2 Ws: What's Worthwhile?

So many dreams; I've been forgetting all my dreams lately - straight from a highly vivid, intensely grAPHICAL blockbuster DREAM, into a drowsy, lazy wake up state where of course, surprising as can be, I have absolutely no recollection what was so vivid a few moments ago. Alright, maybe I have some vague flickers, but by and by, they are forgotten. Some bad state I think. Ha! Well, it's the morning of the 25th, the much awaited Chrstmas morning - not so for me anyways - ok maybe, maybe because I've been awaiting Praise Jam. Well, it's just like any other day, but this period has been a very funny one for me. Imagine what a combo of unimaginative and lethargic would turn out as. That's happening to me now. I have been so bereft of imagination lately, just moving like some fagged out piece of clockwork. It's a Christmas morning, and it's some kind of rule now that you'll have to wake up - or be awoken, well except you turn off that mobile. Mine wasn't turned off, so the latter had to happen to me. Awake, but still lying down in that awkward state I know too well. Trying to pray, at least you should on Christmas morning, but it's not working. I'm sore tempted to keep giving you aching eyes with tales of every minute of my lazy day, but I just have to snap out of it - or you will of course. :) I won't tell you how I had to pick up my mobile and chat with a presumed robot, how ... Alright, I'm out. I want to talk about what happened when I ended up dawdling in front of TV sometime on that lazy afternoon. Of course, there's 'no light' (that's localese (colloquial) for 'no electricity') on Christmas day. How can there be? I'm very sure it must be some sort of abomination if there is. We've turned on the Nigerian staple - the generator - to get some clothes ironed for this night's gig. Boogie woogie! haha. After being a good boy and ironing, I decide to sprawl on the couch like a potato and do some lookee. Flipping takes me to 'CNN Heroes' programme. I stop here. At least I'm not indulging in 'E'. Watching CNN Heroes, I was struck instantly by David Puckett, one of the ten heroes. David is a prothetist/orthotist. Folks in this line of business design and fit artificial limbs, braces and appliances for body deformities and disorders by carefully examining the affected area for factors that would affect the fitting and/or placement. He could very well make permanent residence in his native Georgia, or somewhere just as comfy, working in some hi-tech, Savlon smelling hospital, earning a cool 70,000 dollars, but David would not. He had to leave the comfort of his Georgia home to some part of Mexico where he provides prosthetics, orthopaedic braces, orthopedic care to limbless folks there at no cost to them, on his own tab, or maybe yours if he can get to. :) There's this thing that always happens to me whenever I hear amputee, there's this chord that's struck. I immediately realize how blessed I am to have a complete set of limbs, and all my questions, my gargantuan life research set seem to dissipate in the presence of reality. The reality of life, the reality of living. Everything seems to lose all the hues and fade out to black and white, and I am enshrouded in clarity. I just know that all that matters is ... - what was that again that mattered? Well, I just say to whoever is within earshot that we just don't have any excuse. Our 'problems' are trifles compared with true problems, and again we have no excuse and no reason to fail or be depressed - that all just seems immoral and obscene in the context - in this world. That may not be exactly right, but I know that what we call problems are trifles compared with what many others have to contend with, and we should not be so selfish as to get consumed and engulfed in our trifles. The least I can do, what I would consider a life worthwhile is to help, like Puckett, with my heart in it, not in a way that there's no connection with me at all, but in a way that I am consciously aware and ... Oh! a lot of stuff that I'm only thinking in my head, can't really translate to pixels. I've come to (I wanted to say find, but let me use believe instead - believe means whether it's true or not, that is what I'm sticking with) believe that the simplest way is usually the best. There is no end to rationalising and philosophizing, it's all so grand and ..., but our lives are strictly timed, not "no ended", and we have to stop someplace and decide and do something, stick with an ideal. When I have the means, I will not live like there is nothing on the outside and just revel and 'be happy'. I'll remember, I'm always remembering, and I'll do my own part to help - it could be in so many ways. I'll probably be drawn to help folks without a limb or the other - I've always had something in my heart for them - it could be any other thing. If everyone consciously does a little bit in whatever field, I don't know how far it would go, but something definitely would be happening. Get up, don't sulk. You've got nothing that can be so bad. Think of someone else in some really dire state, and cause some CHANGE (never a speech without some Obama - rotfl). A man once said "My life was sad before because I had to crawl on the ground." This man no longer has to crawl on the ground. Today, same man says "he (David) lifted me up to where I am today." Let's go lift some folks up. That was looking to me like some photo finish, and I should have left it there, but ah, that makes my Christmas day look all too sombre and dark, and I'm discovering I'm vain enough to want you not to think just that. Lol. So I'm continuing with the story of Praise Jam on Christmas evening. Those guys brought Olu Maintain. Somebody tell me when that Yahooze master became a gospel artiste. Olu was the the last act, and in an act of defiance, I made sure I left before he finshed performing, but I could not leave early enough for the legendary Basket Mouth not to use me to spice up his jokes. That's what you get when you sit close to a comedian earning his buck. This is not photo finish, nah. Maybe (what's the opposite of photo?) or let's just say 'im yab me finish'. Haha. Wasn't so bad.

Is Kainene Still at Afia Attack?

Is Kainene still at afia attack? We have not found her yet! On my way back from Owerri, I finished up Chimamanda’s ‘Half of the Yellow Sun’, and I had to blink back the tears. The last three-quarters of the book really got to me. I don’t think the bus, or the road had any special mood, so it must have been the book. I was and still am awed at how well she captures a whole swathe of human emotions, human behaviour. The simple things which are not so easy to capture, but mean so much, she does capture so vividly. We have a gem, and I’m a devoted devotee.

I want to separate the tangled threads in my head now. Run through the barrage of thoughts that were coming at me as I read the last lap of that book. I do not know how she did it, but I am ever more aware that I have to live with the consciousness of pain, of suffering. Now, don’t take that in the wrong light. I think I mean I do not get to a stage in my life where I am all complacent and oblivious of the realities of this world. I cannot just remain in the cocoon of luxury and forget the realities of the world.

I am drawing no hard and fast conclusions. That is such a tortuous path to journey, and lazy me doesn’t want to give my pretty (O! Did I say that! J) head such trouble. I just made conjectures on the path to truth I believe. It’s so much easier to just make conjectures. I’m still thinking.

We should never forget that as long as we are in this world, we are susceptible to fluctuations in the condition of lives. No matter how much of a grip, how much of a handle you try to put on things, there are always circumstances beyond control. In the book, the war changed peoples’ conditions. It is so saddening to see the trend in Odenigbo’s life as the war progressed. Things happened that he could not control in spite of his strength, his intelligence, and his life spiraled downward, and he just could not stop it. If you are conscripted like Ugwu, what logical thing can you do – oh! Except your movie name is Scofield of course! (My! How could I forget?) It is basically out of your control. This is one thing we must always keep in mind. Never get too secure.

The story of Anulika, Ugwu’s sister was a very sad one. Fundamentally, you could see an individual whose spirit had been killed. I doff my hat for Chimamanda. She was able to portray such devastation of a human soul in so many words; it just grips your spirit, and you can just empathize with Anulika, and feel her pain. Anulika was a living ghost, and it shows us just how the joy of living can be taken away from a human. Time is healer, but I don’t why ‘I just know’ that time wouldn’t heal Anulika.

There is still some good in man, I believe. When I think of the power to forgive a hurt, I know there is still some good, but then, come to think of it, it’s inevitable sometimes. With the healing that time brings, with the ‘no option’ that some situations portend, when you cannot exact any revenge, and the need not to hold on to something and keep withering from the inside. Some things have to die a natural death. I read about the man who drove to a checkpoint, and had a soldier throw away his glasses, ask him to get out of his vehicle and lie down for a good whipping. Of course, I do not pass across the sentiment, the passion that Chimamanda does – you have to read the book to get that, but you will have to agree with me that even without the depth, on surface evaluation, it is not easy to forgive such a thing. Forgiveness is always easier to talk about for someone who has not been wronged seriously, but the irony is that as Kainene said, “some things are so unforgiveable that they make others easily forgivable”. Lazy man like me, I cannot take the trouble to break that down, but I’ll just say, “Some things are so profound that they make expatiation look like a trifle”. A phrase is enough for the discerning!

We see the pain of loss in various shades and degrees in this book, but I felt that nowhere was the pain more pronounced than in the case of Richard and Kainene, the undefinability of Kainene’s loss making it even more so. For such a character like Richard, and considering the kind of relationship he had with Kainene (I cannot exactly describe it), you wonder how he can live with this; Chimamanda makes it all the more grim when she tells how Richard would see everything dimly, in semi darkness from now on. What a sentence!

Now, this is a very problematic one, and I can twist it all ways and play with it and make this sense and that sense out of it. It is the concept that everybody, underneath the whole veneer of sophistication and class is the same basic person. O you can read, you use expensive, classy perfumes – you’re not like the one who uses cheap perfume, you’ve got the dress sense, and you can make intelligent discourse unlike … Well, considering all your breeding, I’m sure in one of your idle moments you must have wondered how you would have turned had your environmental conditions been altered – do I have to explain environmental conditions? Maybe you’re born in Rwanda to Hutu parents, or you went to Shangisha primary school and there’s no money in your family to go to university – if I keep trying to itemize, it’ll all seem trivial, but it is an established fact that our environment has a great deal to do with who we are today – almost everything. Juxtapose a couple of factors, and we’d have some different person altogether. Following from the former, I think you have to review your conception of people whom you may consider not on par with you. No matter how you think you are now, with not too much effort, you could just be them. Case in point: Olanna wishing that Odenigbo was wearing his Old Spice – he’s smelling all sweaty now, no more man made stuff to make him more decent. Things could get that way. It was difficult for me to accept Olanna and Odenigbo first in that dirty house in Umuahia with the pit toilet, then in that face me I face you shack, but things got that way. Reason – and draw your own conclusions. Am lazy though I try.

Today's Christian - The Dilemma

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all other things shall be added unto you.” (Matt..6:33).

I came in contact recently with someone who is making me look at this injunction in a totally different light. What does the statement mean? I believe in its most lucid form, it tells us to devote our energies to the pursuit of God as the prime thing in our lives. What is the pursuit of God? Seeking Him, finding Him, trying to know Him better, doing His commands. I think seeking the Kingdom of God is a full time occupation. If you’re seeking the kingdom of God, it’ll exclude seeking money.

Now, almost everyone – everyone basically I know is seeking money. I don’t know who truly is seeking the kingdom of God. All the young men even in the church want to “hammer”. What is our preoccupation? Having money, as my cousin would put it, freshness. In the church, same as any other place in the world, success is the most admired, respected element, and the not surprising thing is that the means is usually not a factor. As long as there is success, a few shady dealings, a few crooked corners do not really matter anymore. Success here, no one has to think twice to know is material success – good clothes, good cars, good houses, the works.

Now, I know that God does not exclude success, and serving God does not produce poor friars or preclude the “good things of life”. The thing is it was supposed to be that I devote all my energies to seeking the Lord, and then after that, at God’s own convenience, He’d add other things, order and timing entirely left to Him. Boy, do I know that is difficult, and if I am bold enough to say, leaning to the preposterous.

Today we take the bulls by the horns, “no dulling”, “no sleeping on bike – or you fit fall, break neck” (as we say in local parlance). We change everything we can to make sure we are positioned in a way we think we would get the utmost material benefits. We come forward before the altar and testify of what God has done for us after trying to tweak everything our own way. It’s confusing me I tell you. By now, I know anything can be rolled and spun a million ways, and there’s no longer an objective truth, but I tell you, my mind tells me that Jesus was telling us who have accepted and are His children to devote our energies primarily to seeking God, and leave the other tasks to God. This is what my heart tells me Jesus said, and this is what no one I know directly – myself included - is doing. Of course, there are people living that way, but I do not know any of them actually, I only have stories.

I know, it wouldn’t take the turn of a head for someone to intelligently and convolutedly explain to me the error of my thinking, and why that does not mean what it simply means, but as it is with a lot of other things today, I would always know that the simplest straightest way is probably always the true way. I would keep wondering what is wrong with the whole situation and would refrain from making any conclusions because it is so much easier to keep wondering than it is to conclude. Lazy me!

INSIGHT - THE LINe BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE

How much do you really know? Probably zilch. Now, I'm not trying to assault your intelligence. It's just the truth. Our knowledge is highly limited. The expanse of knowledge is gargantuan. A few might attain to some  significant standing in the aggregation of knowledge, but most people are just minions.

Never be too sure. Make allowances for the possibility that you are wrong cos you just could be sooo wrong when all you need is a little bit of INSIGHT.

Biking down Ozumba Mbadiwe road - now, when I say biking, I want you to think we're doing some sort of highspeed riding down the highway - a Harley Davidson and a Kawasaki, but truthfully, it's nothing so fancy. It's just Emeka and I humpin (no, not in that sense baddy) a silly bike going to Idejo - I look up and looming on my left are the decrepit (well, not truly decrepit - it's just a nice word 'in the thought' and I haven't used it for a looong time, that's why I'm using it - more like, hmm, don't know, but definitely better than decrepit) buildings of the 1001 housing estate. I'm wondering "these are buildings which will be filled up if they're in good order, people are looking for decent accomodation. Why are these buildings just lying here, wasting away? Why hasn't the renovation work started? I venture to speak my wonderings out loud and my cousin, who's working on a construction site where they're renovating an old building and having lots of problems tells me "You can't fathom how much work is going on in there. It just gulps all the work and it seems like you've done nothing. The buiding remains the worse for it all."

I just kept mum. I was about to launch into a tirade against failing government officials ... Work was actaully going on there, but I could not discern, I was ignorant, and getting ignorantly angry. It took someone with some knowledge of the business, some insight to set me straight.

We must make allowances for both our own failings and others if we are to be truly honourable.

Le Puissance de Flattery!

Boy! There's nothing like a little flattery, a little, well, maybe not necessarily flattery, let's say appreciation or commendation or (insert any synonymous  you want to) to make a human feel all warm and problemless (sic) and bright eyed and luvli dayed. Now, I begin to see - I just begin to: GOd - worship; that's basically all He requires from humans - worship comes in various forms of course, but that's for another theology class - I see why that's all God can take - or do I? I'll tell all in due course. I see again the answer to the perennial nagging question - why does a woman stay with someone who cheats on her, treats her bad, ... That's some other extreme though, but to some extent, it tallies with my perceived notions. Just show a woman a little bit of loving and she's to be had. Now, that bit eclipses the other evils and the brain is muddled up and confused. Of course there are exceptions, and of course limits exist, but to a great extent, this is the norm. I see why flattery is a great weapon for wise men and harmless as it may seem can fell many a brave and powerful man.I'm not unaware of these issues,  but I have to say a reimpression, a strong one was made, bringing all the greater clarity to the issue - not up to the level of a lucid moment, though - when a few minutes ago, I got such a commendation. Now, maybe this is different and i shouldn't put all those others in this same class, uh. This commendation came from someone who I respect extremely, and that's why it's had this effect. Now, you wouldn't know, only me and maybe my best friend can fathom, don't even know if she knows enough to. Well, I'll let you in a little. What can make King Layzee (I'm the king of lazy for the uninitiated in so many respects, and especially when it comes to writing) start off writing when he never planned for two days to  and didn't and then started feeling really guilty, and then just had to get down to the arduous task? Only something really momentuous. What can make Mr. focused on his ccna prep take an unplanned break for the operose writing task? It's got to be something.

I'm getting bored and lazy agin, so I'll try to wrap up and say the bible wasn't wrong one bit when it talked about kind words and angry words creating positive and negative responses respectively. It's just in human nature to want to receive love, to receive compliments, accolades, respect, ... It's in God's nature too I'm thinking. Hope this is not blasphemy. ;) We're modeled after him we're told. 

I reveal to you a powerful ballistic missile - !.55mm calibre Flattery! Don't use it wrongly, please.

A Lightning Bolt!

Faster than fast, faster than fast, faster than fast, ... Am trying to type each successive one faster than the other, but herein is substantiated one of my great failings - I never really was able to work up the discipline and grit to learn to touch type the right way, so you can bet I failed in my bid to type like they talk in that aged cool cafe ad, but I know a man who keeps doing it faster, and faster, and even faster, and he makes it all look like some evening play.

With just a little bit of your wits about you, you know who I'm talking about already, except maybe you were just released from some hermitage up in the Himalayas. (Those guys are tough, I know - not from experience - hearsay.) 

This man sets a world record causing disturbances to the airflow all around him - putting his hands in all the very wrong positions for a sprinter, retaining all the energy to beat his chest and yet he finishes paces ahead of the pack, and breaks the world record. You can't help but wonder if he was trying hard not to cause some major upset, like run 9.5x, something like that. He sure could go faster. Hmm... Our conspiracy theory...

Now, this man is upsetting the apple cart, but he's doing it really really carefully. He then goes into a 200m race where he gives us a faster 100m sprint - ((19.30/2 = 9.65) if you need help with the math.) He breaks another record in an annoyingly easy way, and again, you get that feeling he could have gone the whole hog under 19 s. 

I won't addle your mind so early with thoughts of some all test beating chemical or some jet fuelled running shoes (hilarious) - not for any altruistic reasons, just my fabled laziness - well, the fable's not really that widespread :), but don't you just wonder - 'man, this shouldn't be so easy.'

Whatever it is, we've got our little bit of excitement, that prick we always need to get along in this bittersweet world of ours. Till the next one - on different planes and in different packages for all of us different people,  I wish you an unmechanized existence (whatever that means).

dISPARATEmUSINGS

top songz

MEMRESISTOR

It seems ironical when you gloss over the concept for a little while - they always say 'the only constant is change'. Think "Change", think "Constant". They're obviously at opposite sides of the divide, but over and over again we hear things like "Change is the one constant in life", "Change is the only constant...". The first was a statement by Rosa Guy in 1990, a Trinidadian born US author, the second by Dennis McCluggage, a US race driver. This same sentiment has been repeated time and time again.

Evidently, this ironical statement cannot be more true. Our world keeps evolving and changing.

Now, change has come in the world of electronics, in the way of a new fundamental quantity.
Basic electronic knowledge (possibly soon to become outdated) posits that there is a trinity of fundamental electronic components, fundametal elements of a passive circuit, namely the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor. These three components are usually juxtaposed (often with helper components) multitudes of ways in various circuits in order to obtain certain varied functions. Three basic components, but about thirty seven (37) years ago, in 1971, an engineer, Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkerly, predicted the existence of a fourth basic electronic component, and he called this a 'memory resistor' or 'memresistor'. He used mathematical formulae and involved equations to show the existence of this element, but at that time, forty years ago, we were comfortable with our three elements, no one was looking to see a fourth one, and electronics had not yet got to its state today - it was not yet the age of nanoelectricity.

Today, we have a group who claim to have discovered this fourth element. Scientists at PC maker Hewlett-Packard led by Stanley Williams have proven that 'memresistance' exists. They have developed a mathematical model and physical example of the memory resistor, which they described in the Science journal Nature. According to Williams, this element is distinct, and no combination of resistor, inductor and capacitor will give you its property.

The memresistor's prorperties are more obvious in nanoscale electronics, one of the reasons why it has remained hidden for so long, the other being the simple reason that no one was looking. talk o the show up in nano.

Williams and his team were working on molecular electronics when they started noticing strange behaviour in their devices. Fortunately, one of the team, Greg Snider had been a follower of Chua's work and this situation, the odd behaviour seemed to tally. Enter the memresistor. Looking through logs of research work, it is evident that many others had discovered such odd behaviour in micromolecules, but no one being the wiser, these had been filed away in the drawer of an irritating headache to be dealt with later.

According to IEEE Spectrum, the magazine of the renowned institute, "The reason that the memresistor is radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is that, unlike them, it carries a memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to the circuit, the memresistor still remembers how much was applied before and for how long. That's an effect that can't be duplicated by any circuit combination of resistors, capacitors and inductors, which is why the memresistor qualifies as a fundamental circuit element."

Chua, the one who started this whole memresistance story has called the finding a paradigm shift. He likens the addition of the memresistor to the circuit design arsenal to adding a new element to the periodic table.

For all this to have any value, this property has to have some significant application - and it actually does. Word is already flying around about the computer which will never need to be booted again, a derivative of the memresistance property. The reasoning goes thus: the memory chips of present day computers are volatile. They depend on electric power to retain their information. When this power is off, the information on them wipes away. The memresistor, however, has this inherent property of remembrance. If it is used to make memory chips, they will no longer be dependent on power for their memory. Exit booting of computers. Your computer will always be at the same state where you left it.

Another very important application that has been identified is in the field of neural networks. A neural network is basically a computer system mimicking a human brain: a system of electrical circuits designed to perform in a similar way to the human nervous system. Neural networks address problems that are often difficult for traditional computers to solve, such as speech and pattern recognition. They also provide some insight into the way the human brain works. One of the most significant strengths of neural networks is their ability to learn from a limited set of examples. Neural networks were initially studied by computer and cognitive scientists in the late 1950s and early 1960s in an attempt to model sensory perception in biological organisms. Neural networks have been applied to many problems since they were first introduced, including pattern recognition, handwritten character recognition, speech recognition, financial and economic modeling, and next-generation computing models.

Will the science textbooks a few years from now bear radically different fundamental information? To borrow from Senator Obama's campaign, we shall see over the next few years - rather, we shall keep seeing, as we always have, "The Audacity of Change".

MEMRESISTOR

It seems ironical when you gloss over the concept for a little while - they always say 'the only constant is change'. Think "Change", think "Constant". They're obviously at opposite sides of the divide, but over and over again we hear things like "Change is the one constant in life", "Change is the only constant...". The first was a statement by Rosa Guy in 1990, a Trinidadian born US author, the second by Dennis McCluggage, a US race driver. This same sentiment has been repeated time and time again.

Evidently, this ironical statement cannot be more true. Our world keeps evolving and changing.

Now, change has come in the world of electronics, in the way of a new fundamental quantity.
Basic electronic knowledge (possibly soon to become outdated) posits that there is a trinity of fundamental electronic components, fundametal elements of a passive circuit, namely the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor. These three components are usually juxtaposed (often with helper components) multitudes of ways in various circuits in order to obtain certain varied functions. Three basic components, but about thirty seven (37) years ago, in 1971, an engineer, Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkerly, predicted the existence of a fourth basic electronic component, and he called this a 'memory resistor' or 'memresistor'. He used mathematical formulae and involved equations to show the existence of this element, but at that time, forty years ago, we were comfortable with our three elements, no one was looking to see a fourth one, and electronics had not yet got to its state today - it was not yet the age of nanoelectricity.

Today, we have a group who claim to have discovered this fourth element. Scientists at PC maker Hewlett-Packard led by Stanley Williams have proven that 'memresistance' exists. They have developed a mathematical model and physical example of the memory resistor, which they described in the Science journal Nature. According to Williams, this element is distinct, and no combination of resistor, inductor and capacitor will give you its property.

The memresistor's prorperties are more obvious in nanoscale electronics, one of the reasons why it has remained hidden for so long, the other being the simple reason that no one was looking. talk o the show up in nano.

Williams and his team were working on molecular electronics when they started noticing strange behaviour in their devices. Fortunately, one of the team, Greg Snider had been a follower of Chua's work and this situation, the odd behaviour seemed to tally. Enter the memresistor. Looking through logs of research work, it is evident that many others had discovered such odd behaviour in micromolecules, but no one being the wiser, these had been filed away in the drawer of an irritating headache to be dealt with later.

According to IEEE Spectrum, the magazine of the renowned institute, "The reason that the memresistor is radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is that, unlike them, it carries a memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to the circuit, the memresistor still remembers how much was applied before and for how long. That's an effect that can't be duplicated by any circuit combination of resistors, capacitors and inductors, which is why the memresistor qualifies as a fundamental circuit element."

Chua, the one who started this whole memresistance story has called the finding a paradigm shift. He likens the addition of the memresistor to the circuit design arsenal to adding a new element to the periodic table.

For all this to have any value, this property has to have some significant application - and it actually does. Word is already flying around about the computer which will never need to be booted again, a derivative of the memresistance property. The reasoning goes thus: the memory chips of present day computers are volatile. They depend on electric power to retain their information. When this power is off, the information on them wipes away. The memresistor, however, has this inherent property of remembrance. If it is used to make memory chips, they will no longer be dependent on power for their memory. Exit booting of computers. Your computer will always be at the same state where you left it.

Another very important application that has been identified is in the field of neural networks. A neural network is basically a computer system mimicking a human brain: a system of electrical circuits designed to perform in a similar way to the human nervous system. Neural networks address problems that are often difficult for traditional computers to solve, such as speech and pattern recognition. They also provide some insight into the way the human brain works. One of the most significant strengths of neural networks is their ability to learn from a limited set of examples. Neural networks were initially studied by computer and cognitive scientists in the late 1950s and early 1960s in an attempt to model sensory perception in biological organisms. Neural networks have been applied to many problems since they were first introduced, including pattern recognition, handwritten character recognition, speech recognition, financial and economic modeling, and next-generation computing models.

Will the science textbooks a few years from now bear radically different fundamental information? To borrow from Senator Obama's campaign, we shall see over the next few years - rather, we shall keep seeing, as we always have, "The Audacity of Change".

MOTOR PARK BLUES

It’s crazy! As someone just said, “some days are like that”. Someone else just chipped in, “driver, go do thanksgiving O!” But I’d rather they stop needling (taunting) the driver. I won’t trade an accident for the laughs.

It’s your usual weekday evening with all the bustle of workers going home. I’m at the park at about 3.30pm. I buy my bus ticket and get on the bus. Nothing foretells the “differentness” of this Thursday afternoon.

Lovers have it that quarrels and fallouts strengthen the relationship. One lady even put it to me that a constant happy “at the same level relationship” is tiring and boring and will not stand the test of time. It is true that some partners after a stretch of seemingly equanimous relationship actually act to cause ripples, even if it is in the form of an absolutely unnecessary quarrel. Odd, but true. This applies to all spheres of human existence. I dare-say the human mind thrives on adversity, changes in one way or the other. Had everything been on the same level, with other things being equal, we’d have a swarm of senile, annoying creatures all over the place. This was one of such days that keep the balance.

I am sleepy, but it is not because of boredom for my mind, I am physically exhausted, after having spent all night and the wee hours of the morning fully awake. The heat that my feet feel through the soles of my shoes, heat emanating from the engine, which for the moment is my footstool (not the best of practices I must say) - my feet rest on the metal covering the engine block, I am directly behind the driver – rather resembles that generated in the atmosphere of the bus a few minutes ago after a so-so commonplace start.

I can break the causative factors in three, and I will do just this:
- The woman who lost her ticket
- The saucy girl at the park
- The park cleaners
These parts might sound a little strange to all those who don’t have the privilege of moving around in rickety, squeaky old vehicles, otherwise known as public transport, but are sadly confined to a few boring people in a little vehicle. (Ah, now, don’t crucify me! I have the right to a little joy, even if I have to twist my logic a little for the trips). Well, in public transport, for the uneducated, you buy your ticket, get into the bus, and then when everyone is seated, someone from the park comes, collects all the tickets and takes back to some administrator of the park for confirmation before the bus can leave. Now, there are a great many variations to this procedure, and some may not even use tickets at all. I use that description because it was the procedure employed by the transport company in question, and it is most relevant to our discourse.

There was this woman on the bus who could not find her ticket while tickets were being collected. This started the disturbances in the vehicle. Everyone began giving his/her own very right opinion, no matter how ill thought out, as to what course to take, (a Proudly Nigerian trademark, of course), the summary of which is that all these varying opinions end up being vectors that will in summation effect no movement – varying forces, varying directions, moving us nowhere. They only succeeded in heating up the bus. Some folks were wondering why this little ticket was so important to the driver, and why he couldn’t just stop wasting our time and come and drive us away. They wanted him to overlook the ticket issue. Of course, that must have sounded like blasphemy to our driver who had procedures to follow. Some wanted the woman to drop and go sort herself out and quit wasting our time, as it was her fault she lost her ticket. Our woman of course was sitting tight and wouldn’t be budged. Eventually, however, as if in a haze, I noticed our hijacker alighting to go see what could be done. “As in a haze" because some new, fresher attention grabber had emerged, in the form of a young lady, a worker at the park, and of course attentions had switched to this new abnormality.

This is another park specific issue, so let me give that intro for the less privileged। At these public transport parks, passengers on board usually fill out their details in a book – name, phone number, contact, the like. In this park, someone brings the book and passes it around the passengers on board to fill out. On our bus, there was this not bad looking young girl to pass the book around. At that point, some folks had not yet filled out their details, and instead of this girl to appeal to these folks to fill out the book, she began threatening –“if you don’t fill this out, you won’t leave here, I’ll see how you’ll leave”-that’s a transliteration, as she was saying all this in the local language, where, of course it sounds much more saucy. My God, did this inflame the passengers! Who was this to tell us that we would not leave the park? This began another round of chatter and quarrel and banter which would drain me to express properly here. Everyone was shouting, and this lady, safe some few feet away from the bus would not be shouted down. Someone on the bus was threatening that he’d make her lose her job for such insolence, and she, with as much gusto was telling him what he could and could not do, and not surprisingly, what he could do was termed “nothing”. Hilarious, absolutely! You need to be there to have felt the energy. The hubbub from all this had not yet died down when all of a sudden, we saw the driver running around outside the bus with someone holding a raised rake chasing after him. My, what a scene, worthy of a proper circus spot. News filtered through that the driver had inflamed the cleaner by obstructing his path, some trivial issue, and so the comic show had to ensue, and our driver was so unfortunate because he was eventually not facing off against just one cleaner, but against the legions in the park. Little wonder he had to run, as he even had a serious handicap – he was unarmed against armed men – lethal rakes. The better sense of people around calmed the cleaners down and saved our driver from apparent mutilation.

To be continued ...

NEW THINGS

Watch the new 64 inch Sharp Aquos plasma HDTV; now, when I say watch, I mean ‘watch’ both the sleek black lines with the dots delineating the speakers and the chrome pitted buttons all topped with that lovely gloss finish, then watch now the wide screen TV programming – that pretty CNN broadcaster you’ve been ogling in vain since ‘God knows when’. (I wonder how old you are). Let’s say it’s Isha – okay, enough telling.

Now you’re watching. Don’t you wonder how we managed to live with our 4:3 aspect ratio TVs for so long? Our eyes weren’t complaining? Don’t you wonder how much information you lost, considering those far reaches at the ends you could never see on 4:3? (That might just have been a good thing, this information overload – it’s dangerous.) Doesn’t TV just look glorious? Now, I am assuming you’re not watching AKBC Channel 48 on that TV, man! Must you spoil a good thing!  I’m assuming you’ve got good programming.
The above is a sort of template for our discourse – new, newer, even newer, never newest - 

Evolution. Everything keeps evolving – well, except man. Man has blatantly refused to. There are newer versions everyday, and do you know the interesting thing? With the exception of those ever present nagging exceptions, these newer versions provide more utility; they are more pleasing to the senses. Exceptions come in different – basically two – packages. One is those humans who hate change and will always stick with the old way (You can see ……………………); and the other group is that group of new versions that turn out cranky – of course made by exceptional individuals no less!

It is interesting that generally, what one man likes will be appealing to the many. Now, this man is our designer. He’s hiding out somewhere on Apple’s campus, an underground bunker, perhaps, and he’s drawing up a basic design for the iphone, and he’s designing multitouch, and he thinks it’s great, and Jobs announces and releases it, and everyone goes wow! It’s Apple again! Great user experience! Everyone is in sync.

Are humans basically the same? My God! This must be ‘question stupide’ of the year. Of course, they all have that same grey thread running through them. All the men like beer, all the women love jewellry (of course, we never forget exceptions). I wonder why this is giving me so much of a brainstorm-in the second sense of the word.

Things keep improving, and don’t you just wonder when we’ll get to the end of our tether? Maybe that’s just when God takes a jolly flight through light years back to this earth. He’s got to be faster than the speed of light if He wants to get here fast.

SHELLFISH (wordplay on SELFISH)

Am sitting here with my pen in hand, twirling it around, and wondering what exactly to commit to books which are supposed to lock out the black man. My mind is telling telling me – just put pen to paper, stuff will spill out, like the pen’s some kind of possessed specter. All the while, like 700 things are rushing through my head in a microsecond, and of course, it’s only the flimsiest itty bit of one of them that makes any impression on me, i.e. that I can decode. Hmm … do I sound like some kind of particle accelerator?

Well, I put my pen to paper and let it roam free, and I’m writing stuff, though of what value, I don’t know now.

At this point in time, everything has got to have value. ‘What am I doing this for, what am I getting out of it?’ That is the pertinent question, code red, top priority. Now, I think I see the trend of my roaming pen. It’s taking the easiest course, this easiest course flows through me, trying to pour out and order my state on this piece of virtual paper. This course - or trend - I say I see not much benefit in.

Last night till this morning, it was all rainy and gloomy and all that, but the sun’s up now, that kind of friendly sun that you don’t mind a lot. I think I’m in sync with the weather, because my sun rose this morning – well maybe am or I should say am the weather’s forerunner because my rainy, gloomy time started lifting last night. I had been rainy gloomy all day long – (no, you won’t have seen me all downcast and curled up like some sorry dog or content kitten, no, twas all in the mind. Usually always is with me.) – because of some mobile aided events which you obviously do not have security clearance for. Well, late in the night, torpedoes at full blast and fired, ballast tanks open, and what do you expect? The sub rises to the top again, outside the world of arcane, mysterious sea creatures. Ha! As a friend will say, ‘fly boys now, ha! My God!’ Sick sick sickeroo.

So I’m concluding it’s a battle against the elements. The funny thing here is that the natural elements are pretty kind (not in all cases, though). It’s the man controlled elements that are giving trouble this time. Cannot forget, it’s been there all along, but a friend told me and it stuck: life does not give you what you deserve, but what you struggle for. Never sit back and expect something as a reward for some part of you – maybe your extra shiny bald head or your not slapping Kola the other day. You’ve gotta be a go-getta. You’ve got to go take it. That’s the only way you’ll get something meaningful, useful, something you deserve out of life.

So when I’m talking about the battle against the elements, it’s just blasé, uninteresting, monotonous talk about how we have to rise above the power problem and get power to power our portals into the next world, those computers, and go get stuff – no, not on yahoo or hotmail – mean I’d rather use gmail. I’m sorry, I guess I’m writing for myself, I don’t care about you, but now, I’m going to do something more productive. I’ll try to do something for you.

IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT!

I presume it’s human nature, it’s probably found everywhere, but it seems to me that Nigerians are particularly infected with a huge dose of this toxin. This toxin causes partial blindness (unlike nyctalopia, this state does not occur only in dim light) and where there is a problem with sight, myriad other problems are birthed. People could fall into ditches, slap the wrong person, take the wrong bag, read wrong and so on. I believe this problem, not as hyped as our much touted attribute, corruption, could be the root of so many of our ills in this country. One simple word exists for it – prejudice. Highly bigoted reasoning, ideas, opinions, views. This is a very serious malaise.

In a bus one evening, I observed the goings on. Now, this bus is not your everyday town service bus. It was a bus belonging to one of the state transport services, and it seemed the driver wanted to make some extra buck on the side by doing some town service runs. On a normal day, this kind of bus drier has no conductor, and this one did not, but there happened to be someone he knew on the bus, an obviously street savvy young man from the looks of things. He asked this man to help him collect money on the bus. Unlike your everyday conductor, this man politely asked for money, not trying to raise a hubbub with every passenger. This scenario made me think.

I wondered, why can’t every conductor act like this? Talk to passengers like this? And the answer snapped right back at me – ‘do you think that in these cramped bus conditions, with this thankless job, that you’d get up everyday and keep up the smiling, the politeness, the calmness with each set of people boarding the bus day in, day out?’ the conversation continued in my mind, ‘No! humanly impossible! Except you’re some kind of hardwired android or robot. Look for that kind of service only on an air hostess on a flight, or some conductor on an executive bus, air conditioned, not overcrowded, and where you’re parting with some good money to get to your destination. The truth is you pay for the service you receive!

Now, some dissenting voices may start out now, ‘you have to treat your customers well, …!’ Now, these are the very same ones who with just a little pressure at work would flare up and threaten the equilibrium in a place. Might just be you. Put these people in the shoes of that conductor, and they’ll probably fare a hundred times worse.

This is the problem I always see with Nigerians. So many Nigerians only look at issues as it will benefit them; no one looks at the big picture, cause and effect, parochialism threatens to destroy us. Open up your eyes, your mind and look at the big picture.

Truly I tell you, I do not blame the bus conductor. Circumstances have made it so he has to be hardened to survive his environment, and also the bites of those very customers, who themselves are hardened against him already. It is this eternal search for someone to blame that makes us blame the customer. Can’t you look further and see there are more salient issues to the matter? It is a vicious cycle, and it goes on and on and on. The problem is if you keep looking, the pond gets larger and larger and larger and you can’t find someone to pin down, so why not absolve your mind of that need to blame and carry on with an open mind.

Now, this is definitely extremely difficult, but if people can get to this point, using the case of the bus conductor, we will all find that he will have no one to defend against and his behavior will subsequently moderate. ‘Who will go first?’ we ask. Nobody is ready to give in.

We have been on this theme of the conductor, but this problem shows up in every aspect of our relationships. It is commonplace to hear talk like ‘this lecturer is wicked’ from students, it is common to hear MTN bashing, etc. Everyone sees the problem from somewhere else. I tell you, do not deceive yourself! The basic problem is you! You don’t want to hear that, but solve yourself and you’ll see. Other things will just have to fall in place.

Why is the lecturer wicked? He is wicked because he made sure the students sit comfortably with enough space around each one in the exam hall. Just that. This is a time when the students want to sit all jam-packed, they don’t mind being sardines for the few exam hours. Fifty six people on a desk is the way to go. If this lecturer had done what he was mandated to and reported cheaters to the malpractice board, then he would be the father of the devil. Doesn’t it look all twisted? It’s just reminiscent of the rot, the decay in our society, our highly religious society. Wrong is official right, and vice versa. MTN is bad because they make it difficult to get free airtime. Their cards are not easy to hack ... What kind of twisted logic is that? But that is what flies around. Is it not a sorry situation?

Nigerians seem to face the wrong problem and end up with disastrous results. Now look at yourself, disabuse your mind of other issues that eat up – yes, all that prejudice eats up and gives illnesses - you can build yourself to a level where you don’t have to enter these buses any longer, that problem is gone, or you won’t have to bother that MTN cards are not easy to hack, and that they don’t grace you with free airtime, you’ll comfortably afford to have your phone filled at all times, and even move up to more expensive data plans.

The student who says ‘the lecturer is wicked’ can prepare from the beginning of the semester and be ready for the exams. The need to seat close to someone for purposes of malpractice is obviated. Are these not better alternatives? The petty evils fall to the side and become inconsequential. I do not claim to be insulated from these problems, I do not claim Puritanism. I have failed quite my own share of courses in school, which is really bad, but I did not complain about the lecturer. In fact, I was taking it out on myself for not preparing well. Next time, if you do not want to fail, do what you should before the exam. Conquer yourself and everything else will fall under control.

LIVE - FOR TODAY, OR TOMORROW

We grapple with it every day; it’s become some sort of dilemma. It won’t be wrong to say this is a subject one whole area of economics seeks to fix, arrange, put in its right place. Of course, that branch seriously maintains the term ‘opportunity cost’ as a milestone concept. Our subject is analogous to the much used, but usually wrongly presented English idiom ‘you cannot have your cake and eat it.’ This idiom is almost always in everyday usage presented as ‘you cannot eat your cake and have it.’, wrong presentation obviously, but I must agree that it makes more sense in this sense than with the former correct turn of words.

This is a discourse on life – everyday life. How do we live our lives? What is your prime motivation? Are you trying to live out today to its fullest, or are you looking to a great tomorrow, and thus curtailing life today to aid achievement of this greater tomorrow?
Now, being neither a sociology major, nor an anthropologist, not being an academician or some sort of researcher, I’m feeling my way on the presentation of this discourse. It might not have all the structure of a thesis paper, but I will do my utmost to make it concise, logical and of maximum clarity.

Bayo just got a ten thousand (N10000) naira (let’s call it grant) grant from an uncle who’s in a really good mood today, and Bayo has been trying to save up money to pay for a company registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) which is to cost fifty thousand (N50000). This is his dream, register the company so he can have the legal requirements, validity, credibility to start up some serious business which he’s thought out, but cannot afford to take to an existing firm, and which, since he does not have the legal requirements, cannot pursue at the moment.

Coincidentally, Bayo’s with Chika, this gal who always makes his heart skip a beat. He has taken mother’s car out today, and now, this grant. Boy, are the gods smiling on you, Bayo!  Everything’s in place. Now, Bayo’s wondering – do I keep this money hidden somewhere, piling up for my registration, or do I go for instant gratification, pick up Kene and Kate, impress this gal, paint the town black and blue (our new red). What is it to be? What will Bayo choose?

The foregoing is a simplistic depiction of the issue at hand. Experience is a commodity. Gathering varied experiences from a varied group, I believe we shall come to a conclusion that there are so many other serious issues which require the choice between today and tomorrow to be made, even up to the point of life and death issues.

Analyzing the Bayo scenario, one might say, ‘ah, he can spend the money, it’s not too difficult getting fifty thousand (N50000) if you want to use it for something serious, he can always get it. Now, what people fail to realize is that this is the way Bayo’s getting money for his project, this very way! Thus, if Bayo (in common parlance) ‘flexes’ this windfall today, he can still get some other tomorrow, and he’ll also find some other interesting way to use it that same day. There’s not an end to wonderful ways to use money. An even more interesting one for the next day – and the next – and … Bayo might at last get fifty thousand (N50000) in one fell swoop, and of course fritter it away, leaving only the initial five thousand (N5000) naira he had kept in a separate account for the company registration thingy.

This brings us to a very salient point. Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, but we can surmise that for every decision that is made to live for tomorrow, today suffers. Instant gratification is mutually exclusive to … (I can’t quite figure the best words to use yet) its inverse.

You want me to finish up the Bayo and Chika story? What eventually happened? Haha, now I know that’s all you are interested in, but I say now, no instant gratification!  We’re for tomorrow now.

The exceptions mentioned could in this case appear in the form of a surplus of every resource involved in the mix. An extreme case really, not economically correct.
A really serious occurrence of this issue is in the world of religion. Various religious groups forfeit certain things generally regarded as ‘pleasures’ with an aim in mind, usually an afterlife in a beautiful state, as the seeming pleasures could hinder attainment of that positive afterlife. This is why we routinely hear phrases such as ‘the pleasures of sin’. The Bible has it like ‘pleasures of sin for a moment’ – the now, today. Specifics, I believe are not really necessary in this case, as it should be all too evident.

A balance, I believe is the way to go. Too much of tomorrow could make a threadbare, …, exhausted individual, who might be eventually unable to enjoy that tomorrow so tediously prepared for. Too much of today could create a hedonistic, profligate, self indulgent fool who steps out of an enclosed room after finishing the last candy bar to find that wild animals are on rampage, and everyone has escaped, leaving our ‘happy’ feet hopeless.
Balance seems to be the key to this world – enjoy some today, leave some for tomorrow. Free will means you are free of course to fight it out with yourself, draw your own conclusions.

My, am I feelin geniusy - for what?

Well, it's good to feel like that sometimes, even when it's unwarranted. I deleted my show desktop icon, and just now saw how to restore it on tipmonkies. Was I happy! Well, it's back there now. I also saw the keyboard short cut. logo key + D. Everybody knows we're talking windows here. Must ave come across it before but, somehow went pop.

Thinking. It seems better to put up smaller posts basically for readability. Better that way. no?
Excuse to stop here.

Do u Forget Ur Name?

Exactly what happened to me. I forgot my name - well, not so bad, I'm still sane, not that she called me and I didn't know it was me, or that she asked me my name, and i didn't know. no, not so bad. But for weeks, I've been unable to open my blogger account! Was using all the wrong usernames and passes, maybe right passes, but wrong usernames, can u imagine that! Well, to cut a weird, not so long and uninteresting story short, I used the right one today - after trying one wrong one of course, and open sesame, it opened.

Gees, Am I a genius! I think more like krayzie.

So now, once again, u can have all those tasty, delicious blogs sweeter than slime -what!? no, no, i said nothing. It's just your imagination, sorry.

Alright, see you in the next post. tho i'm tempted to waste time here - No!I'm at work, I should be workin, not posting blogs. Boo hoo hoo. Oh no! what do we (have here) - no, I'm out

ANGST AGAINST COMPILERS

Wuz reading a TIME magazine article, 'Bombay sth', can't really remember. In a sidebar, they were like 'India's 1.5 billion dollar industry is the largest in the world, both in movies produced and in the number of tickets sold. India makes close to 1000 movies a year, five times Hollywood's output'.

These kinds of statements annoy me seriously. I ain't disputing the facts, no, but what does whoever the writer is mean? How won't they have the greater number of tickets sold, when the population is almost five times USA's? How won't they produce much more when of course most are lower quality and less thot out than what we get from Hollywood? What is special or wonderful about that? With 1 billion peeps and counting, it would be a recall of stone age if there were less moviegoers thhan in the US with less than 300 million peeps.

Then, the claim of 1000 movies a year being sooo large, I don't even know if that is true, considering Naija's (Nigeria's) film industry which churns out movies at xtreme will. lol. I think people who compile records should have more sense than putting some things as if they are special, things like these.

I wish I could give 'em a lashing, but oops, I'm fuming for nothing. They won't even read my hinterlands blog. Just hope some other good person catches the angst with me.
:-)

CIao. end of ma angst against compilers blog. lol.