Kan dit nie glo nie. (I can’t believe it.)

I commented:

You’d do well not to believe it. Or indeed anything else that uses Ernst Roets as a credible source.

But how was I to know just how right I was?

Do 400,000 whites live in squatter camps in South Africa, as claimed in a recent BBC report. Are there really 80 “white squatter camps” dotted around Pretoria? The answer to both is no.

Africacheck.org has looked at the 2011 census and found out that those figures are (as both the ANC and the DA suggested) inaccurate, exaggerated nonsense:

The claim that 400,000 whites are living in squatter camps is grossly inaccurate. If that were the case, it would mean that roughly ten percent of South Africa’s 4.59-million whites were living in abject poverty.

Census figures suggest that only a tiny fraction of the white population – as little as 7,754 households – are affected.

The claim that there are 80 or more “white squatter camps” in the Pretoria area would also appear to be grossly overstated. Many of the places referred to are not camps at all.

AfriForum’s Roets gave the BBC inaccurate figures and the BBC took them without apparently checking, producing a skewed piece of journalism that failed to accurately reflect reality.

And this on a story that veteran journalist John Simpson put his name to. Very sad.

In no way am I suggesting that the fact that there are 7,754 white households (or the 1,868,325 “black African” households in the same situation) living – existing – in those sort of conditions, is acceptable.

I am, however, suggesting that you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.
Even from the BBC and especially from Ernst Roets.

UPDATE: From Anton Haber:

I am appalled that a seasoned journalist like BBC world affairs editor John Simpson should produce… such a half-arsed, skewed view of reality.
This is an appalling piece of journalism, not worthy of the BBC.

My thoughts exactly.

It came in a short interview with a man called Steve Wilhite in the New York Times. Steve’s claim to fame is that he devised a compressed image format back in 1987 that is still widely used today.

After a bit of history:

Mr. Wilhite, then working at CompuServe (the nation’s first major online service) knew the company wanted to display things like color weather maps. Because he had an interest in compression technologies, Mr. Wilhite thought he could help.

And some present day stuff:

Since retiring in 2001, Mr. Wilhite has led a quieter existence than his creation. He goes on RV trips. He built a house in the country with a lot of lawn to mow. He dabbles in color photography and Java programming. He uses e-mail and Facebook to keep up with family.

They casually drop this bombshell:

He is proud of the GIF, but remains annoyed that there is still any debate over the pronunciation of the format.

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations,” Mr. Wilhite said. “They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

I’m sorry? You what what?

26 years on from devising an image format, you decide to let that little gem slip? I’ve been using gifs… jifs… bah, whatever… since 1992 and now you want me to suddenly change the way I say it. How on earth am I supposed to do that?

And why “jif”?
I’m well aware that Giraffes have set a precedent for the use of a soft ‘G’, but the term ‘gif’ is – as any fule kno – an acronym for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’. That’s “Graphics”, not “Jraffics”. So while you’re confusing the geanpant off us (not literally, I hasten to add), why not change the way we say the other two-thirds as well?

May I respectfully suggest: “j-ee-ef”?
Actually, may I respectfully suggest that shove your idea where the sun don’t shine and stop trying to alter history just because you came up with a novel, much loved and much used way of sharing pictures?

To borrow your explanation from above:

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is “gif”, pronounced ‘gif’.”

End of story.

But behind the scenes, Flickr has also given users of its free service (I’m not one of them) loads more features too. They now have a Terabyte of space each, they can upload bigger photos and longer videos. In fact, why would you even want (or need) a Pro account anymore? Flickr tells me:

Spectaculr things are happening at Flickr!
Dear 6000, as a Pro member continue to enjoy the benefits of unlimited space, an ad free experience and stats.

OK. The ad free bit is nice but ads are annoying more than anything and sure, I can like to like my statpr0n, so the unlimited space thing must be the biggie, right?
Except that 1 terabyte = 258,907 13.5 megapixel photos.

That’s a whole lot of picture.

I’ve managed to upload 5,218 photos in almost seven years so I’m unlikely to run out of space any time soon.
So again: Why would I want to renew my Pro account? Mashable asks the same question:

Flickr Pro is going away, but Flickr will still offer upgrades for users. For $49.99 a year, users can remove ads from the Flickr experience. This doesn’t add any other features; it just removes ads.
It’s worth noting that $49.99 a year is twice what a Flickr Pro membership used to cost.

So, as far as I can work out, it’s an idiot filter.

And users that choose to go to a free account will receive a pro-rated refund for their Flickr Pro account. Cash is king.

I’m going to have to go through the details again before I choose to drop my pro account – once you go free, you can never go back – because I must have missed something here, right?

Right?

Bad news if you wanted to get anything worthwhile done this morning – here’s Pointer Pointer.

No real… er… point to this, but putting it in a nutshell, plonk your cursor somewhere on the screen and within a couple of seconds, a photo of an (often drunk) individual or individuals will appear, pointing at your pointer.

Give it a go. Top left is my particular favourite so far.

…but I’m sure there are literally hundreds of others to discover, so I’m going to get back to discovering them right now.

Go play.

There is high load on the server, causing requests to be slow (and timeout) even though the server is up.

This was also the case last Wednesday, last Thursday and last Friday. And again this morning.

Afrihost, who were previously the shining example of service and stability have really disappointed me since I moved my hosting over there. And yes, I would move everything somewhere else, but

1. It’s an absolute schlep to organise another move. I don’t have time, ability or patience, and
2. Is anywhere really better? For every good report on a hosting solution, there is someone warning against using it.

Afrihost have told me that they are “in the process” of upgrading their servers, which should stop this timeout problem from occurring. In the meantime, if you see that “6000.co.za took too long to respond”, please keep trying. I’m still here, even if you can’t see me.

(It also features a lighthouse, and I like lighthouses.)
A little bit of detective work led me to this guy – Veselin Malinov – and a quick look at his recent photostream indicates that this shot was anything but a chance effort.
There are some amazing photos on there and it’s well worth popping over if you have a few minutes to spare.

That’s the tagline of a new campaign by UNICEF in Sweden. They’re encouraging people do donate money rather than just click a button. Because while the clicks are absolutely lovely, they don’t actually do anything. They’re just an easy way to pretend you’re making a difference. It’s slacktivism at its worst.

Of course, far fewer people will put their money where their click was. But it’s worth remembering that even a single cent is still worth more to charity than any number of those likes.

(Oh, and while we’re on the subject, actually, “one like ? one prayer”, although both are worthless, as mentioned above, it’s likely to do about as much good. i.e. none.)

Very simple, very clever and a great way to get around those really frustrating delays while you wait through yet another spiel of options to direct your call.

We like.

Some wonderful juxtaposition of hardcore electronica and simply-delivered lyrics. And because I have personally bought this version of the track, it can officially go in the 6000 recommends section of the blog.

A new type of weapon, the bouncing bomb, was designed and tested by Barnes Wallis specifically for the mission.

Two of the dams were breached while another sustained only minor damage. In the valley, 1,600 people drowned.

The raid was carried out by 133 airmen in 19 Lancaster bombers who formed the RAF’s 617 squadron. Fifty-six men and eight aircraft did not return.

The bomb in question was tested on the Derwent dam in Derbyshire, just down the road from my hometown of Sheffield. And yesterday, to commemorate the anniversary, there was a flypast over the dam wall (which you may remember from this flickr set) in front of huge crowds.

Notably, there’s a lot less water in there than last July. And a whole lot more World War II bomber over it too.

There’s video too – click here.

All in all, the Dambusters Raid was a huge boost to the British morale at what was obviously a hugely difficult time. The effects of the actual bombing on the German war effort were soon overcome, but the bravery of those young airmen deserves to be remembered – even now, 70 years on.