This seems like an excellent weekend to play with Mastodon: mastodonapp.uk/@phillipdewet
If you are a fellow asylum seeker, reply with your details please? It's weird not having people to follow.
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Phillip de Wet
@phillipdewet
Joined January 2010
Phillip de Wet’s Tweets
I'm looking for anyone in South Africa who is – or is considering – spinning up a Mastodon instance.
DMs are open here, or via @phillipdewet@mastodonapp.uk
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* I recommend ignoring any apps and just using Mastodon on mobile Chrome, it's fantastic.
* Two non-obvious settings to change immediately: set yourself to discoverable, and filter for language on the public timeline.
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* Much like switching to a new OS or word processor, Twitter power users will find the change more frustrating than common folk. But I reckon they'll also find Mastodon more rewarding int he end.
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* There is a level of personal responsibility that will be unfamiliar to, say, post-IRC-age people – beyond instance selection and initial setup. You aren't spoon-fed accounts to follow, for instance, got to go and find 'em.
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Day 1 on Mastodon, a thread.
* There is effectively no technical barrier. If you've ever connected a new email account of VPN, setup is easier than that.
* Selecting a server is tough. But there are some great people working stupid-hard to keep up with surging demand.
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Well under 5 minutes to set up on Mastodon. Most of that selecting a server, which feels like a relatively low-risk commitment.
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No, that is ridiculous, sorry. Even circa-2021 AI systems had greater internal consistency than this, and these kind of grammar issues were eliminated well before 2020.
Maybe they're running some bootleg Chinese or Russian AI, and having trouble with the translation?
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Pretty certain the department of women, youth and persons with disabilities fed some previous-generation AI the title of its latest policy document, and just plonked the raw output in the Government Gazette today.
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So similar to a toddler playing dress-up and tottering around in mummy's high heels, this.
The DA assumes the trappings of news without any sign of understanding fundamentals – such as that you can't drone on for four minutes with no interjection, no cut-away, no graphics, niks.
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Bailouts to failed SOEs must end, the job-killing BEE legislation must be scrapped, and a cut on fuel tax and an expanded zero-rated VAT food basket must be considered.
Today, the Minister of Finance must present a budget to cut food costs, fight poverty, and inspire growth.
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Applications close tomorrow.
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New: come work with us!
Business Insider South Africa needs a mid-senior business reporter.
A sense of humour is literally a job requirement.
24-com.simplify.hr/vacancy/voopyd
A bit forward on that story: businessinsider.co.za/tfasa-says-chi
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This one could be fascinating. The Commonwealth is in play, Nato is transparently sick of of what it considers Russian enablers, Americans love the kind of distraction offered by "they're coming for our F-35 secrets!" twitter.com/BISouthAfrica/…
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And right in the middle of that mess is a company from the Klein Karoo that – allegedly, they're still not talking to us – effectively phones up people in the UK (with a very specific set of work experience) to offer them high-paying jobs in China.
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Oh, and let's not forget how very much indeed the Truss administration would love to front-and-centre any non-fiscal, non-domestic issue where it can be nice and hawkish, without even riling up the EU or Ireland again.
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This one could be fascinating. The Commonwealth is in play, Nato is transparently sick of of what it considers Russian enablers, Americans love the kind of distraction offered by "they're coming for our F-35 secrets!"
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A South African company helped China recruit UK fighter pilots, says that country in ‘threat’ notice.
businessinsider.co.za/south-african-
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No, I don't think it is at all dangerous to hook my entire sense of self-worth to my Wordle performance, thanks for your concern don't let the door hit you on the way out bye-bye now
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Wordle 483 2/6
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A potential streak-busting Saturday: One in four players so far are failing to solve today's Wordle.
nyti.ms/3CCkSFL
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This is a good time to re-read on journalism vs activism.
The climate sector has given this stuff a lot of recent thought, and political journalism can learn from it. Independent Media more so than most.
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Independent Media, a self-declared agent of foreign influence, has confirmed its plan to "cleanse" the ANC.
It also thinks the President is out to get it.
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New: come work with us!
Business Insider South Africa needs a mid-senior business reporter.
A sense of humour is literally a job requirement.
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I have no doubt there are good people at Eskom. Maybe a new board, and its still new-broom CEO, can change things.
But don't let anyone tell you load shedding is all about ageing power plants and sabotage and corruption. The incompetence is mind-boggling.
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Finally it dawned on Eskom that expropriation without compensation could be a bad look, and it abandoned that plan too.
Then came the years-long tender journey, the outcome of which is now before a court.
It went about as well as you'd expect.
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First Eskom tried to train its own welders. This turned out to be slow and expensive.
So it decided to effectively seize 30% of each of three key service suppliers. It told them to hand over the shares, and that it wouldn't be paying, then left them figure out the details.
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A new court case gives us some deep insight into Eskom's relationship with key boiler-maintenance suppliers.
And it is just wall-to-wall incompetence.
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Note to self: add the phrases "tesla vandalised" and "remove tesla logo" to the Google Trends watchlist.
Had Liz Truss also been in charge of the Bank of England, she would have been out of a job today. Quite possibly via the mechanism of a mob breaking down the door and bodily dragging her out of 10 Downing Street.
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A fiscal policy mistake was about to cause a systemic disaster. An independent central bank could step in using monetary policy. The safeguard worked as expected, and there wasn't a total meltdown.
But more important for the politicians, they now have someone else to blame.
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(Other things she considered important included taking urgent action, taking quick action, that fracking is done with local consent, and having lower taxes.)
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In three of those instances, what she considered important was the independence of the Bank of England, and its non-political process of setting interest rates.
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UK Prime Minister Liz Truss spent an hour on the radio this morning.
She used the phrases "what's important", "it is important", and variations on that theme 16 times.
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Things this tells us:
* Eskom has a subscription to Getty and/or AFP. (Those don't come cheap.)
Things this may tell us:
* Eskom is taking a "count your blessings, it could be so much worse" stance.
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The original caption to this not-quite stock image Eskom chose:
"Venezuelan Elvia Helena Lozano lights a kerosene lamp during a power outage at her home in Caracas on March 9, 2019. - Sunday is the third day Venezuelans remain without communications, electricity or water..."
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My DMs are open; hit me up if there is anything I can say to convince you to apply.
Just three absolute requirements:
* At least 10 years' experience as a journo in major newsrooms.
* Relevant tertiary qualification.
* Digital experience in a news environment highly recommended.
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We need an editor for Business Insider South Africa – one of, if not the, best job in SA media.
The only catch is that you have to apply now-now.
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The UK's kinda-amaBhungane, , is fundraising to fight off what amounts to a Kazakh counterattack.
It's a pretty strong call to action if you care about media freedom – and whether people who siphon off state money get to cover their tracks in London.
gofundme.com/f/nazarbayev-f
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South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), in its formal declaration of materiality:
"Covid-19 is no longer viewed as material and has been removed from our list."
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Also, it has never – not once – given me a hard stare for failing to laugh at a terrible pun.
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