In 2013, Netflix, the internet powerhouse of movies and television streaming announced that they were going to produce and stream an original-somewhat original actually- show, literally customized, using statistical analysis of metadata, which before was only used to recommend shows to viewers based on their viewing habits. All they were going to do, really, was repurpose data already available and in use. This innovative idea gave birth to the hit television show “House Of Cards” , the company executives and a generation of binge watching fiends thanked the big data and metadata gods. This is probably not the best example but you must forgive me, I am unfortunately, one of those so called binge watching fiends.
The big data and metadata gods aren’t exactly the newest gods on the block, as a matter of fact, since the days of sending scouts to gather intelligence from enemy camps to consulting ancestors and oracles for glimpses into the future, a huge part of decision making is reliant on data available. However, the days of tediously awaiting news from scouts and ambiguous instructions from ancestors and oracles are almost quite behind us and apparently, “…unprecedented rate of innovation in data collection techniques and technologies and the capacity to distribute data widely and freely has expanded the horizon of possible sources and uses of data.” (Data for Development, 2015). IBM reports that the volume of data in the world is increasing exponentially and estimates that about 90% of the data in the world has been created in the past two years, Michael Karastic of IBN reported that there is over one thousand exabytes-keep in mind that one exabyte is one quintillion bytes, which is equally one billion gigabytes- of data on the planet. In not so many words, there is data, plenty of data and much like every revolution in the history of man, by the sheer audacity of their numbers and importance they can’t and will not be ignored.
Data generated from high resolution satellite imagery, mobile devices biometrics, crowd sourcing have revolutionized the way we live and the way we care for our planet. For Example, in Uganda, the Mtrac program supported by UNICEF and WHO uses sms surveys completed by health worker to inform public health officers on the outbreak of malaria and the supplies available to treat it (http:// http://www.digitalenlightenment.org/publication/def-yearbook-2014) . Namibia, echoing the brilliance of Netflix, repurposing already available data, used cell phone records to trace travel patterns and satellite images to help identify the places prone to harboring parasite and mosquito population and help stop the spread of malaria (Data For development Action Plan, 2015). In both South Korea and Nairobi, Kenya cell phone data and GPS tracking devices have been used to improve intra city travel, by mapping bus routes and providing information about the best trail. GEO global agricultural monitoring initiative uses satellite and weather data to provide reports on the growing conditions for maize rice soybeans and wheat( A World That Counts, 2014). This is obviously very useful information, for example in 1997, the Kenyan government used data gotten from satellite imagery and took the initiative of importing extra grain to avoid shortages caused by drought (Skidmore et al, 1997).
While it is well and good to use data altruistically, it’s afterall, human nature to indulge in the opulence of less traffic, more food, better movies and television shows e.t.c, it is very important that we keep in mind that we haven’t just inherited the earth from our ancestors and forefathers, we have also borrowed it from our children, because what is development if it isn’t sustainable to perpetuity.
With the launch of ERTS-1 in 1972, the way we monitor our planet has taken a turn for the better, we have been kept abreast of deforestation, agroecologic zonation, ozone layer depletion, food early warning systems, monitoring of large atmospheric-oceanic anomalies such as El Niño, climate and weather prediction, ocean mapping and monitoring, wetland degradation, vegetation mapping, soil mapping, natural disaster and hazard assessment and mapping, and land cover maps for input to global climate models (Skidmore et al, 1997).
All of these information has helped government officials with policy making, urban planners with keeping track of densely populated environs, sustainable development monitors with assessing the level of environmental degradation and impact caused by natural disasters and human activities.
Remote sensing (satellite Imagery) hold big things for the future, for example, Surface Water and Ocean Technology, a new mission to be launched by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the French Centre National d’Études Spatiale (CNES) in the year 2020 has the ability to map water elevation, ocean surface topography as well as its terrestrial bodies.
The big data and metadata gods are here to help and the more slowly government and non-government organizations, companies and private citizens adapt to it, the more expensive it will be to catch up. It is a revolution and this revolution will not be televised, it will be saved to cloud.
I thought this was spectacular
Vunderkind’s note: I wrote this long ago as a sort of self-test, after the style of Tai Pei by Tao Lin. I must warn you: it is pretty long and round-about.
***
I used to know a guy named Lucky.
He worked at one of the barbershops in Downtown, a part of town where parents would rather shave the heads of their children with blades than patronize the barbershop. Haircuts were a luxury here, and people tried as much as possible to squeeze in the longest possible time interval between their last haircut and the next one; here, afros and dreadlocks were more an economic necessity than an actual fashion statement.
If you have a fresh haircut here, people would ask if you are going for a job interview and when you say no, they’d call you something along to the lines of “rich,” or “enjoying” (they would say you…
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Knock knock”
“Who’s there?”
“It is I…
“The pimp of conscience,
The absolution without penance,
The annihilation of morals by logic,
The justification of discarded ethics,
The buyer of “sold out”
The gentrification of the soul”
“Open up, you capitalist fuck.”
Agreeing with the anonymous academic advising that no arithmetic nor algorithms can acquire an almost accurate assessment of the acute abomination I find myself “accommodating”
Admittedly I’ve amass much agony by actively pursuing my atrocity aggressively, perhaps if you agree to not be anal and accept without much antagonism, I shall attempt to neither appal nor appease you with my admission and much shall be accomplished.
I will neither anticipate nor await your approval or applause as I apprise my situation without anaesthesia.
I do expect to annoy you with my arcane err…..”arrangement” however I appeal to your logic to put aside archaic sentiments and administer appropriate acknowledgement as I articulate my activities. Please feel free to ascertain and assess my err…..”arrangement”.
Before I begin, I beseech you, do not go berserk by my oh so backward babble.
I beheld him while still a babe at my mother’s bosom, without baggage or ballad but bare bottomed and beaming like a blooming bouquet.
He was my beautiful body of blessing, my boastful brawny brute of a baron, I was bewitched.
Barely a decade and half after being birthed , biceps and bulges between belly button and thighs began to set ablaze bubbles in my belly, bitter-sweet barbaric urges began to brew as breathless blushing brides and breathy blokes without breeches burned my brain brown and bloody.
Here was my budding buddy laid before me like a british buffet: butler, brownie and butty.
Consent and curiosity created a calamity so carved in chaos that the creator contributed not more than a cameo in this circus.
Cannabis, candy and creamy confectionaries caused curious carefree caresses and conceived most of this craze.
Capable hands cuddling manly cane and lips causing capillary action only ceasing at completion.
Careful nibbles of carnal knowledge and cunnilingus rivaling that of cannibals.
Oh dear.
It was like a commotion at a carnival, a celebration the Catholics would curse
Concentrated charged chain reactions coming from cerebral authorities casting aside chatter and constraint, copulation cremating chaste and consciousness, conveniently conquering mind, complete corruption of body, confiscation of innocence and consummation of souls.
As it were.
Coitus with my cousin.
This never gets old
Real nigga thoughts deep fried in gold
Inspired by Patron or a plain glass of rum
Sizzled deep in our hearts till it imitates the colour of the sun
Stripped bare of all sentiment
Food for the intelligent
Let to marinate in hate
Serve it hot, make rude boy salivate
Tried to sell it in Berlin
Twas impossible like a blind man try’na explain the colour of sin
Took it to Latin America
They started acting like they was Oliver
Opened shop in Nigeria
Those who couldn’t afford felt inferia’
So much they got ground under
But later they got even like a round number
This verse is our righ’
Hip hop will be aii
Made our headphones feel like a wife
In fact, rap music our life
We & her are a match made in heaven
What’s missing is the Reverend
Now ask about our…
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*enters stage right*
*roaring applause*
Beht of course. I am Naija Dude. *dusts shoulders*
*cues music* “it ends tonight”
Today’s post is just all sorts of awesome. Like how else did you think we were gonna end The Jonzing Series?! Big bro hugs for @Tshyka (my first guest writer) and @itzEDK (the pro ghost writer).
The Jonzing Series finale is a not-so-short post, like all true awesome ones and is a product of the incredibly werey, yet amazing mind of @ehienabs! You can catch her thoughts at here: ehienabs blog
*exits stage left*
*
Once upon a time, in the olden days, a few decades ago, when women put blush on their cheeks and men wore tuxedos and smelled nice… wait what??
Guy!!! Na my tory and I go talk am as I like… una too razz sef…..
As I was saying, there lived a princess and a prince… okay…
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Hello!
Today is Wednesday! (Just in case you tend to forget what day it is like me) and today, we have another writer gracing this blog.
Larries and genrumen, Say hello to @Achi_va.
Hope you enjoy!
ONWU NWATA
They smiled while we cried.
We went hungry, they laughed at us starve.
Our needs fed their egos; we were lead out like errant sheep to the fields.
They butchered us like rams; we were after all less human.
‘Bring the infidels here, let their skin crawl.
Let us gaze upon their diseased skulls.’
I long for the days of joy, and nights when we watched the stars flicker.
To the emptiness we were condemned.
Fields of hate cultivated in our hearts.
They must never see my tears.
Carrying artillery twice my fragile frame,
Thrust in the path of blood, I saw the devil eye to eye.
He was black, clad in…
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Whoa there! Look at the cobwebs on this babe
Haha
I feel so bad for the way I’ve been treating her (by “her” I’m referring to this blog, of course) anyways, I was just going about my business pressing my phone and I opened my WordPress app and……voila! Here she was looking abandoned, discarded and as beautiful as ever (yes, cobwebs and all) so I decided to clean her up a bit put some make up on her, a nice dress and get her hair did and you know, take her dancing. (P.s that’s what I’m doing right now)
So, I’m going through my drafts and memories from way back starts popping up, making me feel all soft and squishy inside, you see, long before I had the courage to hit the “publish” button on my pieces, my blog was primarily used as a diary *ahem* journal……(._. )
Moving on, how this happened actually was, I’d just finished reading a book and it was basically written in a modern epistolary form using blog entries. At the end of the book the character observed that her blog rather than just documented events also documented her reactions and emotions to said event and that her memory didn’t quite do justice to that event, especially in the emotions department.
Whoop, I think I went on and on there for a bit, basically what I learned from the book (guys I’m really sorry I don’t remember the name of the book) is our memory sucks. Yes. Really. Now if you don’t have an eidetic memory then yours, like the rest of us sucks as well. It’s not about how accurately you remember the event, or how accurately you remember how a chain of events occurred, your memory will find a way of screwing it up.
We’ve all been in that situation were we are reporting/gisting/narrating a story and a friend of ours goes “oh no, you were angrier than that” or “dude! you were far more obsessed that” (I usually get the latter, don’t judge guys…..just don’t) and if you’ve never heard that from a friend chances are, you don’t have any friends and you have a cat and you’re a virgin and you are going to die alone.
As I was saying our memory acts like it has a mind of its own (yes I saw what I did there, I’m not sure what I did there, please just go with it) it edits, deletes and manipulates as it pleases. This is not always a bad thing because sometimes we don’t need to remember how in love we were or how obsessed we were (don’t look at me pls) or how humiliated we were or how angry or how sad or how happy we were because sometimes if we do remember, we may not have the motivation to try again.
This is an excerpt from one of my diary ahem journal entry
“….. how messed up our lives are, it feels like I’m missing something and there’s that one thing I need to make my life complete, I just don’t have any fucking idea what it is……I want to go home, I’m homesick as fuck, home for me is not just about going to lagos, its going back to what life was before, the carefreeness, the hope for my brother, just what life appeared to be, and not what it fucking looks like at the moment…..I wanna go home NOTE TO FUTURE SELF: you are a long way from home”
I don’t remember ever feeling that way but my diary *ahem*journal said other wise, I’m happy I don’t remember that feeling and I have my memory to thank for that. So I’m going to end this post the way I end my diary *ahem* journal ( Urggggh! I need to stop doing that) entries.
NOTE TO FUTURE SELF: your past is really just a perception.
Hey guys check out wahalacentral I and a few others intend to cause reckless there.
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