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For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned powe

For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so as to not let the power grid collapse. This app aggregates information from various data sources and provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best source of this information and the app being unavailable significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant portion of the South African population who use it to plan around these power outages. While the app also has a "chat" feature, it's really tangental to the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of the app, like myself, don't use that feature at all and only care about knowing when they will be without electricity. In case you're wondering why they hell we have load shedding, it's because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions solely as "favours", rather than on qualification for the job.

chmod775 6y ago
And here's a link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.sepush.eskom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.s...
brodo 6y ago
OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...
- pistoriusp 6y ago
  It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?
  - signal11 6y ago
    I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize their equipment even though cold snaps in Texas are not unheard of — they’ve had disruption in 1989 and 2011, in addition to other near misses. Let’s not even get into the wisdom of a market that allows Griddy to offer wholesale prices without caps to retail customers.
    - vermilingua 6y ago
      So hang on, why is it that South Africa is “corrupt”, but Texas is “beholden to certain vested interests”?
      - mokus 6y ago
        Did any one person say both of those things?
      - edoceo 6y ago
        That's just more words for corrupt
      - lovegoblin 6y ago
        The distinction-without-a-difference between these two phrases is exactly the point of the comment you're responding to.
        CamTin 6y ago
        ...and presumably also the point of the comment it was responding to.
    - youdontknwtexas 6y ago
      The worst part of living through a few cold, powerless days in Travis county is now having to listen to insufferable fuckheads like you wax on about the "fetishes" in our government. Texas isn't actually all that conservative compared to a lot of states, it's just a stereotype. The three big cities, which make up a huge portion of the population, are racially diverse and politically Democrat. For instance Texas has mandatory annual vehicle inspection and front plates, regulations that don't exist in some states in the Midwest. I do hope we address the winterization gaps in our infrastructure because the state regulations, which are stronger than the Federal ones, weren't enforced, but we can do it without the comments from the peanut gallery. The other grids have suffered blackouts in the last thirty years, too. I remember one in the nineties in part of the Eastern grid that lasted two weeks that family lived through, and blackouts in the Northeast and California in recent memory. Get off your high horse.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  There is no comparison.
mhuffman 6y ago
This sounds like a nightmare! Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago. Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?
- throwaway210222 6y ago
  > Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent? The African National Congress.
  - jollofricepeas 6y ago
    Ah yes because the Nationalist Party was so much better during the good old days of apartheid when corruption ran at an all-time high. It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.
    - rendall 6y ago
      I imagine it's difficult to address problems with the government if, whenever anyone does so, someone brings up the former government. Bring up slavery in Dubai, and people start talking about the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. It gives people of the present a free pass to behave reprehensibly, because other people in the past behaved reprehensibly
      - jollofricepeas 6y ago
        You should read the comments. 1. It was a throwaway. 2. The reply was... “It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.” The problem with the ANC is the same issue as The Nationalist. Without strong opposition and even a stronger free press, unchecked power always leads to corruption.
        devtul 6y ago
        So when you see ANC opposition, you promptly bash it on the head and bring up past failures. Are you trolling?
tremon 6y ago
Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It's not just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid. However, in the EU this 1) isn't a regular occurrence, and 2) the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can't find a reference for the tier classifications right now, but if I remember correctly: tier 1 consumers (the ones who will be disconnected first) are heavy industries with huge power draw, tier 2 are other commercial uses, tier 3 is residential, and tier 4 is critical infrastructure (emergency services). I don't think I've ever experienced a load shedding event that affected residential areas. There have been local blackouts but I don't recall any grid-wide emergency events.
- saberdancer 6y ago
  Texas had tier 3 level of load shedding recently.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Based on the incompetent decisions that ERCOT has made over the past few "severe weather events", I would say ERCOT and ESKOM are eerily similar.
    - jrochkind1 6y ago
      All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the legislature and state government regulators, but ERCOT certainly was on board with/lobbying for the conditions of deregulation that led to them). During the weather event... ERCOT, the grid operator, did their job very competently. Making more capacity come online or reducing consumer demand was not really something that could be done during the weather event. They kept the grid from collapsing -- and it nearly did collapse, it was a close call. That was their job during the event.
igitur 6y ago
This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious subject matter. The WHAT’S NEW section in the Google Play Store is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The app's name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike of Eskom.
shadowgovt 6y ago
Unfortunately, an under-moderated chat feature is considered a risk these days, like an open email relay or an open proxy. I personally think Google erred too far on the side of caution here, but developers should be aware that chat features aren't as cheap to add as they used to be; they change the risk model of the app.
- yawaramin 6y ago
  This. Another example: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-guilty-contempt-of-court-fine-reader-comments-judiciary https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-gui... > Malaysian news site fined $124,000 for five reader comments > Malaysiakini’s co-founder avoided jail time IMHO a lot of sites and apps should just remove chat/comment functionality and only allow emoji reactions.

chmod775 6y ago

And here's a link to the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.sepush.eskom https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.s...

brodo 6y ago

OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...

pistoriusp 6y ago
It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?
- signal11 6y ago
  I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept government that’s beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of “free markets”. This is a state that has fetishized “light touch regulation” so much that it, for most of the state, has its own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to winterize their equipment even though cold snaps in Texas are not unheard of — they’ve had disruption in 1989 and 2011, in addition to other near misses. Let’s not even get into the wisdom of a market that allows Griddy to offer wholesale prices without caps to retail customers.
  - vermilingua 6y ago
    So hang on, why is it that South Africa is “corrupt”, but Texas is “beholden to certain vested interests”?
    - mokus 6y ago
      Did any one person say both of those things?
    - edoceo 6y ago
      That's just more words for corrupt
    - lovegoblin 6y ago
      The distinction-without-a-difference between these two phrases is exactly the point of the comment you're responding to.
      - CamTin 6y ago
        ...and presumably also the point of the comment it was responding to.
  - youdontknwtexas 6y ago
    The worst part of living through a few cold, powerless days in Travis county is now having to listen to insufferable fuckheads like you wax on about the "fetishes" in our government. Texas isn't actually all that conservative compared to a lot of states, it's just a stereotype. The three big cities, which make up a huge portion of the population, are racially diverse and politically Democrat. For instance Texas has mandatory annual vehicle inspection and front plates, regulations that don't exist in some states in the Midwest. I do hope we address the winterization gaps in our infrastructure because the state regulations, which are stronger than the Federal ones, weren't enforced, but we can do it without the comments from the peanut gallery. The other grids have suffered blackouts in the last thirty years, too. I remember one in the nineties in part of the Eastern grid that lasted two weeks that family lived through, and blackouts in the Northeast and California in recent memory. Get off your high horse.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
unethical_ban 6y ago
There is no comparison.

mhuffman 6y ago

This sounds like a nightmare! Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago. Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?

throwaway210222 6y ago
> Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent? The African National Congress.
- jollofricepeas 6y ago
  Ah yes because the Nationalist Party was so much better during the good old days of apartheid when corruption ran at an all-time high. It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.
  - rendall 6y ago
    I imagine it's difficult to address problems with the government if, whenever anyone does so, someone brings up the former government. Bring up slavery in Dubai, and people start talking about the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. It gives people of the present a free pass to behave reprehensibly, because other people in the past behaved reprehensibly
    - jollofricepeas 6y ago
      You should read the comments. 1. It was a throwaway. 2. The reply was... “It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts.” The problem with the ANC is the same issue as The Nationalist. Without strong opposition and even a stronger free press, unchecked power always leads to corruption.
      - devtul 6y ago
        So when you see ANC opposition, you promptly bash it on the head and bring up past failures. Are you trolling?

tremon 6y ago

Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It's not just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid. However, in the EU this 1) isn't a regular occurrence, and 2) the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can't find a reference for the tier classifications right now, but if I remember correctly: tier 1 consumers (the ones who will be disconnected first) are heavy industries with huge power draw, tier 2 are other commercial uses, tier 3 is residential, and tier 4 is critical infrastructure (emergency services). I don't think I've ever experienced a load shedding event that affected residential areas. There have been local blackouts but I don't recall any grid-wide emergency events.

saberdancer 6y ago
Texas had tier 3 level of load shedding recently.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Based on the incompetent decisions that ERCOT has made over the past few "severe weather events", I would say ERCOT and ESKOM are eerily similar.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made during the weather event were all very competent. They kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job. The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc needed to happen was not a result of decisions made during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure investment over decades (that may or may not have been under the control of ERCOT, rather than the legislature and state government regulators, but ERCOT certainly was on board with/lobbying for the conditions of deregulation that led to them). During the weather event... ERCOT, the grid operator, did their job very competently. Making more capacity come online or reducing consumer demand was not really something that could be done during the weather event. They kept the grid from collapsing -- and it nearly did collapse, it was a close call. That was their job during the event.

igitur 6y ago

This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious subject matter. The WHAT’S NEW section in the Google Play Store is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The app's name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike of Eskom.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Unfortunately, an under-moderated chat feature is considered a risk these days, like an open email relay or an open proxy. I personally think Google erred too far on the side of caution here, but developers should be aware that chat features aren't as cheap to add as they used to be; they change the risk model of the app.

yawaramin 6y ago
This. Another example: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-guilty-contempt-of-court-fine-reader-comments-judiciary https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-gui... > Malaysian news site fined $124,000 for five reader comments > Malaysiakini’s co-founder avoided jail time IMHO a lot of sites and apps should just remove chat/comment functionality and only allow emoji reactions.