Eskom, South Africa’s state-run energy company has begun initiating rolling blackouts throughout the country from up to four hours a day! Honestly, what the hell? How is Africa’s strongest and most advanced nation, with a GDP responsible for 1/3 that of the whole continent’s, suffering from the worst energy crisis around? South Africa is the only country in the region with any appeal to the first world and they can’t even control their electricity. The company has stated that the blackouts are scheduled to last until 2013. I don’t understand how the nation is supposed to thrive and attract foreign investment when office buildings are going to be shut down for hours a day. But lets take a look at a side issue for a moment-the physical danger of it all. Sure hospitals and other emergency organisations might have power generators, but what about homes? Electricity turns off, alarm systems disconnect, and electric gates stop closing-all of sudden you’re at risk of a robbery. How are people supposed to be kept safe when the electrical company has already stated that homes in specific regions will have their energy cut off during this specific time?
Back to the foreign investment issue; why would people invest in a nation that’s unable to support it’s business? It makes absolutely no sense and it’s just a plain and simple embarrassment for a nation that’s looked at by some as first world. The country needs to find a real solution to this problem very soon otherwise their issues are just going to get worse, permanently.
FIFA World Cup 2010 is right around the corner, let’s just hope the government doesn’t forget that.
Is this the reason why hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed? It seems like that to to me and it seems like it was a mistake. The reasoning behind the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was covered up with this excuse: “We’re bringing democracy to the Middle-East.”
If this is what democracy has brought to the poor Iraqis of the country, than I think they would rather live without it. How have they benefited from it in any case? Their real life problems have been worsened by this American conquest into the Middle-East. And for what? The right to vote? That means absolutely nothing when you can barely afford food. The previous government might have been a dictatorial one, but at least it was stable and it kept a better standard of living for it’s inhabitants than the current one which has little-to-no actual control over the country.
United States politicians, both Democrat and Republican, bicker over the war all day long but none of them ever forget to point to the government and say, “we’ve made some progress.”
No you have haven’t. You haven’t made any progress because this government is so incapable of doing anything, it’ll have to be completely torn down, rebuilt and given much more control – and in that sense, it’s taken a step in the exact opposite direction. Before any forwardness is made, a strong Federal government is needed. A very strong one with far more control over the nation than the current one. Sounds a bit like the last government only a bit more oligarchic? Well that’s what I was going for. That’s the only type of system that will work in that region successfully and people need to realise that. The politicians have, which is why they privately finance most of them, they just know you haven’t and use that as an excuse to garner manipulated support from those who are less aware.
Not much to say about this one, looks like iRiver came out with another nice mp3 player. Unfortunately the video doesn’t turn the power of the device on so we don’t get to see how the interface looks and works but it’s appearance is very up-to-date. The screen is large-a feature not many portable mp3 players have so that’s nice and the spin-scroll is very unique. I’m not sure how well that’ll work out but if it’s anything like the iPod scroll wheel, it should work well.
Oh, my, God. Can someone just tell me what’s the need for such a huge television? No, wait, I got it, it’s awesome!
Panasonic showcased their 150″ plasma television at this years Consumer Electronics Show. And get this, the television still manages a 4000 x 2000 pixel resolution with double the brightness and a 50% less energy. They say they had to fly them here on a Boeing 747 because of the gigantic size of this 8′ by 11′ widescreen. It seems like the Bug Labs post right below is a bit dull compared to this…
Anyways, I guess we now just have to wait for Best Buy to start carrying them and hope they offer installation on this beast.
It’s never a dull year at CES. This time, a small company called Bug Labs stole all the attention. Their new super customizable, all-in-one gadget is just purely genius. Just purchase the base and connect all the extra devices you want. The best thing is that it’s open-source so everyone can create programs for it and third-party devices just gives it infinite possibility. Although the base is a few hundred, the devices will only range from $49 to $99 (at launch-set to go up thereafter) and though those add-ons can add up, having the convenience of all your electronic devices in one piece is worth the cost. And because of all the third-party involvement, getting more for your money will definitely have it’s place here.
So now new US Intelligence says that Iran’s NOT attempting to construct a nuclear bomb and it hasn’t been since 2003! Am I the only one who finds this extravagantly ridiculous? These past two years have been filled with propaganda by the United States Government (what else is new…) playing on our fear of nuclear annihilation. US Intelligence says that the new information was gathered back in August and it looks like the President hasn’t been admitting what he knew for 3 months up until now. I think it’s quite obvious that the government has been stretching this issue much further than need be… I wonder if they have another agenda? hmm…
In any case, it seems like the world is now safe from doomsday today-thanks to America.
Though I guess it probably would have been better to trust Iran, Russia, and the United Nations’ IAEA when it was stated that there’s “no information that Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.”
One year ago yesterday, Microsoft released it’s latest operating system: Windows Vista, and I think it’s safe to say that it didn’t do much for personal computing. Microsoft spent years in development of Vista only to see it’s release full of widespread criticism and as a user of Windows Vista, I can say that the criticism is well deserved.
When Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and Windows 95, they revolutionised the computing industry. But as time progressed, their progress slowed down dramatically-remember Windows ME? I mean, could that have been any worse? Well that’s what Vista is to us today. Full of ridiculous, failed security measures like User Account Control that brings up a message any time you want to launch a program with no way to configure it, all the way to the still infamous Blue Screen of Death.
(And on a side, I just wanna add, how have they not fixed that yet!? It’s been like a decade!)
Microsoft says that they’ve shipped twice as many copies of Windows Vista than they did Windows XP at the time of its release, but that’s not anything to brag about. It’s not like Windows XP was this crazy revolutionary software that changed the way we look at computers today. I think Linux did that.
Vista is all eye candy. Sure they may have added some stuff, they may have made things easier to set up and browse to, and they may have even added some new useful features, but overall, it still sucks.
If you have Windows XP, do not switch over quite yet. I did and now I’m full of regret. Everything looks great-but that’s about it. It’s even less stable than XP was (and we still had to restart XP every few days just to get it going again). We’ll see if Service Pack 1 does anything for the OS but looking at the past updates, it’s not going to bring about the change that it needs.
So the IDF strikes again…
It’s not like this is brand new news. Things like this happen constantly throughout Israel and the Occupied (Yes, Occupied, not Disputed) Territories. Making it ridiculously difficult to obtain a housing permit for Palestinians, demolishing their homes, restricting their movement, and basically implementing martial law on them, are just some of the crimes committed by the Israeli government towards it’s own inhabitants. Sure there are atrocities committed on both sides, but unfortunately here in the US, we only get one side of the story thanks to large Israeli lobbies (AIPAC, for example). And it’s not just large organizations that are influencing our media, it’s our political figures as well. The US is the largest supporter of Israel by far and if you look carefully, you’ll see how much the United States as a country supports this government. Another example is the number of United Nations Security Council Resolutions that the US has vetoed that all regard that region. If you look on the world spectrum, there’s a much more balanced view of what’s actually occurring.
There’s so much more to say that I can’t just type up all in this blog. For more information, a great documentary is Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land. The whole video is in that link which is uploaded on Google Video. And there’s also a book written by former United States President Jimmy Carter called Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
Now that the poppy population in Afghanistan has decreased tremendously, here comes a new problem: marijuana. But looking deeper, this isn’t really the fault of the country’s people. Considering most of them struggle just to make ends-meat, it’s quite understandable how they resort to growing and selling drugs. The cost of replanting their crops with something more on the lines of food along with the resale price of it, thereafter, just makes it infeasible. What the government (with foreign help) need to do, is not just curve the growth of drugs by going to farms and destroying the plants, but provide an actual replacement to growing these illegal substances so it permanently stops.
I’ve always felt that Apple creates the best technology in its field, though I was never a huge fan of the Macintosh operating system. The OS restricts me from many things that I would like to do on Windows, all for safety and stability. And overall, it’s not that great.
However, lately I think all that’s changed. The new Mac OS X has an awesome architecture and Leopard just seems plain awesome (with the exception of the number of installation problems that’s been reported). And now in my later years, I think I would sacrifice whatever I would with Windows just to avoid that dreaded blue screen of death, Windows Explorer crashes, and just for the overall ease of use. Cracking things and customization in the craziest of ways is in my past. Plus, all of the Apple laptops are just plain awesome. They come with awesome hardware and a very slick design.
Overall, you just can’t beat Apple. They’re #1 in everything these days and they’re $180.00 stock shows it.
