Sidney Sheldon dies at 89

A really great writer, playwright and screenwriter. I have read a majority of his novels.

RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6315875.stm

No Bananas in 10 years?

Apparently Bananas may be extinct in 10 years due to disease and fungus.

Scary! coz I love bananas - especially those tiny (sweetie bananas) ones

More 24

This is the third story about the very popular and successful 24 (I posted two links yesterday).

here's another

Dating is Competitive Manipulation

Very interesting blog ... wonder how true it is :)

"The truth is women love to compete with other women. Women want to win men over. They want to be chosen by a man who could have any girl he wants. No woman of caliber wants to win a man by default. She wants her man to be a prize, a good catch, someone she can be proud of. When you tell a woman that her significant other is handsome or intelligent, she’ll likely beam with self satisfaction. In complimenting her man, you’ve complimented her. You have told her, in so many words, that she is capable of attracting a quality mate. The women who rail against this usually have a low self esteem and thus avoid competition because they fear they’ll always fail….or they’re ugly. You pick."

Read the whole of it.

24

The Orwellian Ideology of 24

If you have read George Orwell's 1984 and have watched 24, you will probably find this article interesting

http://www.mises.org/story/2465

'As enjoyable as 24 is on the surface, a more than cursory glance makes it obvious that the show is attempting to justify and even celebrate an ever-expanding Orwellian state. It almost makes me want to root for the bad guys.'

24 Time Warp

Apparently 24 Season 6 is set in the not-too-distant future - 2012 ... read more

BarCamp: Nairobi, Kenya - March 31st 2007

BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants
An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance.

First BarCamp in Nairobi is planned for 1st March 2007.

The theme will be provided in time but will be (of course) technology oriented.

I got tagged :)

got tagged by mentalacrobatics

So here are 5 things you didn't know about me:

1) I used to be a HUGE BABY.. but i'm the tall and slim kind now :) - trust me - you wouldn't recognize me apart from my eyes which seem not to have changed since i was a baby.

2) I usually have to buy socks quicky coz my right BIG TOE has this irritating habit of boring holes through my socks and shoes all together

3) I loath routine - I doubt I can last in a job for more than 3 years - call it an over active mind with an odd way of looking at things - actually i doubt i can last in employment for too long.

4) a misplaced sense of financial priorities - buying a PHONE WITH SOME COOL FEATURES is easier than buying a pair of jeans

5) I didn't get to throw stones at campus coz once upon of a time we got into BIG TROUBLE (we actually managed to stone a mathree coz we had a dome with the driver) with my brother and a friend when we were less than TEN YEARS OLD. Needless to say we got a thorough spanking - never lifted a stone in campus :) despite going to a campus that got famous for sending a bus to town to throw stones.


Tagged:

Alpha-rwath - coz of a similarity with my blog name :)
kenyanpundit - I'm just curious
Coach Potato - curious about what u do apart from watching movies and TV :)

Can't think of anyone else to tag but if u read this and laugh - u are tagged

World Social Forum comes to Nairobi

Over 100 000 visitors descend on Nairobi for the WSF conference starting Saturday. 100000.

That is more people than are found of most constituencies in Kenya.

I suspect we shall be seeing very serious traffic jams snarling up our already congested (and potholed) roads over the next two weeks.
That's the downside

The upside: 100000 more people (perhaps) getting to know Kenya and it's attractions for the first time meaning possibly greater improved tourism earnings for this year.

Business opportunities: imagine the guy(s) who has won the tender to print out badges for all delegates at the conference, or the photocopying and catering services as well as the people helping out with logistics and getting paid what looks like a fair amount of money per day.

Buying Second hand cars: Dutiable Value vs CIF

I'm wondering whether this information can be obtain from the KRA. It could be very useful to have an online tool where I can be able to easily ascertain the cost of importing a car into Kenya.

I'm not sure that if a car costing 5000 USD CIF would have a dutiable value of 5000 USD.

If this is the case making that tool is pretty easy :)

Beckam's new salary: Obscene or what

David Beckam is going to be making about 3.51 BILLION shillings a year ... (26 Million Pounds a year) in his new Major League Soccer deal

The juicy part:

Under MLS rules, each side is allowed one star player who does not come under the salary cap - but the budget for the rest of the squad is limited to around £1million, or £50,000 per player per season.

By contrast, Beckham will earn £500,000 a week from his salary, image rights and associated sponsorship - but not including personal endorsements.

Here's the full story...

Pirates III

May 27 2007 Release.

I can hardly wait. This was one of my favourite movies of last year.

You can have a peek at some pictures from the movie here.

How to market your blog in 2007

This looks interesting:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/11/how-to-market-your-blog-in-2007/

iPhone

Apple yesterday unveiled their highly anticipated iPhone.

Among others features:

4GB or 8GB memory
Bluetooth
WiFi
Mac OS X
Quadband GSM
multi-touch display - yaani NO KEYPAD

From the apple website:

iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device.

Read more...

USD 499 for the 4GB and $599 for the 8GB when they come out in June on the Cingular network

No 3G though :( - Nokia were quick to point out that ....

Meaning I wait until the release the next version, and yah.. when they make it available worldwide....

The Beast: Unleashed

A break from my predominately technology and business blogging to a refreshing and astonishing soccer game between Liverpool and Arsenal that ended 3-6 - Now I wish I had Supersport @ home for the duration of this game :(. However, the net came to my rescue - trust someone to put the goals on youtube. Here they are (Aliadiere's goal is my best ;) ):



27 Aliadiere: Liverpool 0 - 1 Arsenal
33 Fowler: Liverpool 1 - 1 Arsenal
40 Baptista: Liverpool 1 - 2 Arsenal
45 Song: Liverpool 1 - 3 Arsenal
45 Baptista: Liverpool 1 - 4 Arsenal
60 Baptista: Liverpool 1 - 5 Arsenal
68 Gerrard: Liverpool 2 - 5 Arsenal
80 Hyypia: Liverpool 3 - 5 Arsenal
84 Baptista: Liverpool 3 - 6 Arsenal

Man of the match was Aliadiere. I hope he doesn't get sold. Though AW says he doesn't want him to go so that's a good sign. RVP and Adebayor had better watch their positions. The Beast has roared and Aliadiere looks to have rediscovered the form of the Inter Milan 1 - 5 Arsenal. I also hope Ljunberg is not going anywhere despite all the rumours.

Liverpool fans must be something - even TH14 says that they are awesome. That says something.

I hope Benitez can pull up the morale of the team after 2 losses to a rejuvenated Arsenal side who've suffered with numerous injuries in the first half of the season.

Mobile Payments

With Safaricom intending to launch M-Pay sometimes this year, I've been on the look out for similar products in the world.

I came across this article that indicates that VISA are planning to launch a Global Mobile Phone Payment solution.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/01/08/tech-visa.html

I wonder whether this is going to affect Safaricom's product, or whether the two products are infact related somehow.

From the article, apparently a similar solution has been in use in Japan for sometime

Top 100 Employers.... in Kenya someone?

The top 100 companies to work for in USA are listed here.

I'm wondering if anyone has done a top 20 even for companies to work for in Kenya..

I've a friend working at Google and he absolutely loves working there.

MLM's Once Legitimate, Now a Scam

I came across this article ...

MLM: Once Legitimate, Now a Scam

Once upon a time, multi-level marketing was a legitimate business which provided a way for small companies to get their unique products to consumers in small towns and rural areas which had no access to these products. At this time, the products sold themselves, and the multi-level aspect was a way of giving a small reward to those who had worked hard to build the organization. But the focus was always on the product.

Today, and especially with the growth of the internet, it is possible for consumer to get about whatever they want at competitive prices. There is simply no real need for distribution "systems" as there once was, and indeed the focus of all the programs is not on the products they sell -- which are usually either bogus or are available somewhere else to the public at the same or lesser prices. Instead, the focus now is solely on recruiting new people to either buy into the program or else to buy products that are grossly overpriced (i.e., a $1 bottle of "herbal shampoo" for $26), with the idea that those people will recruit additional people who will also buy into the program or themselves buy the grossly overpriced products.

Read More

GPRS: Internet Chat while on the Move

a friend of mine sent me this link -> wap.mig33.com. I visited www.mig33.com and they also have sms and voice calls offerings that I think could be quite cheap but I haven't tried them out yet.

You can chat via Yahoo and MSN from your mobile phone.. I've tried it out and it's absolutely cool! No need to have a comp to do IM now :) - chat while traveling on a long bus trip or while waiting for a refund cheque....

My next phone I suspect will be geared to mobile internet - chat.. sports.. games.. the works/
Just hope they'll integrate GMail which shouldn't be too hard for them since it's Jabber based..
Meanwhile for Gtalk - there's MGTalk available from http://mgtalk.sourceforge.net/

I find Celtel's GPRS more reliable than Safaricom's which keeps timing out alot.

If u need more help with that i could give u some pointers...

I've tried this on a Nokia 6610i using Safaricom.

Music for download

Free (legally) Music Online:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list

Mostly Classical :)

soccer and management

I promised a friend that i shall blog this - that 10 years from now i'll be using examples from the lovely game of soccer (e.g as played by Arsenal :) when they are in full flow ) to give examples on management...

so lets wait and see .. 10 years and counting down :)