It is great, as long as you make that decision to enjoy your funemployment.
What makes it fun is the absence of the usual stresses associated with work.
·The stresses of meeting deadlines.
·The stresses of the annual performance appraisal cycle.
·The stress of office politics.
It is great to relax in the sun, to post blogs whenever there is something to write about and to jump into the pool when the weather is hot.
Funemployment represents freedom. It is the dream of those striving to liberate themselves from the corporate prison. It can free your mind and it can free your soul.
There is just one drawback of being funemployed. This drawback is the single disadvantage to the whole thing. It is a drawback that places limits on that freedom, and produces counter stresses against those from which you have been freed. The drawback is money.
Being funemployed means that there is no income coming into the bills just don’t go away. Food does not become free. So the stress then brings us back to finding another corporate job. It brings about worry about how to meet the bills. Will it be possible to keep the house and the car? Will we be able to feed the family?
These stresses somehow take the fun out of being funemployed.
The Internet has helped to transform the world into a global village. Communication with friends and family across the globe has become fast and free. It is easy to keep in touch with programs such as Skype and Face book. Online dating provides unprecedented opportunities for people to meet. The Internet is an excellent source of information, unparalleled in history. But the Internet has a darker, more sinister side. It is as easy for criminals to use the Internet for their own evil ends as it is for you. The world’s law enforcement agencies have a tough job tracing, catching and preventing stop Internet scammers, identity thieves and paedophiles from operating.
The Internet provides the ability for anyone, anywhere to access any type of site or material. Terrorists and other extremist groups use the Internet to publish sinister propaganda and disinformation. Vulnerable people and especially young children can be influenced by these sites.
Disinformation is a common Internet disease. Almost anyone can set up a web-site and post articles or news that is inaccurate or simply wrong. A seemingly respectable site can publish information that is without any basis. Disinformation occurs in all fields, but can be quite dangerous in the fields of medicine, science and politics where unqualified individuals post seemingly authoritative articles full of disinformation.
Social networking has taken off in a big way over the last few years. The most well known if these is Face book. Most young people and increasing numbers of older people maintain a Face book presence. Here they post all sorts of personal information about their personal lives, their friends and families. Photographs and other visual information is provided as well. This is a wonderful way to keep in touch with all the social news and events in your and your friends’ lives. The danger begins when strangers begin to maintain a presence on your profile. They befriend young people and gain their trust. Young people may be enticed to meet others whose intentions are anything but honourable. There have been cases of identity theft based on Face book profiles. Use these sites with care!
Pornography including child pornography is widely available. One visit to a porn site results in endless spamming by these sites. Paedophile rings use the Internet to plan child abductions and to let each other know the whereabouts of child-pornography on the Web.
On-line gambling sites seeking out compulsive gamblers are available at every turn. Most of these on-line gambling sites are totally unregulated. They operate offshore or from a location where there are few controls. The games can easily be rigged. These sites draw in people looking for the excitement of gambling and the hope of winning. Many of the players become compulsive or pathological gamblers in a short space of time and the extremely profitable gambling sites have an easy source of revenue.
On-line crime is more widespread than most people realise. One of the methods involves using viruses or spyware such as Trojans to steal personal information from your computer and pass it on to credit card and other fraudsters. Always ensure that you use a firewall and good anti-virus and anti-spyware protection to prevent theft from your computer.
There are a whole range of on-line scams available on the Internet. Many of these pose as get rich quick schemes. For a small fee you could be earning millions within a few weeks!
Then there are dating site scams. Criminals post false profiles with photographs of beautiful young girls keen to travel to meet you. After two emails they are ready to drop everything and travel to marry. But they don’t have the money to do it. $10,000 will do the trick. Once you have paid, both the money and the girl disappear forever.
Then there are the phishing schemes. Fraudsters replicate sites such as PayPal or Citi Bank. An email arrives in your in-box informing you that your password has expired and must be renewed to prevent your details from being destroyed. The link on the email directs the victim to the scammer’s site to update their personal information and password. The site is a perfect replica of the real thing. But one look at the url provides the best clue that this is a scam.
The so-called 419 scams have become quite common. In these there is usually a large sum of money tied up in a bank account in an African country. Your help is required to get the money out and of course you will be the lucky recipient of millions of US dollars. You are required to pay a facilitation fee for the money to be transferred. Many pay the fee and wait.
Obsessional use of the Internet can become a real problem for some people. Cases have been reported where Internet addiction is so bad that parents are left to die while the son obsessively played his Internet game.
As with all aspects of life, moderation is key. Common sense is one of the best defences against scammers and Internet crime. Good anti-virus and anti-spyware protection is essential. Children should be encouraged to play outdoors rather than spending all their time on the Web! Used wisely and with caution, the Internet can provide great benefits.
Ras Dumisani has managed to put a veil on the Springbok loss in Toulouse.Instead of the usual criticisms of how they played, demands for a new coach, or attacks on the player selection, all the focus has been on the few minutes that preceded the game.
This time at least, it is not the Boks bearing the brunt of harsh words. Instead t is Ras Dumisani, the killer of the SA National Anthem.Ras has been out of South Africa since 1992. He lives in Paris and is a successful reggae singer. Living in Paris, he left our shores before the new anthem was compiled and being away from the land, must have paid little attention to it.Then there was another problem. He couldn’t hear himself sing. Someone should have given him the words, though.Ras’ 3 minutes has provoked more discussion than the game. France won, but that fact has paled into insignificance.Perhaps we are losing a sense of balance.
I first tried Youngs beers in London in the early seventies. At the time most British pubs were dominated by the ‘big 4′ breweries. Most pubs were owned by these breweries whose beer was watery and full of chemicals. But Britain also had a longstanding tradition of independent breweries mostly known in specific local areas. Most pubs in the UK are owned and controlled by a brewery. There are few independents that sell beers from competing breweries.
The independent breweries around London still made quality beer or bitter using traditional methods. In the London area these included Fullers and Youngs. The real beer movement was just taking off at the time.
The Youngs family bought the long established Ram brewery in 1831. The Ram brewery actually dates back to the sixteenth century! The purchase included 80 pubs many of which still belong to Youngs today. The Youngs brewery was located in Wandsworth in South West London where I lived for eleven years. Throughout the seventies Youngs still delivered their beer to the pubs on horse drawn carriages. The horses were the most beautiful and well groomed shire horses.
The popularity of Youngs pubs in South West London of the time lay not only in the tradition but in the quality of the beers. The beers were beers to be enjoyed. The bitter was light bodied and fairly fruity with a hint of malt. The alcohol content was about 3.5 % - low by international standards but more than the big breweries offerings. My favourite was Youngs Special.
My group of friends frequented many Youngs pubs in the area. One pub in particular that I remember was a pub in Putney on the river Thames. During the summer of 1976 - at the time one of the hottest and driest on record - London underwent a kind of revolution. The tables and chairs of restaurants and pubs alike migrated to the sidewalks and any outdoor areas adjacent to the facility. The pub in question had also virtually moved outdoors and was the scene of many pleasant summer evenings enjoying Youngs Special.
After an absence of thirty years I may be forgiven by being unable to name the individual pubs that I frequented with friends. Names that I thought that I would remember forever. Many of the pubs offered pub lunches as an alternative to outside restaurants. A Wandsworth pub close to my last workplace in London offered good food at reasonable prices. The menu varied from day to day but included a delicious cauliflower cheese to be washed down with a pint of Young’s bitter.
By the time I left London in 1979 the real ale movement was gaining momentum and Youngs was thriving. Today, Youngs beers are available in the South East and parts of the South West of England. Apart from the fine draught beers offered in Youngs pubs, a variety of quality bottles beers are even more widely available. The Youngs brewery is much larger and is no longer in Wandsworth. As for the horses, I hope that they are still a part of the Youngs family.
The explosion of cell-phone technology has been a major area of growth. Cell phones have become ultra smart. They emulate computers. They are able to show videos in high quality and stream television programmes.
The latest models include GPS navigation, document editing, handwriting recognition and email processing. They allow you to view the latest you-tube videos or go to your facebook page at the click of a button.
Then there is the cell-phone as camera. The best of these are good offering up to 12 megapixel resolution!
The growth of the cell-phone industry is almost without parallel. People have become dependent on their mobile phones and in a sense are almost enslaved by them.
Cell-phone technology has also heralded the birth of the videophone. Formerly a part of science fiction, video calls have not really caught the imagination of the world. Transmission is just to slow to use the technology effectively. The voice and picture are never in synch.
Landline phones, by contrast have remained phones. You may be able to see who is calling, or view the last few calls, but it is still a phone.
There is only one aspect of cell-phone technology that hasn’t improved much since their introduction. The one aspect gives a landline phone the edge is the network and call quality. Coupled with the failure of the cell-phone networks to reduce their prices, the landline is fast becoming a more attractive option.
It is hardly surprising that many cell-phone users are using the landline to make calls. Apart from the clarity of the call and the stability of the signal, the cost is a fraction of the mobile variety.
But it is not only cost and call quality that affects the popularity of cell phone call usage. The police and intelligence services have the technology to tap and intercept landline calls. Interception of cell phone calls imposes an even greater risk.
Internet access is similarly affected. A DSL landline connection is fast, stable and cheap. The cell-phone companies seem addicted to super-profits and charge massive rates for broadband Internet access. Even if you decide to use VOIP - or the Voice Over Internet Protocol - the cost (and probably the quality) will be better from a fixed line.
Perhaps cell-phone users are re-evaluating the value of the cell-phone. They are great for quick and immediate communications. They are not ideal for long discussions. Perhaps the focus has been on better and better technology for everything other than to make calls. That must be why cell-phone users are rediscovering the landline.
