Tag Archives: coffeeshare

Of Coffee and total crashes

If you were having coffee with me, we would be having mango juice, because if life gives you mangoes…..

Actually, if life gives you fruit, any fruit, you must be very careful of what is in the coffee or mango juice you have been drinking; because life is not in the habit of walking around giving people fruit; if its any consolation though, life has not been throwing rocks at you

So life give you mangoes…….

Fridge full of mangoes

  • Peel and slice
peel and slice mangoes
  • Blend
  • Serve chilled

If you were having mango juice with me, I would ask you how old you were when you discovered, for yourself, that a computer hard-drive is nothing more than a shiny, disc…..

.….A super spinny disc turning round and round and every now and then it makes a ticking noise as it turns a little bit slower, turning round and round as your files disappear every now and then until it falls apart, what can I say its total crash of the hard drive

When your hard drive starts making the ticking sound of death, back up your data stat,

The blue screen of death
The Blue Screen Of Death

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that, according to a cabinet minister revelation, the Reserve Bank has paid for enough fuel supplies to to cover the next two years so the public should not panic

But given the track record of the state media and government, when they officially say one thing, one starts preparing for the opposite, dont panic they say…….

Meanwhile the president made a clarion for dialogue inviting the 20+ presidential candidates from the 2018 elections to discuss a framework for the way forward for the nation, but the two main contenders snubbed the meeting one citing that a photo opportunity is not dialogue and the word on the street is its like dip tank attendant inviting farmers who own no livestock ….

If the image in the Sunday Mail local paper can be believed then the austerity measures though bitter, are making country better……

sunday mail cartoon, yes a bit better but will make you better soon

If you were having coffee with me I would say hey, its the month of and Valentine’s in a few days, plans? no plans? why cant everyday be valentine or valentines’s for what, isnt that in honour of a beheading? you tell me

St Valentines beheaded

Have an awesome one and happy heart week ♥♥♥♥

~B

Photocredit St valentine beheaded: TimesIllustrated

Of Coffee, the internet and the truth

mango juice

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you its still mango season, and we blending them into juice. I’ll even tell you a lil twist, throw in a banana into the mixture and surprise your taste buds.

If you were having coffee with me, I would ask your opinion on the internet if it had done more harm than good, to the fabric of the world; if world governments could or should ban or restrict access to some of it?

I watched a BBC report about how social media use is linked to an increase in depression and teen suicide. The UK government is considering taking legislative measures against social media companies if they do not purge harmful content from their sides.

Ban social media

The crazy weird thing is sometimes the harder you try to purge something the more you sensationalize it. There was this game, targeting vulnerable teens, that trended in some circles early last year, challenging them to do tasks which would ultimately lead to suicides; I dont know if anyone else noticed that the more people actually gave out details warning people to not play the game, the more people actually sought out the challenge….

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you, thats the thing with social media and the internet, news spreads like veld fire. Are more people commiting suicide or more people hearing about it cause of social media or maybe both. Simply banning the social media will not fix anything whats broken inside some people….

suicide

Coming back to home, our government ordered an internet shutdown, as it was blamed for the violent protest and later the internet was restored but partially with restrictions to social media sites. A constitutional court ruling later ordered full internet services be restored on the technicality that only the president would have had the authority to issue such a directive and not a minister and that was that, but still leaves loop holes in the constitutionality of ordering internet shutdowns, this wont be last the time it happens…..

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that its open season at the fake news factory; its really difficult to know whats happening especially when even the official information channels contradictory and entirely whole accounts of whats happening.

A hoax message went viral about how people using VPNs to access the internet were being investigated by the police, till the police had to issue out a statement that they were doing no such thing.

If you having coffee with me I would tell you I wrote a post with ten simple ways you can use to check if something is fake news, Stop Reflect Verify so you can share responsibly

While the internet was down the were untold cases of atrocious violations to men, women and children, by people dressed as security agents which never made the news. The government attributed some of these acts to “rouge elements“

Sky News broke the story of security forces in Zimbabwe beating a man

The president’s official twitter account shared an excellent and decisive response to this news story but what has me worried is that, the are so many other things that havent been responded to, the state broadcaster carries on as its business as usual.

Do we have to wait until news makes international headlines for it to be true? When you have so many people desperate for news any news about whats going thats a perfect breeding ground for fake news…..

According to The Herald, a local newspaper Zim is under a co-ordinated media attack and that SkyNews is not accredited to operate in Zimbabwe and their report is unbalanced…

Zim under co-ordinated attack

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that for now its calm, but its that uneasy calm and everytime I see a group of police officers or soldiers, I feel a slight panic coming on, like maybe I am somewhere I should not be or doing something I should not be doing, or perhaps I wrote something I shouldnt have (hang on a second while I reread this post)

Well thanks for dropping by, I hope you have an awesome week, whats your truth?

~B

PS We lost a legendary musician and icon Oliver Mtukudzi and the other post I have been writing is in honour of Samanyanga

Oliver mtukudzi a life well lived a life worth celebrating

Of Coffee, Rogue Elements and Blood Moons

If you were having coffee with me, well we woudnt be having coffee we would be trying out some freshly blended mango juice….

Good thing there’s mango trees in the backyard otherwise I would be unable to offer you much else, have a mango and wash it down with juice

 It’s been a traumatic week, strange how only last Sunday was calm but deceptively more like the calm before a storm; as the country burned the next day, following protests that turned violent and an even deadlier response by security forces that has left a bloody tally of death, destruction and ruthless victmisation.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you about the internet shutdown that resulted from a directive from the government to Internet Service providers ostensibly as security measure to stop protestors who were co-ordinating via social media and the internet but under whose cover, a violent crackdown of suspected protest instigators was carried out.

The way the internet was shutdown you would think they did  not realise it’s is a whole eco-system and switching it off not only disrupts the digital economy but denies people access to affordable communication and stifles freedom of expression or maybe they do and it scares them, to quote Game of thrones

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”


“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”


Tyrion Lannister; Game Of Thrones

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the way the internet has been switched on and off in the past week is reminiscent of a toddler discovering the power button on the remote control and keeps pressing it, you would they found a new toy.

press button
Anatomy of an internet shutdown

This shutting down of the internet seems to be the new trend, as governments figure out that if you cant control it, shut it down.

“It is not even the second month of the new year and we have had significant internet shutdowns in four African countries,”


Berhan Taye, who leads the #KeepItOn campaign for global digital rights group Access Now.

I used to think my government would never do that but nope I was wrong, as Zimbabwe joined the list with the DRC, Gabon and Sudan. They read from the same Book Of Tricks it seems from contested elections to violent crackdown of opposition its not unique to one country.

At least for now the internet has been restored after a second black but partially (again) with limitations to social media sites who knows for how long?

Telone advises restoration of internet after shutdown Zimbabwe
internet restoration after shut down

I can predict its going to be tough for internet dependent enterprises when parliament finalises the Cyber Security Bill to minimize threat that is the internet; who knows maybe they will even throw in stringent licensing and registrations requirements like they tried to do for bloggers in Tanzania and all sorts taxes along the lines of Uganda’s social media tax…

Oh no! Maybe I am giving them ideas right now!!…….

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that during a joint press conference of the police and army a statement was issued that basically blamed what happened in the past week as being perpetrated by army deserters, and wait for it rouge elements who stole army uniforms and were masquerading as security forces but how does it explain them having standard issue military guns or using state vehicles, its all very confusing cause earlier they had blamed labour movements, civic organisations and the opposition and for the second time again #ThisFlag movement charged with trying to subvert a constitutionally elected government…

 Looks like we should brace ourselves for more raids as they try to flush out the rogue elements and probably more internet disruptions, unless an appeal to the constitutional court set for Monday accomplishes anything but I have long since lost faith in the ability of the judiciary to uphold the constitution, waiting for them to surprise and as for people trying to reach out to SADC and the AU, did you know Zimbabwe’s president is the incoming Deputy Chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security

Mnangagwa deputy chairman security sadc organ security

If you were having coffee with me, we would be having mango juice I think it tastes great though somewhat pulp

Are you staying up to watch the blood moon tonight ? I would not miss it for the world, the moon and I have an arrangement, wherever you are looking at the moon know I will be looking at the same moon too

~B

Of Coffee And The Domino Effect

If you were having coffee with me I would ask you if you knew that a shadow appears something is in the way of light, before you answered quickly yes you knew that; I would stop you and say you think you know but have you really thought about it, a flame casts no shadow……

A flame casts no shadow

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that these are type of conversations we had in a fuel queue, to pass time during the over 3 hour wait in a fuel queue to get petrol.

Fuel queue in zimbabwe
Super chibuku in a fuel queue

I have heard people joke that Zimbabwe might be in the Guinness Book Of Records for having the longest fuel queue, well it might not be a true fact but we have had some pretty crazy fuel queues.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that we stuck it through with a very long fuel queue because word on the streets was that effective midnight (13 January) the fuel price would go up and true to the word the president was on national TV announcing that fuel was going to go up by over 100% from about $1.50;
Petrol now cost $3.31 per litre and diesel $3.11

Even though the president assured the nation that the prices for everything else would remain the same, you wont need to be an economic analyst to predict the domino effect; how the fuel price hike will probably trigger an increase in transport driven services and by extension an increase in the prices for services as everyone simply passes on the cost along their chain and pretty much everything else will go up too; even things that are not affected directly by the fuel price increase will rise courtesy of an entrepreneur trying to cushion themselves from the rising consumer bucket.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that the civil servants sector in the past week refused a proposed 10% pay increase by the government. With the least paid government employee earning about $400 then that would translate to a $40 pay increase which would barely cover anything especially now in light of the 100+% fuel price increase. Its interesting noting how different newspapers phrased the headlines for the civil servant pay increase.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that now looks like a good time to start looking into ways of alternative transport or even alternative fuels for vehicles, we have a tremendous amount of sunshine this side of the world, yet I have never seen a solar powered vehicle, where are all these genius ideas and concepts…..Maybe I should have a chat with Elon Musk if you know how I can contact him please holla at me.

solar powered car green energy

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you I am grateful that once you learn how to ride a bicycle you can never forget because looks like a bicycle might just become my preferred economic mode of transportation

Riding a bicycle

“A bicycle is curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.”


John Howard

What’s going on in your neck of the woods? Here’s to an awesome week ahead

~B

PS would the price of internet access be affected by a rise in the fuel price, it shouldn’t right?…..