Thomas Johnson - The Blog

Cape Town's City Library's SmartCape public computer and internet access system is intrusive, risky, violates  privacy and is still uses race classifications. SmartCape, or its full name, SmartCape Access Project, is the City of Cape Town's public computer facility. It's a project of WeGO, the World Smart Cities Sustainable Organisation whose headquarters are in Seoul, South Korea. It's goals are to provide computer access and free internet in public libraries.  According to the city's SmartCape website, the project was initiated in 2002 by the city’s Information Systems & Technology Department. In 2003 it was awarded the $1 million Bill and Melinda Gates Access to Early Learning Award to expand the pilot project to all public libraries. To keep costs low, it uses open source software, refurbished desktops or remote/slave terminals, donated printers and network hardware. The last upgrade was 2016 to 2017 and cost R2.8 million paid for by the city's Infor...

There is a sense of  deja vu and be careful what you wish for about the University of Cape Town's latest troubles. Daily Maverick's Rebecca Davis is broke the story about "governance" problems there. It's alleged vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng and head of council Babalwa Ngonyama abused their positions and threatened key executive staff, many of whom have resigned, and lied to council. A couple of years ago UCT ombuds investigated staff complaints against Phakeng who threatened and tried to intimidate her. Her report to council was not acted upon. When in 2015 to 2016 VC Max Price and the university executive and council caved in to the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall mob and their tyranny, the left, including DM, media and Davis generally supported RMF, were unsympathetic to the centre's appeals for calm debate about the issues. This was despite RMF intimidating and assaulting UCT staff and students  Head of UCT alumni affairs Russel Ally was one of U...

Lately the South African media has been indulging in revisionism over Cyril Ramaphosa's, the president and man, role in the current sorry state of South Africa brought on by the Eskom energy crisis, arguably the worst period of load shedding ever, and legal, criminal and political implications for him regarding the foreign currency hidden and then stolen from his game farm Phala Phala. This event must be his Nkandla.  Daily Maverick are among the loudest in their disingenuousness. Editors Mark Heywood, Heather Robertson and others wrote op-eds lamenting South Africa's state like Robertson's "darkness sheds light on the sorry state of South Africa".  Another this weekend was a critique of Pravin Gordhan's failure of the Eskom portfolio since Ramaphosa appointed him public enterprises minister in 2018. The problem with this kind of revisionism - expediently forgetting recent history - is the media, DM included, were avid Ramaphorias - supporters of Ramaphosa - u...