why then do you tell me to make myself like the many?

I watch Boston Legal whilst I row. It's is a convenient 40minutes and during that time I row about 9200m and enjoy the episode. It's the first time I've found a sustaining exercise method that doesn't involve a bicycle that I actually can enjoy.

Regardless, in Episode 15, Series 2, Alan Shore talks of Epictetus, an ancient Greek philosopher, and I quote: "Epictetus compared people who “fit in” to the white threads of a toga. Indistinguishable. He wanted to be the purple thread. “That small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then” he asked, “do you tell me to make myself like the many? And if I do, how shall I still be purple?”"

That's a fantastic thought. Do I really want to be one of the white threads when I have the opportunity to be a purple thread? Nope. It may be the harder road and need more work, development and sometimes inflict pain but that's where I want to be.

Why unlimited data bundles will soon be scrapped off.

I never really understood how unlimited data bundles worked but one thing I was sure of was that it was unsustainable. Recently safaricom announced that they were going to scrap off this data tarrifs and am foreseeing others following suit.

The billing model used in unlimited Internet offering is flawed. This is because the unit of billing is not a valid and quantifiable measure of consumption of service. An ISP or mobile operator charging a customer a flat fee for a size of Internet pipe (measured in Kbps) is equivalent to a water utility company charging you based on the radius of the pipe coming into your house and not the quantity of water you consume (download) or sewerage released (upload).

What will happen if the local water company billed users by a flat rate fee based on per-centimeter radius of pipe going into their homes rather than volume of water consumed?  A user with a pipe of radius that is 1% more than the neighbor enjoys 2% more water flow into their house (do the math!). The problem is that their bills will not differ by 2% but by 1% based on the difference in radius of the pipes. A 2% difference yields a 4% difference in consumption but a 2% difference in billing. The result is that a small group of about 1% users end up consuming about 70% of all the water. This figure is arrived at as follows: A marginal unit increase in resource leads to a near doubling of marginal utility. This is a logarithmic gain (Ln 2=0.693 which means that 69% of utility is enjoyed by about 1% of consumers) . This is the figure issued by Bob Collymore the CEO of Safaricom who said that 1% of unlimited users are consuming about 70% of the resources. This essentially means costs could outstrip revenues by 70:1. This does not make any business sense. Not even a hypothetical NGO engaged in giving ‘free’ Internet through donor funding can carry such a cost to revenue ratio. As to why ISP’s and mobile operators thought billing by size of pipe to the Internet could make money is beyond me.

Give Your Kids Opportunity, Not Handouts

Peter Buffett says his father helped him get started, but didn’t give him so much money that he could just sit back and live off the inheritance. As Warren Buffett put it: “Enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.” It’s a useful starting point even if you’re not in Buffett’s league when it comes to wealth. You might decide to pay your children’s way through college, for example, but tell them that after that, they’re on their own.

Be like the Mighty Simba.

Ever watched a lion hunt. It singles out a single gazelle and no matter how fat a gazelle maybe and criss-crosses it's path, it just keep on the initial chase.

It made me to think; what if in life in spite of all the helters and skelters we just kept focused on one goal and nothing else but the initial goal.But it isn't easy to get focused when so many  have expectations of you. 


Focus and consistency is the key to this life. Mahtma Gandhi, Luther King, Mother Teresa...all had a focus in life. You won't make a difference in this world by trying to trying to do everything and ending up doing nothing. Decide what you are passionately good and do it honestly to yourself and to the almighty. It might not be the most well paid but there is a reason that passion is in you. After-all, the most rewarding thing is to know that by the end of the day you have touched a life.But you won't touch a life if you want to be everywhere at the same time. You won't make a better relationship if you want to be with everyone. Above all, you must be ready to make sacrifices.

We call ourselves the generation Y

"Hello Carol and Jalas. I am eight and a half months pregnant and I don't know who the father is".
Carol asks, "What do you mean you don't know who the father is?".
The lady went ahead and said, " I was dating these three guys and I slept with them in a period of one week and now am not sure who is the father". Bear in mind that this is a 22yr old student. Another one called in the national radio station and said she had seven "boyfriends" and she sounded pretty much confused.

what made me angry is they made it seem like it is the norm nowadays. That's why am writing this. Am 22 yrs  and it is not a norm to me or to my friends. Most of us the young people seem to have lost it and as they said, we seem to just go with "the flow".

Who are we to blame really? Our parents have raised us and taught us what is right and what is wrong and our teachers have given us the best education they could give us under the circumstances we found ourselves in. We don't want anyone to tell us about what to do with our lives. So what the hell is wrong with us?

Just like you, I really do not know what is wrong with us. But basically, we have no one to blame other than ourselves. All the information is available wherever we turn but it is for us to make a choice. Whatever choice you make, just don't blame it on anyone when it backfires on you.

Mama Africa; It's our time

I just finished reading Dambisa Moyo's "Dead Aid". It  is just after reading this book you realize the mess Africa we have put ourselves into. Yesternight, I happened to watch sneak view of the Gacaca courts in Rwanda. 


You just could not fail to appreciate the number of offenders , 2 million and above, and more so the involvement of the whole community in the process. With this I can start to see that we Africans are waking up to take charge of our motherland.We really cannot be running to the west whenever we have a problem. Operation "Black hawk" miserably failed in Somalia, they shamelessly turned a blind eye when Rwandans slaughtered each other. They are now holding press conferences in Nairobi complaining that they are being alienated by president Kibaki. They really have not woken up to the fact that we are capable of making our own decisions.


I am not advocating that we "demonize" the west or alienate them for that matter, but what am saying is that they should bring what they have on the table and we bring what we have on the table and when the deal is not so good, we have the God-given right of choice. The days they would dictate what is good for us are long gone. 


After-all; gold, diamonds and oil still rule the world, and as long they do, we Africans should be calling the tunes. For sure Koni and other rebels have counted days but not as long as we continue running to the west. Africa, It's our time.

The Miniskirt....

What else should I say..Richard Ntiru en-captures it all in this poem...

The miniskirt...

To visualize what you can't see:
That's the paradoxical pleasure of the mind.
In the afterbirth of seeing,
Death of imagination.
To dally on the brink of reality:
That's the snug illusion of life.
In the capitulation of the summit,
Paradoxical disappointment.
Now is the legend beyond
Become the cliche of the elements.
Shall the synthetic gauze
Atone for the beauty of the fertility lines?