-
Communication
-
Helen Zille Lashes Out At Independent Newspapers
07 Dec 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
The DA, and Helen Zille in particular, is furious about a letter they received from Independent Newspapers, inviting the them to advertise in a special feature on the ANC’s centenary celebrations. The proposition for advertising in the supplement appeared on a letter with the Independent Newspapers letterhead alongside an ANC logo, and may be perceived as endorsement, according to Zille.
-
DA launches Petition Against Info Bill
06 Dec 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 1 Comment
The Democratic Alliance today launched an aggressive campaign to protest the current form of the draft Protection of Information Bill. The political party is calling on all South Africans to join forces and show their support against the legislation, while also planning more protests.
-
Western Union Brings Back The Singing Telegram
01 Dec 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Back in the day, people used to send each other messages using something they called the telegram. For the singing telegram, a real person actually used to call you up or come to your home and sing to you. Money transfer giant, Western Union, is bringing the singing telegram back and plans to get users involved: karaoke-style.
-
US Court Orders Hundreds Of Sites “De-indexed” From Google
01 Dec 2011 by liam kruger / No Comments
In a worrying move for people who like their internet uncensored, a federal judge in Nevada has ruled that Chanel has the right seize 700 domain names that have been peddling fake Chanel products – and that search engines and social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and Google, are to “de-index” the domains.
-
Nelson Mandela Car Air Freshener
30 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Nelson Mandela is awesome. The whole world knows that. Upon pushing through the Protection of Information Bill in Parliament just over a week ago, a number of South African MP’s seemed to momentarily forget that.
Here’s something they should put in their cars, to remind them of how good Nelson Mandela smells.
-
Riot Police Clearing LA Occupy Protesters [LIVE VIDEO]
30 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Police in riot gear are moving in on anti-Wall Street activists in Los Angeles right now. They’re enforcing the mayor’s order to evict protesters who have camped outside City Hall for the past eight weeks. Supporters are streaming into the area in a show of solidarity as the protesters seek to defy the order and risk arrest.
-
Benetton Is At It Again
29 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
The Italian clothing label’s controversial advertising campaign, Unhate, which was launched less than two weeks ago, is surely going to garner more raised eyebrows with their latest stunt: Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu kissing Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas on a large billboard in Tel Aviv, Israel.
-
Franschhoek Exhibition Pulled After Student Poses Nude And Tears Pages From Bible
29 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 1 Comment
Celeste Coetzee gave The Gallery at Grande Provence in Franschhoek a little more than they’d agreed on last week. Her Unisa Final Year Student Exhibition was axed from The Gallery after she went a bit too far by posing nude and tearing pages from a Bible.
-
Children’s Book About Marijuana Reissued In Time For Christmas
28 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
It’s Just a Plant is an illustrated picture book about marijuana for the younger members of society. The plot is fairly simple: Jackie catches her folks smoking a joint one evening, and then her mother takes her on a trip the next day to learn more about marijuana.
-
Google Doodle Supports Egyptian Elections
28 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Egyptians began voting today in the first election since toppling former President, Hosni Mubarak in February. These elections are the first of a programme of elections that will last until March 2012, and although only a tiny proportion of the population has internet access, Google is continuing to do its bit for democracy and hoping to inspire Egyptians to vote.
-
Polish Far Right Group Registers “No Gay Sex” Sign As Official Logo
25 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
A far right political group, the National Rebirth of Poland party, came under fire from gay rights activists in Poland on Wednesday. They’d gotten word about a little-known judgement that had been passed allowing the political group the use of a ridiculous logo.
-
Samsung Has A Spicy Dig At The iPhone [VIDEO]
24 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Samsung has had a rather clever dig at the iPhone with its Galaxy S2 smartphone. Having recently surpassed Apple in total worldwide smartphone shipments, the Samsung brand clearly has its eyes firmly set on furthering its handle on the US smartphone market. Spicy.
-
Microsoft Actually Tries To Lure Amazon And Google Employees With Free Bacon
24 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Microsoft thinks the techies at Amazon and Google will find free bacon hard to resist. And so, they’ve allowed one of their ad agencies, Wexley School for Girls, to set up a food cart outside Amazon.com’s headquarters, before moving to a spot near Google’s offices. There, workers were encouraged to eat free bacon with toppings like spray-on cheese.
-
Google Now Censoring The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, & Other File-Sharing Services
24 Nov 2011 by liam kruger / No Comments
Google seems to be dabbling in the censorship game too, these days. They’ve added sites like The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, and 4Shared to their “blacklist”, which doesn’t prevent the pages from showing up if searched for, but does prevents the names of sites appearing in their Instant and Autocomplete services.
-
ANC Threatens Secrecy Bill Dissidents
24 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Yesterday, the ANC decided it would threaten its members who voted with their consciences against the passing of the Protection of State Information Bill in Parliament on Tuesday. Luckily and unluckily, the minutes of proceedings for the vote have to be released into the public domain showing exactly who voted for what.
-
Google Is Killing A Bunch Of Services Today
23 Nov 2011 by liam kruger / No Comments
As part of it’s “off-season spring cleaning,” Google today announced the end of a handful of services, including Google Buzz, Google Wave, and Google Knol. The thinking behind the initiative is to free up resources for Google+ and other higher-priority projects. While some of the shut-downs make sense, others are a little more unexpected.
-
“Reply To All” Email Goes Terribly Wrong For Jozi Car Dealership
22 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 11 Comments
This is why you always double check if you have clicked “reply”, and not “reply to all”, when sending an email, especially when it concerns your annoyance about something. The email in question has to do with repairs being made to a car at a Johannesburg dealership, and, well, it’s rather self-explanatory. Click through to cringe.
-
Prince Philip Calls Wind Farms A “Fairy Tale”
21 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 1 Comment
He also called them “absolutely useless”, and he might have a point too. The Duke of Edinburgh, at age 90, rightfully points out that wind farms are heavily reliant on subsidies, and that those who claim they’re one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy believed in “fairy tales”.
-
Pakistan Bans Hundreds Of Phrases Like “Monkey Crotch” And “Love Pistol” From Text Messages
21 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Pakistan’s telecoms watchdog, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, has decided that mobile phone operators in that country must block all text messages using offensive words. The list contains over 1 600 words and phrases including, “flogging the dolphin”. Some linguistic purists are expected to be delighted by the move that comes into force today, while George Orwell turns in his grave.
-
PayPal Launches Facebook App
18 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
Happy birthday Facebook wall posts just got interesting. It probably won’t be long before one starts scrolling through those birthday wall posts to see who has sent a greeting card with a little bit of a surprise attached. Tech-savvy grannies everywhere will be rejoicing.
-
The Stop Online Piracy Act – What You Need To Know [VIDEO]
17 Nov 2011 by liam kruger / No Comments
The American Senate has officially begun holding hearings on the the ‘Internet Blacklist Bill,’ also known as the “PROTECT IP Act” or the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” It is potentially the most harmful bit of Internet censorship legislation to date, and you should know what’s going to happen if it passes.
-
Nonhle Thema Calls Herself “God”
16 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 4 Comments
Nonhle Thema lost the plot again last night on Twitter. She tried to have another catfight with Bonang Matheba because Bonang had mentioned Nonhle’s name in an interview. But Nonhle ended up battling herself instead. It could also be because Bonang has more Twitter followers than Nonhle, and that Nonhle was jealous over Bonang’s new True Love cover shot.
-
Indonesians Cheer For Mortal Enemies, Malaysia During Southeast Asia Games
15 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / 1 Comment
Indonesians and Malaysians don’t like each other very much. In fact, they dislike each other so much that “Hate Malaysia” and “Hate Indonesia” were even trending topics on Twitter last year after Indonesia lost a football game to their counterparts, that involved laser pointers. Now Indonesian students are being paid to support their archenemies in the Southeast Asia Games.
-
James Murdoch’s Evidence Yesterday Was “Disingenuous”
11 Nov 2011 by Bearded Wiseman / No Comments
As reported in morning spice earlier today, James Murdoch claimed yesterday that two of his former senior News of the World executives had failed to tell him the truth about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World, and that they had misled parliament. They’ve both since issued statements and called his new evidence “disingenuous at best”.
-
