Author: Toby Shapshak

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…

The most interesting thing about Billions is not necessarily how it delves into this new genre of television known as “wealth porn” but how well it combines two strong acting leads. There was a time – like last year – when a TV show was carried by one big-name actor and a number of secondary figures. Billions isn’t the first to break this mould – think of how the movie Heat finally juxtaposed action heavyweights Robert de Niro and Al Pacino on screen – but it’s arguably the best of this new style of television. Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis…

It’s auspicious that season two of Stuff Rugby kicks off on the 30th anniversary of the Springboks’ glorious first Rugby World Cup win in 1995. Andy Capostagno was in the Ellis Park cauldron for the Boks’ victorious first appearance in the rugby showpiece. Now, the first game of the year will be against the famous Barbarian Invitational side. Along with the two Italy Tests, this is a low-key series of matches with lots of permutations from Rassie Erasmus, Cappy tells Toby Shapshak. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read More: How AI can predict rugby injuries before they happen

One of the reasons we’re such big fans of Fujifilm at Stuff Towers is just how darn good the actual cameras themselves look. We’re camera heads, and just thrilled that Fujifilm has embraced the glorious retro past of photography. The beautiful new X-E5 from Fuji is proof of that. X marks the E5 It carries with it a wonderful design aesthetic that harkens back to the heyday of single-lens reflex cameras and the photojournalists who used them. There’s also a “newly designed Film Simulation dial which features a precision-cut indicator window.” That means photographers can quickly swap between various simulations…

Elon Musk’s Starlink will connect 5,000 rural schools if it is allowed to operate in South Africa, it says. Starlink Market Access senior director Ryan Goodnight made the offer in a letter to Trade, Industry & Competition Minister Parks Tau on Saturday, which emerged on Wednesday. Instead of having to give a 30% shareholding to previously disadvantaged people, Starlink will be able to invest in so-called equity equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs). “Today, millions of children are being denied access to education resources because SA broadband networks do not extend to the most rural parts of the country. This is a…

The fact that Apple hardly made any artificial intelligence (AI) announcements at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has had the internet in uproar. The world’s most valuable tech firm has been the de facto smartphone leader – alongside Samsung – for most of the last twenty years. In the beginning, Apple tended to set the tone for the industry, before losing out to superior work being done by Android (on the software front) and hardware manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor, and plenty of others. Apple’s fundamental problem is that it overpromised and underdelivered at its big iPhone launch…