Without friends/well-wishers/proof-reading slaves/non-compliant editors I would be still there, in the pool, drowning.

But I am here. And we are moving.

So a very special thank you to each and every one of you. You know who are. Check your post for further details

To Moral Fibre for hosting the gizmo: Vincent, you are simply awesome.

So let it begin..

Azad
12/03/10

The following post won’t make me many friends in car-crazy Johannesburg. When I first told the people at the office that I had been considering the topic my suggestion was met with horror. It was as if I said that rape is okay, or that all puppies should be drowned. But in the interest of being honest I will come out and admit it – I hate cars. Not the things themselves, I can see why people find them beautiful and powerful, I can see why people want to have them. But I hate the way they are worshipped in South Africa. I hate the way they represent everything that is wrong with how selfishly materialistic we have become as a society.

In South Africa, and especially Johannesburg, cars are status symbols and penis extensions, they determine the level of respect people treat us with. This is understandable, because we are poor, and cars represent mobility, in more than one sense of the word, and being able to buy one is something to aspire to. But, when I visited places like the UK, I met successful people who don’t own cars, because they take public transport and don’t need to. I met very wealthy people who are content to drive around in cheap old skorro-korros, because they get them from A to B.

In Los Angeles, a city similar to Johannesburg in that it lacks a public transport infrastructure, and in that people are as obsessed as we are with cars and all other trappings of material wealth, there are strictly enforced car pool only lanes, so that unless you make a concerted effort to travel with others and therefore minimise the amount of cars on the road each morning, you will get stuck in traffic. Here there are no such laws, and there is a sense that if any effort to introduce such measures would result in chaos, as there isn’t a strong enough police presence to enforce them. And so we have a situation where each year there are thousands more cars on the road, each year traffic gets worse, pollution gets worse, we get one step closer to becoming one big junk heap. And everyone hates it, and everyone complains. Yet everyone keeps dreaming of buying that new BMW.

Two days ago two shiny mini Coopers, one of which was driven by rapper Jub Jub, went careening through Johannesburg at 4 O’clock in the afternoon and obliterated four teenagers. And while it must be the drivers who take responsibility, in a sense we all must too. If we raise our children to value material possessions over and above human life, this is what we’ll get.

But enough ranting. The point is I hate cars. They make a noise and pollute our world and kill animals and kill people. The world would be a better place without them.

Briget from BecauseIcan has started a new initiative.  You see, basically her car is breaking down and due to financial constraints of the recession, she can’t afford to buy herself a new one.  So she’s come up with a mathematical calculation that works out to 500 people paying R260 each.  This will enable her to get brand new wheels.  Already 9 people have signed up, that only leaves 491.  Come on, you know you can spare it.  I only wish I’d thought of it myself.  Good luck Briget – we’ll be watching how well this campaign does!

I’m urging all Nerdmaggers to join in & help her out – it really won’t be the end of the world for you, but it might mean the world to her.

Go, go go!

If we take a moment to break down online romances I believe they make almost a bit more sense than meeting people face to face. Let’s see quickly:

Pros

• No awkward face to face rejection
• It is a meeting of minds more than physical attraction
• Meeting of minds is often more meaningful than just pure physical attraction

Cons

• People can put on facades a lot easier
• People get involved in your love life if you meet in community based media (e.g. IRC or its modern day equivilant: Twitter)
• Bonds develop a bit stronger when you are physically with the person
• The hot 18 year old picture is really some fat creepy 47 year old guy with croocked teeth *shudder*

In my (vast!) experience through the years the pro’s have managed to outweigh the cons. I believe this is all purely because I was an early adopter and the perverts hadn’t made it online yet. Thank goodness.

For me there are laws that you need to follow if you are going to have a successful online romance. In fact, most of these apply to the real world too.

Firstly:
Do not fight on public forums.
Secondly:
Your sex life should remain out of the public domain. No matter how good you or your significant other think it is.
Thirdly:
Make it real. Be with each other in person.
Fourth:
Be honest with each other about who you are.
Fifth:
Set up expectations upfront.
Sixth:
Distance. It is a bitch. Don’t do it if you don’t want your heart broken and your wallet devoid of purpose.

Speaking of long distance relationships. This is mostly what online romances are. Be it self imposed, or just cause you connected with that individual across the country/ocean/planet. I will admit I’ve been this stupid. It filled a deep seeded need in me to feel a connection with someone, yet remain free to do what I want to do.

Here some arb stats that I found on long distance relationships:
Average distance apart: 200km
Avaerge visits: 1.5 times per month
Average number of calls: 1 every 2.75 days
Avergae length of phone calls: 30 minutes
Average letters written (letters, not emails): 3 per month
Average time before they can be closer together: 14 months
Average success: 1 out of 10 relationships of this nature end up together and married

My advice on this topic. Use the interwebs as a means to communicate when you have to, but don’t have your relationship online unless it is a long distance relationship. Before you get into the long distance relationship, think about see the person only once every 3 weeks a phone call every 3 days that last 30 minutes and 3 letters per month. And doing that for a little over a year. It sounds to me like the relationship I have with my grandmother in Cape Town.

Trivium – Shattering The Skies Above – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-mECRczNk&feature=player_embedded
Ex Deo – Teaser For 'The Final War (Battle Of Actium) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy4TVh4RQf0&feature=player_embedded

Muse – Resistance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPE9uSFFxrI&feature=player_embedded
Deftones – Rocket Skates – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woR6ohiFeYE&feature=player_embedded

Beatallica – Fuel On The Hill

Stream Bleeding Through's new song 'Breathing In The Wrath' – http://www.myspace.com/bleedingthrough

Stream the entire Jimi Hendrix 'Valleys of Neptune' album – http://www.iheartradio.com/cc-common/ondemand/music.html?apid=6476

Dragonforce part ways with vocalist – http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=136350

Joey Jordison to drum for Rob Zomibe on upcoming tour – http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=136145

Christopher Lee's new symphonic metal album – http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=136434

The Handspring Puppet company fascinated us all. We moved to the edges of our seats as they announced that they were about to bring their latest creation on stage. Moments later a tall horse was slowly walked in, all flowing movement and subtle expression. Truly breathtaking.

You had to be there.

Visit The Handspring Puppet Company here or catch them at the Out The Box Puppet Festival

And, finally, zany ZANews had the last say.

A number of last year’s Design Indaba speakers returned to the stage this year, having applied their minds to a particular topic: future farming.

5.5 presented a book that displayed all the typical fauna and flora in cities, Dunne and Raby presented a concept on futuristic foraging, Frank Tjepkema shared his ideas of self-contained farming systems.

Learn more about the Design Indaba’s Protofarm project here

Creativity, Alejandro said, is what you use, when there is not enough available knowledge: It’s because the world is changing that we need creativity – to answer new questions that are constantly arising in the world.

Alejandro’s mission is to give simple answers, without being reductive.

To clarify, he showed the audience a stick drawing of a chair. A chair in its simplest form? Not if the next image you see is one of a man with a piece of cloth wrapped around his legs: that is a chair in its simplest form! The purpose of good design then, is to be relevant, precise, and irreducible.

His most intriguing project, especially for a South African audience, was the development of an alternative model for low cost housing. The underlying idea was to change the approach, to build houses that would gain in value over time, and be seen as assets.

As they included the people they were planning for in their thought processes, they were able to extract and apply true insights. And reach a breakthrough. They developed a model that put 80% of the budget towards structure, and allowed for self-completion by the inhabitants.

Alejandro more than deserved the only standing ovation at this year’s Design Indaba.

Find out more about Alejandro and Elemental

Let them eat cake.

She might as well have said it. (Or it might have been, Let them eat pork, with glitter?)

Poor Martha. She was savaged, by an audience that walked out en masse.

How could she have gotten it so wrong? How did she manage to alienate her audience so thoroughly?

Was it that she…

i)              …talked to a room full of designers about decorating?

ii)             …approached said audience with a total lack of humility?

iii)           …presented a mere sales pitch?

iv)           …bored people that had been riveted for 3 days?

v)             …acted suspiciously like a diva?

To my shock and surprise her faux pas even made the front page of the local newspaper the next day…

Future speakers, you have been warned. Keep it real.

Give Martha another chance here

Q: How does connecting the dots, making the invisible visible, as you have done in your book Pig, affect consumers, or industry?

A: Ah I think it’s difficult to have a real effect, on industry, this is more of an awareness product. I wanted to show the complexity, show how little we know as consumers. And perhaps improve consumer behaviour? I’d like to help consumers to take the power back.

Q: Any words of wisdom for young SA designers?

A: Yes. Follow your dreams. Then everything will be okay. Even though sometimes it takes time… Just hang in there!