Category: Fire (Social)

Reading yet another article on the woes of the American car manufacturers, I was struck by how their own short-sightedness and reliance on gas-guzzlers has come back to bite them. The generalisation is that the European manufacturers have concentrated on improving fuel efficiency by focusing on diesel, the Asian manufacturers by focusing on petrol, with… Continue reading The woes of GM and Ford

Woolworths has always been far ahead of the other big retailers when it comes to transparency, labelling, and removing contentious products. They’ve been quite progressive for example in removing anything containing MSG from some of their stores. Here’s a list of Woolworths products that may contain GM material, as supplied by Woolworths customer care to… Continue reading Woolworths food that’s possibly genetically modified.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Sadly my misleading headline from March proved not so misleadings, and 20Twenty may really coming to an end. Do I really have to go back to one of the abysmal big four? Standard and Chartered seem to be acting like headless chickens with this move. Buy up 20Twenty, then realise they’ve made a mistake… Continue reading 20Twenty no more, take 2

Yes, I still like Telkom. It’s been 8 fairly event-free months, with nothing more than the usual monthly daylight robbery. However, I recently gratefully received another lesson in anger management. As many of you know, I’m moving. No, not to Observatory, the signature was never forthcoming, and the slimy landlord (how I love to say… Continue reading Sweet, sweet Telkom

Via Global Voices, I came across a post that got me thinking. At first I found myself agreeing with the sentiments, but then I began to reconsider. The post, by Gil. C. Schmidt, was entitled Eager to Be Slaves, about Puerto Rican propensity for credit. The basic gist was that people buy too much on… Continue reading Debt as slavery?

I didn’t manage to make it in person, but the draft of proceedings from the recent FLOSS and Free Knowledge Workshop 2 is now available in PDF format. You can also look at details of previous events on the Free Knowledge website.

I had an enjoyable evening meeting one of those all-too rare inspirational people. We were meeting about a project that sounded fascinating to me (as if I don’t have enough of them), a mix of IT and sustainable living. The person I met was full of knowledge in the field, and at one stage I… Continue reading Inspirational People

The South African series of The Apprentice finished on Thursday. I don’t want much TV, but managed to become engrossed in both the American and South African versions. I was struck by the differences between the two shows. When the American version finished, I was disappointed to hear Tokyo Sexwale would be doing a South… Continue reading The Apprentice: South African and US versions compared

In a few years, people will look back at the era of drinking Coke in the same way as people look back at drilling holes through the head to cure headaches. The stuff is addictive end extremely harmful, especially to kids. Of course it tastes sweet, which is the attraction, and contains caffeine, which is… Continue reading Bye bye sugar water

I recently finished a book called The Vegetable Passion, or, The Passionate Vegetable as I keep calling it in my head, bringing to mind all sort of activities with cucumbers etc. It’s a fairly old book, first published in 1975, and is a meandering discussion of various famous vegetarians, as well as vegetarian movements. Of… Continue reading The Vegetable Passion