Category: in the news

Goodbye Elliot

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It was with a heavy heart that I read this tweet from the V&A Waterfront account, yesterday.

Yes, after three years valiant service to the Waterfront and its visitors, Elliot, the iconic Coca Cola “crateman” is to be dismantled.

I’m taking the kids along to see Eliot for one last time this afternoon. Doubtless, there will be tears: he’s been a big part of their lives, with every visit to the Waterfront necessitating a trip to his feet. (And occasionally slightly higher when Dad wasn’t looking.)
Rarely have I been moved so much by a piece of art.

   
Note those tiny kids at his right foot, 10 August 2010.

Previously, Elliot has also featured on this blog, when an angry man described him as:

a monument to mediocrity, global exploitation and humankind’s dysfunctional health and disregard for our treasured eco-heritage.

and I defended the sculpture, using the tools of rationality, accuracy and ridicule.

Those were the days.

But now, it’s Elliot’s time to move on to a better place.
Although, looking at that second photo, is there really a better place?

Goodbye Elliot. Hamba Kahle, old friend.
And thank you for all the joy you’ve brought my kids and me.

Not just a river in Egypt…

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It seems that there is an element of denial in the national psyche over here after South Africa lost in the semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy to England yesterday. Now, I don’t want to harp on about this, although the self-flagellation amongst the locals shows no sign of abating, so it’s obviously still relevant (and raw).

But there was this on the IOL news website:

crickTry, if you can, to ignore the formatting issues and look at those options. Because the blame game must be played.

Might I suggest a fifth option though (even though there’s blatantly not even room for that fourth one)?

How about “England“?

Maybe it wasn’t the best SA cricket performance ever, but then, maybe they weren’t actually allowed to play well. I mean, perish the thought that the opposition were actually better than them. We could never admit that though, could we?

Come to think of it, where is the story here? The Proteas lost to a better team, a team that is above them in the ICC rankings, a team that played better cricket than they did yesterday. ‘Choking’ (in this context, rather than a buxom celebrity cook context) is when you lose a game that you were expected to win – or you lose from a winning position. That didn’t happen here.

Oh – and Dale Steyn was injured, you say? – well, we’ll be sure to make a footnote in the history books for you.

“The New Flickr Sucks”

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Not my view, although I am coming around to that way of thinking. I thought that my initial disappointment was just a natural reaction to a sudden change, but slowly, I’m realising that actually, New Flickr isn’t as good as Old Flickr.

But that quote in the title belongs to @NewtonGimmick, here. And why? Because he believes that that they are chasing the wrong sort of customer by attempting to compete with the wrong competitors:

Yahoo’s new vision of Flickr is to try and be a cool site like Tumblr and Instagram. Yahoo is furious that Instagram has so much of the market share. What Yahoo failed to realize is that Flickr doesn’t share the same market with Instagram. Flickr wasn’t ever about posting the latest photos from your iPhone. And no, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t people who did that. Flickr welcomed those people with open arms. They were part of the community, but they weren’t the basis of it.

The new Flickr is supposed to be a place where you post up all your random, pointless photos. The original Flickr gave you information on the camera used, aperture, shutter settings and allowed you to interact with the photographer to learn more. These options still appear in the new and “improved” Flickr, but they’re buried away because they aren’t flashy enough.

The thing is, I’m usually quick to ignore people having a go at web-based services; those who don’t like the new features on Twitter or the latest layout on Facebook. The difference there is that those services are free (yes, yes, I know that there’s “no such thing as a free lunch”, and that “the users, are the product”). Whatever – we don’t pay money to use those services.

Flickr is… was… different in that respect. While there was a free option, there were also many, many thousands of users (including myself) who paid their $25 a year for the Pro version. So, while we’re not party to Yahoo’s business plan for Flickr, surely it’s fair for these people to have their say on the changes.

Having a Pro account didn’t actually make me a Pro photographer, but there were benefits (no ads, stats, unlimited space). Now, any new “Pro” accounts (except they’re called “Ad Free” accounts) will cost $49.99 a year. And all you get on top of a free account is no ads. You’re still subjected to a size limit (albeit a big one). If it hardly seems worth it, then that’s probably because it is hardly worth it.
It’s clearly designed to price people into taking the free option. Why? Because yes, it’s aimed at that quick and easy Instagram crowd. The crowd that Flickr doesn’t really have to compete with.

Far be it from me, a microbiologist in South Africa, to question the motives of Marissa Mayer and her people at Yahoo. But I, like the writer above, find myself concerned about Flickr’s longevity in this easy come, easy go, instant gratification world:

After being around a decade and still going strong, it always seemed like Flickr was going to be there. I never really worried about Flickr going away. After all, it had millions of users and a large portion of which, paid for the service. But now? Flickr suddenly feels uncertain. I am less trusting of investing my time uploading photos to Flickr, because I get the feeling that in a few years, Flickr will be going the way of MySpace.

Flickr was never a “social network” for me. I liked looking at other people’s photographs, of course, and I like them looking at mine too, but it was primarily a method of archiving my photos rather than displaying them or sharing them. I’ve still got that – and I’ll still have got that on a free account now too – but how safe will it be? So must I download the photos and store them somewhere else? I have 5,228 images on there as of today – many of them linked to other places (like here for example). It’s a big ask.

Aside from those concerns though, what am I to do with my Flickr account? Downgrade it? Upgrade it?
For the moment, I’m going to sit back and watch what develops. I’m paid up for another 3 months or so anyway, and although I’d get some money back, I don’t want to rule myself out of anything by hurriedly overreacting.
The feedback that I’ve seen thus far has been overwhelmingly negative and who knows, maybe that will instigate (another) change of mind.

Watch this space.
But while you’re watching it, have a look at my Flickr space as well. While you still can.

Shocking report was shockingly reported – shock.

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When that BBC report came out, someone remarked on Facebook:

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.