Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Facebook busts Oxford students
Oxford Proctors are using Facebook to discipline students. Wow. That is some serious news.I have blogged about online profiles before and the importance of keeping a squeaky-clean record online. This is proof.The students were quoted as being shocked and pissed off that their photographs had been viewed by their university. I am not shocked by this at all in fact. I think that students are ignorant, foolish and naive if they think that they can break the rules of their campus, post the photos online ANYWHERE and expect to remain unknown. Morons.It is not a difficult process to locate photos of people within certain networks, groups, social circles or any other classification.
"I don't know how this happened, especially as my privacy settings were such that only my friends and students in my networks could view my photos."It's quite unbelievable and I am very pissed off, [I] just hope that no-one else gets 'caught' in this way."
said Alex Hill, one of the students charged with misconduct.All one needs to do is start a Facebook profile, join the oxford network, find one or two friends in this network and search through their photographs. The tags are there, the links are there, the connections are undeniable.It is more appalling to me that these students honestly believed they would not be found. And concerning to me that the Proctors at a university like Oxford have nothing better to do with their time than search through tagged photos of their students. Tsk, Tsk.This however does speak to more than just students. With Facebook being open to the masses (any age, nation, gender, race, creed, colour etc etc) anyone can see anything from anyone. This means that if you are at work and gefoffeling with the wrong person from work and you get caught out, you could be in trouble. Remember, your bosses could be online, they could be watching and with Facebook around there are eyes everywhere.
Springbok haka rubbish
Why do we do this? Why must we insist on looking like morons? The New Zealanders do the Haka. Simple. We, do not.No, now we want to a Zulu version. I think that DJ Fresh or someone said it: Imagine Os, or Bakkies doing a Zulu dance before a game. Firstly they will look like morons, secondly they will feel like morons and thirdly they will play like morons.Not to mention how ridiculous we look that just before our world cup squad announcement all we can talk about is a stupid pre-game dance. COME ON PEOPLE.Let's practice a bit harder, work a bit longer, make the team gel a bit more before even think about existentially proposing the possibility of a little jig before the game.What we do pre-game when facing the haka is stand united as a team and face it. That's what we do, simple, effective and a big statement. Now we are trying to emulate, reinvent and copy the "better" team fromt he south? No, no, no.Let's just hope that Hoskins will sort his shit out, forget about the dance and concentrate on the world cup squad selection. The nation is watching you and for the moment having a little chuckle.
Mugabe loses honorary doctorate
It is about time that someone in the thinking world did something worth while. The university of Edinburgh has withdrawn Robert Mugabe's honorary doctorate sighting concerns over his human rights record as the reason.Spot on. If Governments and establishments are going to do nothing about it then the academic masses need to start rallying against this murderer and country-killer.I wonder if the man even cares? I wonder if it matters to him that he is no longer recognised as a human being worth any sort of accolade? I wonder.And what is with the Hitler style tash?
Voicemail convesations
We have the most incredible voicemail service at work. This lady (she sounds pretty hot) talks to you and asks you questions. The questions are limited to yes or no answers and the corresponding numbers, 1 and 2 on the keypad.Nevertheless I love playing around with this toy. Today I changed my spoken name, my recorded name, my numerical name and a host of other things.I wish there was moret to do on the service cause I would then have another time waster to add to the list!
Travis and Demetri Martin
Travis has a new music video out for their song "Selfish Jean". I love Travis, their music is melodic and is perfect for certain moods and occasions. I also absolutely LOVE Demetri Martin.This combination is mezmerising. I hope that the quality of the video below is good enough to read the shirts.Have a look:
Movie week in review - Harry Potter and Fantastic Flop
I have been to the movies twice this week. I enjoy the movies, the experience, popcorn, smarties, slush puppie. Gotta love it.Tuesday: Fantastic FourThey should really have named this movie Fantastic Flop or Fantasticly-Long-Movie-With-Lots-Of-Prolonged-Moments-Staring-In-To-Eyes. Seriously. I was extremely disapointed with this piece of comic-turned movie cinema sequel. Too many love scenes, too much focus on Alba and doctor McGeekPants getting married and not enough focus on the story line of THE WORLD ENDING. Terrible. There was even a dancing scene in the movie. Do me a favour.To swiftly move on, Friday: Harry Potter and the blah blah blahThis movie was incredible good. I loved every second of it and I attribute this to the fact that I haven't read the books. By not reading the books I was able to go in to the film with no expectations. The plot was dark, the characters have evolved and the film is definitely not for kids. I am so impressed (having seen all of the films) with the writing and the developing story line. The characters have grown with their audience and epitomise the turmoil that a teenager in the real world would be facing.I wont give away anything about the plot or who dies... if anyone dies! All I will say is, he is back and meaner than before. Lookout. Do yourself a favour and see this film.So, that's that for the weekend I think. Enjoy.
Lines of holes in Jo'burg road
Can anyone tell me why there are long holes through the streets of Jo'burg? Are they laying cables for communication of some sorts? Are they testing the water below? Has it got to do with the major culprit of the moment, they Gautrain?Someone with some sort of knowledge around this topic please help me understand why Rosebank and many other places in JHB are littered with holes?
Pownce and the SA market
Pownce seems to me like much of a twitter-ish sort of site. I don't know much about this sort of stuff cause I think it's rubbish and life-sapping technology.Anyways, back to the point and the title of this post. I understand that what makes Pownce cool is that you can download a desktop client for the software and use the service on your pc. Kiff. So what? I think it's just another mechanism to get and keep people addicted to intel 100% of the time.Now I thought I would shut up and get down to it so I toddled off to the Pownce page where you can download the software. To my surprise you need to download two pieces of software for this all to work. The first is some Adobe thing or another AIR or something like that. It's an 8Mb file. Unfortunately for me that is just too much for me to handle. I know that NO ONE caters for the SA market and thus 8Mb files are regarded as normal downloads in under a minute in most first world countries. But here, that is too many minutes for me to wait to have to download the first pack then download another one, install both and then get things working. Please. Do me a favour and let it all go. Just let is slide.No one needs to know that I am sitting at my pc doing this, that and the next thing. If I am using the desktop software, it means I am sitting at my pc. Simple, finished, kla.
Eric Edelstein: The MasterBaiter
I recently produced This Podcast with Vince. Wherein we discussed a variety of things ranging from bloggers dying, facebook fakes and Mr. Eric Edelstein.In the Flamebaiting podcasting where Vince and I try to get as much hype around the podcast as possible (and shamelessly so) we discussed a recent post by Eric (I will not be linking to the masterbaiter as he doesn't need it). This post was unreadable, illogical and very confusing in general.In the podcast we complimented Eric to begin with. He did not make mention of this in his commentary of the podcast. He chose to pick at all and only the negative things that we said about him. Negative honesty that was there for all to see.There is more however. Vince and I know that people aren't going to be happy with us most of the time if they are mentioned on Flamebait. But Eric seems to think that he needed a rebuttle argument which was subsequently more confusticating than the original post that me Flamed.Since then Colin, Gregor (who Eric misinterpreted I feel), Vince, Wezzo and now I have responded. None of these comments were read by Eric apparently as he just keeps digging them holes.Eric, take a second to read the comments on your blog. This is a very important tip as most bloggers know that content is in fact king. Pictures of yourself and Robert Scoble will not make you more popular, they will not drive traffic and it often does not pay to be cool by association.Yes, I have just mentioned Robert Scoble, why I hear you ask? Well Eric has a pic from Wikipedia on his flickr photostream on his blog of Scoble. I thought flickr photostreams were meant to be of photos you have taken, or feature you? Nevermind plagiarism issues which are evident (a quick quote from Eric: "I am TOTALLY against anything illegal"), this is just a bit wierd. Compare THIS photo from Eric and THIS photo from Wikipedia.I have said it before on the podcast and will say it again here, Eric is doing some great things in SA for the online community. He just can't seem to maintain a safe balance on the blogosphere between good work and self obsessive blog posts. Listen to your readers, read your comments and let the good content on your site drive hits your way. Linkbaiting is cool to a point but do it openly. Don't facebook people behind smoke screens on your blog and then do the opposite of what you have blogged about.If you like David Bullards idea of crowdsourcing then tell us that, let him know and do it openly.In my opinion Eric has simply missed the point completely. Not everything is about SEO. Not everyone actually cares and not everyone is trying to make a gazillion bucks from a podcast/website/blog/idea/concept. In spite of Eric trying to drive the conversation towards topics he actually understands, we all still know what we are talking about and don't need lessons.Go enjoy your MOET Eric, and contact me if you want to talk sometime.Last point: To his credit, Eric is definitely a MASTERBAITER as I have now blogged about is post and many people have commented on his blog. He is good at baiting, flaming and linking and is most definitely a masterbaiter in my books.
Tags tags and 8 more tags
You're killing me Sally, I dig your blog, but why, oh why would you tag me for this torture?I hate tagging, as someone mentioned to me, tagging is like spam for bloggers. So I have been spammed and since it is Monday I thought I would indulge:THE RULES…… We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.Players start with 8 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people who get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.1. I have started and ended over 15 different blogs in the last year2. I smoke3. I smoke alot due to feelings of insecurity4. I hate the taste and smell of alcohol5. I shave once a week because my beard grows quickly enough to look neat6. I work in the media industry7. I recently took up a new job8. I am done with tagging, this will be my last, ever.I really don't want to tag anyone else for this, so if you read this post and want to tell us 8 random things about yourself then feel free and let me know in the comments section.
Facebook marketplace goes regional
It appears as though Facebook have gone local. They have pretty much done what I would have expected them to do. They have regionalised their site.The new Facebook marketplace is specific to the South African network and will definitely open up Facebook in ways that will expand the site greatly. The only frustrating thing about the SA marketplace is that things are still being listen with prices in pounds, euros and dollars. Get with it, we work in Rands here Zuckerburg.
Live Earth, SA flags and climate change
It's always so comforting to know that wherever in the world you go, whatever concert you are watching there will always be a South African flag in the audience.I am watching the Live Earth concert on SABC 2. However poorly the SA side of the concert was handles, the UK one is phenomenal, great bands ans well orchestrated. Today will mark my climate change.I am going to make a point of buying energy saving light bulbs, I will purchase my music online instead of buying CDs, I will try to recycle, save electricity, not keep my heater on, heated blankets, lights etc etc etc etc...Many South Africans (myself included) blogged about the disappointing Live Earth line-up here in SA, but we all missed the point. The concert needs to illustrate effectively to 2 billion people that we (the middle-upperclass) can make a MASSIVE difference in our daily lives. We are destroying the world. This is our biggest issue right now, not war, religious battles, capitalism or any other cause. It is us destroying our Earth.Preaching is not my forte. Get on to SABC 2 now and watch the concert for yourself.