As Dr David Baltimore rose to speak a smoke and thunder of voices rattled the doors at the back of the Great Hall at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Protestors outside had threatened to disrupt his presentation of the third annual Nelson Mandela Science Lecture. Baltimore is the President Emeritus and Robert Andrews […]
Tag Archives: whythawk
A South African’s experience of September 11th, 2001
I had been running the Western Cape branch of Business Beat, a Deloitte-sponsored business development initiative, for two years. In 2001 it was decided that I needed a board. The board’s first meeting was early afternoon on 11 September 2001. The senior partner of Deloitte had been talking generally and introducing us to the expected […]
Scrogues Converse: Open-space, Identity and the Missing Web
Scrogues Converse is our new feature where scrogues engage in informed discussion of fringe topics fast approaching from the grey fog behind you. In our first conversation Martin Bosworth and Gavin Chait discuss the nature of Open-source vs Open-standards and the way in which Web 2.0 is not so much re-inventing the web as in […]
Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch
Business is cyclical. Innovation changes environments and, unintentionally, destroys profitable status quos. When that happens stronger and more innovative firms pounce to buy up the assets of weaker firms and maintain their competitive advantage. Customers and society win as inefficient products are removed from the market and the base standard rises. There are losers, of […]
Zimbabwe: the Hollow State
Three weeks ago Tama Muru from the BBC asked me if I thought Zimbabwe would explode. At the time I said, “No.” Was I wrong? The situation three weeks ago was this: The Zimbabwe dollar was worth less than the paper it’s printed on Zimbabwe is short of everything and produces virtually no food on […]
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- Pope Francis says atheists can go to heaven: Sweet Jesus! The College of Cardinals done elected a hippie
- Magic Hat vs. West Sixth brewhaha: will MH win the battle that costs them the war?
- WordsDay: Postmodernist Xerism at it most discontentedly hopeful…
- How to stop journalists: Say they might be criminals
- Denver FOX News affiliate caught making shit up
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
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Frank Dilatush: Thank you Rathmone, you are a scholar and a mind r…
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rathmone: As awesome as it would be for Dudley Moore to be A…
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Brian Angliss: To answer your question, no, the Cook et al 2013 r…
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populartechnology: Brian, By rating the abstracts are they implyin…
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