Social Engineering.

A few weeks ago, my friend told me that he had been robbed of a substantial amount of money, his phone and some other documents by unknown people he met in Nairobi. He says that he was walking along one of the crowded Nairobi streets, minding his won business, as permitted by the Nairobi City Council. He was then approached by a first person who familiarly greeted him and proceeded to *shake* his hand.The first person looked strange to him, but asked him if he could not remember him. He proceeded to *remind* him that they had met at his home area somewhere in Yatta.He even mentioned the name of a family member of my friend.He even asked my friend if he was going to pay his college fee,which surprisingly he was going to do.

Another second person then joined the first person, and the first person proceeded to introduce my friend to the second person as an old friend.The second friend then suggested they go for a cup of tea. my friend doesn't remember what happened after that, but ended up minus his personal effects.

I thought that my friend might have been under the influence of alcohol and that the story was a cock and bull story, until today.

Talking about today, I was walking along the streets of Thika, doing what is permitted by the Municipal Council of Thika.Someone, x, abruptly said hi to me. I said hi back, a 'who-the-F*(okay, who-the-hell)' look. He *shook* hands with me, and proceeded to *remind* me that we had met back home, and that he was a friend to my brother, who he proceeded to name(yeah, real name). He then asked me "how is college, is it Ruiru, or Juja?" I told him that it is fine and that I was actually in JKUAT(I am not there for the record). A second person, y, then approached him, and person x introduced me to person y. person y then suggested that we go take a cup of tea, but I declined saying that I was in a hurry.

Later in the day, I came across person x and y along a different part of the same main street in Thika, and again, they insisted that we go for a cup of tea, or they buy me sugar. again I declined.

If you think mine is a cock and bull story, suit yourself, coz it is not. Be afraid.

Having an expensive phone but communicating cheaply!

If you thought that you can save money in this times of Worldwide Recession(Even Young Jeezy just released a tight album named The Recession) by buying a cheap phone and buying sim cards from "the network with the most subscribers" and "the clearest network" or the new network in town, you aren't that correct. You can buy a middle end phone or a high end phone, and end up cutting on communication costs, such that you end up with the same or lower maintenance budget as that of a cheap phone.

how?, well middle-end and high-end phones from standard manufacturers(read non-china-mobile) come with Java. You can ask that geek friend of yours to explain what Java is, and its mobile implementation J2me(Java platform micro edition) are, or rather, you can just wikipedia them. For a brief explanation, Java is a programming platform that is implemented across varying devices irrespective of their architecture. This means that one java program can be run on different hardware(phones) from different manufacturers(vendors).

Java is found on many colour-screen phones with a camera(expect those number models from China). If your phone has Java, you can download many useful applications free of charge or buy them. Among such applications , are web browsers, which allow you to surf the Internet at a cost of a few cents per page.Also we have chatting applications that you and your friends can download and use to chat instead of sms or calling, again at a cost of a few shillings per hour(yeah, no typing mistake there).

The web browsers allow you to surf the Internet and open many (not all) pages comfortably, from anywhere there is gprs coverage. Among the top browsers are Opera Mini(mini.opera.com) and UCweb6(wap.ucweb.com[select English, and try a different network-read zain-if the one you are using says server or page unavailable]). For lower end phones(read cheaper) you may prefer using the lighter UCweb if Opera is too sluggish.

Instead of calling your friends for hours on end, you can download some chatting applications like nimbuzz(wap.nimbuzz.com) or mig33(wap.mig33.com) which are free, and allow you to send instant messages to your friends . some even allow you to send images and other files, again at a low cost.

I am not going to tell you how cheap they be, try that for yourself. As of today Safaricom Gprs/Edge/Broadband(are they sure that is broadband) costs Kshs. 8/= per Megabyte while Zain costs Kshs. 10/= per megabyte. A heavy chatter can accumulate costs of about 10shs in 3 hours.

Kenyan Road Distances vs. Map Distances

Just the other day, we reopened school. I was waiting for a friend who told me that he was in Mwingi, less than 200km away, and would be here in two and a half hours. He ended up taking almost four hours. Me been the impatient me(yes, am me), had gotten tired, bored and had disappeared.We later had an argument(a friendly one) with my friend.

We later realized that the bad, potholed road was to blame, as illustrated below.This meant that he had a longer distance to cover, hence more time spent on the road!!

Put On Free style

Ludacris has a hilarious freestyle to "Put On(By Young Jeezy Featuring Kanye west)". You can download to listen here as a free user.
http://rapidshare.com/files/143124824/06-ludacris-put_on_freestyle.mp3

Free Stuff? First give me a free Medical Cover

Just the other day, I walked into a supermarket, which happens to have at least one branch on every street in town. My sole purpose was to buy toothpaste, and not chat with the sales ladies there, as my friend usually does, in the disguise that his non existent girlfriend send him for a pack of pads and he wants her advice on the best. I was buying toothpaste after my friends disapproved my method of disinfecting all water that I use for cooking and drinking with waterguard, and then not brushing my teeth since I didn’t imbibe any germs. So I approached the section that hosts the toothpastes and associated stuff.

As I was trying to decide whether the manufacturer of a certain toothpaste had signed as performance contract, I was approached by one of the sales ladies. She proceeded to say that she was offering a certain toothpaste, manufactured in Tanzania, for 67% the price of the other toothpastes. As if not enough, she would offer the toothpaste with a free toothbrush (I forgot to ask her why I would be buying toothpaste if I had no toothbrush).

Furthermore, she would add another small free pack of toothpaste on this offer. At this point, I had to stop my friend, mentioned above, from asking if she too was part of the offer. After arriving home and scrutinizing the offer, I found out that the smaller toothpaste was due to expire in less that 30 days, and of course any effects after that are only yours to blame!

THE INTRODUCTORY IDIOTS GUIDE TO RECOGNISING A FRESHER

1. Once a fresher looses any of their property, they put up posters requesting any good Samaritan who came across(or along it depending on which way you were walking),to hand it to them. The are yet to realize that once you loose anything on campus, no one, and I mean no one, ever sees it.
2. You are sited comfortably browsing in the library, and someone comes and tells you that they have borrowed the book they are carrying and they want you to record it. Damn, that is definitely a fresher.
3. Again you are surfing in the library at around midday, then you neighbor, who is pressed since he has been surfing since 8.00 am, decides to go to the loo (Which are always been cleaned or out of water ).Someone then comes along and posts themselves in your neighbors seat and start using their computer. After explaining to them the computer is private and not library property, the person agrees to leave, but insists that they want to press the “exit” button first to exit from what they were doing. You will not get any marks for identifying this as a fresher.
4. You are in Baghdad, the favorite self service mabati kiosk in KM, and someone comes sits down and proceeds to whitsle, in an attempt to call the man in charge of collecting dishes. When he happily comes along, the someone gives their order of “ugali ya mtama na supu ya ngamia” to be served on their table. Another fresher.
5. Anyone coming from KM carrying a new “Solex” padlock (made in USA china) is definitely a fresher. They are yet to realize that they do not the keys that come with the padlock, since the top from a normal Bic biro will act as a hustl-free-key.
6. Anyone posing in the library to stare at the large blue plastic sign that says what should be on the firsts floor, is (Well, I don’t have to type it, do i?)