The LORD will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them ~ Deuteronomy 28:12
I am sitting here with ideas in my head, asking myself: Will they work? I am tempted to run them on an AI/LLM to see whether or not they’re feasible. However, I recently learned that, just like a Google search, AI feeds on your intent. It will always side with whichever direction you want to go, much like a political party with no opposing party. In all companies that use AI, or are claiming to use AI, they forget the most important thing: your customers are, after all, humans. They can “AI-lize” (my own word, meaning to coat everything with AI) everything, but some elements of the customer sales journey will always need a human touch. Unless you are an AI-first company, you should be careful about how you incorporate AI into your business.
I have learned how to slow time. I learned this a long time ago, but now it has taken a new form. Time is slowed by being present in all its moments. Reading a book is one way to slow time. Lately, with AI, no one wants to read; we just want summaries because some of the content we’re supposed to read is produced by AI. A personal conflict I have with AI is when someone responds in a generic manner; I smell AI in their response. While we are encouraged to use AI to help with our writing and other things, there is that feeling of humanity lost. I am looking towards AI-proof skills. I remember seeing an ad by a construction company asking ChatGPT to finish a building; it was so hilarious! This ties in with what one of the guests on the “Diary Of A CEO” podcast stated: we should go into plumbing because AI cannot do that. Now I am interested in plumbing and electrical; these two skills are really what we need to survive these days.
Before I continue ranting about my thoughts, I just wanted to capture the essence of what I am feeling. Consumption is infinite, while production is finite. Thus, we must increase the latter to great extremes. We’ve got to not lose the human touch in our lives; we have to work. I am not saying we must be against AI. All I am saying is that we must not lose our craft to AI by second-guessing ourselves in producing any artifacts to be received by another human, such as emails, text responses, and many more things we need to apply our minds to.
“Open the flood gates of heaven” ~Michael W. Smith
It finally rained two times in a day. Oh man, we miss this nourishment from above; there is nothing like rain. The grass outside is joyous of the rain, for it radiates green to show it quenched from the much-needed water. Nothing compares to rain; as I walk outside, those who water their grass with hosepipes can be seen. Green is their grass, but not golden green; only rain can provide. I wish for this joyous season of rain to continue and rain where the reservoirs collect water, because we were approaching day zero with the water restrictions. No provision from above is greater than rain; all provisions are given freely, but rain is the most appreciated.
I love rain, for it removes my worry about water scarcity, for I have experienced mild drought when I was young; it has always stuck with me till my adulthood, but just like the rainbow, I am reminded of his faithfulness by the pouring of rain. Thank you for rain; without it, all life dries out to death. Rain rain, for the Lord has open joy to thee earth; let all seed flourish by the nourishment of rain; let the sweet aroma left by the dry ground quenching thirst be a testemant of his provisional way to our life.
“One does not see inflation, they feel it” ~Everyone
As life goes on, the last few years since Covid hit have been the hardest in many dimensions—economically, mentally, and environmentally. All that the curtain has hidden is coming out to the surface, and it’s degrading in all possible ways we can imagine. Although the interest rates recently reduced for the first time in a few years, people are still feeling the pinch. This pours into their mental health, and the environment is not helping. With the change of weather patterns, a knock-on effect is felt everywhere, from farmers to average Joe wanting to just enjoy the weather, but it’s too hot. Through the motion of the different hard proportions, inflation is realized and thriving for itself.
If we had to look at life on a stork chat, the change from COVID would show a sharp decline in our value of life. The inflation in our lives is simply the change that causes us to adapt by reinforcing our ways or downsizing in our way, waiting for the vicisous season to pass. “What if it’s the new norm?”. In economics, we are taught that inflation goes up and down and never becomes chronic. One does not simply live in a constant state; we are always pushed through seasons in our lives, from the hard year-end chasing KPI season to the new year’s new goal resolutions. We have to be careful in how we read our state of life; just like inflation is a broad measure, we have many variables we have to take into consideration.
In all decision-making instances, time is always the winner over our choice. From split-second decision-making in a Formula 1 race to a political change of leaders to delay decision-making (RSA proverb in Gauteng), everything seems to have an expiration date bound to time. Let’s take the variable time in evaluating our life’s inflation. Over time, what we put in in our lives, we hope to receive significant rewards in all forms: money, happiness, and wisdom. But with inflation in our lives, this seems to be not the case, especially when we reach a certain stage in our lives. Growing graduates to aging, where no new leaves are formed. Our only hope can be a compound interest in our efforts that is eaten by the inflation infused by the world’s factors.
Through the lenses of my life, I have discovered new members of the family have taken a huge chunk of my stamina to pursue personal growth and keep up with my social circle of friends and family. Conversation with my manager has alluded me to look at a different perspective of the season, not to wait for the winter to end but to chunk what I can to adapt. In all cases of inflation in the market, adaptability is key to moving forward, not waiting on what’s not guaranteed.
To sum up our dive in understanding our lives using the inflation concept, we ought to be very careful in each season we find ourselves in, and our first action when run down by time should always be to adapt to create a balance in our lives overall. After all, just like COVID affected everyone in unique ways, inflation is felt differently in our lives, but there is one strong hold strategy everyone can shield themselves with: Adapt.
I am apart with the use of AI. I always considered myself a purist, with no adoption of AI, especially in its early state. I continued using Google Search for debugging at work, while my team members used ChatGPT. I have a fear that my creativity will be dependent on AI or greatly reduced by the use of AI.
In my mind, AI is created through the use of existing data or information produced by humans like me, speaking on generative AI. With all the legal battles going on over who gave permission for their work to be used and 3rd parties selling information or AI engineers using illegal data to train their models, it’s a whole dimension of crime happening; a market arises of thefts, to put it simply. This poses a question: if AI is made with human image, then why do the fights exist?. Let’s look at it in a physical sense: if I steal your piece of work, especially a researched article you prouduced and used it to write a better one, what are the consequences of that act? If it were in varsity, plagairms would be the charge, but this is not my point to argue; all I am saying is that I will be stealing someone’s art in using the product that is made with their effort and not being incentivized for it.
When it comes to AI, herdmentality comes to mind. I have compared ChatGPT with Claude on small queries, and they seem to be all from the same school of information, while the other got an edge that is not that outstanding in any way. The question is this: is it good for our generation to have that herdmentality in our AI use? Of course there is specific task AI, but they will always get competition, which they will only edge with contextual data indigestion. With this point, I am very skeptical to be vendor locked into heard mentality context generation.
Oh the data sharing hinderence, at work we stopped using AI a bit when the data sharing that it used pose a threat to trade scrrets, not sure how that was solved, coming back to ask ourselves, with the use of our own data pasted on the query, the inclusion of that data makes it better for others, is that right?. One could argue the internat was built that way with people’s contibution, which leads me to my other point to follow on the contribution.
The internt stopped being watered with new information, a decline I have seen in stackoverflow responses; people no longer submit answers to questions, as it’s better to solve it with AI and leave it there, not to share with the world, so the adverse hindrance of data sharing seems to be justified to preserve this growth of the internent.
I could say more to my arguments, but back to my biggest fear, a diminshment on my creatveity due to lack of exercising the muscle, as everything you just type and it responds. Someone can point me to another perspective to look at AI with the same lens of computers processing power increasing to the better for enabling humans to advance and archive more, but I just feel it doesn’t touch the soul of creativity like generative AI.
I recently adopted Copilot because of a lot of ESQL mapping spaning 2 thousand lines at work I had to do. The code completion is very helpful in producing a big cunk, but I was 70% done in the project while doing this, so it seems it used my previous hundreds of lines to put these predictions it impressed me with. There is a potential to cut the time at no cost in creativity, I guess.
Speed—those AI are fast. One thing I have to hand to them is that they make people produce things faster. I wonder what’s going to be the next interview measure as everyone is going to use when AI can be prompted to do someone’s work. Let me not continue this route and conclude here my arguments on AI usage.
I remember there was a time bursting with creativity and hope for the future. Bright the future was, not knowing any boundaries. Oh Lord, what is this drop on my candle? Something happened that changed the course of life. The creative side was suppressed and starved of growth. Risks were not avoided, but now that’s all gone, none are taken. Dead is the art, as it does not pay rent, but it feeds connection to the soul. Our maker did not make us without it, for it’s a friend to life’s journey. Can we get back to the solitudes of life, where we look forward to the next day, for the present work is guaranteed to brighten tomorrow? So many projects are dying a painful death; already the graveyard is full of bodies. We scroll our lives away infinitely on social media and wait our lives on others slow statuses. Can this get worse?. Never ask that when the government is still sinking us into debts while corruption and crime keep on making sure nothing grows beyond sustainability. Is there a way out of this gruesome cycle of life? Not without heartbreak of the close friends losing their jobs and facing harsh life of uncertain income. I repeat, is there a way out? . Exodus!, the Lord can only be the only way out, the truth, and the light to what we lost. We can only try to go back to the unfitting, overgrown, and irrelevant moments in our lives, just to patch what it was or what it could have become. Strive for stewardship of what the Lord has given. He waters what is inside, for it can be suppressed but never be taken, used but never be useless. Let us heal from all that is lost in time in our very own eyes.
“Unlocking knowledge is like discovering the limitless horizon of the unknown.” ~ Aristotle
Embarking on the exhilarating path of software development, I plunged headfirst into the realm of full-stack wizardry, leaving no stone unturned. This journey was a symphony of exploration, where every note of coding and design was played, but only briefly savored. It’s a rite of passage I recommend to every budding developer, a whirlwind tour of the software development life cycle (SDLC) that provides a panoramic understanding of the digital landscape being woven. The full stack, a canvas where mastery of all trades is attempted; but remember, while Jack famously struggled, there are modern-day artisans – Jill, Henry, and James – who have cracked the code to full stack brilliance.
Yet, the secret to mastery lies not in casting a wide net, but in channeling focus and embracing experience. The fear of the unknown kept me from appreciating the masters of specialization – the enigmatic Database Administrators (DB Admins). As a full-stack conjurer, conjuring databases was routine magic. But the true magic lay in understanding the DB Admin’s spell, mastering the art of data security, and conducting the symphony of database performance. This revelation dawned after a rendezvous with database essentials, humbling me in the face of their expertise.
Jill, Henry, and James are our modern-day bards, weaving sagas of mastery through experience. Full stack development, an orchestra of disciplines including backend and frontend, demands an encore of experience in each. To be the maestro, you must harmonize with the principles and patterns of these distinct domains. But fear not; levers await to facilitate your mastery. Behold, the framework, an orchestra conductor guiding a symphony of tools to compose a complete application masterpiece. And as you dabble and refine, your mastery grows, your mind a Stradivarius of software craftsmanship.
Now, in roars the Ferrari of the middleware world – Apache Camel (AC). It’s not just a route; it’s the Purosangue route, where messages traverse protocols like a racecar hugging curves from FTP to HTTP, and JMS to FTP. In this realm of Middleware development, AC stands as the ultimate gearshift, a gearshift backed by Enterprise Integration Patterns, ready to conquer any integration conundrum. The canvas is infinite – a message ballet that grants you the lead role.
In the midst of this technological ballad, my tryst with AC unfolded. FTP, HTTP, JMS – three protocols choreographed in harmony with Springboot and AC. The result? An integration virtuoso, a middleware minstrel. I played AC true to its notes, abstaining from importing extraneous dependencies. This experience wasn’t just a drive; it was a transformation. AC molded me into a middleware virtuoso.
Thus, I opine with conviction – Apache Camel isn’t just a tool, it’s a chariot to middleware mastery. With a bustling community of troubadours, you’re never alone on this winding path. Every pothole is but a footnote, every hurdle a mere prelude to a solution.
So, heed the call of mastery. Let your journey traverse full-stack vistas and middleware galaxies. Channel your inner Jill, Henry, or James, and let frameworks be your guiding star. Unleash your inner AC driver and become a middleware virtuoso. The digital realm is your canvas – paint your symphony of mastery!
I wanted to cry, but you are in a better place than what earth can afford you ~ pained heart
Mma is an African name for mother, I used that to call my grandmother because I grew up with my aunts and uncles and they would always utter that, to differentiate between the two I would call my mother Mama, which is another African language word for mother.
Mma passed away after a 3-decade battle with sugar diabetes, her healthy deteriorated drastically after her Doctor, my aunt passed away. My aunt was a nurse but to my grandma, she was her doctor because she kept her well for the longest time, now I get to think about it, how did she do it? cause the things she would do were fundamental and out there, like taking meds and eating healthy. I feel there was a more vital force between the two and that my grandma passed on because of the broken bond, talk about Broken Heart Syndrome.
Mma was a full-house person, she had all the features anyone could think of, right outside the box she did everything for us, from raising us and installing good ethics with good manners to complement them to hustling for us as a tycoon businesswoman with a variety of small businesses ranging from mini tuck shop at school, knitting cloths, selling floor polish before tiles were a thing, selling chicken anatomy(chicken feet, intestine, and heads) as the staple food for the township community and cool drinks. She had a brilliant mind for local business and understood her market very well. My grandma is from farming and domestic work experience wise, but she possessed the wisdom of a business tycoon, we always wondered if she went to school, where would her business ambition be today.
A Ndebele woman with multiple talents, my grandma also used to do Ndebele patterns patting like Ester Mahlangu, but got stopped by my grandfather to focus her energy somewhere else as he didn’t see how would it profit us back then. Another thing my grandma enjoyed is knitting, she used to do a lot of knitting of hats, gloves, and other things until she stopped cause her hand was giving her issues, think knitting people know this issue, but a few years back during covid, her knitting love was rekindled when my wife showed her some of the knittings she has been doing during covid and it sparked a fire after my wife left her with some wool and needle, from there on we got her more wools as she was knitting something and unknitting to do something else as she had no wool to play with, her last work was covers for her sofas.
I had an ultimate subscription to my grandma during my childhood and grew up in her house till I left after varsity, oh boy it’s not all sweets grandparents will spoil you as the grandchild affair, that works when you are a visiting grandchild. Other than my shenanigans, one thing I remember is that my grandma had an elephant memory, my mom used to come by once a month as she was working very far, and she would visit for two days during the weekend most of the time, the first day/night would be a happy day with gifts and everything, come the morning my grandma would give my shenanigans in bullet point to my mother and would get double jeopardy beaten(with a belt or fence tree), cause when I did them I also got a beating and a note from her that she will also tell my mother and they surely did when she came by, I did not know the law of double jeopardy back then, could have raised it with them, but been an African child, it doesn’t apply, guess you get the double discipline benefit.
I was a child full time with my grandparents, my grandma made sure of it, I never had to worry or sleep hungry, but on numerous occasions would switch to a vegetarian lifestyle and see meat weekend, ha ha. My grandparents took school very seriously and everything that stands in your way and school they would do everything in their power to remove it. As am typing this am in my bed in my cold house, but at Gandma’s house everything is central to the coal stove, especially in winter, we were always warm and in the kitchen, eating, doing homework, and just being family, during power outages we would not worry about tomorrow, in fact, we were looking forward to making it as an excuse to not go to school, but you would wake up with hot water ready(prepared early by grandma using paraffin stove) for you to bath and go to school. During school projects we used to get their extraordinary help, even with science projects, I remember my grandma enjoyed the seed germination project, cause she had a garden and experience during her farming times, and also arts and culture projects to showcase our culture.
A tribute to my grandma :
Not all heroes wear capes, but my grandma wore her duku diligently like a cape, at 1st site of our in-laws, she would rush to save the day and present them with some cool drink and tea for the relatives, she took it a step further and took my NY(New York) hip hop cap, with her duku under, looking like a durant and went to mochainna with it, after that I lost street credits, can’t blame her, it was a hot day.
4:30 pm was every kid’s favorite time during the Era of Dragon Ball Z, but my grandma found a way to generate money during that time at the expense of my fun time by sending me to mochainna, every single day of the week, I could only watch the recap, thanks to that I am good at making up stories or just watch the trailer of the movie and am set. Going to mochainna at least I got the weekends off like a proper worker, she would be on my aunt’s case to clean during the weekend like proper African parents, while listening to some Lundi, Helngiwe Mhlaba and Deborah Fraser gospel at its golden time.
A chef ahead of her time, my grand produced a classic dish only found in top restaurants, one day she cooked chicken with cinnamon, and we all thought it was a mistake, only years later when we could afford these high places we found the dish. At heart she was a business tycoon for our sustainability, she sold floor polish, chicken anatomy (malana, maotwana and ditlhogana), and coke drink, which got nurses from the clinic coming back for more.
Heaven has gained a manager for abundance, cause on earth she gave to all and was charitable to everyone, visitors will miss that mudende hamper from my grandma of the big pink soap bar and vaslap that loses color with each wash to remind you to change it, clever grandma, your wisdom will forever be between my ears.
This song comes to mind when I remember her, I will forever be grateful and will try to pass her teaching all over.
To the Pastor’s wife that she was, grateful for her prayers during my childhood and now, will continue and pray for others to be saved by our Lord and Saviour.
Simplicity the ultimate sophistication ~ LD(Leonardo Da Vinci)
There is a growing uproar of people wanting to start coding and gurus merging to offer courses. With the amount of information available and the speed with which courses are released every day, it is a daunting process for a beginner, with so much information and FOMO about each offered course and online materials, that I wish would end, but NO, even for an experienced software developer like me, who has vast experience coding enterprise applications, this is not going to end anytime soon.
LD was on to something with the quote above. We need simplicity to be looked at initially, filtering out things that do not fit into the master plan of our journey as beginners in coding/programming. My respect goes out to educational institutions for the effort they put into creating a syllabus and making it relevant in this ever-changing technological world. I started my software development journey in varsity, where I got introduced to C++ programming language, a harsh start if you know about other programming languages, but from there on I appreciated other programming languages for their simplicity, easy to learn, but then again I can attribute everything I learned from the genesis language I started with, cause in all of them I see some dialect adaptation from it, trying to simplify this post as simple as possible for someone whos looking to get to programming in any industry, a programming language is a language consisting of keywords and structure symbols to use in creating an application, aka coding, just like English you use some language to build some program.
School got it right by having a concise syllabus, outlining each topic, so students can drill it down and improve their understanding. From there one develops an appetite for further knowledge. Learning outside educational institutions has no boundaries, there is a lot of things to go through and syllabus set out, with no assurance of getting your self-taught credentials getting recognized by a potential employer, its a challenging process to go through learning on your own, it needs discipline, patience and strength, overall the ultimate goals beginners want is validation from potential employers to be hired and they can say they have really achieved being a self-taught programmer, another approach I have seen trend is freelancing after being self taught, which is an ideal path for beginners who currently are not employed and looking into the tech industry.
How to start then ?, with trying to follow the doctrine in varsity, I have composed my own syllabus I would advise someone who wants to start coding. Through all courses I have seen online, a lot of specialties exist among courses and as a beginner, I feel that’s not a route one needs to take right away, hence my focus is a fruit salad approach, touching every aspect of software development and being integrated into an ongoing software project. I want to partner with you after going through my syllabus. This approach opens you to a world of open-source contribution, where you help contribute code to existing software applications that are open to use around the world.
Below are links to courses I have evaluated and are free to learn, after doing the below you can contact me to showcase what you have absorbed:
Your old laptop is not dead if it’s still running on SATA, Long live old laptops
When I was in varsity I was met with my first laptop, A Compaq laptop, the year was 2012, when HDD where still a thing and applications did not require fast read/write speeds. The heaviest programs I was running at the time were NetBeans IDE, Eclpise For Android, and MatLab, those programs ran like a dream, it was better than using the IT lab computers in the cold airconditioned Lab.
Fast forward a few months of usage windows started becoming very slow, as the Mr fix it I was recommended CCleaner by a friend, a software that would show some promise to gain back speed from my laptop, after a few cleanup sessions with CCleaner, my computer went back to almost normal speed usage. I continued using CCleaner and recommending it to other friends, but before that, I used to install the OS fresh. On few months went, then another iceberg was encountered where CCleaner was not able to irradicate, the programs I use started being slow on Windows, and the laptop would be fine, but the minute I open my programs performance would deteriorate, sage way to Linux.
The lab computers I used back on campus used to use Linux, which was very light and fast, so the next thing I did was install Linux alongside Windows(Dual boot) and use it for my school work, which turned to a 10-fold increase in performance, programs in Linux were running fast, no need for F5, although I kept windows it was for other programs that I could not find for Linux at the time.
Later in the year, I got a Toshiba laptop C660, and my life was changed, I got the Intel i3 CPU, windows was fast again and I could do interesting stuff and play some games, a great run I had with the laptop, they don’t make them like that anymore and it was a gift from my uncle who moved to an AMD laptop, at the time I didn’t understand the AMD CPU+ GPU ecosystem that was booming, he knew a lot than me, but what I don’t know, wouldn’t hurt me.
Welcome to the world of Windows 10, as Microsoft announced Windows 10, it looked desirable with all the changes and a claim of better memory management than Windows 7, I got it on my Toshiba, let’s just say I lost some and won some, the Bluetooth stopped working, but the visuals were amazing, an upgrade from windows 7, but it didn’t last long as some of my programs did not work so I had to go back to 7.
Passed on my Toshiba C660 to my little brother, went on with a powerful laptop from work after varsity, then got introduced to more programs which caused my laptop to be slow, a problem I thought I will never see in an expensive laptop, but there I was with an i7 CPU and windows 10, but still facing sluggish performance, always visiting the IT guys who just clean temps files and defragment my hard.
USB can be your hard drive, I had a friend who installed Linux on a USB stick an interesting trick that had optimal performance when I dug more into the idea that’s when I got introduced to Solid States Drives(SSD), what a treasure find I stumbled on, SSD saved me 2~4 minutes windows wake up screen from shut down, with this new knowledge I stumbled on I quipped my personal laptop(ASUS FX503VD) with the latest of SSD the NVme, astronomic performance, with very fast load speed for programs.
Passing on the knowledge and discovery I hooked my sister with an SSD for her birthday for an old laptop (ASUS VIVOBOOK) she wanted to throw away because of speed issues, e-waste neutralized. On the love story part, my wife was using the same Toshiba laptop I had in varsity, obviously I also hooked her up with an SSD, but because Windows 10 not been fully supported she moved to a Mac M1, that’s a story for another day, that laptop is in a line of its own with no fans.
To conclude and get to the point, your old laptop is not dead and can quickly be revitalized by adding an SSD or NVme, a lot of programs/applications are moving to browser-based implementation and we all know google chrome eats a lot of ram, but with better hard drive performance you will be able to use your laptop for years to come, update it 1st with a SSD/NVme drive before you upgrade, as you might not need to upgrade.
Whether it’s right location, wrong time, right time, wrong location, location is very common. Location-based apps are a pain, thanks to OEM’s(original equipment manufacturers), now I understand why Apple make their own equipment… 😏
On the backlog, Geo-reminder, an app I dreamed of doing and started a Flutter project for it, as with all apps, visual components are the easiest to do, but hard to do well, with all Human Interaction science behind it, this is my story still pending success on how location-based app are NP-hard while it’s ubiquitous for apps to collect one’s location.
My use case was simple and not unique, you in a train you want to take a nap as I envisioned it, you would open the app, and be greeted with a map of your location, you just put a pin on the location where you want to be reminded of, like the train stop you get off or sweet home where you need to remember to pick up something, then boom when you near the area you’ll get a notification, if you in the train vibration wakes you up, if you at home, remember to pick up the shoes you left…
Simple right guys?, on man I went straight to the code, no requirements gathering needed, Flutter was hot that was my swift knife for the app, on I journeyed on building the application, firing Android studio, it was not winter, suddenly my Asus laptop fan started making noise and heat, yeah we know how that goes windows people haha.
For testing, I was using a Huwaei P20 pro with an outdated Android version, and thank God Google services was still on it because working with Android location it’s needed to receive location from the device. The second device I used was my wife’s Samsung Note 10 lite, shout out to Samsung with the new Android Skin, aka One UI, love you guys you give Android phones life after the contract is finished and can’t afford an upgrade
With all the setup ready and the app running boom, android kills your service of collecting location and you have to register through their service and subscribe to get the location event in near real-time, that’s fine and fair, should be no biggy, gateway mentality Android, now that’s sort fire away again, boom the OEM with its battery-saving service is not unified, on my Huwaei the app didn’t last long, while on my wife’s Samsung it lasted a bit longer running as a background service, man OEM killed my desire for this app, with battery saving techniques that hinder android Unified ways of doing things and handling services.
Things might change in the future, maybe I don’t know how to do the location service properly, but I stand by my argument that OEM’s implementation of Battery saving and other things hinder app developers from making apps for the people, Android stands for unifying things and OEM’s should stick to supporting the vision, so it enables us to make more application that give us same behaviors in different devices.
Cloud keeping us all night, while it’s automated – Am apart – sfi
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