Three Men On a Boat

I have to admit that I have an addiction of some sort to news. OK maybe the word addiction is a bit more hectic than the fact you see... But I spend a lot of moments watching the news. I fall asleep to the news and wake up to, yes u guessed right, the news.

And why do I watch the news? Cause it makes me money. I caught myself quite by accident watching the news and thinking hmmm, I could make money from that and by that I mean copious amounts of money. And not from business news. But I see money in things that have nothing to do with money. Well not directly anyway.

Not that I am going to go down the John Bredenkamp route and decide to be the real-life version of the Lord of War. Just for the record I am not discounting that but what the heck? I see money everywhere.

It is the onerous burden of being an entrepreneur. Well I don't really like to think of myself as that but more like an inventor. I provoke life into a reaction and it rushes after me. Only that it goes in circles around me till it gets dizzy and falls asleep. Then I make off with the lottery.

Ah then one day I get asked why the hell was I doing that and I dont have the answer. Well I might have the answer but it could get me into a lot of trouble.

Labels: news and money

So it is common cause that people get into relationships and then get out because that is the way things happen. You liked her once then you found out that she had a serious case of halitosis or she snored really loud that she was really horrible in bed and you moved on. What the fuck? Shit happens.

So anyway as it happens the thing they call the ex happened upon me this past weekend. I was walking and boom she enters with what I assume to be her new squeeze. I smile and wave, politely and she does so in a way that seemed to indicate she was hoping for a bigger reaction than that.

So what did I do? I was like yeah whatever. I was alone so let her feel as if she has won. Except she is staring at me and I have no idea. Hmm, hello she is like hello some more and she seems to wat to spend minutes with me and I am thinking why the fuck? Of course new beau is super-irritated by the fact that, ah well u know what? And I am like what do u do when they do that? And why does she that.

Yeah she was a good screw but surely she needs to be trying to show off her new situation. But guess what? She is still a good screw

Labels: the case of the ex

So then the thing that is happening now. You know? That thing that they call the Government of National err, yeah that thing. Yeah well it has gotten a bit complicated for the NGO people because the money is about to dry up

So they have to become more creative and come up with other reasons to start new things to get money. You have a whole lot people arranging a lot of events now and giving them weird terms such as workshops and festivals and conferences and spending copious amounts of money on these things. It is a bit tired I will tell you that. What can I say? It isn't the easiest being me is it?

I mean how do people get so out of step it becomes a but silly. You have to think about the dangerous zone that you get into cause you get into the little black book yeah? And alas you don't need the little black book. There is no real direction is there? And what do I care? I am just the simple version of me making scars where there was peace before. What do I do

I am not sure but when I wake up tomorrow, it will be great, maybe. Oh gosh I have gone, so off-topic

Labels: ngo, zimbabwe

I stood outside OK Fife Avenue and picked out five chryslers straight off the bat. Yes five. This felt like one of the those things that are mentioned in one of Jay-Z's songs and I was like damn! What the hell?

You see the Zimbabwe government recently said that they were too broke to get a few things done to fix the economy. Yes. Too broke to do anything. And yet here I was looking at five chryslers. And I am not talking about dodgy knock-off chryslers. I am talking about the sort that have a cool sounding name and are rumoured to be able to do the whole space travel thing - approved by Sir Richard Branson of course.

And fr those who are in the know this is not upmarket area. This is the Avenues. Ok there is the fancy side on the other side of Greenwood Park but come on people. This is vulgar.

But I am not about to hate them. They do what they have to do. So ah well

Labels: vulgar Zimbabwe

So Zimbabwe is now attempting to catch up with the rest of the world in as far as technology is concerned. It is common cause that the cellphone networks are piss-poor at best and only connect better now because noone who earns a salary or otherwise can afford to make a cal at the current rates.

That aside Econet Wireless which is the biggest network is rolling out a commercial version of their gprs platform which has been in beta testing for the past 226 years.

I have been using it for the past month and it seems alright for checking, say the mobile facebook group but it isnt good for much else. When used in a modem you will get a response but nothing to write home about.

Because it is competing with voice it is only barely usable now because not many people are making calls now. But what happens when you have a high subscription? It becomes one of those services that are there but are a joke. But then the Zimbabwean customer has never been known to complain about service so they will accept whatever they get and move on. right?

However the qualm I have is the pricing. At 84 dollars it is very expensive. The fact that service is pretty shit aside it is expensive. I guess the target market is not those who need it the most but those who have the money to use it.

Labels: econet gprs

In France a bill has been tabled to combat copyright infringement by way of illegal downloads by pirates of material that is held under copyright. France has been one of the few countries that has generally allowed downloading to go almost unchecked but this bill has a three strikes system. The first is an email warning, then a postal warning followed by a suspension from the use of Internet services for a period of time.
This has come with a lot of opposition from rights activists including members of the European Parliament have protested this measure on the grounds of it being called highly repressive and far reaching. The main sticking points have been the face that the person who owns the Internet link is the one who is going to be penalised and the cost to policing this.
What this essentially means is that if one’s smart aleck neighbour were to hack into a link they could download illegal content and they would not be in trouble for it. The person who owns the link would then suffer for this. And given that nowadays in France, the internet, phone and tv are connected when it comes to your communication this will mean a blackout. Beyond that what we will have is a very real Big Brother situation where there is a direct control over how people behave instead of adapting to it.
Then when it comes to policing it the whole thing, the Internet Service Providers will have to fork out ten million euros to have the systems in place. What are the implications here? The bill doesn’t seem to ask that question. What happens when you have that sort of access to how a person behaves on the net? And what does it mean for costs that will be passed to the user because of copyright infringement which might not even be an interest significant section of the population. With the government planning to cut a number of users per day this could result in very significant losses for service providers as well.
The reality is that instead of adapting to the behavioural cycles of human beings the entertainment industry finds itself out of step. For example people like to watch things on dvd as soon as possible and having to wait six months - in some cases even more – is just not a good system.

In point of fact the entertainment industry is not trying to catch users where they are looking. Instead of adapting they want to limit access which defeats the purpose of copyright. Copyright after all was meant to assign from the state a monopoly over work by a creator for a period of time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in illegal download but up to a certain point. I think a lot of money is going to be used to fight technology when that money could be used to find ways of working with it.

So the threat is there. The threat to the way you live. If the entertainment industry had it their way, we would all be using vinyl and watching movies on prehistoric technology.

The coffee is stinking the whole place. They just don’t want to smell it.

Labels: france copyright law

3mob extends condolences to the Prime Minister, his family, the Governement and people of Zimbabwe on the tragic death of Mrs Susan Tsvangirai.

Though largely living her life privately Mrs Tsvangirai presented herself with grace as she served her husband and the country well.

may she rest in peace

Labels: Tsvangirai condolences