The technology of self-help

I found a mobile app that has changed my life. In just three weeks. Noom Weight Loss has revolutionised the way I look at food, weight loss and exercise.

I downloaded the app (for free) from the Android market at the beginning of the month. In the past three weeks, I’ve lost 2kgs – not to mention just about ALL my cravings for junkfood and other high-calorie treats.

The self-help junkie in me did a virtual somersault! I’d finally found the secret to winning this life-long battle. And this, my friends, is exactly what technology is SUPPOSED to do. Technology is the epitome of self-help. It’s meant to empower, set-free and inspire.

Undoubtedly, the development of this little miracle app is informed by a whole lot of research, expert opinion and the collective results of multiple psychological studies – not to mention hours of slog by numerous tech-type guys to put it all together. That’s cool and everything, but I care only that it works.

And it does work. You know why? Because the Android market is a cut-throat place: Users have the power of the rating. And they're not afraid to use it. One ‘force-close’ when someone’s having a bad day; or a badly timed update-induced performance bug and you’re toast! Your cushy 5-star corner office can become the dingy 3-star cubicle in the blink of an eye, or - more aptly - in the tap of a touchscreen. You give your product away for free and people will still not hesitate to crush you if you don’t meet the grade. It’s so beautifully democratic.

I have no time for the latest or most cutting-edge anything unless it’s going to make my life easier or better. For real.

That’s why when I have to use a certain South-African-financial-management-software-system-that-shall remain-nameless at about this time of every month I want to hurl. I can’t understand how they can even be anything near a leading software provider, or provider of anything at all for that matter, anywhere in the world.

I can’t wait until the day *everything* happens in the cloud. Then they’ll see. Then we’ll show them.

Mr Nice Troll

I've noticed recently that I am on my best form, tweet-wise, with a little liquor in me. I am not proud of it, but there is something about laying your questionable humour and inane quirks out in front of total strangers that requires (for me, anyway) a certain measure of 'Dutch courage'.

Of late, I find it harder to believe that I really have anything of much value to say, considering my current life circumstances - top of the list being the sudden wearing off of the novelty of this whole 'virtual' office model thing. In the midst of all this tightening of economic belts by potential clients, it's taken a sudden turn towards the literal! The ensuing physical isolation has placed certain doubts in my mind regarding my actual value to society (and by extrapolation, social networks).

Anyone who follows me might be aware of the fact that I hardly tweet much lately and, to a large extent, that's why. But, put a drink in my hand and I find myself positively consumed by the urge to broadcast to the twittersphere. There's a peculiar devil-may-care relentlessness to my tweeting on those occasions. I can go on for hours without getting an @ mention back to speak of. In a word, I vent. For better or worse.

However, despite this virtual opening of my inhibition floodgates when under the influence, I remain always a nice person. Which brings me to my point... I read an article in this month's Cosmopolitan magazine about internet trolls - those nasty creatures that inhabit the dark underbelly of my beloved interweb: websites' comments sections.

According to Cosmo SA and the experts they spoke to, internet trolls are typified by "posting disruptive comments to elicit a response from a group... normally groups that are easy to incite... posting sweeping and offensive statements. But sometimes they target an individual".

Being generally self-deprecating and prone to much (oft irrational) hand-wringing anxiety myself, I can - to a certain degree - understand the probable myriad of self-esteem issues that must plague this particular group of individuals. But still, does it all have to be so nasty? Is it not a far nobler pursuit to just want to be liked - like me?

I don't get it. I mean, I too believe that anonymity is probably one of the web's most seductive qualities. I assume it is to some what my large goblet of wine is to me - license to go forth into the vastness of cyberspace, unhindered and unfiltered. Still, it's a tad sad in my mind to use that same anonymity for the pure purpose of inciting a response, only for the hollow victory of you being the only one who knows who exactly it was that caused the ruckus in the first place. And worse, is it really a victory when all you have done is just, in so many cases, cause real and personal offence?

At least I have the courage to own my drunken ramblings. As much as I may hide behind my bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, I remain @TseliB: and I am completely willing to face the fact that whatever I subject my followers to via my twitstream will live forever on in the ether, inextricably linked to my name and online persona.

I am proud to say that in fifteen years, I will have no more regrets about it than I did the morning after I tweeted it. How many trolls can say the same?

Jilted

So Twitter and I are kind of on a break... I didn't say anything before now because, well, I didn't want you to worry. But now I'm not so sure we can work it out. I wonder if this could be the end?

He's just so damned impetuous! I mean, all I did was tell him I needed some time to deal with a few personal issues - but then I come back and he's all but dumped me. Do you know he's turned some of our mutual friends against me? No, really - they hardly talk to me any more, they don't call me back, and some of them just stopped being my friends altogether.

He makes me feel so awkward everytime we hang out now. Nothing I say seems to go over well with him anymore. All I get is this steely silence whenever I try to talk to him. He's even gone back to palming me off onto his creepy spammer friends again. I really thought we were both bigger than that to be honest, but I guess I was wrong.

He's really changed. I mean, he even looks different! I just don't know who he is anymore. I thought we had something special, but I'm really starting to get the feeling that he moved on while I was gone. Granted, two months is a long time, but it's not *that* long. Is it? I guess all those stories I heard about him before we got together were true... he's just not a one-woman platform. Could he have found someone wittier, someone with more time? Could I have been replaced?

No! I refuse to admit defeat. I'm not ready to give up just yet. I have to find a way to get that old thing back. Some way to feel that newness again. That feeling of never wanting to be apart. I just have to.

I want to go back to the way things used to be.

Breaking all the rules

First it was email and text messages. Then it was instant messaging - and now social media. Comunication today is about doing it as quickly as possible and with as little effort as possible. Great. Only problem is, in the process we are giving in to sheer chaos!

Everything I ever thought I knew about proper written communication is questioned on a daily basis in this brave new world. I used to scoff at text speak when I first learned of its existence. To me, 'words' - nay, character arrangements - like l8r, 4get, and m8 were among the most vile assaults on the written word that I had ever witnessed. Soon enough though, it became acceptable to me to replace the occasional 'to' and 'for' with their numerical derivatives in an sms (text message). But never, and I mean *never*, would I be caught using anything as abhorrent as '4m' in place of 'from'. I mean, honestly - "four-m"? WTF!?!

I gave in... just a little. But still, some modicum of order was retained. I still had rules. Human beings need rules. They form a baseline... The measure against which we deduce our level of conformity; our edginess; where we lie on the good-to-bad continuum. The problem comes in when we all have our own rules, and not one universally recognised set of them. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on that most-beloved of social media platforms - Twitter. (God lord, but we're a neurotic bunch! Just rules, principles, and varying degrees of OCD up the wazoo!) And that, dear readers is why I love it so much.

I had a very interesting discussion with two of my fave tweeps today about the use of LOL. Yes, 'LAUGH OUT LOUD'. Well, that's what Urban Dictionary will tell you it means, but don't be fooled. There are infinite nuances to its use. It's more than just an acronym. Depending just on its placement within a phrase, it can also be used to convey sarcasm, narcissism and (apparently) even condescension. Who would have known, huh?

I disagreed with some of those points. I love to LOL. In fact, I'm the self-appointed captain of #TeamLOL. I LOL all over the place. Indiscriminately. And I'm not ashamed. I've even been known to LMAO at times (yes, you read right). But ROFL? ROFL is reserved for very very special circumstances - it's just a rule of  mine. Some people, on the other hand, LOL as often as they ROFL and LMAO even more. They say BRB when they actually won't, and FML when they actually have it pretty good.

Some people break the cardinal (in my opinion) rule of tweeting - going over 140 characters - with that detestable 'twitlonger'. Others' RTing is just all over the place. Disgusting! (I swear sometimes I think all the sickos of the world are congregated on Twitter.)

So much delinquency... But my worst; my absolute worst are those chaos-mongering smart asses who not only break the rules, but think they can just make them all up as they go along.

Who do they think they are?

#ReconciliationDay (A tweet package)

Today was the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa. It's my favourite public holiday. It's symbolic of so many of the things that I love about this country. I couldn't let it pass without blogging about it.

Ok. But my blog is about the web and life in the information age so how could I? One word... Twitter. Only the biggest micro-blogging site on the web! I've taken the liberty of selecting some of my tweets on #ReconciliationDay and packaged them here in honour of the holiday.

About 16 December - The Day of Reconciliation
Afrikaners traditionally celebrated 16 Dec as the Day of the Vow, remembering the day in 1838 when a group of Voortrekkers defeated a Zulu army at the Battle of Blood River, while ANC activists commemorated it as the day in 1961 when the ANC started to arm its soldiers to overthrow Apartheid. In the new South Africa, it's a day of reconciliation, a day to focus on overcoming the conflicts of the past and building a new nation.

Tip: I tried to keep it all logically ordered. So you don't get lost, read the grouped tweets from bottom to top that's how we do it on Twitter. lol.

... What is really REAL?

This is a great piece posted on Facebook by my friend, LAW. After reading this, I was left wide open. 


LAW spares no one. There are moments when I was like, "Yeah, tell 'em. That's what I'M talking about!" and other times when I felt like slamming my laptop shut in shame-induced indignation. Let me know how it made you feel...


Consumerism,Commercialism and our distorted Culture...What is really REAL?
I watched in awe an episode of Willie's chocolate revolution and his passion for making the best chocolate in the world. I figured, what an absurdly overambitious man! However the more I watched I realized that this silly man was driven by one thing and one thing only..passion. Willie traveled to countries in Europe sharing his ideas on chocolate, He went deep in the Venezuelan jungles searching for perfect cacao..wow I was absorbed into this..Besides my passion for real chocolate,I was pleasantly surprised that in some European countries, your Cadburys and Nestles are not ALLOWED to use the word chocolate on their products as this is not considered to have the attributes of a real chocolate. 

That is my inspiration for this note, I always shake my head in disbelief when people are eating Debonairs and actually believe its the best pizza there is...sh!t doesn't even taste like pizza..reaally..but its been branded and marketed as the next best thing and we simply feed into it..real southern fried chicken beats the commercial alternative KFC any day..BUT we line up for an hour just to get that wise 2...

For years now it has been nearly impossible to control industrial pollution on many levels, noise pollution, air pollution,water pollution, etc.. all have been justified by the end product and economic gains, so we chose to be ignorant. In came commercialism,as I have heard before that small amounts of waste can be absorbed and recycled naturally by nature, so can small amounts of commercialism.. but today that is not the case. We are polluted by excessive amounts of commercialism that have turned what was once "human" beings, "neighbours" "family" etc. into simple consumers whose lives are events dictated by the media

Our mere existence is turned into an event, our culture is distorted to a point were everything is an event, a reason to consume... we celebrate Christmas as a red fat dude who gives presents...you must now fork out a truckload of cash just for the family to enjoy the"event". what happened to the death of Christ?

We buy insurance for everything...yes even things you damn right know nothing will happen, we have insurance for that.. why cos they tell us "IT MIGHT HAPPEN"

You got that comedian guy Dube selling you "hospital cover" from clientele life ON TOP of your existing medical aid cover..and yes I bet most of yall fell for it cos he "justifies" it quite well.

All this commercialism is perpetuating stereotypes of our people and rather than move away from such blatant forms of slavery we gravitate towards it like a herd of antelopes leaping into a lake full of crocodiles.. All of a Sunday the new "elite" black is called a black diamond and ALREADY a criteria of goods and services have been selected for him/her, you know the hennesy drinker, the BMW driver, the polo shirt and armani suit wearer etc. oh I know a bunch of them..living above affordability standards, deep in debt.

There is a saying

"You work in a job you hate, to buy stuff that you don't need, to impress people that you don't like."

Unfortunately we are sucked into this like moths to a flame and never sit back for a second to actually discover what we really need.. Often people think I'm weird or "bourgeois" in the South African context adopting idle customs of the "newly rich". this unfortunately arises from the distorted imposed commercial class that we must all fit into this or that...

I question it all.. what if people had a choice to make up their own minds about everything? Would we listen to the same music? would we eat the same food? conform to the same standards that increasingly make the corporate filthy rich while polluting the environment and leaving the poor poorer?

Would we wear the same clothes? Would brands be of such significance?

You probably know more brands than you do the the veges and weeds growing in your backyard.. what happened to the power of choice? the only true power we have as human beings is the power to choose, but it seems that has been stripped from us as well.. Half of what we think is...really isn't. We are gladly living in a society here our culture has become one sided,where intercultural understanding and cooperation cannot flourish.. and we consume what we are fed instead of listening to US..

what would we really choose if all this miseducation was erased from our heads and we had a choice of starting afresh?

For one I think most pop music sucks period.

Debonairs is not pizza

Cadbury chocolate is not chocolate

I pay over 2grand a month for medical cover I have only used for my flu

The Value of a person is not defined by how much money and material things they have.

OMO,SURF,SUNLIGHT..all the same thing..you lying if you can "see" the difference in you washing

Colgate,Aquafresh..same thing and NO it cannot whiten your teeth..lies..

Yes breakfast is the most important meal,cos you are breaking a fast from sleep and none activity, but 3 meals a day at those prescribed times?? who came up with that?

Formal education is great but overrated

NO you dont "NEED" a plasma

Who really came up with the dumb notion that we all have to own a car? (you should see the traffic in Lesotho with the influx of imports,are they really getting anywhere faster?)

YES the finer things in life come with the actualization of self to a higher being or level and we must always strive for the best in everything, so brotherman a bottle of expensive whiskey with coca cola? you are just a consumer boss..and dont defend mediocrity with saying "its my choice"

70% of all the herbs you buy are free in the streets..but you dont know that cos you trust your "Robertsons" so much and the adverts NEVER say..by the way thyme,mint,rosemary are WIDELY freely available if you DONT want to buyour "processed" "packaged" alternative!

NO you are in no way better in you pringle shirt than us "markhams and jet" shirt wearing brothers

YES Commercialism has clear parallels with industrial pollution..think about it..

The more consumerism spreads, the weaker is the incentive to manufacture long-lasting, quality products, and the greater the likelihood that cheaply made products will instead be imported from the lowest-wage, environmentally unregulated overseas manufacturer that mobile capital, ever seeking the highest return, can find. (Remember your parents old HI FI? its still working...20something odd years after your conception and you have changed your stereo several times, your cellphone is probably new...aint it)

NO you are not a black diamond, you are still Thabo or Lerato or Mandla or whoever

There is no BEE.. There are people smart enough to outsmart the rest of us and muddle it all in politics so they can swindle as much of our tax money as possible

THERE ARE NO SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA.if there are what are their leaders driving?

NO you wont "DIE" without your favorite accessory..be it a cellphone or gucci bag.

How many sources of natural spring water are there? where were they all this time when all of a Sunday every bottled water is "BOTTLED AT SOURCE" b!tch please thats purified tap water

Ricoffy,frisco etc. are not coffee

After all is said and done, Ill probably go home in my brand car,buy brand beer,avoid spilling on my brand shirt and watch my brand "plasma" tv and think what sick sick world we live in...

Lawrence.. aka LAW (a brand name LOL)

The mote in your public eye

This post was meant to be up 16 days ago. I never finished it and haven't until now because I didn't think it was "current" enough. To hell with "current"! This is real talk.

As a youngster, I dreamed constantly of being rich, famous and adored. It was an alluring and exciting fantasy, but still just a fantasy. Had I known back then what being in the public eye would mean in 2009, I would never have even dared to dream it. In this, the internet age, it would seem that the cost of being in the public eye is wholly disproportionate to the benefits.

Today, the web was abuzz with news of Rihanna's 'tell all' interview with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Chris Brown. There was a flurry of tweets flying back and forth across Twitter as people threw out their own opinions on the matter. Some claimed to have no sympathy for the 21-year-old starlet because she chose only to speak out months after the fact and (coincidentally - or not) on the eve of the release of her new album.

At virtually the same time, MTV was announcing an its own news special featuring Chris Brown speaking on the very same subject. Again, speculation abounded about whether this was a stab at pushing up his sales.

Now, as far as I know, only Rihanna and Chris know the full details of what happened in that car and in the few months that have passed since that night. Yet, the whole world and its cousin feels perfectly entitled to not only comment but pass judgement on the motives and intentions for every move these two kids have made ever since. The marvel that is the web has made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to have a voice on the matter and potentially influence the voices of others, negative or otherwise.

That's fantastic for us, but what about them?

21 feels almost like a lifetime ago for me, but not long enough to forget that I did a lot of stupid shit! A lot. I didn't know very much about life so I didn't always make the very best decisions for my life. I don't know about you, but if tens of thousands of people all had something to say about my every choice of hairstyle, boyfriend or fast food meal back then, I'd find it a little difficult to stand. And if I'd been through or done something really bad, I wouldn't appreciate being judged on how I handled the matter at that emotionally immature age, either.

And it's not just them. Barack Obama was nominated for and won the Nobel Peace Prize and people were mad as hell. He came into the White House with the brightest and most progressive and positive idealism that that country had seen in a long while and was applauded for it; then 9 months later, a panel of dudes somewhere (for their own reasons) deem it fit to bestow this honour on him and all the rest of us can do is point out every possible reason why he's unworthy.

Thankfully, Obama is a grown-ass man. But I don't care how old you are - that's gotta sting! He's on Twitter. He knows what folks were saying.

Yes. Criticise. Don't take anything at face value. Question everything. Of course, these things we must do. Let's just not forget that just because the information comes to us virtually, doesn't mean there isn't a real, living, breathing, feeling human being in there somewhere.