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• April 2024

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I have been reading up on Windows Presentation Foundation and some of the stuff being produced is amazing. I am especially impressed by Delays SilverLight demos. His “surface” demo and XPS reader to me are an indication of the possibilities in interface that are opening up. WPF allows one to write applications in C# that run on the web as well, and that is going to change the limitations of applications. Microsoft quietly launched a beta of a search engine interface I find absolutely impressive – tafiti. It’s about time someone allowed me to save my search results with ease. Here’s a screenshot.

Be sure to check out the tree View utility.

Rem Acu tetigisti Gado!

Ushairi wa Said Ahmed Mohamed umenielimisha na kunisisimua tangu niliposoma diwani yake ‘Sikate Tamaa nikiwa shule ya upili. Nilipozidi kutafiti nilipata kwamba mashairi yake yametumika katika mitihani ya kitaifa ya Fasihi mara si haba. Nilipofanya mtihani wangu 2001, tulitahiniwa “Nimeona”, shairi linalotoka kwa diwani hii.

Sina uhakika kuhusu kipindi cha ‘copyright’ cha mashairi haya lakini nitachukua kwamba ni sawa kutumia shairi hili kuelimisha. Hapa basi, ni shairi “Si Dunia ya Kulala” kutoka kwa diwani hii.

Umelala, bado umelala, huamki kwani?
Una dhila, bado una dhila, zitatoka lini?
Pa kulala, bado pa kulala, hujapabaini
Na chakula, hata na chakula, pia wakuhini
Si dunia ya kulala.

Naujuwe, wewe naujuwe, ndiwe mdhamini
Kama siwe, wewe kama siwe, ni dhiki baini
Jipekuwe, wewe jipekuwe, muhimu yakini
Uyajuwe, wewe uyajuwe, utoke gizani
Si dunia ya kulala

In the course of reading Oyin Ogunba’s “The Movement of Transition”, I came across a case of Achebe making fun of Soyinka. It strikes me as odd that I have not come across more incidences of these two Titans of African literature interacting (writing about each other, citing each other, fighting – anything). They are, after all, from the same country and period. Then again, I haven’t read nearly all their works and, given the passage below, I have probably missed the incidences I have come across.

We were met outside the exhibition hall by the president of the writer’s society, a fellow I used to know fairly well at the University. In those days before he became a writer he had seemed reasonably normal to me. But apparently since he published his novel ‘The Song of the Black Bird’ he had become quite different. I read an interview he gave to a popular magazine in which it came out that he had become so non-conformist that he now designed his own clothes. Judging from his appearance I should also say that he tailored them. He had on a white and blue squarish gown, with a round neck and no buttons, over brown, striped, baggy trousers made from the kind of light linen material we sometimes called ‘obey the wind’. He also had a long untidy beard.

This is satirizing Soyinka’s designs of the Mbari shirt.

There is a push in African discourse to be true to ones roots. Authenticity often calls for disrobing of the colonial identity, including dropping European names and customs. For an intellectual, this provides a certain conflict. We are inducted into a learning that is not historically African and whose movements hold values lauded as ‘universal’ but having no African elements. To be fair, Africa’s absence is often because Africa was unknown to the movement founders and not because they set out to intentionally ignore the continent’s contributions. In any case, an African joining a foreign intellectual movement and subscribing to its values faces the authenticity challenge – can an African, remaining true, claim to inherit intellectually or be part of a movement from other parts of the world? Read more

Maswali na majibu baada ya Gödel na Turing

Neno sayansi linatokana na neno “scio” la kilatini lenye maana ya kujua ama kufahamu. Hivyo basi, masomo yote yanayochukuliwa kuwa aina ya sayansi yanajihusisha na kutafiti ukweli wa mambo – iwe ni kwa kufanya majaribio (ambapo inakuwa sayansi tendeshi) au kwa kukisia kanuni za ukweli na kuzithibitisha (ambapo inakuwa ni sayansi nadharia).

Nitakayoyazungumzia hapa ni historia fupi ya utafiti wa sayansi ya kompyta, haswa maswali yaliyoanzisha usomi huu. Kwa watu wengi, masomo ya tarakirishi huchukuliwa kuwa miongoni mwa masomo ya uhandisi. Ni kweli kwamba sehemu nyingi za somo hili zinazojihusisha na kifaa tarakirishi chenyewe – iwe ni hadweya au softweya ya vifaa – na sehemu hizi huwa ni uhandisi. Lakini pia, somo hili linajihusisha na mengi zaidi ya haya – ukiangalia asili la neno kompyuta utapata linatokana na neno “compute” la kiingereza ambalo lina maana ya “kupata jibu, hasa kwa swali la hisabati, kwa kutumia kanuni fulani”[1] . Tutakavyoona sayansi hii inahusika na maswali ya muundo wa “Je swali hili linajibika kwa kufuatia kanuni?”,”Linahitaji kanuni ngapi?” n.k. Read more

After reading Sartre’s Orphee Noir, I was curious about this philosopher’s other writings. I picked up a copy of “Being and Nothingness”, translated by  Hezel Bernes. The ‘Translators Introduction’ section was an interesting puzzling piece. It gives us reason to believe that Philosophy is at times too abstract for its own good. In speaking of Sartre’s impact, Bernes says:

Most important is Sartre’s rejection of the primacy of the Cartesian cogito. He objects that in Descarte’s formula – “I think; therefore I am”[my note: the latin of which is cogito, ergo sum] – the consciousness which say, “I am,” is not actually the consciousness which thinks. Instead we are dealing with a secondary activity. Similarly, says Sartre, Descartes has confused spontaneous doubt, which is a consciousness, with methodological doubt, which is an act. When we catch a glimpse of an object, there may be a doubting consciousness of the object as uncertain. But Descarte’s cogito has posited this consciousness itself as an object; the Cartesian cogito is not one with the doubting consciousness but has reflected upon it. In other words this cogito is not Descartes doubting; it is Descartes reflecting upon the doubting. “I doubt; therefore I am” is really “I am aware that I doubt; therefore I am.” The Cartesian cogito is reflective,and its object is not itself but the original consciousness of doubting. The consciousness which doubted is now reflected on by the cogito but was never itself reflective; its only object is the object which it is conscious of as doubtful. These conclusions lead Sartre to establish the pre-reflective cogito as primary consciousness,and in all of his later work he makes this his original point of departure.

Yesterday Kibaki made public a proposal for free secondary education and interestingly this program goes into effect in January of 2008. Obviously, this declaration ties the hands of whoever is to succeed him. The fact that the president promised it means there exists a source of funding and the necessary infrastructure to implement this policy. Let’s see what ODM does with this. Below is Gado’s take on this.

Godfrey Mwapanga, alias Gado, is Kenya’s leading editorial cartoonist. Occasionally he does disappoint but it is pieces like today’s that keep me as a fan. The seeming obliviousness of leaders to exactly how destructive bad elections practices are is caught in the piece below – and with such style!

I attended a talk titled “Confessions of a Nerd Herder” given by someone who had been a Program Manager in Microsoft Research for twenty years or so. The talk itself was somewhat disappointing – he painted too rosy a picture of MSR, making it out to be a utopia where brains walk unbriddled; where only the brightest of the bright get hired and ,once there, they go about changing the world and saving puppies.

The most interesting thing I took out from the talk was the question “How would you design a computer for people who can’t read?” The idea is not novel. It sounds like the kind of design question you would get in an interview. But taking this after the Hamming talk on great ideas, I translated it into a challenge – how would you design a computer for the developing world, for Africa in particular? Sure enough, there are many people in African can and do use computers in their present incarnation. However, the overwhelming pool of potential users is locked out as a result of poor infrastructure (power and communication) as well as the fact that barely any software or content is currently provided in African languages. Working within these constraints gives an interesting challenge. Read more

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