I feel the need to clarify my stance towards Social Networks, I hate them, really I do. But in this day and age if you are not on Facebook, LinkedIn and something like Digg or Technocrati you are no one. I do believe in blogs and by the nature of it Twitter, neither are “blocked” to a subscription system of sorts, so to me it is far friendlier, I only login to Facebook and LinkedIn when I get a mail telling me there are messages.
Has the Global Financial Crisis affected South Africa and what are the visible impacts from a man on the streets?
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Last night I was at a presentation by Scott Hanselman at Microsoft in Johannesburg, what a blast. I have never had so much fun listing to a technical presentation ever. The insight into MVC was great but better yet is little cracks of it. If you are in Cape Town don’t miss him.
Yesterday, my wife and I went to register for the 2009 Provincial and national Elections. I was rather disappointed with the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission).
Firstly their website (http://www.elections.org.za) is an outright mess, it doesn’t work most of the time and when it does is too slow. Additionally, the search is near incomprehensible and does not return any valuable information. So I decided to phone them, what a mistake! Incompetence does not even come close, I had to spell my suburb 4 times and they did not find it! So the constituency database is also incomplete. Eventually I got an approximate address of a registration station, we are now 20 minutes into the call. I suppose miracles do happen. Now, one would expect signs from the main road indicating where the registration station is located, that was too much to ask as well. I took a few photos of the station just for you, it’s the Mondeor Recreation Hall, nothing wrong with the hall just look at the signs. And we want to host the 2010 FIFA world cup? This country’s leadership owe to wake up before it’s too late! I am generally the first to defend this country but this is far from acceptable for a first call country like ours.
I was reading an article on IOL "Inferno claims 22 lives after smash" and was horrified by the statement: "The government has announced plans to encourage drivers to replace their un-roadworthy minibus taxis with safer vehicles but the programme has been repeatedly delayed." Bring the law back to the roads, educate." Now that will help and by nature solve the "un-roadworthy" issue. I mean I am every day on the South African (mostly Johannesburg) roads and I see Taxis driving on oncoming traffic, forcing themselves through red robots (or stop signs) and creating new lanes everyday. Let’s start there first, but if you call the traffic department, their answer is: "Sorry, but we only take call for emergency situations". I wish the government would wake up to the reality, if you want to control crime, start with the "little" things like road rules, because if you can get away with those why not murder?
Read more on An estimated 25 per 100 000 people die in road accidents in South Africa…
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