Friday Laugh – EXCELLENT BEE Ford Bantam ad
Thanks to Cheese for this Friday laugh – watch to the end. We’re not sure if it’s a spoof or a viral campaign by Ford – we await the response. It’s probably illegal to show it so watch while you can! BEE in the flesh....
Need a de-stresser? Try this!
We’ve spoken before about what you can do online without going offline to de-stress you when the going gets tough… This game has got to be the BEST online de-stresser we have found in ages. It’s called BOOMSHINE by Danny Miller and is in essence a game of total fluke where you try to click at the right moment in the right place to cause a literal and really mesmerizing ‘ripple effect’. Sounds weird? Do yourself a favour – next time you’re stressed but can’t leave your desk or switch your computer off and you just need 20 minutes of distraction without having to read or write anything – play BOOMSHINE HERE. Remember to switch the sound off – click on the speaker before you start – it stops the music and makes a delightful ping noise…or wear headphones – the very calming pings to you may be very irritating to your colleagues. 🙂 PS: We find when we blur the eyes a bit it helps in the tougher rounds...
MIT OpenCourseWare – free courses on the web!
So you’ve heard of MIT right? Otherwise known as the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology, it’s one of the most respected and renowed science and technology institutes in the world, let’s just call it brilliant boffin-land. It’s any scientist techno-geek’s dream university and the best news is that you can now access the MIT coursework online for FREE! Wikipedia gives us the official profile: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on theoretical, applied, and interdisciplinary scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities as well as a sea-grant and space-grant university. MIT’s endowment and annual research expenditures are among the largest of any American university. MIT graduates and faculty are noted for their technical acumen (63 Nobel Laureates and 29 MacArthur Fellows as of October 2006), entrepreneurial spirit (a 1997 report claimed that the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT affiliates would make it the twenty-fourth largest economy in the world) and irreverence. SO anyway, MIT have now made most of their course material available online under their MIT OPENCOURSEWARE program: MIT OCW’s goals are to: Provide free, searchable, access to MIT’s course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world. Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the “opencourseware” concept. Here are the departments you can access: Aeronautics and Astronautics Anthropology Architecture Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation Biological Engineering Biology Brain and Cognitive Sciences Chemical Engineering Chemistry Civil and Environmental Engineering Comparative Media Studies Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Economics Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Engineering Systems Division Experimental Study Group Foreign Languages and Literatures Health Sciences and Technology History Linguistics and Philosophy Literature Materials Science and Engineering Mathematics Mechanical Engineering Media Arts and Sciences Music and Theater Arts Nuclear Science and Engineering Physics Political Science Science, Technology, and Society Sloan School of Management Special Programs Urban Studies and Planning Women’s Studies Writing and Humanistic Studies And the information is incredible – we dipped our toe into “Sloan School of Management” and then chose a course on “Management Communication for graduates” and managed to have a look at the teacher’s notes for Teamwork Basics and found this very interesting bit on “Hints for Handling Difficult Behavior” Just one difficult personality in a group can make the group unproductive and the teamwork experience unpleasant. Here are some suggestions for resolving problems: Overly Talkative This person is usually one of four types: (a) an “eager beaver”; (b) a show-off; (c) very well- informed and anxious to show it; (d)...
“White gang hits Soweto”
Everywhere we drove around “the streets of Soweto” (thx Lauryn Hill) yesterday we were confronted with newspaper headlines “WHITE GANG HITS SOWETO”– living in such interesting times in SA, we just had to find out what this story was all about. Published by the SOWETAN newspaper, which has an AWESOME new website with all the tricks and toys that you must visit, it turns out that it’s a MIXED gang of three ‘mlungus’ led by a Black guy who pose as cops and hit on tavern owners. We’re not sure how the gang leader got forgotten in the tabloid headlines but they certainly worked and had us looking for the story. Here’s an intro to the article written by Simon Nare and you can read the rest here if you’re really interested. Black-led mlungu gang hits Soweto shebeens A gang of armed whites, led by a black man, is terrorising Soweto. The gang’s main target is said to be taverners and motorists. One of the victims, shebeen queen Matlala Mabalane, says she suspects the gang might have connections in the police force. She said that they impersonate police officers. “The gang leader boasts that he will never go to jail because he has connections,” said Mabalane. The gang leader was apparently arrested late last year but was mysteriously released . Police spokesman Lindiwe Mbatha said a senior police official has promised her the docket would be available today. Shebeen queen Mabalane said: “The black guy came here as a patron for three weeks. He would plead with me to drink inside the house saying because he was a police officer he didn’t want to drink with members of the public. I refused,” she...
Is HipHop really dead?
Check out this article from the interesting website AlterNet that poses the question “Is HipHop really dead?”. Alternet is a “syndication service of the alternative press, featuring stories from alternative newsweeklies, magazines and Web publications from across the globe”. The author suggests that HipHop artists in the states are forced by record company execs to stick to the now tired “bling sex and honies” formula to keep up record sales to the largely white mainstream fans who BUY the records. Artists are tied into record deals and payola issues that prevent them from breaking out of the cliched HipHop mould. Here’s a snippet but read the full article here: Hip-hop icon Nas made the provocative statement, “Hip-hop is dead,” in September and set off a firestorm of controversy. It was intensified by the January release of his album bearing the same title. Many questioned why Nas would say hip-hop — a worldwide phenomenon that has generated billions of dollars — could be “dead.” After all, more hip-hop albums are being released then ever before, and the music’s influence extends to movies, corporate marketing and theater. That it’s dead seems absurd — until you realize Nas was looking beneath the surface. He was speaking of the corporate side of the music and the mentality of executives more interested in turning a quick buck than nurturing rap culture. Nas realized sex, violence and bling, as themes for the music, had pretty much run their course. Album sales had plummeted, and ratings at hip-hop radio stations in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere had hit all-time lows. A number of people, including this writer, also had spoken out about mediocre product coming from some of the genre’s biggest stars. Yet such talk was rebuffed by so-called industry experts, who blamed digital downloading and satellite radio. We critics, however, were vindicated by a study published earlier this year by the University of Chicago. Data from the “Black Youth Project” indicated that while 58 percent of blacks between ages 15 and 25 listen to hip-hop daily, most are dissatisfied with it. They find the subject matter is too violent, and women too often portrayed in offensive ways. Such feelings hint at a dirty little secret of the music business: Blacks are used largely to validate musical themes being marketed to the white mainstream. In other words, while 90 percent of commercial rap artists on TV and radio are black, the target audience lies outside the black community. Paul Porter, a longtime industry veteran and former music programmer at BET and Radio One, is now with the watchdog organization Industryears.com. He says the University of...
Turn the lights off on Sat 31/03 at 7:30pm
This one goes out to the eco-warrior in you. Have you heard about Earthhour? We have received endless mails about it (Sharpile!) and despite it being an Australian based project, judging from all the mails it seems South African’s are joining in… All you have to do is turn off all your lights for one hour on Saturday night from 7:30 to 8:30pm and make a huge difference to the planet! So run a bath, get the candles out and listen to the nightlife while taking it dark and slow…The Ozzies will be snoring away by the time our hour hits but hey, let’s do whatever it takes to make a difference to our environment. Good on ya mate! Earth Hour is a fabulous opportunity for you and your family to do something about climate change. On one night, in one hour, more will be done, more will be demonstrated, and more will be learned than through a hundred ‘talk-fests’. And you can help make it happen. What is Earth Hour? It sounds simple, but it is very, very dramatic. At 7.30pm on March 31st 2007, we will be encouraging companies, government departments, individuals and families to turn off their lights for just one hour. If we meet our objectives during the first Earth Hour, the savings in green house gas emissions will be the equivalent of taking 75,000 medium sized cars off the road for one whole year! Now that’s something worth doing. Why? The facts are alarmingly clear: * The climate is changing! The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1990. In fact 2005 was the hottest year since record keeping began. * More than 95% of the Great Barrier Reef will have been destroyed by 2050 if carbon dioxide emissions aren’t reduced. (WWF-International) * One million species worldwide are facing extinction due to climate change. But not everybody listens to the facts. Earth Hour is your opportunity to demonstrate how a simple change in our way of life could change, and help save, our planet. The goals of Earth Hour: Households : Most of us use unnecessary electricity. Appliances on standby, old style light bulbs, lights left on when we’re not using them. Earth Hour will help us all to realise just how simply we can make a dramatic impact upon global warming (and our own power bills). We will see it in action. Companies : We want companies to be involved. If every company turned off its lights when the buildings weren’t in use, and combined it with energy saving technology, we would save between 2 and 4 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses...
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