the new keyboard has arrived!!

This is the first post that i am making using my new mobile iGo key board pictured below. this was definately a fantastic buy! The way that they have structured the keys makes it very easy to type and it holds up the mobile device (a htc excaliber aka t-mobile dash in my case)so that its very easy to see what it is that i am writing. the set up process wasn't too convoluted and once its set up hooking it up when you want is a breaze! literaly a two step process.

I woould definately recommend it for anyone with a phone running windows mobile that is looking to sqeeze more productivity out of their device. with windows mobile 6 you get word and excel built in so it basically turns your smartphone into a mini computer.

The keys of the keyboard are customizable (though i havent gotten to doing that yet) but it works well witht the default configuration and has a bunch of cool functionality that you can access using the two funtion keys that are present on the device.

Once abain i highly recommend the device for the ultra mobile user. I got it on amazon for a total cost of $75 inclusive of shipping and handling costs.

Book Review: Fooled By Randomness by Taled Nasim

I read this one at the begining of the summer. I would summerize it as an analysis of the natural biases that we as humans have and how the affect out ability to make logical decision.

The author is a former trader who has made his fortune by basically betting ont he impossible, or what others consider impossible but he through a thorough mastery of probability considers quite probable. He does this by buying options on things that other thing will never happen. Since the probability of the even the option is based on it highly improbable to the seller he sells it for cheap. Sure enough many of the options that he buys end up expiring and so he is constantly loosing small amounts of money. But... when he does win, its a REALLY big win and that how he comes out on top.

He is a very well read individual and does a pretty good job of explaining some pretty heft statistics and probability stuff. Its definitely a book that will get you to rethink some of your basic assumptions about the nature of things. But be ware of the authors tendency to rumble on about how brilliant he is and how everyone he meets turns turns out to be an idiot and a disappointment.

a couple of wonderful new discoveries

Fantastic Brazilian music: CeU

An sheng entry in wikipedia: Sheng

eat fairly well for under $8 on the upper west side

For those of you who like me are always looking for a good place to eat for cheap in this wonderful but slightly pricey neighbourhood I found a place called club 71 that a pretty good deal for the price. I got the food you see in the picture for $6.95 plus tax. (side bar: this is the first picture im posting taken with my new Dash. It was at night so the lights not very good).

Here is a picture of the place:


Its at 2061 Broadway, New York, NY in case your ever in the area and hungry

never buy anything from those time square computer shops

You know the ones that have all the fancy electronics on the window display with tantalizing prices plastered all over them. Yeah you know the ones... well they are a scam! Avery well tuned one too if i may say so myself. The price they have for the sexy canon camera in the window is actually the one for a crappy useless on that they have on the inside.

On the rare occasion that they do have the actual price written in the window, don't be surprised to be told that they only have the window unit in stock and that that it is for display only. Whatever you buy there is marked up at least 200% and no matter how good a deal you think your getting, rest assured that you are being scammed.

If you remain obstinate and decide to go in anyway please please ask them to tell you the price you will be paying for the gadget verbally. Yes, even if you have already read the little red sticker on the packaging. And do this before the quickly pull out a razor blade and cut open the packaging making the item unreturnable.

My advice though, stick to companies that you can actually sue if the scam you. And if your a staunch bargain hunter, you'd rather even go get your gadget on ebay or something, just don't subject yourself these con-artists.

Eating raw meat (Bibim bap)!

I went with a couple of friends to a Korean bbq place yesterday in K-town (32 and broadway) and ordered this meal called bibim bap that consists of beaf and vegies that have been mixed together with a scrambled egg on top.
Unbeknownst to me, the version that of bibim bap that i pointed to on the menu was different from the one that my friend had recomened to me. This perticular version is not only served raw ( as is almost every thing else at the place), but is supposed to be EATEN RAW!



Now there is a bbq place in the center of each table at the place so that you can cook the food that they bring to you to your hearts content adn at first i was convinced that was probably the way to go but after some hesitation and having my food carefully stired by the very nice lady who served us, i decided to embrace the spirit of adventure and give the raw beef a shot!

surprise surprise! it was actually reeally good! it tasted nothing like what i expected and didn't have the weird consistency of raw meet that i had expected would make me gag. I finished the entire bowl which was not small as you can tell from the picture. I definately recomend the meal to anyone looking for something new and exciting to eat. After eating it, eating my first jelly fish seemed like a relatively small step. All in all it was a revolutionary evening for my pallet :)

july 4th, and the unheralded kenyan chicken

so this was the week of july the 4th. we got wednesday off at work and spent most of monday doing community service at this school in harlem. the story there is pretty interesting, the long and short of it is that a friend and i ended up painting desks in the wrong school and get blasted by yet another overly krunk new yorker, allot of these people here need to take a chill pill. its not like i would go and just start doing home improvements (or is it school improvemnts) in some random school. she was acting like repainting defaced desks was the crime of the century.

anyway seeing as two of my work days were unceremoniously taken away, i now have 3 day to finish 5 days work, I aint compaliniing though. went to coney island jana... it sucks... but the company was good so i had a good time. there was a hot dog eatting compe there (which i missed do to oversleeping... i had gone to bed at 4 on tuesday, another night on the town :). The winner though ate 66 hotdogs!!! in 12 minutes!!!! (correction, he didn't eat them, he swallowed them bila chewing i tell you). that stuff is dangerous! apparently is actually a recognized sport and they have a league and everything! its called M.L.E. Yeah you guessed it... Major League Eating :) only in america i tell you.

Oh, i was talking to an iteresting friend the other day and the converstation the otherday and somehow the converstion drifted into fast food and how much we miss kenyan fast food, stears (swoon), Nandos (double swoon), and the ultimate KENCHIC!! That kuku mfalme just has no compe on this planet! anyway it came to me that i haven't read any praise for kenchic and them and i figured i should just give a shout out to all those who know that there is only one kuku mfalme and its the king of all kukus on this planet.

yet another wonderful evening in the city

New York has once agin lived up to its reputation and treated me to yet another memorable weekend, I had a blast having dinner and going out with a couple of new and old friends, i had people come in from out of state and we all had a merry time. I forgot my debit card at a lounge in meat-packing jana, but i am sure it will be safe and sound when I go to pick it up in about 30 minutes. i doubt any of the people in that part of town would bother with my little moneys :)

I have decided that, rather than keep trying to figure out an easy way of calling a perl script (running on cygwin) from a c sharp application, i will just re-write the entire file parser in c sharp. I think it will be easier and will make for a more solid solution because everything will be bundled together nicesly into ac sharp solution that can be installed anywhere. I have already started re-writing it and am currently going through the steep learning curve phase. Hopefully it passes soon.

apparently according to a blog post by assidous chris khaemba, (aka sodi :) my former principle will be moving to south Africa to lead the African leadership institute! its a big loss for bush, but i am sure he will be a valuable asset to both institutions int he future.

Aaaah! slightly frustrated

Today was the 'day of silence' protest against the high royalty fees that are about to be imposed on internet radio sites. I really didn't realise how much i rely on these online radio stations for my work time entertainment until today. I was truly frustrated! Last.fm didn't join the protest and i could have gone over to their site to listen to music but I was constrained to support the industry that has brought me so much good music. And so I stuck by my guns and went music less all day!

C# is frustrating me, it has this way of making really difficult thing really easy, but also making really simple things seem supper difficult! I'm trying to pull data from an xml file and use it to dynamically create tables in an sql database, then display them in a grid view on a GUI. If anyone has any ideas on how to do this, please let me know. also, if anyone knows how to run a perl script from a C# GUI app. let me know.

I am learning that there are a lot of things that are learn't over time. I too often look at people doing something that i would like to do or being some way that id like to be and conclude that they have always been that way. but im slowly learning that i can learn to do almost anything... which is a reasurign thought.

Gods been good to me.

Does anyone have any thought on whether to give people on the street money?

Project progress

Im in the middle of building what I consider to be my first major application that actually does something of substance. It reconciling output from an application run on two different environments and presenting the output on a GUI. The project necessitated that I learn perl, a language that i have since come to love coz it's file parsing capabilities. It also seems really light and so I think it would be very usefull when programing in areas where resources are limitied like on mobile phones.

I am currently building the GUI in C# using visual studio 2005 express. It makes GUI building really easy but I don't know if I really like the way it just feels big and heavy. Also its now suitable for linux environments and I'm getting more and more interested in the platform (I just installed ubuntu on my laptop... yet again).

The weekend was a lot of fun. I got to see a bit more of brooklyn and also went to china town with a good friend. I watch people dancing to some type of eastern european sounding music at the south steet see port, it was another fun weekend in the city.

I finished reading this nice book called "fooled by randomness" (expect a review soon), and now I'm reading an even more interesting book called "the search". I hear the subsaharan coder has read it and loves it. I can see why, its a must read for any technology inclide person.

So I'm back in new york for the summer

I'm already into the 4th week of my internship and convinced more and more that the financial industry is where its at for me. New York is definitely one of the few if not the only city in the states that I feel i can live in for any extended period of time. I think i mentioned before how much it reminds me of Nairobi with all the hustling and the dirt and the assortment of strange odors. Its alive! I need a city that's alive (as well as one in which public transport is the defacto mode transportation, another similarity with Nairobi.).

I have been toying with a couple of interesting business and philanthropy ideas. Keep watching this space for updates on how thats coming along. One particular idea i have had for a minute and just haven't been in the state of mind to think of it as presently achievable. I'm hoping to meet with a friend who has already taken the plunge into setting up a non-profit so that she can demystify the process for me (I love this city! making connections is so easy).

My illustrious cousin just returned to from attending TED Global in Arusha where she met the creme de la creme of African innovators and visionaries, I hope the start an Africa specific chapter of TED. I would love to attend next year (finders crossed).

"white African" (who was also at TED Global by the way), just wrote a post on an innovative corporate blogging project by my good friend and former co-worker John Nyukuri. check it out here.
The team behind the project is really visionary and bent on building disruptive technology.

Saw this random guy with an entire office, desk and all parked on the corner of 51st and Broadway, getting internet from starbucks and working on his stuff. He even had a desk lamp and flowers (albeit artificial)in there. I love this city!



The pictures grainy coz i took it with my trusty old school cell phone

Songs I grew up to

These songs take me back to good days, and bad days alike. Enjoy!

What makes Mr. Imus different

I know that what Mr. Imus is being accused of is not something that he is the first to be guilty of in the mainstream media. Racially disparaging remarks and made and condoned everyday especially by members’ minority groups in the name of light heartedness and humor. The practice is deplorable; there is no doubt about that in my mind.

However one would be naive to push to the side the fact that the context in which this particular racist attack takes place is quite singular. Mr. Imus is not a comedian at some laugh-factory in Atlanta. He is not some rap artist pushing records on the street corner. Mr. Imus wields a kind of power only a very select few in this society have. His level of influence with the pool of people from which this country chooses its leadership is way beyond that of any of the 'usual suspects' that I have mentioned. When you call a group of girls attending Rutgers university "nappy-headed hos" and then have a prospective US presidential candidate come to your defense in the name of “believing in forgiveness”, you know you are at a level of influence that few ever reach.

With great power comes great responsibility. Mr. Imus must be held to a higher standard. Not because he is white, but because of the amount of influence that we have accorded to him. When he uses the term ‘nappy-headed’ and gets away with a slap on the wrist, it sends a message not only to the boy on the street corner, but to the men on capital hill that you can make disgusting, crass and racially offensive statements and escape the consequences as long as your sorry about it in the aftermath.

What is being advocated for is not the creation of policy; it is the enforcement of policy, Policies that were put in place to counter precisely this sort of incident.

Cellphones, Maxi-Pads and Other Life-Changing Tools

BOUGHT TO MY ATTENTION BY THE EVER AU COURANT JASON GOLDBERG

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 6, 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya


For decades, the world has asked: How do we free Africa from its yoke of poverty, disease and misgovernance? In asking Kenyans that question, I’ve been struck at the simple, common-sense solutions they offer. Four in particular stand out: transparency, telephones, Tergat and Kotex.

Naisiae Tobiko is a 28-year-old dynamo who grew up in Kenya’s Masai region. She runs a public relations firm, but when we met all she wanted to talk about was Kenya’s shortage of sanitary napkins for girls. Here’s why, she explained: Her family could afford to send her to school, where she thrived. As she got older, though, she started to notice something about the less well-off girls — they missed four days of class every month, “and I could not understand why.” When she finally asked, they confided that they did not come to school when they were menstruating — because their parents could not afford sanitary napkins.

“They would say, ‘How can I come to a place when I am bleeding?’ ” she recalled. “Some were using rags or soil or mud.” Because of those lost school days, many eventually dropped out. So Ms. Tobiko recently teamed up with the Girl Child Network and other N.G.O.s here and started a project in the countryside to distribute free sanitary napkins. They have targeted 500,000 girls, and so far have reached 189,000. More school days means more educated women and better mothers.

“We’re keeping girls in school,” said Ms. Tobiko. If women get education, “we want nothing else,” she added. “We will fight our way into every field, but we need the main key — which is education.”

Kenya first began holding multiparty elections in 1992, and its next national election is slated for December. (By the way, Kenyans love the fact that Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, is running for president of the U.S. since, they joke, someone from his Luo tribe could never get elected president of Kenya!) The field here is already crowded with presidential wannabes. But the most revealing conversation I had on this subject was with someone not running.

Vimal Shah owns an oil services company in Kenya, Bidco, and he was eager to tell me that with eight months until the election he had decided to make a big investment to expand his business. So what? I said. “People here never invest in the year before an election,” he explained. The fear is always that the new guy will change all the rules — often for his cronies. But Mr. Shah, like others here, believes Kenya’s evolution to democracy, with more transparent rules, has now reached a point where “even if the government changes, it won’t change the rules. The politicians can’t stop this.”

It is striking how just the little improvement in governance here can start a torrent of cash flowing in. But so could more cellphones.

Rose Lukalo Owino, a Kenyan author, told me this story: “I was recently in Ngutani, east of Nairobi. I was reporting for a book and interviewing these women who raised goats.” The women complained that for years they had been swindled by middlemen who would get them to sell their goats for a pittance, because the women didn’t know the price in the Nairobi markets. “But when I interviewed them, these women were holding so much money,” said Ms. Owino. Why? Fourteen villages got together and bought one cellphone, which they now share to check the market prices in Nairobi for goats before they sell. “They were talking to me about opening a microlending bank with their profits,” she said.

But Africa doesn’t just need more phone models. It needs more role models. I met one of the best here — Paul Tergat, the great Kenyan distance runner who’s earned five world cross country championships and two Olympic silver medals. Mr. Tergat recently won a contract from the government to promote anticorruption themes. For starters, he organized some of Kenya’s greatest distance runners to carry a torch from Mombasa to the Ugandan border. The torch represented a spotlight on corruption. Kenyans turned out to cheer them all along the route.

He used Kenya’s runners, Mr. Tergat said, because unlike politicians, when they win a medal it “is open, and genuine, and clean, and they practiced for 10 years to get it. The message is to say to young people, ‘Look here, you don’t have to be corrupt. You can do it if you are patient.’ ”

Add all this up and you have what impresses me most here: the way Kenya’s emerging democracy is unlocking Kenya’s best minds to find Kenyan solutions to Kenya’s problems.

I wrote this about a year ago for Wangari Mathai

Whispering Willows

I sit, staring out of the window
Looking past the willows,
Swaying in the mild and mellow wind,
Swaying like whispering palm trees,
Whispering soft calls for salvation,
Whispering soft sighs, longing for self preservation,
Whispering…
“I know he’s coming!
Can you hear him?
I know he’s coming,
Coming to cut me down,
To hack through my skin,
To watch me bleed and not care,
Coz it’s all right as long as no one stands and calls this unfair.

Wait! You can do it! You can be the one!
You can defend me
You can make him go away!”

I’m taken aback,
Unsure of how to respond,
Why me? Why do I have to do the defending?
I need defending!

I feel a churning in my stomach,
Feels like that ‘fear of the unknown’ kind of feeling,
That all too well known kind of feeling,
That ‘afraid to get up on stage’ kind of feeling,
Like that ‘how can I pick you up when I’m kneeling’ kinda feeling

I want to back out, back up,
Sit back, rewind, get out of the way,
Do anything but sit down, and stick this through,
Do anything but stay
I want to wait, at least until tomorrow,
Why??
Coz this isn’t easy!!
Its never easy, the walk to action is never easy.


I reminisce,
It was so easy, back in the day…
Yeah, it’s always easier back in the day
Why else would people sing song like
“Bring back those simple days of, yesterday…”
But is it really? I think not!
Coz when my eyes emerge from behind the veil,
And the smoke screen of illusion and fantasy is pushed aside
I see that yesterday is just as hard as today is just as hard as tomorrow,
Is just as beautiful as yesterday, today and tomorrow,
But the fact is, all we have is today
Not tomorrow,
Not yesterday,
Just today
I know it’s not easy
But as Nelson Mandela said
“There is no easy walk to freedom”

Scenes flash before my eyes
It’s the whispering palms again
They are speaking to me again!
This time not with words but through pictures
Pictures strung together with invisible seams
Pictures strung together to form scenes
Scenes too harsh and terrible to put back into words
Words lack the weight to express the hurt
Hurt so deep it threatens to drown me, leaving me aimlessly drifting into oblivion

I think I finally understand
Because now as I see the man approaching,
Wielding his axe high in the air, like a soldier ready for battle
I shudder at the thought of what I know I am about to see

The axe begins its ominous decent
3 NO! Don’t do it!!!

2 STOP!! You don’t understand!!!

1 STOP!!!!
BANG!!

I cringe as I see the axe sink six inches into the willow
And I hear the familiar crack of breaking bark and splitting skin
But alas!
The tree doesn’t bleed!
Instead, a steady stream of red comes coursing out of the mans side,
The blood is dark, as if tainted with sadness
I finally understand

So I turn back to the willows
Swaying in the mild and mellow wind, as the North wind bellows
Swaying like whispering palms that speak in my dreams
Whispering soft calls for salvation
Whispering soft sighs, longing for self preservation
I turn to them and say,
“I WILL defend you.”

Women's/Fashion Magazines and the African renaissance

I am impressed by the number of new women’s magazines in the, "for Africa by Africa" space. Not only the number but the equality. It shows that people have stopped whining about the miss representation of Africa in western media and are really stepping up to the challenge of self-representation. Self-representation is the only way for to destroy the myopic view of Africa as synonymous with naked starving children with big bellies and despotic dictatorial leaders, also with big bellies but for entirely different reasons.

I recently came across two such magazines with compelling online presences. The first is "Kitu Kizuri" and the second id called "Mimi". Notice that both these magazines spot Swahili names yet they are related only in subject matter. I think that this is a sign of the progressive recognition of the phonetic beauty of the Swahili language and African languages in general.

I am currently in the process of getting involved int the creation of yet another magazine, this time with a more Nigerian focus. The magazine is called BHF and is sure to me a major player in this space. The team leading it is very visionary and I’m looking forward to big things.

BALLER-ITIS

Scientific name - ballinus confusicus. Also known as ballin' fever.
(definition) - A condition in which an individual is under the illusion of financial prosperity due the acquisition of a sum of money that is large relative to the average content of their bank account.
(The terms are suspected to have been coined by me as I was was through jester towards the PCL)

Typical causes include receiving an open ended scholarship, a grant and in some cases a monthly paychecks (though these are known to cause relatively mild attacks). Internships are an especially virulent cause of baller-itis amongst college students.

Symptoms typically include feelings of excessive euphoria, a sharp increase in trips to the mall. Victims are often seen spotting a selection new kicks with pairs being interchanged in rapid succession.

Contrary to popular belief, the use of the word 'Ballin!', even when accompanied with the 'free throw' hand motion is not a sign of a baller-itis attack.

Some popular cures include, frequent glances at ones tuition loan statement and/or maxed out credit card statement. Repeatedly chanting the Marta "The money is all in my mind", many also help. For extreme cases it is recommended that you take one of your maxed out credit cards and swipe it at two or three convenience stores. Adding a high fashion store at the local mall to the list will increase impact but this should only be done as a last resort.

If you are suffering, or like me, have survived an attack of baller-itis, please feel free to comment on this.

LUPE-PHANY

Lupephany (definition) - That moment when the realization of the profundity of a certain section of a Lupe Fiasco song hits you like a cannon ball in the head.
Also sometimes called a 'some times it be like dang!' moment. It is usually triggered by the sudden elucidation of a metaphor or allegory used in one of the verses in the song and is in extreme cases accompanied the gaining of a whole new perspective on the song.

Root of the word:
Lupe Fiasco - the world famous 3 time Grammy nominated rapper/lyricist extraordinaire, leader of the f n' f crew and one of the deepest minds out in the entertainment industry right now.

Epiphany - a sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something.

(The word is suspected to have been coined by me while walking from his apartment to the FAC.)

I just had one of these today and it blows my mind every time. If you've had a lupephany feel free to comment and tell me what it was.

And so it seems.... that you got me :)

Last night I went to the greatest concert I have seen thus far! Get this... THE ROOTS!! And as if that wasn't enough, LUPE FIASCO as the opening act! It was crazy. Needless to say, my voice was already gone by the time the opening act was over.
Then Lupe came on. It was ridiculous!! I can remember the crazy feeling when "Instrumental" began to play!! I thought my head would explode! It sounds even better live and literally 3 feet from Lupe Fiasco himself! I was there droppin' lyrics with the best of em', me and my African crew. I seriously could have watched him perform the entire album, but alas! (I can't believe people don't say that here), it was not to be.

Ude Lupe

The roots came on stage playing an assortment of percussion instruments and proceeded to rile up the crown with all manner of stage theatrics including a musical battle between an electrical guitar and a tuba! under the masterful hands of Kirk and Tuba Gooding jr.
The music defied conventional classification, I gave up trying somewhere between Justin Timberlake’s 'Bringing sexy back' and The Polices 'Roxanne'. Then there were Roots staples like "you got me" that just blew everyone’s mind.

The ROOTS!

The thing that really topped it all off though was how chilled out they all were, the whole band, save for questlove, came and chilled and took pictures with the Afro-fantastic crew! It was amazing!



Notice how the audience is almost overpowering the Lupe! rediculous!

And thus begins the Johny k book club

I have been coming across some really good litarature of late and for the first time in a long time I am actually finding the time to read books outside those prescribed by my sylabus.
To celebrate this new found freedom I have decided to Let you know what books I have found particularly amusing or enlightening and recommends them to you. I may or may not go into an in depth analysis of each title depending on how much time I have and how compelled I feel to do so.

The first book I will recommend is 'The blacker the berry' by Wallace Thurman which, incidentally, I came a cross in one of my classes last semester (Intro to African American History; wonderful class).
The book mainly deals with the issue of colorism and preference for light skin within the black community. It is set, for the most part against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, a time period that have become increasingly fascinated by.
Wallace Thurman provides a short but enthralling ride through one African American girls journey of self discovery and through this journey tackles colorism, racial uplift, identity and self worth among other issues.
All in all, its a really nice read and a worthy first book for the Johny k book club!