dISPARATEmUSINGS

Text of Pres. Jonathan's Broadcast on Deregulation of the Petroleum Sector

2012-01-08T00:44:00.000+01:00

Dear Compatriots,

1. A week ago, I had cause to address Nigerians on the security challenges we are facing in parts of the country, which necessitated the declaration of a state of emergency in 15 Local Government Areas in four states of the Federation. That course of action attracted widespread support and a demonstration of understanding. With that declaration, government had again signaled its intention to combat terrorism with renewed vigour and to assure every Nigerian of safety.

2. The support that we have received in the fight against terrorism from concerned Nigerians at home and abroad has been remarkable. We believe that it is with such continued support that progress can be made on national issues. Let me express my heartfelt appreciation to everyone who has expressed a commitment to support us as we strive to improve on the country’s security situation, and build a stronger foundation for the future. The recent mindless acts of violence in Gombe, Potiskum, Jimeta-Yola and Mubi are unfortunate. I urge all Nigerians to eschew bitterness and acrimony and live together in harmony and peace. Wherever there is any threat to public peace, our security agencies will enforce the law, without fear or favour.

3.    This evening, I address you, again, with much concern over an issue that borders on the national economy, the oil industry and national progress. As part of our efforts to transform the economy and guarantee prosperity for all Nigerians, Government, a few days ago, announced further deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. The immediate effect of this has been the removal of the subsidy on petrol.

4.    Since the announcement, there have been mixed reactions to the policy. Let me seize this opportunity to assure all Nigerians that I feel the pain that you all feel. I personally feel pained to see the sharp increase in transport fares and the prices of goods and services. I share the anguish of all persons who had travelled out of their stations, who had to pay more on the return leg of their journeys.

5.    If I were not here to lead the process of national renewal, if I were in your shoes at this moment, I probably would have reacted in the same manner as some of our compatriots, or hold the same critical views about government. But I need to use this opportunity as your President to address Nigerians on the realities on the ground, and why we chose to act as we did. I know that these are not easy times. But tough choices have to be made to safeguard the economy and our collective survival as a nation.

6.    My fellow Nigerians, the truth is that we are all faced with two basic choices with regard to the management of the downstream petroleum sector: either we deregulate and survive economically, or we continue with a subsidy regime that will continue to undermine our economy and potential for growth, andface serious consequences.

7.    As you all know, the subject of deregulation is not new, we have been grappling with it for more than two decades. Previous administrations tinkered with the pump price of petroleum products, and wereunable to effect complete deregulation of the downstream sector. This approach has not worked. If it did, we would not be here talking about deregulation today. I understand fully well that deregulation is not amagic formula that will address every economic challenge, but it provides a good entry point for transforming the economy, and for ensuring transparency and competitiveness in the oil industry, which is the mainstay of our economy.

8.    As a President, elected and supported by ordinary Nigerians, and the vast majority of our people, I have a duty to bring up policies and programmes that will grow the economy and bring about greater benefits for the people. Let me assure you that as your President, I have no intention to inflict pain on Nigerians.

9.    The deregulation of the petroleum sector is a necessary step that we had to take. Should we continue to do things the same way, and face more serious economic challenges? Or deregulate, endure the initial discomfort and reap better benefits later? I want to assure every Nigerian that whatever pain you may feel at the moment, will be temporary.

10.    The interest of the ordinary people of this country will always remain topmost in my priorities as a leader. I remain passionately committed to achieving significant and enduring improvements in our economy that will lead to sustained improvement in the lives of our people.

11.    I am determined to leave behind a better Nigeria, that we all can be proud of. To do so, I must make sure that we have the resources and the means to grow our economy to be resilient, and to sustain improved livelihood for our people. We must act in the public interest, no matter how tough, for the pains of today cannot be compared to the benefits of tomorrow. On assumption of office as President, I swore to an oath to always act in the best interest of the people. I remain faithful to that undertaking.

12.    To save Nigeria, we must all be prepared to make sacrifices. On the part of Government, we are taking several measures aimed at cutting the size and cost of governance, including on-going and continuous effort to reduce the size of our recurrent expenditure and increase capital spending. In this regard, I have directed that overseas travels by all political office holders, including the President, should be reduced to the barest minimum. The size of delegations on foreign trips will also be drastically reduced; only trips that are absolutely necessary will be approved.

13.    For the year 2012, the basic salaries of all political office holders in the Executive arm of government will be reduced by 25%. Government is also currently reviewing the number of committees, commissions and parastatals with overlapping responsibilities. The Report on this will be submitted shortly and the recommendations will be promptly implemented. In the meantime, all Ministries, Departments and Agencies must reduce their overhead expenses.

14.    We are all greatly concerned about the issue of corruption. The deregulation policy is the strongest measure to tackle this challenge in the downstream sector. In addition, government is taking other steps to further sanitize the oil industry.

15.    To ensure that the funds from petroleum subsidy removal are spent prudently on projects that will build a greater Nigeria, I have established a committee to oversee the implementation of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme. I sincerely believe that the reinvestment of the petroleum subsidy funds, to ensure improvement in national infrastructure, power supply, transportation, irrigation and agriculture, education, healthcare, and other social services, is in the best interest of our people.

16.    Fellow Nigerians, I know that the removal of the petroleum subsidy imposes an initial burden on our people, especially the rising cost of transportation. Government will be vigilant and act decisively to curb the excesses of those that want to exploit the current situation for selfish gains. I plead for the understanding of all Nigerians. I appeal to our youth not to allow mischief-makers to exploit present circumstances to mislead or incite them to disturb public peace.

17.    To address the immediate challenges that have been identified, I have directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government to embark immediately on all projects which have been designed to cushion the impact of the subsidy removal in the short, medium and long-term, as outlined in the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme Document.

18.    Tomorrow, 8th January, I will formally launch a robust mass transit intervention programme to bring down the cost of transportation across the country. The programme will be implemented in partnership with state and local governments, labour unions, transport owners, and banking institutions, and supported with the provision of funding at zero interest rate as well as import duty waiver on all needed parts for locally-made mass transit vehicles, which will create additional jobs in the economy.

19.    We will keep these incentives in place for as long as it takes. I want to assure you that Government will not rest until we bring down the cost of transportation for our people. Let me thank the transporters’ associations that have agreed to reduce transport fares. I have directed the Minister of Labour and Productivity to work with these associations to come up with a sustainable plan to guarantee this within the shortest possible time.

20.    In addition, I have ordered the mobilization of contractors for the full rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt –Maiduguri Railway Line and the completion of the Lagos-Kano Railway Line. I have also directed the immediate commencement of a Public Works programme that will engage the services of about 10, 000 youths in every state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. This will create an additional 370, 000 jobs.

21.    Government has taken these decisions in the best interest of our economy, so that we not only have benefits today, but to ensure that we bequeath even greater benefits to our children and grandchildren.

22.    Let me assure Nigerians that every possible effort will be made to ensure that we march forward, with a collective resolve to build a Nigeria that can generate greater economic growth, create and sustain new jobs, and secure the future of our children.

23.    This Administration will aggressively implement its programme to reposition and strengthen our economy, while paying adequate attention to the immediate needs of our citizens.

24.    I assure you all that we will work towards achieving full domestic refining of petroleum products with the attendant benefits.

25.    As I ask for the full understanding of all Nigerians, I also promise that I will keep my word.

26.    Thank you. May God bless you; and may God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR
President
Federal Republic of Nigeria
January 7, 2012

There are many ways to skin a cat

2012-01-07T17:24:00.000+01:00

It's so easy to copy and paste some calculations from somefolk showing how there really is no 'subsidy' or on the other side hownon-removal of the 'subsidy' can ruin the Nigerian economy for the ‘next generation’.They’re all out there, you choose based on where your sympathies lie, or if youare a harder worker, you try to play with your own figures.

It sounds erudite to be one of those supposedly ‘in the know’supporting the 'subsidy' removal due to privileged understanding of some arcaneeconomic principles which 'the masses', sadly cannot understand. On the otherhand, it sounds popular and exudes camaraderie to shout about how the most evilpeople (this government) have come again, retweet statements with theoccupynigeria hash tag, and try to create a few witty ones. It is so easy tojoin a movement, even when we do not know the real issues involved; humans havethis herd mentality.

Delayed gratification is very real, and so it is notunreasonable when people say there have to be some pains today for gains tomorrow.Most successful people had to obey this principle at some point. In a lot ofsituations, mediocrity is a result of avoiding the principle of delayedgratification. There is a general affinity for free in Nigeria, many Nigerians wouldrather have all the freebies possible than get what they need by work. It isexhibited in so many ways. This is a serious problem, and is, I believe one conceptwhich has made some tend to relegate to the background the real adverse effectsof this ‘subsidy’ removal on a lot of Nigerians.

That being said, it is insensitive to belittle orwrite off the effect the ‘subsidy’ removal will have on the majority in thiscountry, it smacks of conceit, and is somewhat haughty to take a position which refuses to see the gravity of the effect. Probably all reading thispiece will be well enough. This is not to be said of majority of Nigerians. If thereare alternatives, those should be taken, if there are ways of easing the pains,those should be in place first. Some have tried to describe in detail thedifficulties being experienced and that will be experienced. I think they arevery real.

One thing I'm sure of is that till one has been in a certainsituation or state, it is really difficult to understand the specific situation/ state, no matter how much we may think we do. Our responses to issues would varymarkedly (more than you or I would imagine) had we been in alternatesituations, and this is why no matter how sure we are of our positions, weshould not deride or make light of another's position. I really think we alloperate from a position of limited knowledge, some more than others, and thisis one reason why we must make allowances for other opinions.

Anyone can make calculations; Nigeria has intelligent technocratswho can churn out beautiful policies anytime, and our leaders are experts atsetting up committees, most times fruitless it seems. The proposals for how ‘subsidy’savings will be used on development might be brilliant, but we should all knowby now that this is not the problem in Nigeria, the problem is not a dearth ofintelligent minds making good plans; the problem is always – will it beexecuted? Will the all powerful hawks not again hijack? Will the same cabal whowe are told have been re-routing subsidy money for their purposes notagain find a way to make the savings largely useless for us?

Let’s take even a simplistic look; one thread is that thesubsidy monies were getting into the wrong hands and removal of this willredirect the monies to more appropriate places. Brilliant! These ‘hands’ are sopowerful that our government knows the money is getting into their hands, andall it can do is go “hush, let’s take our money away from these folks, we can'tdo anything to them, let them keep all they've taken, let's see if we can stopthe rest of it reaching them”. It keeps nagging at the back of my mind thatthese same all powerful folks will simply find ways to take back the funds channeledaway from the subsidy.

Can we start getting rid of our own innate greed and laziness?Can we start being objective on all counts, and not switch to whatever iscomfortable when it concerns us? Can the excessive waste at the upper echelonsbe curbed? The simple fact that the quest for 'leadership' is exceedingly bloodytells that something seriously is amiss. If we cannot come to a point where themuch touted vices of Nigeria (they havebecome so used, they are now cliché and sound trivial – the problem of overuse)are truly tackled, economic proposals will not solve our problems.

I daresay the 'fuel subsidy' is not the issue withNigeria. It seems to me the issues with Nigeria are NOT being addressed. There is more thanone way to skin a cat, why must we do it the way that seriously hurts hundredsof millions of people? I do not lay claims to a thorough understanding of theeconomy, or having in-depth financial insight. We have myriad intelligent folkswho have spent a good part of their lives getting cozy with that and areexperts in such areas. I believe they can find a good number of places fromwhich to ‘save Nigeria’s economy’ if really what the wise ones say about theeconomy failing is true, and I have come to a point where I have lost faith inthese leaders and don’t even believe them. It’s difficult to know what tobelieve these days. One failing I see in all written is that I give no realalternative to the subsidy removal. I refuse to even try because I amnot in a position to see all the angles properly. I would just spurt somegeneric thing that is neither here nor there. There are many who can and are inmore proper positions to proffer such alternatives. They can tell us. A lay view,one guided by just commonsense, suggests there are possible alternatives.

Leaky Radiators on a Bridge in Carmaggedon

2011-11-15T23:15:00.001+01:00

The story is one of a faulty vehicle, acongested bridge, a motor bike carrying a special individual, militarybrutality, and speculations on its effect on the psyche.

I was at my desk on a Monday morning,having stepped in right on time at 8.30am. Normally, I’d be greeted by a sea offaces, who all would be in various states of preparedness, women putting onmakeup, and some trying to eat, having been forced to jump out of bed at unholyhours and get ready in a bid to rush to various stops for the relative ease offollowing a specific bus to work. This would ease the unprecedented stress ofmaking all the bus connections in the crazy morning Lagos rush hour byproviding a straight ride to destination - not totally comfortable and devoidof the hustle and bustle, but better; little mercies. On this day, however, thefaces were not up to a pool, not to talk of a sea, maybe a trickle, and Ididn’t see the bus in its conspicuous position reawakening that nagging thoughtin my mind of how late I had come (though not actually late) when people fromafar had since arrived. I wondered why they hadn’t arrived yet on this day andwas sure it was because of the special Monday morning traffic that would putanything in New York to shame. It’s carmageddonin Lagos, Nigeria in the mornings - a top rated series showing 6.30 am to 8.30am weekdays.

It is the moment of my wondering. At thismoment, our bus is being towed by the dreaded LASTMA, the terror of vehicleowners in Lagos. What got us to this point? The tale is that the bus hadstarted this morning on its route, getting filled up human by human, and wasnow on the renowned 3^rd Mainland Bridge. A lot of stuff happens onthis bridge, I keep wondering why. One answer I come up with is maybe becausethe bridge is so long, the probability of lots of things happening is higher –of course, another is that the special effect of the unending traffic jam onthe machines thus suspended above water is too much for some of them to bear.

Well, ‘things’ happen everyday to differentvehicles on the bridge and it was the turn of our bus today. There was someradiator fault, all the water spilled out, and the bus had to stop. It wasfixed (patched rather) right there to a state where it could move, but nocruise are we talking about here, just hobble along. As our bus was hobblingon, so unfortunately, there was a certain motor bike on the bridge, to becalled ‘okada’ as motor bike sounds too nice for that particular one. The okadawas trying to get around on the nearside of the bus, and with the bus hobbling along,it obviously swayed some and gave the bike a real scare. Shouts of ‘you wankill person!’, ‘you wan kill person!’ rent the air.

Now, there was someone conferred withspecial powers on the bike. He had gone through the rough and tough Nigerianmilitary training scheme. I don’t know what rank he had, but if he were aColonel, he wouldn’t be on a bike racing down the bridge that morning. Well,okada pulls up in front of the slow, handicapped bus making it stop, okadapassenger with special powers gets down, smashes the bus’ side mirror and thenboards the bus to vent his anger at the ‘threat to his life’. Obvious target isthe driver who must be responsible for swaying and scaring the bike. This‘military’ man pummeled the driver seriously with no mean blows, and I refrainfrom giving the gory details.

Someone in the car behind came to appeal tothe military man’s sense of reason and explain that it wasn’t the driver’sincompetence, but the vehicle’s issues that caused him whatever pains he bore. Sadly,nothing good was to come out of this as the military man simply grabbed him bythe jugular and threatened to throw him over the rail into the ocean, much goodthat did him, eh. Another military man similarly on another okada rode up, sawa fight featuring someone in khaki and joined in the party with his compatriot!No knowledge of what had transpired, just joining the fight – nay, pummeling -like a brute. I don’t need to tell you how scared the occupants were, you mightwonder why 20 people on board did not make any challenge, why? I don’t want tospeculate, as some of my thoughts might not be very nice to bare, but theNigerian society is one which has been so cowed by numerous brutalities fromvarious quarters, I’m sure everyone was imagining guns and gunshots, and thiskept them tightly glued to their seats, hoping the beaters’ attentions wouldnot be drawn further than the driver’s seat.

Eventually, LASTMA folks showed up toremove the vehicle causing a nuisance on the bridge. The military folks hadmoved on of course, and the big bus was hitched up to LASTMA’s towing vehicle.After a little haggle, a payout of $125 (paid in naira of course) wassufficient to get the LASTMA folks tow said bus to the destination, instead ofto a LASTMA office. And in this way I was able to arrive at work before thebus.

This is just one happening, one of thenumerous things that happened this morning, but it calls some things to mind.It brings to mind among many others

1. the issue of military brutality

2. the issue of bikes racing downa major bridge

3. speculations as to the effectof military brutality on a person’s psyche

I can talk about different things, I canlook at various angles, but the facet I’m interested in now is the issue of militarybrutality and its effects. True, anyone would be really incensed that they werealmost crushed at the side of the bridge, but is this the kind of reaction thatshould come from anyone, least of all those sworn to protect the nation andentrusted with weapons. If he had a weapon in hand at the time, would we have adifferent story now? It is a matter ofgrave concern when our military behave this way, and this kind of situation isnot an outlier, it would be at least acceptable if it were because we cannotrule out every negative. On the contrary, they happen so often, and we onlyhear about the few that get publicized or that affect us directly.

Looking at it in another light though,isn’t it possible the military man had a right to use his force in avengingthis threat to his life? This is no joke, he could have been crushed, or fallenover in panic, his entire life gone. Isn’t any reaction short of extremes likekilling the offender to be condoned? Doesn’t his training and bearing as amilitary person explain his pugnacity especially in this case, wouldn’t it beodd for him to have reacted calmly? These are issues which we can think about andstack against some objective standard, whose basis is actually arbitrary, wecan decide to stick with some strong opinion on this and be so sure our opinionis right, but is there really any right, any objective? There are manyvariables, and I usually think I do not have enough clarity to decide on someissues – or do not want to put in the effort to.

This takes me to the issue that bothers memost – what does this kind of assault do to us. What happens when someriff-raff soldier jumps on a ‘respectable’ gentleman and starts pummeling? Howdoes the gentleman feel? What does it do to his confidence? This is no collegebully situation; this is ‘life’ (though college is life also). Gentleman mayhave wife and kids sitting in the car, observing the ugly exchange. After this,life should go on normally, but does it? Is any impression made on thegentleman’s psyche? Africans, nay, Nigerians bear a lot, and so we will, but Idaresay it must be a really horrible feeling being in such a situation, totallyhelpless, where the thought of the possibilities (soldier herd mentality) keepyou from even defending physically.

Thankfully, these issues are not as sordid comparedwith the sort of brutality we saw in Rwanda or we see in Somalia. Whenever Ithink about a picture I saw of a child who had been converted (literally) to a‘beast of burden’ all battered and beat up so badly the mouth could not open,and nourishment had to be taken in as fluids, I wonder at man’s capacity, and italso makes me feel thankful that we’re not at such depths yet. That is anothersubject altogether though.

SANUSI’s SPEECH AT LAUNCH OF "NIGERIA, AFRICA'S FAILED ASSET?" BY OLANIWUN AJAYI

2011-04-30T21:33:00.000+01:00

If you write a silly book, don’t invite Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to make a presentation. I guess Olaniwun Ajayi has learnt from this. Sanusi faults Olaniwun Ajayi on Northern domination. The Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, surprised guests present at the Muson Centre for the launching of the book of Sir Olaniwun Ajayi at the Muson Centre in Lagos. The book titled: ” Nigeria , Africa ‘s failed asset?” attracted many important dignitaries, intellectuals and some governors. The argument by discussants centered on whether or not the colonial masters laid the foundation for the problems Nigeria is currently facing. Many argued that the British loved the North and that was why it gave more than 50 percent of the National Assembly seats to the North at independence.

Sanusi, however, stole the show when he spoke. His speech was anchored on the plank that the British and Nigerian rulers are responsible for the state of the situation Nigeria finds itself today.

Below is his unedited speech.

“Let me start by saying that I am Fulani (laughter). My grandfather was an Emir and therefore I represent all that has been talked about this afternoon. Sir Ajayi has written a book. And like all Nigerians of his generation, he has written in the language of his generation.

“My grandfather was a Northerner, I am a Nigerian. The problem with this country is that in 2009, we speak in the language of 1953. Sir Olaniwun can be forgiven for the way he spoke, but I cannot forgive people of my generation speaking in that language.

“Let us go into this issue because there are so many myths that are being bandied around. Before colonialism, there was nothing like Northern Nigeria, Before the Sokoto Jihad, there was nothing like the Sokoto caliphate. The man from Kano regard himself as bakane. The man from Zaria was bazazzage. The man from Katsina was bakatsine. The kingdoms were at war with each other. They were Hausas, they were Muslims, they were killing each other.

“The Yoruba were Ijebu, Owo, Ijesha, Akoko, Egba. When did they become one? When did the North become one? You have the Sokoto Caliphate that brought every person from Adamawa to Sokoto and said it is one kingdom. They now
said it was a Muslim North.

“The Colonialists came, put that together and said it is now called the Northern Nigeria. Do you know what happened? Our grand fathers were able to transform to being Northerners. We have not been able to transform to being Nigerians. The fault is ours.

Tell me, how many governors has South West produced after Awolowo that are role models of leadership? How many governors has the East produced like Nnamdi Azikiwe that can be role models of leadership? How Many governors in the Niger Delta are role models of leadership? Tell me. There is no evidence statistically that any part of this country has produced good leaders.

You talk about Babangida and the economy. Who were the people in charge of the economy during Babangida era? Olu Falae, Kalu Idika Kalu. What state are they from in the North?

“We started the banking reform; the first thing I heard was that in Urobo land, that there will be a curse of the ancestors. I said they (ancestors) would not answer. They said why? I said how many factories did Ibru build in Urobo land? So, why will the ancestors of the Urobo people support her?

“We talk ethnicity when it pleases us. It is hypocrisy. You said elections were rigged in 1959, Obasanjo and Maurice Iwu rigged election in 2007. Was it a Southern thing? It was not. “The problem is: everywhere in this country, there is one Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba and Itshekiri man whose concern is how to get his hands on the pile and how much he can steal.

Whether it is in the military or in the civilian government, they sit down, they eat together. In fact, the constitution says there must be a minister from every state.

“So, anybody that is still preaching that the problem of Nigeria is Yoruba or Hausa or Fulani, he does not love Nigeria . The problem with Nigeria is that a group of people from each and every ethnic tribe is very selfish. The poverty that is found in Maiduguri is even worse than any poverty that you find in any part of the South.

The British came for 60 years and Sir Ajayi talked about few numbers of graduates in the North (two at independence) . What he did not say was that there was a documented policy of the British when they came that the Northerner should not be educated. It was documented. It was British colonial policy. I have the document. I have published articles on it. That if you educate the Northerner you will produce progressive Muslim intellectuals of the type we have in Egypt and India. So, do not educate them. It was documented. And you say they love us (North).

“I have spent the better part of my life to fight and Dr. (Reuben) Abati knows me. Yes, my grandfather was an Emir. Why was I in the pro-democracy movement fighting for June 12? Is (Moshood) Abiola from Kano ? Why am I a founding director of the Kudirat Initiative for Nigerian Development (KIND)?

“There are good Yoruba people, good Igbo people, good Fulani people, good Nigerians and there are bad people everywhere. That is the truth. “Stop talking about dividing Nigeria because we are not the most populous country
in the world. We have all the resources that make it easy to make one united great Nigeria . It is better if we are united than to divide it.

“Every time you talk about division, when you restructure, do you know what will happen? In Delta Area, the people in Warri will say Agbor, you don’t have oil. When was the Niger Delta constructed as a political entity? Ten years ago, the Itshekiris were fighting the Urobos. Isn’t that what was happening? Now they have become Niger Delta because they have found oil. After, it will be, if you do not have oil in your village then you cannot share our resources.

“There is no country in the world where resources are found in everybody’s hamlet. But people have leaders and they said if you have this geography and if we are one state, then we have a responsibility for making sure that the people who belong to this country have a good nature.

“So, why don’t you talk about; we don’t have infrastructure, we don’t have education, we don’t have health. We are still talking about Fulani. Is it the Fulani cattle rearer or is anybody saying there is no poverty among the Fulani?”, he said.

This is a great message to our generation.

Are we truly ready to develop and unite Nigeria?

SOME INTERESTING VIEW POINT BY BILL GURLEY

2011-03-26T14:31:00.000+01:00

Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in HistoryANDROID

Bill Gurley — Bill Gurley thinks that Android is an unstoppable freight train that will prevail against all its rivals. For Google, Android is not even a product with a business plan. It's just a weapon at the service of their master domination strategy, a way to destroy any potential threats that may eventually kill their search monster. This is how they are doing it and the potential consequences.

"People get ready, there's a train a comin'"
—The Impressions

From Zacks via Yahoo: Mark Vickery, On Thursday March 24, 2011, 4:58 pm EDT "BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM – News) beat its fiscal 4Q EPS estimates by 2 cents per share, but missed slightly on quarterly revenues and offered guidance well below the current consensus. This has sent RIMM shares down nearly 10% in after-market trading…"

Yesterday, after the market closed, Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry device, announced that they would be lowering their current quarter earnings due to lower average sales prices. In a separate announcement, the company proffered that their new tablet will support Android apps, yet the CEO also made it clear that he believes the world is overly focused on the criticality of having a large numbers of applications on your platform. They also suggested that the guidance issue is temporary, and relates mainly to a product cycle not a systematic change in the industry.

Despite all that has been written about Android, as well as its unquestionable early success, the world at large still doesn't fully appreciate the raw power of this juggernaut. I have written about this in the past in Android or iPhone? Wrong Question, and Google Redefines Disruption: The "Less Than Free" Business Model. But even so, the more I see, the more I wonder if I too may have underestimated the unprecedented market disruption that is Android.

Google's unbreachable castle

One of Warren Buffet's most famous quotes is that "In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats'." An "economic castle" is a great business, and the "unbreachable moat" is the strategy or market dynamic that heightens the barriers-to-entry and makes it difficult or ideally impossible to compete with, or gain access to, the economic castle. Here is a great post from the 37signals blog a few years back that walks through several different examples of potential moats.

Google wants to eliminate any potential threat to their castle.

For Google, the economic castle is clearly the search business, augmented by its amazing AdWords monetization framework. Because of its clear network effect, and amazing price optimization (though the customer bidding process), this machine is a monster. Also, because of its far-reaching usage both on and off of Google,AdWords has a volume advantage as well. Perhaps the most telling map with regards to the location of the castle can be found in Jonathan Rosenberg's "Meaning of Open" blog post. In this open manifesto, Jonathan opines over and over again that open systems unquestionably result in the very best solutions for end customers. That is with one exception. "In many cases, most notably our search and ads products, opening up the code would not contribute to these goals and would actually hurt users." As Rodney Dangerfield said in Caddyshack, "It looks good on you, though."

AdWords is a highly respectable castle, and Google would clearly want to put a "unbreachable moat" around it. Warren himself is on record suggesting that Google's moat is pretty good already. But where could you extend the moat? What are the potential threats to Google's castle? Basically, any product that stands between the user and Google and has the potential to distract the choice of search destination is a threat. A great example is Firefox. Like many browsers, Firefox has a search bar built into the upper right corner. This leads to a substantial number of Google searches for which Google pays Firefox a handsome fee. From time to time, this fee must be negotiated, and as a result there are constant rumors that Firefox might chose another search engine, like Bing. Other examples include smart-phones and choices made by carriers and/or handset makers. As an example, a few years back, Verizon set the default search box on Blackberry's to Bing instead of Google. Despite Warren's faith in Google's moat, there are ways to move the needle on search share, or at least hurt the economics by demanding more profit share for distribution.

Nobody can't win against Android business model

So here is the kicker. Android, as well as Chrome and Chrome OS for that matter, are not "products" in the classic business sense. They have no plan to become their own "economic castles." Rather they are very expensive and very aggressive "moats," funded by the height and magnitude of Google's castle. Google's aim is defensive not offensive. They are not trying to make a profit on Android or Chrome. They want to take any layer that lives between themselves and the consumer and make it free (or even less than free). Because these layers are basically software products with no variable costs, this is a very viable defensive strategy. In essence, they are not just building a moat; Google is also scorching the earth for 250 miles around the outside of the castle to ensure no one can approach it. And best I can tell, they are doing a damn good job of it.

With Android, they are not building a business, they are building a moat.

Google has organized this defensive play with precision. Carriers and handset makers that use Android are given economics to do so. The Android version of the "AppStore" shares the majority of its economics with the carrier and handset makers. Once again, they are not building a business, they are building a moat (sorry for the repetitiveness, it's intentional). Because they are "giving away" money to use their product, this creates a rather substantial conundrum for someone trying to extract economic rent for a competitive product in the same market.

This is the part that amazes me the most. I don't know if a large organized industry has ever faced this fierce a form of competition – someone who is not trying to "win" in the classic sense. They want market share, but they don't need economics. Imagine if Ford were faced with GM paying people to take Chevrolets? How many would they be able to sell? What if you received $0.10 for every free Pepsi you consumed? Would you still pay $1.50 for a Coke?

Free software will always win

Android may be the end of the software industry as we know it.

The combined market capitalizations of companies that build desktop operating systems, handset operating systems, mapping software (they give this away with Android also!), as well as internal software that helps to differentiate mobile devices is well over $100B, and may be several times that. Yet, there is no economic law that necessitates that these industries remain in their current form. When software was first imagined as a business, it seemed like a miraculous dream. Because the variable costs were zero, you would make near 100% profit on each incremental unit that you sold. Perhaps the resulting counter-force to this is that if someone can afford to build a near equivalent code base, than they can at their option price to marginal cost ($0.00), the very definition of perfect competition.

One might yearn to suggest that there is a market unjust here that should be investigated by some government entity, but let us not forget that the consumer is not harmed here – in fact far from it. The consumer is getting great software at the cheapest price possible. Free. The consumer might be harmed if this activity were prevented. And as we just suggested above, the market is finally driving towards software pricing that represents "perfect competition."

Bill Gurley joined Benchmark Capital in 1999 after spending two years as a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston focusing on personal computer hardware and software. His research coverage included such companies as Dell, Compaq, and Microsoft, and he was the lead analyst on the Amazon IPO. For the past twelve years, Bill has authored theAbove the Crowd newsletter which focuses on the evolution and economics of high technology businesses. You can follow him on Twitter.

In Silicon Valley we like to make light of industries that are facing digital disruption such as newspapers, the record industry, and the movie industry, suggesting that their executives "just don't get it." Perhaps now we are witnessing the disruption of not just analog businesses, but also formerly interesting digital businesses as well.

John Doerr, once said "The Internet is the greatest legal creation of wealth in history." Android may be the opposite of that, the greatest legal destruction of wealth in history.

Some funny definitions. Copied. Copycat.

2011-02-13T18:37:00.000+01:00

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

16 Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n.. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v.. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

PUBLIC HEALTH DEGREE - FICTIONAL MOTIVATION LETTER

2010-12-28T07:57:00.000+01:00

Scabs – scabs on the arms, scabs on back sides, scalps littered with some powdery looking stuff. Not nice to look at, even less nice to touch. That was the scene before me in the village of GongoMaliki, a remote village in Northeastern Nigeria. I had joined a group on a voluntary outreach exercise to the village folk. We intended to make a little joy flow into their lives; these ones were in darkness – even literally (no power supply). I joined a subgroup that had the task of cleaning up the kids and we saw many of them had not brushed in months (in order not to sound outrageous, I won’t say years, but actually, years), they had teeth I lack words to properly describe. Unfortunately, and very sadly, these disturbing images are duplicated in so many other rural communities (even in city slums) in Nigeria, nay Africa.

It’s the 21^st century with the ipads, OLED screens and i7 Intel processors, facelifts and all our technological bells and whistles, but I visited a community called Kijwean in this same decade and saw to my utmost dismay women who had not an inkling what sanitary pads were. They used cloth wrappers for their periods, not even very clean ones. I had to force out of my mind the thought of how discomforting and unhygienic a situation it was before I’d think myself to illness, illness of the mind expressed in the body.

I have heard from third parties, and seen firsthand all sorts of deprivation. This has grown into a burden in me, a burden to channel my life towards making a difference, towards improving some lives health wise. I definitely cannot change everything, I cannot help everyone suffering, in the dark, but I can definitely help some people, engender change in some communities. This is something worthwhile; it is something I have to do.

It is one thing to have a good intention; it is another to actualize that intention. I had to find a way to translate my desire to reality. Riffling through the options, searching for what path would translate my intentions to reality, it became more and more glaring that a degree in Public Health would put me in the best position to do something positive in this direction, would equip me with the requisite skills and know-how, and expose me to opportunities to bring change to at least a community, touch some lives, raise the standards of health in my country, and my continent.

This is my motivation, this is my burning desire. It is this that makes me want to undergo training in Public Health at your renowned institution. An M.Sc in Public Health from XYZ University will put me well on the path to achieving my vision, contributing just my little quota to making my world a better place. I can already envision 10 years ahead a tangible improvement in seventy (70) distinct communities, my M.Sc in Public Health actually delivering health to the public.

PROPOSAL TO FOSTER DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA IN TEN YEARS: REORIENTATION AND A RADICAL NEW APPROACH TO EDUCATION

2010-12-28T07:45:00.001+01:00

The greatest resource on earth is undoubtedly the human resource. Every other falls a distant second. Without humans to harness oil deposits, mineral deposits, they’ll just remain what they are – deposits. Nations like Japan, Switzerland, and many others with little or no natural resources are proof. Against this backdrop, we see that Africa is in a dire situation. In spite of our abundance of resources, we lag behind in almost every sphere of endeavour. This state of affairs can be traced to the squalid state of our human resources, a result of the seriously flawed orientation of the typical African, and the extreme morass of education in Africa today.

The orientation of a typical African, having been so buffeted by the environment is a very negative one. Ask someone in my native Nigeria what he/she will do in a position with access to public resources and what you’ll hear 95% of the time is ‘I go chop my own enough before I comot from there’, colloquial meaning said individual will make sure to take his/her own share of the ‘loot’, as public resources have unfortunately come to be perceived in my country. Horrible as it might sound, the typical African today is insecure, with the instinct to grab as much as possible ‘before it finishes’; the ingrained idea that only by corrupt means can anything reasonable be obtained; the illusion that he/she can offer nothing of value; the sense of a lack of empowerment and powerlessness to create value. (Of course there are exceptions). This situation has engendered the myriad problems we keep seeing in Africa which do not need mention.

Seeing through the lens of my country Nigeria, it is obvious that education in Africa has fallen to abysmal levels. It begins to look like the colonialists brought formal education as we know it today, only to bid it follow them as they left. We seem never to get it right anymore. This is evidenced by several indicators listed below:

- The fact that African schools are a long way down on any ranking of schools in the world. Whatever parameters are used to judge, African schools seem to be found wanting. According to a certain ranking, the top ranked university in Africa is 317^th in the world, and after that, the next ranked are in the thousands.

- The perennial exodus of African students abroad for further studies. (It is gladdening though that in spite of the conditions at home, they go out and excel). Conversely, you will find practically no foreign students in Africa in search of academic excellence. It is obvious that people with means, the African ‘elite’ always send their wards out of Africa to school.

- We hear endless tales of sleaze, corruption in the school sector, particularly in Nigeria which I am very familiar with - money changing hands for admission into schools, for grades in school, throwing merit to the winds.

- Comparing the performance of African schooled graduates and foreign schooled counterparts professionally, it is evident that the foreign schooled ones perform better, have a better grasp of their tasks. Most celebrated Africans had a stint of foreign training. With rare exceptions, this trend is pervasive, and it is possible to keep recounting situations that bear witness to the fact.

Something that is even more painful, more difficult to believe is that there are still areas where there are no educational structures, and also areas where the structures are a total charade, producing youth who have not an inkling what their education should have been, youth who cannot read in their supposed language of instruction at secondary school level, who cannot add up three digit numbers successfully. This happens particularly in the rural areas. I happened to teach for a time in Kpambo Yashe, a village in Taraba State in Nigeria where my JS3 students could not read their notes, they were practically drawing the alphabets in their books from the board, not writing them. They also did not understand as basic a concept in Mathematics as place value.

The cumulative effect of all this is that the products of the African education sector usually are disoriented and do not know what to offer for capacity development, graduates do not really know why they make career choices, simply put, a general lack of progress, retardation.

The way out of this morass, the way to make progress and develop Africa is to

Change the orientation of the African youth
Improve the quality of education in African schools

These can be achieved by:

- Including in the curriculum of African schools a compulsory life building skills course which will expose the youth to goal setting, values, self esteem, communication skills, etc., natural principles of success.

- Setting up an aggressive rural education task-force which will make sure an appropriate level of education is provided for the rural areas, and that their peculiar circumstances, like language issues are taken into consideration so that this large set of the population is not neglected, and so much potential wasted. Enticing incentives have to be initiated to push qualified educationists to the rural areas.

- Strongly biasing education towards career building. Youth should be educated on how they can apply what they learn to the real world. Case studies of career people can help in this respect.

If these are implemented, there definitely will be tangible change on the African continent, as the most important, most essential resource will be empowered. Africa will rise!

MY ROLE IN CREATING A PEACEFUL WORLD: THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST

2010-12-28T07:37:00.000+01:00

It is a thing of the mind; like true dance, it buds from the inside and blooms on the outside, shedding beauty and harmony all around. It is not won by might, as myriad wars, too numerous to mention have shown us; it is not the fruit of mere human declarations as can too well be attested to in this chamber. Peace defies political will, as too many a government can tell. How then can this elusive peace be achieved? To draw an analogy from a very popular book, the voice of God was not in the roaring wind, it was not in the blazing fire, it was not in the rushing waters; it was only found in the still small voice.

I see a world in which my fellow African will see a uniformed, armed man, and not have the negative emotions of fear and worry as default emotions; a world where there is acceptance and respect for everyone, irrespective of belief or race; where human rights are totally respected; where technology is not applied to develop weapons, but is channeled to human development; where there is political stability and economic well-being; not just a world without wars and rumours of wars, but one filled with positive peace, the cultures and structures of peacefulness; a whole comprised of peaceful individuals, peaceful souls.

In 2001, the hustle and bustle of Lagos metropolis could be outdone only by very few places on the earth. Even larger cities, because of better organization were less rowdy. There was so much entropy in the air, everyone was supercharged. The bus driver and conductor were habitual receptors of pent-up frustration from myriad passengers. Every single thing engendered a quarrel. I would respond to the conductor’s rude and aggressive demand for payment courteously and put in a kind word because I would think of his horrible work conditions and the impossibly large amount of anger he could only survive by reversing. It must be said that in most cases, the conductor responded more genially to me thereafter.

In a very tiny village in Northeastern Nigeria called Kpambo Yashe, one borehole was the sole source of water during the dry season. I would wait my turn on the queue and not impose on the children and women fetching water which was rote for us short-term teachers. The result was that these ones who would only grudgingly get out of the way for some other colleague would happily move forward my twenty litre can and help me fetch.

I once had a data analysis job to do, a short contract job. It had to be executed in phases. We had our timeline, terms of agreement and all. I carried out my first phase on time, then I needed the client’s input to go on. The client overshot the time limit and put me in a tight corner. I could have taken my pay and walked, but I decided to give in some and go ahead with the project, though with this time lapse, things were not too favourable. I did it because the cons on my end were far less than those on the clients’ end. I am not suggesting that business be done shoddily by any party, I just try to draw out the point that we should be selfless enough to take a little inconvenience for someone else’s good – to save a neck (or a job), salvage a situation, maintain a harmonious relationship, especially when our downsides are not grave.

Those are parts. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. It is the little, simple things that matter – a wink to a child here, a kind word there, a smile, a non-domineering personality, a tweak of character to be honest, just and more selfless, these are the things that create a harmonious individual, and eventually a peaceful world. If we must achieve this peaceful world we dream about, if ours and the following are to be generations of peace, justice must be on the forefront of our characters. Justice is an essential factor for a peaceful society, as is evident from various truth and reconciliation committees. We must reject the tendency to dominate other humans which only causes strife and insecure feelings in the dominated, feelings which in turn shatter inner peace. We must have a change of heart.

Simply put, true peace starts from the heart. True, all this wielded by one person alone will achieve next to nothing, but if young people the world over will tread this path, then, just like a thousand people, each holding one candle will bring a blaze to this room, so will our collective endeavour produce a bloom of peace, our dream, a peaceful world.

Nigerian City Postcodes

2010-09-10T17:25:00.000+01:00

Umuahia 440001

Abuja 900001

Yola 640001

Akwa-Ibom 520001

Anambra 420001

Bauchi 740001

Borno 600001

Delta 320001

Edo 300001

Enugu 400001

Imo 460001

Jigawa 720001

Kano 700001

Kaduna 800001

Katsina 820001

Kebbi 860001

Kogi 260001

Kwara 240001

Lagos, Island 101001

Lagos, Mainland 100001

Niger 920001

Ogun 110001

Ondo 340001

Osun 230001

Oyo 200001

Plateau 930001

Rivers 500001

Sokoto 840001

Taraba 660001

Yobe 320001

Abakaliki 840001

MUTILATE THE GENRE - OVER AND OVER

2010-04-28T18:57:00.000+01:00

Humans are such repititive creatures!

Little wonder they've got so many preachers and teachers

To show how to keep doing things of agelong years.

For years before I had a clue that my hand is a hand,

Humans have waited for nighttime to journey to dreamland

E'en before my two folks met to think to spawn a fella

It's all a gent can do to keep from bedding a Bella

Before I knew about tastebuds and the lushness of the tuber

There'd been Israelites straight out of Egypt throwing tantrums over the cucumber

I see the Virus wrapping some stuff in printed sheet, though it's from the press

But the talking vine says there's been a line of grass long before Pineapple Express

They keep calling this name over and over and I might just go nuts from hearing - it's Obama

But you - and I've got this sense of dejavu - and that time it was Osama!

And now it's in my mind to scram and save my brain the strain

But long before loads of men have thrown theirs down the drain

So when you call a man a creature of habit

It's not because some nun in Austria dons a habit!

MY PLACE

2010-04-28T18:48:00.001+01:00

It's a dangerous place, and I think I'm there. I'm not getting there, I'm there, and I need rescue!

It's a place of saturation, it 's a jumbled place. It's a good place to be, and it's a bad place to be. It's a good place when I'm alone, but it's a bad place when I'm with someone. Some in this place have enough powers of discrimination to neutralize the bad, but I do not, and so it's really bad for me - acid bad.

A handful would understand my story, I definitely do; a cityful would not. The problem is this cityful who would not understand would only misunderstand it as arrogance, and conceit, but I know, and the handful would know it is not. Do I reap the release and placebic healing of telling for the seed of the city's misunderstanding?

In this place, I do not know everything, but I know how to know everything. In this place, I know I can get anything I want when I need it. Things in this place are not material, they are not to be held and turned around, and pored upon and perused with the physical eye. They are not to fall and make some metallic clanging sound or wooden sound or tingling sound; They are not to give any sensation to touch, warm or cold or in between. Things in this place do not have physical form or presence. Things in this place are bounced around unknown, underdiscovered paths and tunnels, in arcane and mysterious ways - not to a few privileged ones though. These things is knowledge - information's the better word I think, so these things 'is' information. Forgive me, O Queen for the mutilation, but poor me cannot find a better way to say. No bones, that is how it its. In this place, I know enough to know when I need to know what I need to know, and to get what I need to know when I know what I need to know. Maybe it's delusion at this point, but I think I have a good idea about the boundaries of knowledge. Outrageous!

Now, this deluge, this constant awareness of information has dulled the selection, the discriminative power in me. I takes a lot more effort for me to split the strands as necessary. Facts that I have acquired over time through various means, I cannot articulate. I know them , but I know them as part of the cloud I'm immersed in. These facts can come out when necessary, but then they sem like intuition, like conjectures based on intuition. Do you see the difference? This effect shows up when I am with someone. humans would make conversation, they would have stuff to talk about, they would be able to isolate issues of interest really easily, but I would be in a cloud, unable to communicate adequately. I would not seem to need to know anything, and I would not be able to give anything out. Only with supreme effort would I be able to conjure up something meaningful. Even when the other party brings something up, I reply mechanically and cannot add spark to the conversation. There are exceptions - certain people, lucid moments where there is clarity. Would exceptions were the norm.

Forgive me for using this analogy, do not misunderstand it. It's just the easiest one that comes to mind. I feel like one who has Sofield's condition - low latent inhibition - but without the genius of Scofield. I'd be topnotch if I had the mind too handle it all, but it's pulling me down because it is not.

SMALL TOWN, BIG TIME

2010-04-28T18:40:00.000+01:00

Big. You’re happy, but no! It’s not the big time you like to hear, it’s not that big time, we’re not talking making it big in the small town. This big means plenty. We’ll see.

Life is dynamic, the state of life constantly changing. Situations, circumstances, the environment all put heads together to alter the course. They change our life glass lenses – a deep brown to a sunny red, one gray tinge, then it’s all clear. Keeps changing before our very eyes.

High energy, high entropy, loads of folks on the sidewalk bumping into me, turning left when I’m heading right; ah! That new glass building’s almost finished, and it’s the tallest in the area now! They’re arguing too much on this jammed bus, hope it doesn’t break down to fisticuffs; screeeeech! I have to screech to a halt before the line. The lights are red, LASTMA’s on the road – some not too nice combo. This long train of vehicles, I can’t even see where they start! Damn! I should be there in 30 minutes. I’ll jump off this bus and hop on that bike. This car train is not the way forward – I guess the weaving bike is.

I’m not there anymore, I just have memories. I’m not there. That was big town. Now, I can always see the sky, the clouds, the stars – well, except I’m under that big tree. Staircases – a thing of the past, don’t even think lifts – this state of affairs makes for fast ‘entry’, that’s an upside. These petrol stations never have more than two pumps, and the only roofs with shiny lights appear on star-studded nights – really high roof that makes for-retractable I guess. Something happened to gas and gas cookers. I’m sure it’s a weird ploy to make kerosene and kerosene stoves popular. Lethargy, ‘siddon look’ – those are famous gentlemen here. Everyday’s a weekend; it’s too slow, soo slow. There’s so much time, there’s plenty time, there’s BIG time. This is my small town. I’m here now.

They’re on my mind a lot now, I appreciate them a lot more – my folks. I spend more time reading my Bible, praying now. My senses are slowing down – think opposite of ‘Wanted’. I am like the anti-Wesley. I cannot shoot off the wing of the fly. I think it’s the mixture of ‘big’ time and low energy. Produces a certain rarefaction. There’s less to think about, less activity, less asides. The most fundamental, the not substantial features of your life come to the fore, like flue in flotsam. It’s either this or I am in a sort of haze I have not an inkling about.

Now, it’s problematic deciding which way this low energy and big time leans. Does it bring out the better elements in us, or do we become – as they say – the devil’s workshop? There are lots of factors in the whole melee. Low energy, big time does not exactly translate to idleness. There is an alienation from haste, however, and there is more time to reason properly, pass those thoughts through the paces. High energy and entropy states actually end up making zombies out of people. Trying to keep up, they have to work like clockwork.

For me, small town is either making me recognise more fully the most substantial parts of my life, or I am heavily deluded.

I hope it doesn’t follow: small town, small mind, though. That’ll be disastrous. It’s the inverse relationship when it comes to time (small town – big time). I hope I can make it the same for my mind.

I’m thinking I’ve noticed that trend in other folks around. People seem gentler than they would ordinarily be. My subconscious assigns gentleness quotients to folks on sight, just one of the myriad other quotient it assigns – how bad! Everyone seems to be doing better than my marks. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t awoken the sleeping lion. Folks seem to be getting more in touch with God, but stop! Maybe I’m getting it all wrong. I’m thinking and seeing all this probably because of where I’m looking. I’m probably looking in the safe places. Maybe slow town, low energy is driving some folks crazy – like the different ragged mad ones I see on ‘Yola road’ everyday. I’ll accept I don’t know. Not enough data for a near accurate result.

My ‘goodness’ theory is broken when you think about the small town natives. They’ve been in small town basically all their lives for the most part, and in this particular small town of mine, that did not stop periodic riots – no, ‘riots’ is too mild – fights, wars amongst themselves. They actually killed and burned themselves, and not once. What does this do to all that gentleness talk? I accepted I didn’t know already. But watch, some sentences ago, there was this ‘they’ve been in small town basically all their lives!’. Now that shakes up and changes the equation I believe because it’s only this town, this small town they know, that is the only shade of life they have seen, that is life for them. The differentiations are not there for them, and the contrast effect which affects and will affect others will not work on them. We’ll need a new formula to ‘solve their problem’, analyse their behaviour. Can’t apply big time, low energy here. Research continues.

Big; I’m thinking’ big time’ – this time as in the big time we like and want to hear, colloquially, ‘doing well’. Doing big time in small town, maybe that’s what I should be talking next? But big time in small town, isn’t that some sort of aberration? Like a castle among huts – imbalance, imbalance rings in my head. Big time in small town might not be a thing of beauty. Maybe, just maybe as big time starts, town will start to think bigger, just maybe.

ALUMINIUM NIGHTMARES

2010-04-28T18:18:00.001+01:00

Basins, aluminium basins – white ones, green ones, red ones, patterned ones, dotted ones; these basins, my daily terror.

It is an instinctive reaction now. The sight of these basins scattered haphazardly around strikes some sort of terror into me.

You wonder why, why do basins, inanimate have such an effect on me? Is it some fetish? Not at all. I’m the last fetishist you’ll find, but these basins have owners, these owners are people, and as I approach this ‘improved water source’ (speaking in UN parlance specially formulated for rural areas I like to think) with my definitely ‘unaluminium’ jerry can, the basins remind me of the awkward period of standing I’m about to undertake, definitely awkward, as I stick out like a sore thumb among the women and kids chattering in their Kuteb language, gibberish to me, the only thing I understand being something that sounds like ‘succour’, a general greeting. They’re definitely not greeting themselves over and over again, so they’re not saying that.

Consequently, you can correctly presume I’m totally lost, I hear zilch.

So they fill their basins, and sit on the earth floor, laughing and playing, and I wait thinking and complaining plaintively to myself, and wondering, “Can’t I ever come here and see no basins, and not have to do my customary awkward stand, and listen to” – forgive me – “gibberish?”

They help though, they never let me stand till the last of the basins, I never see the last of the basins (I wonder if it’s a ploy to perpetuate a continuity of basins in my head), maybe it’s the ‘unaluminiumness’ of my plastic can, but they always let me have a go at the manual borehole, which was completed on April 5, 2009. My can drinks its fill and I depart, leaving basins behind.

My dream came true one morning though. It had rained the night before, and this morning, I stepped out to my improved water source to continue my daily assault on water, and also to be inundated by basins. Glory! I see sparse land, devoid of basin vegetation, the only basin I see, a white one, still on the head of its owner, who is also a ways off in the opposite direction, walking towards our source. I’ll reach first; my estimate of the distances is that I’m closer. I do. I get my water with no basins interfering. Do dreams come true! There was a flash of wonder, but in a split second, realization flooded my mind, and I felt stupid for having entertained that flash of wonder.

The basins are of course all at home, they had their fill from the rain last night. There should have been no wonder, I should have just known!

One day soon, I’ll leave this land of just one ‘improved water source’, and I just hope I do not take along with me a lasting phobia for basins, aluminium basins.

2 Ws: What's Worthwhile?

2009-01-10T02:30:00.001+01:00

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 rationalizing 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 a (rather useless) act of defiance (lol), 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?

2008-12-13T02:50:00.000+01:00

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

2008-12-13T02:31:00.001+01:00

“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

2008-09-19T03:01:00.003+01:00

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!

2008-09-19T03:01:00.000+01:00

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!

2008-08-21T18:43:00.003+01:00

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

2008-07-17T14:49:00.001+01:00

top songz

MEMRESISTOR

2008-07-17T12:14:00.002+01:00

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

2008-07-17T11:59:00.001+01:00

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

2008-07-17T11:55:00.002+01:00

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)

2008-07-17T11:51:00.002+01:00

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!

2008-07-17T11:20:00.002+01:00

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

2008-07-17T11:12:00.001+01:00

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.

2006-08-29T17:27:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-08-29T15:30:00.000+01:00

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

2006-08-03T10:41:00.000+01:00

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.

2006-07-26T11:51:00.000+01:00

REMINISCIN'

Uh, I'll leave that why stuff alone fo ze moment. Some good thots in tow, tho probably, they're only for me, as I dunno who else reads me blog. lol. happens.

So this is Naija, and when u have light - i mean electricity, power - that's how we call it here, light, so wuz sayin when u have light for like 5 hours -or even three at a stretch, boy, that's novel. u're prolly royalty, or u're usin a gen set, so when I got home 2 days ago from work about 8.30pm and there wuz 'light', boy wuz I surprised! Normally, I never meet light at home when I return from work. [Fortunately, I work in some sorta upscale office, so we got uninterrupted power, i don't mean UPS. (Snide laugh).] So there wuz power this day, and I went in, watin for em to take it - u see, that's what we all wait for here, when they'll take the 'light' can u imagine! Well, u can't blame anyone for bein so pessimistic, or bad minded u call it? u see we got natural power, natural light, electricity, but the power body - now PHCN (Power Holders) wuz set up to take away some of the power, hold it to emselves, or to whateva important solid holdant they've got, u know, we the uninitiated don't know much of their stuff. It's top secret, class - O! even the class I know not. That's d extent. So u know what I'm sayin they's better than even MI5, dunno bout CIA - no, that one leaks so much, u'd prefer a leakin tap. Ah! ME yeux sont wide open. What did I jes say? Noooo! u guys don't come get me. Didn't say anything, jes typing. Krayzie. So man, where did I leave this story? I got a serious attention problem, what u say? Jes back from a break where I went and heard peeps talkin. Man, humans, talk. They must talk. What's d matter wid them? CAn't ey live sans talk? I hope I ain't android stock.

Light. So back to d lame story. So lame, I can't seem to wait complete it. There wuz (I left again and am back. now i gotta finish this crap story now with no shine, no fanfare, or it'll never be finished.) light that dy, it didn't blink at all all thru the nite, and me, being accustomed to stone age acts - usin bush fires and the great old lune for sight and navigation (r u dumb? - not even the stars) didn't know what to do with such largesse. So I slept. Good ole stone age act. No, well, I ain't sooo bad, jes that I'd left me PC power cables somewhere else, and taken me PC someplace else, and didn't have bluetooth power, all em cords, and TV's jes full of crap programming, and there's no laptop, as it shd be stone age, I'm even under the dagger of arrest as it stands with the unMac PC, so u see, had no choice.

For y'all out there who think I'm crazy at this point, and even all ya who were soooo gutless u couldn't get here: great brain brother! Don't that make u believe u more? I'm even gettin scared of me.

So the next day, thAT'S YESTERDAY, it happened again. Light thruout again till I left this mornin. I'll learn fast how to use it, so don't be sorry 4 ME! Angry grin. Grrrr.

K. enough of that story. I'm in d highbrow area, pent house office (OOh I wish - or do I don't wanna think I'm tryin to be a patry of that pretty picture and fall out that pretty picture window - the highbrow part shd be tru, tho.) so I'm in d office, with me laptop - it's actually tilting to slow compu age here - and slo net connection, learnin to blog (Gees, r u dumb?! U're not even funny.) O, pleeeease management, read me blog, give me this laptop for keeps. Snarl. Tho it's so damn slo. Bad ... Now I'm good, I don't use swear words, so imagine - IMagine That.

That makes me think I shd do a blog about Naijan songs someday. Jes hope it's not only me reads it. It seems so much effort to put up a good blog, espwhen u shd be workin on some dumb job, and u got a slo conn ectin, and none at all at home. I'll try tho. ha hoooooo ha ha. Imagine That's a tap naijan song. Tight by a tite group - Styl Plus. U need to hear it.

Aight. Let me stop now, or I may never stop. Ooh, jes remembered sth I wanna talk about again, well, I'll jes put it short.

It's not rained since that light bringing day.Hooray, some dry spell. Things r really changin - for the gooder. Dry.

I think about the power, God's answering me prayers. Wow, that gives me joy, and hope,a nd belief. Wow.

2006-07-22T11:50:00.000+01:00

I did this before, and it didn't post Very discouraging. After writing all I wrote, no blog yet. I've not got all the time, and - gees, I'm sounding like I'm blaming blogspot, when it's actually me own connection. Why didn't u get good internet access? Well, I'll tell u. Cos I'm in Naija and u don' t need to know more. Aight.

WHY