claidheamhmor's post about HP (mainly a hardware manufacturer) buying EDS, a service company got me searching for more opinions. Mainly the opinions are negative, with many analysts stating that HP would not be able to integrate the new company to a full effect, at least straight away. This was echoed when they announced that full integration will not occur, rather a more different agreement will be drawn up and adhered to.

Here are some of the opinions:

Business Week seems the most cautious and pessimistic. It wisely points out that EDS has made a great deal of mistakes regarding trends in the services sector and is widely behind its competitors.They also question the wisdom of HP CEO Mark Hurd in this deal.

Wall Street Journal point out similar concerns as Business Week, but they remain more neutral in their outlook.

I think the easiest way to sum it up from the articles so far, is that EDS is gaining a great deal here. HP is trying to compete with the more successful companies in the services market. Will it succeed and the more behind companies of HP and EDS will emerge as winners, maybe not now, but certainly in a few years?

Tough to say, especially as I am no industry pundit. I do work in the IT industry however, and have worked for IT service companies, one of them being EDS. I am very certain that despite any optimistic and pessimistic outlooks, the IT industry, especially the services sector will have a 'interesting' time.  Of course, just because it may not be nice, it does not mean it won't be interesting.

I would love to be at least a partial beneficiary for the purchase price - $13.9 billion is nothing to frown at.

A new definition of: "Having panties in a twist". Of course, not nearly as dangerous as using a potato as a weapon.

On a more serious note, the question has been asked: "In what context do we have the cheapest electricity in the world?"  And are we really that cheap if we primarily use coal and not cleaner energy sources with the countries being compared with? Of course, there is also the polite enquiry of whether Eskom try to build more power stations when the economy was booming?

I doubt those questions will get answered, even if they are seemingly obvious to even an 'amateur economist' such as myself (First year economics in uni does not really count for a lot of expertise).  Of course, the more inquisitive answers of why the top management at Eskom are still getting their bonuses(coming up to about 60 million Rand = almost 8 million $) even after their spectacular  publicly witnessed failure to do their jobs? I doubt those will be answered either.

On the up side, in a strictly black humour terms, all this may come to naught, if hostile alien civilisations trace back the signals we use to monitor close-by asteroids. Assuming hostile technologically-advanced alien life exists and wants to wipe us off for whatever is left off of our mineral resources or just because. Somehow, the lack of electricity to watch "The Biggest Loser: South Africa" is no longer such an anger-inspiring fact.

Let me get this straight, you are experiencing problems with providing electricity to the country, because of your poor planning, disregard for the essential equipment and the colossal tragedy, which you call your managing skills as the only provider of electricity in the country. The first pro-active public action you take however, besides asking for an extra 53% on your rates and implementing rolling blackouts throughout the country is hire a PR officer.

I hope, in utter naiveté, that his first communique would be something along the lines of how long it will be before all the stations are serviced and brought online so they can be provide more electricity to the country, or at the very least that your disproportionate and entirely undeserved bonuses of close to 60 million Rand are suspended.

What can I say, where would we all be without some unfounded optimism?

P.S. At least a professional spin doctor will at least be able to explain clearly if we will be freezing this coming winter.

I logged in to CNN this morning, for a quick update of the international news. In the top headlines on the website among the fears of terrorism, trouble in the middle East, Zimbabwe voting crisis, Tibetan monks being arrested for political activism in China and so forth, the headline, which almost wants to make you click on as the 'which is the 'out-of-place' phrase question we used to get on the tests in high school, was that Brittany Spears had a fender-bender and no-one was injured.

I understand, we want happy and entertaining news, but it still strikes me as something tainted that we equal persecution of those, who feel they have been denied their rights to practice their religion; or the fact that the threat of word wide terrorism is worsening despite the increasingly severe security measures. Yet the news that a two-bit  dug-abusing starlet was involved in a minor traffic accident makes it to the same range as all the 'bigger' issues. Issues relating to death, human suffering, religious tolerance are being put on the same bench as Spears's slow reflexes in hitting her brakes!

When I was much younger, the exciting 'news' were the upcoming Olympics and the scandals and excitement surrounding the biggest sports event in the world. Now, we are reassured that it is great that the talentless wonder of Brittany is saved for future generations. I wonder if most people are even aware these days of the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing?

A construction worker was injured after a large number of wall tiles fell on him as he walked along Adderley Street on Friday morning.

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© Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains.

The article can be found here.

Gary Gygax, a pioneer of the imagination who transported a fantasy realm of wizards, goblins and elves onto millions of kitchen tables around the world through the game he helped create, Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Gail Gygax, who said he had been ailing and had recently suffered an abdominal aneurysm, The Associated Press reported.

As co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the seminal role-playing game introduced in 1974, Mr. Gygax wielded a cultural influence far broader than his relatively narrow fame among hard-core game enthusiasts.

 

One point though, pen-and-paper role-playing games had not been largely supplanted by online computer games. The traditional pen-and-paper has had tools developed to help them keep track of their games, campaign, characters and future developments.  Online games had not replaced anything, it merely added to the experience and gave us more options and more people who know that messing with dragons is done at their own perils. Still, imagination is so much better then anything.

Scientists Predict When World Will End

Tuesday , February 26, 2008

Scientist have nailed down how and when the Earth will cease to exist.

The sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the Earth farther out into space, but not far enough.

Our home planet will be snagged by the sun's outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace.

"The drag caused by this low-density gas is enough to cause the Earth to drift inwards, and finally to be captured and vaporized by the sun," explains astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex in southern England.

Previous projections had all figured that the Earth would avoid falling into the sun, even during our star's red-giant phase.

The good news: This won't happen for another 7.6 billion years.

The bad news: Life on Earth will end long before then.

 

All copyrights apply. The story can be found here.

This has been talked about for ever, and as much as we admit it or not, a big mass of people is in fact quite easy to manipulate, because of our… flock mentality. Results from a study at the University of Leeds show that it takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd’s direction. The other 95% will follow the path of the 5%, without even realizing this.

The findings could have a major significance for directing the flow of large crowds especially in disaster cases, when it’s crucial to evaluate how the mass of people will react.

“There are many situations where this information could be used to good effect,” says Professor Jens Krause of the University’s Faculty of Biological Sciences. “At one extreme, it could be used to inform emergency planning strategies and at the other, it could be useful in organising pedestrian flow in busy areas.”

They conducted a series of experiments in which groups of people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. A few of them received more exact instructions about where they were supposed to go. They were not allowed to talk with each other, but they were supposed to stay within an arm’s reach of any other person. So the results were not that surprising, when you stop to think about it: the ‘informed individuals’ were followed by others in the crowd.

“We initially started looking at consensus decision making in humans because we were interested in animal migration, particularly birds, where it can be difficult to identify the leaders of a flock,” says Professor Krause. “But it just goes to show that there are strong parallels between animal grouping behaviour and human crowds.”

Article here. All the usual copyrights apply.

A chicken is a chicken is not a chicken?

Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent

Feb 16 2008

Louisville, KY – The smiling visage of Colonel Sanders has been the face of KFC (also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) for many years. Even nearly thirty years after his death, the image of the jovial southern gentleman (Sanders himself was born in Indiana) still stands as the public face of the company he started in the midst of the great depression.

 

 

The article can be found here.

I had a lot of entries that I wanted to post, but somehow, this week ran away with me. I see that the latest sad news is the death of Heath Ledger. It is a sad thing, he was a very promising actor and had a lot going for him. The circumstances of his death whilst unconfirmed by the authority all point to an accidental drug overdose.  When I hear of his death on the radio or from people the manner of his death invokes a slightly patronizing tone of voice. This has got me wondering wthether our respect for a celebrity that is deceased is lessened by the manner of their death?
For example, Freddie Prinze is not as well regarded as Bruce Lee due to his suicide (I am generalizing). The older the celebrity and the more respectable the cause of death the more admiration the media and the mainstream is giving that particular person.

Does anyone agree or disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts.