Meeztashow: September 2012

Sunday, 30 September 2012

MTN Nigeria's Greek gift

Beware of MTN Nigeria's Greek gift

Have you been patronizing MTN Nigeria to get bonus advertised as a WOW OFFER? Well, it is a Greek gift, and MTN Nigeria has probably been chopping your money at a higher rate than you are aware of. This wow offer is supposed to reward you with 100 per cent bonus credit when you recharge during the weekend, starting Friday. And yes, you are immediately notified by SMS that you have 100 per cent bonus airtime to be used up by midnight on Sunday. That appears fine; problem is you can't use this bonus credit until you have used up the credit in your main account. If you didn't know this, chances are you would start calling to use your bonus airtime, but it is your main account that gets depleted. Unless you are a very reckless caller or the recharge amount is not much, you will not be able to access this bonus credit until it expires on Sunday. Can an organization be any more fraudulent?

I was not surprised to find this out this weekend. And yes, as a good number of people believe, MTN Nigeria is the most fraudulent organization on the face of planet earth. See the message I got Saturday evening after making several short calls; there was no bonus airtime from anywhere!

Yes, this type of fraud can only be on MTN!

What should we do? Teach them a lesson, of course:

1. Let other people know that this promotion, as with most other MTN Nigeria promotional offers, is sheer FRAUD,

2. Don't participate in this fraudulent nonsense anymore, and

3. Don't use MTN unless you have to; if you have more than one phone, use the one that is not MTN.

It's high time we let fraudulent organizations know that we can teach them a lesson!

Greek gift

A gift given with the intention of tricking and causing harm to the recipient

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Awolowo Institute of Government and Public Policy, and the Awo Museum at Lekki, Lagos

Chief Obafemi Awolowo, our deceased sage, was detained in a house in Lekki, in present day Ibeju Lekki LGA, Lagos. The bungalow has since been turned into a museum, while an adjoining house serves as the little known Awolowo Institute of Government and Public Policy. On 14 August 2012, I was privileged to pay a flying visit to the institution, which ought to be a better known tourist attraction and resource centre, or a full fledged library dedicated to the study of governance.

Take a tour of the institution.

Awolowo Institute of Government and Public Policy, and the Awo Museum at Lekki, Lagos

Layout of the institution

The remains of the mattress on the bed he used

The sitting room, which now houses memorabilia from the Awo era

The reading table Awolowo used and some of his clothes in the wardrobe he used

Some of the books with which he passed time during the months in detention

Bronze bust of the late sage

Anthonia Bakare, my escort

The WC in the toilet he used

Bath in the bathroom

Fear can be erased from the brain

Newly formed emotional memories can be erased from the human brain. This is shown by researchers from Uppsala University in a new study now being published by the academic journal Science. The findings may represent a breakthrough in research on memory and fear.

Thomas Ågren, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Psychology under the supervision of Professors Mats Fredrikson and Tomas Furmark, has shown, that it is possible to erase newly formed emotional memories from the human brain.

When a person learns something, a lasting long-term memory is created with the aid of a process of consolidation, which is based on the formation of proteins. When we remember something, the memory becomes unstable for a while and is then restabilized by another consolidation process. In other words, it can be said that we are not remembering what originally happened, but rather what we remembered the last time we thought about what happened. By disrupting the reconsolidation process that follows upon remembering, we can affect the content of memory.

In the study the researchers showed subjects a neutral picture and simultaneously administered an electric shock. In this way the picture came to elicit fear in the subjects which meant a fear memory had been formed. In order to activate this fear memory, the picture was then shown without any accompanying shock. For one experimental group the reconsolidation process was disrupted with the aid of repeated presentations of the picture. For a control group, the reconsolidation process was allowed to complete before the subjects were shown the same repeated presentations of the picture.

In that the experimental group was not allowed to reconsolidate the fear memory, the fear they previously associated with the picture dissipated. In other words, by disrupting the reconsolidation process, the memory was rendered neutral and no longer incited fear. At the same time, using a MR-scanner, the researchers were able to show that the traces of that memory also disappeared from the part of the brain that normally stores fearful memories, the nuclear group of amygdala in the temporal lobe.

‘These findings may be a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Ultimately the new findings may lead to improved treatment methods for the millions of people in the world who suffer from anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks,’ says Thomas Ågren.

Source: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=124220&CultureCode=en

Full bibliographic informationThomas Ågren et al. (2012) Disruption of reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in the human amygdala, Science, Sept 21 2012

Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Joint pissing in public

Guys relieving themselves in public--on the roadsides, anywhere, anytime--is a common sight in Nigeria these days. But joint pissing in public facing whoever cares to see... Are we going crazy?!

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

Nigerians, a happy people?

It is said that Nigerians are top on the list of the world's happiest people . Perhaps so. Indeed it is probably so, but most likely because our population is made up of multitudes of insane people. And this is so clear on the roads, where in our daily rage we shoot ourselves and others in the feet, doing those things that will clearly not serve our interests if our desire were the pursuit of true happiness.

Let me take you through some roads in Abuja and Lagos so you can see for yourself what insanity rules our land.

This is the right side of the fly-over bridge at the Lugbe Interchange on Umaru Yar'Adua Expressway (Abuja Airport Road). This side of the road is for out-bound vehicles from Lugbe, not in-bound. But many motorists coming into Lugbe FHA Estate from an estate on the other side of the airport road, or from the direction of the Abuja airport ignore the risk of taking this route rather than u-turn at the foot of the interchange to take the correct route, an action that will add not more than one minute to the trip. Men of the FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corps) know this, but they come to enforce the road safety laws only at predictable times--in the early morning, and late afternoon. In between, the lawless have a field day.

Another motorist, apparently in a hurry.

And another one.

City Gate on the same Umaru Yar'Adua Expressway: You can learn to drive while carrying outsize cargo, and the traffic wardens at the City Gate Roundabout will just wave you on.