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This is the last part of the JAB interview, the first is here. It was fun reading JAB’s responses, and I hope you enjoy this last bit. Before we get to that, here is one more pic of the trio.

Iwinyo Piny & Animation in general.

The chicken or the egg question: Which came first? The animation or the music?

BILL(Blinky): The music. We used to jam in campus. And that’s where everything else spun off from.

JIM: The music came first, definitely. As always, it was a random happenstance (our music usually is). Then Dan went, “We could do a cartoon…”, and here we are.

DAN: The music was there first, but I can remember some occasions when the animation influenced the song, especially the lyrics, coz there was supposed to be more words that would have made it clearly a song about a girl, but when we talked about the video concept allowing for a broader interpretation, the lyrics were trashed (after which one station told us they couldn’t play our song coz it didn’t have any lyrics! Haha!).

What is your animation history?

DAN: I did this one month crash course in animation right before starting Uni, and when I met Jim and Blinky I talked trash about how we could do these huge animated videos, even though I had never actually done anything… So we started Iwinyo, and I was thoroughly humbled. I guess it came out OK, though. It was a learning experience.

JIM: If there ever was a time that we had internal fights, it was during the Iwinyo phase. I think we’re over that now.

DAN: Or at least we’ve figured out some “Constructive Anger Management Techniques.”

JIM: I have absolutely no idea what he means…

DAN: *blink*

(Does rendering take forever?)

Rendering? That depends on what programs/methods you’re using… As the 2D guy, I lack the patience that the 3D guys develop whilst waiting for the goodies to iva[ripen].

I personally really like animation because of the freedom it allows you in terms of following your ideas. And I like 2D for its much more human feel, 3D can be kinda plastic. I really hate how long it takes to make, though. I see Jimmy dropping live action videos and photography projects like bunnies…

I taught animation and cartooning a bit and I work as a freelance animator to pay them bills, and so I’m all up on Kenyan animation, where it could go, what stories we could tell… but that’s a long story.

JIM: Photography and video are somewhat more immediate, which makes me look hard-working. It’s just that projects get finished real quick.

What kind of software do you use to create the animation? and is uploading videos onto YouTube (from Kenya) as torturous task as I experienced or do you have a secret high speed bunker where we can mooch off of justabandwidth?

JIM: Adobe Flash and Adobe AfterEffects.

DAN: Drawings for the 2D are done on paper, and scanned or redrawn on comp. For the next animated video we’re doing, for the track called FunkyFineBeautiful, we have a new collaborator who kicks butt at 3DS Max. As for the uploading, we mooch off our friends’ high speed connections…

Your YouTube tag is justabandwidth which is very cool. Could one presume that you are total geeks?

BILL: We seem to attract an intelligent crowd…I prefer to be on my computer than at a party…

DAN: Haha! Ms Interviewer, it’s like you know us! Yes, at least two of us are total geeks (the other one is in denial).

JIM: As in?

DAN: As in, whilst some of us spend all day turning pale indoors with computers and pencils as our only companions, others manage to maintain some kind of engagement with the outside world. Game recognize game, by the way, so should we assume that [Ms. Interviewer] is also the “bookish type”?

JIM: So all that nonsense about Bill preferring to be at the computer is a lie. He’s the most outgoing chap. I think it’s strange how it’s never been cool to be a geek (only for a brief moment, when Pharrell and company emerged, then he sold out and became cool)? I mean, everyone else has had their moment in the spotlight; the skaters, the punks, the thugs, the gay boys and girls (heady times, the 80s), the Goths…I feel disenfranchised.

I am a total geek. I did every geek thing a human being can possibly do; the braces, the spectacles, being bad at sports (except swimming, for some strange reason), being good at computers, going to cinemas to actually watch movies instead of making out at the back, actually using my library card, studying IT in college etc. If there are types of geeks, I guess I’m the finally-at-ease-with-it kind of geek.

BLINKY: You should see my primary school pictures… then you wouldn’t talk like that… I only go for parties because…

DAN: Geeks are so cool nowadays. The days of warrior kings and sportsmen politicians are gone! Now it’s like, “Bow Before My Fearsome Intellect!”

I found the use of pictures in the video quite interesting, what is the name of the street at [1:08] of Iwinyo Piny? (I have taken pics of that street but can’t remember the name for the life of me??! What of the one at [1:33] placemark?

JIM: That would be Kenyatta Avenue – one of the cuter streets in town. 1:33 is the street that connects City Market to Koinange Street, I have no idea what it’s called; but it’s very textured.

Have you guys ever been jacked? There is a depiction in your video, of a guy being mugged and his shoes being taken. Was this a form of commentary on the crime problem in Nairobi?

DAN: Not recently. As a young person living in Nai, I think you just have to get jacked at some point. We added that bit in the video just for laughs (the video has had a lot of very cool interpretations by people and I’m always scared of telling people what we were thinking as we made it coz it’s so underwhelming… When we’re coming up with images most of the time it’s just like, hey, this would look cool! And then sometimes it comes with its own deeper meaning…)!

JIM: Incidentally, I lost my phone on Friday, and two weeks before I lost my ID and elector’s card. And I also lost my wallet the other day (in a bank!) – I’ve been on a roll. The bank called me the other day to say they’d found my stuff lying around in the banking hall. Thankfully, all those incidents weren’t the mugging kind; they were the pickpocket kind (sigh) – which is slightly more embarrassing because it makes people think you have no sense of self-awareness whatsoever.

In 2004, it was more of a problem than it is now, which is not to say that it doesn’t happen anymore. People actually wear gold chains and earrings and watches on the street these days, because cases of mugging have decreased. Pickpockets still rule, damn them all to Eternal Hell. As for making commentary, I remember Daniel just thought it’d be funny. Does that count?

BLINKY: I used to live in Eastleigh, It was hard to keep your new shoes, coz at one point, I was sneaker jacked, and it wasn’t funny.

I found out about your band through the blog Sukuma Kenya. What are your thoughts on blogging? How do you feel about your own blogs so far?

DAN: I had never heard of that blog before today, but I looked and I thought it was kind of surprising to see Iwinyo right in the middle of a lot of politics! Haha!

I think the Net in general has really helped get the word out, Facebook and YouTube and such. Blogging has really helped add a more personal vibe to everything (especially the band blog, I think the other blogs are more like manifestos of some sort but the band’s blog is just goofing around…). I think it really helps to have an online presence as it allows you to present your stuff the way you would want it done, not in a control freak kind of way, just in the sense that, for example, I doubt that we could find a media house that would indulge our fake bio.

JIM: Except for the very cool people at Kwani Trust who just slapped it onto their site as is. Sukuma Kenya? That’s so cool. I didn’t even know that exists. Say hi to them. Blogging feels a bit self-indulgent sometimes – I use my blog to provide alternative material about the process of making pictures, and the mental stuff that happens before and after. Sometimes people ask me tough questions, and I ask everyone what they think – then I plagiarize the answers I receive and generally look smarter.

We used to run an underground arts-and-culture type web magazine thing a few years ago, it was called LabelRevolution, and the thing we enjoyed the most was the community feel of the site. So we try to be very inclusive about everything we’re doing, because that’s how we make our music. The only reason we’ve come this far (admittedly, not THAT far but…) is because we make people feel like this is something anyone could do. Whether that’s true is another matter entirely.

BLINKY: I blog sparingly of late because I tend to expose myself a lot in my writing, I’m trying to find a method of detaching myself when I do. I don’t want to have the whole world know about me.

I would like to thank JAB for sending me the images from their initial storyboard, as it gives us a glimpse into their lovely animation work. The image on the left is one that shows the progression of sketching the old man’s hair.

Keep an eye on the Just-A-Band Blog, Kenyanimation Blog, and Jim’s blog for more updates. Jim will post another AfriGadget soon. (I wont reveal what it is, but it will definitely be ingenious). Thanks guys for indulging my ‘random and loopy’ questions!

I was listless, down out depressed, with chicken, egg and crossing of roads questions weighing on my mind; when my fingers as if they had a series of self-cordinating nanobots, tipitty tapped their way onto a blog called Sukuma Kenya. There, I found a pebble shaped like a play button on a retro CD player encased in a rectangle of sorts with a cryptic ‘You Tube’ logo on the bottom right. I touched the pebble. Holy haberdashery! I touched it!

My fellow Africans, that is how i came to make an interweb acquaintance with Just-A-Band. JAB is defining Kenyan animation and Kenyan techno music with aplomb, piercing wit and style…what follows is the result of smoke signals encoded with morse code and for some strange reason, un-encrypted. Enjoy it, or the chicken gets it. Wait, the egg gets it! oh what the hell…something will get it.

Just A Band is composed of?
BLINKY: Jim, Dan and Blinky.

JIM: There’s also our various alter egos – so that’s 2,303 of us in total.

Is the blog Kenya Animation also part of Just-a-Band?
DAN: Kenyanimation isn’t actually a Just A Band project, but I work as an animator, and I put up my JAB animation projects there. That blog was set up to bring together animators and animation fans who are from/work in Kenya, just to show people that there actually is such a thing as Kenyan animation, and hopefully be a launching point for bigger local projects, which haven’t had a chance so far coz people don’t really know that a scene exists! The other guys on the list (filterene, Bint Ali, Achoko, Majiqmud) are my collaborators on that project.

You band bio is so creative (it informed my lame intro above…i couldn’t just say ‘here…an interview’ now could I?). It reads like a great fantasy graphic novel; have you guys thought of making one? When can we get our hands on it? In the CD liner notes - any fun stuff to look for?

BLINKY: Hmm…it just may happen, really haven’t thought about it. The bio was kinda influenced by (at least I thought) by a George Clinton album cover, it had a really long narrative detailing the bands overindulgence on drugs and stuff till it sounded surreal. We get to introduce the gang that contributed to the album’s final sound in the Scratch To Reveal CD liner notes, very fresh cats if you ask me.

DAN: Actually, the bio came about because we thought that the real story makes for a pretty dull read. I still have the notebook page where we start off, “In 2003, three young men met…”

JIM: Now that you mention it, the fantasy graphic novel does sound cool. I think of our bio as a parallel story that’ll run alongside the much more drab reality – we plan to update it each time we do something new.

The liner notes on Scratch To Reveal are slightly nonstandard. The cool thing about being unsigned is that there are no marketing-types breathing over your shoulder, urging you to standardize your output. It was actually Dan’s idea to do the liner notes in a different way – I’m ashamed to say I was one of the people who asked, “Do WHAT?”, but once we tried it out, it actually felt much more relaxed and true to the way the music was made.

DAN: We’d been talking about expanding on this story from time to time, on certain projects. The liner notes on Scratch To Reveal are just us being overwhelmed by actually making an album, and our collaborators and such. But later this year we’ll probably do another project, maybe an EP (Just A Band meets The Sinister Synthesizer!) that will expand on the Bio story and if it gets printed, as opposed to just going online, you’ll get a bunch of cool liner notes and art and stuff…

I saw that Daft Punk made a movie! Electroma! (Two if you count the one that went with Discovery – Interstella 5555) and I can sooooo see Just A Band doing some Psychedelic 88-minute Experience (at some point). But first things first, we have an album to push (I think one of the reasons we get so psyched up for JAB stuff is coz it could go so many ways, it’s always exciting to sit and plan out projects…)!

The album cover for your CD has an arresting image…is there a story behind it? Did the idea pop into your mind or was it an organic, incremental idea that morphed from something? What is your creative process?

JIM: This is definitely a morph – the original blurry concept was to have angry, cathartic energy of some kind on the cover; and cables. Cables are always cool. The images I have in my head always morph into something else by the time they’re finished. The final image ended up being something rather calm and contained – whilst retaining that arresting vibe you’ve mentioned. Of course, Lenny (the model) helped a lot – I chose him because he’s like visual play-dough and he likes to know what we’re aiming for visually. I explained the general idea to him – and played loud drum and bass and clashy electro during the shoot.

My creative process; I typically see the visual in my head – slightly foggy around the edges, but there nonetheless. Then I work to transform that foggy visual into something real. It feels like I’m cheating, sometimes, because all I’m doing is translating the sketch that’s already in my head. In the process of doing that translation, many things change (somewhat like a multi-branched sequence of little decisions on execution) and the final results usually surprise me just as much as anyone else.

I have only listened to one song from your newest album, is the music on Scratch To Reveal kind of in the vein of Iwinyo Piny or are there more varied sounds?
BLINKY: I’d describe the album as adventurous. We all bring different influences to the Just A Band table plus an unwillingness to stay within proscribed boundaries, I’m influenced by acoustic guitar stuff, funk, jazz, hip-hop and dance stuff, everyone else’s influences are evident all through the album.

DAN: The first single, Fly, is up on YouTube and is pretty different, a bit more aggressive and obviously scifi as opposed to Iwinyo’s flirtation with spacey sounds.

JIM: Somewhere towards the middle, the album reveals a softer core; comes back to earth, if you will. Some people have found this surprising because the overall look of the album says – electronic – so having pianos and strings in the middle could be a bit bewildering for some.

I see Daft Punk is an influence on your music; what are your thoughts on the Gorillaz? Would you work with Damon Albarn if he asked? What other types of music/musicians do you gravitate towards? Graphically speaking… which animators do you like? Cartoons? Which ones??

BLINKY: I know for a fact that [Albarn] did some stuff with Fela Kuti’s band mates on a trip to Nigeria, so we wouldn’t be the first African peeps he’s working with, but I’d be absolutely down for it! I’m currently jazzed by Citizen Cope, Raphael Saadiq, Lupe Fiasco, John Mayer, Jamiroquai, St. Germaine, Van Hunt, Foreign Exchange, Bob Sinclair and Asa. I’m abit out of my waters with the animation vibes, though I like Aaron McGruder of The Boondocks fame.

DAN: DEFINITELY we’d collabo with Albarn (right after we regain consciousness)… Every project he does is SO DIFFERENT, from the Mali Music albums to Blur to Gorillaz…very much the kind of thing that we hope to do, as well.

I have a HUGE crush (creatively, hehe) on Björk. She pushes boundaries both musically and visually, stretches your imagination… We are all influenced by Parliament Funkadelic and their many spinoffs –

JIM: Are we? I just think that George Clinton guy had cool outfits. So, maybe visually.

BLINKY: George Clinton is cool!

DAN: I think they’re our spiritual ancestors in the genre of musical Black scifi! We like old funk bands, Jamiroquai, Basement Jaxx, Jaga Jazzist, acid jazz, French House, Van Hunt and a lot of neo-soul artists, rock dudes like RHCP and Incubus, Madlib, Timbaland and the Neptunes (N*E*R*D was one of those moments of WTF is this??), a lot of stuff. I like comical old ska, garage rock like the White Stripes and The Hives and these new dancey rock bands like Franz Ferdinand. But I think the best music is the stuff you can’t really describe…

Graphically, I’m very much into manga and anime, in terms of the stories, culture, even the shortcuts they take to meet their crazy deadlines! A random list of favourites: Samurai Champloo, Mind Game, Triplets of Belleville, Studio Ghibli films, Satoshi Kon’s work, Genndy Tartakovsky, Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz work is really well designed and moves so fluidly, The Boondocks. Ralph Bakshi’s confrontational movies from the 70s are a huge creative inspiration for what I’d like to do in animation in future.

There’s an animation director called Koji Morimoto (he did the Beyond segment in The Animatrix), he makes my eyes water. Also off The Animatrix, the World Record segment was done by another new fave, Takeshi Koike, who is actually a celeb in Japan! How interesting, celebrity animators… I would like to go study at the feet of Moebius, the French comic book artist. And a lot of movies and books (I may be a bit of a junkie). We also keep an eye on the graphic design and motion graphics scene, and that’s always a visual overload.

JIM: Daft Punk’s Discovery was one of those albums that really excited me (and it still does). Frankly, I like the visual detail of the Gorillaz more than their music. In fact, I really don’t think I like their music. But I like the way they work so hard on the supplementary material that helps you form an opinion about a band, the back story, the promos. I like people like Madonna and Björk for putting in extra effort and really being in control of their image and sound, and giving people some fantasy to believe in – however slightly.

When I was a kid, I loved the musicians who went beyond the music and created lush record covers, and placed their music in some kind of fantasy literary context. Or even the people who explored themes other than the usual “love, girls and sex”. I love the way the disco dudes touched the sky and went beyond to other planets. Why confine yourself to dull old Mother Earth?

These days it’s “Hi. I’m X and I have a great body. You want to have sex with me. I also sing.” or the other equally drab approach: “Hi. I’m exceptionally gifted. I will numb you into submission with my technical wizardry. I will now play the Euclidian scale with my teeth.”

I think Europeans are better at it than the Americans (with the exception of people like Madonna, as mentioned above). Americans are very literal about their music – Band X fits into this genre and you shouldn’t ask where they’re from or why they’re doing this. Europeans are very cool about alter egos and costumes and silly things like that.

From your Kenyanimation blog, it appears you are working on another project - Two Countries; will it be a CD & animation type thing? When can we expect to hear of a premiere?

DAN: So, when we started off with Kenyanimation (which is not a Just A Band project, actually) we wanted to actually make something under this new group. The idea for this short animated movie was lying around in someone’s sketchbook, so we decided to make that. It’s kind of like a Gado cartoon come to life, political commentary vibes, but with a bit of Tom and Jerry thrown in, and (hopefully) a Just A Band score (as in, a proper “classical” score, which would be a new thing for the band).

The project has stalled for a bit as people get more involved with their various hustles, but we’ll get it back on track soon, and as it’s just a short, it could be done by year’s end. As for how we’ll put it out, I’m not sure yet but maybe we’ll try some festival screenings and so forth.

Do you perform live shows? If so, where can we catch you guys?

BLINKY: Coming soon to an area near you.

DAN: We’re actually working on the live shows now, figuring out venues and instrumentalists, and all the cool fun stuff like projections, or not. We will be unveiling the whole shebang in August. Details will be on the site/YouTube/Facebook.

JIM: We’re working on making it something interesting – because I am skeptical that Kenyans would be OK with sitting around for several hours watching a bunch of geeks fiddling with guitars. So pom-pom’s, dancing, makeup, lights, psychedelic footage and action – on a shoestring budget, as always.

*To order the CD ‘Scratch To Reveal’ send an email to jab [at] just-a-band[dot]com, they will personally ‘hawk’ it over to you. For us online folks, they will have their music on itunes or calabash soon…
**Part II will be posted as soon as you thaw from the JAB burst of ice cold freshness. It will have more questions about the animated video ‘Iwinyo Piny’.

More info on JAB’s You Tube profile and Facebook.

A related aside, Jim is a blogger-DIY kinda guy, check out the AfriGadget post on him ‘Building The Sun’.

A non related aside, do join us over at the Ushahidi Facebook Group as we continue building the next version of the Ushahidi engine.

This picture was taken by Adriankoto, who writes on the blog Harinjaka [Malagasy]. He is the founder FOKO madagascar initiative which has been active in planting trees particularly in rural madagascar. More on his awesome work here[English].

PS: I know i haven’t been blogged about solar energy for awhile, doesn’t mean i have lost my mojo, I am just re-charging. ha!

The Nokia Event Site announces the debut of new phones designed for the emerging markets like Sub-Saharan Africa. Nokia put alot of thought into the functionality that they added, which makes me want to give one of these gems a whirl. I am a sucker for features such as FM Radio, and there is just something about a phone with a flashlight…that is absolutely genius IMO. You would think so too if you were in upcountry Kenya (around 2005i  sh), torch/flashlight batteries are dead and you uhhm lets just say you need to walk from point A to B in the dark of night…then your cousin says “Here! Use my phone, it has a flashlight!” Indeed not all heroes need wear capes. Before i get all mushy about inanimate objects, here is the blurb…

While features like phone-sharing, cost monitoring and flashlight remain relevant to consumers in entry markets, Nokia continues to add new functionality, such as mega pixel cameras, FM radio with recording functionality, email and Bluetooth connectivity technology to mobile phones targeted at consumers in entry markets.

  while on the site, and if you have a decent connection, do check out Julius’ story; on how he uses his Nokia phone in Kapenguria, Kenya. I am still admiring this silhouette image of Julius and his phone.

If you have an N95 or other Nokia phones that have video recording capability, record your story and submit it to the www.nokiaproductions.com, where noted film director Spike Lee is going to review  the entries (includes music, photos and text) then weave your bit (if chosen that is…) into a film to be released later. (Hat tip Shel Israel via Twitter)

Screen shot from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Noticed that the city ‘Kisangani’ in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) is displayed for afew seconds the spinning globe graphic at the beginning of the show.

Is Kisangani a place in the coastal province of Kenya too?

Shashank of ‘Somewhere in Nairobi’ tagged me in the meme that is ‘My week in Media’. Some of the longtime readers of this blog might know that I have a healthy appreciation, perhaps a sort of admiration of journalists around the world. Its probably because I just want a Thuraya Satellite phone like the ones they often carry with them.
Shashank’s blog is one of my favorites, i remember laughing hard at the post God and Warlords’ - i.e comb through his archives. You can read the pieces that appear in McClatchy newspapers here.
Sara Nics, who is a journalism trainer in Nairobi spoke with John Keating about the challenges of reporting on conflict. It gives you a glimpse on the situation the Kenyan media find themselves, the problem of media credibility the internal struggle with editors beholden to owners close to the politicians, and the changes in workplace interaction.
I think Journalist-bloggers like Shashank, Rob Crilly, Sara Nics, Nick Wadhams, vigilante journalist etc, fill an important gap for Kenyan readers and bloggers who want the news straight up, and perhaps are not hamstrung by the current conflict, the way Kenyan journalists are. Reading the online editions of Nation media group and The Standard can be frustrating at times. They do not update their online editions as the news happens, and i often find myself checking BBC for latest information. By and large Kenya is a newspaper reading nation, but i do hope that one day we can also read more blogs by the noted Kenyan journalists to get their viewpoints and a glimpse ‘behind the scenes’ as they go about reporting.
Boy did i digress…o.k on to the tag.
What I’ve read:
The Best of Technology Writing 2007, edited by Steven Levy.
A quick review i did of it last year:
“Excellent collection of tech writing. The piece on Natalie Jeremijenko was fascinating, and Farhad Manjoo can make net neutrality debate and AT&T’s ‘corporate toll on the internet’ read like an engaging conversation he is having with you. Joshua Davis as usual is superb writing about the DARPA challenge in the Mojave desert. If i recall correctly, Sebastian Thrun’s team won the challenge this yr. A dose of humour from Phillip Smith with ‘The worst date ever for an Apple tech’. Dont read this book before going to bed, your brain will get all atwitter and you wont be able to nod off. Its a great book for long airplane rides, substitute all the magazines you carry with you with this wonderful anthology. You will likely smile, go ‘hmm’, and probably do a ‘thinking man’ pose ala’ Rodin”

Currently reading P.J. O’Rourke On The Wealth of Nations. Fave bit so far…”It was almost as though Smith, having proved that we can all have more money, then proved that money doesn’t buy happiness. And it doesn’t. It rents it.”

What I’ve watched
Not much telly, though i try to catch the Daily show and The Boondocks. A repeat of Gorillaz concert in Harlem on MHD channel has me transfixed each time. I watch all of it anytime its on. When i was in Kenya, I really enjoyed K24, and in happier times, couldn’t help but watch ‘Cobra Squad’ - I still want a t-shirt from that show.

What I’ve listened to:
Nothing new really, some of the ones i am digging are
Habib Koite’s Afriki it is probably one of my favourite CD’s from 2007.

Sia -
Don’t be fooled by the album cover a friend looked at it and worriedly asked “Is she a 3 year old?” nope. Her music was described in last month’s wired mag as “…feisty, airy crowd pleaser of Jazzy electro-pop”. I just think her sound is cool.

What I’ve surfed:
Mostly Kenyan news, through Standard, Nation Media, blogs - which are aggregated and displayed on the global voices special coverage page for Kenya. When things get heavy and i need a mental break, I canhasCheezburger, milk and cookies, Bongo music on You tube (Bongo is a genre of music from Kenya’s Neighbor Tanzania - melodic, and fun to listen to. check out Cinderella, and Na Wewe tu.)

I tag: KP, Mweshi and Ndesanjo

There is a developing story that could prove very embarrassing for Prof. Nicholas Negroponte and the OLPC foundation. According Reg Hardware, The OLPC foundation is being sued by Lagos Analysis Corp for copyright infringement.

Lagos CEO Adé G. Oyegbọla tells El Reg that the company’s Konyin Multilingual Keyboard features four shift keys and a software driver specialized to more easily reproduce the uncommon accent marks found in Nigerian languages and dialects. Such diacritic ticks can be unwieldy in traditional keyboards, but are often essential to getting the right message through. (For example, Oyegbọla explains, without the dot below the “o” in Lagos CTO O. Walter Olúwọlé’s name, the meaning becomes “God destroys the house).

Oyegbọla claims that Nicholas Negroponte, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who founded the OLPC foundation, purchased two of the company’s keyboards in 2006 and used them to reverse-engineer its keyboard technology.

Reg Hardware includes images of the two keyboards for comparison.
The OLPC Keyboard

The Lagos Analysis Keyboard

You can look at the keyboards yourself and make up your mind. To me the placement of the keys seem very similar and I would even posit that the OLPC keyboard does look like it borrowed something from the Lagos Analysis one. In the reg hardware article, they are yet to receive a substantive answer from OLPC so this story will keep going for a little while at least. I am pulling up a chair ringside to watch what happens. If it is proven that OLPC lifted the design and functionality from Lagos analysis, it is very disingenuous and just plain ‘not cool’. However, this story reminded me that the functionality described is one that contextualizes technology for use in Africa. I think this is important in the future of design for Africans, (by Africans?). Is it possible that Lagos Analysis corp by virtue of being African understood the need for the features described above and thereby designed it with the African languages in mind? Can the Negroponte camp prove that they came up with the keyboard concept and if so, how did they know which special characters are important in African languages? Last year when discussing Hash’s ‘A web Technology idea for Africa’, the question of language being relevant to tech implementation came up. At the time i was not quite sure what the implications of that observation were, but I think it is now clear to me that ‘cultural sensitivity’ is a concept to be applied to web technology and as this case shows…computing.

Cultural sensitivity in technology idea was the brain child of Koranteng Ofosu Amaah’s post, which was later included in the book Best of Technology Writing 2006. It should be required reading for anyone making tech products/services. While flickr is still not too kind to us melanin blessed folks, there are some great examples of culturally sensitive services and products: Check out Ted Kidane’s story of Feedelix from TEDGlobal 2007, Arusha -sms software for Ethiopic languages, and also Suuch Solutions out of Ghana - “kasahorow’s mission is to enable local languages remain a viable form of communication for all aspects of life.” They use Open source software to do this by the way.

I was listening to the digital planet podcast (11/26) where they had a correspondent attend the launch of the OLPC in Abuja, Nigeria. You could hear the excitement and enthusiasm in the children’s voices as they spoke of what they would do with the OLPC. It was a great moment. Now to the questions that started popping into my head like Orville Redenbachers microwave popcorn. When Gareth Mitchell was talking to Bill Thompson, they mentioned how they attended the OLPC launch in Tunis and how a child was crying because they’d been given an OLPC to play with for a time, then it was taken away. That was not a good moment, rather sad really, that kid is probably traumatized right now wherever he or she may be. I mean isn’t that just a little cruel? I know i would wail like a banshee if i was in her shoes. The discussion segued into what it would mean for the children to have a laptop that they would call their own. This got me wondering, that perhaps one of the unintended consequences of the OLPC project is that it would enhance the idea of ‘mine’ rather than ‘ours’. In modern Africa do the age old African values of community and sharing still apply? Would the OLPC idea chip away at the ‘utu’, that is a societal benchmark? Is the Ndiyo project a better thought out model for computer literacy, what with the idea of USB thin clients that I am already a fan of?

(Warning: the post is about to degenerate to something entirely pedantic)
Maybe I am looking at this all wrong, Is Negroponte pimping the ‘education project’ in pursuit of…what? The next generation of Africans to be Ipod toting, consumerist driven, video game obsessed, camping out for days in front of Best buy in Timbuktu_Kabartonjo_jinja of the future? Stomping on each other to get to the newest version of the Zii during an ‘African Thanksgiving blowout!’ sale? I know i am from the begging bowl peoples of Africa, but seriously, i have to draw the line at camping out in front of Best buy. A girls’ got to have some dignity!
O.k, ok how did i get here? I blame fakestevejobs, who has a hilarious take on this whole XO lawsuit mess (via Park Paradigm). I hope the OLPC foundation and Lagos Analysis Corp can sort this soon, or you will likely see next headline on Wall street Journal being… ‘The little laptop that stole’ instead of this ‘The little laptop that could’.

*The title of this post is a riff on this. You can read some background information about the OLPC at African Loft, and see what else Africans are saying on Afrigator.

***Please note that the event is for December 15th. and not dec 8th. Thanks.
The latest Globalvoices environment post is on conservation efforts in Zambia, South Africa and D.R Congo. It also includes some links from Phil in Kenya and Mr. SSerwanga in Uganda, writing about carbon footprints and land rights respectively.

While I was writing that roundup I came across the Kenya Organic Agricultural Network. They’ve got an excellent event planned for Saturday December Dec 15th .
You can find more details here. I sure hope the Kwani folks make it there, because that would be just wonderful. A combination of great organic food, music, poetry and exhibits showing renewable energy services in Kenya! Excuse me while I figure out a way to teleport myself there.
Check out what is planned…

Also from the same site, you can download the Bio Safety Bill, which I don’t know if its been passed or deffered till after the elections.

Disclaimer: Temporary departure from my typical topics, just had to get this out. will be back to the other semi serious stuff after this.
Cool
Comics at a bus stop.From Kenya no less!

From BBC: Humphrey Barasa has been drawing satirical cartoons at a bus stop along Jogoo Road for the past 6 years. I had never heard of him till today, i would love to see his work. Would be cool to give him a camera phone and have him post them to a blog if he doesn’t mind… Sort of like Accra Daily Photo blog.

Via Ethan Z: The Chess Drum A pan African Chess site.

Via Cirdan:
The decision flowchart.

Depending on your point of view, Camillo Villegas may be cool or uncool. For me, he belongs in the cool category just for this: [30 seconds]

Ninja Warrior on G4 channel. Hilarious, intriguing and just plain incredible tv!

Goodness gracious i finally watched Blades of Glory. If you enjoyed Zoolander, this movie is a must see.
“hey MacElroy, was that your routine or a performance of Cirque du so’lame?” - Chaz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell)

Uncool
According to a Helio ad insert in Wired mag ‘The mobile User’s Guide to Social Etiquette’.
- The “Cool” emoticon with the sunglasses, its the virtual equivalent of the fanny pack. - totally uncool.

Via boing boing: The flowchart of Gangsta rap

I have a love hate relationship with rap, including the song ‘party like a rockstar‘. If its a cross between crunk and rock, would that make it a crock? - 1:30 mark is a bit funny though.

WTH
Via African Path:
An amnesty provision passed by parliament, basically letting the looters of Kenya walk scott free, without even a demand for repatriation of the cash?

Blogs that suck all your content and masquerade it as theirs… very annoying. And bogus trackbacks to sites set up for ads. They typically do not have a contact form. Not nice.

From Sunday morning cartoon Timon and Pumbaa.