Like many other South Africans this morning, I am pissed off about the electricity thing. Irritated by traffic lights being down. Annoyed about having to eat cold left-overs by the light of my head-torch. Inconvenienced by delayed meetings. Flabbier for missed squash games due to closed gyms. And poorer in ways I haven’t had the […]
Jarred Cinman
Jarred Cinman is software director at Cambrient, South Africa's leading developer of web applications. He co-founded Johannesburg's first professional web development company and was one of the founders of VWV Interactive, for many years the premier creative web business in the country, winning numerous Loeries and various international awards. In 2001, Jarred co-founded Cambrient, which has, in its six-year history, built the leading local content management system and serviced an impressive list of corporate customers. Cambrient Contentsuite is also the engine behind Moneyweb.
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Tech
Am I irrelevant?
Have I allowed myself to become outdated, irrelevant, inconsequential and stuck in a dark corner of the early 2000s? Has technology passed me by and been handed on to a younger generation of smart, happening geeks? My friend Vincent called me up some months back and told me, in effect, that I have. “You’re wasting […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Tech
Web 2.008
Here’s what I think 2008 holds. Because I’m an ignorant bastard who avoids newspapers and television and gets all my news from opinionated friends, my list can hardly be called well researched. Still, here it is. 1. Hillary Listen, whatever you may think of Hillary Clinton (South Africans, by and large, don’t seem to care […]
Posted inGeneral
Can we live with virtual child porn?
Would you like to see, or should others be allowed to watch, full-colour, full-motion video of children having sex with each other, with adults or with animals? Until recently, this would have been an easy question to answer. But in an age where we can produce near-perfect digital versions of real-life events, without the slightest […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
The media’s ridiculous coverage of Cyril Ramaphosa
I took some time today to look back over the past 18 months or so at the endless confirm/deny loops that the media are in around a possible run for president by businessman Cyril Ramaphosa. There are two obvious conclusions: 1. No one has any idea whether this man is in line to run for […]
Posted inMedia
Has 702 made us more stupid?
Talk Radio 702 has managed, despite various plummets in listenership over the years, to remain Gauteng’s premier talk radio station. But isn’t it merely peddling the stupid and pedestrian views of the idle middle class back to itself, as a way to generate ad revenue? I have listened to 702 on and off for the […]
Posted inTech
A rough history of the web industry in South Africa
A personal account of how the web industry got started, and some of the colourful characters who populated it I guess it’s starting to feel like I’m running out of time to write this piece. I’m getting, well, old, frankly. The next web generation has arrived and is hard at work creating all kinds of […]
Posted inTech
How to roll out flawless software
A somewhat radical new way of thinking about software projects and how to manage customers through them. Introduction I have been doing software-development work for my entire career. That, to my horror, is somewhere close to 12 years now, which is starting to seem like a downright respectable length of time. In this time, I […]
Posted inMedia, Sport
Real men don’t watch sport
My God, is it just me or is this crushing, pervasive near-religious rugby fervour downright depressing? I know, it’s just me. I don’t get sport. I mean, I get why people play it. Out there on the field in the sun. Breathe in some fresh air, kick a ball around, whack one with a racquet […]
Posted inGeneral
Real men don’t watch sport
My God, is it just me or is this crushing, pervasive near-religious rugby fervour downright depressing? I know, it’s just me. I don’t get sport. I mean, I get why people play it. Out there on the field in the sun. Breathe in some fresh air, kick a ball around, whack one with a racquet […]
Posted inGeneral
Jesus is a myth: The atheism debate revisited (part two)
In my previous post I argued that the question of God’s existence is largely an unsolvable one and that, in that limited sense, we must all allow the possibility that there is such an entity in the universe (or not). Which brings me to the other big question: 2. Is the Bible true? Bundled into […]
Posted inGeneral
Jesus is a myth: The atheism debate revisited (part one)
There is no evidence, whatsoever, that Jesus Christ ever lived, or, in fact, that any of the key biblical stories ever happened. I have done some research now, after the ongoing raging debate sparked by my post “Why the atheists are just plain right” posted about a month ago. With just less than 100 comments, […]