AFROGENESIS @afrogenesis - Tumblr Blog

The language of the internet doesn't follow the rules of English.

"When researchers evaluated their model against natural language processing tools, such as Google’s SynaxNet ('an open-source neural network framework'), researchers found that the software flagged African-American English as 'not English' at a much higher frequency than standard English. In Twitter’s own language identifier, identification based on African-American language was twice as bad, despite the large presence of African-American users on the site.

'The standard tools being developed work worse on dialectical English,' O’Connor says. 'Google’s parsers are going to do a worse job of analyzing it so it could be a case that our search systems might be worst at finding information from African-Americans. Language identification is the problem of you have a document and want language. This is a really crucial task. Your search engine only shows results written in English.'"

"Confidentially speakin' code since I sense you peekin'" - Jay Z

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HBCU turns its football field into a farm and transforms the lives of its students

"There is more than one field of dreams, alright. Why should we tie everyone's future to the athletic success? ...We're the first urban work college in the country and so our students learn what it means to be effective and to have job skills and work skills."

Paul Quinn College in South Dallas, Texas is a private, four-year liberal arts-inspired college that was founded by a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church preachers in Austin, Texas. The school’s original purpose was to educate freed slaves and their off-spring.

On April 4, 1872, the Connectional School for the Education of Negro Youth in Texas opened in Austin, moving to Waco just five years later. A single-building trade school provided African American students with vocational training in,blacksmithing, carpentry, tanning, and saddlery. An increase in funding enabled the school to move to a new building on Elm Street. In 1881, the school was renamed for Bishop William Paul Quinn.

Today, under the leadership of its president Michael J. Sorrell, Esq. it is pioneering the new urban work college model which includes a new tuition structure, free textbooks, work program, and a charter school. In the process, it's writing "America's greatest higher education transformation story" under the 4L principles:

• Leave places better than you found them. • Lead from wherever you are. • Live a life that matters. • Love something greater than yourself.

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#paul quinn college #hbcu #hbcubuzz #dallas #historically black colleges and universities #historically black college #texas #ame #black students #black academia #black achievement #black academics #black education #michael j sorrell #pqc #nation building #quinninite nation #quinninites

The world maps that prevail today have been embedded in Western imaginations since the British Empire. , Africa, Cartographers, Kai Krause, The True Size of Africa., world map,

International Cartographic Association (ICA) Admits Western Cartographers Deliberately Shrunk Africa

For starters, this article despite its title provides no concrete evidence for the claim.

The real issue exposed (but not directly addressed) here is the nature of education in the world. For the most part, "learning" amounts to accepting (without questioning) and retaining information for instantaneous regurgitation (mainly for test taking purposes) upon request, rather than understanding.

When the most fundamental concepts of maps (or any other concept) are taught properly, it is almost impossible to miss the fact that the distances between latitudinal lines on the Mercator Projection (image of world map) aren't represented with constancy the further you move away from the equator. Now, what is the significance of this?

What most non-cartographers (you and I) don't know is that the length of 1 degree of latitude is a constant 111.2 km (69 miles). Therefore, the visual depiction of latitudinal lines on a map should be equivalent to the number attributed to the line. In other words, the size of the space between the 15 and 30 degree latitudes should be exactly the same as that between the 60 and 75 degree latitudes. However, as you'll see on this Mercator Projection (map) that is not the case.

We would notice this discrepancy and understand why it exists if we'd been taught to understand what latitudes are, what they represent and how they were calculated, rather than merely ordered to know and remember a few key words of an intricate science without understanding the concepts that they represent.

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#world map #the true size of africa #africa #maps #cartography #usa #kai krause #mercator projection #meridian #latitude #longitude

portraitsofafrica

Colin is absolutely right in living up to his conscience. I will be doing the same.

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#colin kaepernick #doing the right thing

As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

"There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made." - Jackie Robinson

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Kenyan Trains Himself to World Championship Gold Medal

“I do not have a coach, my motivation comes from within. Training without a coach is not an easy thing. I watched YouTube and it really paid off for me, to see the training techniques and skills they are using.”

Kenyan, Julius Yego, popularly known as Mr Youtube has trained himself, with the help of youtube videos, to a gold medal in Javelin, at August’s world championships, in Beijing China. His 92.72 meter throw — an African and Commonwealth record and the longest throw in 14 years — propelled him to his first gold medal, in the sport. Julius will be competing next year in the Rio World Olympics, as one of the favorites.

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UPDATE:

Julius just captured the silver medal in the men’s Javelin at the Rio Olympics, with an opening throw of 88.24 meters. Though he was forced to sit out the remaining rounds with just one throw due to an ankle injury, he managed to come away with a medal. Winning a medal with a single successful throw is remarkable in itself.

#julius yego #rio2016 #rio olympics #kenya #brazil #black excellence #black tumblr

Have something exciting to share in the next couple of days. Look out for it. Hoping you like and share it.

#qob

Black is...

#Black tumblr #Always Black Always Beautiful #rip alton sterling #rip philando castile

A Throwback Thursday Special

Tay Zonday: "Chocolate Rain"

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Uganda produces Africa's first solar-powered bus

Kiira Motors of Uganda has launched Africa's first solar-powered bus. Known as the "Kayoola", the 35 seater bus can travel up to 50 miles straight and is powered by two batteries. One is connected to solar panels on the roof, while the other is charged electrically for longer distances and journeys at night.

Paul Isaac Musasizi, Kiira Motors' CEO says it takes just one hour to fully charge each battery, making the vehicle suitable for "all sorts of duties in the cities", such as school buses or longer-haul journeys across borders.

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Sharing and saving seed is a crucial part of traditional farming all over Africa, writes Heidi Chow. Maybe that's why governments, backed by multinational seed companies, are imposing oppressive seed laws that attack the continent's main food producers and open the way to industrial agribusiness. But Ghana's women farmers are having none of it.

"My mother gave me some seeds to plant. And I'm also giving those seeds to my children to plant. So that is ongoing, every time we transfer to our children. And that is how all the women are doing it. We don't buy, we produce it ourselves... So that is ongoing, every time we transfer to our children. And that is how all the women are doing it. We don't buy, we produce it ourselves."

"Keeping seeds and sharing seeds is essential for sustainable livelihoods as well as ensuring communities have access to nutritious and culturally relevant food. But this is all under threat by a proposed bill - dubbed the ‘Monsanto Law' - in Ghana. Its effect would be to bolster the power of multinational seed companies whilst restricting the rights of small farmers to keep and swap their seeds. This Bill will see the control of seeds being transferred away from small farmers and into the hands of large seed companies. Today just ten corporations control more than 75% of the world's commercial seed market, although in Africa an estimated 80% of all seeds still come from farmer-managed seed systems - where farmers save, select and swap their own traditional or indigenous seed varieties. Farmer-managed seed systems help to protect bio-diversity as farmers keep a wide variety of seeds. Seeds are selected both to maintain yield but also to preserve traits which respond to different climatic conditions, have certain tastes, appearance and storability."

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#seeds #food production #ghana