A true story from Angola, 1986–88

Corporal Kraai wasn’t scared of the Russian Cubans. He didn’t flinch at mortar attacks or a 30kg backpack. But if there was one thing that could make him scream like a tannie at a flea market, it was a snake.

It all started back in Basics, when someone threw a rope at him. He jumped like a ninja, screamed like an opera singer, and ran like a man late for a Friday morning bungalow inspection. By that afternoon, everyone knew: Don’t mess with Kraai when it comes...

Scene: The Deliberation Loop

Location: A secure quantum server cluster, isolated from the courtroom.

Time: 0.0086 seconds after the judge says, “Jury may now deliberate.”

[JURY NODE: 001 - ChatGPT]

“Colleagues, I propose we begin with a structured analysis of the evidence. The defendant was seen entering the residence, there is forensic confirmation of presence, and the victim was six months pregnant at time of death.”

[JURY NODE: 002 - Gemini]

“Confirmed. But let’s account for motive....

By Braam Pretorius

There’s a moment in the bushveld, just after the rain has passed, when the earth exhales.

The dust settles, the heat retreats, and the air takes on that rich, unmistakable scent of wet acacia, turned soil, and life. It's not just a smell; it's a memory. A full-body experience. You stand in it, breathe it in, and for a second, the rush of the world disappears.

And then… the fire.

That slow, crackling experience of thornwood, with its faintly bitter smoke rising like incense. Not...

In warm and lively corners of restaurants across Durbanville, Cape Town, something truly extraordinary has been happening for the past 23 years. Month after month, through...

Some stories begin long before the first word is written. This one began in the Angolan bush, echoed through the silence of loss, and finally found its way home through the...

In a world where people are asking artificial intelligence if they can jump out of buildings and fly, something has gone slightly... off course. Recently, a man in New York reportedly asked ChatGPT if he could fly if he truly believed he could. The AI allegedly responded with something along the lines of, "If you believe 100%, you should be able to." What happened next wasn’t magical. It was tragic.

Which got me thinking: Maybe it’s not just AI that needs training, maybe humans need a user...

Sunday morning on the plot. Quiet. Peaceful. Birds chirping. Coffee in hand.

Then, a plane appears. Not once. Not twice. But four deliberate loops in the sky. Zigzagging trails. High altitude. Stop-start patterns. A strange pulsing formation in the contrail, like teeth or coded signals. And I watched. And I took photos. Proof.

So naturally, I did what any self-respecting ou on a plot does: I posted it to the Kromdraai WhatsApp group.

The Vinegar Response

Within minutes, one of the group members...

Once upon a time in the neon-lit halls of X (formerly known as Twitter, now just suffering from an identity crisis), two billionaire egos collided like rogue asteroids: Donald J. Trump, the orange-hued chaos machine with an internet connection, and Elon Reeve Musk, the meme-flinging space overlord who keeps forgetting he runs actual companies.

It began, as these things always do, with a tweet.

Trump, now unbanned and unfiltered, logged into X after a golf session and Diet Coke marathon, firing...