Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Dem speaketh from dem azzes

They say, you can take a rabid Dog to Lodwar, but once it gets fare to Nairobi, it will return as just a tanned rabid dog. Nothing More. And the tan disappears. And then it goes back to it’s rabid ways – Chapa-nese Saying.

The big question, when it comes to online content and freedoms, remains : how do we handle the e-smearers and gutter-press? The perpetual/full-time ones and the seasonal ones (e.g. Next year because of elections).

It is a sad state on the net. I have talked about this before, but I will expound on it a bit, sharing the content’s of today’s meeting. There are over 30, 000 bloggers in Kenya. Yes. It is so easy nowadays that any idiot with a spare KSSH 1000 can open a .com blog in 13 minutes flat. For the broke types, all it takes now is a .ning or a .blogspot domain and BAM!! You have online presence.

But let us get a little analytic. Let us discuss the problem, then possible solutions.

Do a quick google search for any mover or shaker in their space. You will find gutter-press, or as we call them, ‘name-squaraders’ who use these names to drive traffic to their pitiful sites with the hope that GoogleAds will score them some coins. Yours truly has also not been spared.

These people are the online equivalent of muggers. They masquarade as writers and steal your time and intelligence from you, as their readers.

Anything will be smeared. Even KenyansForKenya campaign was smeared. The effort. Leave alone the aftermath.

Election is coming next year and it is sad that among us are 10-dollar hoes and sons of 2-dollar hoes that will get paid by some politicians to spread hate in their anonymous blogs. According to the politicians, these are the voices of youth in Kenya. To the rest of us who have a brain, these are debris at the bottom of the food-chain.

So, we cannot ignore the problem. We can only think of possible solutions.

Possible solutions

Well, there is always the Colombian solution of lead. But then again, being civilized people, we don’t want to make a martyr off a online pest, and so, the need for civilized solutions come.

1 – Legal Solution

The new constitution accords us freedom of speech and expression. It also protects every citizen from defamation, character assassination and false-ful representation. That means, you cannot just wake up one morning, and because hujadishi siku tatu, you write what you feel about someone you wish you were. If you can not get the e-pests to pull down the blog-post, legal systems are here to help. More on this soon.

2 – Positive Content

If for every negative content, there are 9 positive ones on a subject, the weighted mean and the indexing on Google etc would suffocate and lower the rankings of the the negative articles.

3 – Censorship

The KIXP and the ISPs would be great players here. We could easily create a vetting system and if a blog or a blog-post hits a negative sentiment threshold of 30%, it could be blocked, perpetually from an ISP level.

4 – Google Blocking

The Google team (Not referring to Google Kenya here) [see google site for removal] has always expressed willingness to remove from its indexes such content. The domain could be blocked from search indexes, too.

5 – Hacking

Most of the blogs are (duh!) on the web and so, this could be a good option. Last option. Bring down the service. For the broke ones who use .ning and .blogspot, this brings a big challenge. You would not be targeting a WHOLE setup (ning or blogspot), not just a pesky blog. Based on terms and conditions on the service, the service could be contacted and if they fail to bring down the blog, we would use ISP-level censorship to block the domain.

Those are my 3 cents.

Back to code.

Wazi!

Launch leo. Acha ujinga.

A few weeks ago, I talked about the high standards and expectations we give ourselves and allow society to give us. The system of rewarding success and punishing failure irrespective of factors. Where the end justifies the means and the means are never allowed to justify the end.

Well, Let me begin by telling a story about a male and a female. Then I will explain the Mantra.

I was once in a club with JC and Jose. Shooting pool as usual. And thence passed a hot mamma. By hot, I mean HOTTT. I am not talking about the average Kenyan gals who run on MS-DOS and 1 GB Ram. This chic had it all. If she were a Cyborg she MUST have been running on an over-clocked Core i7, and Ubuntu. She had all the supporting documents and a very nice, big and bouncy future behind her.

So I told Jose, who was oogling : “The worst thing you can do to a hot chic in a club is FAIL to talk to her. No female leaves home just to go sit at the counter looking hot and pretty. Every woman wants someone to talk to her and engage her in intellectual intercourse. The aim should never be to take her home. Far from it! Let that be determined by how smooth your vibe is, how drunk she gets or how cold the morning threatens to be.”

“What if she puts me off?”, He asked. “She is too hot for a guy like me.”, he said. I was disappointed.

“If you think that, then it IS true. You are as smooth, confident and hot as you let yourself be.”, I retorted.”The worst thing a woman can do is say NO or give you attitude. What else? Hawezi kupiga!!”. I was getting angry, so I decided to show Jose How it is done. “Watch this”.

The gal again passed by us and being the observer, I noticed a small bit of fluff on her hair. “Excuse me”, I said. She stopped and gave me the, what-can-you-offer look. I gave her the simba-mla-vitu look. Then stretched and took the fluff off her hair. And I said. “There. You are now perfect.”.

She smiled. “Nice cologne you got”, She said. “Well, babygal, At least I have ONE nice thing. You have at least 7 nice things. And I have only looked at you for 2 minutes.”, I said. I introduced her to my boys. And let us just say, the night went on well.

“Boys, females love originality and something DIFFERENT”, I told them.

The Mantra

Ok. Sasa tuongee biz. Achana na madem. Madem ni wasee fake? Sio? Shoga wewe! Madem ni wa wanga!

We have a sickness in Kenya. A mental one. I prefer to call it the code-test-and-test-until-every-bit-works-100% syndrome. Or in short, Ujinga. Yes, I know, I have been a victim of this. Alot.

You code a system for 6 months, do a demo and get feedback, go back and possibly redo 60% of the code again. Add 10%. Etc. Buda, system itawahi isha kweli?

Meanwhile, some non-techie idiots come along, launch a replica of your system that just has 10% of your functionality, make millions, steal all the TV and paper headlines, win awards, screw all the fine biatches while you are burning midnight oil.

“That system ni fake sana. Hata haina 1/8th of the features yangu iko nayo! Hata hawaja-implement SSL vipoa. Hawaja-optimize jQuery ama SQL cycles zao.”, you say, consoling your stupid self. I know. Been there.

And then comes the lessons

1. People will not sit there waiting for you to finish your system. Odds are that ONLY you knows what your GRAND-MASTER plan is. Give people something to play with.
2. People don’t care how good your final system will be. They will not fail to use/register for an inferior system because you are ‘Launching Soon’. Fuck that! Launch today. That is why we have ‘Beta Versions’. Gmail was in BETA for 4+ years. A period during which they got 200M+ users and BILLIONS of USDs. From a system ‘yenye haijaisha’. And there you are hoping to finish your ‘system noma’ soon?
3. Think of the hot gals you see in the club. They always go home with the ugliest, fattest, smelliest dudes. Wewe bado una-poze na Gucci kwa counter. The gals are not fake or loose. Ni wewe uko slow and shy. Try launch early next weekend. Utaamka una-smile. And your soaps will last longer.

What is better? Launch leo and fail, while you still have time and psyche, ama lunch in 2014 and still fail?

Heh!

Acha nisambiwe nimeongea mbaya.

Back to code.

Wazi!

This blog post is non-techie and might not appeal to the kawaida reader. It speaks about demons and the like. For the faint-hearted, read no more.

Haiya!

After coming back from Naivasha with 4 Kilograms of Malaria, I stayed indoors on Tuesday. Tossing and turning in bed all day.

Then the hunger became unbearable and I decided to go to ‘Shiba Kisha Ulipe’ restaurant where you eat until you say, “Hassan, please don’t kill us with food!”.

As I entered the restaurant, I was happy to see my favorite spot was free, and even happier to see a beautiful, well-dressed gal seated near there, alone.

So I placed my Galaxy S1 on the table, then my Galaxy S2, then my fat wallet then sat down, disconnected my data connection from the S1, and finally, looked at the gals face. “Hi, Salim”, she said. Hmmmn. How did she know my name? I asked her. “I am a friend of your friend called **Marilyn.”, She said, explaining that I had met her before, briefly, when switching movies with Marilyn (Name changed, ofcourse).

And so, we began talking. Talking about life, music and all the usual fore-play niceties. Then she became serious. “Salim, I have a problem and I want you to tell me if you can relate to it.”, I looked her deep in the eyes, and I could see a woman who wanted some listening to. “I am here. Talk to me”, I spoke, softly.

“My mom, one day, got drunk and told me a very disturbing story”, she started. “When she was 18, she was forced to an early marriage and married to an older man. She then became pregnant with me and she told me how she tried to abort me 3 times. All the times failed, until the doctors advised to the contrary. So all my life, she has been treating me harshly and badly”, she went on. “That is not the worst part. When I was 1 year old, she got married to another man, my current step-dad, and the family on my step-dad side, being people practicing witch-craft, married me off to a demon, to make sure I NEVER have a future.”

Normally, this is where you all start laughing. You that have no experience with the spirit world. You that have not heard of nightly visitations. Those who have not heard of Spiritual Husbands. But for those that want to learn more, read on.

One of the most practiced form of witch-craft in Kenya is the summoning and commanding of evil spirits into an action. The action could be that of using you at night for chores, e.g. Having you wake up and do chores like digging, then you wake up exhausted. The action could be that of strangling you while sleeping until you choke. The third action is that of marrying you and owning you. You will NEVER have a stable relationship. They own you.

When I was between 8 and 12 years old, I would get visited at night by invisble forces and strangled till I could not talk. Then I talked to my Big brother, Ustadh Rashid. And he gave me the solution. Salat and Dhikr.

So, she continued telling me how at the age of 13, she started having ‘funny habits’. She started exhibiting lesbianism, started stealing things. But that was just the beginning. At the age of 16, the spiritual husband would visit her in her sleep, and she would feel a man sexually penetrating her in her sleep. I was listening. I have heard this before. She was glad I know about this. Then came the shocker.

Early, 2010, she would wake up with morning sickness and all signs of pregnancy.  She went to Nairobi Women’s hospital and the tests were always the same ones. “You are not pregnant. You have never had sex. You are a virgin.”

She continued like this for 9 months, then came the labor pains. A week of those, and everything stopped. No more pains. No more pregnancy signs.

But then the husband started visiting again. Every night in her dreams, she sees him. “You are married to us and will never get married to a human”, they tell her.

She has had mental breakdowns and she even did her KCSE at Avenue Mental Wing. She becomes uncontrollably violent and sometimes needs to be under the influence of drugs to bode well with humans. Her mum keeps her phone and never allows her ‘live free and make her own decisions’. “Salim, If I knew someone dying today, I would happily exchange their death for my miserable life”, she would say, repeatedly.

She has visited all the ‘prophets’ we have in Kenya (thanks to her step-dad who is loaded) and all have come to the same conclusion. This bond is too old. Too strong.

So, I called Ustadh Rashid again and explained everything on phone. “Is she a Muslim?”, He asked. “No”. I responded. “Slight problem there”.

The purpose of the question was to establish the best approach. Normally, as a Muslim, if  :

• You have Ayatul-Kursi on the walls of your house.
• You Recite Al-Nas, Al-Falaq, Al-Ikhlas and An-Nasr 3 times each before you sleep.
• Recite Duas like : “A’oodhu bi kalimaat-Illaah it-taammaati min sharri ma khalaq” before sleep.

Then,  NOTHING can come near you. No evil spirit can touch you.

So Rashid gave me a number to Another Ustadh in Mombasa, who I called and explained everything. The Mombasa Ustadh specializes in this art in a Halal, Non-Shirk and safe way. He told me that there are Male spirits that are betrothed to female humans, and Females spirits that marry male humans. They protect their spouse as a jealous and loving partner would. And they are fierce and powerful. But in the presence of the light of God, not a shade of Satanic Darkness can exist.

All we need to do is travel to Mombasa and do the “Kumng’oa huyo mnyama”, as the Ustadh called it.

I tried calling her yesterday, no one responded. But I will call today, again. Noooma, buda!

Back to code.

Wazi.

Wordcamp

And so it came to fruition.

The day finally came and I slept early on Friday because I knew the next day would be a long and gruesome day at Crayfish, Naivasha.

Day 1

I woke up at 6am and did some reading, then at 8:30, I left for Alliance, our meeting point. Bwana Mugo, Mbugua, Kaboro, Karanja, Kachwanya and Techweez were there. So I knew it was going to be a nice trip. Meeting the top brass in Kenya in one event. The only notable bloggers missing were Archer, Banks and Roomthinker.

The journey was smooth like a baby’s bossom. I know. The roads were fantastic. Thanks to Kibaki. After a quick lunch and tent setup, we dived deep into it.

Thus spaketh Moses

The man with a Big Heart, Kemibaro. Spoke about his journey as a blogger. From being a small-time blog-it-all, to now that he has carved his own Nice with his widely and deeply read blog. It was an amazing story.

He spoke about how there is enough space for everyone. How we have barely scratched the surface. How you can be an expert in your own content-selection and style of writing. He suggested that bloggers mix it up with videos and images and content. Not just text. Be different.

Moses shared his stats and they were impressive. At least 1000 people read his blog post EACH day. Humans. Not CSS hits count or Javascript hit count that some wannabes would provide as stats. Real human readers.

We had a presentation from DukaPress (a simple and free WordPress e-commerce system made in Kenya), From Njeri Rionge on how to Monetize your blogs, From Waithash on how to make your content more visible.

And then it was a wrap. It is never a perfect evening without some Art. And what better art than Poetry. And what better poetry, that from our very own @Wamathai and @KenyanPoet .

The rains started pouring, and the cold was BITING. But Ohh no, that was not to dampen our spirits. We dressed warmly and went to the GreenHouse (CrayFish’s in-camp club). Ofcourse Mugo was ‘too busy’ to play pool with me, despite the KSHS 500 per game stake we put on twitter. Like they said, better absent than beaten. So I hooked up with my favorite 6. Kachwanya, Savvy, KenyanPoet, Ndinda, Ms Patel and Mr Smith (From Norway).

Ofcourse, there were some hot-non-wordcamp-campers there. And that is all I can disclose. At 2 PM. Tent pap! And I slept like a modafoka. Despite the camping noises from the animals in the camp. Ahem!

Day 2

6 AM. A BIG female hippo on heat is seen from far scavenging for some. It was chased away. Breakfast at 8:30. @Wamathai and @KenyanPoet spoke about POWO and BAKE.

Then the impressive @MartianSkills took to the stage. Speaking about his life as a coder. This is certainly a fella I will work with soon. I like self-inspired hustlers who have/are making it slowly BUT, ohh, so fukin surely. I hope I can do a system with these fellas in the near future.

Boniface Mwangi spoke about the need for Kenyans to protect their own. Not be lured by politicians and incited against each other. The need to be united and realizing that there is ONE Kenya that is bigger than any politicians. The need to take our demonstrations and activism online as well as offline. Heal the nation. Heal it from tribalism, bad leadership and propaganda.

Mugo showed us how to install plugins. Anto the Ninja showed us how to create ANY type of site using WordPress.

Lunchtime!

Shared a table with the splendiferous ndinda, the pulchritudinous Afrobelle and the mellifluous Schneidder.

I skived the afternoon session and was able to lure Wario, Poet, @iz_ben and @techweez to go swimming with the hot-non-wordcamp-campers there.

Too much blogging.

Back to code.

Wazi.