Nick Twinamatsiko

Books. Buildings.

[pirupi ʚ♡ɞ @pirupiisu]

in the end, it all comes down to what you loved when you were 12-14

[Julius Mucunguzi @j_mucunguzi]

My friend, mentor and mukwano gwabangi -- a friend of very many--former Prime Minister Dr @RuhakanaR is 79 years old today.
He first met me swimming in Lake Bunyonyi in April 1993, when I was a small boy in senior 3 studying at Lake Bunyonyi Secondary School on Bwama Island--and after assigning me to be a tour guide of his friends around the island, we stuck a friendship that continues to date.
The man did not previously know me , but when he me asked a question about Kigezi and its people and culture and I answered it firmly and confidently, we struck a code and started a conversation that lasted over two hours as we walked around Bwama Island.
Here is a photo we took in November 2000.
Happy Birthday Ndugu RR--I wish you many many more healthy and blessed years, because you are a good human being.

[Justin Skycak @justinskycak]

You cannot optimize what you haven't mastered manually. You haven't earned the right to automate until you've felt the friction of the manual labor.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

IF the other two teams in relegation zone win their games today, we will have dropped to position 20 by the time we start the game against Aston Villa. And I am even sure we can win that game. It's a tough time to be a Manchester United fan.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

I hope nobody is trying to start a guerilla war.

I hope the p'ple that attacked Busiika Police Post were just thugs.

One thing is for sure: Regime change in UG can't come through guerilla warfare.

Not in 2022.

The early 1980s were a unique period in our history. They passed.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

The American billionaires on this app (e.g Paul Graham) will disappoint you if you follow them with the expectation that they will tweet wealth tips or "motivational" messages or stories of how they made their money.

They tweet about art, education, society, books, science, etc.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

The length of time it takes to read a book depends on the reader.

It also depends on the book -- not only its length but also its content.

If it's a thought-provoking book, it may take a thoughtful person a long time to complete it. The non-contemplative person will abandon it.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

I read Things Fall Apart with some bit of disappointment. I wondered why Okonkwo couldn't spear a white man. The furthest he went was to spear a black collaborator.
When I read about Rutaraka, I realised that some precolonial/colonial Africans had far bigger balls than Okonkwo's.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

Donald Trump is the most entertaining US president of the modern age. Joe Biden will/would be the most boring president of the modern age.

[Earvin Magic Johnson @MagicJohnson]

Look at how far God has brought me since my HIV announcement 35 years ago! It is truly because of His grace and mercy that I am still here and thriving. God never gave up on me, and I kept the faith. He has truly blessed me beyond measure with His unconditional love and kindness. With His guidance, He has continued to open doors I always knew were possible. I am thankful for all of the prayers from my family, friends, and fans throughout the years, and I am a living witness that there’s nothing too hard for God.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

A few days ago, one of my posts got 2600 likes.

I was taken aback. I didn't see how different the post was from my other posts, which get about 5 likes on average. Virality has its irrationality or arbitrariness. In fact, if you aim at it, chances are that you will miss it. But if you throw things out there randomly and for long, one of them hits it at some point.

The closest that I had come to that number was when I wrote about Oulanyah a few hours after his death in March 2022. The Oulanyah post got 1300 likes and attracted 1300 new followers, raising my follower count from 1900 to 3200.

My current follower count is only 1600, and that is because, after getting to 7500, I decided that it was best to reduce it to 5. By that point, it had dawned on me that follower count is a metric that doesn't convert into anything useful. In fact, I had learned that a large following compromises one's freedom and privacy, and increases the likelihood of spending nights in the "basement". Besides, you get to read lots of angry comments, most of them from either attention-seeking midwits or outright dimwits. If you yield to the temptation to engage some of them, you merely lose precious time. It was that Oulanyah post that largely propelled me into that situation from which I could not escape except by removing all the followers-- which was another time-consuming task.

So, when I got 2600 likes, I wondered whether I was reverting to the situation that I had taken extreme measures to escape from. I noticed, however, that there was an important difference. About 90% of the likers of the post (and nearly all the 100 followers that were attracted by it) were from outside Uganda: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and the rest of Anglophone Africa. Maybe my earlier conclusion that a large following couldn't be converted into anything useful, which had been based on Ugandan followers, didn't hold this time. Building an African following (as opposed to a merely Ugandan one) seemed an exciting prospect.

So, I momentarily asked myself what I needed to do to efficiently bring the prospect to fruition. Did I need to regularly read news from all over Africa, so that I was in position to write posts with continent-wide appeal? When I gave the matter a bit of thought, I realised that, if anything, I needed to take the opposite direction: to completely detach from news, even news of my own country. What is universal is within, not without. It's aphorisms and stories hewn out of my everyday experiences, rather than commentary on news, that can create connection with men and women everywhere. There is nothing as universal as the human spirit, and you don't need any news to give it expression. But again, as I have already said, virality has its arbitrariness. What Reason tells you, and what actually happens, often have no connection.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

Everyone is mentally ill, and psychiatric hospitals were built for those who don't know that they are.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

@JimmySiyasa Maybe what explains that is that, as you train the bot, it trains you, too, without your notice.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

Everyone that uses social media trains algorithms, and everyone that uses chatbots trains them. But not everyone that trains them realises that they are doing so. The way we all end up with unique social media feeds (which are a reflection of us) is the way we all end up with unique chatbots (which are a reflection of us).

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

*on...*on

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

Luck finds some people in the first lap. It finds others in the last lap. And there are some it never finds. You have to persist until it finds you, assuming it's to find you. And even after it finds you, you have to persist. Luck is not in your power, but persistence is.

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

That said, you may also do well to remember the words of some two comedian-sages.

"If at first you don’t succeed, quit, quit at once." -- Stephen Leacock

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” -- W. C. Fields

[Nick Twinamatsiko @TheNicklison]

Physically, you are at the centre of your world. If, even in thinking, you put yourself at the centre of your world, there is undeniable consistency.