895 karma · joined September 12, 2011
I don't have faith in the human race as is to do the right thing when handed these tools , you can already see the nonsense like the fake nudes , fake news and all that other filth being pushed on social media by people with access to relatively daft models. What happens when we can package a Mythos 5 level model in a box , when any war lord , supremacist or religous zealot can access these ? , You now you have your personal bio-chemist and nuclear physicist in a box.
The tool in itself is not what I am worried about , it is the human in the loop. I don't have an answer to this but i believe it is something we should all take a moment to think about , just think what a different world we would be living if any random person could buy a nuclear weapon off the shelf ? There are extremes to both ends , you can either worry way too much or don't care at all, I believe the best place is the middle ground were we actively think this through instead of using our usually "Move fast and break things" mode..
To whoever wrote this , thank you for so eloquently articulating something I’d failed to put into words.
I've shipped electronics and Laptops for Work quite a bit, and OP is right, the system is broken, it stays this way because a lot of corrupt individuals benefit from this mess. However, OP showed a degree of Hubris here, a mistake lots of us make when dealing with foreign countries, just because it works this way here, so it should work that way in XYZ.
OP would have saved themselves lots of time and money if they'd asked Django what the best way to get that laptop shipped to them was. Lots of Ugandans in Austria ship things back daily; they just do it differently, simply hand it to someone travelling back home, there are people travelling back daily, willing to help or just pay a shipping agency a small amount and they'll handle everything.
This is a good act of charity and I applaud OP for that; however, the first mistake they made was Google "How to send a laptop overseas" , a message to Django, asking the best way to get them the laptop would have saved them time and money.
We all fall into this trap of giving people in need what we think they need instead of asking them how best we can help. Local knowledge goes a long way.
All in all, I applaud OP, not many of us would have done this.
Totally unrelated, I am just curious about why you chose the name, as someone who is Ugandan and was born in raised in Kampala (which is the Capital City of Uganda BTW).
Congratulations again.
Them implementing this “zero minutes” thing already tells you that they have realized there is some pushback.
Why not just add an on/off toggle?
This short form , TikTok style endless scroll stuff has a junk food feeling to it , as a paying customer why can’t you just give me the option to turn this off ?
My point is that the Author has picked a practice by a couple of tribes on a Continent so diverse and large you could fit the states, the UK, and still have space for 30 or so more countries, and passed it off as the norm.
Funerals can be expensive, anywhere. I don't want you going away with the impression that all these poor Africans are using up all their hard-earned savings to throw these outlandish burial ceremonies.
I am from Africa and needless to say, we don't have an abundance of VC funds for startups.
I have used products live Revolut and Monzo before and loved them, there is an opportunity being missed in places like Africa and other developing economies that have a huge growing youthful middle class that hates the way the established banks operate and is comfortable with technology.
I spent most of my free time last year building a backend that can handle some core banking functions, I already did research on the licensing and knew I would never be able to raise that money just with an idea and business plan so to keep myself going and also have something to show potential VC's I decided to start small, things like airtime top-up, bill payments etc
Break it down , look at the bits that you can build out and get some initial customers while you look to raise money, you don't have to go all out and build a whole bank, start small, licensing for things like e-wallets and money transfer is not unreasonably expensive, you can then go on to build on top of that
Good luck.
Backend Developer Python/Django . Most recent work was building a Fintech Company https://useremit.com/.
Expertise in Fintech, Continuous Integration Hero, Remote CTO.
More info here: https://madradavid.com/
Could the OP or Mods please change this to a less catchy and more accurate title like `Uncapped ISP for Lagos` .
Uganda was colonized by the British so the official language is English, I grew in the capital city (a different tribe from mine with a different culture and different language ) so back home when I visit my relatives who live far from the city (my ancestral home) I feel like a foreigner (they used to call us `city borns`).
Here in France, the French expect most black people to speak French and know about French culture (they colonized a number of West African countries ) but again in our country we speak English so you feel awkward and out of place.
To make things even more complicated my fellow East Africans (Kenyans, Tanzanians) speak Swahili so when they meet you they have this Swahili vibe but again Ugandan's don't speak Swahili we speak English... So a foreigner at home and a foreigner abroad, HN is home :-).
Remote: Ok
Willing to relocate: Yes
Technologies: Django, Android, Linux
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Email: david@madradavid.com
I spend my days freelancing as a Django developer, experience building Fintech and Bitcoin (https://github.com/madra/bitscrow) Applications.