Tech Blogging and News For South Africa
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Loss of international connectivity attributed to SAT-3 cable
Jan 24th
Most SA Internet users, are currently experiencing severe international connectivity problems since Wednesday, 20 January 2010. This means that browsing to international websites and receiving email from international sources has proven problematic.
This issue is a result of a SAT-3 cable break on the London-Bellville link which continues to cause slow international connectivity.
Telkom SA is conducting major maintenance on the fault, with the maintenance window running from 20-22 January and again from 29 January to 1 February. During this maintenance window, most South African Internet users will experience intermittent high latency to international locations.
What South African Criminals Need
Jan 18th
USA JAIL – SOME INTERESTING READING
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF (ARIZONA) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
These are some of the reasons why:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the “tent city jail” to save Arizona from spending tens of millions of dollars on another expensive prison complex.
He has jail meals down to 20 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
He banned smoking and pornographic magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but “G” movies. He says:
“They’re in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave.”
He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayer’s money.
Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn’t get sued for discrimination.
He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again but only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel.
When asked why the weather channel, he replied: “So these morons will know how hot it’s gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.”
He cut off coffee because it has zero nutritional value and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money. When the inmates complained, he told them, “This isn’t the Ritz/Carlton. If you don’t like it, don’t come back.”
He also bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on US history that he pipes into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series that actually tells the truth for a change would be welcome and that it might even explain why 95% of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.
With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record for June 2nd 2009), the Associated Press reported: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed wire surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.
On the Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were overheard chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees.
“This is hell. It feels like we live in a furnace,” said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go. “It’s inhumane.”
Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. “Criminals should be punished for their crimes – not live in luxury until it’s time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can’t afford to have for themselves.”
The same day he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: “It’s between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents there too, and they have to walk all day in that sun, wearing full battle gear and getting shot at, and THEY have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!”
Way to go, Sheriff! If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison space in South Africa with one of the highest crime rates because … our Government believes that criminal have rights!
If you agree, pass this on. If not, just delete it.
Sheriff Joe was just re-elected for the umpteenth time as Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona. In South Africa many of our top police officials are under investigation of have been found guilty of alleged corruption … so what’s new?
Cellphone with TV launches in SA
Dec 9th
A new cellphone with the capacity for two SIM cards and an analogue TV receptor has been launched in South Africa.
Rich, poor clash over climate
Dec 9th
Developing nations who face huge climate change burdens are demanding that wealthy nations shoulder more of the costs.
PM admits Twitter gobbledegook
Dec 9th
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has admitted he should oversee the family computer more closely, after his young son posted a string of gobbledegook on his wife's Twitter page.
Publishers plan Kindle rival
Dec 9th
US publishers of newspapers and magazines plan to challenge the Kindle electronic-book reader with their own digital format that would display in colour.
Google bundles news coverage
Dec 9th
Internet search leader Google Inc is teaming up with The New York Times and The Washington Post in an attempt to help out the ailing newspaper industry.
Hubble finds ‘never-seen’ galaxies
Dec 9th
The Hubble telescope has captured some of the oldest galaxies yet seen in the universe using a new infared camera, scientists in Britain said.
Ban adds to climate expectations
Dec 9th
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he expected the Copenhagen climate summit to seal a historic deal on cutting emissions amid warnings that the last decade broke the record for global warming.
‘Climategate’ dispelled by UN
Dec 8th
Members of the Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists have risen to defend colleagues they say have been "targeted" for e-mail hacking to sway the outcome of the UN global warming talks.
