address the moral ambiguity of that anti-hero.

But when we get to the action, it’s good. The action set pieces and hand-to-hand combat are mostly well-choreographed and directed. And the more whimsical, comic-booky elements of the setting–the giant, 40-story deep hole in the ground, for example–add a welcome punch to the proceedings. There’s fun to be had. Unfortunately, we’re made to wade through a lot of filler and boring backstory to get there.

I got a few good action scenes and some moderately engaging Daredevil x Elektra drama out of it. I’ve had enough. I doubt I’ll be returning for a third season.

Because the game system is so easy to master, Markoshiki is less about enjoying the game, and more about using the puzzle as the mental equivalent of a palate cleanser. The UI is clean and simple, but perhaps a bit too simple–the note functionality could be improved.

Nike Training Club generates exercise routines for the user according to various criteria (available equipment, BMI, fitness level), which routine is periodically automatically tweaked according to the user’s recent performance and how they have rated previous exercise sessions.

Users can also manually choose other routines from an ever-increasing assortment, most all of them created by professional trainers and athletes. (There are some celebrity routines, which are, at worst, harmless.)

Sessions include audio coaching and video examples of each of the exercises.

This is a fantastic app for laypersons looking to get fit or lose weight because it adjusts to the individual user and doesn’t require any knowledge or even thought–planning out one’s exercise becomes one less thing to worry about. I’d also recommend it for people who want to add more variety to their exercise routine.

Openstreetmap is the open source alternative to Google Maps.

Most all of the data for the project is crowdsourced, which is both a boon and a bane. The more developed and populated an area is, the better the OSM data for it will tend to be; unfortunately, the inverse is also true.

OSM’s maps tend to be more complete and up-to-date than Google’s, but the project has no equivalent of Streetview or Google Maps’ user-submitted photos, and business information is nowhere near as complete as Google’s. Also, because OSM relies on free satellite data, a lot of the aerial imagery is very outdated.

Contributing to the project is not as easy as it could be, and there’s a rather steep learning curve even for beginners, but once one gets stuck in, it can be quite satisfying to add information–I’ve occasionally found myself filling out the map for hours at a time.

Gab mixes Reddit’s voting system with what Twitter was before concerns of monetisation began to affect the running of the company.

The service is technically in alpha since a lot of core functionality is still in development. Currently, users can:

• post text (up to 300 characters per post, AKA a “gab”)
• use hashtags
• embed cards of external web pages
• access emojis by typing a colon
• embed gifs from giphy.com
• block users and keywords from appearing in their feed

The userbase is heavily conservative and libertarian but may become more balanced as more people adopt the platform.

Twitter has become a bloated, politicised disappointment. It’s still useful for its intended use, microblogging, but all of the extra functionality and ads, the meddling with trending hashtags, the arbitrary banning of controversial users, and the third-party block lists have ruined what was once a perfect platform for expression.

Woolworths are the most upmarket of the South African retail stores. As such, they demand a premium price for their offering.

The more unique, prepared food products from the Woolworths Food line are worth the price, and it’s difficult to find better fresh produce elsewhere. I also appreciate that almost all of their food has the nutritional information included on the packaging.

Their in-house clothing, kitchen/bathroom products, and homeware are okay but nothing special. They’re a good option if one isn’t willing to pay a designer/brand price but also wants something better than one can get at other supermarket chains.

The stores themselves are always clean and orderly, which isn’t the case for other supermarkets.

My only disappointment is that there is a ridiculous markup on third-party and household cleaning products; one can never get all their shopping done at a Woolworths unless they’re willing to waste money.