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Matthew Buckland's blog

Afrikaner-Gangsta** rapper Jack Parow makes me laugh out loud… ie “Ek is America, jy’s Iraq”… I mean, where does he come up with this crap?

I wish I had a better handle of Afrikaans, but I manage to pick up most of it –the videos are hilarious. He should consider singing a few more in the international language… I reckon he could go viral like Die Antwoord if it hit the spot.

** Gangsta in the leafy suburban-Stellenbosch sense of the word.

Video below and linketjie here:

Save Cape Town City Ballet!April 14

I’m from an artistic family — and I love the arts. My father is an actor, my mother runs a drama company in the Eastern Cape, my younger brother Daniel is a Joburg-based actor and my other younger brother a philosophy doctorate genius in the States.

So this cause in particular appeals to me. It’s with great sadness though that I have to write this post. I received a mail from Sue Rutherford appealing for help to save Cape Town City Ballet, a 75-year-old institution. It’s is in trouble. Unless it receives urgent and significant funding, the company is in very real danger of being forced to close its doors in the near future.

The site is appealing for donations. Donate now!

Introducing memeburn.com (Really this time)April 1

It’s been an interesting couple of months. I started memeburn in December last year. Funnily enough I did the first install and the first lines of custom code while I was in the inspirational setting of Paris, at Le Web. In fact quite a bit of the critical work was also done at Charles De Gaulle airport (of all places).

I found the domain name around about January, I had spent three months looking at options and using various domain tools to come up with creative solutions. I eventually found “memeburn” lying inconspicuously in the text of a small New York-based marketing blog — the owner of which was moaning about the increasing “memeburn” he’s being seeing on Twitter. The other name I had ready was memecube.com, as well as five others that never made the grade.

It’s been a long time since I’ve put on my propeller cap to code, but I starte

#SpeakZA: In protest against the ANC Youth LeagueMarch 24

Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic
safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.

The press have pl

New pastures, new startupMarch 1

I’ve resigned as Head of 20FourLabs to focus on building a new Cape Town and Joburg-based startup. I joined 24.com in 2008 from the Mail & Guardian Online, initially as the GM of Publishing and then went on to set up Labs.

I’m going to miss 24.com and the Labrats. My resignation is as a result of a long-standing need to go on my own and start my own thing. I’ve lost count how many times people have asked me “why aren’t you on your own?” — so I’ve decided to finally take the hint

20FourLabs has been a special experience. Probably the most recent highlight for all of us was scooping the continent-wide Nokia Innovators Competition for our Afridoctor app — one of those ideas sourced organically from within the division and then the sizable award money split amongst staff. There are now some plans afoot to take the app to the next level, but to top it all off — it’s a mobile ap