igitur

Majuba Power Station was commissioned between 1996* and 2001

> However, there has not been any new generation capacity since 1994.

That's not true. Majuba Power Station was commissioned between 1006 and 2001, although planning started in the Apartheid era. Gourikwa Power Station and Newcastle Cogeneration Plant were commissioned in 2007.

There are a few wind farms built after 2001: Hopefield, Coega, Darling, Klipheuwel, Dassiesklip Wind Energy Facility and Jeffreys Bay.

And solar: Kalkbult, Mulilo Renewable Energy Solar PV Prieska, De Aar Solar PV, Mulilo Renewable Energy Solar PV De Aar, SA Mainstream Renewable Power Droogfontein, Letsatsi Solar Park, Lesedi PV Project, Kathu Solar Energy Facility 1, Sishen Solar Facility and the Jasper Solar Energy Project.

But these were not enough to keep up with the demand.

Herman Maritz, the author, has stated that they were overwhelmed with app users that complained to them when there were normal unplanned power outages or when Eskom deviated from the planned load shedding schedules. The chat feature was a way for user of close proximity to confirm a power outage with each other [1]. I wouldn't call it a 'comments section'.

[1] https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194

It's two-sided.

Apartheid South Africa's government focused on providing electricity mostly for the white minority, which it did well, but the majority of South African, especially in the rural regions, lived with no or unreliable power supply. Post 1994, with removal of sanctions, the economy opened up. There was a lot of international investment in South Africa. The economy grew strongly and the demand for electricity significantly increased.

The supply side was woefully mismanaged and didn't nearly keep up with the pace of the growth in demand. Corruption is definitely a key reason, as others here mention, with the effect being that power plants are not adequatly maintained and new planned power plants going far over budget and missing deadlines [1].

Besides corruption, there are some policitical constraints. Eskom provides power to municipalities who often don't pay. Soweto, with 1.3 million residents owe Eskom in excess of $1 billion [2]. The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that Eskom is not allowed to cut power to non-paying municipalities [3]. In contrast to a free-market system, Eskom price hikes are subject to regulatory approval [4].

One could debate the relative significance of each of these factors, but it's by no means due to only a single one of these.

[1] https://www.news24.com/fin24/Budget/how-medupi-and-kusile-ar...

[2] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-10-18-00-why-we-dont-pay-for-p...

[3] https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/eskom-cannot-cut-el...

[4] https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/electric...

This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious subject matter. The WHAT’S NEW section in the Google Play Store is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The app's name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike of Eskom.

I think you'll struggle to find a human pronouncable 5 (or fewer) letter word that doesn't mean something nasty in some language.

Maybe this is a good place to mention that the correct pronunciation of Ubuntu (both the philosophy and the Linux distro) is "ooBOONtoo", not "you-bun-too", which I often hear.

IPA pronunciation: ùɓúntʼù

Was also taught in Computer Science 178 at Stellenbosch University in 1997.

Read this wonderful, but appalling book (true story) over December:

Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

PRINCESS describes the life of Sultana Al Sa'ud, a princess in the royal house of Saudi Arabia. Hidden behind her black veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband and her country.

Sultana tells of appalling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations: thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the "women's room."

PRINCESS is a testimony to a woman of indomitable spirit and courage, and you will never forget her or her Muslim sisters.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004J17GY4/ref=tmm_kin_title_...

Before I only vaguely knew of the struggles of women in Saudi Arabia.

I'm in Cape Town and have had similar ideas. Want to collaborate? If so, hit me up on Gmail. Same username.

I'm 40 years old and still have a very strong Afrikaans accent. I've made peace with it and actually embrace my accent. Although my English grammar is good and my vocabulary above average I definitely perceive different reactions when I have a discussion with an English South African vs written communication. It frustrates me, and since I realised it I also picked up on how many white people mock black South Africans' English accents. The prejudice will hopefully stop one day.

We use it in South Africa. https://twitter.com/aminahmather/status/760788698560622592

You mean like laser, radar and scuba?

Insert obligatory Star Trek Discovery reference here.

Urgh. Too lazy to try to format it properly.

Notable changes:

Standardized resolution Improved color scheme Improved terminal font Beautiful /etc/issue artwork Beneficial sound effects, for improved touch typing Efficient, automatic shell chooser Removal of networking, for security Removal of window manager, for efficiency Removal of ACPI features, for simplicity Increased CPU usage Increased ISO size Known issues:

None

So you're saying that, unlike me, if they try to put it all back together, no parts will be left lying around at the end?

Ah OK. But enjoy the Garden Route. Currently bucketing down with rain there. Hope you include Wilderness in the itinerary.

https://www.travelground.com/blog/big-tree-forest-walk-wilde...

Looks like pictures taken in Kruger National Park or elsewhere in the northeast of South Africa. Don't expect giraffes in Cape Town or the garden route.

Bulk water supply is the responsibility of national government. Local government is responsibile for the distribution of the allocated water.

Anything like this, but ncurses based?

We are a couple living in Cape Town. For the past 6 months we've been averaging 60 litres per person per day, with a downward trend. We don't have a swimming pool. We don't water the garden or lawn. It looks hideous, but those steps were easy gains.

It's our water closet habits that had to change drastically. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, let it drown. We shower, very quickly, with 2 buckets and try to catch as much water as possible. We turn off the shower while lathering up with soap and would dip our sponges in the buckets if we need to add water to the mix. It's basically taking a bucket bath in a shower and a quick rinse afterwards.

We use the gathered water to drown the brown. Sometimes a quick flush with water from the cistern is necessary, but we can limit the flush by lifting the lever (unlike older cisterns).

Other people have installed tanks in their backyards to collect rainwater from the roof, but we don't have the space.

It's an inconvenience, but so far it hasn't been too difficult to get under the 87 litre target. It just required some attention, and very importantly, frequent monitoring. Frankly, I'm disgusted that more than half of my fellow citizens couldn't reach the target.

I'm not entirely convinced that it is due to malice. Keep in mind that the Department of Water and Sanitation has been declared bankrupt, so I think it's mostly incompetence.

http://ewn.co.za/2017/02/12/report-water-and-sanitation-depa...

To answer your question, I haven't met anyone in Cape Town who takes a WC secession seriously. There is a very small political party that advocates for it, be its treated as one of the joke parties.

South African table grapes are mostly farmed in... (wait for it).. a desert, in the Northern Cape, but water is ample from the Orange River that runs through it. Cape Town is some distance from that area, though.

The init.js file is huge and I suspect they don't cache it server side. I wrote an alternative version which loads faster, but the interesting data (water usage) is obviously available only from the City of Cape Town's server and it delivers the map in one giant png file. At least the aerial map is now cached tiles from another server.

http://www.vwd.co.za/vwd/water

It takes a bit of time to swap hands.

On the other hand, it's possible that many people ran to the bunker with trousers down, and Pornhub still playing in the background.

1 in 5 people didn't give a damn about the missile alert and kept watching.

The article is confusing. It states that the "errant employee actually was working with a drop-down menu on a computer program". But the photo is clearly of a list of normal "a href" elements.

I'm asking, because if it was truly a drop-down (select element) then the UX would be even worse. At least with a list of links, there is the odd chance that the person would spot the correct choice. Using drop-downs, once the incorrect choice was made, there is really very little chance of realising the error.