Gavin Chait;

@gavin.whyqd.com

992 Followers 826 Following

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.

Guardian newspaper headline and photo: Andy Burnham vows to 'bring back hope' as he unveils his cabinet Photo is of a grinning Andy Burnham in a black suit, while warmly grasping a giggling Shabana Mahmood who stands in thrilled excitement of all the atrocities she will get to commit against immigrants and minorities with the blood red of the British flag behind her.
Headline from The Guardian: Venomous snakes escape breeding farms in southern China during flooding Alongside is a photograph of two children sitting next to damaged houses in the village of Liulan, near Hengzhou.
Guardian headline: Loss of manual jobs could be driving toxic masculinity, says Sting Alongside is a portrait of Sting looking more like a Blofeld-era Bond-villain than you ever thought possible.
Advert on the London underground for "voy" which sells gender-affirming testosterone to "tired" cis men. Text on the advert states: Are your hormones getting the better of you? If you're feeling fatigued, it might be low testosterone. Get an at-home test.
Google Earth satellite map showing the distance between Almera in southern Spain to the centre of the Sahara is about 500km.
Guardian headline: "Trans rights should be a private affair. A toxic debate does no one any favours" By Guardian senior columnist, Simon Jenkins, who is a cunt. Picture of gammon-looking dude accompanies. Sub-title: "The courts are a clumsy means to negotiate social relationships. Let organisations make up their own minds about inclusion"
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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>
Zapiro cartoon of President Cyril Ramaphosa entering the White House gates, looking anxiously at a sign that says "White Supremacy House".
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.
FT headline: US declares South African ambassador 'persona non grata'. Photo is of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.
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.
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.
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!!"
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.
FT headline of column by Janan Ganesh: The anti-woke overcorrection is here
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.
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.
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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Angélique Kidjo singing in the foreground, with her band behind her, and the La Cité Des Minots choir in the background
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.
XKCD Comic #2996: Four people stand on a stage celebrating (professionally) under a large banner with the initials C.I.D.A.B.M. and maps of four islands in black beneath grey coastlines of mainlands. The text reads: Geopolitical News: Sicily, Sri Lanka, Hainan, and Tasmania have joined together to form the Coalition of Islands that Dangle Awkwardly from the Bottom of a Mainland. XKCD alt-text: There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Feugo should qualify for membership.
Street art by Marie de Buttet, Marseille. Stylised drawing of a young woman with dark hair holding a large fish. Marie draws in a blocky, almost prehistoric rock art style. Black ink on brown paper, pasted to a cream-coloured wall.
A photograph of the burned out remains of Jagger Library on UCT campus in April 2021. Light shafts in through the destroyed room onto piles of sodden and destroyed piles of what was once books from the collection. Image credit: News24.
Pencil or charcoal sketch by Dia!kwain of a !ga or "Padder"/toad, and a Toi |ai tyi, Female Ostrich. May 1875
A scan from one of Lucy Lloyd's handwritten notebooks, with two columns on each page. The first is in ǀXam, the second translated into English. This particular story (pages 256 / 257) is entitled "Lion and giraffe".
Undated photograph of ||kabbo (in English ‘Dream’), one of the most important |xam teachers. From http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/xam.html |kabbo was between 55-60 years old at the time of his arrival at Mowbray and proved to be an experienced and accomplished storyteller. While he was at Mowbray Bleek and Lloyd tried to locate his wife !kwabba-an (or Oud Lies) without success and had to secure his continued presence at Mowbray after the expiry of his jail sentence in 1871 with the promise of a much desired reward – a gun. ||kabbo is described by his son-in-law |han≠kass’o on p.8033 of Lloyd’s notebooks as being ‘a mantis’s man’ or a man who ‘had’ mantises, and on p.4701v of Lloyd’s notebooks Dia!kwain describes ||kabbo’s ‘place’ as one where its sorcerers transform themselves into birds and jackals. ||kabbo was also closely associated with a sorcerer called |kannu (or |kaunu) who was the ‘Rain's man’ and who was also ||kabbo's 'person' .
A Shimbari with pipe, quiver and arrows, bow, calfskin backdress, and dogskin front [ditto], with the head skin and four legs left on. Drawing in pencil and blue crayon by !nanni, 19 February 1880. From the Bleek and Lloyd Collection, UCT.