There's a little Italian restaurant in our neighbourhood that used to have a pretty good reputation.

A year or so back I decided never to return after standing at the door being ignored for 20 minutes. We decided to give them another go this evening.

What a mistake. The service when I arrived to fetch our food (we ordered takeout) was lackluster (at best). The food was terrible, and the portion of lasagne I ordered was basically a single layer thick. When I phoned to complain (things don't get better if you don't complain, although complaining is no guarantee they will) they brushed me off with some nonsense about portions all being measured. Fair enough, perhaps that's the intention, but you have a complaining customer on the phone. Don't try telling them they're wrong. Try to make them happy.

This is the last they'll be seeing of us.

For the record, the restaurant name is Bardelli's in Kenilworth Road.

Not a hell of a lot to say. It's been ages since I've really taken my bike out and Sunday, being pleasant on the weather front and sandwiched twixt two days off (Monday being a public holiday; we have lots of them), it seemed like a good idea to hit the open road.

Our route took us along some of the back roads out to Riebeek Kasteel. Some really pleasant riding out that part of the world, including a stupendous sweeping bend at the bottom of a (low) mountain pass just before you hit the turn into Riebeek Kasteel itself.

Breakfast was pleasant, in spite of a small swarm of miggies (a local term that is hard to translate entirely accurately) that fell in love with my face (although who can blame them?) making eating and breathing challenging.

We took a spin up through Tulbagh and skirted past Ceres, returning over Du Toit's Kloof pass which offered up it's usual fare of spectacular views and tight bends. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's a lot of good riding in these parts.

Yup, I'm never gonna be a fighter pilot.

What tickles your trigeminal nerve nucleus?

It doesn't matter how long it's been coming. No amount of time prepares you. Our thoughts are with the Robinson family. I didn't really know your Mother, but her daughters are, to some degree, echoes of their origins and that speaks of someone special.

Enjoy.

This one took a little longer to get out because work has been a bit "consuming". The code itself has been stable since some time before we launched.

Family members recently suffered one of the most devastating losses a family may ever have to deal with: the loss of a child.

I don't feel it's appropriate to say anything more than that. You guys know who you are and I wanted you to know that we're thinking of you.

It's always nice to get user feedback, especially positive feedback. And in this case it has nothing to do with EC2 at all.

There's a feedback page on the Newt website and every couple of months someone actually uses it. So thanks to Kgafela Setae, a first year at UCT, for reporting that Newt is "... the coolest maths program i have ever used".

This is only fitting, since Newt is the coolest maths program I have ever written :-)