News release: Using X# in South Africa

[lumberjack]

Well guys,
You probably get onto this post thinking, another success story of X#...

Yes and no.

Yes I can admit, using X# as my development platform is a breeze, it however have other challenges in [South]-Africa...

We currently have an energy crisis, the demand for electricity is far more than what can be supplied, due to bad maintenance, lack of additional power plant planning and delays on construction, etc.

We now have a "Loadshedding" plan. Depending the deficit, stage 0 - 5 loadshedding can be announced. We currently sitting on Stage 4. This means a third of the country will have no electricity at any stage of the day. Our schedule now already in place is the following no-electricity shifts:
06h00 - 08h30
14h00 - 16h30
22h00 - 00h30

Planning needs to done around these, shut down computers, saving and backing up data. Shopping, since smaller shops do not have generators - their card payment facilities don't work... The list goes on and on. Traffic lights not working... It is difficult to understand or sometimes grasp the challenges one has to experience.

Anyway I don't use this as a moan and groan session. Rather an awareness of the struggles some of us have, I have electricity issues, some of us have [English]language issues. There may be other challenges in our environment. A special request, we all have our challenges, let us all have these people in our thoughts and prayers.

Greetings from a small X# light source shining bright from the southern point of Africa...

[Chris]

Well, that's bad indeed, but I can tell you there are worse things. I live in an economically destroyed country, where a large part of the population does not even have the money to heat up their houses. So what they do, is burn all kind of wood they can find, including painted wood, with all kind of chemicals in it, which of course gets released to the atmosphere. For the last 4 months (as every winter in the last 3-4 years), in my town we are simply living under a constant cloud of toxic smoke and because I am already an allergic person, which is causing me respiratory issues, now I can only open the windows of my house or walk outside for max 10-15 minutes per day, otherwise I need to spend the rest of the day exhausted on bed. Unfortunately a large part of the world is a real mess...

[lumberjack]

Hi Chris,
Indeed, we knew from news the crisis in Greece and good luck to you guys.
At least your issue keep you focused on X# 23h45 of the day

I think there are other people too in the same boat, hence my post. We see somebody in the forums, struggling to get to grip with X#. Some of them might actually have greater issues in their life, than just getting to grips with X#.

My hat off to each and everyone of them.