InfoZone

Google Maps Team Launched Driving Directions For Africa – Awesome

The Google maps team finally launched driving directions for Africa. This is something I have been waiting for, for sometime now. Finally its here. :-)

http://google-africa.blogspot.com/2010/04/google-maps-for-africa-gets-better.html

I like this part of the post about the launch.

So the next time you are in Ghana driving from Kotoka International Airport to Hotel Novotel in Victoria Borg, Accra or you just want to drive from Nairobi to Kampala, visit Google Maps and allow us to help you get to your destination.

Now no more clumsy directions, like we usually do here in Ghana, which goes like, Yeah, go left( its not far ), turn right, you will see a plantain seller at the corner, then go further down the street, there is a house painted black, by pass it and go further until you see a “shoe shine” sitting on the other side of the street. Ask around if anyone knows Mr. Pee Jay. He is popular. Once someone says yeah, I know Mr. Pee Jay, that means you are at the right neighbourhood. Then start looking for a house painted red with yellow gate and green walls. Oh gosh, this kind of directions gives me a migraine. By the time the direction is done, you’ve even forgotten where to start from.

To satisfy my curiosity. I tested the map direction. Work so well. I can see the direction form Kotoka Airport to Dansoman where I live. Super cool.

View Larger Map

Kudos to Google Maps team for bringing this to us. It will save some of us tons of time.

Away From Home

Kumasi road

I got really tired of Accra because of the scorching sun and the unbearable humidity. So I decided to geek out at a different location and headed straight to Sunyani, Brong Ahafo. Also I have had this pending motorcycle trip to Sunyani for a while, so I decided to do it this time.

Me on the motorcycle

On Wednesday morning, I packed up my backpack, took my camera and G1 Android powered( courtesy Google Ghana ) phone and rode all the way from Accra to Sunyani. It was my longest motorcycle trip. The distance about is about 383.01 km (238.0 mi). Made few stops on the way for photos. I saw lots of accidents on the road, even saw a fresh accident, involving two vehicles, veered off the road into the bush. This got me a bit scared but I was so determined to get to my destination safely.

Linda Dor

My first stop was at the famous Linda Dor restaurant on the Accra – Kumasi road. There, I rested for about 15 minutes, stretched , peed, jumped back onto the bike and headed straight to Nkwakwa. On the Nkwakwa road, I saw this huge mountain with masts on it. Caught my eyes so I decided to document it.

Nkwakwa

From Nkwakwa rode about half an hour to a fuel filling station to top up the tank. From there, I rode straight up to kumasi where I rode through Kejetia finding my way to the Sunyani road. I rested in Kumasi for about an hour, drinking and socializing with the local people I met at the bar. I also charged up my dead phones to get them back to function.

Kumasi

After resting in Kumasi, the second trip started. I rode into the night to Sunyani. I made it to Sunyani about 2 hours. On the road, I got high way night riding experience. Riding in the night wasn’t fun at all if you ask me. Vision wasn’t so clear ,so riding became extremely dangerous. There were lots of insects on the road. They got tricked by the headlights, thinking they have got a place to linker on but rather got busted on the helmet and the riding jacket. If you are very sensitive to slight pains, then night riding isn’t for you. You might scream and if you don’t take care, you might lose your balance.

I documented my trip on Google maps using My tracks to record the journey.

View Sunyani Trip in a larger map

The trip was a good one. Worth the effort and the money spent on the journey.  Sunyani’s weather was much bearable. It was a bit colder compared to Accra’s and I managed to touch base with a long time friend. She was really happy to see me after 3 years not seeing each other. The only issue I have in Sunyani was the poor connectivity but hey, better than nothing. I managed to get down at work. I’m going to do this again but a different location.

The Go Programming Language

Go The programming language

It seems Google is doing everything under this sun. From search engine, mobile OS, browser, and other several products, now its the Go programming language. I can’t wait to see them reveal a teleport system, that way I don’t have to ride about 218km to get to the Western region.

Go is a system programming language  like C and C++ but with new features and eliminations of the short comings of C and C++.  Go is designed to be extremely fast and avoids some of the complexities in writing software( like C is :-) ). Its an open source project aiming to have a community to contribute to make it even more powerful.

It is optimized for massive scaling and for multi-core processors that handle many tasks in parallel. It has a strong focus on object oriented principles. The project looks bright. However, Francis McCabe who has been working on a programming language also called Go is seriously begging Google to change the name of their programming language Go. I wonder how such a big company couldn’t do their homework well.

Menace of E-Waste

Source of video: Frontline World

After watching the video, it kept me thinking how on earth could we( Ghanaians ) create an attractive market for these wastes. We are to be largely blamed for this. We tend to like these garbages a.k.a "home use"  from the west. You should see people lined up in long queues just to pick the best out of these bazillion wastes. 

If there are policies out there to make importation of these wastes unattractive, I don't think any importer will give a look at these. Hence no or little of them will come in.

 If you watched the video to the fullest, its horrifying how these young men extract sensitive data from the dumped HDD. The best way of disposing these HDDs is to crash them if you ask me. 

 Anyhow, if you have any comment, feel free to pass it.