Rather than the cause being something other than corruption, I think this is in addition to corruption.
Without corruption all the way to the very core of the government (as it is in SA), we wouldn't have situations such as this. The lowest, cost effective tender would have been chosen after following proper due diligence.
In this case the due diligence would mean asking experts (of which there are many in SA) which, combined with the cost of the project, would still have cost a fraction of the R140m.
This reminds me of a story[1] around 8 years ago of the eye-watering costs of ADSL in South Africa. Whereby it was cheaper to fly to Hong Kong and download 100GB of data in an internet cafe than it was from home using the incumbent telco provider, Telkom.
You need a backpack to hike. You could hike without one but that would involve carrying everything in your hands. Backpacks are the evolution of ergonomic design to make carrying items on long journeys comfortable.
You need a towel if you travel. You could drip dry after each shower or decide not to at all but that introduces another set of hygenic and time-wasting problems.
You need utensils to eat. You could use your hands, again not paying attention to hygiene, or you could be civilized and use a knife and fork.
Researching and buying the best ensures you should only buy once. It's appreciating that someone, or group of people, have spent months, even years paying attention to every detail in designing something that serves an important purpose.
Part of the problem I have with Dustin's article are the examples. I think some are ridiculous.
I spent about 10 minutes picking out flatware at the store 10 years ago and haven't thought about it since. The stuff looks the same as it did back then, still weighs the same, and still produces the same functionality.
If my alternative was to spend days researching designs, purchasing 20 different sets so I can test them at home, and finally picking one for the sake of "having something my whole life", I would have felt like I wasted time and money that could have been spent on much better things than flatware. I see no reason why my current flatware would become less usable than the kind Dustin is advocating, and if it does, it would take me all of 2 minutes to buy a new set on Amazon. I guess I'm just not seeing the reward for the resources exhausted.
All of these things potentially improve your experience. Despite not using the best designed tools for any particular job, I personally remember experiences for who I was with or what we did, not with with which brand of x or type of y.
But that's what Dustin is saying. If you're using the right tool or the right equipment, you won't focus on it. You won't worry about something breaking. You'll get to enjoy the experience.
These quality 'things' don't improve the experience, they prevent other factors (such as a poor quality backpack breaking) ruining the experience.
What you seem to be forgetting is if you spend the time researching and ensuring you're buying a quality pen or book or utensils. You're also ensuring you don't need to buy another one next week/month/year when the current one breaks or you realise its not suitable.
That's also a bunch of wasted time saved.
Whether or not it equates to the time you spend researching the quality item is probably debatable and likely related to the item itself.
>"tweeting a picture of themselves with their new investors, M.C. Hammer or Ashton Kutcher."
Has no one else picked up that the only reason Arrington responded was because Bilton very obviously was taking a stab at MA in his Techrunch days. Who else was proudly posting pics and tweets about MC Hammer at the TC after parties, or blasting TC headlines about Kutcher being at an event.
