The thing about common sense...

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

David Donde — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:49:18 +0000

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

via The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time – ReflectionOf.Me.

Art as a Take-Away Cup?

David Donde — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:31:58 +0000

reblogged from: Spectacular Sharpie Art on Styrofoam Cups | WildAmmo.com.

Most people use paintbrushes and other drawing utensils to compose their art on canvases and paper.Cheeming Boey on the other hand, uses a Sharpie and depicts his art on Styrofoam cups. Ever since 2006, Boey started drawing on foam cups as a hobby and has now turned into a serious business. Each cup takes a few hours to several months to create and is sold for hundreds of dollars around the world.

Check out Boey’s entire collection of cup artwork on his Flickr page.

The law of unintended consequences and why it is expensive and hard to get decent entertainment around here

David Donde — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:49:16 +0000

So here is the idea, in order to protect us South Africans from ourselves and unscrupulous corruptors of our minds (don’t we wish,) we get an organisation called ICASA (The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.) Now this seems a good idea. They regulate all electronic broadcasts allegedly for our well being.

So they ensure that not too many players do unscrupulous things like provide us with broadcast TV, Radio and Telephony. Mostly the unintended consequence is that this ensures that there isn’t too much nasty competition in these arenas. This keeps the content down and price up for all of us protected consumers, as the need for competitiveness with a mere handful of players is never an issue.

I seem to recall years ago when MTN and Vodacom were first licensed by this noble authority, that one of their terms and conditions was that they were not to be allowed to compete with Telkom (then the only phone network) in terms of pricing. Hallelujah, a protection organisation ensuring monopoly in a government trying to rid us of monopoly practices and ensure a competitive environment.

And the whole Telkom monopoly thing. That is a direct result of these guys and our states use of them. It took forever to get Neotel licensed as a second player. Why so needlessly long, and why only them? why the hell not open our communication up. Why not have a “shall issue” licensing policy? Meet a list of technical and financial requirements and go into business with your readily issued license. Voila instant competitiveness. Watch communications prices fall. a great resource for this stuff is at Helkom.

Watch SABC fail to meet its’s bills with its bloated lack of efficiency even though it gets its TV licence subsidy and a little extra in times of need from our tax stockpile. Somehow E-tv survives. Viva free enterprise?

No, instead they sit there safely protecting the SABC television and radio useless channels, and of course the good ol boys at Telkom.

Why is this the situation? Bureaucratic protectionist myopia on top of Apartheid era paranoia. Those right wing loving types needed to maintain political control of the media and communications in that loving and endearing big-brotherly affectionate way that few since the Nazi’s were ever as good at. This type of licensing is their legacy.

Trying to maintain this kind of arcane control is ludicrous anyway. You can’t launch a new radio station as there aren’t any licences available? never mind, get their live streaming show on your i-phone and play it through your car audio. Live streaming video instead of a new TV station? well if Moores Law prevails that will be practical even in Africa soon. Convergence will beat the system.

The simple answer is that trying to control communication is an insurmountable task as we all lose interest in the channel and focus on the content. Do you care whether the phone call is via internet (voip or Skype etc,) cell or Telkom? what is the difference between a wireless Telkom Device, wireless Neotel or skype on your PDA? For how much longer will we need to call someones telephone number? Soon we will just call them. We will be identified by some tag system and it will find us on the most convenient channel to us. We will just use the cheapest, lowest effort channel.

Radio via the airwaves? who cares, with uncapped broadband (when/if it ever works properly) just hook on to a livestream and listen or watch whatever you like whenever you feel like it.

I doubt cars will bother coming installed with radios installed in a mere few years. A 3g card in a media hub system or its then equivalent and all the content you could hope for streamed from the globe, available wherever you are. BLuetooth media streaming in some of the current models just about does this now. When data gets even a little cheaper, the last barrier to this will be gone. Consider that in many countries mobile data is uncapped and free on many packages.

Content is king, not the media. Just as the internet broke the grip the publishing houses had on writing, so will the new channels break the TV Radio and Media licensing stranglehold.

ICASA, stop stifling us and start making it easy to launch networks and broadcasters and make your objectives not being gatekeepers for the old empires but the guys who ensure a smooth transition from draconian old world media to this bright new place. Otherwise those guys you are protecting will get crushed in a truly wild stampede as the floodgates collapse. On second thought, just keep sitting on your hands, those empires of old deserve their merciless collapse.

price fixing in the coffee world

David Donde — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:44:13 +0000

I wonder how prevalent this is internationally?

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9G7MSC00.htm

BERLIN⁠

German regulators say they are fining several coffee companies a total of euro30 million ($35 million) for illegal price fixing.

The Bonn-based Federal Cartel Office said Wednesday that it has fined eight German coffee companies or their local subsidiaries — Tchibo, J.J. Darboven, Melitta, Kraft Foods, Seeberger, Westhoff, Lavazza and Segafredo Zanetti.

The regulatory agency says the coffee companies met between 1997 and 2008 and coordinated wholesale price increases or cuts.

The German regulator earlier fined Tchibo, Melitta and another coffee company in December in another price fixing case.

how to make your avatar look like you’re not a grey ghost when commenting

David Donde — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:42:16 +0000

I notice that on many blogs, including my own, that most commentators’ avatars are blank or default, and this is an easy fix. Too easy not to fix really.

Have an image handy to upload or the url of a good one, go to Gravatar.com create a username, input all or most of your e-mail addresses and voila, as easy as that. less than 2 minutes of your time.

There you go, now you can teach others how to set their avatars for blogs, blogger, and even wordpress you techie geek you.

so Starbucks are coming to town. Do we care?

David Donde — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:33:04 +0000

It is official:

The thing is, do we give a shit? Branding? Starbucks is the master, but in my opinion Vida is more locally relevant. As an SA consumer, would you prefer the vibe of Charbucks or Vida e Harmony? Red or Green, your pick.

In terms of the coffee, I sincerely hope that South African coffee geeks can tell the difference, and I think that choosing between artisan roasted, geek barista prepared drinks and some kid with an hours training in making coffee, wearing a green apron and preparing drinks from flown in, over-roasted beans that are indifferently prepared, will be a no-brainer.

On the other hand Starbucks, if they are following their practices elsewhere, will set a price-point well above R20 per cup, (see my recent comments on pricing here: http://www.truthcoffee.com/more-on-how-much-a-cup-of-coffee-is-worth/ )

Vida was in KAK with consumers yesterday for lifting up to NEAR the R20 mark.

Ironically, I believe the pricing policies will be good for SA coffee. I know this will fall on unwilling ears, but a price closer to R25 for a double flat white is probably the sustainable point. Yes there is consumer price resistance at around R20 per cup, but I remember, not quite fondly, when that resistance was at R10.

All in all I think FIFA dolt tourists will pour into the green pastures, while locals will give it a try once and appreciate how good things have got here in isolation from big green.

As an adendum:

I went to visit the Cape Town branch today only to be directed to the bar where Starbucks is being installed.

This aint no stand alone store, this is a corner of the bar offering a seemingly mini experience. After asking the helpfull F&B manager, I discovered they plan on opening Monday and will offer the full range of caramel-mocha-soy-sugared-up-extra-shot-bathtub-sized-latte-freeza-chinos and to expect international pricing, undisclosed but well in EXCESS of the R20 mark

the sound of one hand clapping: world cup redux

David Donde — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:57:47 +0000

So the dust has settled and unsurprisingly, those with cash register eyes are starting to face the grim reality.

Delusions of scalping your overpriced World Cup Tickets are a long forgotten painful memory, douse those pains with spirits, at least the liquor companies will benefit. Renting your House/Boat/Car/Treehouse out to start a small nation level swiss bank account? didn’t think so.

Match has been burned down to a charred ember. Hotels and restaurants, at least the ones that offer value, wether through price or quality, will do ok.

World Cup days will bring massive retail food and beverage opportunities. there are ONLY 8 DAYS of world cup in Cape Town. get a reality check. Build a business around that? how much do you plan investing for that great opportunity?

Sure, those of you selling vuvuzellas will do ok, but that is hardly a full-time career.

SO what is likely to happen? Local business’ have cancelled almost all travel ages ago in anticipation of the fiasco, flights are starting to become normal, hotels are back to offering deals. but we already made plans to batton down over the period.

If you had family here and enjoyed the footie, would you have come over here in December or now? or now or this coming December? Last season was a bit down, about 75% of normal season My prediction? World Cup will feel like 75% of a Christmas season. And this coming season will be about 75% too.

Acknowledge it for what it is. Take a reality check and lets do business as normal.

At least we spent billions and got some decent infrastructure and reasonable(ish) broadband deals out of it. Oh and property values should normalise once the fever wears off too.

Glad I got all that off my chest, thanks for listening, now piss off and go by half an oil drum convert it to a braai and capitalise by selling boerie rolls on match days, I will.

want to know everything about coffee

David Donde — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:29:25 +0000

try this search: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=coffee

Eruptions on Iceland

David Donde — Mon, 03 May 2010 10:26:38 +0000

in bad taste alert warning:

1. It’s a bit early for Iceland volcano jokes. We should wait awhile for the dust to settle.

2. I see that America has declared war on Iceland. Apparently they are accusing them of harbouring a “weapon of ash eruption”.

3. It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.

4. Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.

5. Iceland, we wanted your cash, not your ash.

6. “Waiter, there’s volcanic ash in my soup.”

“I know, it’s a no-fly zone.”

7. Richard Curtis is working on a new ROM-com about people stuck in an airport who fall in love. The working title is “Lava Actually.”

8. I came out my house yesterday and was hit on the head by a bag of frozen sausages, a chocolate gateau, and some fish fingers. I realised it must be the fallout from Iceland.

The thing about common sense...

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

Art as a Take-Away Cup?

The law of unintended consequences and why it is expensive and hard to get decent entertainment around here

price fixing in the coffee world

how to make your avatar look like you’re not a grey ghost when commenting

so Starbucks are coming to town. Do we care?

It is official:

As an adendum:

the sound of one hand clapping: world cup redux

want to know everything about coffee

Eruptions on Iceland

Download the South african twitter report here