Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Interview - Jon Blair, Director of Murder Most Foul
Last night I published an interview that I was lucky enough to do with the director of the documentary Murder Most Foul, director Jon Blair.Visit SA Rocks and read the interview here.
Absa takes no responsibility for fraud
I have just tried to log on to my Absa Internet banking. Not so much.I can log on, I enter my passwords and that's all fine. Then a disclaimer pops up with no option but to agree.The disclaimer says:
Absa has informed me and requested me on several occasions not to respond to any e-mail which requests me to supply me Internet Banking PIN, ATM PIN or any personal details including my Cellphone or e-mail addresses. Should I respond to an e-mail as described above and as a result thereof, fraud is committed on my account, I agree that I shall not hold Absa Bank Ltd liable for any loss/es which I may suffer.
And:
Absa has informed me about the risk of doing Internet Banking at public accessible computers as found in Internet Café's, Hotel Lobbies and even reputable public accessible Business Centres. These computers are often infested with spy ware that record your keystrokes and pass it on to a third party without your knowledge. Fraudsters use your account details to log on to your service and defraud you of your funds. I acknowledge and agree that in the event that I do my Internet Banking at public accessible computers and as a result thereof, my logon credentials are stolen and fraud is committed on my account, I shall not hold Absa Bank Ltd liable for any loss/es which I may suffer.
What a load of bullshit. There is no option but to accept these "terms" if you want to access your banking online. Done, finished, kla, over. Now I don't agree with this in any way. This is much like a big brother in society saying to the little guy (me): "I am big, I have money, and I take no responsibility if our systems are compromised."How? How can a bank the size of Absa take NO responsibility for their security and any breaches that occur while using THEIR system.This is easily one of the most cowardly things I have seen from a company. I log on to my banking at work, that is technically a public computer. So if I have a case of fraud on my account in the future, Absa can simply claim that I used a public computer and this is not any of their problem. What a load of shit.What do you think?
Google penalties can be lifted
A few weeks ago I posted about David Airey's Google penalty.He has just updated that post noting that the penalty was lifted and his Google rank has shot up and his hits have subsequently reflected this.Read his post and then continue reading this one.After reading his post a few things came to mind. Firstly Google Pagerank and search results are absolutely imperative to a successful blog. No shit. Secondly, to a certain extent Google can and does restrict bloggers, whether this is conscious or subconscious it is still happening.David is the perfect example and now I am questioning my tactics and what I do on my blogs.My concern is for SA Rocks. I ran a badge competition a while back and when the winner was announced I hoped that people would use the badge on their sites to show support for SA and how much it rocks. Simple.But is it possible that I could receive a penalty? Oh, wait, can I even blog about this or will it alert google's spam team to what I have done?There are ethics involved ofcourse. They must surely and hopefully do take in to account the intention of the blogger when he/she "broke" the rules.The last problem or concern I have with all of this is exactly what counts as "Black hat SEO" and exactly what is a "bad neighbourhood" to link to?There are some links that David provides to try and help with these issues; here and here
Behind the scenes: Sony Bravia bouncy ball advert
This is cool. The first shot that is shown with the initial ball dropping is incredible and sounds amazingly destructive.They used hundreds of thousands of balls. These dude... have balls:
Behind the scenes: Sony Bravia paint advert
The Sony Bravia paint advert went viral a while ago. I love this ad, the music is perfect the timing is great and everything works to get a point across.But many people questioned the reality of the advert. I heard many rumours of digital editing, photograph integration blah blah blah.Here is the proof behind the pudding. What happened behind the scenes is awesome and scary if it all went horribly wrong at some point.Like one of the people in the video said, it was a fireworks display but instead of lights, it used paint and liquid. Sheer brilliance:
Matchbox Twenty are back
This is some of the best news I have heard on a musical front in a while. I was bummed when they split and took a break and to be honest Rob Thomas never really had an effect on me without his band behind him - or maybe in front of him as it may be.Here is the new song from my favourite band when I was a teen. They make an immediate impression on me and it proves to me that the music they make wasn't a flash in the pan in my life but was truly great!Have a listen, what do you think?This song merges two of my favourite topics; music and politics. I am glad that MB20 has taken a serious look at life and the world and they are making bold and brave statements. Brilliant. Welcome back.
Kate Nash is holding on to the cracks in a foundation
I LOVE THIS SONG!!! I love her accent. The song is by Kate Nash and is called Foundations."They are much Fittah" - imagine the pome accent with that.This is a very cute and cool song. Very catching and well sung. It probably wont change the world but hey, I think it's different and makes me smile. Simple.
What has web 2.0 done to us? Passive time vs Active time
I just watched an interesting video over on Vinny's blog. A great video to watch inspite of the video itself being old.I picked out one very interesting concept from the video that caught my eye. This was the difference between what we did with our time before the "web2.0" boom and what we do with our time now.The difference is simple and quite profoundly true. Before the massive concept of User Generated Content (UGC) we would spend our free time passively. Watch TV, go to a pub, read a book. And sure we are still doing these things. But now we as a generation are much more active with out time.We blog, we interact on social networks, we create videos to upload and we search for any and all information using the search engines available to us. Everything is more active with nuances of "passive relief" in our daily habits.What I mean by passive relief is the need to break away from the activity. It is tiring earning YouTube, Myspace, Digg, Blogger, Facebook and others all their money. And I really mean that. As users we are earning all of these sites their cash. If we don't like a website or concept it will crash through lack of UGC. If we do, it booms and the creators get loaded. Simple.But invariably this will become web 2.0's antic disposition. The greatest strength and one of the distinct differences between web 2.0 and web 1.0 is UGC. What would YouTube be without user gerenated videos? It would me nothing, or it would be a media organisation employing people to produce video much like The Times here in SA.What do you think? Will UGC be the climax and downfall of web 2.0? Will there be a downfall of web 2.0? Or are you already on the bandwagon trying to create wealth via web 2.0?
Facebook makes me feel invisible
This is not a blog post about Facebook although Facebook is involved. This is a blog post about choices and the ramifications of the choices I have made.Let me begin at the start where all starts begin. I went to a single primary school from grade 1 to standard 3. I left in standard 3 for a girl - a friend - who wanted to leave my school. I went with her. I packed up my shit and left never to return to that school ever again.Yesterday I was perusing my minifeed on Facebook when I noticed some message about someone I used to know at my first primary school before I left. In fact, I didn't just know this girl, I was besotted with her back in the day and was very good friends with her.I started checking out some photos of hers from when we were in standards 2, 3, 4 and 5.I was invisible.I didn't feature in a single photo from that time. Hell, I was probably the guy taking some of the photos at that stage. But not a single photo was I a part of. This in some sense made me feel invisible. I felt as if, to these people, I never existed because I wasn't in recorded memory, Facebook or otherwise.This really made me wonder about my choices and decisions and how I have consistently been looking forward and not noticing who is looking at me and wondering where I went. This has become a trend in my life - this feels awfully honest - as I went from primary school to primary school, high school to Rhodes to my own company to a new job. At every choice I have left people behind.What happened to those people? What happened to me? And I wonder what life would be like if I had chosen to stay at my first primary school until my last year instead of cutting my time with those people short.
Who taught you how to...
I was thinking this morning - as you do - about things in general while driving to work. Then I realised the vast number of things that someone must have taught me how to do.So I am interested to know who taught you how to do things.People who taught me to:Sit while pooping - MomDrive - Driving instructorSmoke - Scott and PhilShave - BrotherType - BloggingDance - ErinDrink - SchoolSwear - SchoolThat's enough for my list.Who taught you how to swear? Or poop? Or smoke?
I am tired of hearing about Madeleine McCann
I am sorry if this comes across as cold and heartless. But do me a favour, please. This is ridiculous now. I am tired of seeing facebook groups and junk websites that are selling products for profit and sponsored by corporates.I don't even know how long this poor little girl has been missing for. In fact, I don't think it matters. This is a very simple matter of rich folk getting media attention for something that happens to poorer people everyday.Remember when Leigh Matthews was abducted a few years back? That hit the papers. In the same period of time a coloured girl from a less fortunate background was also abducted but never hit the papers. I don't even know her name. This is so typical and I am as much to blame as anyone else.It has now been a while since Maddy went missing. We have heard the soap opera-like stories on Sky and BBC and followed like gossip hungry voyeurs waiting for the parents to be convicted. Get over it. And for that matter, let's maybe try to focus our energy on the bazillion children that go missing everyday around the world. How bout starting a search for one of them - oh wait, did you hear that? That was another child going missing - instead of continuing to pump money and man hours in to a case that seems to be a run around.My basic point is this: It's been close on 160 days since Maddy went missing and we are still talking about it at dinner parties and on Facebook. Why do we, as South Africans, not talk about our own missing children with such intense opinion and vigour?
Is the Independant Electoral Commission in cahoots with Microsoft?
The Independant Electoral Commission has a website. But alas I don't know what is on that website because I run Mozilla Firefox (or netscape according the site). The content is restricted to Internet Explorer (IE) users only. ONLY.I have been very intrigued by the entire political structure and internal strife of late. As have many others. I studied politics at university and therefore take great interest in the way things work here in SA.Between Selebi, Pikoli, Zuma, Mbeki, Manto and the Zille all making headlines in the last few weeks things could not be more interesting right now. With these sort of political headlines comes debate. Very heated and political debate. I decided that I should visit the Independant Electoral Commissions (IEC) website and see what they have to say about things. But I digress.Apparently what they have to say is not a whole lot unless you are a Microsoft supporter and you run IE.Now my major issue with this is that as a governmental organisation you should make absolutely all of your information available to absolutely everyone in your country. This should be law.In fact it is law in some places such as the United Kingdom, it is law.
1. Statement of commitment1.1. The BBC is committed to making its output as accessible as possible to all audiences (including those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments) to fulfil its public service mandate and to meet its statutory obligations defined by the Disability Discrimination Act.1.2. Unless it can be shown to be technically or practically impossible, all content MUST be made accessible.
This is a brilliant, practical, necessary and smart idea. I think that it is absolutely absurd that anyone in SA or around the world who uses FireFox, Opera, Netscape, Safari or anything other than IE cannot access information relating to the IEC.
SA blogs on Blogrush?
Has anyone seen a South African blog on BlogRush?I haven't.
UPDATE: So as I posted this and then refreshed the page, there it was - Anja Merret - the first SA blog that I have seen on blogrush. Joy
10 tips to help climate change
This is an issue extremely important to me. I am passionate about the environmental issues that humanity is facing right now. There is nothing really more important. Religion, race, class, politics, it all ends if we screw up Earth.Yes, it's a fair argument to say that unless politics, race, religion, class, capitalism etc are all resolved then environmental issues will be simpler to solve - hypothetically.Why am I blogging about this? In my opinion one of the reasons that people aren't working effectively every day to solve the problem of global warming and climate change is because they are ignorant about the topic. The topic is a fairly complicated one and can become cumbersome if you let it.This site does not let it become complicated. Design Can Change is a well designed flash site that is centered around educating people and helping them to change their ways. Simple, effective and one that Al Gore would just relish.Get there now and start changing your ways.
Here are ten simple, easy, quick, everyday tips to help you start making a difference:Change a light - Replacing a regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent one saves 150 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.*Drive less - Walk, bike, take mass transit, and/or trip chain.Recycle more and buy recycled - Save up to 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide each year just by recycling half of your household waste.Check your tires - Properly inflated tires mean good gas mileage.Use less hot water - It takes a lot of energy to heat water.Avoid products with a lot of packaging - Preventing waste from being created in the first place means that there is less energy wasted and fewer resources consumed.Adjust your thermostatPlant a tree - A single tree can absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.Turn off electronic devices when not in use - Simply turning off your TV, VCR, computer and other electronic devices can save each household thousand of pounds of carbon dioxide each year.Stay informed - Use the Earth 911 Web site to help stay informed about environmental issues, and share your knowledge with others. Together, we can and do Make Every Day Earth Day!More tips like these and other great information available at Earth 911.And one more for good measure:CARPOOL - try to find people in your office who live close to you and carpool. Get in the car with more than one person. One car is better than four.