They’ve done a live, unplugged recording, and here is a video of the performance:

From what you can see, Captain Stu deliver a melodious ska sound. But this doesn’t really convey the depth of variety that the band is capable of. Their make-up has shifted and changed as members came and went, with only bassist Ryan McArthur remaining of the original four who started Captain Stu and the Llamas in 2002.

Their style represents this, and listening to their latest album end-to-end you’ll find a range from mellow ska to new-school jazzy rock. Their live performances are electric, and very few bands inspire new listeners to dance around with the hardened fans.

Taking over on vocals after founding frontman Nick Key left for Korea, guitarist James Klopper adds a new dimension to Captain Stu’s sound. He claims that the band’s sound is in a constant state of flux, and that they all contribute their creative energies and influences, regardless of whatever those may be. James also drinks a shitload.

The Only Man Standing

Nevertheless, Captain Stu is The Business.  They play awesome jams, have a great live presence and can be seen on just about any weekend in Cape Town.  To give you a taste of some of their other music, check out the excellent video for ‘More Than Friends’:

Kitteh offered sage wisdom

Hopefully we’ll have everything fixed by Monday dependent on whether Solly can be roused from his hangover induced narcolepsy. The posts are all still available if you wish to read them and can be found most easily through the categories bar on left left column.

If you have any knowledge of wordpress themes, php, or the theme arrastheme and are keen to lend a hand, drop Jason an email on: Jason@TheDailyDischarge.com If you help us we’ll be thankfull, and we’ll shamelessly pimp your services to anyone who mentions that they’re looking for something in your line of work.

HELP!

[update]

Right guys. we’ve managed to get most of the page working the way we want it. Thumbnails are still mostly missing but we are aware of how to get them working and will be going through the backlog over the next few days. The page should be mostly useable now though. there may be small layout changes to the sidebars etc but it’s mostly looking the way we want it. let us know if you find anything that doesn’t work and we’ll stare at it in confusion for a while before giving up.

cheers.

Kyle

This year Hog Hoggidy Hog’s album, Method to the Madness has been nominated in the Best Alternative Album Category. You may have realised that we’re big fans of the Hogs here at The Discharge, in fact I’m surprised no one has accused us of being paid marketers for them (we’re not, we just love them that much), so hearing this earns a nod of approval from us. We now wait to see if the judges make the correct decision and send the porkrockers home with a little golden penis (Seriously, who the fuck designed that thing?)

Their competition are: BLK JKS – After Robots
Martin Rocka And The Sickshop – Its A Filthy Song But Someones Got To Sing it
Mix N Blend – Look Mom No Hands
The Black Hotels – Films For The Next Century

We wish them the best of luck on the night and urge the judges to make the right decison.

We also want to extend our well wishes to the following nominees:
AKing
Best Duo, Best Rock Album (Against All Odds), Best Album Packaging (Against All Odds)
Goldfish, Although I hate electro jazz I admit they do it damn well and I respect them for it.
MTN record of the year (Fort Knox)
TKZee, and not just cause I went to the same school as Zwai Bala, I do actually like a few of their songs.
Best Kwaaito Album (Coming Home)

Good Luck from The Discharge crew and bring home a few ornaments.

(The awards ceremony will be live on SABC 1 ont he 17t April at 20hoo)

I’ve embedded it at the bottom of the post for you if that that’s the case. That’s not what this is about though. This is about the fact that the video has managed to ‘Go Viral’ all over the ‘interweb’. It has recieved acclaim from international artists and publications. The thing is though, in many cases they have no idea what our boy Ninja (Waddy Jones) is saying due to him throwing Afrikaans into the mix wherever it suits him and using an accent so strong that it takes a few listens for the average South African to figure out what he’s saying.

I’ve decided to rectify this issue by translating where necessary. So forward this on to your friends and family overseas. And point out to them that we don’t all talk like that. Much of what he says is slang, so I’ve used the meaning of what he says rather than the direct translation where necessary

Die Antwoord The Answer  - Enter the Ninja

[INTRO]

Checkit,
I represent South African Culture
In this place we’ve got a lot of different things
Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu
Wat ook al  and everything else
I’m like, all these different things
All these different people
Fucked into one person.

[SONG]

Aai aai aai

I am your butterfly
I need your protection

be my samurai

I’m a ninja yo, my life is like a video game, I maintain 
when I’m in the zone one player, one life on the mic, limited time 
yo ninja, go! No fucking around I’m cutting down anyone in my path

trying to fuck up my game with razor sharp lyrical throw-stars, here my flow’s hot
ho$tyle hostile, wild out of control 
ninja skop befokte rof taal kicks fucked up rough language, rough ryhmes for tough times 
met fokol kos, skraal with fuckall food, scrawny hungry, till I hit triple 7 at the atm, straight famine or feast 
when you living on the razor edge, stay sharp sharp
rolling with the $o$ high-energy
you never seen zef redneck so fre$, uh! When we mic check
hi-tek flows flex, yo we optimistik optimistic
not fuckin depressed, we not like the rest
my style is ufo, totally unknown 
you can’t fuck with my new zef redneck flow, I’m hard to miss, ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that’
yo fuckin who said so? I do what I like, too hot to handle, too cold to hold
you can’t fuck with the chosen one, I-I-I-I-I want the knife
yo I’m a ninja

(Hook)

Ninja is poes koel fucking cool, but don’t fuck with my game boy 
or I’ll poes fuck up you, life is tough, when I get stuck and my time is up 
I push through, till I break-break-break on through to the other side
fantastically poor with patience like the stalker
ninja is hardcore, been cut so deep feel no pain

it’s not sore, don’t ask for kak shit
or you’ll get what you ask for I’m like a wild animal in the corner 
waiting for the break of dawn, trying to get through the night, just a man with a will to survive
my blades swing free, decapitate a hater
with amazing ease, this is not a game boy

don’t play with me, I work my mic-saber
like a wild fuckin savage from the dark side: danger!
Yin to the yang, totally hi-tek, ninja’s motherfuckin 
big in japan, I seen the future, 
but right now I got nothing in my hand
except a microphone, big dreams and a plan, fly-talking, sky-walking
like a ninja

(Hook)

Fuck, this is like, the coolest song I ever heard in my whole life
fuck all of you who said I wouldn’t make it
they said I was a looser
they said I was a no-one
they said I was a fuckin psycho
but look at me now

all up on the interweb
worldwide
enter the ninja
yo-landi vi$$er
dj hi-tek
die fokken antwoord the fucking answer
dis mooi ne? this is nice hey?

(Hook)

I’m a ninja
yo I’m a ninja
I’m a ninja
a motherfuckin ninja

[END]

The words poes and zef are somewhat hard to explain,

Zef is a word I’d never heard used before and I assume was made up by ninja himself, It is however agreed to mean trashy in a manner similar to the American trailer trash. Zef means ‘tappet’, trash or redneck. Which are all pretty much the same thing.

Poes is the word pussy South Africanised, it was a somewhat insulting term, “you are a poes”  it now enjoys a somewhat wide range of uses far beyond it’s original meaning and in this song refers to derivatives of the word fuck, “ninja is poes koel” – Ninja is fucking cool.

Take a look at the video to refresh your recollections of the song or see it or the first time if you actually do live under a rock.

[EDIT]
Thanks to Christo for his corrections of a few failings in my knowledge of Afrikaans  slang.

For more information, music, and other clips take a look at their website

South Africans feel free to add your interpretations of the lyrics in the comments section. And forward this on to the rest of the world.

Johnny Foreigner - Odd, Entertaining

Johnny Foreigner again

I doubt the pokey Gauteng version will have this weather or scenery.

A B Turbo - Music video coming soon

Die Heuwels Fantasties - Joined by Jack Parrow

Lark - I'm developing a taste for them, at a rate of one gig per year I'll probably be a huge fan by 2015

Lark

Boo! - Someone please tell me they're reforming for good.

Pendulum - As awesome as you can possibly imagine them

Random Dude - Pendulum melted his face off.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I just gave you 11 000 words. Considering the fact that I normally write about 500 words per article I just gave you 22 articles. Its cause I love you guys mm’kay.

I’ll let you know when ticket sales open for next year.

Ramfest however is where things get pure. There will be no Afro ethnic chill music or electro jazz and no inflated ticket price to pay off the environmental impact. Instead there’ll be two music stages separating the metal acts on the alternative stage from the more mainstream acts on the main stage, a third stage will provide electro all night and late into the morning with nightly afterparties meaning that there’s no reason to hit the bed at 4. The music ranges from ska, to punk to metal to electro to finally drum and bass. Thanks to the spread on offer there’ll be something for everyone to enjoy at any time, I myself have taken a look through the lineup to try figure out where I’ll want to be and when (if I don’t find myself in a tent, carnally occupied at the time) and found myself struggling to prioritise.

The alternative stage lineup looks like a who’s who of Cape Town’s metal acts with a few bands from upcountry retracing the steps their forefathers took many years ago during the great trek to return to the Cape of Good Dope. Bands to watch for are Enmity with their unique image and sound, AB turbo, who coincidentally will be releasing their first music video some time soon,  and… my pitiful knowledge of the SA metal scene has now been exhausted. Use the comments section if you have any other recommendations.

The main stage lineup on the other hand look like a who’s who of “HolyShitThey’rePlaying?” with bands like Lark pulling themselves back together fo the occasion, Boo! playing again after 6 years of seperation, Red Five Point Star coming down from Slovenia, and finally Pendulum, the band who come to mind immediately after The Prodigy whenever Drum and bass is mentioned, coming down from the UK. This is before I bother mentioning the current Cape Town favourites such as The Dirty Skirts, Fokofpolisiekar, Half Price and Taxi Violence.

In terms of electro I once again find myself out of my depth but seeing as our electro contributor seems to be perpetually absent I’ll just go ahead and recommend Bruce Willis, Haezer, Mix n Blend and Killer Robot based on second hand information. I know enough though, to be around for the homegrown section featuring Niskerone, Counterstrike, Hyphen and SFR.

Other than the music things to look forward to include flushing toilets in buildings and hot showers, a river and a pool to cool off in. Robot and ninja themed afterparties will be held at the electro stage on Friday and Saturday night respectively with a beach party during Saturday day. For those who prefer to feed themselves instead of tucking into the food stalls there will be braai’s so you can have cook your own chops and wors. Bear in mind that only plastic bottles will be allowed into the stage area’s so bring something to decant your beer into or pick a liquor and mix to bring along.

If you haven’t organised your ticket get down to a computicket and grab one. If you have yours already look out for keep  lookout for myself and Nick Krige, sadly Jason and Solly couldn’t make it and Norman is too much of a fag. And yes,  we do look like our pictures. The official Ramfest website is hell to navigate so rather check the facebook event for more info

All images stolen without permission, please don”t sue me.

This time however they have decided to do things the right way. On Friday Hog Hoggidy Hog, the greatest ska punk band in Cape Town (and perhaps the country), will be joined by Half Price, The drunkest band in Cape Town (And almost certainly the country), and a bunch of gingers, at ROAR where they will be recording their latest attempt at a live album. The usual vibe is to be expected with everyone in attendance going all out for the occasion as well as ROAR rolling out specials normally only available downstairs at Gandalfs such as 3 beers for R10.

If you miss it you’ll be kicking yourself and if you’re there you’ll be able to sit around years from now smugly reminding people when listening to the album that you are actually on that album, one indistinguishable voice among many raised in salute to pork rock, but most certainly on the album. You will essentially be a member of Hog Hoggiddy Hog for a night.

You'll also be this cool.

So bring along your friends, your allstars, your mosh arm and your incoherent shout along voice and prepare to spend the next week whispering all your spoken communications cause this one is gonna be big.

Where: ROAR, above Gandalfs, Lower main road, Obs

When: Friday 12/02/2010

Cover: R30 (fuckall)

Facebook Event

The video is due to be released some time around March, but in the mean time you can entertain yourself by watching this trailer (Brett Allen-White not included).

You have probably seen this type of graph before.  It shows the availability of computing power against time:

It's Science

This illustrates one important truth: we are heading for a ‘vanishing point’ – the point where we have access to infinite information, and infinite understanding and control over the natural world.  This point in our development is referred to by futurists and sci-fi geeks alike as ‘The Singularity’. (There is an excellent article on The Singularity here, if you’re interested)

The Singularity is the point at which a civilization advances beyond the point where all the constraints we have struggled with since we stopped flinging poop suddenly vanish. It is the infinite abundance of energy, resources, computing power, knowledge, and the absolute control of matter.  Or to put it another way:

It seems plausible that with technology we can, in the fairly near future, create (or become) creatures who surpass humans in every intellectual and creative dimension. Events beyond this event – call it the Technological Singularity – are as unimaginable to us as opera is to a flatworm.

- I can’t find the author of this quote

Some say that at this point it will make more sense to ‘upload’ ourselves into a giant computer system, because our physical bodies and brains will only be a hindrance to attaining personal and cultural maturity – or ‘Omega Comprehension’ as Sci Fi author Peter F. Hamilton put it.  It is the point where we realise our true and final potential as a species, and possibly move on to something greater than physical existence.

A lot of people think The Singularity is very close – something we will see within our lifetimes.  A lot of people put it as close as 2050, and that’s pretty exciting.  But we have a lot of steps to take, technologically and socially, before we are mature enough as a species to evolve along with our capability.

Fortunately, five of the technologies that will take us there are already (or nearly) available to us.  In some sort of order involving importance and futuristic-ness, they are:

#5 Genetic Engineering

We live in an age of genetically-modified foods, and arguments about designer babies.  Genetic engineering is upon us, and you can cry ’slippery slope’ and ‘playing God’, but it ain’t going away.  As I mentioned in the article about the Widening Beauty Gap, it is only a matter of time before genetic engineering is socially acceptable and widely available.

This will have a massive impact on our society.  We already live longer than our ancestors, and don’t even worry about illnesses which would have wiped out cities a century ago. Genetic engineering and a greater understanding of cell biology will make things like cancer, HIV and Aids, heart disease and Alzheimer’s about as scary as smallpox.

We will all be prettier, and I believe that lifespans well in excess of a century will become the norm within fifty years, mostly because of genetic engineering.

The Down Side?

Our population is already exploding at an unsustainable rate. We all know that it has doubled in the blink of an eye, and this is in no small part due to advances in medicine.  Doubling the lifespan of everyone on the planet would have catastrophic consequences in terms of overcrowding, resource and food shortages, etc.  A solution to this will have to be found, or we will face widespread famine and war on a scale we can’t even imagine now.

#4 Nanotechnology & Metamaterials

This is some exciting stuff.  A while ago scientists figured out that you could take single atoms of carbon and string them together in a type of rope to make carbon nanotubes.  These tubes are Superman’s hair, only a thousand times thinner.  Then some bright spark worked out how to write IBM using single silicon atoms.

Since then and in-between there have been some incredible advances in making incredibly tiny structures.  We can already make glass that makes water bounce off it (no more windscreen wipers) and make cameras so small they can be swallowed like a pill.  This is only the beginning.

Nanotechnology, when it becomes feasible and abundant, will revolutionize our society like nothing ever has.  The industrial revolution and the Renaissance will look like municipal bye-elections by comparison. Imagine total control of matter, the stuff of the universe – true alchemy.  Turning lead into gold will be a child’s trick.  We will be able to take chunks of base metal ore, shove them into factories teeming with nanomachines, and wait for our space station to pop out the other end.

There is no theoretical reason why we cannot do this.  Once we are able to control and alter matter at an atomic level we will be able to do anything imaginable with it.  The only limit will be an availability of raw materials.

Metamaterials are an exciting new class of substances with many weird properties.  They gain these properties not by virtue of what they are, but by how the particles are arranged.  These arrangements allow metamaterials to seemingly break the laws of physics in some interesting ways.  We already have liquids you can walk on, ferrofluids (video below) which are metallic fluids that respond to magnetic fields, and a God-damned real-life invisibility cloak.

The Down Side

Coupled with the next two on the list, we end up with some nasty Terminator situations.  Those aside, however, there really aren’t any downsides to nanotechnology.  Unless, like me, you were scared shitless by Alistair Reynold’s Century Rain.

#3 Quantum Computing

The D-Wave Quantum Computer

Quantum computing is like normal computing, except a million times more complicated to explain.  The average person’s grasp of quantum mechanics and computing theory is zero (rightly so) and mine is little better, but I will try to begin with quantum mechanics in a nutshell:

Classic physics defines everything as having properties – mass, speed, direction, and position in time and space – and it assumes those to be absolute, otherwise nothing works (please don’t blast me if you know better – I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated).  Quantum physics on the other hand accepts that a particle does not exist at a specific point, but rather in a ‘zone of probability’.

That means you can find it at any point in that zone at any time. Not just one or the other, but technically at all points it exists, just with a different probability of actually being there.

Quantum computing attempts to make use of the tiny changes in the quantum state of particles, and use these changes to drive calculations.  A normal computer works by flipping a switch to denote on or off – a one or a zero, or a ‘bit’.  Using some clever manipulation of math and linguistics, you can then combine a bunch of bits to store a message or do a sum.  In a quantum computer, one particle can have (if I’m correct) up to six possible positions, meaning that more calculations can be done at the same time.

But there’s more: That’s only with one particle.  Using a whole bunch of them, the power of the computer increases exponentially, until eventually you have a computer capable of calculating Pi to the last decimal, or something.  It can also make use of a principle called ‘probabilistic computing’, which is basically a computer that guesses pretty close instead of working out exactly (when getting an answer fast is more important than getting the answer eventually), but it does it faster than a shart sneaks up on you.

To put it in perspective: it took a huge pile of graphics processors over a day to render a single second of the movie Avatar.  It is difficult to say how long it would take using a sophisticated quantum computer, but my guess is that a human would see it as nearly instant.  Going the standard route in computing, we could probably never attain that kind of speed.

The Down Side

As with nanotechnology, there isn’t an obvious down side to near-infinite computing power.  It will solve a lot of problems we have right now that are solely limited by how fast our machines can crunch numbers.  The down side will probably come in with the next technology.

#2 Artificial Intelligence

Don’t be fooled – we already have machines that can learn, make decisions, get moody, get high and make art, and convince us that they are human by being better at it than we are.  Trillions of dollars are being poured into AI research all over the world, and some exciting stuff is happening.

The major advances are in Simulated Neural Nets – computers that not only work like a brain, but are built like one too.  Our brains have billions of neurons, and trillions of synapses, all of which form an intricate net that somehow begets consciousness.  Right now that ’some how’ is the biggest thing between us and the T1000.

Researchers at IBM have already built a cat-like brain.  (this is the link to the article debunking IBM’s ‘Cat Brain’ claim, but it is still very interesting reading).  Or rather, a part of a cat’s brain.  It’s capable of learning its environment, and is growing smarter and smarter every day.  It is limited by how many neurons and synapses it has – about 1% of those found in the human brain – but the cool thing is that if it needs more, they can just bolt on some extras!

Research proposals are already underway to build a brain with the same structure, number of neurons and number of connections as the human brain.  If any one thing brings us closer to the Singularity, it might be this.

The Down Side

This one is obvious:

Apart from sentient killer robots, there is one more thing that is perhaps even more worrying. Computers that are smarter than us and can think will, inevitably, attain their own Singularity.  What’s more, they will be a lot closer to it than we were when we started.  Whatever that will look like, it probably won’t work out well for us fleshies.

#1 Controllable Fusion

Finally we come to the holy grail.  There is one problem will all of the above technologies: they will inevitably require a lot of energy.  That’s energy we don’t have.  It is highly likely that we will exhaust our planet’s natural energy reserves – at least the way we extract and use them – before we find another planet to rape.  That’s where fusion comes in.

Fusion is not a myth out of The Saint – it’s real and it happens all over the places.  It occurs in nature, in stars, and lately in our laboratories.  But only in a crude form.  When you split an atom, all its guts spill out and a lot of energy is released.  But when you smash two atoms together – Hydrogen atoms, for example – they join, and release the energy they don’t need, which is a lot more.

Unlike nuclear fission which produces radioactive waste as a by-product, the end result of a fusion reaction is Helium or water, depending on what you use for fuel.  Neither of these are too bad.

The person who creates a way to sustain a fusion reaction and extract its power will contribute more to the development of mankind than any human ever has, or ever will.  They will also probably get laid more than anyone else ever has. It is the single most important thing our civilization can strive for, and it absolutely must be achieved at all costs.

Limitless, free energy will set us free. Combined with nanotechnology’s gift of control over matter, we will no longer have to compete for resources – something we have fought and died for since we can remember.  Our species as a whole will suddenly have no reason to continue most of their wars, and we will truly be able to begin eradicating world poverty and hunger.

If that sounds like a pipe dream, think of it this way: if anything we need, from food to automobiles, can be made in an unmanned factory from raw materials, and cost nothing, there will be no need to have a job (and few available anyway) unless you wanted to make or build or grow things for the simple pleasure of it.  The concept of being “wealthier” than someone will lose all meaning, because everyone will have free access to anything they want, and as much of it as they want (legislation permitting).  The only thing we could possibly run out of is time.

The Down Side:

None whatsoever.

Your Host

Norman Conquest

The Pretty/Rich Theory

This one is fairly common, and I’m sure most of you have come to this conclusion as well.  To begin, I present the following argument:

It is based on the premise that in most modern cultures the main reason for choosing a mate, for both sexes, has shifted over the last century.  A hundred years ago it made sense for all people of money to marry money, thereby enhancing their families’ total wealth and position.  However, around that time it started to change, for half of us.

All of a sudden it wasn’t so important for men to marry into status, even if they had money.  Because there were so many people with money running around – it was the twenties, and you could marry whomever you damn-well liked.  It stood to reason, though, that because women weren’t really expected to work, that it was in their favour to marry someone who was rich, or likely to become rich (by virtue of being successful or inheriting).

Men, on the other hand, didn’t have to worry about their partners’ families’ money anymore, and so they started to tend more towards marrying women they found attractive.  This usually meant hot.  The end result was a generation (our parents, if you’re anywhere around generation X or Y) where you have wealthy families with hot moms, making hot babies.  The hotness is compounded if the hot children aren’t actually related to the ugly rich dad.

This tradition continues today, with a new generation of beautiful rich girls with greater access to the best beauticians, hairdressers, beauty products, clothes, and cosmetic surgery, if they want to go there.  They also will be under more pressure to look better, and to find a well-off husband.

So if you think she married you for your money, she probably did.

In a tangentially-related corner, a study recently showed that men are looking more or less the same as their ‘caveman ancestors’, but women are actually getting more attractive. They do say, however, that it’s a result of a shift in breeding strategies, which is what I started talking about in the first place. There is even some stuff about genes in there.

You get attractive lower and middle-class people as well, naturally, but I think that if anyone bothered to do a study they’d find that there is a disproportionate percentage of attractive women in the upper-middle to upper classes.  That, in a nutshell, is The Pretty/Rich Theory.

So where am I going with this? By extrapolating from there, and by assuming that a few things will stay more or less constant for the next fifty years or so, we can come to a prediction.  First, those things are that the primary ‘breeding strategies’ for both sexes will remain stable, and that we will still be using money in 2060.

Barring nuclear war or the discovery of free, clean energy and the abolition of wealth, chicks with enough of the good genes will always figure out at a young age that it’s more fun to hang out with guys who drive hot cars, than guys who have to borrow the Volvo.

As technology advances, and certain laws disappear, we will begin to see wide scale availability of genetic engineering.  As soon as it is legal it will be expensive, and initially targeted at removing birth defects and inherited diseases from infants.  But as time progresses and it gets cheaper to tinker with your genes, people will start to give their babies higher cheekbones, bolder chins, slimmer hips, and so on, attempting to approach an idealised beauty in one form or another.

These forms, as the freedom to alter the appearance of ones’ children grows, might diverge vastly from the norm, or rich people may end up all looking like Angelina Jolie.  Personally, I’d go more in this direction:

My point is that it will be available, but only at a cost – even late into our childrens’ lifetimes. But what good is only being able to change your kids’ genes?  People that concerned with beauty usually want a bit of it for themselves.  And that’s where nanotechnology comes in.

Now, I’m no expert, but there is every reason to believe that it will be possible in the future to build smart organic cells or nanobots that can course through the human body, altering selective DNA as they go. This would allow us to change our appearance over the course of a few days or weeks (probably not without risk).  It could also, in theory, allow us to live forever.

What this will mean is an increasing physical difference between the haves and the have-nots.  I’m not talking about Morlocks and Eloi here, just enough of a difference that you can tell if someone has the money or not.  The rest will remain homely for at least another century.

Your Host

Norman Conquest