Author: Toby Shapshak

There’s a scene in SAS Rogue Heroes that is so outrageous, it strained the series’ claim to that “those events depicted, which seem most unbelievable… are mostly true.” Based on the brilliant book by historian Ben Macintyre, which I have just started listening to, the series recounts the formation of that famous special forces unit. The scene I found so implausible takes place in Cairo at the British Army headquarters. David Stirling (Connor Swindells) sneaks in on crutches, evades various guards and finds a general to propose his plan for what would ultimately become the SAS. It just seemed to…

In what reads more like an outlandish Hollywood movie plot, South Africa watched with morbid fascination as our very own Bonnie and Clyde played out. Convicted murdered Thabo Bester, known as the Facebook rapist for his trick of luring women on the social media platform, was busted out of jail by his celebrity doctor girlfriend Dr Nandipha Magudumana. The way she did it was outrageous, smuggling a dead body into a Bloemfontein jail, where a mysterious fire then “killed” Bester, who had already fled. Magudumana then collected this body and had it cremated. Meanwhile Bester and Magudumana were living their…

What started as a question by a journalist at an event organised by a human resources software company, quickly became a quintessential example of how crucial, yet frustrating, managing people can be. When an exasperated editor explained his frustrations at managing his newspaper’s employees before moving away from that role, Workday’s Gina Sheibley replied: “You don’t miss being a manager, do you?” It was a moment of levity from the HR software firm’s chief communications officer during a panel discussion about skills and the role of artificial intelligence (AI). Software, as the saying goes, has eaten the world, including how…

Imagine for a second that you’re a regular soccer mom in the US just going about your day, before discovering that your Italian grandfather, recently deceased, was a mafia don. Now, you are his anointed head of the family. This is the plot of the 2023 action-comedy Mafia Mamma starring the always brilliant Toni Collette, who hams it up as a self-doubting woman amid a midlife crisis. She works for chauvinists and constantly yearns for a more creative life. It’s here she gets the call to go to the funeral in Italy, where she meets Monica Bellucci.  Along the way, she meets a…

Devilsdorp is one of the greatest true crime shows you’ll ever see. The events are so fantastical and outlandish, as are the antics of the conspirators who killed 11 people over four years. The killings, spanning from 2012 to 2016, all happened in Krugersdorp, the mining town to the west of Johannesburg named after Paul Kruger. The title is a clever play on the town’s name and the particular brand of religious manipulation used by a cunning woman, Cecilia Steyn. She claims to be a 42nd-generational witch, whatever that means, and is fighting to escape from the Satanic church, whatever…

If ever the phrase “watching a trainwreck in slow motion” was apt, and painfully so, this is it. SA-born Elon Musk driving the Trump Train through the US federal government is a disaster in the making. Except it is happening in anything but slow motion. The halting of US foreign aid for three months alone is an unspeakable travesty, let alone the shuttering of USAID, one of the greatest and most benevolent organisations on Earth. Millions of Africans will die because of Trump’s catastrophic assault on decency and dignity. And the man driving that trainwreck is Musk who was, until…

If you’re looking for the ultimate man’s man bakkie, this is it. Bigger really is better, especially if you’re camping in the Free State. Ford’s newest Ranger Raptor has got big clearance, big bumpers, big tyres and the biggest grill on the roads. And it’s got big attitude, perfect for impressing the other fathers on an annual school camping trip. For my son’s annual camping weekend, I took Ford’s ridiculously butch Ranger Raptor bakkie. It was fantastic. If Arnold Schwarzenegger was a car, he would be a Ford Ranger Raptor. With the XXL “tekkies” for tyres. If you’re going away…

“We have to push back on the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) is smarter than us,” Scott Hanselman, Microsoft’s vice president of developer community, tells Stuff editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak. “It’s artificial but it’s not real intelligence,” he adds. “We are real intelligence.” Along with Pelonomi Moiloa, CEO and co-founder of Lelapa AI, they talk about how AI is being practically used.

Who watches the watchers? It’s the central theme in the epic graphic novel Watchmen, but it has been expanded on by the TV series which spans a period of pushback against superheroes and their vigilantism. Zack Snyder’s 2009 film was a faithful reproduction of the graphic novel, including the gigantic metamorphised Doctor Manhattan, and followed the comic’s narrative. The 2019 TV series is a reimagining of the Watchmen universe and the underlying principles of anonymous superheroes who are essentially do-gooders. But this is an age where superheroes have run into what some financial markets would call headwinds. Public sentiments have…

And then the AI bubble burst. Or, as one meme put it: “ChatGPT just lost its job to AI.” Instead of obsessing over TikTok’s 24-hour banning in the United States, the world is in thrall of another Chinese app, DeepSeek. This artificial intelligence (AI) startup recently released its latest chatbot model with many capabilities that match OpenAI’s ChatGPT – except developed at a fraction of the cost. Instead of the hundreds of millions of dollars that US firms have invested in training advanced AI models, DeepSeek says it only spent $5.6 million developing its R1 model. This is estimated at…