It’s funny how we have tech and automate a lot of stuff, add some monitoring for the tech, then employ people to watch those monitoring tools. It’s like the more we have or develop, the more we lose sleep over, especially companies that want to stay ahead of the curve or protect massive data. With the introduction of AI, it’s not even getting better, especially for industries which parade and wear it like a badge: “We use AI to blah blah blah…” Firstly, I think only a small number of the AI market benefits the end user, and companies who depend on real humans for revenue should not be singing AI at the top of their lungs. After all, they’re serving humans, not robots.
A thorn in one Bolt driver’s side in South Africa caught my attention. The driver was frustrated by the sudden closure of Bolt’s physical offices and moving their services towards AI. Folks, we know what that means: removing humans to leave customers to interact with AI chatbots. The poor driver was left with Fred (AI chatbot), frustrated with the lack of context comprehension to his service request and not pleased with the tone detection instilled in Fred, which gave readings that he’s angry when interacting with Fred. As a bystander, that is not a good move. Starting from the top, being a driver is not easy—from customers to other drivers on the road causing chaos throughout your day. Then AI is not good at detecting different English dialects that are influenced by African languages. We do not speak the Queen’s English in Africa, as our languages are rich in expression and it’s hard being constrained to the English language pack. Back to Fred: I felt bad for the poor driver as I’ve had my fair share with AI bots calling me and trying to use them to search for information (score still zero, never won). Bolt should ask Duolingo what happened when human-serving employees were removed/reduced from the equation—definitely the other side didn’t balance at all.
It is 00:13. I am writing this because of a two-hour session I had speaking to Google Gemini. Please don’t judge me; I won’t judge you. What I have concluded reminds me of a few years back when I was in the integration space. Our project management tool (not dropping names, but it starts with J, ha ha) was very slow. For several weeks there was an investigation. In the end, one team created a script that went berserk and created millions of insertions to the tool, which is in a shared space within the different units. This was hilarious for me, because all these tools we create keep us up at night, and automation—when it goes wrong, you won’t know immediately, as it’s watching the system, but there is no one watching the watcher. And if there was, then who will watch the watcher of a watcher? See where this is going? Hint: Tower of Hanoi (recursion). Guys, we’re going to lose sleep over this. Can we just think for a moment: who are we serving? And insert AI where it makes sense, with robust guardrails that do not impose themselves on our finances.
The cloud, AI, and rushing to modernize everything is just hurting real humans. We need to take stock of ourselves and think thoroughly: is this for good (including morally good profit) or experimental with no blast radius contingency? After all, we all serve humans and we are also humans.
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.
I feel the same pain as if I were watching the movie when the leading actor said “It hurts”, My friend and I always used this saying to indicate the last tier of hurt we feel when something happens and it hurts.
Death Be Not Proud has been always my go-to poem when there is a death and I need comfort, 2022 It was a useless tranquilizer to the pain I got when I lost my big aunt, she was indeed a rare jewel as they come, I can not express how unbelievable it is and the pain that comes with it, my mind be finding ways to cope by creating a feeling that she will be back when we at the tip of the boiling point with her funeral arrangements and say we did good, there is no need to go further, she was just testing us and we passed. Life can only go forward from here on.
I can comfortably say I know one or two things about death, lost my aunt and uncle in a short space, in both times it hurt like nothing you ever experienced because it’s new and will always be a unique pain, I can only imagine the immediate family as for me I am an onion skin layer away from the much pain epicenter. Thanks to a bible plan I came across while searching for why we die, Thanks to Tony Evans, in his bible plan about hurting, It is made clear that the Lord said we will get hurt and nothing can stop that from happening, even if you been in very good terms with the Lord, one gets to understand life greatest purpose is for the Lord, not that we pawns in his master plan, but we are essential in carrying out the master plan that would eventually save everyone.
During the ceremony at my Aunts funeral, the pastor opened Revelation 14 ves 13, which echoes that the Dead who were right with God are resting for their works will follow them, this gives comfort knowing that the pain is no more for the passed away loved ones, but is crucial for us all to be right with God, for we are assured a life of rest been right with him.
I say to all the people who lost loved ones, dudu(Sorry), stay strong in the Lord and introduce family members to our Lord and Saviour, through sharing his words and being an example through our works
I recently checked my blog posts and there was nothing for 2022, So I figured out I should put something even if it’s the end of the year, just to show proof of life, not another lost WordPress site as I pride myself in my self-hosted word-press as a developer.
Oh what is that above, A bunch of blog posts that never made it through publish ?, yes you guessed correctly, they were baked for too long. I heard a very situation-pinching quote today: “Whatever is not written is forgotten “, thank God still got some titles to key locate what was needed to be written, to my excuse I have been dealing with a lot this year, you can get a hint from the titles in the image.
I watched Prince EA recent video(link) the other day, where he addressed the question people have been asking about where he went since its been a long time since he posted something, it hit me that I also want to quit social media and concentrate on other creatives things that keeps my mind on manual mode without the auto consumption of media at all, I have gotten accustomed to absorbing social media this year, taking it as a drug to numb my exhaustion from an overall change in my situation, for a while it has been helpful in keeping up to date, but similar to my blog post that is over baked, it fried my mind and reduced the creativity juice in it.
Not promising anything to my audience, but to myself to go back to writing and publish the 1st medium post, after having a few under my belt on my WordPress.
