How KTDA can Invest in Tea Pickers

Tea is among the top income earning agricultural products in Kenya, if not the highest. In Abothûgûchi West ward, Meru County, tea is only rivalled by dairy farming. The two run the engine of this agriculture dependent area.
  The buying price Kilogram of Green tea is between Sh 14 -16 . And since this crop requires a fairly large track of land to be economic viable, the Farmers employ Pickers locally known as Ntûngi. These labourers are paid daily wages of Sh 10 per Kg of green tea picked. Tea picking is skill horned through practice and the more you pick, the higher your earnings. During rainy seasons some can pick up even 80 Kg per day.

However this very crucial service is largely unappreciated and down upon in spite of it being the central anchor on which billions of money are earned monthly and annually. Thousands of poor residents do this tedious work from Monday to Saturday, years on end to put food on the table and other basic needs. But on a bigger perspective they have nothing to show for it. The beneficiaries of this cash crop are the Estate owner/Farmer, processing factories and KTDA honchos in air conditions comfy offices in Nairobi. Oh, and the unscrupulous tea cartels in the name of brokers at the auction in Mombasa.

These holloi pollois have negligible say in affairs of tea. Their business is picking and delivering of tea to collection centres, have it weighed, return a receipt indicating the number of Kgs picked and get paid. The factory doesn't care who picked tea,theirs is collecting and processing. Wages and other favours due to the Picker are dependent on mercy of the Farmers. After all there isn't a labour union for tea estates workers.
  It's my opinion that Ntûngi ought be recognized by the tea industry players and gain more benefits for their services. First, factories should take up the Payment of wages role. And make deductions from the farmer's monthly earnings. The wages per Kg be standardized. This will solve the petty contention by factories that they cannot raise prices per Kg because Pickers will demand more and Farmers cannot afford.
Second,for the above suggestion to function better all tea Pickers should be registered and have a Unique identifier call it a 'Picker Number'. Subsequently a digital card bearing important data be insured to the pickers. Every time tea is delivered, the clerk feeds in the
(i) Number of Kgs
(ii) Farmer's registration number
(iii) Collection center number
The factory will have an automated system that makes due wages payment to the Card Holder's Mobile Money Account instantly. Also printed Receipts for they Picker and Farmer be issued at the completion of sale for record keeping. At the end of the month and bonus time a complete statement of account be served to the two parties.
Thirdly, a majority of Pickers do not have a Health Insurance. Three to five Kgs can be deducted from the Pickers daily sum of tea delivered, to cater for NHIF. At Ksh 10 per Kg for 26 picking days in a month, that's 260. Since minimum NHIF cover cost is 500 per month ,the remainder be a Compulsory contribution by both Farmer and KTDA via the Factory. The remaining Kgs should be banked as savings of the Picker which can be accessed after a given period of time. It's from these savings that the Picker can acquire Financial Credit if he/she so wishes.
  Fourthly, during tea bonuses period Pickers depend on generosity of Farmers to give them 'something small' as a token of appreciation. To truly cater for for Picker's welfare, the amount of deducted Kgs as savings throughout the year can be added and multiplied by Books Rate and issued to them as their Bonuses.
   This is a worth endeavor that will greatly improve the welfare of Tea Pickers, boost their morale and give them their long overdue Appreciation and Recognition. It's also another new net for NHIF and banks.

Sound Phenomena: Doppler's Effect on Motorcycles and further queries

                                                 

                                                Sound waves inter looping
                                

Motorcycles or boda boda as they are fondly referred to as in Kenya are the most convenient means of transport over short distances both in towns and to and from market centers in upcountry.  Most of them have customized music systems to attract passengers especially youth. They are thereby blaring loud music as they ride along.

While walking or being near a busy road, I have observed a Peculiar behavior of sound of music from boda bodas. I can distinctly hear and know which song is playing and as well follow the lyrics word for word, from a motorcycle that is approaching from say 100 m or 50 m ahead depending on how load it is. However when the boda boda rides past me, the rhythm and words of that song Become Distorted for a few seconds before resuming normalcy. This phenomenon also occurs if the boda boda is approaching from behind and reaches a similar distance ahead of me.

Doppler’s Effect explains this occurrence by stating that it’s the Wavelength of the sound which Increases because “in a given time the sound at the end of a vibration has to travel an extra distance due to relative movement of the boda boda”. However this theory fails to state specifically at what point the sound distorts or thins out. 

I haven’t done any experiment on the phenomena but I opine that the point at which wavelength Increases and Decreases in split seconds is key to this occurrence. But I opine that at this Point, P, the sound waves either flattens or inter loops each other and hence distorts the sound of the music.

Furthermore I have thought of other questions regarding this phenomenon:

      i) If there is number of people walking one ahead of the other in a straight line at measured intervals at which distortion happens and a boda boda (source of sound) is approaching in front or behind them, would they all hear the song in its distorted form?

    ii) Also how would the song sound if one was running towards a stationary source of sound?

    iii)   And what if two boda bodas are approaching from Opposite direction playing the Same song at the Same time and reach the distances of distortion (say 5 m on either direction) Dd1 and Dd2 at Once. Would there be distortion or would the wavelengths Cancel Out and therefore the song sound Normal as if from a single source without distortion?

Freedom; Lessons from Domestication of Chicken

                                      

                                              (Image courtesy)

My people, the Ameru, tell a story of the Chicken and the Partridge. The two were great friends and lived together in the forest fending for themselves and their young.  One day it was very cold, they were in desperate need for warmth but had no skills of making fire. Fortunately they knew of man who lived in the village, the chicken was sent to borrow the fire. When the Chicken reached the village, she met a woman who was preparing fermented porridge using grinding stones.  Before asking for the fire, the chicken started feeding on the droppings, known as makie, around the grinding stone.

After some eating, the chicken walked out, stood at raised ground and shouted to her friend, “Nkware gutirii mwankiῙ ῙῙ”, (Partridge there isn’t any fire here”), and went back in to eat some more. The Chicken never returned to the forest.

Ms Chicken realized the readiness of food is more important than fire for warmth that day.  In the forest there was Freedom to whenever and at whatever time but there was No guarantee of food, it was a hustle. Also one’s security was bear, predictors were many. Food was more important to the chicken than all the freedom; she therefore made a sacrifice Food over Freedom. She probably did not know man was also a predictor but what if he was? He was just one, better than the mongoose and tens of others carnivores in the forest.

But man turned out to be more vicious predictors of the chicken than all other monsters in the forest combined, he consumed most of the eggs and gave just a few for hatching. Therefore Ms Chicken had to produce more eggs to ensure survival of its species compared to forest life. What more the food wasn’t Free after all. Ms Chicken was being fattened up for slaughter. It can be argued that man saved chicken from Extinction if she had picked the fire and went back living in the forest like other animals. Yes, the population of this species is bigger than that of man himself.  However I opine that the chicken could probably have developed a Survival tactic in her natural habitat and increased its number substantially without the aid of man. Would the chicken be Content if they weren’t as many but FREE?

What is Freedom?  It’s exemption from restraints. The fundamental tenet of a democracy is Freedom. Freedom from what and to do what? In a colony, man cannot move, associate or pretty much do anything without consent of his master. Same case as being a child, or living under a dictator. But then one day all these rights are granted and you celebrate, Freedom at last! It’s all an ILLUSION, man is Never free; he has never been and Never will be.

Independent states may not serve a Master per say but new masters emerge that are more ruthless. The new masters, kill, maim, loot money and land, divide us, detain, say unsavory words, live large as we wallow in destitution. Man puts up with all this crap in the name of building a nation and securing a future for his offspring. We realize the new master is like the old one, now on steroids. There is No Freedom. You cannot move about at certain times of day or night, you risk arrest. You cannot associate at certain places or with people. There is a law prohibiting every goddamn thing a Free man wishes. A teenager who yearns for Freedom from overbearing parents soon realizes how Responsibilities chokes much of the air out of Freedom.  

Hell! Even believe in a super natural being did not offer Freedom  from the vagaries of life, fear of unknown , pain and agony as man had envisaged  and Death won’t either.

Brain's Multitasking in Different Locations

                                                       

                                                                 Courtesy www.fwbusiness.com

It is often assumed that man’s (humanity) biggest shortfall is the failure to create life using science.  However this is a far-short, it will be achieved someday in the future when requisite technology is available. In my opinion the possibility of our brain performing multiple tasks at the same time, i mean multitasking in the sense of time.

An average human being wishes to perform at least five or so tasks and complete them ALL at once at a given time. For instance I would want to be studying for a degree, master or PhD program and working too. That is instead of breaking for studies or doing part-time studies; you are simultaneously studying and working full time.

Also imagine a situation where one could be able to say:

        -Go out with friends

      - Be at home alone, with a loved one

       - At a date

     - Do some reading

     - Watch a favourite program or movie

    - Striking a business deal

Or attending a weekly job’s meeting on a Monday morning while taking your kids to school.

ALL at the same time. Simultaneously.

I am talking about activities that demand our mental presence and NOT physical presence. As such this function will involving ‘sending’ one’s brain or part of it to PERFORM  a number of Tasks at DIFFERENT locations simultaneously.  The brain will thereof recollect as one. Meaning the brain functions as the central command and database of data acquired from different locations and tasks.

But then, if we were to acquire such ability would we still maintain our unique identity as an individual as we are now? Or would our brains’ acquisition of different data/information simultaneously transform us into different individuals?

FIVE QUESTIONS ON THE DONALD E. CARR ETERNAL RETURN

In Chapter 5 of the book THE ETERNAL RETURN, titled Déjà vu and the Mysterious Flashes, the late American author Donald E Carr in trying to explain the concept of Individual Memory in the eternal return, he poses the following scenario to his imagined recalcitrant and stubborn antagonist Marvin

    DEC: Your real objection, I take it, is the common one, not to say vulgar one, of the whole-hog    

    materialistic. You insist that memory must pounding or making holes in a piece of funny putty. Let’s take a look in space-time at a hypothetical experiment by some neurologists the future. This a very important experiment and takes a very long time and exacts an enormous amount of skill. We shall call it the “Experiment of the Cut-Down Brain”

 Now, what the experimenters do is to carefully and gradually cut a human being into pieces. However, the subject does not know he is being cut into pieces because the surgical neurologists, as they remove arms, legs, finally the whole torso, leaving only the head, cleverly substitute an artificial sensory and sympathetic nervous system (which may be a big black box full of wires) so that the brain still imagines it is still receiving sensations from the trunk, the stomach, the arms and legs and even thinks that it is moving its hands, that it is digesting and evacuating, etc. on the next step, gradually, oh very gradually, perhaps over a period of centuries, the eyes are cut out, along with the nose, the mouth, the ears, but immensely ingenious artificial substitutes are implanted, so that the subject imagines, he sees, tastes, smells, hears, talks, experiences, closes his eyes to sleep, dreams, scratches his head, etc. the cutting process continues now into the brain. Yet because of substitution by artificial neurons, synapses, glia cells etc., which need not be in the subject’s brain at all but can be in the black box, the subject still maintains some degree of consciousness. As we cut down perhaps the last cubic inch of original brain, there is still consciousness. Finally, still making the immensely complicated substitutes, which now perhaps require several millions of years to assemble properly, the last cubic inch is removed and thrown away, and its artificial simulacrum is connected in to the black box…. Now what would you say we have done?

      Marvin: You’ve killed the poor bastard.

However Donald explains that the poor bastard has not been killed rather he has been reproduced as a different event sequence in the space-time continuum.

     DEC: As consciousness has faded from the original brain it crept into the artificial devices. The black box is now a conscious entity. It possess not only memories of the original brain, but as the great experiment has proceeded over the millennia, the black box has acquired its own private memories. There has been no total loss of consciousness. The amount of consciousness lost by the original brain has been recovered by the artificial system. Like energy, consciousness has shown itself to be indestructible…

I follow and understand the train of thought that Donald Carr and even imagine the whole experiment of Cut-Down Brain sequence. It is a fascinating and the book itself is very enlightening. I would have loved to meet Carr in person, but unfortunately he passed on in 1986 some years before I was born. Since I read this 1968 publication by him, I have been bothered by the thoughts of a REVERSE EXPERIMENT. What would happen if the whole body cut down to the last cubic inch of brain were to be reconstructed? The process is assumed to take the time, cautiousness and perhaps more advanced technology. Then,

     1. Would the brain still have consciousness?

    2. Is it possible for the brain to remember the Cut-Down experiment carried on it and the body?

    3. Can the brain detect there was a time break or gap between then and now?

    4. Is it possible to maintain the thoughts or say consciousness of the original brain and Black Box   

          as separate entities?

     5.  And if the two entities were let to live alongside each other subjected to the same life events all

          the time, would we be able to tell who is who, I mean would they be different individuals or an 

          individual in two forms? Would their thoughts be the same always?

I will be glad to get answers to these disturbing questions. I invite anyone out there with thoughts on them to contact me via email kithinjikinotikk@gmail.com or use any other platform to settle them.

Cameroon;the Anglophone crisis

Steve Biko said,"The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed".
Colonization wasn't evil because we were enslaved,displaced, tortured, raped and murdered in our ancestral land, rather that our minds were conquered forever.
In Cameroon there is a crisis between Anglophone Southwest and francophone government of the despot Paul Biya. The then German Kamerun was handed over to France and Britain(Southwest and Northwest),after the defeat of Germany in WWI. In 1961 Nortwest Cameroonians joined federation of Nigeria while southwestern became part of Le Republique du Cameroon on the promise of being treated equally. All governments of independent Cameroon have however reneged on promises made to the anglophone southwest.
  Public documents are printed in French with no English translation as do other matters of state. For over fifty years these citizen have treated like second class because nature's rule (the advanced society must conquer the less) hence colonization.
It's embarrassing that a people of one race are fighting over the language of the oppressor. The fathers of independent Africa really failed us big time,they never picked any of our languages to be official for the continent. Too busy looting and assassinating opponents! In Canada anf the US there are French speaking states and run their governments without conflicts with the rest of the country, so Cameroonians should go back to the original federal republic,become bi lingual or separate.