Nelson Mandela is allowing his prisoner ID number (46664) to be used to identify a theme tune and a concert to raise the awareness of Aids across the world, the BBC reports.
Personally I think this is really really important. Part of this is because I am South African, so statistically around 40% of the people I grew up with are already or will be infected. But part of it is because it really really scares me that the attitude in the Western world is so “not our problem”. To be perfectly honest, the better levels of education with respect to Aids, HIV etc in South Africa probably mean that more of those I come into contact with in the UK will end up dying of the disease than those I grew up with.
Micro$oft are putting big brother controls into email although if this is as buggy as the rest of Outlook then I figure it will be a false security-blanket for the naive.
Perseus reckons most people abandon their blogs surprise, surprise; and Newsday figures that terror profiles are ineffective.
Also, at the end of the day, anyone with internet access can learn to be a terrorist. What will make them into actual terrorists will be some spark … of belief, of psychosis, of duty. How the hell do you survey that??
Comments (4) Permalink
October 23rd, 2003 at 3:12 PM
On the AIDS thing:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html“>http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html”>http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,1059068,00.html
October 23rd, 2003 at 6:56 PM
Yeah I saw that when it originally came up … didn’t blog on it because I figured turning my little bit of the net incandescent with rage would not be the best idea.
So who are you, Jim? And I assume you don’t *really* work at the FBI, right? 😉
December 1st, 2003 at 9:28 PM
Hi,
Do you know how they came up with that number? I’m interested in the history of that number. Is it just a random number?
I know, weird question.
December 2nd, 2003 at 9:53 AM
No, it’s Nelson Mandela’s prisoner number from when he was incarcerated on Robben Island. It’s quite landmark because it’s the first time he’s thought the cause was important enough to allow the use of it for marketing … he wouldn’t allow it in the past.