What's on Mthoko's mind?

Energy in South Africa is, currently, a hot topic because the state's power supplier is allegedly said to be failing, as well as the constantly increasing price of petrol (gasoline). Some leaders of our land still feel there's a need for oil so they can get money from petrol tax & companies that want to mine oil in South Africa. I suppose SASOL could also make fuel from coal & that would benefit South Africa. But my argument will always lean towards electric powered vehicles & machinery because, personally, I like electric as opposed to fuel engine because electric vehicles & devices are easier to operate, service & repair. Fossil fuel is good for heavy duty vehicles because the battery on electric vehicles is heavy. In fact, it is said that electric vehicles are on average heavier than the average petrol-powered vehicle of the same class. But what could be done for vehicles over a specific weight category is simply add interchangeable solar panels on top wh...

If we're being honest, television & related entertainment other than national news & sport is unimportant. If anything, television should be connected to CCTV footage of the streets of whichever town that television is in.  The advantage of this would be everyone gets to see what's happening in their town & when. The feed would keep switching to various livestreams every ten minutes. If something strange or of importance is happening, control switch desk at the studio switches to that CCTV livestream. Even if someone tries to vandalise the camera, the whole town can see or know who it is.  Maybe this won't phase out television entertainment completely but it can come as a welcome addition to pop TV.  The result could be TV channels for regional, national & international CCTV livestreams . 

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?  Social media to me used to be a place where you could say whatever you want, leave it online, go live your real life & come back to it later. It was nice as sort of an escape from real life but when it gets into real life, it gets all sorts of dangerous. Because we have different mentalities around the world & maybe aren't meant to be exposed to certain dangerous mentalities across the world. Even mentalities of people you don't hang around just one town away from you could be dangerous when they're exposed to certain people online. In general, I think social media was meant for brief communication with certain groups, I don't think it was meant to parasite onto our real lives. WHO DECIDED IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO BRING SOCIAL MEDIA INTO REAL LIFE? It was definitely the suits, the capitalists ruined it for everyone. They wanted to get nerdy & know every detail of random people's lives so they could monitor the world for some silly rea...

I found a few ways on the internet that someone with some cash cash (approx. R3,5 million or US$ 200 000) can make it to space but they'll have to find their own way of return.  1) Concorde + rocket = space   2) Balloon+ rocket = space   Using above two methods more than half of all existing countries in the world can into space. 

Just for those who want to support African-made products. Roam Air electric motorcycle    Kiira Kayoola solar bus    Mazibuko M1B    Kantanka Automobile   African tech

In high scool, I remember learning electrical current with use of light emitting diodes (LEDs). Today, I've noticed how versatile LEDs can be but how sustainable are they to make? And, are they good for the environment? The fact that LEDs last longer than other lightbulbs should count towards their sustainability .  On the environment.co.za  website, they state:  Greenhouse gas emissions associated with the LED lights are relatively far less than the conventional incandescent or Compact fluorescent lights. According to carful calculations, one LED bulbs, providing the same luminosity as one incandescent bulb emits 80% less greenhouse gases.  LED lights are said to use three main materials to manufacture; plastic, phosphor & phosphorus. I'm not sure how abundant phosphor is but phosphorus is said to be the 12th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. The plastic one LED uses seems negligible considering the average longevity of use of one LED lig...

I did a blog about why Africans need to focus on Africa & not so much on extraterrestrial activities before but it came from a very isolationist view & didn't assume Africa would ever really participate in global activities but the world is overly connected & globalised. Maybe too interconnected & globalised to the extent that you're in truth more connected to someone on another continent than someone in your neighborhood. We may need an extraterrestrial colony simply for more room in a cramped world & continent apart from other threats.  Africa isn't new to extraterrestrial "missions", some African goods have been taken outside this planet. Even though space travel isn't exactly cheap, there are some cheaper spacecraft models we could copy to send a self-sustaining & self-sufficient eco-system to Mars with some of Africa's more resilient plant species. A self-sufficient & self-sustaining ecosystem is e...

At this stage, if you don't believe in renewable energy sources; there's nothing more to say to you. Besides the fact of renewables being clean, the sources they use to obtain energy are free. The fact that the energy source is free alone should cause any country to change to renewables yesterday already, renewables should literally sell themselves, so what is stopping the transition? The change to renewables is happening but is it happening as rapidly as we'd like? There's also efficiency to think about when considering converting to renewables & renewable power potential maps to think about (maps that show which regions are best for which type of renewable energy) so we don't put wind turbines where there is no wind or solar panels where there is no sun.  I'm not a fan of coal or nuclear or even nuclear's more efficient cousin thorium because they have polluting residue to deal with & you have to pay for the source when wind & sunshine are fre...