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33 items tagged "Thoughts"
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15:31
From: dkFactor
Read This Entry & More At dkFactor
The Africa of the very near future is plagued by multiple problems. Desertification and global warming are some of the biggest, which are further exacerbated by rapid urbanization. This spontaneous migration of people from rural areas in countries that have no urbanization policies in place, means resources will be stretched to the maximum. Where will all the food to feed these people come from?
Try and imagine growing food in tall buildings with a self-contained climate powered by renewable energy. A radical idea yes - but one that would address the need for arable land and year-round supply of food. These towering greenhouses immune to weather and pests might very well be the source of nutrition for generations of the future!
While I feel that this fantastic future 'might' be a pipe dream for now, our grandchildren might be forced to effectuate it by inevitable circumstances.
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12:28
From: dkFactor
Read This Entry & More At dkFactor
 I’m finally back after a 6 month hiatus from blogging and I want to start by addressing a very nagging question but I’ll get to that in just a moment. No doubt you’ve experienced social networking in one form or another (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter etc etc), and if you haven’t you’d better quit living in the 90’s. It’s all about creating and sharing information with friends, colleagues and basically everyone. The last 3 years especially have been witness to an explosive growth in the size and influence of these social networks. “Individuals finally have the power” - wow! (btw, that wow is supposed to be sarcastic).
The proliferation of social networks has led to a new fad… Data Portability. Data Portability is the ability to share information across multiple interfaces and web platforms using open standards. Once the data is accessed, it can repackaged, remixed, right-clicked… you name it. Basically your Facebook profile content for instance could appear on other social sites, and the flickr photos from your phone in return could appear on a google map. The basic idea is to mash together the infinite amounts of shared data (cue the scrolling Matrix code) and attempt make sense of it.
My nagging question is - does it all end? Mashing all this information together has led to an avalanche (more like a storm) of information that we have to deal with daily. For instance a news item can be mashed together with related YouTube links, google maps, flickr photos, message boards, stock ticker information, blogs and what your friends on Twitter think… the list is endless. By the time you’re done reading you’ll know all there is to know about Myanmar.
I have two problems; First can the human mind deal with the coming onslaught of information? Secondly, where does privacy begin and end, or should we just give it up altogether? Personally, I’m afraid that a super machine in the very near future will have the ability to assimilate together all this information, decipher it and draw very precise social patterns for every individual.
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14:25
From: White African
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Everyone has to answer phone calls after midnight. Thankfully, it’s usually not the emergency that you’re dreading it will be, but a wrong number. Which begs the question, who calls someone after midnight without it being an emergency?
Advertisers, is it really that difficult to understand that you should advertise your value proposition not your unknown brand name? No one knows, or cares to ask, what ABCWidgets.com is or does. They might care that you create the right widget for their need, or that you’re the fastest delivery in the business, etc…
 Learn about saving the mountain gorilla in a conflict zone by playing this new game on your mobile phone. A Java game with an education component.
Saving your image files with a specific name (ex: soccer_ball.jpg rather than ns8743.jpg) is a lot better for both your sanity and your search engine traffic. Funny enough, but image search engines still use the file name as their key - so if you want to be found for a certain image, make sure you name it appropriately.
 
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14:27
From: White African
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[I’ve started, stopped and re-written this post 3 times since January as I’ve been struggling to come to terms with my thoughts on Ushahidi and what I should be doing. It’s long, be forewarned.]
The Kenyan post-election fiasco had a rather jarring effect on me. Why? After all, I grew up in war-torn Southern Sudan, lived through disruptions prior to the Kenyan elections in 1993, and have seen the repercussions of these actions first-hand.
I subscribe to the train of thought that you can’t care for everything. There is always a crisis happening in some part of the world, and no one is capable of caring about them all, much less doing something about each of them.
It turns out that I’m not alone.
A couple of years ago I read an article by someone who was discussing some of the points around what Oxford philosopher John Mackie calls self-referential altruism in a collection of his papers titled Persons and Values. The basic idea is that we find it easier to care about those closer to us. Adam Smith talked about it in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, on how it would be more troubling for a European to lose his little finger than to hear of the destruction of all of China (full quote here).
Steven Berlin Johnson, co-founder of Outside.In, calls this the “Pothole Paradox” and brings it to life in my digital world-view. He describes it like this:
“Say you’ve got a particularly nasty pothole on your street that you’ve been scraping the undercarriage of your car against for a year. When the town or city finally decides to fix the pothole, that event is genuinely news in your world. And it is news that you’ll never get from your local paper, or TV affiliate, or radio station…
…News about a pothole repair just five blocks from your street is the least interesting thing you could possibly imagine.”
So, What’s Important?
What I’m getting at is this: While people are being oppressed, fighting and dying in some foreign country what do you do? What about if it happens in your country? When does it become important enough to use your talents to make a difference?
Typically, it takes an event that directly affects you to make you go beyond thinking and to act. That’s why things that are happening in places like Sudan and Zimbabwe are on people’s radar, but so few are doing anything about it. You can only have so many things on your radar that you actually care about and fewer still that you do something about.
In the case of Kenya, it spurred me on to create Ushahidi, in the hopes that I could do something from my vantage point so far removed from the events taking place. Other Kenyans abroad worked on different, but equally important digital initiatives.
A digital world helps us to do that. Just decades ago those who were not in close enough proximity to an event were unable to do much, if anything about it. Today, we can successfully effect change through digital tools and be thousands of miles away.
That’s an encouraging and scary thought. Global tools that have real time read/write access are extremely powerful. Depending on ones motives, your impact can be good or bad. Even if your motives are good, your tool can be used for bad. How’s that for a quandry?
What does this all mean?
Quite frankly, I’m not sure yet. That’s part of the reason I’ve delayed posting this article for so long. I thought it would be helpful (to me at least) getting out some of my thoughts and theories on crisis, caring, action and the digital world.
I’d appreciate any thoughts and comments that you have on this too.
 
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18:00
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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There’s this friend of mine with whom I was schooling until Abitur (~ A-levels). I know him since 18 years now and it’s a pleasure meeting him all the time - we currently work at the same company, his office is just one floor above mine.
He’s married with two lovely kids now and has already been working abroad for 5 years for an international organization.
There’s this age difference of 3 years between us and although he always used to be the youngest in our class, the age difference never mattered.
Today he told me he feels like being 40 years old whereas I feel like being something like 26 or so.
The truth is somewhere there in the middle.
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17:02
From: White African
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If you get me in a room and we start talking about data, please forgive me if my eyes light up. You see, I confess to a certain amount of data-lust. Primarily because I believe that data is at the core of most great web applications. Secondarily, because I’m enthralled with how to move this data from a list of tables and spreadsheets and make it become real and understandable to anyone at a glance.
I wrote a post about African TLDs (the suffix that country domain names go by) a couple months back. Then, today I came across this visualization in a poster of the world of country TLDs. Simple, interesting and useful.
(You can buy this as a print at HistoryShots.com for $29)
Using graphics to represent data is nothing new, however, doing it well isn’t easy. The moment this became crystal clear to me was when I had the opportunity to listen to the incomparable Jeffrey Veen (before he left Adaptive Path for Google) discuss how to visualize rainfall data - going from database to consumer visualization. The main slides are seen below:
(It’s not nearly as good without his oratory, but you can see the Next Gen slideshow here)
There are now a number of excellent blogs, agencies and consultants who deal with this stuff every day. If you’re as interested in this as I am, you might enjoy these resources:
 
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10:22
From: White African
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Those are the words that describe millions of Kenyan voters.
Disappointed at their current president, Mwai Kibaki, for playing Moi-politics.
Angry at their ministers of parliament, voting an unprecedented number out of office.
Jaded by the election results - wondering if bothering to come out for the next elections is even necessary.
Of the three, I would suggest that citizens being jaded is the most harmful for the long-term. Why bother voting if you can’t have the confidence in your government to count them openly and honestly?
Image by Afromusing
A short summary:
Massive turnouts for this election in Kenya. Many incumbents were voted out of their parliamentary seats. Raila Odinga was a heavy favorite over incumbent Mwai Kibaki for president, and appeared to be in the lead by a good 40,000 votes. Counting was delayed. The electoral commission claims that Kibaki won by 200,000+ votes. Riots begin, and a state of emergency is declared.
Blog coverage of these elections have been excellent. The Kenyan blogosphere is one of the best and biggest on the continent, and they did their jobs well.
Ory gave some of the best media coverage of the elections, better than the traditional media, on her blog KenyanPundit.
MentalAcrobatics claims that something is not right with this election and also has a good post on the Kenyan election experience.
More coverage on the Thinker’s Room.
Juliana has some great pictures of the elections from upcountry.
 
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12:59
From: White African
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Dvorak has written a scathing criticism about the OLPC ($100 laptop). Bill Thompson answers it in a BBC article:
“And he demeans the people who will receive the computers, asking his readers if they will feel “better about the world’s problems, knowing that some poor tribesman’s child has a laptop”, apparently contrasting a “tribesman” with a real person like himself, safe in his Western affluence.”
Who cares?
Why does it matter that two rich Westerners are batting back and forth over the strategies and benefits of a cheap computer for children in developing countries?
As someone who grew up in Sudan and Kenya, I care. I care because I continue to hear the argument, “why give kids a computer when what they really need is food and water?” I care because people need to stop talking about Africans as if they’re in need of another handout and implying that every child in Africa is living in squalor. Most of all, I care because I don’t hear many voices from the countries that are going to be using these new computers, only from journalists from western countries.
Let’s talk about the Africa we know
There will continue to be drought, floods, war, corruption and poverty - all of the items that plague many African nations and which are amplified by the media.
However, there will also continue to be a solid majority of Africans who live happy lives without the interference of any aid or development organization. They will live in their village, raise their children, send them to school and teach them from their rich heritage. There will continue to be children growing up in the city who love to learn and would blossom even more with access to technology and information.
If you grew up in Africa, do you think that there is a use for inexpensive computers in schools?
See the picture above. Why shouldn’t those children have access to these machines? They aren’t illiterate or under-nourished. How many of us remember this same type of schooling? I do, I was in a primary school very similar to this in Southern Sudan. Why couldn’t any of my classmates become technologically literate with access to the right machines? Why only the relatively affluent white child?
What is Africa anyway, and who decides what’s “right” for each country?
Let’s stop painting Africa with a broad brush. Let’s speak out and remind people that it’s made up of more than just “tribesmen”. That not every country is the same and that there are wealthy, middle class, and yes, even poor people. Let’s stop pretending that Ghana is the same as Ethiopia, or that what applies to Botswana applies to Chad.
Most of all, as people with experience living there, let’s own our part of this debate. Why should one more Westerner be making the case for, or against, a cheap laptop for kids in Africa? I’d rather hear two Africans debate it. I’d rather have a thought leader from some African country step up and make the case for, or against, it.
Just because we grew up listening to others decide what’s right for our countries doesn’t mean we need to continue in that same way.
Try this on for size: as an African, you are more of an expert on what your part of Africa needs than any self-prescribed expert from the west.
 
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20:00
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
Read This Entry & More At Kikuyumoja's realm
The worst job about online stuff is thinking of decent content which may be published on more important platforms than private blogs.
During the past few weeks, I had to think of content which shall be published on a website that will be launched soon. I think it’s even easier to write a proposal for a project because then you know only a few recipients will be targeted and you can streamline and adapt the content for their perspective. With websites though, there’s this 24/7/365 readership out there that closely follows all your steps and mistakes - and everyone has a different opinion on issues you are writing about. This generates conversations - which is good and wanted.
The difficulty really is to find a politically correct way in between all those opinions and still hit the nail on its head with precise definitions.
What I like about blogging is that I can just put my own content online without thinking too much about how it could offend others, how I wouldn’t have to double-check content with my boss who will even find the smallest typo and that I can actually cover any subject that I like.
Also, it’s interesting to see how services like Twitter are used to express feelings or moods, while blogs are then used to cover subjects that have a slightly longer Halbwertszeit. That’s an interesting development, I think. Seeing how these new services are used and how the general opinion on blogs has changed in the last two years. From personal diaries to corporate blogging -how nice is that!
Back to the content management: while thinking about the ultimate content for this project I am currently on, I came to realize that it doesn’t really matter what’s online - as long as there are enough conversations going on. Editing content with such an assumption in mind, the approach to getting your message and content across to the readers becomes much easier.
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17:50
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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The person who designed this billboard may have agreed with me about the beauty of this kid (who btw reminds me of Jirani), but just after taking this snapshot tonight, I immediately realized what bugs me about this advertisment for an upcoming fundraising campaign to be aired on tv on November 22nd:
poorly dressed + small + black + kid = poverty?
As long as such stereotyped messages are used to raise attention for the fact that still a lot of people are living in poverty, I will keep on hearing phrases like “..but you are white, you’re supposed to be rich!”.
Not yet convinced? Then do a quick image search on Google with the keyword “poverty”….
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12:06
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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Compared to the population of the world, only a few people are able to drive a Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW or Lexus - yet they are built with some sort of comfort and perfection in mind.
Everyone of these 6,6 billion people out there, however, needs to go to toilet. Every day.
I wonder why ppl spend so much money on good cars and other items but actually never really think about improving their sanitation needs. Same attitude applies to ppl using public toilets. How come many people often don’t care about clean sanitation facilities?
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18:31
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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1. waterless urinals
 
Waterless instead of waterfree because you’ll always need some liquid to clean the system, but still: water is such a valuable resource - too valuable to flush it down the toilet. And while some systems require a liquid in order to transport any faeces and urine (~ waste water, sewerage), the urinals for men could easily be switched from flushing urinals to waterless urinals. These technologies work in any country and culture (!), are already available (PDF) at different technology levels (simple & cheap <=> complex & expensive) and are just as “smelly” as any other flush toilet (or even less!).
The image on top left comes from a brochure @ Urimat.com, a very inovative company that just won numerous prices for their urinal designs. Please note the read arrow which highlights the advertisment area. Now just think of the adopt-a-light concept and you’ll get the idea: public toilets that offer free sanitation and are financed through advertisment and a possible sale of urine as fertilizer (in case of waterless urinals with urine diversion). With an average exposure time of 40 seconds, these ads make sense and are read by most (male) customers.
2. cotton (ear) swabs with paper sticks
Cotton swabs or Q-Tips made out of rolled paper instead of extruded plastic. Not that the paper approach is such a new invention, but most supermarkets still only sell the plastic version so far. I bought this package as pictured above the other day for EUR 0,55 - the plastic version next to it was 10 €-cents cheaper.
My interest in these is because while working on a treatment plant, I came across HUGE amounts of plastic sticks from Q-Tips in various pumpes and pipes which had to be cleaned daily because of these plastic items some people out there for some strange reason still keep on disposing of through the toilet. I’ve blogged about this earlier here and here, and since you’ll never be able to change the human behaviour, the only solution obviously is to change the way these products are made. Rolled paper is more likely to dissolve in (waste) water than plastics, and bioplastics may at this time still be too expensive for such a usage.
(the Wikipedia entry says that the rolled paper version is still the most common but since I often only see the plastic version, I wonder on which facts this assumption is based? plastic sticks aren’t good, i think).
3. mobile tooth brushes
 
 
Ok now this is pure luxury, not at all sustainable and I can’t see any environmental friendliness, but these mobile, (one-way) toothbrushes are quite handy for those moments when you just need them. I wonder why their sale is limited (in Germany) to airport restrooms only. One brush with paste sells for EUR 1,-. I bought the one in red and gave it to someone special :-)
tbc…
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10:38
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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Eben habe ich mich kurz ablenken wollen vom Lernen - und mir das MySpace Profil einer Bekannten angeschaut.
Ganz unabhängig vom Inhalt und des immer noch schrecklichen Layouts bei MySpace, gibt es eine Sache in dieser virtuellen Welt, die mich immer wieder aufs Neue abschreckt: die Verwendung von kitschigen Fantasienamen.
Während mein ehemaliger Mitbewohner noch relativ harmlos und pflegeleicht in seiner Welt aus MezzoMix Softdrinks, Pringels Chips, fettigem Essen und diversen Computerrollenspielen jeden Tag von morgens bis abends geduldsam vorm Rechner saß, konnte ich mir bei ihm wenigstens sicher sein, dass er kein Doppelleben als “süße Maus24″, “Seesternchen”, “Waldfee”, “Prinz”, “Ferrrari43″, “Zaubermaus”, “Frühlingsblume48″ oder dergleichen in einer der diversen Online Welten geführt hat. Dann schon eher als “Balduin”, “Gondolf” oder “schwarzer Ritter”, denn der gute Mann Junge war Sci-Fi Fan. Rollenspiele halt. Alle Levels, alle Schwierigkeitsstufen, alle Charaktere.
Ach, wir hatten ja auch mal einen Nachbarn, der tagsüber nur geschlafen hat, und dann nachts, jede Nacht!, in sein Multi-User-Dungeon Spiel abgetaucht ist. Das sind aber in sich geschlossene Welten.
Aber zurück zu den kitschigen Fantasienamen, zu denen ich mich eigentlich hauptsächlich frage, wie die Leute dazu kommen? Haben die keine Fantasie? Screennames sind ja schon eine seltsame Erfindung, aber selbst jetzt, nachdem ich fast genau 11 Jahre im Inet unterwegs bin, scheint es mir manchmal wie 1996 vorzukommen.
Irgendwann muss das Reservoir an dämlichen Benutzernamen doch erschöpft sein?
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18:03
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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Flying from Frankfurt (Germany) to Jerez (Spain, ~ 2460km) is cheaper…
…than taking the train from Frankfurt to Bremen (Germany, ~440km).
In other words: it’s cheaper visiting my friends in Spain than seeing my family over the weekend in Bremen. Crazy.
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8:13
From: White African
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[Brief rugby intermission]
 I had a hard enough time tracking down how to make sure I got the Rugby World Cup games at home in the United States, and then a number of people asking me, so here it is. There is only one way to get it, and that’s via the Setanta sports channel.
You can only get the Setanta channel in the US via satellite. Your choices are DirectTV or Dish Network. Once you order the service you’ll have to add an extra $15/month for the Setanta channel.
DirectTV tends to be about $5 less each month, but Dish Network has a bigger dish and gets less interruption (so I read somewhere). I ended up going with Dish Network, with Setanta sports, and I ordered a DVR for an additional $5 in order to record the games that I couldn’t watch live. All told, the package runs about $50/month, which is about what cable TV costs here - so it’s comparable.
One last item. If you want to do a month-to-month contract instead of an 18 month one, you’ll need to go through DirectTV or Dish Network, not their local dealers. So just give them a call via their website.
Hope that helps someone.
 
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20:04
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
This blog serves as my opinion on technology, generally related to Africa, the web and mobile devices. I also throw in personal updates from time-to-time. This is one of those times.
After 2 good years at eppraisal.com I’ve decided to move on, though I will still stay on in an advisory role. It’s a good company, with people genuinely passionate about changing the way you access information about real estate on the web. I’ll miss working with the team on a daily basis.
Why?
Over the last year I’ve been struggling with two issues:
First, “talking” vs “doing”. I hear a lot of people who talk about how things should be, or criticize the way things are but never do anything about it. I’ve always been a doer, and this is a way for me to gain some much needed time to work on projects that have need much more attention. (more on these projects at a later date, though one is AfriGadget).
Second, rejecting the big business theory of work, life and associated expectations. Malvina Reynolds sums this up brilliantly in her song Little Boxes. Success in life is not just about money, though that is needed (and believe me, I’m a capitalist). However, I don’t think that money is the only thing there is in life and that balance, life goals and family should be taken into consideration.
So what is it I’ll be doing?
I’m going to work independently as a web strategy and new media consultant (my company site). In the time that I am not focused on client needs, I will be pouring my time into AfriGadget and other independent projects related to Africa where my skills and experience can make a difference.
One of the perks is that I’m looking forward to spending more daytime hours in my home office, allowing for more time with my girls:
I’m really excited about the future!
Your normal White African articles will soon continue, thanks for weathering this brief intermission… 
 
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1:11
From: White African
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I use a Moleskine notebook to keep track of things during the day.
I try to keep it on me at all times. It’s useful for taking notes at a conference when I can’t use my computer (or the battery is dead), when I’m sourcing stories for AfriGadget, when I’ve got a “brilliant idea” while out and about, or when I need to take notes from a phone call.
It’s not like you couldn’t use any old notebook to do the same thing - I just happened to buy into the Moleskine story. Sometimes the answer isn’t gadgets or the web, it’s what our grandparent’s grew up using.
Technology’s great benefit is simplifying complex tasks. We need to guard against complicating simplex tasks.
Moleskin hacks:
 
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17:53
From: White African
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I have this theory: Books are like food.
You see, there’s the stuff that’s good for you, the stuff that helps you grow, some have certain types of vitamins to help you fend off diseases and sickness, others are like junkfood, etc…
When I travel, I tend to read a lot of “junkfood” books. Thrillers, fantasy, sci-fi - you know the type. It’s kind of like grabbing a candy as a snack, since you know it’ll be good and keep you going. Of course, you can take a bad analogy to far, so I’ll stop here.
By the way, once in a while you find some gems. Interesting books that I’ve read in the last couple weeks include, all of which I recommend:
 The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
This is rather interesting, no one knows who the real author is - he “lives off the grid”. It’s an Orwellian story, much like a modern day 1984. Very compelling ideas, even if rather fantastic in nature. I wouldn’t suggest any ludites or conspiracy fanatics read it.
 American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Odd. That’s all I have to say. Very well written and interesting, but odd… It’s the story about the decline and clash of the “old gods” brought over to America by immigrants and the rise of the new “tech/city gods” of the modern world.
Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs
Not junk food, but a useful book on the art of persuasion. A lot of good tips and thoughts on what to do to ensure that your ideas get agreed upon or “win the day”, whether at home, work, school or presenting.
 
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8:14
From: White African
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 Four of the AfriGadget editors descended upon Limuru, Kenya to visit the NEST orphanage - a home of children whose mother’s are in prison. The orphanage lies about an hour outside of Nairobi and has 70 children ages 7 months to 15 years old. The true capacity of the home is 96 children, but the they’re resource-strapped as it is and the 70 they have is a lot.
95% of the children’s mothers are in prison. Only four mothers are in prison for capital offenses, the others are in for drugs, neglect, prostitution, or some other type of petty offense. Since the majority of children are neglected, there is generally a large amount of medical attention needed - which again stretches their resources.
Juergen, who writes as Kikuyumoja and originally asked us to take a look at the place, has set up a blog for the NEST home (www.thenesthome.com). It’s been up for a while, and it helps keep up to date with what is happening at the orphanage. If you would like to support them, you can there.
Afromusing has a moving blog post up telling a story about one of the abused babies that was given into the NEST home’s care.
(more…)
 
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6:00
From: White African
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Fun!
I finally got out to see the third installment and it now joins my list of favorite trilogies, along with:
- Star Wars
- Indiana Jones
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Matrix
 
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4:05
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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I recently uploaded this pic on my flickr account:
Streetart, a normal graffiti in a metro station in downtown Frankfurt. Nothing special.
Upon seeing this same figure somewhere else in Frankfurt, I realized once again that this graffiti also perfectly illustrates what maybe someone like David Weinberger tried to explain in his recent book “Everything is Miscellaneous” (see TBG Ethan’s post on this):
Suppose I would like to know more, find out the name of the artist who made this graffiti, know more about the origin of this figure, get some insight into the not-so-obvious context it comes with. Maybe this graffiti is part of some streetart project, something similar to Banksy’s famous projects? Well, is it?
Unless of course I blog on it or upload it to a photo community like Flickr, adding tags and give it some reference/context, this pic and the information given on it is just a bunch of binary data. But how do you tag this pic if you don’t know anything about it?
What about an image search? Something like Google’s image search doesn’t work this way. You will always need to type in words that describe this picture. Keywords, further information, something that makes this identifiable among the huge repository of other pictures.
Next thing I’ll have to add to this blog is the tagging of my articles (yeah, I know…), even tried doing so some time ago but then forgot about it as other things came up that seemed to be more important. However, tagging makes sense. Most of the targeted informations I am obtaining through the internet these days are found by using tags. Social bookmarking websites are the best thing introduced on the net since the introduction of instant messenger services during the late 1990s.
Coming back to the tagging of visual informations: given the fact that most of my friends have an eye memory where they remember things visually, I am wondering if there are any services / algorithms so far that help to make use of this visual approach instead of using words/tags only (?).
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19:02
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
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The beauty of running a private blog is that I can actually cover various topics, without being forced to please anyone with a certain quality of content. As time goes by and rants pass through the fingers, different stories have been told so far and it was on the commuter train this evening at 8 pm when I realized my blog is 2 years old.
I started blogging in June 2005 because of a) Mzeecedric, who encouraged me to do so, b) i had an idle website and c) another community website refused to publish a story of mine (much unlike the Kenya Times :-), so I opted to publish my stuff on my own website. And although I sometimes feel the urge to write in my mothertongue, most of my entries have been in English so far.
That’s 2 years of this still burning desire inside to share a lot of small and a few huge things with the world out there. Sharing, and also a desire to write about people, describing situations, often, not always, trying to portray a glimpse at another world. A subjective view, my thoughts on a few things of interest.
My favourite entries of course are these DoItYourself (DIY) projects like the water filter and/or the hinge issue with Irene’s notebook - both entries I am still getting lots of hits for on a daily basis.
Interestingly, the water filter issue - as I sometime later on realized that there’s another NGO in Kenya actually promoting the filter system I built - served as another hint for me to formulate an idea I’ve since then been working on. Have you ever wondered about the work of some NGOs, active in the sector of environmental protection, that just reaches a few selected groups? Capacity building, as they so often call it, still is an interesting subject.
But I digress.
I think it’s the silence of these warm summer nights, paired with the reflective mood on the train tonight that made me pull out my (paper!) notebook and put down a few lines I wished to directly type into a still non-existing PDA instead. And it may also be influenced by the book I am currently reading:
Michela Wrong’s “In the footsteps of Mr Kurtz” - a book I’ve bought in July 2001 and had left in the shelve since then, waiting for the perfect reading moment to arrive.
“New Zaire Inn” in Garissa, Kenya, later on renamed to D.R.C….
While Michela has a disputatious way of reporting her stories and apparently isn’t always welcomed by her hosts, I like this particular book. She actually describes the scenery in old Zaire pretty vivid, and what I - of course - love is that special part about les sapeurs - these men who dress in expensive fashion clothes and aim to be different any given moment.
The Congo.
As a blogger, I of course associate this with “007 in Africa” and am reminded of those hectic days in 1996/97 when a completely confused former president Mobutu, who had for long already lost any reality for his role as president of a nation that has always been in the waiting line, flew into exile. Ahhh. Memories.
That’s 10 years ago! It feels like yesterday.
Waiting 6 years before eventually reading Michela’s “brilliant account of Africa’s most extraordinary dictator” (the Economist) wasn’t such a bad idea afer all. The distance provides the needed room which is required to enjoy movies like this one.
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1:11
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
Read This Entry & More At Kikuyumoja's realm
Is there any decent solution to send out serial emails? Something that a) works out of MS Outlook or b) any freeware that does the job?
Building websites these day - do we still have to use a huge CMS, or will Wordpress substitute all these website needs we had in the past?
What I like about using WP instead of any bigger CMS is the ease of installation and training future content editors.
How do bulky Nokia S60 phones actually match with recent fashion trends in form of skinny jeans / cigarette pants as portrayed by hip THE bands?
Just where are you supposed to put your phone if your trousers don’t even leave enough space for your keys?
“Second Life? Get a first…” [via Life 1.0 conversations over a Stöffche with my mate Té, the 61440 dude]
to be continued…
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6:49
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
Read This Entry & More At Kikuyumoja's realm
What’s this?
A print ad on polo shirts which are decorated with flags (I’ve just added the white arrows).
Interesting to note, though: you would probably never come across such a shirt with a German flag on it, unless it is a soccer shirt. That is, I also can’t imagine anyone wearing such a polo shirt.
There’s something wrong with this country since 1945 1919, I think.
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12:28
From: Kikuyumoja's realm
Read This Entry & More At Kikuyumoja's realm
It’s almost like as if they are already keeping the thumb on the phone’s red button.
Trying to call someone in Nairobi from abroad is easy and cheap, lakini most jamaas there - it seems - are used to 10 seconds conversation: no long greetings, a very short smalltalk and then an abrupt ending.
“Hellooo?”
- “Eh, hello, this is JKE calling.”
“Oh, r u in Nairobi?”
- “No, I am calling from Germany…so, how are you?”
“Oh, here everything is just fine.”
… (~ 20 seconds)
“Ok, goodbye & thx for calling.”
- “Ah…?”
-click-
Irritating, especially since I am the one who is calling and paying for the call.
AOB: came across this textbook on “Swahili for Starters” yesterday while strolling through our local (university) library.
I just had to borrow something as all the books I went there for were already taken by someone else and since the really interesting stuff (as pictured below) wasn’t available for lending.
Kikuyu-English Dictionary, by T.G.Benson, Oxford @ Clarendon Press, 1964
(and the best thing I saw there was a Lingala-English dictionary…*sigh*)
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7:04
From: dkFactor
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 I think I’ve just about had it with these environmentalists and would love to tell them to stick their hypocritical message up their rear. Ask them to give up their cars and heated homes and you’ll be all alone in the room. Global Warming is the new Con - if you open your eyes, you’ll see that this is driven purely by marketing. I actually gave ExxonMobil credit for not pretending to be a ‘Green’ company like BP or Shell - the main purveyors of oil, the root of all our ‘problems’. Pumping gas at a BP, I noticed their new tagline, ‘Beyond Petroleum’ — ??? Ha! Give me a break.
We (Africa) have arrived at the table very late in the game. Developed countries are almost done sucking fossil fuels out of the ground - the very substance required to support the quality of life everyone craves (including environmentalists). As China & India fight for the remaining crumbs to satisfy their explosive economies, I can’t help but wonder where this leaves us. The last major oil reserves have already been discovered, and the remaining options can only be compared to pulling teeth.
- Solar Power
Extremely clean, and there’s plenty of it on the continent. Unfortunately technology hasn’t advanced enough for us to harness it efficiently. Right now, this form of energy is just a romantic dream that is still out of reach.
- Hydroelectric Power
Has been extremely reliable for years. Also, it requires large dams that displace people and destroy ecosystems. Ultimately our future lies here. Africa has taken advantage of only 7% of its hydroelectric potential compared to 75% in Europe. It is however going to require massive dams that translate to massive investment on a still volatile continent.
- Methane Gas (NEW!!)
For a moment there I was convinced this was the Silver Bullet solution to our problems, a green almost endless supply of energy. As stated in this BBC News article and on Afromusing, Lake Kivu in Rwanda is holding enough unexploited energy to meet Rwanda’s (and the regions) needs for 200 years. In all the excitement, finer details like the fact that methane is a extremely explosive gas were left out - more details here.
I’d like to go on, but I think you get the idea - we are literally going to be pulling teeth to come up with a solution. Ultimately, the environment will be a casualty if we want to get what everyone else has.
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14:07
From: White African
Read This Entry & More At White African
 So, I’m out in San Francisco for the second week running. This week it’s for the Ad:Tech conference on marketing and advertising. Basically, I had enough time to go home for the weekend, watch some rugby and play my new Nintendo Wii. Fun times!
Thoughts on Behavioral Targeting in Advertising in Africa
Advertising and marketing, especially online, is an ever-changing beast. I just sat through a good session on behavioral targeting, and wish I had a chance to discuss some of my thoughts on that with some of Africa’s leading websites and news portals. Is anyone doing any behavioral targeting in African advertising?
If I were an advertiser on any of the African online newspaper sites or forums, I would like to make sure my money was being used to target the demographics that wanted my services. For instance, if I have a product that is better for locals at the country level versus wanting to only reach people in the African diaspora in Europe. It’s a big difference and means a lot to me as far as ROI goes.
Of course, there’s a difference in brand marketing and actually trying to get a transaction, but that just provides another difference that I wonder if the platforms are reaching out to?
  
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21:42
From: White African
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These appear to be more than the normal sale-type jobs that they have hired for in the past. Particularly, I’m interested in the one that has to do with mapping. It’s interesting that Google finally thinks that’s worth doing better in Africa. (hat tip 
I’ve started to contribute (sporadically) to a new website called Thought Leader out of South Africa. Here I talk about the problems that we face in Africa with regard to running businesses online. There are no real payment and merchant options that fit the needs of Africans. 