Dominic White - Politics

Orwell vs Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:18:09 +0200

In his ZaCon talk, Haroon Meer worked in a fascinating comparison, by Michael Anissimov, between the fears that drove George Orwell when writing 1984, and those that drove Aldous Huxley when writing Brave New World.

In summary; Orwell feared censorship and centralised control of information, while Huxley feared so much information that people wouldn't engage in what really mattered. In a South Africa with proposed legislation to allow the government to declare some information so secret that it cannot be covered by the media (even if it meets the criteria of in the public interest), proposals to start censoring parts of the internet and a media tribunal to circumvent the existing ombudsman, it's easy to think Orwell is right. In many ways he is, and provides a haunting view of the dystopia this could become. However, there's no dichotomy here; Huxley's view is an equally important reminder of what we should do with the freedoms we have.

Personally, I find I could spend a whole day on Twitter/Facebook/IRC etc. I don't believe just using those technologies is a waste of time, in-fact I believe they can provide many benefits. However, it is easy to get trapped into constantly checking them and the inevitable meaningless interactions this leads to. Of course not every minute of the day can be spent in a productive rapture, but I wonder how much more we could achieve if we used them to better our collaboration as much as we better our cognitive load shedding. A potent reminder that freedom is worth nothing if not used.

What's more, from a privacy perspective; while it's right to worry about oppressive regimes and creepy attempts at implementing the panopticon (Orwell), it's as right, if not more pertinent, to worry about the privacy invasion from the tools and companies we love (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter etc.).

Planet Fitness & Temporarily Legal Near-Extortion

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:49:16 +0200

I was woken up by a message from Planet Fitness this morning, informing me that the contract I though had expired in Aug 2009 had happily been renewed each month and I now owed them a large sum of money. I was not informed of any of this, and have not attended a Planet Fitness gym since 2009. While the guy on the line agreed this was pretty dodgy, "It's in your contract," he says without having a copy of my contract. So, now I'm waiting to see this contract while they look for it. In the meantime, I was cheerily informed that if I rejoin the gym, then will write the debt off, or if I pay half I will get 6months "free" and the rest written off. Better yet, while the system says I owe Rxx.xx, the consultant through the use of his calculator assures me I actually owe Rxx.xx * 1.5. Nice to know their billing systems are as dodgy as their customer service.

Are Planet Fitness that desperate for money and customers that they will engage in sneaky money collection, and expect those affected to rejoin with them? I hear other gyms and service providers engage in similar dodgy tactics. Have you been affected, if so please comment with the name of the service provider so we can keep a list of these people. Thankfully, the soon to be passed, Consumer Protection Bill will outlaw this practise, but it appears at least Planet Fitness is looking for one last hurrah.

The Ignore Julius Initative

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:50:09 +0200

Julius Malema has exploded into political prominence by making himself hard to ignore. Inheriting a platform that drew attention to the accidental outrages he tripped into, he quickly learned to stoke outrage and roar back at any responses he provoked. For the media, trying to gauge the state of the nation’s health from moment to moment, this makes him a much more attractive candidate than the business-as-usual official announcements of the ruling party proper. But Malema’s sound and fury signify little, and his disproportionate voice in South Africa’s public conversation is only hurting our ability to speak to one another, and to speak sense when we do. We think it’s time to ignore Julius, and invite you to join us.

For the week of 7-14 April 2010, we undertake to talk about this country, its challenges, its promise, its news, and to ignore Julius while doing so. Join us in this initiative. If you blog, join the roll. If you Tweet, add the hashtag #ignoreJulius to your daily output.

However you communicate, take a week off from Julius.

Here is the list of blogs that are participating in this initiative:

http://rwrant.co.za
http://zoem.co.za
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/mariusredelinghuys
http://memyselfandkarin.wordpress.com/
http://robsramblings.co.za
http://antithesis.blognation.co.za/
http://singe.za.net/
http://blog.empyrean.co.za
http://www.pinkhairgirl.co.za
http://www.macgeek.co.za
http://www.futurechurch.co.za
http://www.cptawesome.co.za/
http://www.indigogirl.co.za/

Thanks to Jason van Niekerk for writing the above text, and Henno Kruger for suggesting and running with the blog initiative.

Responses to Criticisms

Ignore Him at Your Peril - I'm not suggesting we ignore him permanently, or ignore the political youth or the ANC YL. I'm hoping this will restore some balance so that we have less Heat-magazine-like reporting on Julius resulting in more balanced, less obsessive coverage of relevant political activities.

A Campaign to Ignore him isn't Ignoring him - This is a rather naive observation that several tweeters have penned as their pithy response. While I applaud your noticing of the words Julius in the campaign name, referencing the initiative isn't the same as the obsessive reporting on his every action. That being said, I have no desire for the #ignoreJulius hash tag to trend, and feel the success of the initiative would be in a marked decrease in the mention of him and a marked increase in "other voices," ideally positive ones.

Why I think the Quality Vacation Club is a Dubious Organisation

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:06:48 +0200

Donn is being bullied by QVC for their Carlswald based marketing. He is being sued for defamation. Now I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure truth is a defence to defamation, as is it being in the public interest. If someone asked me whether to buy services from QVC, I would strongly recommend against it for the below reasons based on my experiences (and reiterated by a wealth of negative complaints on hellopeter, even with them diluted through their user of different company names, and several blogs).

P.S. The exact link between QVC and the marketing front is unclear, but based on their (now removed) documentation sent to Donn, and the information from commentators below, there definitely seems to be one. Given the years of bad press, QVC certainly can't claim they didn't know/endorse this. Either way, make up your own mind, don't take my stuff as gospel.

They misrepresent themselves. They tell you that you have won a car. When I specifically asked Anna if this had anything to do with time-shares, she said "no". I was lied to.
It is so unlikely that you will win the car that the claim that, you have already won it, is misleading. Your chances are likely worse than the 1 in 15 Devine informed me of. Their business model could not survive if they had to give away a car to every 15 people. (According to their own calculations, they make an average of R54k per 59 people. Giving away a R68k car per 15 would put them at a loss of R213k before other prizes and operating costs are taking into account.)
They outright lied as to how they got my details. Devine told me it was a competition I entered 'sometime'. I don't enter these sorts of competitions, and given he didn't have my surname, it is likely I didn't complete an entry. I also never give competitions in general nor QVC in particular permission to phone me.
They keep changing their front company name (see the list below), nearly every company in the world tries to add value to their brand, identified by their name. Constantly changing your name, on the surface, makes it look as though you are avoiding the negative value attached, and it certainly helps to dilute their hellopeter scores.
They ask you to bring a partner for what appear to be mischievous reasons. A close personal friend (who shall not be named due to fear of intimidatory litigation) who attended one of QVC's presentations said he and an older man and his wife were belittled in front of their wives for not being able to afford a break for the family. They will likely counter that they ask you to bring your partner to help drive the other car if you win. However, when I asked to bring a male friend of mine, Devine got insistent that it be my wife.
Devine asked me how my surname was pronounced as he was unsure of how to pronounce it. The implication was that he had my surname. Given my surname is very pronounceable, it was clear he was trying to elicit this information by false pretences.

That's all I have, as I didn't go to their presentation thanks to the information provided to me by people such as Donn and numerous other sources (including the press). Their information allowed me to make an informed decision, and have QVC's untruths shown up as such. Disseminating this is in the public interest. At the very least it will save some people a potential waste of their time (as many of the hellopeter comments are thankful for), and at best it will force QVC to engage in honest and transparent marketing.

As an aside, and to help Donn's case, here are their hello peter stats per 'front' company:

Quality Vacation Club - Complaints 99 Resolved 23
Prestige Business Solutions - Complaints 32 Resolved 3
Unique Connections - Complaints 12 Resolved 0
World Connect / VIP / VIP World Connect - Complaints 12 Resolved 0
Prime Vision - Complaints 10 Resolved 0
Media Magic - Complaints 9 Resolved 0
Mega Communications - Complaints 9 Resolved 0
Ezweni Communications - Complaints 3 Resolved 0
Dynamic Communication - Complaints 4 Resolved 0 (including one mislabelled under RCS)
Real Communications / Real Communication - Complaints 1 Resolved 0
Ecoworld - Complaints 1 Resolved 0
Market Matrix - Complaints 1 Resolved 0

Total 184 Complaints and 26 Resolutions in the last 12 months! That's an average of 15 complaints a month (there's that number 15 again) for the company names I've manager to track down.

P.S. This is like tracking a botnet :)

Quality Vacation Club Bullies Blogger

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:48:39 +0200

Donn Edwards is being sued by QVC, the group who appear to be behind the less-than-honest "You've won a car" scheme I previously blogged about. Read his story, and press statement, and send in an affidavit, legal support or donations if you can.

Political Compass 2008

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:07:45 +0200

I was interested to see if my political leanings (as described by the Political Compass test) had shifted since having left University, gotten a job, started paying taxes, converted to Catholicism and having grown older.

It is interesting to note that my results are very similar to what they were in 2004, and less libertarian and economically right wing than they were in 2006 . Me and Nelson Mandela are still home boys though.

Economic Left/Right: -7.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.13

Update: Updating my score has lead to most of #clug and # on furion.org (IRC) updating theirs and informing Spinach (a KNAB). cocooncrash wrote an awesome little python script to chart these automagically, the results of which can be seen here. It seems most South Africans are in the bottom left quadrant, and not a single one of us above the authoritarian line; possibly an interesting insight into geekdom.

My previous scores were:

2006

Economic Left/Right: -6.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.64

2004

Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.08

Climate Change Resources

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:50:26 +0200

Deloitte has gather together some good climate change resources. If you want some white papers, formal research or the like, this has some good links.

Bloggers overblowing "Bullardgate"

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:18:24 +0200

Satire: Blending criticism and humor to expose a fault or problem; often used ironically.

David Bullard, a noted South African columnist specialising in satire, had a dig at bloggers. There has been a major sense of humour failure [1], and there is a full on multi-blog, distributed flame war going on against the guy. I guess this is why satirists aim for the holy cows: the response is so much fun.

[1] Personally, I rarely find Bullard's satire funny.

Ubuntu and the Commons

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:05:00 +0200

Jason van Niekerk has put an excellent article together for the iCommons site. He details the theoretical and moral force that underpins the necessity for the types of collaboration being pioneered by movements such as free software and creative commons. It includes a podcast too.

Definately worth a read for those of you that think Ubuntu is a linux distribution.

Why Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and TRIPS+ are harmful to libraries

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:04:17 +0200

This is a copy of an e-mail I was forwarded by iCommons (the international arm of Creative Commons) by Teresa Hackett of Electronic Information for Libraries. It very neatly lays out the problems with the TRIPS+ FTA Australia caved in to and America is trying to push on the rest of the world (South Africa only narrowly avoided it in our negotiations earlier this year). Even though it applies to libraries, it is well worth a read if you don't know what TRIPS+ is or why it is the devil. Dear friends,

Australian copyright law was traditionally seen as an example of a good copyright law, with fair provisions for libraries and users. Following contentious negotiations, the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed in May 2004 and came into effect on 1 January 2005.

Social opposition to the agreement ran high in Australia. Major concerns were access to affordable medicines and the impact on education and libraries of
stricter copyright laws. The Australian Libraries' Copyright Committee (ALCC)
lobbied hard to protect libraries and took part in government consultations.

But to little avail. The copyright provisions of the US FTA Implementation Act
extended the term of protection from life plus fifty years life plus seventy
years. Consultations on other provisions such as "fair use" and TPMs took
place.

In March 2006, the ALCC welcomed the Australian House Of Representatives report
on TPMs which recognised the importance of exceptions for libraries, archives
and cultural institutions, and of retaining a direct link between access
control and copyright protection in the implementation of the AUSFTA
provisions. The TPM draft was released a short while ago, to be enacted by the
1 January 2007 to comply with the US FTA.

Suddenly, two weeks ago a 250 page "omnibus" bill was released together with a
245 page explanatory memorandum with a response time of 10 days. The Bill
includes many amendments; some good such as time and format shifting for individuals, but a lot of bad things for libraries. The Bill:

narrows "fair dealing" for the purposes of research and study, effectively removing the 'fairness' parts;
narrows "educational purposes" by making it for "educational instruction";
does NOT allow time or format shifting for institutions;
changes the definition of "library" for use with the "library exceptions";
includes a variation of the 3-step test in the legislation (TRIPS+)
plus a host of other bits which you can read in the ADA/ALCC submisssion

Says Eve Woodberry, President, Council of Australian University Librarians,
"The Bill currently before parliament is a shocker. It is a win for copyright
owners and business interests at the expense of users, particularly as we do
not have a 'fair use' provision as protection. We still have work to do next
week lobbying parliamentarians and giving verbal submisssions at the LACA
hearings next week. We haven't given up hope yet but it is looking grim."

Dr Matthew Rimmer, senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the Australian
National University reports that instead of creating a US-style defence of fair
use or even reforming the defence of fair dealing, the Australian Government
has actually narrowed the defence of fair dealing in respect of research and
study. There are new minor exceptions on time-shifting, format-shifting,
non-commercial use by libraries and archives, and satire and parody. However,
such provisions have been so narrowly framed that they are largely unworkable
and inoperable. Search engines, such as Google, will be in particular strife in
Australia under such a regime. In addition, the Australian Government is
providing copyright owners with stronger technological protection measures and
a wide range of remedies.

Less than one year into the FTA, debate has broken out in Australia over the
impact. In the first year, it is reported that US imports into Australia had
shot up while Australia's exports to the US had shot down. Further, US drug
companies are not happy with the limited safeguards that the Australian
government had managed to negotiate to protect Australia's Pharmaceuticals
Benefits Scheme (PBS) and are moving to have them scrapped.

Did Australians, or even the Australian government, want this outcome?

It is said that the FTA reflects the power of US industry interests in
negotiation of the FTA rather than Australian government concern for local
creators.

If this happens in a country such as Australia with its organised civil
society, including an active library community, transparent consultation
processes and resources for good government trade negotiaters, what chances
have libraries in developing and transition countries to withstand such
pressure?

Teresa

Teresa Hackett (eIFL) <teresa [dot] hackett (at) eifl <full stop> net> 11/13/2006 7:43

References

NeoTel: South Africa's SNO

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 09:10:06 +0200

The competition to the bloated bureaucracy, Telkom, was launched on the 1^st of September. Ladies and gentlemen, Neotel.

They currently aren't offering consumer services but plan to by April 2007. They have a fairly comprehensive FAQ available. Currently they are only offering wholesale broadband which should result in lower broadband prices from ISPs soonish. They have also done a good job of selling international carrier throuput to the cellular providers and claim we will soon have international CLI as a fringe benefit.

While it is a pity our government has chosen not to pursue a policy of full deregulation of this market (gosh, did I just say that), I welcome any competition to our evil monopoly Telkom.

iCommons iSummit

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:53:12 +0200

The iSummit starts today in Rio. Daniela has been hard at work for the past couple of weeks organising it. I had a listen to the summit CD, there are some great tracks, I was particularly proud of South Africa's contribution. The DVD is more, um... bizarre, the documentary on Chinese body-builders is a hoot.

The iSummit page hasn't gone live as yet, but I have some inside info, you can check out two SAffies (Vhata's word for South Africans) profiles (daniela, colin), both ex-Rhodes students. Despite his picture, Colin is actually a nice guy.

Jacob Zuma and the ANCYL Conspiracy

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Thu, 18 May 2006 17:01:50 +0200

Recently the ANC Youth League claimed that the fact that Jacob Zuma was found not guilty proves that the rape allegation was a set up whose purpose was to discredit Zuma and his political aspirations.

This has a very dangerous presupposition that I have seen trotted out in far too many articles and quotations on the matter.

I was first put onto the idea I will eventually describe when a caller to a SAfm talk radio show tried to point out that 'not guilty' is not the same as 'innocent'. The presenter had trouble understanding her point and fobbed her off. However, I believe this is a critical point that needs to be made.

In a trial you are proved "guilty" or "not guilty". This phrasing is not arbitrary; it is the reason for the burden of proof to be on the prosecution. If the prosecution can show beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty then the crime has been proved to have happened. However, if the prosecution fails, then it has not been proved that the crime did not happen, just that they couldn't prove it did happen.

To clarify this further, if a defendant were to be proved innocent, then the defence would have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was innocent, instead of the prosecution having to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.

Which brings me back to the ANCYL's claim: it presupposes that Zuma has been proved innocent. For if the verdict proved that this was a malicious allegation and the complainant was in fact bribed or put up to this, then the crime could not have happened, and hence the assumption that Zuma was innocent. This was not proved however, Zuma was proved not guilty, he could have raped her and the bumbling of evidence by the police or a slew of other possibilities could have led to the verdict.

Given that the judge allowed his several hour long judgement to be broadcast on TV to educate us masses, and deliberately spent a large potion of that clarifying the burden of proof concept, the ANCYL's reasoning is provably false. This means the ANCYL has made a baseless accusation which amounts to both slander and libel.

Which begs the question, which side harbours the conspiracy?

iCommons

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:12:24 +0200

Daniela has recently started her work for Creative Commons South Africa. It seems they are in charge of the iCommons, an organisation trying to extend the reach of the Creative Commons into other free culture areas. Lessig explains it better. Daniela has been hard at work and already regularly writing for the iCommons blog. Check it out.

Zuma,Manto and AIDS

nospam@example.com (Dominic White) — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:23:55 +0200

Between our previous head of the South Africa National Aids Council 'taking a shower' to prevent the transmission of HIV, and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang excluding the TAC and Aids Law Project from the United Nations Special Assembly on AIDS (one of her many transgressions). I am seriously concerned about the intelligence and ability of Government to deal with this crisis.