I just read two posts from BoingBoing that I couldn’t help but sharing:
Economics of disaster
The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number — 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn’t leave. The evacuation plan [...]
While we were in Zomba this past weekend there were lots of fires burning. Fires are common in Malawi, because people often burn the fields during the dry season. One person told me this was to help catch
rats for eating (rats on a stick are for sale everywhere here), but it is also probably the [...]
This past weekend we went away to the Zomba Plateau, which is a beautiful mountainous part of Malawi. We did a lot of hiking and really enjoyed ourselves, despite being a bit tired after all of the walking and the 4 hour drive required each way. Just when you are climbing through the steepest section [...]
Have you heard about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? People are touting it as a new religion. Basically Pastifarians believe that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world. Their oldest scripture is simply this:
A good Pastafarian will always wear pirate regalia and end their prayers by saying “Ramen”. Read more about it on the Wikipedia page.
I [...]
So until I get my VSAT working I am stuck with dialup. I thought I would share a couple of the things I do to maintain an online life, without always having to be online.
Browsing the web is done in firehose mode. I connect to the internet, and then proceed to open tons of tabs [...]
I have been putting this one off, waiting for that exciting moment when I will post via my own working VSAT connection. Unfortunately this has not yet happened. Sadly, but not surprisingly I have been hitting quite a few hurdles. The problem boils down to the fact that I can’t make my VSAT antenna lock [...]
Many people equate hell with places like the DMV (Department of Motor
Vehicles for my non-American readers). You know a place where time is
eternal, everybody thoroughly unhappy, and the staff are rude. Now, how
might you imagine the DMV in Africa? Seriously, think about it before
reading on.
Well first off the DMV in Malawi has a different name [...]
I just came across two interesting tools worthy of my hipster audience,
so here you go.
FolderSize
FolderSize does something that should have been part of windows from the
start. Have you ever wondered how large a folder is, and then been
annoyed with the right click, properties, then wait while windows
calculates the total size routine? FolderSize fixes this problem [...]
I keep a close eye on the blogosphere for anything about Lilongwe or Malawi (thanks to Technorati’s Malawi Tag) and there usually isn’t much, but every once in a while I find something pretty cool. Yesterday I discovered The Roving Frog a blog by an Australian woman who just moved to Lilongwe a number of [...]
We provide all of our staff about $35 per year to travel back to their villages, and George our gardener has asked for $10 of this money to send home to his family in lieu of going himself. At first I told him no - the money is not just a pot of money to [...]
