Chiperoni ku Basel

Month: July 2006

  • Fare il ponte

    Long weekend: It’s the Swiss national day on Tuesday and I’m taking Monday off. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet… for suggestions, leave a comment below 😉

    Here are a couple of links that have been lingering in draft status:

    • Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School – IMHO you can take this and apply it to other work situations as well.
    • and then there’s Kathy’s posting on How to be an expert – and heh, it’s not too late to become an expert. If you strive to learn, you create new brain cells at virtually any age…

    experts cross the kickass threshold

    I’ve found that if you commit yourself to doing a task regularly and keep working on it, even really boring topics become fun and interesting once you cross a certain threshold. Even if the time slots are tiny to begin with. Never ever give up!

    Mlle. A reminded me that today is sysadmin day. Yeah, that’s the guy that deletes your entire site to move you to a “better” server. Thank you so much!

    Cool air is seeping in thru the open window… looks like the warm weather is taking a break. We’ve had a warm July here in Basel, apparently the warmest since the meteorologists started storing relevant data. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Badi and enjoying the African temperatures.

  • Sling bag for digital nomads

    This looks like a neat idea:
    a sling bag with flexible solar cells

    via bloggerli

  • Chongoni Rock Art Area

    The Chongoni Rock Art Area has been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites:

    Situated within a cluster of forested granite hills and covering an area of 126.4 km2, high up the plateau of central Malawi, the area features the richest concentration of rock art in Central Africa on 127 sites. They reflect the comparatively scarce tradition of farmer rock art, as well as paintings by BaTwa hunter-gatherers who inhabited the area from the Late Stone Age. The Chewa agriculturalists, whose ancestors lived in the area from the late Iron Age, practised rock painting until well into the 20th century. The symbols in the rock art, which are strongly associated with women, still have cultural relevance amongst the Chewa, and the sites are actively associated with ceremonies and rituals.

    Other World Heritage sites in Malawi: Lake Malawi National Park (which is truly beautiful).

    On the Tentative List: Nyika and Mount Mulanje

    Source: a work colleague that will not reveal their blog address to me

  • Mount Mulanje Porters Race

    The annual Mount Mulanje Porters Race takes place tomorrow for the 10th time.

    The race starts at Likhubula Forest Office and goes up to Chambe Plateau, about 2500m above see level, before proceeding (via the plateau) to Lichenya Plateau and back to Likhubula. Last year’s winner ran this tiring 25km race in 2 hrs and 21 min.

    A couple of related links:

    • Mount Mulanje Conservation Trust
    • Apparently this blogger organized the first race.
    • The Nation on this year’s event (link no longer available)

    And if you have photos, don’t forget to upload them to the Malawi group at Flickr.

  • summer blue

    badi

  • Writing Copy

    Couple of writing tips I found at MarketingProfs.com:

    1. Begin with a story
    2. Use short words
    3. Write shorter sentences
    4. Remove clichés
    5. Use bridges or connectors
    6. Use concrete examples rather than concepts
    7. Pay attention to your verbs

  • MarComm Writing Tactics

    Can technical writers be good marketing writers – and vice versa?

    The above presentation notes are old (from 2002 i.e. definitely Web 1.0), but the question is interesting…

    what’s your opinion on this?

    (update: unfortunately the site seems to be down. Note to myself: write a short summary of the main points for future reference.)

  • Sunny Days

    Summer sports program in Basel from 10th July to 12th August:
    Sunny Days … they haven’t updated the pdf file with this year’s list of courses yet.

    [update] The pdf is up now!