I wanted to reply to the two Australians who commented on this article: Can Africa Topple Australia in the Contest To Build the World’s Biggest Telescope?

All I got, however, was this: “Comment Submission Error. Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: Text entered was wrong. Try again.”

This summary rejection is somewhat puzzling, since the error is meaningless, and the preview worked fine. [UPDATE: After several more attempts, I appear to have succeeded in posting my comment. Looks like the Captcha widget was broken for a time, and it was this “text” that the error referred to. The comment remains invisible, however, with no indication of whether it is merely being moderated.]

However, because I think it’s important, I’ll post my comment on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope here:

Frankly, the SKA shouldn’t be built, except with private money. Not in South Africa, and not in Australia. There. Having got libertarian principles out of the way, let’s get to business.

It is true that Africa is considerably poorer, somewhat less politically stable, and composed of several more countries, than the island colony of Australia. The same is true for South America, Asia, and indeed Europe.

And nevermind McGruder’s blackness, or the dark skins of most Africans. Racist reasons for building it, or not building it, belong in previous centuries. Africa might move on, if the people outside Africa who incessantly disparage it would do so.

If anyone needs investments like these, it’s the 750 million people of Africa, many of whom are cursed with economies that Western do-gooders, along with vogueish socialism at home, have made dependent on foreign aid and debt relief. Africans suffer as a result of inadequate basic infrastructure and difficulty in securing basic education for their children. Not that some major economies in the West aren’t heading for the same socialist malaise, so there’s no need to whitewash reality.

Projects like the SKA will contribute to the development of physical infrastructure (like electricity and telecommunications), political infrastructure (like the SADC customs union that continues to make slow progress), and social infrastructure (like education).

In terms of the standard of its scientists, the sophistication of its economy, and the development of its politics, Africa is quite capable of hosting a Big Science project such as the SKA. It has problems, sure, but motives to solve them trump negativity and despair. No politician in Africa (well, very few) would be stupid enough to put at risk a major project with international visibility such as the SKA.

Unlike the two Australian gentlemen who commented above, I will decline to speculate on a country I do not know. Australia’s virtues or shortcomings are not mine to judge. I’m sure it’s a splendid place, full of shiny, happy people. However, they might show the same courtesy towards others. If anything, short-sighted and ill-informed comments by people who haven’t a clue about the reality of Africa should provide added impetus for siting the SKA in Africa.

I live in Africa, by choice. As a columnist, I am frequently critical of the socialism and corruption that so often hurts Africans. And while the West has a lot to answer for in this respect, I believe Africa should sweep its own doorstep first. But to do that, it needs brooms. And indeed doorsteps.

If anyone in Africa were sceptical of the local capacity to operate a major facility like this, and their reasons weren’t knee-jerk racism, I’d probably be among them. However, I’m not sceptical. I believe anything is possible in Africa. I have faith in the ingenuity and dedication of its people. I believe, based on the scale and sophistication of numerous other industrial and scientific projects, that Africa has the technical and organisational ability to make the SKA an ongoing success.

Most importantly, I believe hosting the SKA can only make Africa a better place for everyone in it.

And that is worth more than all the stars in the sky.

I’ll bet if the Science Insider blog was hosted in Africa, by an African, its comment system would have worked.

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself recently. I’d been cautiously optimistic about Siphiwe Nyanda’s early moves as the communications minister in Jacob Zuma’s new South African government, but things are looking increasingly grim for the general, as I discuss here: The general’s reversal.

It is important that people are able to assert their rights, if they are to achieve prosperity in a free society. But this does not mean that any law that claims to help them do this is automatically good. South Africa’s Consumer Protection Act, which comes into force later this year, is a case in point. I’ve read it — the whole long, convoluted thing — and found among a few useful provisions several that are good in intent, but will likely hurt consumers in practice. Here’s my Tuesday column on the subject, published yesterday over at The Daily Maverick.

I missed a trick, however. I should have shredded it, viciously, for sounding like it was written 20 years ago for some foreign market. Mail-order? Catalogue? Who in SA uses those? And what about those newfangled interweb thingies? I hear you can buy stuff over them, though I’m not sure how you’d send a package down a wire.

After the frisson of a new Apple launch wears off, the reality is more prosaic. So it is with the Apple iPad, which has many faults beyond merely its unfortunate name. Here’s my ITWeb column on the subject.

My previous column at The Daily Maverick, Break the banking cartel, argued that the banks are unlikely ever to solve the problem of a generalised, cash-like, electronic transaction infrastructure that addresses the entire market, both rich and poor, local and foreign, buyer and seller, banked and unbanked.

Lest that argument be interpreted as a denunciation of bankers in general, I thought I’d question why everyone believes politicians when the latter blame the economic crisis on the former. Bankers are a product of their legal and regulatory environment. Hence, In defence of bankers.

Here’s a column based on the talk I gave at the amazing gathering of splendid people known as GeekRetreat last weekend. It argues that the most important hurdle to a universal online and mobile payment system that serves all South Africans is one law, namely the law against deposit-taking by non-banks.

Also published this week, a report on GeekRetreat for TechCentral, with details on two of the technology ideas that emerged.

(For some reason, this wasn’t published when it should have been, last week…)

How long can a columnist avoid the subject of our great leader of youth, Julius Malema? I don’t know. My experiment in this regard came to an end today. So here it is, published by The Daily Maverick. The alert reader will note some evidence that there was some discussion this morning about what the headline should be.

Ever since the first “2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Special Measures Act”, no. 11 of 2006 was passed, and FIFA began calling for volunteers for the Confederations Cup rather than employing people like civilised companies do, the whole World Cup thing has left a sour taste in my mouth. It’s annoying to watch your government hijacked, and your country and its people exploited, by people who think they’re too good for the rules by which the rest of us play.

So here’s an idea: Boycott FIFA.

I recently wrote a series of columns on Mann-made climate change and the email leak scandal over at The Daily Maverick: Pop goes the hot air balloon, Climate fraud kills people and Pray Copenhagen fails.

In response, I’ve been getting a lot of comments and criticisms in various forums. Some, like Twitter, are really not well suited to answering complex questions. So here’s a sort of FAQ that addresses the most common “buts” I hear: Climate clarity.

Wishing everyone a prosperous and free 2010.

Here’s a note from Leon Economides (a late 19th-century picture of him is alongside). He posted it as a comment to one of my earlier posts, but it is worthy of more prominence. It announces the return RockFest shows, every evening from eight till late, on Midrand Radio 93.8FM. It’s hosted by the likes of the Rockit Scientist himself, David Blood, Robert Laing, Phil Wright and others. Rock will never die, and apparently, neither will old rockers. Now if only they’d go national, so the rock fans in Knysna — I’m having Christmas dinner with a few of them tonight — can get it too.

Hello

Yes, it’s been a while. Namely a few years. No comments from the peanut gallery.

You might recall that The Rockfest was terminated by 1485am Radio Today’s management, giving us less than three days notice, in February this year. It was a bit of a slap in the face for all the presenters who had given freely of their time, for over three years, and the lack of appreciation and support shown, and the way it was done, left many people feeling pretty embittered and annoyed. For many presenters, whilst being grateful to Radio Today for allowing them the freedom to play the music of their choice, it signalled the end of their short broadcasting “career”.

The Rockfest was basically put on “ice”, with very little chance of it being revived, given the strict playlisted format and programming (not to mention politically correct!) structure of most radio stations in South Africa.

It’s against this background that I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chris Prior, Phil Wright, Benjy Mudie, Melanie Walker, Rafe Lavine, David Blood, Leon Fourie, Robert Laing, Tamara Jeunette, Jurgen Becker, Lesley Chase, Rosemary Royeppen, Greg Tucker, Rui de Sousa, Adelle First, Bojan Andrejevic, Natalie Chapman, Nicole De Gruchy and Mark Vas for having been part of The Rockfest at various stages, and for sharing their music and talent with us.

Continues below the fold, with the story of the rebirth on Radio Midrand, not to mention schedules and lineups and promises of live gigs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are two pre-Christmas columns that might be of interest, one serious, and one less so.

The serious one is about the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act, or RICA (it’s easy! it’s free!), as the happy mobile operator adverts put it. It’s not some freebie, some bonus. It’s a dangerous and costly exercise that makes communication more expensive, and more vulnerable to an overbearing state.

But it’s Christmas. And what would Christmas be without its thoroughly tacky, plastic commercialisation? Who am I to attack it? Instead, here’s a defence of Boney M in supermarkets.

Enjoy, and to all, I wish you a joyful, relaxed Christmas and an entertaining, wealthy 2010.

Published yesterday on The Daily Maverick, my latest column: Pray Copenhagen fails. I really do hope the UN’s climate shindig fails. It will save millions of lives and trillions of dollars. If we’re serious about solving global problems like hunger, disease and poverty, we should not give corrupt politicians the power to loot taxpayers and line the pockets of special interests on the basis of a dubious premise.