Random on A Geek's Life

Forgotten milestones, unexpected positives and 2012 reading

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:36:08 +0000

Amidst the bedlam that was a return to work after almost three weeks away, I completely forgot the small matter of having passed the second-year anniversary of my starting at my current job. The lads at HR though were not exactly keen to let me forget ; and I was suitably reminded via a letter in my home post box advising me of my eligibility to enrol on the company enhanced pension plan. Bar a few moments of drudgery, it has never really felt like I have been stuck out here for the past two years, even though I’ve twice come close to leaving; once to Nigeria, and the other time to our biggest competitor across town.

Web Reads.. 1April2011

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:05:26 +0000

Quick reads….

On-the-job relationships come back into the limelight - one Police Unit seems to have fallen apart over the Team Leader’s dalliance with a female team member.
On paywalls, one of the more rational arguments I’ve read. (HT - The Daily Dish)
Artificial leaves currently in development may one day power an entire house by electrolysing water and providing hydrogen for fuel cells.
Robotic bird flying becomes a wee bit more realistic.
The genetic basis for loving working out.
Sounding a note of caution for using GPS-aware apps indiscriminately. Color gets another (light) bashing.
Slick sleaze, or ill advised expenditure? A short history of the bomb-zapper that never was.
Google aims to turn phones into credit cards.
App of the Week? Social Media meets shopping for dresses - an app for your friends to help you select a dress.
The boobs have it. Apparently, there is a connection between length of time spent breast feeding and brain size. However there is no guarantee that breast milk is all that, especially when the mother isn’t eating well herself after all.

Web Reads... 27Feb2011

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:28:23 +0000

The Queen advertises for a dish washer to come on staff… My local MSP wonders if they’ve not heard of a dish washing machine.
The WHO drills down into the alcohol stats.. Apparently alcohol killed more people than AIDS or TB in 2010.. Sobering..
Understanding the story.. Thirteen perspectives….
Brain chemicals and dating.. A primer.
Teju Cole’s ‘Open City’ hits the shelves… The New Yorker, The Daily Beast and The Apostrophe weigh in with reviews.
The kid named Facebook..Ostensibly its a testament to the impact FB had on the Egypt Revolution.. Hopefully, the kid doesn’t get a lot of stick for the name though..
There’s an app for that… Tracking relationship changes on Facebook gets the Web2.0 makeover….. SMH..
Web mourning?
Help for the blokes - wristbands that warn of potentially PMSing partners.
Bringing faiths together by cuisine.. The Faith and The Hot Dog show..

Blackberries.. Quite Literarily...

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:56:02 +0000

Hilarious video…. Littered with double meanings… Totally loved it..

In praise of 3.00pm....

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:00:53 +0000

If clocking in at 9am is the final act that seals my very own Faustian exchange, 3.00pm heralds the first faint sniffs of a coming salvation.

Each day, a Bloke must lay the gifts of his time and skill on the altar of Mammon slaving away to earn his sustenance. Cups of coffee, endless trips to the loo, inane spreadsheets, chats with the intern and the occasional hard shift are all tools in the Bloke’s arsenal as he strives to make time pass quickly to justify the day’s pay. If the Bloke is lucky, make that uncommonly lucky, he finds his daily grind slightly more than remotely interesting. If he is like the rest of us, sometimes work is a long drawn out struggle with boredom.

Web Reads... 11Feb11

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:06:33 +0000

Personality tests go a notch up - this site offers personality tests based on your blog.
Automating war? Danger room reports that one in fifty ‘combatants’ in Afghanistan is a robot.
The key to snagging the dream girl appears to be acting uninterested. @JangleLegJones thinks differently, sadly I couldn’t convince her to write a 4000 word essay deconstructing the research.
Tim Challies offers the chance to pre-order his new book, and get a signed copy.
Apparently, even sex is a matter for IQ these day s.. Sigh..
There’s an app for that. Confessionals go electronic.
Sleepwalking may be in the DNA after all.
A kiss too far?
Much ado about farting
Potentially crappy valentine weekend coming up? Try these books to get you laid..

2008.... Again..

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:14:05 +0000

I suspect that the truest measure of how sensibly one has aged is how well one is able to take a long hard look at choices - and their potential long term effects - before acting. Time, that most elusive of customers, respects no one. From the day that we are born, our share - ladled without so much as an explanation lobbed in our direction - ineluctably runs out like sand in an hour glass. Each passing second once spent is lost, left to float in the seething morass that is the conflation of opportunities missed, acts of omission and of omission and perhaps on the odd occasion windows of opportunity fully utilised.

Web Reads: 10Dec2010

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:00:49 +0000

The science of attraction. Perhaps it’s all in the mind after all.
Another reason to google your name. You might be wanted for murder…
Necessity is the mother of invention - the husband who rigged up a taser device to keep his wife faithful..
The ‘completely irresponsible’ call reporting a stolen snowman
The case for eating insects..
Mathematical immortality - buy a theorem and name it after yourself.
The smart wallet that could help you spend within your means..
Bacteria that could recycle iron..
The gene for aggression.
DNA testing of babies - whilst in the womb..

Links: 3 Dec 2010

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:09:27 +0000

Feeding the poor with iPads: How FareShare is blending technology and social responsibility..
The game that ‘makes’ you a genetic scientist…
The radiation debate flares up again - are radio waves frying our brains?
Facebook breakups are the real deal..
The right twitter handle can make you famous.. The girl who suddenly became famous thanks to the ashes down under..
Skye Jethani’s 30 day Twitter experiment…

Links: 12 Nov 2011

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:03:49 +0000

More reason to be careful about your twitter activity - The twitter ‘joke’ that’s been blown out of proportion..
iPhone apps that could save your marriage?
The mean gene.: apparently one in four people have this gene..
Taking email (and the internet too seriously)…
Laptops and male fertility.. Interesting piece over at Wired Science…
Another take on the Yahoo vs Gmail argument…Gmail appears to be inherently ‘safer’.. (HT Trae Days)
Interesting take on the Marine Corps, Appearance and Tradition over at The Art of Manliness..
Ribadu is interviewed on the Economist’s Africa blog.
Amazon briefly lists the inappropriately named ‘The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct’ before bowing to pressure and taking it down..
Skype wedding? The possibilities are endless… (HT The Daily Dish)

On repeat.....

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 08:30:44 +0000

We still await the promised Lauryn Hill rebirth….. I’ve had these two on repeat all day……

Can’t take my eyes off of you

Tell Him

World Cup 2010 - Lessons (un) Learned

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:26:49 +0000

A moment of rashness by a certain Sani Kaita will go down as the defining moment of Nigeria’s World Cup - when the tenuous grip of one hundred and fifty million people was savagely hacked off. At that time Nigeria was 1-0 up - thanks to a somewhat fortuitous goal – and had largely being untroubled by the Greeks who had been pedestrian all through. The rest, as they say, is history and Greece went on to win to put Nigeria’s world cup dreams effectively on hold for four more years.

A fitting end..

Fri, 21 May 2010 22:45:28 +0000

To a fabulous week that is…..

It is 11.41pm, and I am as clear eyed as I can be. I have just returned from the Muyiwa & Riversongz concert. It was fab, If I say so. Apparently the concert was designed to signal the commissioning of a ‘gospel’ choir in the city. The music was great all round - a throwback to my days back in University as an undergrad. Surprise, surprise, the bloke who leads the choir was also quite an active bloke on that same campus and was involved in plotting planning various musical events campus wide. The added benefits of catching up with blokes number 10 and 11 (the numbers refer to the number of close friends and acquaintances I have been re-united with since I made the move across the Atlantic) was fab and far outweighed any misgivings I might have had about shelling out 10 pounds to attend (and the 10 pounds I paid for a CD/DVD of Muyiwa’s album.)

If wishes were horses

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:57:38 +0000

If wishes were horses… I’d be out playing golf at the moment; not crunching numbers and telling lies giving expert advice to clients. This glorious sunshine is simply begging for a game of golf!

Sadly, I am neither kith nor kin to Dangote nor to Mutallab Snr; and my dear father (bless his overly patriotic heart) turned down the offer of a tenure at Bristol back in the day :(

On Life...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:17:14 +0000

I suspect…….

…… that beyond all the rhetoric; behind the superfluous arguments, the cynical barbs and the seemingly pragmatic fronts we put up; at its most prosaic, life is about the desire for acceptance, the illusion of autonomy and an ineluctable gravitation towards the certainty that safety brings - And we want to love, and be loved, inspite of our protestations to the contrary.

Sigh…

Cheesy smiles, Bullying, Spam and other randoms..

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:43:48 +0000

I suspect I am not the only one whose instinctive reation to the overly ebullient demeanour of sales people customer service assistants is to curl my fingers into a tight fist. I often want to punch them, so that the smile plastered on their face vanishes. They give me the impression of the legendary house rat - which I am told eats the skin off the feet, but aims a puff of air at the right time and place to dull the pain until it has had its fill of its victim’s feet! Thankfully, I am too lilly-livered to follow through my macabre thoughts with action - else I might be rotting in some jail on the grounds of causing grevious bodily harm.

Random musings...

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:09:05 +0000

So John Terry lost the England football captaincy - strange to me considering the quite public exploits of Sven Goran Ericksson and Mark Pallios back in the day; the recent activities of Avram Grant and the fact that none of the names being touted as Terry replacements have covered themselves in glory in the past. He should simply have listened to the Vera show - and stayed off the friend’s ex… The bloke in the pod next to mine at work says footballers count money in millions of pounds and sense in pence.. Haterade maybe.. But this list of top ten gaffes makes an intriguing read..

Fact... Or Gimmick?

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:14:38 +0000

HT to The Dockers Website via The Doing Hard Things Blog..

Strictly (not) dancing...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:25:24 +0000

I think I have never danced in my entire life - not in church, not on my solitary foray into a night club, not at all the birthday parties I attended as a kid, not ever. I don’t remember if it was a concious decision, or if it was/still is a result of a deep seated phobia even I am unaware of, or if I have always lacked that seemingly natural ability to coordinate the limbs in resonance with external tunes, or if I just plain can’t be bothered.

'Rethinking' Social Networks....

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:37:58 +0000

Perhaps, this is definitive proof that Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter can be good for you after all. First one bloke has his alibi corroborated by a Facebook timestamp (possibly saving him from up to 25 years in jail), then an attempted suicide was averted and Freddy Adu is finding life on the bench less stressful thanks to support from his peers via Twitter.

What say you? What is the most unconventional use you have put Social Networks to?

Random simple things.......

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:50:14 +0000

Chris Abani, speaking at TED in 2008 makes a statement I largely agree with;

The world is not saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of every day acts of compassion..

In the last month I,

Saw a bottle of palm wine explode: The chic was taking some palm wine to her father for a traditional wedding. She failed to consult knowledgeable others and left the bottle of palm wine corked. 67.5mm Hg of pressure (that is the saturated vapour pressure of ethanol at 20 deg C) ripped the bottle to pieces, and showered us in palm wine!
Met @medianemesis -- dude is really cool, smart.. and everything I imagined he was and more. Y’all need to follow him on Twitter and read his old blogs - fabulous!
Attended Chill and Relax. Been a long while I chilled and listened to sublimely intelligent minds speak the language of poetry. I should attend when next I am in the vicinity. Thanks to Cerberus for sending a timely reminder.
Went on a ‘date’ with my friend EC: It was her birthday, I was in town doing nothing so she dragged me along to go grab a bite and just catch up on old times. This was just old friends hanging out after a year of us both zipping around the world without actually seeing each other.
Got recruited as a husband finder, so send in the resumes for your brothers, nephews, uncles and (gulp) good ex- boy friends for consideration. The chic in question is uber smart, pwreeety, focused, - world class in short….. and she needs to sort this out in 2010 unfailingly…
Discovered I miss my campus bistro: My morning breakfast bun - the white bread + bacon + sausages + a hot cup of coffee has grown on me in the last 13 months..
Saw a rainbow - and it actually lifted my spirits. Was up since 2.30am, it was wet and windy, and then suddenly as my train came out of the tunnel just north of Edinburgh the sun broke out and the rainbow appeared - Priceless!
Thought I liked her enough to jettison the 5-year plan, then thought it was a passing fancy and then ultimately decided to fast track certain portions of the plan as opposed to whole sale changes.. Oh, and this is not one of the usual suspects……
Was reminded of the one we lost to the genes. She would have been 29 today!
Saw a different spin on love: They have been married for 55 years, she is now confined to a wheel chair, but each day, he takes her for a ‘walk’, he pushes the wheel chair and they chat as they ‘walk’. That in my mind seemed like true for better for worse.
Watched Imagine That, yes it’s kinda mushy, its cheesy, it runs against belief, but I liked it. Sue me! I need me my twin daughters already

Mobile Phone Etiquette

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 05:22:40 +0000

Apparently a Saudi Arabian woman filed for divorce after her husband stored her name as ‘Guantanamo’ on his cell phone. Wonder what she would do if her name was stored as Oloshi Oloriburuku?

A curious case of HIT and RUN?

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:08:04 +0000

Have a hit-and-run-less weekend!

Dear Fairy God Mother

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:50:51 +0000

Kindly report for duty ASAP. I need my coveralls turned into an Alexander Amosu suit and my grease tainted steel-toed Redwings turned into a pair of Berluti’s. Also please place a requisition for a Bugatti Veyron. While you are at it, please stop by Santa’s and remind him I am yet to receive any responses on my requests for the 11th straight year.

Please be informed, that this is your last chance to prove you exist, else I shall have to take matters into my hands and accept that gruelling 9 to 5!

A Passing Fancy...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:06:35 +0000

Day Zero. You meet her on one of those days. Boredom morphs into irritation, topped off with despondency. Your 8-4 (5-9) is especially dull on the day. Madam Bosco, your loud mouthed, over-bearing boss rips into you as usual over the ever yawning chasm between your targets and your deliveries. The heat seems to have major intentions of causing grievous bodily harm in any case. That is when the ‘gods’ of the internet and itchy fingers contrive to send Her your way.

The Anatomy of a Blogsville Addiction

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:13:41 +0000

Peeps thanks for your best wishes per my birthday.. Pleasantly surprised by the responses..

The information provided below is provided ‘as-is’ for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. If in doubt, see your GP.

You know you need help fast when:

You almost sign off a cheque as your blogger ‘self’ – when money no longer forces clarity on you, wahala dey o.
The last time you ‘spoke’ to your flatmate was on Facebook - especially if the bloke is just two doors away. Not good!
Your supposedly ‘favorite’ cousin has to resort to using the ‘Contact Me’ form on your blog to reach you! - first it is a cardinal sin that your cousin reads your ‘anonymous’ blog, secondly its a major failure that you’re not constantly pacifying him/her.
You live a walking distance from a stadium that hosts Premier League football – but all you want to do is constantly refresh the BBC football page for the latest score and read blogs - it doesn’t get much worse than this.
Your 10+ year addiction, Football Manager, suddenly fails to attract your attention anymore - this seems to suggest there may be a ‘spiritual’ dimension to the whole thing. Call in the ‘Cele ’ peeps sharply mehn.
When pressed for an example in the midst of a discussion, the first stories that come to mind are from Blogs you read! - this has the added effect of potentially inducing a bizarre condition informally referred to as encephalotisitic fatigitis
The night before your big exam you still create time for blog rounds and you then get into a verbal war of words that extends late into the night – especially when you know the full ramifications of not getting an alpha on that exam! - this one requires serious beating - fan belt/ koboko everything… serious unseriousness.
You see bloggers - who you have never met any ways - in your dreams and you ‘just know’ it is them! Another reason to get the ‘Cele’ peeps on the job ASAP.
You read a post and somehow think it’s a slight on you or worse rather than engage people in the real life you vent your anger on your blog - this demonstrates bloke needs to grow up sharpish……
You start wondering which of the events in your world were blogged about by others in the past or worse you give every one around you the suspicious ’eye’ - Not everyone blogs, and if they did, it doesn’t affect you..
You wake up and the first thing on your mind is/are the post(s) you need to create. HT to SolomonSydelle for pointing out the critical omission!
You find it hard to differentiate between your real and virtual friends - HT to Favoured Girl for unearthing this one.
All your current romantic interests are people you have never even seen - we’ll need to add Papa Adeboye to the consortium organizing the prayers to resolve this one. HT to a certain anonymous for unearthing this one!
You spend time on blogger instead of working in the midst of a recession. HT to Original Mgbeke for supplying this one - when the bill paying JOB pales in significance to another activity… Kasala dey try burst be that o….

The Hot Seat......

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:33:23 +0000

For Me….In the midst of potentially destabilizing change…

The hot seat …..is the hot seat…. The place where you are put on the spot, and come under the most intense scrutiny possible. Here, the basis of your Faith is rigorously examined and the coherence of your worldview is systematically evaluated. It is the zone where well meaning words become dry platitudes devoid of any soothing balm, where textbook solutions fall apart, where time tested strategies cannot even begin to scratch the surface of the sickness that a hope deferred brings.

How not to 'kill' weeds..

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Perhaps some inconvenience is better than exotic solutions. This house got wrecked by an attempt to kill weeds with a flame thrower.

Nineteenth Street...

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:31:38 +0000

Strolling with an eager anticipation of the culinary delights sublimely created to soothe my aching throat and growling stomach, I hum a mindless tune that bears no connection whatsoever to any extant song. Somehow the steady ‘chomp chomp’ of my footsteps are the entire accompaniment I can muster to the tune that fills my head to overflowing. It has been a hard day of work; if shuffling papers, shouting at the interns, playing solitaire and facebooking count as work that is. All that is far removed from the fore of my mind though, as the gently fading sun casts long shadows on the earth behind me, whilst I walk along the street, anachronistically named the Nineteenth

Feeling Cool ...... On FaceBook!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:43:17 +0000

Its been a sloooow Friday at mine.. So I spent a huge chunk of it on Facebook…. Enjoy a few of the more esoteric status updates I saw this week.

“The Law of divine BS” - Given two prospects of similar abilities, the rate of change of opportunities to perform with time is directly proportional to the amount of dust yarned and the amount of dross promised! i.e “Open eye” creates opportunities…JS (Before nko, its all about the agbari!)
Light travels faster than sound, that is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak - OO (Appearances will always open doors, it behooves the smart person to ensure the content matches the appearance)
Survivorship bias: We see the winners and “learn” from them, while forgetting the huge unseen cemetery of losers - FOI (Truly, First is everything, the rest is nothing)
You can travel across the world,meet the nicest people and enjoy the greatest moments of life in a tiny yet essential ship called friendSHIP. - RE (You can tell from the mushyness that this is feminine….Valid point though)
*Apart, we dominate; Together, we orchestrate* - DJ (Isn’t it immediately obvious that this dude is the life of the party?)
Walls are meant to shut people out, but they also shut you in - HA (This one newly marry, its allowed!)
A simple smile will do so much..don’t leave home without it - ENO (Another one of the fairly newly wedded peeps, valid point though)
One more " I will always love you" line from his black lips and I honestly will shoot someone! Tutututubararaaraaraara…. PO (Wo.. If you shoot all the people saying they luff you, who will remain?)
Why has the price of pure water stayed at N5 for over 10 years while inflation, currency rates and other costs have gone up? Any thoughts, analysis or suggestions? (FDI) (This one has an MBA from one of the top schools in Europe but is roasting behind a desk in Nigeria, this is just to demonstrate that he still has business insight!)
My prayer for you all is that there would be a transformation that would take each of you to a subspace that is invariant to exogenous perturbations. (AAA) (Surely, I do not sound like this… This one is a prospective Vibrations PhD!)

On self-delusion...

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:18:42 +0000

Perhaps the thin line between self-delusion and dreaming big is crossed where tomorrow’s gains are sacrificed on the altar of yesterday’s illusions.

Of Doctors, Lawyers and Keeping my sanity...

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:49:16 +0000

Edit – Just so you know, I have nothing against Lawyers and Doctors… Its just that they make me want to tear my hair out sometimes…. Its nothing personal.. LOL

Quite frankly if it were possible to be ‘cursed’ with doctors and Lawyers – I think I would have that curse….

My mum is a closet doctor - maybe the disappointment of missing out on medical school made her over compensate - but all my young life I was innudated by quasi-medical books - Look Younger, Live Longer, Where there is no Doctor, Every Woman, and a slew of health books by the Seventh Day Adventists; plus all the newspaper cuttings – how smiling adds a year to your life, hyper vitaminosis, drink your way to health and all that ish..

Sometimes I wonder..................

Tue, 19 May 2009 22:52:56 +0000

Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between……………

Self-delusion and Dreaming Big
Hypocrisy and the Gap Trap
Narcissism and Self Esteem
Love and Admiration
Pragmatism and Foolhardiness

“If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side?

- Leo Tolstoy

V-Day Blues.......

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:25:00 +0000

So I spent V-Day at home, with a tall glass of milk (make that several), a pack of tortilla chips flavored with some hot sauce (i forget the name) from Marks and Spencer, alternating between playing FM2009 on my laptop, popping into Facebook from time to time and trawling blogsville for the slightest attempt of a post by anyone that i hadn’t commented on whilst making sure to avoid all the mushy Hollywood guy-meets-girl-and-they-fall-in-love make believe sold as movies to the unsuspecting… Given that meant my books were left unattended to for a whole day, (unthinkable - considering i shelled out 13k pounds before the pound went into freefall that is) it might have counted as a day completely wasted…