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(Reuters) Tanzania’s presidential candidates made a last-ditch push for votes on Friday before an election on Sunday that is expected to attract record numbers of young voters in east Africa’s second largest economy. By Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala DAR ES SALAAM | Fri Oct 29, 2010 More than two-thirds of Tanzania’s population of 40.7 million are aged between 10 and 35 years, according to government estimates, and analysts say a high turnout by young voters could help the main opposition candidate. “More than ever before, youths are motivated to vote,” said Dar es Salaam-based rights activist Ananilea Nkya. “They want to see changes in the way their country is being run.” With nearly 20 million people eligible to vote, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and the main opposition Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) have shifted their focus to first-time voters and the tech-savvy middle class. Political parties and supporters are using text messages, video clips on YouTu...

I was at the SOAS library today and I had to wait quite a long time to ask a question about renewing my library card. While I was waiting, I thought a bit about how many cards we as students have to carry in London, and how this load could be eased. To begin with, you have an ID card issued by your academic institution. Some institutions sync their library records with this ID card, while others do not. Mine does not. So I have a student ID card and a library borrower card from my institution. We also apply for discounts on transport through the Student Oyster Card. That gets us to use the buses and trains at cheaper monthly rates than retail price. And then there's the thousands of discount and loyalty cards that make London a little cheaper to eat, shop, and communicate in. So there's cards for that. For example, everytime I want something at Sainsubury, I need to think about carrying my Nectar card. So here's a logically simple but perhaps logistically not-so-simple step...

To see source feeds: The RSS project .

Posted at Vijana FM on October 26, 2010 In the last two years, there has been a lot of talk about the SEACOM project , which links the coasts of East and South Africa. The project involved the immersion of undersea fibre optic cables that increase speeds and decrease costs for Internet Service Providers and users. We have discussed the SEACOM project on two occasions; when we mentioned the Nation Media Group's golden jubilee , and when we asked Mbwana Alliy five questions . There has therefore been a lot of excitement about the prospect of starting new goods and services based on the Internet that are especially for certain markets in Africa. Due the growth in the use of mobile phones, this excitement is further channeled into how mobile applications can be built, used, and developed over the Internet. If you are getting ideas about how to run a product or service on the Internet in Africa, it is probably wise to check out Internet World Stats (IWS) . The IWS website provides comp...

I just realized today that trying to start a new way of thinking in our world inherently assumes that the world is a collaborative place to work. Why would someone want to introduce a new way of thinking, either through an invention, theory, or service? Probably because they don't find the resources to solve a problem when it happens and where it happens. But also because they assume that there will be a need for their invention, theory, or service to interact with other existing ideas. So starting something new and not collaborating seems more difficult than getting in with strong working relations with others in the field. Collaboration is therefore not only recommended for sustainable development, but necessary. There is value in being rejected by the world, then. Because you learn what existing collaborations do not take into consideration. Yes, this does involve copious amounts of tweaking to someone else's preferences, but it yields something in the end that is of value n...

Tried the same thing as my last post, just a different day (today). In case you're wondering what my source for the words is, it is this RSS project that I've just shelved for about a year now. At the moment it is quite simple a self-refreshing page displaying 8 feeds. What would be nice is if a new wordle could be generated on the same page for everytime the feeds were refreshed (every 5 minutes). Hebu tujaribu.

I've put that ol' RSS project in a filing dustpile for a while now, but I'm just dusting it off now. Here's today's wordle... I would like to figure out how to do this real-time, so that we can have a look at trends in words as they are uttered (on the news).

Source: Blastr

Dear friends: Please let's stop refering to Tanzania as Tasmania. Here is why. Tanzania is located on the coast of East Africa, below Kenya. It is not origin of the the cartoon character from your childhood. Tasmania is an island which is part of Australia. The animal known to exist only on Tasmania is the Tasmanian Devil. Once again, you will see this is not the cartoon character you remember from your childhood. Let's summarize: Tanzania is not Tasmania.

What makes one human act for another? What makes them think they can do it for a long period of time? More importantly, where do those values go as time passes; are they cultured and developed into ways of being, or are they ignored for other values?

The impediments incident to this work, are generally two, viz. natural impotency and defect of necessary expence, or occupations and labours. Yet we say, natural impotency is manifold; viz. partly from the organs of the artist, and partly from his soul. From the organ of the artificer, it is also manifold; for either the organ is weak, or wholly corrupted. And it is manifold from the impotencies of the soul; either because the soul is perverted in the organ (having nothing of rectitude, or reason in it self) as the soul of the mad infatuate man; or because it is fantastical, unduly suseptive of the contrary of forms, and suddenly extensive from the one thing knowable, to is opposit, and from one will to its opposit likewise. I interpret the above extract from the works of Jabir, the eighth century Muslim Alchemist, to mean that spiritual pursuits require mental and physical commitment. What I am confused about however is whether or not mental and physical commitments are indefinately b...

Why is it that we have so many websites today that are about making easy money online (which always comes down to maintaining a blog to get as many clicks on website ads as possible)? What happened to actually sweating for some cash?

I was recently reading on Financial Times and BBC that the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has been studying governance in Africa for a few years now. The studies aim to give a prize in governance every year to those African countries making remarkable progress towards stable democracies, though for the past two years the Foundation has not found any country in Africa to qualify. Current rankings from the Foundation put Mauritius, the Seychelles and Botswana in the top ten, and Somalia, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the bottom ten. I'm just thinking aloud: Why haven't we as Africans developed scales of improvement that are relative to our peoples' cultures, resources, and ambitions? Though moves to incessantly grade each other - from our schooling days, to the work place, to retirement pensions - are meant to philosophically help us improve eachother, I feel that we are getting carried away with assessing eachother. I fear that when it comes down to governance in A...

A distinguished scholar and thinker in Islamic Studies, Dr. Mohammed Arkoun, passed away recently, on September 14, 2010. He was 82 years old. Professor Arkoun was, amongst a large list of job descriptions , a visiting lecturer at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. I happen to be in the first class at the IIS graduate program that will not have a class with Professor Arkoun. I never had the chance to meet this man. But this man, I came to find, had an astonishingly huge impact on his students, colleagues, and fellow thinkers. At today's memorial service at the IIS, as I heard various faculty members and former students paint a picture of his life, I was humbled at their praise for the unquestionable spirit of Professor Arkoun's exploration of Islam. He seems to have been a man that wanted to explore thought, the ways of thinking, and the ways of advancing thought in Islam. He also seems to have been a man who enjoyed theories, and pushing the boundaries of contemporary theories,...