I’ve been here and there around the internet this last few days, so I thought I’d share what I’d found with you, hunter-gatherer style.
Firstly – one of my favourite bloggers. Yes, it’s Brian Micklethwait and his ongoing battle with technology – or just recording devices in this case:
Maybe I can get Cobden Centre supremo Andy Duncan to tell me how to use my recording gadgets without getting totally confused. At present the only one I am any good at using is the hateful Sony confusaphone, hateful because it obliges you to go half way around the techno-world turning Sony files into a human (.mp3) files. I bought another machine which doesn’t have this problem, but it has another problem. It’s totally effing incomprehensible.
My new Sony Confusaphone (also known as the glorious new Xperia X10i) is also mentally taxing, but in a good way. Android certainly seems like a lot of fun, although I haven’t found much hugely useful to do with it yet.
Then onto Gina Loubser’s opinion on the whole @pigspotter issue which has divided a little tiny piece of South Africa not really down the middle. I’m with Gina on this one – namely that his tweeting the location of roadblocks and mobile speed traps is just wrong.
He may be a hero in the minds of many and he may have thousands of people following him, but he is still a prime example of someone acting on impulse in a public forum without any concept of the consequences of his actions on his own life and the lives of others.
It’s interesting to note that internet polls have come down firmly (like 90:10 firmly) on the side of @pigspotter.
I don’t understand why he warrants this sort of near fanatical support. Is it something to do with getting one over on authority? Does this make people feel good?
Cliff gives his reasons for his actions thus:
to stop corrupt police soliciting bribes from citizens, and victimising the public.
Yes, there are some corrupt cops in Jo’burg and that’s not good, but how does Cliff’s real-time revalations of their whereabouts assist to weed them out? Am I missing something here?
It’s bizarre and rather unpleasant watching as the brainwashed masses instantly and mindlessly lay into anyone who voices a dissenting opinion to the majority.
The thoroughly repulsive Clive Simpkins is one of the masses.
After I replied to a comment he left on Gina’s post, he refused to discuss the matter further:
Dear 6000, if you don’t have the cahunas to put your name to what you write, you’re classed as an Internet troll. I don’t waste time on them.
This while he is wasting his time on supporting a bloke who is called… er… “@pigspotter”.
There is a school of thought that says that Clive was just caught out by actually being asked to explain his actions and couldn’t, but it’s obviously far more likely that I am “an Internet troll” than that he is a hypocritical tosser.
Over to my mate Albert:
Great spirits have always faced violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Right. Thanks for that.
Finally, something a bit lighter. I think, anyway. Peace Island.
We’ve all heard of Robben Island and Dassen Island and Seal Island and Marion Island and Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands and the Falkland Islands.
But Peace Island? Paarden?
Well, this is apparently Cape Town’s answer to the Palm and World Artificial islands built in Dubai.
Yes, really.
The developers envision and economically and ecologically sustainable development in which upscale housing, trade and tourism opportunities fund and enable low cost housing and contribute to the developmental objectives of the South African Government.
How?
Well, “for every 1,000m² plot sold at R10 million, R1 million will go towards social housing”.
With the initial 25% of the land being sold for R2 billion, that would mean 40,000 units at R50,000 each. With an average of 5 people per unit, that’s housing for 200,000 people.
“The Government would decide where to built the houses.”
As long as it’s not on your island, presumably.
Apparently, the project would require 165 million m³ of sand and 4.2 million tonnes of rock. To put that in perspective – my kids’ sandpit is nowhere near that big and has no rocks in it at all.
Is it for real? I don’t know.
Will it ever take off? I don’t know.
But if it really is a pie-in-the-sky late April fool, someone has gone to a lot of work to put it together, albeit that the spelling and website are a little shabby.
No names though, so Clive probably wouldn’t give it the time of day.
UPDATE: Incoming!
That creepy bald dude is using his superior “communication skills” to trash talk you on his stream. Please tell him it’s spelt CAJONES.
Gasp – so he is!
This would be HUGELY amusing if I was indeed furious or if vasectomy involved anything to do with the testes, which it doesn’t (that would be a orchiectomy). So it’s actually not that amusing.
Oh – and the spelling thing is addressed here:
For some people, apparently, a Hawaiian word for “priest” has ended up as an English euphemism for “testicles”.
Not great use of language from Mr Communication. Yet another reason not to hire him.