Audi recently flighted a number of advertisements about its new all-electric car. This is due in 2019 and, if my job was to be an electrical reviewer, I might well go on from there, citing charge... 

From Wikipedia: "The expression 'the elephant in the room' defines a situation which refers to a question, problem, solution or controversial issue which is obvious to everyone who knows about the... 

In my last column on the Eskom integrated power system, I explained that I worked for Eskom as the senior engineer for operations in the Eastern Cape for nearly two years. My region, the Eastern... 

In my last column on the Eskom integrated power system, I explained that I worked for the State-owned power utility as the senior engineer for operations in the Eastern Cape for nearly two years.... 

From the first voice and music recordings of the 1800s, nothing much changed in the early part of the 1900s. Wind-up gramophones with paper mache cones were used for the reproduction of music that... 

In my last column on the Eskom intergrated power system, I explained that I worked for electricity utility as the senior engineer for operations in the Eastern Cape for just under two years. The... 

The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) is a government plan that supposedly sets out  the future development of the South African electricity generation system. In theory, government passes the plan... 

  I worked for State-owned power utility Eskom as the senior engineer for operations in the Eastern Cape for just under two years. It was a fabulous job. I reported to the chief engineer, who, in... 

When I was young, our family would go to the Natal South Coast on holiday. The roads were not great; so, we would have to stay overnight halfway to Durban. At holiday times, there was a lot of... 

We are in an era of strikes and riots. Workers at State-owned power utility Eskom have been on strike for weeks and have just settled, the taxi drives are on strike, the public workers union are... 

There is a serious disconnect between engineers and production idea people.  Production idea people want to innovate. They want a new thing every year. They do not want improvements, they want... 

You can get advice from a fairly good consulting engineer at a rate of about $700 for an eight-hour day which is near enough to R1 200 an hour. This would be a person who is registered as a... 

So, there I was at a site meeting. As acoustics engineers, we had designed a roof build-up for the building which was under construction; firstly, to comply with thermal insulation requirements... 

Everybody knows that renewable energy is great for us all: it is free, it does not pollute, it keeps big bad Eskom on its toes and it  represents huge investments in South Africa. What is there not... 

Alan Campbell mentioned to me that, since this column is titled Electrically Speaking, it really should be about electricity. Good point. Well, water is normally supplied by pumps, and pumps work... 

In the Santam television advert, the ever-so-twee sweet likkel girl says that the first person to live to 200 has already been born. Well, she would know, wouldn't she? These sort of statements are... 

It should be evident to everybody that State-owned electricity utility Eskom is in the following condition: (a) The road transport coal supply contractors have for years been ripping off the system... 

In last week's column, I told of Abwehr officer (German intelligence officer) Herman Giskes, head of Abwehr Section IIIF, who set his mind to capturing British agents who were either dropped by... 

Once upon a time, I tell the youth, there was a world war called World War II. Germany and Italy were fighting the UK, France and the US. The Germans invaded and occupied France, Holland, Belgium... 

I thought what it would be like to write a fee proposal in which I was honest about the services we will offer in a fee proposal for a contract. Here it is: Dear Client, 

I thought I would write about error messages but it isnot a long enough topic for a whole column, so, in the later part of this column, I will also write about biometric identification. Error... 

One of the problems with the 'common man' is that he is really very stupid. Such persons not only do not know but do not know that they do not know. I recently heard somebody discussing the bible.... 

When I was in first year at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 1972, there were two computers. One was called IBM 360 West and the other IBM 360 East. West was for us students, East was for... 

There is no hotter topic than safety matters on mines and industrial plants. It has become a religion. Like all religions, it causes some unintended problems. When I was young, I worked for a... 

I was drinking at the bar Elsabe used to call A Touch of Sadness. I was with an architect and Pierre F, a brilliant French fine artist and great conversationalist. Oh, yes, he has a doctorate in... 

An unusual quiz: you are asked a set of questions which are largely hypothetical but, nevertheless, interesting. The questions are (as far as I remember) as follows: Would you chose to be (a)... 

I claim that communication is only possible between two systems which have different information content. The information content of a system is the probability that it will receive a message it... 

Copper, the metal, has been around for a very long time. The Copper Age predates the Bronze and Iron ages and ran from about 4500 BC to 3500 BC. Copper has stuck with us – wooden ships were... 

I was in Uganda. Lovely people, beautiful scenery, traffic nightmare, airport nightmare. Entebbe International Airport is 40 km from the capital, Kampala. It takes two hours to travel from Entebbe... 

Let us imagine that two robots, Og and Box, are playing chess against each other. To make sure the game progresses, Og is allowed to make a move every seven seconds. Box is allowed to move every... 

The title of this column is that of a book written by Joshua Cooper Ramo, which is about flying aerobatics. As you read on, you will find that aerobatics have little to do with this column. But I... 

My experience with my Mercedes-Benz C180 has been an engineering delight. The driving and ride and interior are a matter for discussion in a motoring magazine – I am talking about engineering, bru.... 

When I worked for State-owned power utility Eskom, the top position went to either to engineer or an accountant, often turn by turn. When the engineer was in charge, the system was solid and... 

A lot of people are very much against South Africa building another nuclear power station. Many hope that the first project that President Cyril Ramaphosa throws under the bus will be a new nuclear... 

All the really frightening climate change graphs have the vertical scale in tenths of a degree. The scale is from –0.6 oC to 0.8 oC (about 1.4 oC). On the horizontal axis, the time is given as from... 

Often, a layperson comes up with an idea that is totally not going to work and that sounds as if it will work. Then we electrical engineers have a problem since, no matter what you (we qualified... 

I think that living by the sea and near Table Mountain has an effect on the local population of Cape Town. Do note that I was brought up in the then Transvaal and, thus, I was told how intelligent... 

About four years ago, I launched a project called the 400 W house. The house I proposed would use no more than an average of 400 W of electricity an hour over a 24 hour period. I specified a fridge... 

Of late, I have been telling various people about what it is like to be a DNA engineer – where, before you qualify or finish school, it is in your blood. I do not mean that the young  child built... 

Germans seem to be very interested in wind power generation in South Africa. Don't know why. First we had German-born Dr Tobias Bischof-Niemz running the Energy Centre at the Council for Scientific... 

In September 2016, a '50-year-event' storm occurred in South Australia. Power system voltage transients caused nine wind farms to shut down, and two large wind farms – the Hornsdale wind farm and... 

I was in a courtroom the other day and the public prosecutor was asking questions . Unfortunately they were not engineering questions and I am an engineer. Thus, I did not understand the questions...