Terry Pratchett once told me that he didn’t actually recommend beginning your relationship with the Discworld through his first novel in the series, The Colour of Magic (1983). That’s because
Author: The Conversation
Most people are bamboozled by bitcoin. It’s shrouded in jargon and geek speak. It borrows physical metaphors from all over the place adding to the confusion. It talks of “coins”, but there are no physical coins. You’ll hear about “miners”, although there is
South Africa’s political landscape is shifting almost by the hour. The gloves are off in a power struggle that pits President Jacob Zuma against a group of reformers, led by finance minister Pravin Gordhan. It is a high-stakes drama that has profound, long-term
It’s not every day that I feel the need to fight with Martin Wolf. The Financial Times commentator is an eminently respectable analyst and most of the time makes good sense. However, last week he sort of lost the plot. Wolf has written that technology will do to finance
South Africa has made domestic and international commitments to climate change mitigation. But the country continues to depend on coal-fired power plants, which provide 92% of its electricity. A key challenge for the country in dealing with electricity shortages is
Our modern world is based on semiconductors. In addition to your computer, cellphones and digital cameras, semiconductors are a critical component of a growing number of devices. Think
Astronomers are getting ever closer to understanding the origin of mysterious “fast radio bursts” – very brief but intense pulses of radio waves from outer space – after a series of recent contradictory
Online marketplaces, also known as platform companies, are sprouting up everywhere and redefining business in every industry. “The Uber of…” has become shorthand for tech start-ups
Apple’s defiance of the FBI’s request to unlock the work phone of one of the San Bernadino shooters has become an all out PR and legal battle being waged on all fronts. Although the case is ostensibly
In December 2015, the FBI traced the leak of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight back to a Hollywood executive. According to The Hollywood Reporter, watermarks on the leaked copy led to