Demonstrators 2.0

Web 2.0 and social networking has really picked up all over the world. In areas like Africa where internet access is limited, Social Networks have been a driving force towards the adoption or Mobile Internet. Most people begin using the internet in order to use tools like Facebook of to access webmail. In terms of helping internet spread, social networking is close to pornography in the number of people it draws to the net. (Yes, don't frown. Pornography has been the biggest driving force when it comes to adoption of technology, even if society frowns upon it).

With the growth and popularity of social networks like Tweeter and Facebook, a new tend has been developing. The control and flow of information has moved from State observed(controlled/managed) News channels to people managed social networks. This has resulted in the masses having more power in themselves, with cases of demonstrations been organized and managed via social networks.

The most famous of these has been the Iranian post-election demonstrations. The demonstrations began with Iranians posting statuses on Tweeter of their opposition against the election results. This resulted in demonstrations which soon grew and spread to other areas as information was spread via Tweeter. The Iranian government was able to bar information spread and access by cracking down on the mainstream media. Despite their efforts, the situation proved hard to control as information continued flowing via Tweeter and other social networks such as YouTube. the authorities moved in to try to trace the sources of the information on social sites, but this was limited by the anonymity of such sites and the use of proxies which enable accessing of blocked sites.

Another example of social sites been used to organize demonstrations is the G20 summit. Here, mostly Facebook was used in organizing demonstrations during the last G20 summit. The British police had to deploy their forces to just sit and Facebook the whole day . I know several people who wish their job would have been equivalent to this.

Locally, a situation where a social network has been used to counter authority propaganda and organize mass protests is the Kenyatta University Demonstrations. The students at the institution were passing information regarding the stand off between the students and the university on Facebook. the students voiced their opinions about the standoff in groups, walls on Facebook.Meanwhile the Administration resorted to using memos and posters to voice their opinions. At one time, the university administration noticed the Facebook activity, and put out a memo in the effect which said that it would still maintain the program, despite the threats of strike. The effects of this were not fully seen, as other activities amounting to riots(as mentioned in the above article)preempted the organized strike.

With the Kenyan government aggressively advocating for the spread and use of IT, we wonder whether they are ready to loose the grip in information flow. Will the government be able to manage and control "negative" information flow in times like the Post election violence. is the government ready to upgrade itself to government 2.0?

The Nairobi City By-Laws that Never Were

Well, you have all heard about the proposed Nairobi city by Laws, currently awaiting approval by the Local Government minister. The proposed laws seemed to be quite comprehensive, and ranged from simple laws governing traffic-lights-conduct to the outrageous ones which seek to limit the behavior of city dogs. We here at gramware have been having a feeling that some of the laws on dogs were referring to a word used to co-notate the gender of a female dog; and commonly used to refer to human beings with outrageous behaviours.

Still, we think that there are some laws that city hall missed, and we decided to list some of them here. Most of them might be outrageous, and probably a reason why they didn't make the cut. Here they are:

• It shall be illegal for a city Resident to stop on a street to stare at a video screen for a period of time longer than 15 seconds. any resident contravening this shall be charged with obstruction.
  
  
• Pedestrians within the city shall attempt to walk in almost a straight line. Any pedestrian who walks in a wavy line of a distance less than 10 metres shall be charged with obstruction.
  
  
• Handbags within the city centre shall be limited to a gross weight of not more than 1000 grams. Any bag that exceeds this limit shall be qualified as luggage.
  
  
• Any resident that attempts to use an umbrella should exercise due diligence and care so as not to poke other peoples eyes or to drip on them water.
  
  
• All conversations that exceeds 80 decibels shall be considered as screaming, and if made at such a time that does not warrant screaming, shall lead to the owner been liable to a charge of noise pollution.
  
  
• All city residents shall be required to skip showering at least once a week and at most thrice a week. This is in order to assist in water conservation measures within the city. Any resident who omits a body smell that shall be found to constitute an oduor shall be charged with chemical pollution. Please note that certain brands of perfume and petroleum jelly shall be considered as an oduor due to their smell.
  
  
• Any resident not experiencing armed robbery in a period of 365 days shall be arrested on suspicion of been an armed robber. With the crime rate in the city, it is expected that all law abiding citizens should fall victims to armed robbery at least once an year.
  
  
• All laptops carried within the city should be carried in a shoulder bag. The bag should be clearly marked with the make of the carried laptop, or a closest fit, such that the bag will be recognizable from a distance of not less than 10 metres.
  
  
• Motorists not hooting in a jam shall be charged for behavior that is conducive to obstruction of other road users.
  
  
• All tourist of Caucasian origin within the city shall be required to take a morning jog at least once a week. This shall be termed as a CSR activity that goes in encouraging Nairobi residents to keep fit.
  
  
• Motorists shall drive at such a speed that will make it dangerous for residents to cross the road in built up areas. In case of a traffic jam, motorists will be required to drive as close as possible to the vehicle in front of them. This will restrict pedestrians, who are the main course of traffic jams, from using the road.
  
  
• All shops that sell a certain product shall be required to sell similar makes of the product to their competitors. The product sold shall also be cheap enough to guarantee that the product will be of poor quality. This will create more jobs in repairing and re-purchase of such products, in line with vison 2030.
  
  
• Matatus that have been on the road for a period of not more than one year shall be required to over-lap and drive off road in case of a traffic jam. This is to ensure that the passengers reach their destination in time. Such matatus are also allowed to drive on the wrong side of a one way street.
  
  
• One in very 5 commercial buildings shall be required to be painted in an advertisers brand, especially a mobile phone company. This is in line with beautification of the city.
  
  

We wish you all the best in your endeavors to obey the new by laws. Remember to carry enough money to facilitate payment of on-the-spot fines.

The Unofficial Mascots of Kenya

Of late, Child molestation & other stories related to pedophilia have been having a large share of Kenyan news. Its quite strange that all this stories seem to have cropped up at almost the same time, as if someone was coordinating the action behind the scenes. Above all, the child sexual molestation & homosexual allegations against Father Kizito , a Kenyan Catholic priest of Italian Origin , seem to be leading the pack and gaining the lions share of such stories.

It has gone to such an extent, that whenever the media is talking about anything paedophilic, Father Kizito's photo is shown, even when the story is unrelated to him or does not mention him.

MUDKIZITO1706C.jpg (JPEG Image, 460x234 pixels)

So to say, the guy is now the unofficial mascot of paedophilics in Kenya.

Still on the news & mascots, Kenyans seem to have an in-built gene that makes them have a high affiliation to overturned petrol tankers. This is apparently in the name of making a living out of the spilt petrol by selling it. Since we all know that petrol is flammable, we can guess what has been the outcome of previous petrol fetching excursions as seen here & here.

Given our athletic prowess, and the speed at which we arrive at spots where tankers overturn, we should adopt a mascot for the country. The mascot should show an overturned fuel tanker on fire, and people around it on fire too. It should also show more people running towards the scene. Below are slight imitations of something similar.

997493821_fee4b6fb31_m.jpg (JPEG Image, 180x240 pixels)

1178298176e0ELV3.jpg (JPEG Image, 300x212 pixels)

The Government should abandon efforts of keeping its suicidal citizens from such scenes. Instead, we should have a Rapid Response Police force, complete with a helicopter,which flies to such scenes. The aim of such a force will be to condone off the area for general safety of the public. It should then allow citizens who would like to fetch the fuel to get into the scene with their buckets. This RRPI(Rapid Response Petroleum Incidences) Police unit should also carry body bags to the scene. They should ensure that every one else other than those interested in fetching the fuel should keep a safe distance.

The above should then be marketed as a tourist attraction, and any one willing to watch the ensuing spectacle should be charged a standard fee. You never know, this may even rival the famed Survivor series, and we may even be approached to include this sport in the Survivor Series.

The petrol fetchers should then be awarded marks based on how much petrol they are able to fetch in the shortest time. Talk of innovation.

This week, make sure you keep close to a petrol tanker to beat the cold.

Twitter? What the hell?

Twitter has been in the news on several occasions in the recent past. It all began with a few celebrities using twitter, then it caught on to CNN and Ashton Kutcher going head to head for who gets a million followers first. Ashton Kutcher beat CNN in what was the first demise of CNN on Twitter. This event was closely by Oprah's grand entry into twitter. It was at this point that many people actually joined twitter. Oprah happened to be a major occasion on twitter, with many geeks anticipating that twitter would be overwhelmed by the interest brought on it by Oprah and her millions (if they haven't hit a billion) of fans worldwide. In fact, we gave a Before Oprah and After Oprah Twitter ages.

Twitter has continued growing, with it been claimed to be the fastest growing social network in the world, with a growth rate of about 1300% per month. Ironically , a Harvard research says that only 10% of twitter users contribute to 90 % of the content on twitter; the content is known as tweets.

This is probably because many people do not know what twitter is about, and go ahead to compare it to Facebook. They later realize that this are different services, and this further confuses them to an extent they are unable to utilize twitter. I shall explain twitter by telling you of a recent occurrence.

The Iranians went to elections last week. Like the Kenyan elections, there were suspicions of results been prepared in a kitchen rather than been tallied. Many Iranians were angered by the alleged cooked results, and out they poured into the streets in droves. They posted tweets on twitter and urged other Iranians who were against the outcome to rally in the streets; this soon broke out to riots, just like Kenya.

Tweets, in case you are not aware, is the equivalent of a Facebook status update, or what you post on twitter for the rest of the world to see. Unlike Facebook, anyone can follow anyone in Twitter (which means that you see the tweets for anyone you would like to on Twitter). Tweets are restricted to 140 characters, the equivalent of an SMS. You can also post your tweets via SMS. Unlike Facebook, you do not have to approve for anyone to follow, thus strangers, enemies, thieves, former girlfriends, the president and any Tom , Dick and Harry can be your follower(for the default setting).Alternatively, you can choose to approve followers before they follow you, or block people from following you. On that note, a tech magazine reported last week that a man was claiming that his house was robbed when he twitted that he was away on a 3 week vacation.

So you should be careful not to "snitch" on yourself, or expose private information on twitter, since anyone can find it. You can search for people on twitter by searching "@person" where person is the twitter user name of the person that you are searching for. You can also search for certain information or news by searching for "#info" where info is what you are looking for.

Going back to the Iran example, information about the elections is available on twitter if you search for the keyword(a search term) #iranelection . If you want to hear it from the horses mouth, i.e Mir-Hossein Mousavi(the opposition leader who the Iranians are demonstrating for) tweets, you search @mousavi1388. In case I want to copy mousavi1388's tweet and post it on my tweet, I retweet(RT) it as "RT@mousavi1388blahblah" . If i want to indicate it as related to the Iran election, I add #iranelection to it. Quite simple!

Now, twitter is mostly used to spread news; if you want to invite your friends for a beer party or a study, Facebook is the tool to use, not Twitter.On the other hand, if you are a firm who would like to tell your clients about an event, Twitter is convenient for you.For example, if you have that no 58 matatu that is so on demand,you can tweet its location perhaps every 20 minutes or so, or tell your clients you are stuck in a jam. This is why twitter is a favorite for brands & celebrities.

As for Iran, the incumbent government decided to block the use of SMS in the country and to clamp down on the media,YouTube and other information channels. The Iranian population been a quite internet savvy one(yeah, quite a number of them make viruses and hack) started organizing demonstrations and spreading related information via Twitter.All news about where the next demonstration would be and what the government was doing was spread via Twitter.

Even CNN missed this for 2 days; as the Iranian government forces cracked down on demonstrators, CNN was rewinding the clip that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the elections! Infact, there is a Tweeter feed(a feed is info about a certain topic)about this; #CNNfail !

In short, twitter is an important tool to search for breaking news, and for what is happening in the ground that the government may not be that keen it getting to you.
Remember to follow me on twitter here: http://twitter.com/gramware
You can read more about twitting in Kenya here: http://moseskemibaro.com/?tag=twitter.
You can also read more about the act of tweeting , known as micro blogging here: http://www.geeks.com/techtips/2009/what-is-microblogging.htm

One of us.

So you are one of us? That was a question I was asked by a Human Resource Officer at a ministry which I am attached to. I was doing some maintenance on a laptop in the officers office, when one of her tribes mate came for some catching up. They chatted in their language oblivious to the fact that I was one of them. After I was through, the officer asked for my name. I told her my name, and it then dawned on her that I was one of her tribes mate, or one of theirs. She then proceeded to ask me some targeted questions, which advertisers are fond of asking when doing targeted advertising, such as 'where you come from', 'Where you went to school'.

I have seen organizations(departments) and other workplaces that are dominated by people from the same tribe. Many people prefer allocating job positions to their friends/tribes men , who then invite more of their tribes men. The fact that the organizations human resource is limited to one geographical source contravenes the law of natural selection. As such, the performance of the organization is quite low, given that the best professionals will be widespread, limiting selection to a small area results in a decreasing performance as the organization hires more people who are one of them.

One of the worst implementation of this theorem is the directive that requires constituencies and local councils in Kenya to exclusively give contracts to "one of theirs." This includes professional areas such as civic works. i wonder how many constituencies have qualified road contractors who are able to undertake tarmacking works? this explains why the Chinese are building our highways, while the Americans design our electronics.

Look for "one of yours" today, and share out with them; hang out with them and party with them like they "one of yours."

When none of your business becomes your business

Martha Karua, one of our most hyped politicians, was in the news again. This time round, it appears her god-like status is now fading as quickly as it came up. Some of her constituents were demonstrating against her; odd it was that they were motor-cycle taxi men, not demonstrating against her motor cycle policies, but against her so called support for the mungiki. It is odd, since the activities of the mungiki do not affect cyclists alone, but the constituency as a whole. This had reeked a strong oduor of hired demonstrators, as she claims.

As for the demonstrators and the planners, they appeared to have made a judgemental error when they claimed that their MP was supporting the mungiki. Martha Karua, been a sensible person and a lawyer, has been against the stance that the government is taking against the mungiki, by allowing other so called vigilante groups to hunt for mungiki and kill them. Been against this method, does not mean that you support the mungiki;the two aren't, mutually exclusive.

The government organs in the area are quite happy that someone is taking care of the mungiki on their behalf, by murdering suspects. The problem is that the people been murdered are suspects; according to my understanding of this noun, a suspect may either be guilty or innocent.

You may wonder why Martha Karua is making this part of her many business, while she can simply ignore the issue since it appears like the issue is to the benefit of all.

Well, appearances may be deceptive.Take a careful look at the history of the issue. The government was the sole authority, but had many shortcomings. Then a group of people bridged the gap, and started providing security services. No one questioned this, since it was none of their business; the arrangement appeared beneficial to all. As the group grew, it began to demand for more income , and went out of hand by holding lives as collateral. at this point, it became their business, since their lives were at stake.

Now some so called vigilante groups have rose to bridge the government failures again. Again, for the people whose families are not mungiki suspects, it is none of their business. The government officials in the area are covering up their bare bottoms by labelling critics as mungiki supporters. How long will it be before the vigilante groups begin trying other suspects other than the mungiki? Isnt' this the familar route that mungiki trode? At this point, it will no longer be Martha's business alone. I also hope that the vigilante groups have powers to bring wrongly killed innocent suspects back to life.

The same has happened in the Pakistan Swat valley. Due to government failures, the mungiki equivalent, a strongly armed Taliban took hold of the area. Since they were just restoring order, it was none of the residents business. Then the Taliban were pushed out of Afghanistan by a more aggressive United States army. Seeing Pakistan as a softer opponent, they began expanding out of their traditional remote enclaves, putting them in direct confrontation with the Pakistani army. the Pakistani army launched a counter offensive in the area, displacing many residents. To the residents , it was the government versus the Taliban, still none of their business. When the Taliban are a war, they tend to attack mosques that belong to other moderate Muslim faith, and attack they did. It is at this point that the Taliban became part of the business of the residents of swat valley. They have now taken up arms against the Taliban, and the government is supporting them from aerial attacks.

Point here is that when it comes to human rights and security, it will be just a matter of time before what affects others becomes your business. Ignore it at your own peril. As for the government, what matters is winning the battle, not the war. You might perish in the battle, but the government will outlive the battle and usually outlives the war too.

What is your business today?

My 40 seconds as a thief

Today I arrived at the office in the cover of darkness, not that I wanted to arouse any suspicion, but been a user of Thika road, I have to choose arriving at work either under the cover of darkness or in broad day light. Arriving at work is not the only thing that i have done under the cover of darkness today. Waking up was the first thing I did under the cover of darkness, immediately after which I was hit by a very strong stench, only to discover that its source was yours truly's armpits. In short I now also had to shower under the cover of darkness.

I then went to get water from an outside tap, that is shared by my whole block of flats. This was also done under the cover of darkness. It is at this moment that I realized that I had made a critical mistake; one of entrusting the critical job of providing water for my essential use on this morning to an unreliable firm, aka the Nairobi Water & Sewerage Company. They had lived to their expectation, and had only provided a trickle of water to fill half a jerrycan for the first person in line.

Been the 11th or so in line, things were now heading for the worst. It was the so called desperate times, that call for desperate measures. As more sweat continued to trickle down my now famous armpits, I began calculating a scheme to ensure that I could at least get some water. I looked around and noticed that I was the only soul outside. I then assumed that the watchman was asleep, and that my neighbours were also asleep.

I then decided that been a good neighbour, I should share my neighbours water, since good neighbours are always willing to share. I quickly lifted the jerrycan, and began emptying the water into my jerrycan. I poured the water noisily till we each had an equal share. Just when I was thinking that I had made it through safely , I was interrupted by a sound asking me "We, unafanya nini?" . I froze for a few seconds, and more sweat trickled down my arm pits. It is at this point that I noticed a KPLC powered bulb had quietly gone on in one of the first floor windows during my 40 seconds of crime. It was also at this point that I saw the light in the famed KPLC 'mulika mwizi' advert.

"Mbona unafanya hivyo?" my neighbour continued, "Na vile nimengoja hiyo maji?". I explained to her that "Nilikuwa nagawa maji tu." She then told me to return her jerrycan under the tap. I shamefully asked her if I could return the evidence of the crime to its original place(what else could I do), but been an understanding and loving neighbour, she told me I could keep the evidence. She proceeded to watch me as I returned to my residence, a residence which now housed a thief.

I had by now set a presidence , that I was not one to be trusted in this neighbourhood. I imagine how the rest of the neighbours will be glad to know who has been stealing there water, since this is not the first case. I am also imagining how the watchman will be instructed to keep a watchful eye on yours truly, and how the neighbors will instruct their families to be alert when yours truly is around. The house helps will especially receive firm instructions not to let me linger around their homes, and not to talk with me, an act that is bound to trigger thorough questioning if committed. By now, I also imagine that I have made it to the top of the "usual suspects" of small items that go missing in the neighborhood.

I have also learned that you should never leave any detail to the last minute, and that trusting an unreliable person(firm) is an equivalent of putting your arms in fire. I refused to source for water last evening, awaiting the Nairobi Water & sewerage company to supply it over the night, to no avail.I have also leaned that as a thief, it is a fatal mistake to make any assumptions in this career. I also learned that as a thief, sound is one of your top enemies.

It is so tragic that I did not complete my first 40 seconds of my 1st out of 40 days of been a thief, tragic, tragic!

The Law of Price and the Time of the Month

Yesterday, I arrived home past 10 in the night, which is quite late for my area. Reason been that I was trying to satisfy the law of demand and supply of transport to Kahawa, where I live. According to the economics I was taught before my university was abruptly closed, price drops when demand is low and supply is high. As for yesterday, the more than 20 empty matatus at the bus stop insisted that they had to charge rush hour fare-despite absence of willing passengers at the bus stop-which had only enough passengers to fill 2 omnibuses(Nissans).

I came to realize that the law of demand and supply is not the case in this metropolis of ours, Nairobi. Apparently, its population is quite sizable for the metroplois to disregard common economic laws and come up with it's own replacements. After a quick research, albeit free of common typing errors, I found out that we now have a law of price versus time.

This law states that the price of a good or service will increase & remain constant at a high price at the beginning/end of a month , and then drop to adopt the normal laws of demand and supply during other periods of the month. Below is a graph depicting the law of price and time of the month.

Despite this law, after sourcing carefully, and avoiding common typing errors, you can find a seller whose price is dictated by the law of demand and supply. For example, I had to connect home via Githurai matatus , resulting in a 20-30 shilling(50%) difference for the same journey. As for those who do not have time to source for such sellers, you have no option rather than to follow such laws, you can give your comments below on your encounter with this law.