Category: in the news

Was I wrong about Twitter?

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Sort of. Maybe.

Two and bit years ago, I suggested that Twitter was on its way out.

So, is this the end for Twitter? To be honest, I’d been using it less and less over the past few years. But I’ll still miss it.
Maybe it’s for the best, given the direction it was clearly about to take. Of course, Musk doesn’t think so, but the replies to his tweet are exactly the reason that I’ll miss Twitter so much when it chooses (or I choose) to give up completely.

The fact is – as I actually hinted in that post – Twitter was only dying for some of us. If you happen to be a right-wing, anti-vax, Oompa Loompa fan, then Twitter is still very much the go-to destination to meet up with like-minded people. But for everyone else, despite its obvious uses, it’s becoming more and more untenable to keep using the site.

There are still many, many interesting, erudite, important, humorous and entertaining people on the app, and still plenty of useful information, from valid local and international sources, and it’s sad that those informal bonds and communities seem likely to die the death now.

The latest to leave – that I’m aware of, anyway: I’m sure that there are thousands of others – is The Stranglers, who posted this, this week:

Of course, the news that some “aging rockers” are leaving the app won’t break Elong Muskrat’s bank – especially with all the extra subsidies he’s now dragging in via his orange buddy – but they are the latest in a long line of people moving on, just like I did.

Surely then, there will come a tipping point, where the only people left on there will be rabid Nazis. We’re not too far away from that now, with them all happily and unironically paying $8 a month to the richest guy on the planet in return for “free speech” and protection from the consequences of their words.

But the further down the Trump route that he goes, the more Nazi salutes he gives, the greater his nasty wankery becomes, surely there will be a point at which there will be a mass exodus of the mainstream companies, personalities and sports teams from Twitter, because of his ownership.

We just really need a few brave (big) people to stick their heads up above the parapet and it could be so lovely watching the platform flounder.

I do think it’s coming.

The end is naai

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Always wanted to use that phrase (which will mean a lot more to local readers than to anyone elsewhere). But yes, its death knell is sounding, it has one foot in the grave, it is moribund and it is clearly no longer pining for the fjords.

What is it?

Padel. Padel is what it is.

About two years ago, some sage bloke wrote a rather witty and perhaps not ever so kind piece about the this sport, which ended with the lines:

Thankfully, it won’t be around for long.
Please remember to recycle your bat on the way out.

And golly gosh, it seems like he was right. The time has come and the fad has passed.

The Daily Maverick told us last week of the upcoming complete over-saturation of the padel market and the inevitable crash that will… er… inevitably follow. Because there are lessons to be learned from those who came before SA:

Trends come and go, and a look at international markets may hold some clues for eager padel investors. In Sweden, which was once a padel pioneer, the market is now struggling with oversaturation. As a result, Swedish giant We Are Padel is applying for corporate restructuring and may have to close half of its 80 venues.

South Africa is following exactly the same trajectory as Sweden did, and look what’s happening here now:

Although the early adopters of padel were cashing in, paying off their courts within a year thanks to their 70% occupancy rates, things have shifted. Most South African padel courts now operate at just 30% to 50% occupancy, according to Roger Barrow, general manager of the Padel Building Company.

And with fewer people playing – and therefore paying – and even more courts appearing:

Virgin Active Padel Club, already home to 65 courts, plans to push that number to nearly 100 by mid-2025

it’s surely only a matter of time before the bottom drops out of the market.

Oh no.

Hey, and to add to those woes, there’s the sudden appearance of Pickleball.

Looks like you came to the wrong neighbourhood, motherfunster.

Pickleball is another sport that shit tennis players can try to play to help them forget just how bad they are at tennis.
But I won’t be joining them because (contrary to popular belief) I’m not an septuagenarian living in a Florida retirement complex.

Yet.

Anyway, Pickleball is seen as “a market disruptor” (for translation, see this post), and probably the only thing that will keep local Padel players from defecting is the fact that Pickleball is crazily accessible to many more of the economic demographics, unlike the rather elite and aloof Padel, which for starters, has to be played in a huge aquarium.

Either way, though. It’s clear that the end is indeed naai, Padel naaiers.

Hate to say I told you so.

Why should we bother?

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Technology is the key to our advancement as a species.

We invent things using technology.
We improve them using technology.
We simplify processes using technology.
We overcome society’s problems using technology.

There’s a lot of work, a lot of brains and a lot of money that goes into developing these technologies so that they can benefit humankind.

And yet, sometimes all of that seems so very unappreciated.

And it does seem that parents are particularly unappreciative of the things that could literally save their child’s life.

Like the mother driving her squabbling kids home from school yesterday: both of them 8 or 9 years old and climbing around the footwell and passenger seat of her car – not a seatbelt in sight.

To the parents in Gaines County in Texas,

It seems that in this case, religious beliefs may have been a strong reason behind many of the (now 24) cases: all of whom *shock* are unvaccinated. Gaines Country has a high population of Mennonites, and all of the cases in Gaines can be linked to Mennonite schools. Traditionally, Mennonites reject “modern” technology (which would likely include vaccinations), which is all well and good until it backfires and a wholly preventable measles outbreak maims or kills their children.

According to this from MennoniteUSA.org:

Mennonites believe in simple living but express that simplicity in a spirit of stewardship and awareness of the needs of others rather than completely separating from society

But if I was the parent of a baby in Texas right now (the first MMR vaccination is at 12-15 months), I would be very worried. I certainly wouldn’t be thinking very kindly about the Mennonites and their alleged “spirit of stewardship and awareness of the needs of others” BS.

Look, religious or not, as parents we deserve to give our kids the best chance in life. And that should start with the right to health and life. Willfully ignoring or rejecting the proven technologies that we have developed to keep our children safe and well is tantamount to child abuse. As one commenter points out:

It’s difficult to have sympathy for an adult who refuses a vaccine and then gets the disease.
The children didn’t have a choice.

Yep. The children deserve better.
And everything they need is right there. It’s readily available.

They’re just not being used.

And that does raise the question: Why should we bother?

The Drama of The Doomsday Clock

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It’s 89 seconds to midnight. It’s the closest that humanity has ever been to self-wrought extinction (well, since 1947, anyway). At least, that’s what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is telling us, anyway. They’re the ones that get to inform us about where The Doomsday Clock is sitting this year.

And what exactly is The Doomsday Clock?

The Doomsday Clock is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making. It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet.

And look, I get that in a day with 86,400 seconds, being just 89 from complete destruction isn’t a great place to be. But then also, looking at things another way, we started just 420 seconds away from annihilation back in 1947, and we’ve only ever been 17 minutes away at our very safest. And then add to that, the fact that we’ve “only” moved one second towards complete obliteration in this year’s update:

In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, the Science and Security Board sends a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.

Yep. Awful. But then, this also suggests that we could keep going at the frankly horrendous rates of killing each other and destroying the environment that we’ve been working so hard upon for the last 12 months for at least another 88 years, and we’ll still be ok. Just.

See, they’ve gone in all too dramatic, and now they have no wiggle room at all.

If they’d started back in 1947 with an hour instead of seven minutes, it would mostly have been fine. They could have knocked off a few minutes here and there, added on a few when things were looking better. The only issue with this approach would likely have been that people would have looked at the thing and basically not given a toss. So sure, there needed to be a bit of drama in there, I get it.

But they went in too hard, too soon. And now we’re all supposed to be scared over a 1.11% increase in the likelihood of self-inflicted destruction? Nope.

Look at the warnings that The Doomsday Clock is sending us, and look at mankind’s reaction.

I’m calling for a reset of The Doomsday Clock: stick it back to 15 minutes to midnight or something so that we can actually move the hands a significant distance and see where we actually stand when there are important developments one way or the other.

Although, honestly, they’re really only likely to go one way, right?

Because a second here or there is really not going to put us on edge and give us the wake-up call that we so clearly need. In fact, it might take actual planetary ruination before someone important (and no, it won’t be him) pipes up and starts wondering if we should do (or should have done) something to stop it all.

Tick tock.

Guess Who’s Back?

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Back again.

Eskom’s back.

Tell a friend.

Ag, there’s actually no need to tell anybody. I’m sure that this is already hot news right across the nation. I’d have posted it earlier, but I was gecko-proofing an internet switch box.

As you do.

I don’t know exactly what plans you had for this coming weekend, but I hope that they didn’t involve too much electricity. Because it does seem likely that there will be somewhat of a shortfall in the supply of that here in SA.

To be fair, we’ve had a pretty good run, especially considering the state of the system before. It was quite literally held together with duct tape and prayers, so for it to hold on seamlessly for 10 months is actually rather impressive. And hopefully this is just a blot on the landscape, a fly in the ointment, a floater in the swimming pool.

A temporary thing that can be sorted quickly and easily.

In the meantime: download the ESP app again, check your inverter settings and charge up your devices.

We’ll get through this, South Africa.