Category Archives: Uncategorized

Algernon Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies 141/298 days of load shedding in 2022 I have often been accused of being a nerdy Vulcan. For those of you who are not Star Trek fans (shame on you), the Vulcans are an extra-terrestrial humanoid species who are noted for their attempt to live purely byContinue reading “A tribute to Algernon and Oliver“

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies 136/291 days of load shedding in 2022 How do you define failure? Is your career or marriage a success or a failure? Is your country a failure? If you get divorced or fired, then perhaps you can declare your marriage or career a failure. Not getting divorced orContinue reading “Ruminations on failed states“

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies 129/284 days of load shedding in 2022 Today I wish to return to the topic of bureaucratic violence as a favourite topic of mine. In an earlier blog post I wrote about the late David Graeber who coined the phrase, “bureaucratic violence”. He wrote a book entitled, “TheContinue reading “Ruminations on bureaucratic violence in the green economy“

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies 122/284 days of load shedding in 2022 (A weekend without load shedding!) South Africa has the dubious distinction of having the worst Gini coefficient in the world. This is based on data from 2014. Since then, things have probably got worse. The last eight years have not beenContinue reading “Ruminations on the Gini coefficient, the Zipf law and schools“

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies  122/279 days of load shedding in 2022 Whether you are conscious of it or not everyone except the extremely poor should make investments throughout their lives. You need to do this for the simple reason that barring an early death you will get old and at some point,Continue reading “Ruminations on Ponzi schemes, pig butchering, dubious investments, and the energy transition”

Polerio defense Boguljubov variation Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies  115/272 days of load shedding in 2022 In an earlier blog, I dealt with the fact that I started playing chess again at the age of 57 with my son Oliver who is now way better than me. It’s an activity dominated by nerdyContinue reading “Ruminations on the Magnus Carlsen-Hans Niemann cheating affair“

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies  108/265 days of load shedding in 2022 As I start writing this week’s blog on Tuesday, we have stage 5 load shedding from 18h00 to 22h30 and the power has been off for 8 hours in the last 24 hours. Over the last couple of months and weeks,Continue reading “Ruminations on the end of deference and respect”

AI-generated image using Midjourney using the prompt Ruminant Pink Friday Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies on day 163 of no lockdown.  Period as an ivory tower academic 168 days Before delving into green hydrogen again just a brief digression into the unrelated topic of AI-generated art which is topical now. Using a portraitContinue reading “Yet More Ruminations on Green Hydrogen“

33 Baker Square in Rosebank Johannesburg at 22h30 on Saturday 3 September Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies on day 156 of no lockdown.  Period as an ivory tower academic 161 days The term ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) is extremely fashionable these days. No respectable large corporate entity won’t devote a significant sectionContinue reading “Ruminations on lighting, laziness, and ESG”

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies on day 149 of no lockdown.  Period as an ivory tower academic 154 days Do you know who you are? Who are you? This is also known as the Vorlon question from the science fiction series Babylon 5. There is then the related Shadow question, what do youContinue reading “Ruminations on Who You Are“