Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

5 reasons they suck! or don't...

Well, we live in a society where multiple personalities is the order (or disorder) of the day.

Everyone is unique, special and here for a purpose; just like everyone else.

But some few habits I have noticed are very annoying (degree varying in intent, situation and previous perception of the person).

The following are my top 5 Beef-Points with Kenyan Chics:

1 – The ‘Kila Dame ni Msupuu’ Myth

The good book states that we are all ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. At least 3 out of every 7 Kenyan chics conform to the ‘wonderfully made’ category. These females are hot, nice, cute and THEY KNOW IT. The rest fall in the ‘fearfully made’ category. Like I noted in my blog-post about Ugandan Women, if the user interfaces (mostly the front-end) of this second category of Kenyan and Ugandan gals were to be compared, Ugandan Chics would be the Mac. Kenyan women are MS-DOS. DOS version 1. Then again, there is NO COMPE in the back-end. Ugandan women all have a nice and BIG future behind them.

And the worst thing that will happen is getting to a Matt or club and sitting next to this second category. Dame amechapa utadhani ni mChapanese. Then you talk to her. Just saying Hi. Just being kind to the unfortunate. To the beautilly challenged. Then she gives you attitude. FFFCUKKK off!!

2 – The ‘Wazungu wana Doo’ Myth

It is said that Black people are the most racist people on earth. They don’t like white people, black people or even pink people. We all know this. Plotless chics love accents. A ka-pointii or muhindi could be reeking of the ‘this-week-sijaoga’ cologne they like to paka but he will still get the first-mover-advantage on the chics. I know of a white jamaa who was being used by the thugs at Changes in westlands to steal from hot gals. Gals like and immediately trust the skin-color.

Not wazungus alone. Foreigners in General. Today’s Zuqka page 14 had a story of a Kenyan Chic who is ‘madly in love’ with a deaf guy from Burundi. Just because he is not Kenyan. My gawd!!

3 – The ‘Nitatulia Nikiolewa’ Habit

I know. There is nothing worse than inviting your campus friends to your wedding and they all smile after seeing who you are marrying. “Huyo dame ako sawa. Umeget wife mpoa.”, a ‘friend’ will tell you. He vividly remembers all the after-rave shagathons they used to have back in campus. How she would preemptively multi-suck 5-6 jamaas at Mamlaka. And then he looks at Pato, Kis, Mette, Msagha, Kabwili and Knoxx. And they all smile. They have all configured all her ports. And they know she is still giving them guest access.

“Manze hii si second-hand mzee, ni 36th-hand.”, a REAL friend will tell you. She is not the ‘road-less-travelled’ like you thought. She is like an CDN. Multi-user. Freeware. But she has you hooked. She is a signatory in your accounts. She has your baby. Jibambe.

4 – The ‘huyu msee ni ATM’ type

Yeah. We all know this type. Broke-ass chics trying to live large. Or maybe not necessarily broke. But there to milk you. From the first day you meet, she makes it clear. “You must take me out, for me to take you in”. And she won’t to go Bettys. It is too cheap. Full of common people.

My buddies who have been unfortunate enough to meet this type tell tales of how they immediately become commercial. I need a new phone. I need tampons. I need credo. Whatever happened to the Independent women we, ohh, so adore!!?

5 – The ‘sipendi machali coz my Ex did this and that to me’ type

No. I am not talking about lesbians. I got no beef with them. I love lesbians. I have a lot of lesbian friends. Yeah. I am talking about these sick, sad, little people who will categorize and profile you based on their past relationships. She will not go out with you coz ‘utamuacha kwa club’ just like her former broke-ass Ex did. She will not BELIEVE a single sweet word you tell her because her ex ‘used to tell her that too’. Fuck you!! This really makes by blood boil!

I just genuinely want to be a friend, but we CAN’T BE because ‘my ex told me that too and we ended up fucking’. Bitch! Grow up. Give a brother a chance and maybe he will show you what a REAL man is like. And help you erase all those memories of your loser ex-toyfriend.

#nimeponaSasa.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Big Pussy Cat

Well, a good day it is. Just chilling here with Anastacia (My Laptop) after our Monthly BAKE (Bloggers Association of KEnya) meeting.

A hot meeting it was!

Of course, top of the agenda was my last post about ball-less bloggers. The blogger I named after the gonadotrophic orifice that moistens. How could you, Salim? Huh!! We have feelings too!

Some of my peers took alot of offence in this and mentioned and reiterated that they depend on Companies like KPLC, F2 and Safaricom for supper and rent and would be found dead talking bad about them. No matter how true their sentiments would be.

To cool things down a bit, for now, undoubtedly to a ephemeral effect, I will blog about a neutral subject.

I use the word neutral loosely because the mention of Windows will make some Ubuntu Jamas cry murder. This Salim guy is discriminating against OSes now. Si Telcos tu, sasa hapendi Linux. Hata venye nimesema windows XP, Windows 7 people will be on my neck tomorrow. But here goes.

Step 1:

Click on Start. Wait for 3 seconds (this is very important. You will not find this warning anywhere else). Some people have waited for 2 or 4 and they were left dumbfounded and in utter demise.

Step 2:

Breathe in. (It helps the machine reboot faster if you breathe out too. Otherwise you might die before it reboots.)

Step 3:

Scratch the favorite part of your body. Use your thumb to scratch. Someone in china once took this warning for granted and used her pinkie to scratch and her hard disk crashed. You have been warned. Use ONLY the thumb. The left thumb.

Step 4:

Click on shut down and VERY QUICKLY, click on reboot.

Now if this is not neutral, then tomorrow I will blog about my knees. And how different they are from my armpits.

Back to code…

Wazi.

After my blog post about Coders and Programmers, alot of comments ensued and one thing became clearer.

Coders without a business mind/business person behind them, are no match to even people as lowly as mere programmers. As if we did not know that. The best coders in Kenya are broke or slaves. Broke because of the yangu-ni-yangu curse, or slaves working on BIG projects for BIG companies but earning less than the sweepers. Because as coders, we look past the money. And THAT might be our biggest problem.

The fact that NO or very-FEW-if-any coders or near-coders in Kenya own a Kompressor (as a ‘senior programmer’ pointed out  – what an oxymoron) , formed the basis of this blog post.

So, in my true spirit of calling a penis a penis and not a pulsating nail-less thumb, I write this post with the aim of creating churn and evaluating the possibilities for Kenyan Coders. As we all know, when I need to talk about something, I will hit the nail on the head. I won’t pussy around saying ‘a certain big telco in Kenya’. I will say SAFARICOM. Hehehehe… But achana na Safaricom. #SitakiNomaNaMadhake. Ahem!

So, Ameleena. Ameleena is the best thing at TPF. Hater her/Love her. She is good. So good. Too good. Deal with it! The only other person who is nearly as strong in the house is Racheal.ug. Ameleena has about 8 voices. You need only a max of 3 to be a top…top singer. BUT. In the beginning, she tried to use all her voices to sing one song. The mundane human mind saw this as showing off. But, kama ako poa, ako poa. Kubali yaishe. I pray she wins. It will not be a suprise.

In IT terms Ameleena is a coder. Juliani is a programmer. JerryJo is a programmer. Ameleena at best was a church singer before TPF. Not because she wasn’t skilled, but because she was not ‘discovered’. Given the platform. Allowed to be all she can be. Now she will be a superstar. Juliani hata akakaa TPF academy for 9 years, wont be able to sing 1/467th as good as Ameleena. She is a coder.

“But Juliani Drives!”, I hear you. I hear you.

So, if we look at the superficial level, YES all coders are broke, pathetic and matatu-using losers. BUT, these coders are just sleeping mental and intellectual giants. Does not take alot to wake. All they need is an ignition. Not training. We are good. A platform. Just a desk and a commensurate paycheck. And we will code ANY system. Using coding technologies programmers can only google about.

The problem comes in that we have sterile structures in Kenya where even grants and funding is still won by the BIGWIGS. Seed capital does not act as seed capital. It acts as lunch. All we see daily are people who are meant to showcase these coders’ tools and systems to the next level, blogging everyday about what OTHER countries are doing. Ask them ‘What have you done for your country’. They will get angry. To these people, it is unfathomable how Kenyans can reach ‘those great heights’.

I speak to my pals often and the consensus is a general one. The real coders don’t even bother any more attending IT talks or submitting to the ‘IT Challenges’. Total waste of coding time. We have codes to polish. But the time is near. The time is coming soon. When Kenyan Coders will get the recognition they deserve.

Kenya right now is at the tech-ovulation stage. Where pre-mXit SA was in 2002. I see coders smiling. I see programmers confused. Asking, ‘so what’?

Soon…

Back to code.

It is sad. Honestly, really sad.

I sat with Buju the other day and he asked me : “Salim. Wewe huwezi unda your own Facebook na venye code unaimesea?”. My response is the same respose I once gave DjCK, Okech and Sebi. “Put me in a position that I won’t have to worry about rent for 6 months, and I will give you the world.”

So, the discussion went on. I pointed out that ANYTHING Safaricom touches, turns to a pile of shiite. Mxit has MILLIONS of people all over the world. Safaricom brought it to Kenya, did over 100 pages of color ads, and it died, as expected. Meanwhile, 2Go is keeping Kenyans teens awake till 3am.

Next up, Facebook. In this encouraging post about the opportunities for Kenyan Coders, I did on March 9 2010, Facebook had 580, 000 Kenyans. On its own. No advertising, just viral value additions. Then Safaricom started doing their Ads and USSD codes + TV ads using that smigo-faced ugly rasta jamaa. 5 Months later today, the site has 776, 920 users. Pathetic, if you ask me. Facebook has Stagnated, As soon as SafCom stepped in.

They say EVERYONE IS ON FACEBOOK… Well, we must be the smallest country in the world.

Facebook has STAGNATED since Safaricom touched her

“So”, Buju continued. “Now that ONLY 19.43% of the Kenyans with the Internet are on FB, and the growth is stagnating., what can developers do to harness the massive 81% that is NOT on Facebook?”. I smiled.

“And what is this other system you are saying that is being tested now and will come to really shock Mpesa?”, He asked. I smiled more.

Back to code!

Wazi.