Zeitgeist
It’s a worthwhile 2 hours, reminds me of this superb doco.
House of Cards
More out-of-the-ordinary from Radiohead with this vid.
In Radiohead’s new video for “House of Cards”, no cameras or lights were used. Instead, 3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects. The video was created entirely with visualizations of that data.
Oscar Pistorius still charging
Fantastic news for Oscar, he gets the green light to compete with able body athletes, sprinting around a track at the highest level.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport have ruled against an IAAF ruling to prevent him competing in the Olympics. His personal best time for 400m is 46.5 secs and he [...]
Tragedy in my Street
In the early hours of this morning my neighbour attacked her children with a knife, and then ended her own life. The child with the worst injuries has now stabilised in hospital, and the other 2 are OK. My best wishes to the family as they deal with this horrific tragedy.
From SMH ‘Deadly [...]
Flight of the Conchords
New Zealand’s finest – these guys are brilliant. Here’s a compilation of their best of youtube, in order of funniness (IMHO):
Seth Godin on Urgency
Seth’s blog is one of those I always try to read – he’s someone who not only always talks sense, but also articulates what he says succinctly.
I wanted to share something from his latest post regarding ‘fire-fighting’ which is a trap we all get caught in, in many spheres of our lives. This has [...]
Go Johnny
Johnny Clegg is a South African legend. He’s also known as the ‘white zulu’ and for good reason. This is a wonderful remake of one of his old songs, with many prominent SA artists. It’s followed by another SA video, set to Toto’s ‘Africa’ and tries to tell a short story of [...]
Eish, where to now South Africa?
20,000 murders a year, people living in fear, bribery and corruption, electricity problems, investors looking elsewhere, skilled people leaving. And a new leader with no moral compass. The list goes on, and it seems that in the last 6 months the bad news has increased dramatically.
South Africa has been an example of reconciliation [...]
Sorry for stealing your children
Today Australia said sorry for the ’stolen generations’ . Rudd is doing all the right things (Kyoto, education, this), and I couldn’t be more pleased that Labour won this election. It’s no surprise John Howard was the only surviving PM of Australia not present today. The speech was heartfelt and I think really [...]
Matt Mullenweg Interview
Matt talks about Automattic’s new $30m capital injection and the direction of the company.
Your browser does not support JavaScript. This media can be viewed at http://www.podtech.net/home/4899/automattics-mullenweg-on-funding-and-futures
Our Weapons were our Instruments
I just got back from a Cat Empire open-air concert in Sydney. They are an inspired act, innovative and brilliant. They were supported by Ash Grunwald, Blue King Brown and The Beautiful Girls (3 blokes) – all fantastic.
This is a quick ‘n dirty vid from the concert, as well as some [...]
Hello - The Cat Empire: Clem Sunter talks China and SA
Clem Sunter is considered a real guru in South Africa, but also in many other parts of the world. He has fantastic insights and a real global vision. One of my favourite examples of his work is this letter to Dubya, which was published 3 months before 9/11.
This podcast is mostly about China [...]
Alternate domain extensions
Ever felt frustrated that you can’t find a .com for the domain you have in mind? I know I have – many times. Although .net, .org etc are becoming more acceptable, they are easy to get wrong and they’re definitely second place to a .com
Matt announced today that he has transferred his personal [...]
Wordpress set for Act 2
Automattic announced on Tuesday that they’ve raised $30m in additional funding, and this includes an increased stake by the NY Times. This is fantastic news. Automattic’s most famous product is of course Wordpress, but they have developed other great open source products too, and clearly plan to do a helluva lot more. [...]
Goodbye Sir Ed
We all have some childhood heroes, my first was Edmund Hillary. I first came across Sir Ed at something like 8 years old when I was a keen cub scout. I got an audio tape for christmas that discussed the adventures of many explorers on Everest – Mallory, Irvine and of course Sir [...]
TIME’s Best website of 2007
I couldn’t agree more with the best website in one of TIME’s 50 top 10 lists of 2007.
You setup your virtual “stand” filled with products you’d recommend to friends. Add the widget to your Facebook, MySpace or blog pages and when purchases are made through your site, you receive 5% to 15% of the cost of [...]
Watch how they grow
I maintain an album on my kids – 1 pic month by month. This plugin will go to my picasa album and bring the live update, so as I add months it will update. Nice, except doesn’t bring the titles – so each click is one month.
A Boy
A Girl
William Kamkwamba from Malawi
William is an inspiration in Malawi, changing things one windmill at a time. He’s been written about in the WSJ, and caught the attention of the right people who can help him make even more of a difference.
First seen on Afrigadget, his own blog is here
MTB’ing beautiful Sydney trails
Since I’ve been recovering from some broken bones, I miss riding my bike so very much. Something’s definitely missing. I (in red) filmed this for Grant (Trailflix) with my mate Seb some months ago so since I am in a ‘retro’ mood thought I may drop it in.
This is a highlights reel of one trail [...]
Rednecks the World Over
I am vehemently against racism. Growing up during apartheid in South Africa, just about everybody I know is too – nobody can stand bigots and racists.
I heard a story yesterday that reminded me no matter where you go, you will always find a few.
Pigs’ heads on stakes draped in an Australian flag were placed at [...]
The Chaser nails APEC
I love the chaser, this is the funniest public thing I’ve seen in ages – they have cajones. Tore apart the multi-million $ APEC security – total Sydney lockdown with snipers everywhere, and got metres from dubya’s hotel.
Huge Emboeresment. I love the way people (in Aus) like the chaser can go up to the PM [...]
Lucky Dube killed
South African Reggae Muso was killed during a hijacking while dropping his son off. A huge loss for South Africa, the world and for Reggae.
Zim (snot)klap Aus
I was watching a sports news program on Aus tv this week, and one of the topics was the upcoming 20/20 match against Zim.
apu, the aussie commentators sniggered and chuckled at this encounter, expecting the literally hungry Zimbo’s to get annihilated. What a pleasure then, that they moered them – by 5 wickets. In [...]
Hemp for a Healthy Planet
Informative and interesting overview of the capability and sustainability of Hemp.
Tony Budden of Hemporium, a South African company that specializes in the multifarious products that can be made from hemp, talks about the environmental, nutritional, industrial, social and spiritual benefits of using hemp to provide us with almost all of our everyday products. These range [...]
Condom Bribe
5 Million people in SA are infected with HIV, about 10% of the population – a massive problem, especially given the uneducated population on balance. Every year the govt. distributes millions of condoms to control HIV and the birth rate. A few years ago, I recall that millions of condoms were distributed with a leaflet [...]
Eina
I went for a ride with my mate Seb last week – the 2 gorges. About 30k down and we started the descent down into Berowra Waters. I’ve been riding bikes for 20 years, and as an experienced rider I don’t expect to make stupid beginner mistakes. Sure I wipe out going for stuff on [...]
19,202 murders in one year
Staggering. But true, 19,202 people murdered in South Africa from 1/4/06 to 31/3/07 (that’s more than 2 every hour). During the same period 126,558 violent robberies (these are official SAPS crime stats btw). Luckily, there were ‘only’ 52,617 rapes, a 5% decrease.
The Awesome Lyre Bird
Incredible animal. Sadly ironic. Take the time to get to the really interesting sound imitations..
June Blogwatch
Here are a few fanblogsmic posts from (the month of) June. Click back when you’re done for the next ‘un:-
Excellent production on internet pornography stats
(see that got you interested)
Brilliantly written article, and right on the money regarding some of the issues faced by all South Africans today
Robin Williams talks of the real reasons behind suicide [...]
Paul wins!
Well what a happy story, I posted this the other day, and now he’s won the competition – signed a million dollar record deal and no longer works at carphone warehouse. Life changed forever.
The audio in these clips is not as good as the original, and a bit more of the same (but completes the [...]
Non-racist plasters
Why didn’t I think of this? Isn’t it funny that every time you come across a clever new product you think that? It’s just so obvious. Ebon-aide will make a fortune from this. I wonder if they can patent this? Then Elastoplast will be feeling a big pinch. Hey where’d my money go?
Source
The Blue Room
It’s incredible how far the so called ‘internet’ has come over the last 2 years. There is so much cool stuff out there nowadays, and this is another example.
I watched a live webcast over the weekend – artists like the White Stripes, Franti, John Butler, Lily Allen etc etc – all performing their sets [...]
Coffee-table PC
Lots of cool applications for this technology still to come I’m sure. Just in it’s infancy now, but imagine running all your media from this, connecting wirelessly with your TV and other AV equipment. Streaming internet etc, all managed with your fingers – no clunky keyboards and mice etc. This will be cool – but [...]
A bit of Opera
When I saw this video start, I thought it was going to be funny – you see this oke, then Simon Cowell, and think ‘yeah right’. Now watch it:
And then I got goosebumps. On the second watch I felt my eyes welling up. Then I wanted to hug him. Damn! And I hate opera. Wow. [...]
Song of 2007
Quite easily the song of the year, no matter what comes for the next half. Here are the lyrics to wail along to as you listen to the tune. shit hot.
Icky Thump Lyrics
Here’s an older interview with Jack and Meg – thank god they’re not from the U2 etc mould – hope we can see [...]
Speed climbing
Dan Osman climbs this 400ft wall (rated 5.7) in 4.5mins without ropes. Incredible – real life spiderman. He makes it look so easy.
Greatest guitarists of all time
Rolling Stone’s 100 best of all time. But where’s Slash?
1Jimi Hendrix
2 Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band
3 B.B. King
4 Eric Clapton
5 Robert Johnson
6 Chuck Berry
7 Stevie Ray Vaughan
8 Ry Cooder
9 Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin
10 Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones
11Kirk Hammett of Metallica
12 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana
13 Jerry Garcia of the Grateful [...]
Jolene (White Stripes)
Seems Icky isn’t available for the rest of us non-americanos for now. We’ll wait and see.
Instead, this live version of ‘Jolene’ is an incredible rendition. I couldn’t believe that it was a Dolly Parton cover, but it really is. Here’s her original.
Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, with ivory [...]
Icky Thump (White Stripes)
The Icky Thump video gets released today and with any luck it should show up here. The new album gets released mid-june. Can’t wait (F11 maximises as you know!)
Icky Thump Lyrics
What’s become of Plett??
Let me tell you about ‘Plett‘. Plettenburg Bay (as it was known to only hardcore clutch-plates) is a place of happy memories.
Plett was a guiding mid-year light for us at school. We went to Plett at December too, but the June/July holidays were always Plett time. The surf was solid then and the crowds were [...]
Oregan gets a new arsehole
Oregan Hoskins, the head of SA rugby has a new arsehole torn for him by John Robbie. How does a man like this get the top job in SA rugby?!?
Battle at Kruger
Lion, Buffalo and Crocs all battle it out, with a few unexpected twists
"I’m not disabled, I just don’t have any legs."
What a great story – Oscar Pistorius runs the 200m in under 22 seconds – that’s bliksem vinnig. He had his legs amputated at age 1 after he was born without fibula’s. He candidly states that it’s never stopped him from playing the sports he wanted to play. They include rugby, tennis and water-polo. (check [...]
574 kmh on a train
This is amazing ingenuity- 574.8km/h on a train! Take the ride
574,8 Km/h World rail speed record 2007Uploaded by V150_
SA Docs are the best
(Click pic for larger image) There’s no brain-drain in SA, and this proves it – where in the world can you find medical professionals so widely skilled? I challenge you!
Confused Sperm #2
Now this poor guy is seriously confused. A very clever ad for the Oslo Gay Festival
Clever Wonderbra ad
Very good ad – cheap and effective. And eye-catching
Tomorrow’s Child
Tomorrow’s Child
Without a name; an unseen face
and knowing not your time nor place
Tomorrow’s Child, though yet unborn,
I met you first last Tuesday morn.
A wise friend introduced us two,
and through his shining point of view
I saw a day which you would see;
A day for you, and not for me.
Knowing you has changed my thinking
for I never [...]
There’s no oil in Zimbabwe
copied from Crikey!As the US and its allies squirm in Iraq, an unfolding political/humanitarian/totalitarian crisis presided over by an equally nasty dictator plays out with barely a murmur from the protectors of freedom in the West. Its name is Zimbabwe and his name is President Robert Mugabe.
What’s happening is nothing less than a “total [...]
Google maps Australia
Google maps down under is launched – a great resource, including Australian business listings, driving directions, and support for Google Mobile Maps in Australia
http://maps.google.com.au/
Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold
Anyone who think it was a fluke when he chipped Seaman from halfway should check this out. Genius
NYC Bike couriers
This is a great clip (7mins). Poetic urban biking. Dig the soundtrack from Broken Social Scene too. I read some of the comments on youtube berating the ‘inconsiderate’ cyclists. Frankly cities should be built considering bikes too. They are the most efficient and environmentally-friendly transport ever invented by man and if [...]
Driving skills in India
I’m really not sure if these are the world’s worst or best drivers. They are certainly pretty skilled. My mate tells me they drive like this all over India – and the crazy thing is almost no accidents. Up to now I thought Lima and Cairo were the worst I’d seen personally, but this kills [...]
Top Ten Nat. Geo 06 Vids
Some of these are excellent. Check #1 – Octopus takes the shark out. #4 is shocking.
10. Kitty Cam Reveals Killers in Our MidstIs your furry bundle of joy an invasive ecological disaster? Get a cat’s-eye view of one pet’s nightly prowl to see how effectively kitty can kill. 9. Antarctica’s Big MeltdownA study released in [...]
Oil, Smoke and Mirrors
“Oil, Smoke & Mirrors” is an independent doco on peak oil, 9/11 & the war on terror.
This is well worth checking out and will keep you engaged for the full 50 minutes I guarantee you. There are 2 key global issues facing the world today, and they are the same 2 issues ignored by governments [...]
SA Quotes of the week
“If criminals tata ma-chance they must be prepared to tata ma-bullets – and in this case they took many bullets.” – Gauteng police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo when police shot dead four armed men and wounded six in Soweto after a bank robbery.
“There are two jobs in South Africa that every person in the country [...]
Critical Mass Sydney
Mass was well attended on Friday 24 November. Starting in Hyde Park, the riders snaked through the city, and were held up briefly at the entrance to the bridge until everyone was together. Then it was onto the bridge – another stop for the bike salute.
The ride completed at the noodle markets in North [...]
Vaude Highland Fling 2006
The fling has been flung, and I’ve never been so happy to be average. The midweek mayhem crew rode Dirtworks in May in around 8 hours, and we finished this one in just over 7 hours. Given the training I’ve done, and the fact that cancer sticks still rule me, I must think 6.5 hours [...]
