Today’s date – 11/11/11 – is an auspicious one. Particularly so for many Chinese couples, who have adopted ‘the day of six ones’ as an exceptionally lucky wedding date, ignoring the fact that 11 November is usually celebrated as an unoffical singles day in China. Once a century, those extra two ones make this an excellent day to leave the single life behind.
Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has collaborated with an Afropop group, ironically called the Born Free Crew, to release a single that is getting some airplay on national television and radio stations. Keeping things in the family, the album’s executive producer is Mugabe’s Minister of Information, and of course, it’s about colonialism.
Darren Aronofsky is the well-known film director behind Requiem for a Dream, and more recently, Black Swan. He has made a series of shocking adverts – each stressing the horrible consequences of abusing methamphetamine, or Tik as it is known here. Be warned however, even though these are must-see material, some of them are very disturbing and probably NSFW.
Nokia has released a concept video for their new HumanForm phone – which isn’t so much human-shaped as it is oblong. What’s interesting about it is that the casing is meant to be flexible, and the entire surface is meant to run off of touch recognition, which is fairly rad.
In the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure and carbon emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that we are likely to build so many new fossil-fueled power stations in the next five years that it won’t be possible to hold global warming at safe levels.
A 13-ton, US$ 170 million Russian space probe that was launched on Wednesday, due for a rendezvous with one of Mars’ moons, has had a system fail before it even left earth orbit, and now threatens to do what asteroid YU55 didn’t. провалить!
Robots have been the subject of countless science fiction tales and blockbuster movies, most often portrayed as malicious machines that have become independent of their creators and use their inherent advantages to rise to the top of the food chain. Until very recently, this type of scenario could only ever exist in fiction.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles The Red List, and which is widely recognised as the most comprehensive method for evaluating the conservation status of animal and plant species around the world, has declared the subspecies, the western black rhino (Diceros bicornis longipes), as extinct.
Julius Malema’s hearing today has pretty much brought all productivity to a halt, with most of us holding our breath to hear the result. Twitter was abuzz with activity, and stressed to all of us the importance of putting your iPad on silent before a big speech.
A Russian news bulletin recently aired a segment on strippers. They then cut back to the news anchor live in studio – only to reveal him masturbating to the footage! Obviously realising he is on air, he quickly composes himself and continues to read the news as if nothing is wrong. But keep an eye on his “guilty” hand and what he does with it.
Helen Zille texted the following to 2oceansVibe following the outcome of Julius Malema’s disciplinary hearing.
If you’re bad at choosing both your music and your beverage, drinkify.org will help ease the burden by telling you which drinks go best with your music of choice. And if this isn’t what the internet was made for, well then I have been mislead.
Julius Malema has been suspended from the ANC, and ANC Youth League for FIVE YEARS. Unlike many of the other sentences handed to other core members of the ANCYL, Malema’s sentence is effective immediately.
If you’re on MTN and suffering the curse of slow data on your smartphone, the fix is in! MTN have announced the roll out of R8 billion worth of 3G wireless stations to enhance service provision across the country.
Information wants to be free, man! So says Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks geeks. Info wants to be free! The internet is free! Don’t police it! It’s a nice idea, isn’t it? The internet being the last place on earth that is unpoliced. Well, that may be about to go away.
Big wave surfing is not for the feint of heart. That amount of water carries a hell of a lot of weight, and one slip up can lead to a terrible encounter with a wall of watery death. Garrett McNamara, a big wave surfer from Hawaii has just broken the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed. Video after the jump.
In the final episode of this season of Rugby Vibe, Steve and his guest, Phillip Venter consider the personnel that South African rugby has at its disposal as it moves into the future. Following on from last week, Steve covers his pick of forward players. Proudly brought to you by:
Orion Cold Storage, a Cape Town-based food distributor, has been caught red-handed lying about an extensive range of food products destined for shop shelves. Undercover footage recorded by an employee on his cellphone between February and August this year shows an employee “blessing” food as Halaal when it clearly isn’t.
I love tawny port. The flavours of sweet raisin, black tea and earth make we want to shout and dance around singing, “I’m Tawny, Tawny Tawny Tawny tonight.” I finished half a bottle last night in preparation for this column. It made me happy. But not as happy as I was the last time I drank it – and that’s the rub.
The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has ruled that a new ad for perfume, created by designer Marc Jacobs, sexualizes children. The campaign features teenage actress Dakota Fanning posing with an oversized bottle of perfume between her legs. The fragrance is called “Oh, Lola!” and the name is a reference to the famous literary character Lolita. You know, the 12 year-old who had sex with a man four times her age.
Mayor of Denver, Michael Hancock, has been pressuring members of the Occupy Denver movement to pick a leader, “to deal with City and State officials.” So the protesters, in the most benign shove-it gesture imaginable, elected a three-and-a-half-year-old border collie. Named Shelby.
Apple recently showed a St. Louis, USA-based app developer a red card, giving him a one year ban from their App Development Programme, all because he tried to prove a point.
I always find it quite hilarious that when a new hot hatch is launched it is almost immediately compared to the VW Golf. I don’t know when the Golf became the undisputed king of this segment, but what I do know is the last time I drove a hot Golf, it was without doubt one of the best cars I had ever driven. It was the all-wheel drive Golf R, and it’s going to take some beating. Enter the 2012 Astra OPC.
Some organisation by the name of “The Central Drug Authority”, is here to tell you how bad you are. Or, in the words of the authority’s acting chairman, Dr Ray Eberlein, “If we had a boozing world cup, South Africa wouldn’t even have to practise.” Duh, Dr Ray, we already had one. And I’m still hanging from it.
A former policeman-turned private detective says he shadowed 90 people, including Prince William for News of the World. Derek Webb has said he started working for the paper shortly after setting up his private detective agency in 2003, and they paid him right up until July. James Murdoch’s meeting tomorrow just got even more interesting.
Cosmetics line, Lip Smacker has unveiled a new line of Girl Scout Cookie-themed lip balm tubes featuring balms matching five well known cookie flavours – Thin Mints, Trefoils, Tagalongs, Do-si-dos, or Samoas. So, you know, now you can have whole minutes of cookie taste on your lips without any impact on your hips.
Yesterday was a big day for European politics, with Poland welcoming their first transsexual woman ever into its parliament. Anna Grodzka was born a man but underwent a sex change. She was also joined by Robert Biedron – the country’s first openly gay man to be elected to office.
Harold Hackett doesn’t use Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the vast array of dating platforms to make friends – he goes the Castaway route by tossing messages sealed in bottles into the surf near his home on Prince Edward Island, Canada. And it works.
You probably remember watching Absolutely Fabulous – the show about two drunk, over the top, excessively crazy bitches. It may be the very place Amy Winehouse got the inspiration for the beehive, and possibly her bad behaviour as well. BBC Films has now jumped on board, and a film is on the way.
Strokes can have massive effects on the body and mind, and are known to be occasionally transformative. Perhaps none more-so than the stroke experienced by Chris Birch during a rugby training incident in Wales. Birch,26, claims to have woken up after suffering a stroke feeling very different, and that the incident had turned him into a gay man. He was engaged to his girlfriend at the time.