Ghanaian Youtubers

Let me tell youuuu, we’re a lottttt
There are soooo many Ghanaian youtubers both in and outside Ghana.
& we all pull our efforts individually to put out great content.
LET ME PUT YOU ON; in no particular order

— Elorm🇬🇭 (@Ama_governor) April 25, 2020

Ghana's digital addressing system

Just like many tech enthusiasts, the announcement of a digital solution brings life, hope and joy. Also having a new government in place meant that we could afford to give our policy leaders the benefit of the doubt and live for a brighter day (you'll get this joke at the end, I promise). Yesterday, Ghana launched the Digital Addressing System in a well attended event and this is my two cents on it. 

Just as with many products in Ghana, you really don't know what you're getting until it arrives. From the start, we were furnished with little information about what the specific goals of the digital addressing system intervention are. But judging from the president's address at the launch yesterday, the Ghana post gps system was expected to give every house a digital address which would replace the "behind the Koko seller" and "just after the big billboard" style of giving directions, which has a large place in our current addressing system. On many fronts, the Ghana post gps system has come really short of realistic expectations.  A complete overhaul in system design will be needed, if we want it to deliver in the right way. The application was developed by a third party (asaaasegps) and from what I gather, the Ghana post gps application is just a fork of the asaaasegps application with some few modifications. I will keep my sentiments about  the bidding process and selection criteria out of this blog post. I want to analyze the thought process of those who were given the responsibility to solve Ghana's addressing system problem.

Digital: Ghana is experiencing a digital bubble, it didn't start today and it has surely been on for at least 5 years. Any proposed solution with the keywords "app","digital","bio-metric","innovative" "easy to use" among others seem to be the automatic answer to the problem at hand. From the president's speech yesterday, the last time Ghana's addressing system was revised was somewhere in the year 1974. Having grown up with the "plot" system which has a standard plot size of (100mX100m) with an allowable range of  7,000 - 10,000 square metres, you would assume that any system supposedly designed to uniquely identify property would use a ratio similar to this, since we have been building our houses from the year 1974 and maybe even before 1974 based on this. 

Unless of course asaasegps has outdated and incorrect information on their website, they use the grid system to give every 5mX5m space a unique digital address, with Ghana having around 16.1 billion digital addresses.

 My primary suspicion after reading the 25 square metres declaration from their website was: looks like my house will have more than one address! (This makes the whole system entirely flawed and quite similar to having more than one travel passport). I tested my hypothesis and even though feedback from the app told me it's best if I stand outside, I was able to generate two valid addresses from one house; one from my brother's room and one from my room.  The problem with two valid addresses for one logical location comes in this scenario, if I go to present this information to a third-party, I really don't see how they can detect that I have generated two addresses from one location, with which I can get clearance to do anything I want. I can decide to use the address from my brother's room when I am going to take a loan from the bank and use the address from my room as my address when applying for a passport to travel out of the country and avoid having to pay the loan i took from the bank. Since it is an issue of identity, having two valid identities is worse than having no acceptable identity at all, since you will have to provide a verifiable and reliable identity document with the latter.

OK so maybe saying a complete overhaul is needed is a bit radical, let us try and look at what can be done to fix the problem, since the project supposedly cost GHS2.5m. 

A back-end algorithm to group my brother's room address, my room address and all open space within my house under one logical address is not implemented and cannot be implemented. There's just no way you can tell from an algorithm running on a server that they are all in the same house and not in different houses. [Unless of course they zoom in with Google satellites and using an image recognition algori...... which is another thing ]. We have many dispersed and unplanned settlements in Ghana. We cannot define structure to our housing that easily. [If it is available, shame on the development team for not prompting me after I generated the second address]. I don't think they have it set up simply because: a back-end clustering algorithm will fall short in predicting that my brother's room and my room are in the same house. What metric will be used? What data will the algorithm be trained on? The algorithm will be a total mess in densely populated settlements! (I apologize for my zero effort in assembling my rhetorical questions and exclamations into an easily digestible argument).

Applying a different dimension of thought will suggest that, we can get information on locations which are roads, water bodies etc. [basically places we cannot logically reside in], and then overlay that data with the data we are getting from active Ghanaians , who are doing their patriotic duty of mapping out all inhabited locations, without any clear incentive to do so.  

Asaasegps sorry, Ghana post gps will then rely on the data submitted to build up a map that will help us do the clustering. Going with this approach will mean that we're making the bold assumption that housing, road construction and project siting in Ghana has structure. And even worse, we can trust people with no clear incentive for them to do the right thing. 

There are many things I can continue to say on the issue but putting this together has taken up more time than I thought it would take. I didn't even get the chance to talk about the other important features like verifying, updating, access permissions, data protection et cetera but I want to end by saying, it didn't rain yesterday but the launch of the digital addressing system put a cloud over our heads and forced many tech enthusiasts in Ghana to bow in shame.

A series in tech- the introduction

Computer science as a discipline should be something that is easy to comprehend.  The truth is all computer software and systems are modeled after human behavior and they were introduced in order to address human problems.  So if indeed average human beings cannot fully understand and utilize these same principles in their daily living then the assumption that technological innovation will suffer a stall in growth may be a valid one.

Last week the iPhone 7 was unveiled by Apple (a tech company) and thanks to social media we had a clear picture of what made people excited and what they expect in their smartphones. The waterproof design,  the earpods (I think that's what they are called)  and the two cameras at the back did it for most.  It is worth mentioning too that people actually prefer the iPhone over other smartphone brands because iPhone apps look better in their eyes.

Now Google which is another technology company had an event some time back where they spoke about their new operating system the android N. Android N brings artificial intelligence and machine learning to the every day human being and I must admit, the Google app which implements artificial intelligence is really awesome and I think that it can only get better from this point on. It can only get better if we demand more from it. We can only demand more from it if we understand it and the basic engineering behind it.

I am going to try to make a post every week in a series that will make you understand syntax, semantics,  lexicons and make you understand why some tasks can be achieved by a computer and why some tasks are just unachievable. It is my ultimate aim to increase the general knowledge in computing principles in a non technical way :) because you will need to understand these things.
 I will start by explaining DATATYPES and how you as a human are a datatype.  Don't worry,  no fore-knowledge in computer science is required and it will be easily digestible because if indeed the average human being cannot fully understand and utilize these computer principles in their daily activities then the assumption that technological innovation will suffer a stall in growth may be a valid one.

THE VARIABLE

Hello,

My name is Al.

Curiosity kills the cat they say but I for one believe in taking the extra step and if my super inquisitiveness mode is on, going the extra mile to know things because you see; knowledge is power.

Someone can be born intelligent but that same someone has to earn the title “smart” by studying and learning a specific subject matter.

I like to inquire about stuff and get people to share their knowledge with me. I sadly however leave an annoying impression on those I interact with and my inquisitive nature is most often than not described as “long” and linked to the fact that I am a Northerner.

In case you didn’t  know, Al stands for Alhassan and I can bet on the fact that if Al stood for an ewe name you’d be quick to link my tribe to the “Curiosity kills the cat” proverb I started off with.

Maybe my purpose on Earth is to try and minimize stereotyping and tribal comments. Maybe God sent me to this forsaken land to touch a life. Maybe I would never know what my true purpose is and I just have to continue trying stuff out before my life gets terminated.

It really sucks to be ignorant and naive. It really hurts to be a victim of ignorance and bad stereotyping.

The birds of the sea and the fish of the sky. We may never know what good thing we can create with every lost stereotyping second ticking……

Bye.

Music in the religious context

Music in the religious context is harmonic,comforting and most importantly angelic.

The modern trend in church music in Ghana is to produce high tempo,entertaining beat mixes. Azonto is now seen as the widely accepted way of moving to the melody of said music. "Jump unto the Lord, Shout unto the Lord, and oddly, blow unto the Lord" are now common manifestations of faith. And by blow I'm talking about Vuvuzelas and not trumpets.

It is true that our religious lifestyles are greatly influenced by our social,economic,political and sometimes cultural obligations. But then, to what extent should these factors influence RELIGION as a parent node to all our varying religious lifestyles....(think this through)

I am a great admirer of the Islamic way of life. They separate to a great extent their religious obligations from everything else. Their prayers are said in Arabic,their songs have suffered a little distortion as a result and the prescribed attire for worship hasn't changed in any significant way too.

Flexibility when it comes to the christian faith is really a source of worry. Rap gospel, tight dresses, unimaginable makeup et cetera  become more tolerable by the second with no certain pre-defined limit to this kind of flexibility in our places of worship created purposely as the houses of God.

Let me try and summarize in this paragraph before I go further off topic. The point I'm trying to underscore is, IN OUR QUEST TO DISCOVER THE TRUE MEANING AND ESSENCE OF RELIGION. WE SHOULD TRY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE NOT TO CHANGE WHAT WE WERE TAUGHT. ANY CHANGE WE TRY TO MAKE WILL IMPACT GREATLY WHAT WE WILL BE HANDING DOWN TO OTHERS AS WELL. AND, IN OUR QUEST TO REDISCOVER SOMETHING CLOSE TO THE ORIGINAL DOCTRINES, WE SHOULD RE-DIRECT OUR LIVES TO THE ORIGINAL KNOWN FAITH.

..........This actually looked longer on my phone. Ah well

Don't Break The Fence

Not too long ago,the issue of gay unions in Africa was a trending story on the international scene. Almost if not all African leaders expressed their opinion on the matter amidst lynching,killing and mob actions on certain parts of the continent.

I stand to be corrected but to the best of my knowledge when the Ghanaian president back then H.E John Atta-Mills was interviewed on the issue. He clearly stated that he and his nation are strongly against succumbing to western forces and recognizing gay rights . He cited local moral values and religious doctrines of the majority of the Ghanaian population as the reason. The story was no different in other countries like Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

I understand that a young man was beaten severely in Ghana due to his sexual orientation. I was however disgusted to see people massively condemning the action by the mob on twitter but still saying that he was at fault because of his sexual orientation with studies showing that most people have no control over their orientation. Most people "frowned on the act of gayism but don't support the fact that he was beaten ".

We witnessed a similar situation in Paris when the cartoonist Charlie Hebdo was killed for the satirical depictions of revered religious figures and leaders. Did he have the right to represent another man's religion in an insulting manner? Are there any laws in France that allow its citizens to express themselves in this manner? In other words how Liberal is France as compared to Ghana.

Ghana frowns on gay unions but hasn't declared whether they're criminal or not.We can declare that we are a country that takes our moral and religious values seriously and as such, anyone who doesn't live in adherence with our doctrines shouldn't be treated as a citizen. OR, We can decide to tolerate gay unions and prosecute those who in any-way intimidate others due to their sexual orientation. But we can't have a fine mix of both.

A policeman frowns upon stealing. A thief looks to stealing as the only means to an end in his life.As such, there shouldn't be a situation where a police man should be ok with a thief stealing but then comes out to argue when others who are against stealing try to "deal" with the thief when he his caught. If something of this sort happens, it means something major is wrong.

If we declare we are a homophobic state, we should either have laws to prosecute gay people or prosecute those who intimidate gay people. We shouldn't say we are homophobic or not but scared to prosecute offending parties.

Nigeria is the best example for this paragraph. together as a nation, they are against gay unions because Christianity and Islam are the most dominant religions in the country. They are therefore united on the homophobic front. The Boko Haram militant group claiming Islamic roots however has other propositions due to their religious roots they claim. There is a major problem in Nigeria because laws weren't made based on civil reasons.

The Pope was heavily criticized when he said we shouldn't condemn gay people but rather strive to bring them closer to God so that they may find reason to change their orientation if they can.

No man deserves to die because of how he lives. No man deserves to be punished because others aren't comfortable with the way he behaves not because he has violated their rights in a way.

 BE BOLD AND TAKE A STAND BASED ON CIVIL RIGHTS

Juliette and Juliet;the edited story

A beautiful tale by humans altered by humans.

A wisdom that guides us has no course.

A life of purpose, a mark to be made.

The Mona Lisa without filters, the beauty maintained.

Kept in a diary not in an app, edited with a quill not the backspace.

When will our wisdom have a limit and our decisions guided but not based......

On free will.

How many changes do we have to make, when will we understand " for God's sake".

The second coming, the trumpets shall sound. The dawning of a new year, "knock-outs shall blast".

 A beautiful tale altered to make life comfy..............

 

 

Juliet and Juliette, the wondering souls' story.