Strat Scorpion

Look, on one hand, I do admire Mashaba, it’s brave to tell SA that you are too immature and scared to work with another leader. I mean it’s a risk, given coalitions aren’t going anywhere, not a great reputation, but I guess it’s better than pretending you are mature and brave.

Clavicular tried a "joke" in the boat kitchen, and 20 seconds later he was the one saying he felt like a DICKHEAD 😭 "Now I feel like a dickhead." "Bro, I feel like a dickhead, bro."

We are in dire need of proper mentorship in creative fields, a lot of people do not know how to send the elevator back down…

Why floating bus stops are necessary on cycle lanes to make cycling an inclusive mode of transport for everybody. 👇 Remember: London bus drivers kill somebody every 3 weeks.

JUST IN: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang could face a potential $81,000,000,000.00 divorce settlement following his affair — the largest in history.

Your voice note is incomplete without “so yeah” at the end.

Spotify just announced a feature that could either save the music industry or destroy it. Starting as early as Q1 2027, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to use AI to transform any participating artist’s song into a completely different version. Turn a folk ballad into a dance track. Make a hip-hop song sound acoustic. Generate a cover where one artist’s voice performs another artist’s song. Remix a pop hit into lo-fi study music. Create the version of your favorite song that only existed in your head until now. The remixes will be uploaded directly to Spotify. They’ll appear in playlists. They’ll count toward the original song’s chart position. And most importantly the original artist will earn royalties every time someone listens to a fan-created remix of their work. Spotify has already signed a landmark licensing deal with Universal Music Group the world’s largest record label. Negotiations with Sony Music and Warner Music are ongoing. The feature will cost an additional $4–$5/month on top of Spotify Premium. And analysts project 7–8% of American subscribers will adopt it by 2028. This is not Suno or Udio generating music from text prompts. This is fans remixing real songs by real artists with the artists’ permission, on the world’s largest streaming platform, with royalties flowing back to the creators. A music industry analyst who’s covered streaming economics for 15 years told her team something after reading the licensing agreement that reframed how she understood the future of recorded music. “Spotify just turned 640 million listeners into 640 million potential remixers. The question isn’t whether people will use it they will. The question is whether paying artists for fan remixes solves the economics of streaming or creates a world where the original recording is worth less than the infinite remixes generated from it.” Here’s what Spotify’s AI remix feature actually is, who wins, who loses, and why this might be the most consequential decision in the music industry since the launch of streaming itself 🧵

THE PATTAYA BUSINESSMAN He is twenty-eight. He has been dating her for four months. He has just checked his banking app, and the brutal reality of the grid has finally caught up with him. He is running out of money. To maintain this Schrödinger’s relationship—where she might actually love him, or she might just love his wallet, and as long as he keeps paying, he never has to open the box to find out—he needs serious cash flow. He needs a business. Like every expat before him, he goes through the mandatory stages of delusion. First, the imported dream: a Krakow sausage shop or a Hungarian goulash restaurant, which he quickly realizes nobody within a thousand-mile radius actually wants. Then, the classic trap: a coffee shop or a beer bar. She used to work in one, so she knows exactly how to run it, right? But then, he starts looking closer. He starts noticing the invisible Thai infrastructure. One afternoon, a pipe bursts in his condo. He watches his girlfriend take a photo of the leak, post it in a local Thai Facebook group, and receive six competitive bids from freelance plumbers in exactly four minutes. To him, it feels like discovering the dark web. He spends three days aggressively drafting a business plan for an "Uber for Plumbers" targeting foreign expats, planning to take a 20% cut. He abandons the idea only when he realizes the fatal flaw in his business model: every expat in Pattaya already has a Thai girlfriend who does this for free. He pivots to physical goods. At a local market, she complains that limes have gone up to twenty baht a kilo. The next weekend, they are walking through a local evening market in Rayong, and he sees limes for three baht a kilo. His brain instantly lights up. A six-hundred-percent margin. Arbitrage. He spends an entire week building spreadsheets, trying to figure out logistics, but the expat-run delivery services eat all his profit. He gives up. The very next day, his girlfriend casually posts in a Thai ride-share group: "Anyone driving from Rayong to Pattaya tonight? Grab two sacks of limes, I’ll give you a hundred baht for gas." The limes arrive three hours later. The math suddenly works perfectly. He abandons the lime idea entirely and decides he needs to start a logistics company. But then he stumbles into a closed LINE group selling smuggled duty-free cosmetics, and spends the next three weeks obsessively mapping out a grey-market import empire. He is spinning in circles, trying to monetize a system he doesn't actually understand, constantly outsmarted by girls who navigate it effortlessly. Then, the true epiphany hits. They are standing outside a 7-Eleven. Her friend walks out. The friend is wearing a heavy, two-baht gold chain and tapping on a brand new iPhone. They exchange a quick, polite greeting. As the friend walks away to flag down a baht bus, his girlfriend leans in and whispers the gossip. "She found a sugar daddy in Dubai," she says, her voice full of envy. "She used a new VIP matchmaking agency in Bangkok. She had to pay the agency thirty thousand baht upfront, but they found her a rich sponsor." He stops dead in his tracks. The half-lit cigarette in his hand burns down a millimeter. The gears in his head violently shift. He turns to look at her. "Wait," he says. "She paid the agency?" "Yes. Thirty thousand baht. To get in the VIP catalog." He looks down the street at the endless stream of girls walking the pavement. He looks at the bars, the massage shops, the coffee stands, all filled with tens of thousands of women desperately looking for an exit strategy. He doesn't want to sell Hungarian goulash. He doesn't want to dispatch plumbers. He doesn't want to transport limes. He looks at his girlfriend. He smiles. "I think I have a business plan," he says. Follow @PattayaUnf #farang #walkingstreetpattaya #bargirl #pattayalife #pattayanightlife #pattayaunfiltered #pattayabars #Pattaya #Pattayathailand #ThailandLife

Adv Sello has indicated that the Matlalas legal team failed to meet the deadline for submitting required documentation (written submissions). Van Den Heever stated that she had a bacterial infection from last night. And as to why she was late, Van den Heever said she arrived late due to a traffic stop by the Metro Police. Furthermore, Advocate Sello indicated that Ms. Van Den Heever requested a consultation with the evidence leaders prior to the commencement of the proceedings. @eNCA

Chris it is all about context, I don’t dispute that the DA has made gains. It has. But winning voting districts, wards and municipalities is not the same as demonstrating substantial growth in national support. The broader numbers tell a more complicated story. 1. Start with the national vote: DA: 2016: 26.90% 2021: 21.66% 2026: 24.63% The DA has recovered some lost ground but remains 2.27 percentage points below its 2016 performance. It has still not returned to its previous electoral high. 2. The ANC has lost almost 15 percentage points since 2021, falling from 45.59% to 30.77%. The DA has gained just under three points. The ANC’s decline has not translated into a comparable increase in DA support. 3. The DA’s growth across metros is uneven: Buffalo City: 19.5% → 16.5% Cape Town: 58.2% → 56.4% Ekurhuleni: 28.7% → 30.4% JHB: 26.5% → 34.6% Tshwane: 32.3% → 34% eThekwini: 25.6% → 26.3% Mangaung: 25.7% → 33.6% Nelson Mandela Bay: 39.9% → 44.4%. Its strongest gains are in JHB and Mangaung. It has lost support in Cape Town and Buffalo City. 4. The DA also had outright majorities in 13 municipalities in 2021, compared with 12 in 2026. The comparison of councils controlled shows 19 in 2016, 12 in 2021 and 11 at the time of the latest comparison. Being the largest party in 26 municipalities is not the same as having an outright majority. 5. There are genuine gains worth acknowledging, particularly among majority-Black voters. DA support in majority-Black voting districts increasing nationally to 8% (+4). Across metros: Mangaung: 17% (+10) JHB: 13% (+9) Cape Town: 13% (+7) Tshwane: 11% (+5) Ekurhuleni: 10% (+5) NMB: 9% (+4) Buffalo City: 5% (+1) eThekwini: 4% (+2). These are meaningful gains. 6. The DA also increased its ward vote by approximately 1.08-million votes across 23,353 comparable voting stations. Turnout also increased from 45.9% in 2021 to 52.3% in 2026. That growth should not be dismissed. 7. But consider where the ANC’s lost support has gone: ANC: 45.59% → 30.77% DA: 21.66% → 24.63% EFF: 10.31% → 6.22% ActionSA: 2.33% → 5.67% IFP: 5.64% → 4.70% FF+: 2.34% → 2.99% PA: 0.97% → 1.97% MK: approximately 9.8% in 2026. The opposition is growing in a fragmented way. The DA has not absorbed the bulk of the ANC’s lost support. 8. So, is there really a blue wave? The DA has grown, but it has not returned to its 2016 national vote share. It has gained just under three percentage points since 2021, while the ANC has lost almost 15. The opposition vote is increasingly fragmented, with ActionSA and MK also attracting support. The question worth asking is not whether the DA has grown. It has. It is why, after such a substantial collapse in ANC support, the DA has not managed to capture a much larger share of that electorate. Please don’t purposefully misconstrue what I said.

Zille is making sense hate her if you like 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[THREAD] Ahead of the elections, EWN travelled across South Africa, visiting communities in every corner of the country. We highlighted the challenges and issues affecting ordinary citizens. Below is a thread of videos documenting the places I visited. 1. Mamelodi Hostels

Visited my good friends at @sainsburyexotic yesterday (I bought my C63 from them) and they had a very nice M4 Comp on the floor. So I thought I'd ask you guys, which one would you buy? I paid R390k for my M3 in 2024 - 147,000 on the clock, factory original. M4 is listed at R899,000 - 89,000km on the clock, 2019 model, factory original, full service history with BMW. I'm going to post a huge thread of all the photos and videos I took, including a little start-up and sound check, but I would very much like to point out that my car was warm and the M4 was cold! Enjoy and I'll jump into the comments with you🏁 I don’t like @X’s new photo display, I think the previous 4-frame grid view was better, just me? @CarsSouthAfrica pull in!

MK party takes four KZN municipalities from ANC as governance test looms dailymaverick.co.za/article/…

Comment: This chap was fired by the Centre for Development and Enterprises after a vicious phishing expedition on the defunct Huffington Post. His agenda is blatant and often wrong.

Stuffy conservatism wins again

WATCH | Micheal Beaumont talks coalitions. He says the party will make sure Nasiphi Moya is mayor for another 5 years.