Gavin Chait;
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gavin.whyqd.com
Gavin Chait;
@gavin.whyqd.com
940 followers 730 following 400 posts
I am a data scientist, researcher, engineer, sometime-traveler, and African SFF author.
I am fascinated by the frontiers of human progress: innovation vs ignorance; wealth vs poverty, migration vs stasis.
I also drink a great deal of coffee.
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gavin.whyqd.com
I'm visiting a walkable, livable North American city. Excellent food, lots of culture, parks, trees, boulevards, public transport, accessable... Hell, they even have public hire bikes, & the place is so safe parents are out chatting while their kids play under the trees. Welcome to Mexico City.
Chinese community in Mexico City. A art with red paper lanterns strung across the street, with crowds walking happily amongst restaurants and goods, with their wares displayed under umbrellas. Entrance to the main city park, a large distinctive figure of the head and torso of a woman has been built such that visitors walk through her chest to get into the park. She is painted black with her clothes and hair in bright pink, and white filigree is painted as if to reveal her skeleton. It is a bright blue day. A series of enormous painted skulls are placed in two long rows, one above the other. They are decorated to celebrate the Day of the Dead festival, with bright contrasting colours in bold patterns. Each is over a metre in height. And the are a lot of them. A casual outside restaurant on the pavement serving freshly-made tacos. Four people sit on high chairs eating, while people walk past. There are other food stands serving different dishes in the background. Trees and apartment buildings are visible behind.
November 1, 2025 at 7:38 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
Rest well Jane Goodall. You did one hell of a job for humanity and our delicate planet.
Very famous Gary Larson Far Side comic featuring two chimps in a tree, one wearing the typical Larson peaked glasses who is picking something out of the other chimp's back. "Well, well," she says, "another blond hair. ... Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"
October 1, 2025 at 6:49 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
You are fucking cowards @theguardian.com You do *not* deliberately introduce doubt for one of the safest anti-inflammatories in the world in the fucking headline! Link for those wanting to see this shame www.theguardian.com/society/2025... One for @ianbetteridge.com to get angry about too.
Absolutely fake and hate-filled headline *asks* whether paracetomol is safe or causes autism ... it fucking doesn't, and The Guardian is a fucking cunt.
September 24, 2025 at 7:33 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
And this is precisely why The Guardian will never get a cent from me (this and their whole anti-trans crusade). It's not "contentious" assholes. It's fucking anti-science, anti-women lies and hatespeech. Take a fucking stand.
Guardian newspaper headline stating "Trump attacks paracetamol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism". A photograph to the left shows a hand in a random piece of lab equipment weighing out a pile of white pills.
September 23, 2025 at 6:51 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
I'm always fascinated by the curious lack of brain cells in people who respond to their absurd fear of immigrants by ... rising up, and becoming immigrants.
Clip from an FT article on Americans emigrating to Russia. It says: “Russia was really our only option,” the couple said, decrying their home country’s alleged “LGBT indoctrination of kids” on TV, cities “overrun by immigrants” and “mind-blowing” levels of crime.
September 2, 2025 at 12:12 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
My bank emailed me asking for information, but providing no way for me to send it to them. So I tried their help chat in the app. But it's an "AI" which gives me wrong answers only. When I complain, it says "Transferring you to an agent", but doesn't transfer me anywhere.
Chat screenshot with my bank "AI": "AI": If this isn't quite what you were looking for, please rephrase your question and I'll try my best to get you what you need. Me: Just reproving that "AI" is incapable. "AI": I'm just here to help you get things done <hugs emoji>
July 31, 2025 at 12:37 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
You saw Zapiro's comment? "Good luck with that."
Zapiro cartoon of President Cyril Ramaphosa entering the White House gates, looking anxiously at a sign that says "White Supremacy House".
May 19, 2025 at 1:19 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
For the Zapiro fans, and South Africans who have been waiting for Trump to get the Zuma treatment.

www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/the-plumbing/
First panel: Donald Trump is visible from the gut up, his arms are outstretched - his tiny hands ending in tiny stumpy fingers - gesturing at a large executive order calling for "GREATER WATER PRESSURE IN SHOWERHEADS". He is proudly declaring, "... My latest executive order!" 2nd panel: A shower head sprouts from his head and promptly begins gushing fulsomely onto his exotic coif. 3rd panel: Trump stands, his arms outstretched ending in tiny hands, as water pours from the showerhead fixed to his skull. "What just happened?!!" he demands. Jacob Zuma pops in, looking unimpressed, his own showerhead fixed to his dome, dripping. "Long story!" he says.
April 14, 2025 at 9:16 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
South Africa threw off Apartheid and white-supremacy. Trump and Musk can never forgive this. Cry the beloved country.
FT headline: US declares South African ambassador 'persona non grata'. Photo is of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.
March 15, 2025 at 9:16 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
The Godwin Betteridge Corollary: the probability that any headline that ends in a question mark that should be answered by the word `yes` is only left in doubt because the privileged proclaimants are too chickenshit to declare that this *is* about Nazis.

@mnemonic.bsky.social @ianbetteridge.com
New York Times "opinions" section, with the headline: "Is the Destruction the Point?": Three Opinion Writers on Trump’s First 50 Days Michelle Goldberg and Frank Bruni join Patrick Healy to discuss the issues that have defined Trump’s presidency thus far.
March 14, 2025 at 9:56 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
It's genuinely astonishing how Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang - a.k.a. Dr Beetroot - has been reincarnated as US health minister. Trump's America combining the worst of 1980s Apartheid ZA with the worst of 2000s ANC ZA's state capture & incompetence, with no intervening period of service to the people.
Zapiro cartoon of different types of vegetables, including an African potato, beetroot, lemon, garlic and the head of a cross-eyed Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. The caption at the top reads: All these vegetables prevent the rollout of antiretrovirals - True of False? Answer at the bottom: False - lemon is not a vegetable. The cartoon is from 15 February 2004. Yep, 20 years since we've been having this bullshit about taking actually appropriate medication for a life-threatening disease.
March 8, 2025 at 8:51 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
South Africa's #Zapiro with the view from the South. www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/unhi...
A colour cartoon by Zapiro. Donald Trump, dressed as Adolf Hitler with a Swastika armband and a yellow glove on his "outstretched" left arm, holds a card in his right hand with the word "PEPFAR" scratched out and the words "END TO AIDS FUND" scrawled in red pen. A red-eyed black-feathered vulture, with the word "AIDS" on its chest, has just launched from his gloved hand. Adolf Trump yells, "NON-AMERICANS! MILLIONS OF AFRICANS! ... GO GET 'EM!!"
March 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Ah, yes, we should definitely trust all our important decisions to computers programmed and used by humans.
Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send only $280, an error that could hinder the bank’s attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues. Citi’s technology team instructed the payments processing employee to manually input the transactions into a rarely used back-up screen. One quirk of the program was that the amount field came pre-populated with 15 zeros, which the person inputting a transaction needed to delete, something that did not happen.
February 28, 2025 at 9:27 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
Between Janan and Jemima, I'm starting to feel the FT is going the way of The Economist with its highly privileged "takes" and "sane-washing" on social inequality and injustice. After 20 years of subscribing, just cancelled my renewal.
FT headline of column by Janan Ganesh: The anti-woke overcorrection is here FT headline of column by Jemima Kelly: When we politicise everything we make society stupider
February 23, 2025 at 7:50 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
Musk's DOGE will soon be introducing this sophisticated tool, used during South Africa's Apartheid era, to ensure scientific racial classification. After all, if White South Africans are to get easy entry to the US, first you need to ensure they really are "White".
A standard number 2 pencil, unsharpened. Made by Sanford. Photo was taken by Evan-Amos as a part of Vanamo Media, which creates public domain works for educational purposes.
February 8, 2025 at 8:05 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Shunning a G20 meeting in ZA over their efforts at post-Apartheid equality is quite the look. Given that US ideas of "majoritarianism" involves its majority "race" vomiting all over its minorities, would he prefer ZA do the same thing? Oh, wait, no, that would be called "white genocide" wouldn't it?
A photo of an orange-throated cock warbler who rejoices in the name "Marco Rubio", under the headline: Marco Rubio shuns G20 meeting in South Africa over 'equality' drive.
February 6, 2025 at 12:41 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Zapiro with the hot takes from One Day in the AI Money Pool.

www.zapiro.com/250130dm
Two panel comic by South Africa's Zapiro. Left panel is a group of large fish in different colours and labeled - Tesla, Amazon, Meta AI, OpenAI, Nvidia, Apple AI, Alphabet, Microsoft - all facing to the right looing bored and unimpressed as a tiny fish shaped like the DeepSeek whale log swims up to them and greets them in Chinese. The second panel is the big fish all look startled as the tiny fish opens its mouth ultra wide - so wide it can swallow all of the big fish in one gulp, and lined with thousands of razor-sharp teeth - and announces, "Hi, I'm DeepSeek."
February 1, 2025 at 12:48 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Fifty years after Trump's catastrophic Canadian campaign in the winter of 2025, noted French cartographer and engineer, Charles Minard, produced the definitive chart revealing the tragic and disastrous losses of the American military advance and retreat.
Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the American Army in the Canadian campaign 2025-2026. Drawn by M. Minard, Inspector General of Bridges and Roads (retired). Paris, November 20, 2079. The numbers of men present are represented by the widths of the colored zones at a rate of one millimeter for every ten thousand men; they are further written across the zones. The red designates the men who enter Canada, the black those who leave it. — The information which has served to draw up the map has been extracted from the works of M. M. Thiers, de Ségur, de Fezensac, de Chambray and the unpublished diary of Jacob, the pharmacist of the Army since October 28th. In order to better judge with the eye the diminution of the army, I have assumed that the troops of Prince Jérôme and of Marshal Davout, who had been detached at Vancouver and Calgary and have rejoined near Orsha and Vitebsk, had always marched with the army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard
January 18, 2025 at 9:36 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
Zapiro's view...
www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/pen-...
Cartoon by ZA featuring six panels: 1. A book titled Stop That Cartoon, the global megalomaniacs' handbook 2. A drawing of Jeff Bezos captioned Kill the cartoon, 2025 3. A drawing of Kenya president Ruto captioned Abduct the cartoonist, 2024-5 4. A drawing of Jacob Zuma with a shower head attached to his head, captioned Sue the cartoonist 200-12 (Zuma sued Zapiro) 5. A drawing of Al-Assas captioned Break cartoonist's hands 2011 6. A drawing of upright pencils swamped by flowers and a "Je suis Charlie" card, captioned Kill the cartoonists, faceless religious extremists It is a decade since Charlie Hebdo massacre.
January 9, 2025 at 10:24 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
OK, America, real talk from a South African who's seen this story many times. This is *not* "bending the knee". It's table stakes to buy a spot for the rich & powerful to dip their snouts in the gravy train feeding trough of favourable regulations & cash handouts. This is what corruption looks like.
Headline from the FT of 18 December 2024: "What choice do they have?": America's CEOs bend the knee to Trump. Pictured in a circle around Trump are (from left) Sam Altman, Shou Zi Chew, Jeff Bezos, Sandar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and some other arbitrary white guy CEO.
December 18, 2024 at 7:44 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
If there's one thing that smelts South Africa's diversity into nationhood, it is enduring the crucible that is Home Affairs. Feels like an achievement in solidarity & good humour to have emerged successfully with a new passport & my sanity intact.
Still-life in coffee shop featuring a new South African passport in the foreground on top of a receipt for coffee, and some coffee-like beverage in a mug behind.
December 5, 2024 at 4:07 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Hey, @ianbetteridge.com ... one for you? Does this finally break the rule?
Headline from the FT of 13 November 2024. Under a photograph of Donald Trump alongside a sea of American flags, the headlines: Congress of the United States Will a Republican Congress give Trump everything he wants?
November 13, 2024 at 9:45 AM
gavin.whyqd.com
If you see this, quote your first print novel's cover and share a link to it.

My first novel: Lament for the Fallen, www.amazon.com/Lament-Falle...

#cover #SciFi #art #qrp #author #WritingCommunity
Cover art for the print edition of Lament for the Fallen by Gavin Chait. Line drawing on a black background of an African tribal mask. The mask is drawn with thin white lines, with glowing golden eyes, and gold lines radiating outwards from the edge of the mask.
October 29, 2024 at 4:17 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
The exceptional Angélique Kidjo performing live in Marseille with the La Cité Des Minots, opera.marseille.fr/action-cultu...
Angélique Kidjo singing in the foreground, with her band behind her, and the La Cité Des Minots choir in the background
October 13, 2024 at 6:07 PM
gavin.whyqd.com
Musk plainly has no idea about the size of the average person's home ... where do you find space for something so large so that it can carry one fucking bag of groceries into your kitchen? Mod aftermarket for this "invisible friend" gonna be a bit frottage.
Advertising video of Elon Musk's invisible - whoops, "humanoid" - friend demonstrating as it hobbles into a hotel-sized kitchen carrying one small bag of fresh produce and places it on an oversized counter top.
October 11, 2024 at 6:59 AM