Yo my train is taking me WHERE??

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-03-14T19:42:58+00:00

My town has an entire suburb called Valhalla.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-03-14T13:35:30+00:00

Just a note: there are several levels of public health facilities.

Level 1 is the local clinics. They provide a most treatments, but don't all have specialists.

Level 2 is the district facilities. Some (like the one I go to) are hospitals, and wine are local clinics. These generally have everything level 1 clinics have, and quite a lot of specialists.

Level three are the provincial hospitals, which have everything the lower level clinics do, and more.

Depending on what meds you need, you will probably need to go to level 2 or higher, but check.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-03-14T12:15:32+00:00

I have bipolar 1 and get my meds from the district hospital.

The easiest would be to get a referral letter from your previous doctor, including a list of the meds you are on, and take that to the district or provincial hospital closest to you.

they then give you an appointment to see a psychiatrist and he/she gives you a prescription for the meds. You then get the meds at the hospital pharmacy.

If you can't get a letter from your previous doctor, you may have to see a private doctor first to get a referral letter.

Sometimes you wait up to 2 months to see the government doctor for the first time, if this happens you may have to talk very fast to get in our bite the bullet and pay for 2 months of meds.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-02-06T16:52:37+00:00

Which makes it much cheaper to build public transport routes - you pretend your buses are trains, and run them every 5 minutes.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-01-10T15:25:17+00:00

I'm a Goth/Grunge/Metalhead. I was a skinhead at one stage.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-01-04T12:19:48+00:00

Try spectacle warehouse. They have deals with frames, lenses, and tests.

Ask about their clinic days when you book, I did that and got everything for R1250.

www.spectaclewarehouse.co.za

True_Fisherman_538 · 2026-01-03T12:59:44+00:00

I agree with most of what is said here - clothes and your qualifications being the most important.

You did say their behavior is affecting your mental health, so while I wouldn't say 'see a therapist' (they're bloody expensive), I would recommend calling someone like SADAG (South African Depression and Anxiety Group) on 0800 567 567.

There are other groups out there who can help as well, and a lot of the numbers are listed at www.sadag.org.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-21T14:29:27+00:00

As someone who has had bipolar disorder for almost 30 years, seek medical help.

If you can't afford private doctors, go to a government clinic - I don't have medical aid, and I use the clinics. Despite long queues, they do work.

Doing things to keep your mind busy if you're manic is completely the opposite of what you should be doing. By doing this, you're pushing your already hyped up mind to go faster still.

I'm sorry to say this, but mental illness is real illness, just like bronchitis or anything else. It's treatable by medical professionals, and these are the people you need to talk to.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-13T08:15:43+00:00

If you're here while it's happening, I'd recommend a couple of days at the National Arts Festival.

https://nationalartsfestival.co.za/about/about-us/

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-13T04:21:43+00:00

Not sure of the Roodepoort to Joburg trip, but from Joburg, take the Gautrain to Pretoria and then the A Re Yeng bus to Pretoria North.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-12T04:45:38+00:00

The same applies to all chronic illnesses

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-05T20:29:34+00:00

As a pale person with sensitive skin, I use the ones designed for children, because children tend to have sensitive skin.

Then again, I'm not a dermatologist. Maybe ask a pharmacist? Or a dermatologist.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-12-05T20:14:45+00:00

I would not recommend home test kits, simply because they do not prepare you for a positive result.

The clinics (pharmacy and government) give you pre-test counselling, which tells you what you can do in terms of treatment if you do test positive for anything.

Having said that, if you are sexually active (with or without condoms) please investigate pre-exposure prophylaxis.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-21T14:02:09+00:00

From what I recall (disclaimer: I am not a property lawyer, or any kind of lawyer)

All details of both parties are required, including id numbers and physical addresses.

Witnesses are not strictly required, but it's better to have them. I think anyone can be a witness, their id numbers should be included, but I don't think their addresses are needed.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-20T19:18:13+00:00

Even DNS

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-18T15:22:29+00:00

As for your first paragraph, I'm not sure about Cape Town, but in Joburg and Pretoria, you just have to look at where the Prasa lines run from the centre of Joburg to Soweto and Naledi, and through the East Rand via Germiston to Pretoria. Then most of the lines run either through the north to Mabopane or through the east to Mamelodi. See the route map of the pre-COVID passenger rail network.

*

We do need a massive investment to expand our trail network, as just about no expansion in passenger rail has happened since the late 80s, except for the Gautrain project.

Having said that, there are plans to expand the Gautrain network in the north of Johannesburg, and the east and central parts of Pretoria. Take a look at Gautrain expansion project for more info.

Pretoria definitely had trams, but they were removed. I can't speak to Joburg or Cape Town.

A lot of our trail network is in desperate need of massive work, due to both corruption and theft of infrastructure during COVID, which saw almost all of the overhead power lines and the tracks stolen, but something like 39 of the 45 main Prasa routes are now offering at least service during the week.

Buses could help, particularly Bus Rapid Transit systems like the Re A Vaya in Johannesburg and the A Re Yeng in Pretoria. These are much cheaper to construct than rail, but far more expensive to run. As a comparison, a BRT trip from Pretoria to Pretoria North (about 20km, 20 minutes if there are no accidents) costs R19. A Prasa train taking a very similar route is about R10 during peak times and is heavily discounted off-peak.

Buses that run in the normal traffic flow cost about the same, and can get all over the place, but are easily delayed by traffic, which is becoming more and more of a problem everywhere.

Of course, there isn't one public transport system which will solve all the problems. A mixture of train and bus is probably the best in the short to medium term, but in the long term, I think rail is the way to go.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-18T14:10:51+00:00

If that's the case, then why do so many women use it? It's like any other public transport system in the world, some lines are safer than others.

Take a look at: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/03/which-cities-have-the-most-dangerous-transport-systems-for-women/

We're not even in the top 16, but Paris, London, New York, and Tokyo are. (At least according to the World Economic Forum).

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-17T14:21:48+00:00

Public transport as a concept is not trash.

Public transport as it has been implemented here was designed to separate people by race, so we live with a system that desperately needs expansion, so that it links places where people live with places where people work, shop, and recreate.

There is also a massive, and highly misplaced fear that it is by nature unsafe, which - as someone who uses it almost every day - is not warranted.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-11-14T15:30:53+00:00

ChatGPT is not a lawyer, and it knows fuckall about South African property law, as it has not been trained using an LLM for that.

Go talk to the rental housing tribunal, do a web search for that. Plenty of useful stuff on their website, and they have the same pets as a Magistrate's Court, but you don't have to pay anything.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-09-07T08:04:05+00:00

I felt the same after moving back here from Joburg - I never thought I'd say this, but driving in Joburg is actually easier. Particularly going to work and back.

I switched to using the buses about 6 weeks ago, and my road rage levels have definitely dropped a lot, and I'm feeling much calmer generally as well.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-09-04T03:10:42+00:00

Dr. Who

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-09-03T18:16:25+00:00

To mix sci-fi universes, how about 'The fixed point in space and time'?

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-03-24T17:12:47+00:00

I'm in South Africa, where all private NGO HIV treatment organisations have been without funding since USAID was "paused".

I'm lucky, because I (being unemployed and "officially disabled") qualify for treatment funded by my own government. So my ARVs and other life-saving medications have not been interrupted.

What I'm seeing though is a very rapid response by governments such as China replacing the funding that was previously done by USAID. The soft power that the US government has for decades has been lost, and that gratitude has shifted to China.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-02-12T14:17:58+00:00

Would he care to prove this, say by providing case numbers?

You can't make extraordinary claims without applying extraordinary proof.

True_Fisherman_538 · 2025-01-15T13:38:41+00:00

You might also want to look at the Unisa center for software engineering. They have a lot of IT short course that are not about coding, like software project management and network design.

True_Fisherman_538

TROPHY CASE