Recently in Insanity Category

Efforts by the Competition Commission to fine Telkom R3,7bn for anti competitive behaviour have been revived, with the commission winning the right to appeal against a court ruling that temporarily halted its campaign.

Telkom owns one of the largest ISPs in South Africa, and all evidence appears to indicate that they’ve been giving their own ISP preferential treatment, in terms of rates, packages, etc.. This has led to the opinion that they abusing the market with their anti-competitive behaviour, and I tend to agree. They will undoubtedly fight this tooth and nail so it will likely be a long time before we see any kind of resolution. My question is, what happens to that money should the Competition Commission be successful?

Full details at Business Day.

In a rather uncharacteristic move of innovation, Telkom has launched GETMO, a platform offering digital content downloads such as movies and music. Targeted at the local South African market in direct competition with international services, I find it incredibly ironic — in true Telkom style — that it’s hosted internationally largely defeating the point of actually launching a “local” service.

A quick perusal of the FAQ is filled with hilarious tidbits such as:

I own an iPod, but cannot transfer music from GETMO to this device. What is the cause of this problem?
Since the iPod does not support WMA, it cannot be used with GETMO. Find a list of supported devices that have been tested for their compatibility with GETMO in section “Supported media devices”.

and…

Can I use my MAC?
With Mac OS xxx cannot be used because here neither the full functional circumference of Windows Media players nor that of the Internet Explorer are available. However, it will be possible on Apple machines with Intel’s processors to install Windows XP. Likewise VirtualPC Windows and therefore Macintosh can be used with the help of additional programs.

Clearly Telkom believes that eliminating a large chunk of your potential consumer base is a good way to do business — incidentally Cyberdyne believes the same thing; open the site an any non MSIE browser and prepare yourself for a slap in the face. I’m not a market analyst, but it doesn’t really take an expert to know that Apple has managed to secure themselves a very large chunk of the market with their range of iPods in the portable media sector. Also, designing a site that only supports MSIE doesn’t seem like the best of ideas given the soaring popularity of competing browsers such as Firefox and OS’ that don’t support MSIE.

In the same motion that Telkom give you a real world-class service they also turn around and kick you in the balls (what’s new?). The FAQ indicates that the content will be riddled with DRM. There’s just too much there for me to list specifics so it’s better to check the complete FAQ.

Via MyBroadband

The best thing about the internet is that everyone is allowed on it, the worst part of the internet is that everyone is allowed on it. Any keyboard jockey with a crazy notion can publish their work, create a small following and generally get in everyone else’s way.

The cool part of this post is this:

Shit man, that’s a 12-year¹ old burger! That’s older than the internet as we know it! That bun has a better tan than Paris Hilton; McDonald’s should start marketing anti-aging creams.

Onto the crap part, the rest of the burger post

Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike - this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here.

Where is the scientific rigour? What the hell is a chemical food.

It does nothing to nourish the cell …

Obviously, I am also missing the point here. Cell? Is this some new-age mumbo jumbo, Gaia, the Cell, and the Essence of life engaged in some kind of horrific three-way hippie orgy. Notice the self-given title of “Nutritional Consultant”, read as “I don’t have any real qualifications other than bathing once monthly under the light of a full moon”.

On your way out, take heed of the wise words of ijostl:

Thanks for the notice. Try not to despair at the animal ignorance exemplified by those who do not appreciate science.

For those that care about life and the knowledge brought to them by all those who died bringing the concept of “planet” to us layfolk; be careful what you purchase in this day of market-driven greed.

Watch out, it’s fucking science.

[1] Benefit of doubt given