Author: Toby Shapshak

When I first went to Shenzhen in 2004, it was still being built. There was construction everywhere. Everything was new. Now, it’s arguably the most important single city in the global consumer electronics industry. Between 80% and 90% of all gadgets are manufactured in this one conglomeration of a city. And now, it’s coming for the auto industry. Be afraid. Be very afraid. By Shenzhen, I don’t just mean the city itself, but the business model it effectively represents. China is the most industrialised manufacturing country in the world and is excellent at it. It’s no longer the knock-off capital (okay,…

Rassie Erasmus has effortlessly begun the transition to the next Rugby World Cup cycle by leaving out three double World Cup winners for the Rugby Championships, while bringing in a crop of talented youngsters, Andy Capostagno tells Toby Shapshak. Andy Capostagno has been talking and writing about South African rugby for more than three decades. He’s been my emotional support person for rugby since I was lucky enough to meet him when I was unexpectedly made the sports editor of the Mail & Guardian newspaper many moons ago. Welcome to Stuff Rugby. Listen to Stuff Rugby on Apple Podcasts or…

“You look like Leonard, but you talk like Sheldon,” people said to me for years. But, until I watched The Big Bang Theory in 2008, I didn’t get it. In this hilarious TV show, two geeky physicists live across the hall from a beautiful blonde waitress, and the half-hour episodes highlight the cultural and intellectual clashes between the two opposing stereotypes. To hilarious effect. Truly hilarious effect. Unlike House, which features one enigmatic genius with a fearsome wit and a rare aptitude for problem-solving (played to perfection by Hugh Laurie), The Big Bang Theory features four geniuses with no social…

You have to wonder who at Cupertino thought through the consequences of Apple suing a YouTuber for a “coordinated scheme to break into an Apple Development iPhone, steal Apple’s trade secrets, and profit from the theft”. In surprisingly hard-hitting court papers, Apple sued two men, claiming their “misconduct was brazen and egregious”. Apple’s investigations found that “defendant Jon Prosser – working with defendant Michael Ramacciotti – improperly accessed and disclosed Apple’s highly confidential, unreleased software designs, including details regarding the unreleased iOS 19 operating system (which is now known as iOS 26) for Apple mobile devices”. Prosser, a YouTuber who…

After sending me numerous fake video clips, clearly from TikTok, I told an old friend last year to get back to the basics and read a proper newspaper. The final nonsense clip featured two guys claiming that Turkish Olympic pistol shooter, Yusuf Dikeç, famous for his nonchalant stance, only took up shooting after getting divorced. It was patent misinformation. “Stop getting your news on TikTok,” I told my friend, who really should know better. “Or, only get it from reputable sources,” I added. A few weeks back, the jovial proprietor of a well-known breakfast establishment ranted about how angry he…

When I discovered a friend’s daughter had nicked the power bank I recently gave her, I thought I might just buy her daughter her own. The one I had given my friend (let’s call her Rider) was a particularly good one, which I thought she deserved because she’s always (reluctantly) giving her daughters her power bank. It may be her own fault for having four daughters, you might argue, but I doubt you’d say that in front of her. Besides, by virtue of what I do, people are always asking me for things like power banks. As it happens, the…

Instead of talking about Willie le Roux’s 100th test, the rugby world is buzzing about Rassie Erasmus’s latest innovations: lineouts in midfield and scrums at kick-off, Andy Capostagno tells Stuff’s Toby Shapshak. Andy Capostagno has been talking and writing about South African rugby for more than three decades. He’s been my emotional support person for rugby since I was lucky enough to meet him when I was unexpectedly made the sports editor of the Mail & Guardian newspaper many moons ago. Welcome to Stuff Rugby. Listen to Stuff Rugby on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Read More: How AI can predict rugby injuries…

“There is a large graveyard filled with my enemies,” is the Elon Musk quote that Washington Post journalist Faiz Siddiqui used to start his excellent book on the enigmatic, increasingly deranged, richest person in the world. Hubris Maximus, the Shattering of Elon Musk is a gripping read about a central figure in the world, written by a talented reporter who has tracked Musk for years. It’s also deeply depressing. How did such talent, such a great mind, such a brilliant problem solver and innovator, self-destruct into the narcissistic, billionaire bully brat who destroyed USAID and all the good work that remarkable agency did?…

“Bank Zero failed to deliver on the hype it promised when it launched,” said one banker after the neobank was bought by Lesaka Technologies for R1.1 billion. This comment appeared in a News24 article that summed up the news with: “Bank Zero has disappointed, with only 40,000 funded accounts after seven years.” I’m not sure I would agree with the editorialised “disappointed” comment, nor the banker’s assertion that it “failed to deliver on its hype”. This is a neobank that just sold for over the R1 billion mark to make it a bona fide start-up unicorn. That’s not failing to live up to “the hype” in…

In real life, Candace Bushnell was a ground-breaking columnist who wrote about her dating experiences for The New York Observer in the early 90s. Her writing proved to be a profoundly enlightening exposé of sexual freedom for women everywhere. These amusing anecdotes, written between 1994 to 1996, were so good that she compiled them into a bestselling book called Sex and the City. But her greatest fame would come from the breakthrough TV series of the same name, which was an equally pioneering show for television. Sarah Jessica Parker’s onscreen portrayal of the New York sex columnist Carrie and her…