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"Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen." Carlos Ruiz Zafón

By CATTLEPROD on 3:20 AM

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It seems brands are struggling under the burden of social networking and the pseudo-power it has put back in the hands of the consumer. They will sit in their boardrooms with Marketing Execs, Creative Directors and MBAs... fully qualified and educated people coming up with great ideas. They will unleash these business-savvy and creative campaigns on the world, but then they will run scampering to the hills when a small, usually uneducated, vocal minority start bleating on Facebook.

STOP IT!
Stick to your guns!

Fritolay recently ran into the same cyber-bullies as the Woolworth's Christian magazine debacle. They recalled biodegradable chip packets because people complained about how noisy they were??? WTF? Sometimes brands need to grow some LOGICAL balls and stand by their decisions. Just because some vocal muppets on an SM platform complain DOES NOT MEAN ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL BOYCOTT YOUR ASS! 
Read the full story HERE.

"Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen."

Let the fools talk. It's the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. It's like brands and the people that manage them online are bloody n00bs to the Interwebz. If the person managing your social media has never been a moderator, or at least a heavy user on forums or IRC before, then they will be terrified little babies when faced with interwebz douchelords. I've seen a thousand of these loud-mouthed fuckwits in my time and they are just bullies (In fact I may even be one of them lol). Stand up to them - use logic and reason - and they will succumb. Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel always gets the oil. 




But I urge all brands to heed this advice. Listen to your customers, but don't freak out if there's a little uproar on Facebook about a calculated business decision on your part. Yes, social media has empowered customers to voice their concerns, but since when did you hire them to decide on your strategic business decisions? Listen and absorb, then mull it over, then decide internally. Don't have a kneejerk reaction. Besides, the average attention span of a social media fracas is about a week, then they'll move on to some other stupid bloody popular campaign, while feeding their pigs in Farmville and trying to win a free iPad by becoming a tester AND GET THIS -->> still buying your products and services. The average interwebz user is a fucking moron. As they say, an Internet petition isn't worth the paper it is written on and most Internet users, the vast majority in fact, do not have the strength of conviction to stand by their threats further than the effort it takes to engage caps lock. Don't let them dictate your strategic business decisions.

DO NOT SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY!

Seasteading... and why I wholeheartedly support their aims.

By CATTLEPROD on 12:47 AM

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We Deserve A Future Of Good Governance Patri Friedman and Brad Taylor (SOURCE)
We deserve a future of good governance in which people live under high-quality rule-sets suited to their preferences. Rules are enormously important to human welfare – just look at the differences between those on opposite sides of an arbitrary border, such as that separating North and South Korea. Rules are a meta-technology which determines how well people can cooperate to achieve their goals, and the potential benefits of improvement in this area dwarf those of any other effort to improve the world.
Proposals to improve government are common, but few are ever tried. Those which are tried generally end badly. The clearest example is communism, which claimed more than a hundred million lives and left billions poor and miserable. It’s no wonder that conservatives see radical reform as dangerous.
The central difficulty of improving governance is like any product: we don’t know what will work ahead of time. Products improve not by some grand plan which maps progress from start to finish, but by a series of decentralized experiments which allow ideas to be retained or discarded based on performance in reality. This is why we have such amazing phones today: entrepreneurs tested ideas against technological constraints and consumer preferences. Good ideas were retained and bad ideas abandoned - without anyone needing to die. Over time, we progressed from clunky machines to modern smartphones.
In governance, though, such low-stakes experimentation is currently impossible. Those wishing to improve politics have the impossible task of creating proposals without incremental feedback from reality. If they get things wrong, millions of people may suffer or die. Rather than groping in the dark for the right solution, as utopian philosophers do, we need to bring progress to politics by lowering the barriers to experimentation and making failure less costly. If new countries could be created by those with good ideas and citizens could move to whatever country best suited their preferences - and leave if it got unpleasant - we would see the decentralized experimentation that drives progress in other areas.
Historically, this has happened on the frontier, but since every square inch of land is currently claimed by some existing government, we need to look elsewhere. In the long run, space will provide a vast blank space for experimentation, but there is another frontier here on Earth which is ready now: the ocean.
By developing the knowledge we need to permanently live on the ocean comfortably at a reasonable cost, my colleagues and I at The Seasteading Institutehope to transform the market for governance. The political vacuum of the ocean would itself make seasteading worthwhile (we don’t have to fight anyone for it). As it turns out, the ocean has another important property: shifting large objects is much easier in water than on land (that’s why the ocean is our global highway for goods). With modular ocean cities, people could move countries without leaving their house. Seasteading makes it easier to create and compete in the nation-state industry.
While settling the ocean may sound utopian and unrealistic, it is far more humble and realistic than the alternatives. We admit our ignorance about the ideal society, so we want to let a thousand nations bloom to see what works. And by transforming a political problem to a technological one, we avoid the problems endemic to large-scale politics. While the technological challenges are large, they are far easier than convincing a majority of the population that your utopia is worth the whole country trying. The cruise ship industry shows that people can live comfortably at sea for around $200 per day. Our mission is to drive comfort and safety up and cost down while finding better ways to make a living at sea.
Settling the oceans is a realistic way of increasing quality, diversity, and innovation in governance. It avoids the hubris of top-down reform, and there is a clear path from here to there. While there is much work to be done, the potential benefits are huge. We hope you’ll join us in supporting seasteading as a powerful way to move towards the Future We Deserve.

The Parrot A.R Drone Quadricopter - Perhaps the ultimate gadget?

By CATTLEPROD on 11:54 PM

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You get gadgets and then you get GADGETS. How about a wi-fi connected quadricopter that you can control with your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (apparently Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android are coming too) with 2 onboard video cameras... AND you can battle with a friend? Hmmmm, how about that? CHECK IT OUT: http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/ This gets a massive ^^5)( from me. That's a Double High Five Chest Bump and I'll add in a BOOYAAA!


Check this battle vid: 



If they add in a microphone/speaker function for yelling out shit like "WOOF!" when hovering over the family cat, then this will be one of the ultimate gadgets... okay, wait, if it fetched a beer from the fridge too then I'd marry it.

My favourite movie ending...

By CATTLEPROD on 12:16 AM

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My two favourite movies of all time are: "The Big Lebowski" and "Withnail and I". Herewith, the most poignant scene of any movie I have ever witnessed and a mind-blowing performance of Hamlet from our own Richard E. Grant.

"I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air. Look you! This brave o'erhanging firmament; this majestical roof fretted with golden fire. Why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man? How noble in reason? How infinite in faculty? In form and moving how express and admirable? In action; how like an angel? In apprehension; how like a god? The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither."

You simply can not beat the Bard, but when executed - especially at the end of this film - so impeccably by an actor, you truly feel the impact of his prose. This whole film is brimming with quotes and moments like this, but this particular scene has always punched me in the gut.

WATCH THIS:

Preferably the whole movie though.

One8 - MASSIVE PAN-AFRICAN COLLABORATION IN THE OFFING

By CATTLEPROD on 4:29 PM

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Hot off the streets our reliable sources have revealed that Ugandan hip-hop artist Navio, Zambia’s biggest super star JK, Tanzanian heartthrob Alikiba, Ghanaian trio 4x4 and Gabonese Hip Hop duo Movaizhaleine have joined forces with, as rumour has it, a major international superstar from Chicago's South Side and started recording a single, music video, album and DVD. Rumours are flying on other superstars joining this new found Rocboys-type outfit named ONE8!

Aparently this song and music video is being produced by a major international producer and music video director and will drop this November in addition to being filmed and recorded by the world's number 1 recording giant Sony Music who gave the world rockstars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Pink, Alicia Keys, R Kelly and Usher to name a few...

Damn... Is this music history in the making?

Scoop it here as I dig up more on this...

Does selfless love exist beyond mother and child?

By CATTLEPROD on 10:45 PM

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I commented on Imiel's blog recently, but thought it would make a nice post anyway. I'd love to hear your thoughts too, so please comment.

Here's Imiel's blogpost titled "When two mature persons are in love – by OSHO"

And here's my response: "
Dude, I love it... but I also disagree to some extent. I understand true love and giving without asking for anything in return. Selfless love is definitely a higher state of being and we should aspire to it, but it is rare (mother and child is the most perfect example though). Relationships and humans are MUCH more complex than being able to simply say LOVE without asking for anything in return. A relationship is not entirely about love. Love is the supreme bond, but a relationship requires a lot more than love. Friendship, companionship, affection, trust, truth and lies, sex, parenting, values, life philosophies, morals, intellectual stimulation, conversation, work and play, music, spirituality/religion/beliefs, passion, silence, happiness, sadness, compliments, arguments, personality... it goes on. 


One does not have a relationship purely based on love. You may give love selflessly, but what if they want more than love... what if you want more than love. Is love enough? I don't think so. Love is fueled by all these things, but it is not the sum of the parts. You can love someone as much as you want, selflessly, without expecting anything in return, but you still feel longing, or you still have needs that must be met. If not met, love will wither and die. And I don't think it fully relies on maturity either. No one is "mature", we're all learning and changing all the time. The trick is to align all of the stuff I've mentioned with someone else, grow and learn together, be together... love is sometimes placed on a pedestal. What is love after all? How do you define love? Is it worship? Is that too much? Is it absolute? Is that too much? What is too much love and what is too little? Is it a need, a lust, a passion? To me, love is companionship... a life partner, someone that complements your being. It will not be perfect, nor without passion and even hatred at times, but when you think about it, you love that person because of who they are and who you are because they are with you, and moreso, you love BOTH OF YOU together. 


Maybe I'm not enlightened enough, but giving love selflessly has lead me into trouble before. It is abused. A mature love is one where your needs and wants are also met and you're clever enough to know when they aren't. If your needs and wants and love are not met, then how can you possibly GIVE SELFLESS LOVE, because you will need that love for yourself. You can only give love once you love yourself entirely, then you give it as a gift, not expecting anything back, but it's just stupid to be in a relationship where you are the one giving and the other is taking. It's not healthy for you. As the post says though... two mature people. But as I say "mature" people are rare, if not non-existent. Humans are not and never will be perfect and wholly capable of selfless love (mother and child excluded). It's a continuous dynamic battle of give and take... and balance is what we should seek, not 100% giving. Seek to give, but also seek to receive. The world usually balances out and if you do give, you'll find that you do receive... and I won't feel guilty that I require reciprocal love. There ya go though, maybe I'm just not enlightened enough, but I truly feel that the recipe I have come to through my lessons is working quite well. I give... A LOT, it's in my nature, but it's not free. I don't expect a credit/debit style of payment at all, but I do expect my own personal needs and wants and passions to be met too. I simply can not give love otherwise. Love is a precious thing and I don't believe you should give it away freely. Love, like trust, must be earned. IMHO."

Trust & Jealousy

By CATTLEPROD on 11:50 PM

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Listening to Kieno Kammies on 702 and they are discussing Jealousy in Relationships. Here's my response:

Trust must be earned and not freely given! Until you earn my trust I refuse to trust you. I don't think this is an illogical nor emotional decision. Earn my trust and Keep my trust, then you have free reign. Break my trust and I will never trust you. I have 'To thine own self be true' tattooed on my chest because the minute you lie to anyone, you are lying to yourself and therefore you can't give people your trust until you know that they are being true to themselves... otherwise EVERYTHING is a lie. And everyone loses.

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." - William Shakespeare - Hamlet. Polonius' advice to his son Laertes.

I live by absolute, brutal, honest truth with myself, so deception cuts close to the bone. When you are a true and honest person, and you live your life like an open book - heart on your sleeve and all that - you expose yourself to fallible humanity. And we are all fallible.

It's a tough road to walk, but in the end, truth and trust are intricately linked.

Last quote: "If you are speaking the truth; you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain.

If all of humanity could just start being true to themselves... I'll leave you with that.



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