Edwin

Software Developer.
LinkedIn 👉

[Anyungu @AnyunguWanyungu]

I cornered a couple of male friends to actually tell me the reason and circumstances that led to their cohabitation or marriage.

I discovered men marry for the most ‘stupid’ but important reasons.

Here are some.

[John Doe @StanleyMasinde_]

I’ve seen this on Reddit.
Be careful out there guys.
https://t.co/jEvEgX9l6s

[Lennox Omondi @_lennoxomondi]

Niliquit 9-5 ilikuwa inanilipa 150k/month.
Imenitake two years for my company kunilipa 67k/month na nafanya kazi from 7AM to 11PM every day, na sometimes unapata uko na employees wanakupea the hardest time ever, na kuwafuta kazi ni even more expensive.

Every month uko na bills za kulipa in the millions, end month kila mtu ako happy isipokuwa wewe juu uko na another 30 days kuraise another million. Na imagine all this trouble ndiyo net salary yako ikuwe 50k

Sometimes doh haitoshi unasema wacha ulipe the employees alafu KRA utawatumia yao by 9th, unajaribu kupata loan bank inakataa juu hauna shamba ya security, inafika 15th unapata weird calls, unashika unapata ni KRA, unawaambia utawalipa next Friday, wanakuambia Friday haiwezekani, labda Thursday. Inabidi uongee with one of your clients akulipe mapema, anakusomea akikuambia biz haifanywi hivo but anaitikia eventually.
Next week inafika unalipa KRA, SHA,NSSF, Housing Levy. Unahave some peace kidogo only to realize that next week ni end month na this time uko na deficit kubwa kushinda last month, and the cycle continues.

Kama uko 9-5 na uko sawa, I can’t advise you to quit. Heri ujaribu entrepreneurship in parallel but usiquit job yako. It feels good when you tell people that you quit your job to pursue your dream but you also need to understand that your dream will take time before it starts paying the bills, and it might also die before you eat a shilling from it.

[Lennox Omondi @_lennoxomondi]

You've gotten yourselves a new competitor, Safaricom

[Joy Car hire @JCarhire]

Hali ni mbaya kidogo… I won’t lie.
If you know anyone looking for car hire this week, tag them or send them my way. Even an RT helps 🙏...100rts for IJ☺️
Today’s survival offers:
• Axio – 3500 (instead of 4500)
• Mazda CX-5 – 6500 (instead of 8500)
• Demio – 3500 (instead of 4200)
• Nissan Note – 3000 (instead of 3500)
• Serena – 6000
• Sienta – 4000 (instead of 7500)
• Jimny – 4500 (instead of 6500)
Clean cars.
📞 0793 373 705
📞 0723 630 231
🌐 https://t.co/MW9O8thdES
RT hata kama ni ya huruma… maybe it will bring a customer today.

[Mohamed Salah @MoSalah]

❤️
#MerryChristmas

[Edwin @edusonjnr]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[Harsh @harshsinghsv]

You build a real-time chat app. You use WebSockets.

It's perfect. The server has a persistent connection to all clients. User A sends a message, the server gets it, and it broadcasts that message to User B, C, and D. It's fast, light, and efficient.

You're a hero.

Then, the boss asks for video calls.

You think, "Easy. I'll just capture the video frames and send them over the same WebSocket connection."

It works on your laptop. Kind of.

In production, it's a total disaster. The video is laggy, the audio stutters, and your server's CPU and bandwidth costs go to the moon.

You've just discovered the hard way what I had to learn:

You're trying to make a central operator (your server) manually patch through every single frame of a high-def video call. You're sending a massive stream from User A up to your server, just for the server to send it all the way back down to User B.

It's a massive, expensive, unnecessary bottleneck. Your server is dying because it's trying to do a job it was never meant for.

This is where you need a different tool. This is where WebRTC comes in.

The core difference is simple:

- WebSockets are for Client-to-Server communication.
- WebRTC is for Client-to-Client communication.

Here's the simple breakdown of what to use, and when:

WebSocket
- This is a persistent, two-way connection between a client and your server.
- The server is the single source of truth. All data must pass through it.

- Use this for:

-Chat apps (where the server needs to log messages and distribute them).
-Live notifications (the server tells everyone a new post just dropped).
-Stock tickers or live sports scores.
-Multiplayer game lobbies (syncing player state from a central server).

WebRTC
- This is a direct, peer-to-peer connection between two browsers.
- The server's only job is to be a "matchmaker" – it helps the two browsers find each other and securely connect. This introduction process is called 'signaling' (and ironically, you often use WebSockets for this part!)
- Once connected, the server gets out of the way. The data streams directly between User A and User B.

Use this for:

-Video calls.
-Voice chat.
-Screen sharing.
-P2P file transfers.

Stop routing your video calls through your server. That's not what WebSockets were built for.

You don't send video over WebSockets.
You use WebSockets to set up the WebRTC call.

Let your server be the matchmaker, not the overloaded operator in the middle.

[Edwin @edusonjnr]

@kahome_steve @threadreaderapp unroll

[Branko @brankopetric00]

Implemented API rate limiting by IP address. 1000 requests per hour per IP. Perfect protection against abuse.

Next week: Legitimate customer hit rate limit. Complained their service was broken.

They were behind corporate NAT. 500 employees sharing one IP address. Hit limit in 20 minutes.

Changed to rate limit by API key instead. Problem solved.

Week after: Bot attack. 50,000 requests per hour. Different API keys. Free tier abuse.

Changed to rate limit by both IP and API key. Problem solved.

Week after: DDoS from 10,000 different IPs using 10,000 different free tier API keys.

Rate limiting was useless against distributed attacks.

Real solution:
- IP-based rate limiting for unauthenticated endpoints
- API key rate limiting for authenticated endpoints
- Behavioral analysis for suspicious patterns
- CAPTCHA challenge for suspicious traffic
- CloudFlare in front for DDoS protection
- Cost limits on free tier

There's no single rate limiting strategy that works. You need layers. IP, user, account, behavior, and external DDoS protection.

[Gichuki Kahome @kahome_steve]

In Kenya, one of the best personal finance decisions you can make is staying away from any personal debts.

Stay away from mortgages, stay away from car loans, stay away from any type of consumer debt.

Here's why you should stay away from these debts👇👇

[Rohit Mittal @rohitdotmittal]

First time founder vs Second time founder:

first time founder: guards idea like state secret
second time founder: shares idea freely, knows execution is everything

first time founder: hires fast to look like a real company
second time founder: stays skeleton crew until absolutely necessary

first time founder: gets office space to feel legitimate
second time founder: works from apartment until bursting at seams

first time founder: chases TechCrunch coverage
second time founder: chases revenue and user growth

first time founder: panics when competitor raises money
second time founder: sees competition as market validation

first time founder: romantic about original vision
second time founder: pivots on weak signals

first time founder: raises maximum possible at highest valuation
second time founder: raises what’s needed with clean terms

first time founder: hides problems from investors
second time founder: radically transparent in updates

first time founder: takes every meeting request
second time founder: ruthlessly protects calendar

first time founder: tracks vanity metrics
second time founder: obsesses over 2-3 metrics that actually matter

first time founder: messy cap table with advisors getting equity
second time founder: clean cap table, minimal parties

first time founder: optimizes for highest valuation
second time founder: optimizes for control and favorable terms

first time founder: waits for perfect product
second time founder: ships broken and iterates

first time founder: recruits on vision and potential
second time founder: recruits on traction and momentum

first time founder: overengineers for scale
second time founder: duct tapes until product-market fit

first time founder: tries to boil the ocean
second time founder: dominates tiny niche first

first time founder: seeks consensus on decisions
second time founder: decides and moves fast

first time founder: takes all advice equally
second time founder: filters advice through own framework

first time founder: splits equity equally with cofounders
second time founder: splits by contribution with vesting cliffs

first time founder: comfortable until 3 months runway left
second time founder: raises next round at 12 months runway

[Edwin @edusonjnr]

@maxedapps I'm a software engineer thanks to your udemy courses. I really appreciate it a lot and I hope you continue recording more courses... 🙏 🇰🇪

[▫️ 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖀𝖈𝖍𝖊 𝕸𝖔𝖗𝖉𝖎♥ ▫️ @Iam_uchemordi]

“Rich people don’t care if things are expensive”

Until it is time to actually pay people for services rendered.

[Deedy @deedydas]

This software engineer was nearly hacked by a coding interview.

I've never seen this attack channel before. Be careful out there, especially vibe coders.

[Monsieur TopGee🥤 @TopG2Lit]

the iphone you bought in nigeria is real. it probably came through parallel import, meaning a local dealer imported it from dubai, hong kong, or the u.s., not directly from apple.

apple stores (like the one in paris) can only see iphones that were officially distributed in their own region (like europe).
so when they checked your serial number and said “no record,” it just means it wasn’t sold through their local retail system… not that it’s fake.

apple’s global activation servers still recognize it. that’s why it activates, updates, and connects to icloud normally.

you can confirm it’s genuine by checking your serial number at https://t.co/vILCJpZa7s.

apple makes the same iphone model in different regional versions because of network bands, local laws, and features. for example:
🇺🇸 usa = esim only (supports mmwave 5g, the fastest)
🇪🇺 europe/uk = 1 physical sim + 1 esim (no mmwave)
🇯🇵 japan = 1 physical sim + 1 esim (camera shutter sound can’t be muted)
🇨🇳 china/hong kong = dual physical sim (no esim)
🇦🇪 uae = 1 physical sim + 1 esim (facetime may be restricted)
🇮🇳 india/singapore = 1 physical sim + 1 esim (global version, full features… most people use this one, but any version works. i use the usa version 😋)

so, if you bought your iphone in nigeria, it likely came from one of these regions usually dubai, hong kong, or the u.s.
that’s why apple stores in europe or america might say “we have no record of this phone.”

it’s real apple hardware, just not from their regional retail channel.

note: “mmwave” is that little 5g antenna you’ll see on the side of some iphones. just google “mmwave on iphone” and check the image section, you’ll see exactly what i’m talking about.

thanks, don’t mention it. 😌

[Silas Nyanchwani @nyanchwani]

Life. Man.

When you are 25, 35, or 40, it looks like a lifetime away.
If in a good place at 25, say a graduate with good career prospects, and a steady lover, everything seems possible. You imagine you can squeeze a family, husband or wife, two kids, dream home, a PhD, and live your dream life by 35 or 40.

At 25, you look at older relatives or people with messy lives, and you wonder what could have gone wrong.

I remember the first time I attended my daughter’s PTA. I was a relatively young man. There were older folks, older men with vitambis, one or two with greying hair, and in my own youthful folly, I may have cursed inwardly, wondering, “where were they?”
When you are young, you will never understand how someone can be older and be jobless or be rudderless or without a family. When you are young and successful, you become criminally blind to the surprises of life. Sometimes things go so right, you win so much, so consistently, you forget about failure or losses. And these are the people likely to be hit the hardest when life happens.

A business partner in the UK told me how his sister recently alijitia kitanzi. The sister was a bright student all her life and ended up working in a large, global corporation. When she was laid off, the accumulated stress from the loss of her job and undetected depression sent her on a spin ending in death. She was 38.

What is ten years?

It sounds long. Right?

Yeah, but all it takes is one bad, long-term relationship to waste some six years. And you need up to two years to heal. That is, if you are strong and there are no kids. Divorce is a different ball game altogether. It takes almost two years from the point you decide to divorce, to another long year of back and forth, doubts, and all. Post-divorce is a terrible time, and both men and women handle it differently, and people move on in different timelines.

You think ten years is a long time, but all it takes is people saying “tutam” in a mannerless way, and you are stuck in a bad job or jobless for another three years, barely scraping by. We rarely talk about how bad governments keep being shackled in poverty longer than necessary.

You lost a job, and before you know it, three years have passed since you got another one. Some guy commented on my post that it took him 13 years to find a job after losing his first one.
Yaani, 25-42 is such a tumultuous period, and nothing in our constitution prepares you for the vicissitudes of that critical period. Marry right, and you have hit a jackpot. Marry wrong, and a decade of your life is flushed down the drain just like that.

A lecturer in a Kenyan university can turn a basic master’s degree into a nightmare, and what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-year course can turn into a harrowing five years. There is a year you will drop it altogether, until a sensible friend encourages you to go back and finish.

You can fall sick unexpectedly and get derailed. Things can go wrong. May be ni wachawi wa kwenu. Maybe it is the poor choices you will make.

For instance, in the deep throes of passion, when the sex is good, when her legs are on your shoulders, and you are fishing deeper, you don’t stop to think that maybe, this guy, so good and tender, is a deadbeat-in-waiting. When a girl is all feminine, all-loving, all respectful, as a man, you never think for a moment that in two years she will turn you into an alcoholic milaya, sleeping with anything to get back to her, which is foolish already. Nobody, at the peak of a good relationship, stops to imagine that their partner will be the source of their future anguish.

And red flags?

Useless indicators. Red flags occur to you in startling clarity in hindsight. In hindsight, everything is so clear. But in real time, we assume. Assumption is the mother of all blunders adults are likely to commit.

Can you game life? Can you extract good outcomes if you play right?

I bet you can. Or maybe, everything is predestined to happen, as it happens, and we are just unwilling actors playing out a script whose end we don’t know.

I no longer know these things. Nowadays, I am willfully ignorant.
I saw this meme, and it’s like all of us are here for the first time, so “tupunguze advice”. We won’t stop dishing advice; those of us who do need some humility.

What I have learnt is that advice only makes sense after the experience. Not before.

Sometimes people come to me and all they want is for me to agree with their preconceived notions. When I point out different perspectives, they either go cold on me or disappear, only to reappear a few months later, saying, “Silas, you were right.” I don’t revel in them learning the hard way.

I am also like that.

There was this girl I loved and was so head-over-heels into her. And she had a sparkling charm, and something I had desired in a woman for such a long time. One day, I went to pick her up from the airport with my friend. After we dropped her off at her place, my friend told me to dump her. He was unequivocal with his advice. I was adamant that she was a good girl and that my friend was being unnecessarily hard on her for very humane, if girly, mistakes. After all, no one is perfect. My friend gave me that weary look we give friends who are about to trip. I thought he was jealous. I thought he wanted her. I felt myself smarter than him.

Roughly, a month later, the girl did the thing. No anesthesia. Ushawahi achwa hadi unajicheka? I had to hide from my friend for a while. He still laughs at me. And I hate him because of that.
But after she did that thing, my friend’s advice made sense. He had seen what I could not see when I was in love.

Anyway, to young people, live your life with diligence and discipline. There is so much within our control. And there is more that is beyond our control.

A few things I have learnt, I can tell my 25-year-old self:
1. Your personal goals (career, academic, social, spiritual, hobbies) are yours and yours alone. Never let anyone interfere with them. Not a spouse, not a child, not a family member. Indeed, there is room for adjustment here, a compromise there, as sensibly as it is possible. But never sacrifice personal goals for the greater good of something that can end like a relationship.
2. Don’t judge. Most of us millennials became those unmarried uncles and aunts pretty fast. We became the lucky unemployed uncle and the struggling aunt before we even knew it. Accept your wins as a young person with grace, and your losses with greater grace.
3. Don’t be addicted to anything: alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling. Nothing enslaves or wastes time like treating an addiction. If you must drink every weekend, if you must use drugs, if you are gambling, you are on a very treacherous path. Morgan Housel said that self-control is having empathy for your future self. Ask an addict how difficult it is to stop a habit that has become their second nature.
4. Quit bad relationships sooner. It doesn’t matter if his pipe cures your demons. Or she rides the ghosts out of you—date people who are likely to complement your life desirably. Nothing wastes more time or derails people more than staying longer in useless relationships.
5. For men, know that at some point, between 25 and 45, you will lose something extremely important in your life. It can be your family (wife and kids), a dream career, your health, yourself, etc. What matters is not that you will lose that thing. What matters is how you handle the loss.
6. Save. Save. Save. Invest. Invest. Invest. However little. However much. You are never too young to be financially wise. Being financially wise is more of an attitude thing than the income you make itself. That is why a government employee earning Sh 50,000 has a better savings portfolio than an NGO guy earning Sh 200,000. Invest in financial literacy, son.
7. Invest in knowledge.
8. Have fun, as in live. Eat your best food. Date your crush. Drink what you like. But all the fun must be earned.
9. Always remember that the years go by very fast. And sometimes, life happens. Your dreams of what you will be ten years ahead may end up misplaced, and you can never predict where you will end up. I have a friend who is working in Kyrgyzstan. Good luck finding that on the map. Dude had completely different plans for life.
10. This came last because it is controversial to most people, but I will always encourage young people to find God.

May the week break.
Uncle Silas.

[Shadrack Matata @shadrac_matata]

Building products is exciting but let's talk about their adoption.

A while back, a friend had a very nice dating app called "Beloo" that couldn't even help him get a girlfriend for himself. Why? we were only less than ten signups and every account was straight.

1/n

[KPL Fantasy @kplfantasy]

The most expensive players in the game