8th on Google

(Edited to include bluegray’s suggestions)

Yep, type in “Danie Krugel” as a search term and the site Stop Danie Krugel is 8th on the first page. Yesterday I couldn’t find it in the first couple of pages and the day before it didn’t even exist.

The Google-Fu seems strong in South African Sceptics

(Fortunately 5 of the 7 linked sites higher up than Stop Danie Krugel are sceptics sites!)

Claim and Protocol

This is an idea I’ve had for a while now and that I got interested in again with the creation of the Stop Danie Krugel website.

Basically the idea is for me to make a claim, similar to Mr. Krugels, about being able to find the location of someone using some kind of extraordinary technique. Then with the assistance of other people (friends, other sceptics, academics) to go through the process of establishing a proper protocol that will conclusively test whether or not I in fact have this claimed ability. The final phase will then be to apply the protocol and test it for real.

The idea is not for me to prove that I have this ability or device (even though I have a cute idea for a mechanism) but to setup and test, the process of testing this kind of ability. I think it’ll be informative and educational, giving some insight into ways to make such a test watertight. It will also, hopefully, serve as an example of the kind of test that is required to prove or disprove, conclusively, the ability of the kind of device Mr Krugel claims to have.

Also I think it’ll be fun in a treasure hunting kind of way

So if anybody has any ideas on how this could work, or want to help, or even want to steal the idea and do something this yourself, please do comment.

Stop Danie Krugel

<Professor Farnsworth voice> Good News, Everyone! </Professor Farnsworth voice>

No really there is some good news at least. Check out www.stopdaniekrugel.com

Finally a concerted effort from sceptics to debunk the claims made by this man. Please visit the site, contribute if you have something to contribute, and link to it if you can. The idea being that this site will pop up at the top of a search under the terms “Danie Krugel” so people can get the real information about him first before finding his own website.

A big thank you to all the people involved in setting up the site. Good work guys!

Awesome

This links a little with what I mentioned previously in the post on Education. Africa (and other developing countries) are way behind in terms of access to Information and Technology than the developed world. (The so-called “digital divide”). I recently read on slashdot that Japan is currently installing a 1Gbps Fibre to the home network. This is exactly ONE THOUSAND TIMES as fast as my current internet connection (3G) and probably will be cheaper as well.

So what’s the awesome news? Well some people have gotten together (you might recognize the name Google) to bring cheaper and faster internet to Africa by 2010

Wow… how cool is that. Satellite really seems to be the right solution (for now) for the continent of Africa with its major telecommunications (and other) infrastructure problems. The other awesome thing about this initiative is that its commercially funded and supported. Which means that other worthwhile projects do not need to be sidelined for this.

I have to admit though it’s not just the side of me that’s interested in Development in Africa that is excited. The side of me that wants cheap internet is essentially bouncing of the walls too