Some things are strange indeed! I was just given this pin and a condom for the up-coming World Aids Day 2007…
…which instantly reminded me of last year’s WAD and when I was given a cap by the staff at MW&I in Kenya. Last year I blogged about this – and at the same day also put a snapshot of the changed layout of the Daily Nation newspaper online.
Free caps, pins, condoms. Great! Now this will help to combat the virus…
Swaped rooms last evening, from one house to the neighbouring, some 100m away. Note to myself: need to have even less stuff. Been living out of two bags for the last 1 1/2 years now. Tired of carrying stuff around. Internet access is limited @ my new place, lakini my boss brought me the following chakula from Kenya instead:
Nairobian stories, Nakumatt-, PNU, BuyThisGetThat-, BuyOneGetTwo-Ads/Promotion, PromotedToGlory obituaries and the usual HeSaidSheSaid-news. Great!
…when companies like Nokia purchase the accessories for their mobile phones in low-wage countries:
The integration of a very very very low quality “Lithium Battery” (Made in Indonesia) into the AD-43 control unit of their flagship model N95 that dies just after 4-5 months in use. And mind you: I haven’t even used it in power-user-mode, but instead only for about 8x / week, 25 minutes each.
There’s no way to open this headset without damaging it as the screw on the back is only accessible once the clip is removed. :-(
The control unit died last night after flashing the internal firmware of the phone to V20.0.015, so I initially thought there’s a connection between a (faulty) flashing process and the dead control unit. But no! Just a lousy battery which promoted the whole gadget to higher glory.
NOKIA! ==> There are alternatives available, such as the Renata CR2032:
…which costs a little bit more, but honestly: what’s better? Satisfied customers who will buy another Nokia phone – or unhappy customers who even dismantle the headset themselves because your totally unable customer service doesn’t even reply to e-mails?
Sorry for being a bit picky on this, but there sure is a reason why some batteries do cost 0,20 EUR and others 3,- EUR.
I’ve said it before: the moment, bandwidth becomes available at reasonable rates in Kenya, I – and I guess a lot of other KenyaTourists (KTs) – will resettle to Kenya. Ama?
“The entry of the cable is expected to cut bandwidth costs, currently standing between $6,500 (Sh435,500) and $7,500 (Sh502, 500) per megabyte to around $400 (Sh26,800) per megabyte.” ??? (src)
Seriously, with this initiative by the WB / GoK to subsidise broadband costs in Kenya for the Business Processing and Outsourcing (BPO) Sector, let’s hope that things are improving a little bit faster and that it will help to create a healthy competition within the Kenyan ICT sector + enabling them to compete with other regional players.
If you’re already on broadband, you may be interested in this video where the CEO of Kencall, Nicholas Nesbitt, talks about the relatively high monthly costs of running a call center in Kenya today. Other videos on regional players (aka the competition) are available here.
Imho, it will eventually come down to a few big players who are a) able to afford all these membership fees to this and that political lobbying group, b) able to afford 24/7/365 power supply to their machines and c) able to afford a serious admin team who will make use of *secure* software so that business doesn’t stall just because someone distributed a virus or other malware.
However, the following quote from the above mentioned article really impressed me the most:
To ensure more Kenyans access the digitized services easily, the government is also facilitating installation of Digital Villages countrywide.
This will save citizens the agony of traveling to urban centres to access the online government services and encourage growth of the sector.
To me, this is exactly what people like Prof Ayittey are trying to explain: helping the “Atingas” to promote their business in rural areas as they are the ones who contribute the biggest part to the economy.
And for me, as an environmenatlist/marketing guy for proper sanitation facilities, anything that helps to reduce urbanisation (= by creating local incentives, even if it’s the availability of enough bandwidth in rural areas) is the right approach to promote growth in rural areas. We urgently have to create a good framework for the next generation so that they want to stay in their home area.
On another note: what happens to the Raila/Kibaki virus once the elections are over? Is there any expiry date on them? :-D
A message to those who think they can misuse the blogosphere, internet forums and even someone’s mobile phone to spam the electorate with “the truth” about this and that political candidate:
*yawn*
Get a life.
(filed under: Kenya, elections, Kibaki, Raila)
…UNICEF says on their legal page:
If you would like to link to UNICEF’s web site, we ask you to agree to the following, and contact us (choose subject ‘Permission to link’ in the dropdown menu) to let us know for our records. You may link to the homepage or to a deep content page.
Yeah, right. You want me to contact you whenever I am linking to your site? What about search engines, linking to such sites that require prior contact to the site admin?
BoingBoing has another, much better approach on its policies page:
Boing Boing has a linking policy.
After years of making fun of “linking policies” that set out the terms under which a website can be linked to, Boing Boing has decided to create a linking policy of our own. Here it is — now, abide by it!Boing Boing doesn’t believe in linking policies. They’re dangerous, have no basis in law, and they break the norms that make the Web possible. They’re a wicked, stupid idea.
That said, if you believe in linking policies — that is, if you believe that people who make websites should be able to control who links to those sites and how — then have we got a policy for you:
No site with a linking policy (other than a policy such as this one, created to deride and undermine the idea of linking policies) may link to Boing Boing. Ever.
I like that.
The real problem seems to be that most organisations, institutions, companies, etc a) do not have the capacity to understand the Web, b) employ legal advisers who hardly ever have to deal with Web-related disclaimers or copyright issues for online content and c) – unfortunately – often haven’t even heard of something like the CreativeCommons licencing tools.
My experience is that most authors of online content aren’t even aware of these licencing tools, and – if in doubt – leave it to their legal team (if any) who just put everything under the “all rights reserved” label. That’s just very frustrating!
My question: is there any *official* disclaimer for web pages (linking policies, etc.) that’s just as convenient to use as the (CC) tools & provides this free and open approach as seen on the BoingBoing page?
…and I will update this entry once I’ve figured out what to write for my new side project:
http://saniblog.org – the world’s first blog on sanitation!
Karibuni! :-)
Update: Hello World! …seriously, there’s nothing much to add. I really hope to move any future content on sanitation on this external blog and will also try to attract other authors on that site. You know, I am also active on a mailing list which deals with ecological sanitation – and many of the participants are scientist. Which is why most conversations are only related to scientific matters. Interesting, yes, but still a closed group. Who would want to talk about sanitation all day long? People talk about IT on lists like Skunkworks KE, because computers are interesting. And this although they are somewhat expensive and often just a beautiful waste of time :-). And sanitation? Everyone has to go to toilet – but just so few talk about >toilets< in general. Did you know there are over 950 results when you do a Flickr groups search on “toilet”?
So, obviously, there’s a place for this – and the internet being an ideal place for conversations, why not lifting this stigmatized niche to a better platform through the use of modern conversation tools such as blogs? Sanitation to me isn’t only about providing basic toilet facilities to some developing countries (sic!), but a matter that everyone will pay attention to on an almost daily basis. Flush toilets, based on water to flush away (transport) the faeces & urine into a sewage system, aren’t that ideal.
my favourite machine on the plant: a grinder pump that chops up all bigger pieces like Q-Tips, tampons, condom, hair and other stuff ppl keep on disposing through the toilet system. I used to clean this on a daily basis… (i was told the second day that gloves are available :-)
I’ve worked on a sewage treatment plant, put my hands where others wouldn’t even want to enter the room and quickly realized that this basic issue of proper sanitation does not necessarily depend on the smartest technical solution used (there’s no “one-fits-all”-solution), but instead only depends on what people want to use when relieving themselves. Sanitation is dignity. Not a slogan, but reality.
If saniblog.org helps to elevate the matter of sanitation from a closed group of scientists and their cryptic conversations onto a normal level where this matter could raise more attention – heyyyy – that would be awesome!
Markets are conversations. And sanitation is a huuuuuuge market!
