General – Page 22 – Chiperoni ku Basel

Price comparison

I pay 3.20 Swiss Francs for a kilo of tomato at the local supermarket. 3.20 Swiss Franc is currently about 384.56 Malawi Kwacha Compare this to current Malawi prices: Shoprite 199.99 MK Peoples 110.00 MK At the market, between 10 to 50 MK for one tomato depending on its size.

The power of insects…

We got to see the destructive power of tropical insects…. One of our cars stood idle for 3 weeks cos it needed to be repaired. Within those 3 weeks termites got into the seats, started eating away the insulation on the wiring, and created short circuits with their discharge in the fusebox, and thus corroding… Continue reading The power of insects…

Twittervision

Twittering on a map background: http://twittermap.com/twittervision

Uploading video

I wanted to upload a 30 sec amateur video of Lake Malawi, file format being AVI, file size 68 MB. I tried YouTube, I tried Revver, but both just show the first 4 seconds and then stop. The video runs fine on my old Dell. Any tips? (Update) this is what Revver had to say:… Continue reading Uploading video

Reading

I’m currently reading “The Last King of Scotland” by Giles Foden. See also this BBC report from Kampala

Textiles

Here are a couple of snapshots of wall hangings I saw: Tribal Textiles, based in South Luangwa, Zambia is making some very nice and original cloth. There’s a shop in Blantyre that has some of their textiles: La Caverna in Mandala House. Mandala House is one of the oldest buildings in Blantyre, built by the… Continue reading Textiles

Avocados

Here are a couple of snapshots of one of our dogs in Blantyre enjoying avocados: We’ve got an avocado tree in our yard and the dogs eat the fallen fruit.

Chiperoni country

Drive-by snapshot of the Chiperoni blankets depot in Luchenza, Malawi. See also: http://www.chiperoni.ch/wordpress/index.php?p=9

Where we have hope

Recommended read: good, informative book on Zimbabwe as seen thru the eyes of a foreign journalist, that was based in Harare from 1980 until he was expelled in 2003.

Big Three

Just arrived back in Basel and I’ve got the big three: Running water Electricity Telephone

Podcasting: The Beginner’s Guide

for future reference: Podcasting: The Beginner’s Guide If you have any tips on good and inexpensive digital recorders or mics, feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment. Inspired by Pauline’s podcast interview…

Lift 07: Fragments of Captured Attention

Back from Geneva. Here are a couple of short, offline notes I took during the various sessions. I don’t want to provide a write-up of the sessions I attended. See Stephanie’s or Bruno’s excellent write-ups instead. And in addition, the LIFT 07 videos and presentations will be available online some time soon. So here’s a… Continue reading Lift 07: Fragments of Captured Attention

Overload ( Day 2.75 )

I enjoyed the Lift panel on technological overload. Lots of food for thought. I’m off to grab some coffee.

Lift update ( Day 2.5 )

So far I’m not finding the Open Stage presentations in room 2 very inspiring… 2 more to go before lunch

Lift ( Day 2.0 )

A small little trend I observed: Quite a couple of presentations are using Flickr photos as a background…

Hi from LIFT 07 ( Day 1.5 )

enjoying my time at Lift 07 and wondering if I’m a candidate for technological overload.

LIFT conf ( Day 1 )

It’s pouring outside and I’m taking a quick moment to publish my unreflected notes that I took in today’s sessions, pÃªle-mÃªle, off the top of my head, in shorthand: Morning session: The slides are available here. Evaluating and monitoring projects doesn’t need to be costly, esp. with free web survey and website statistics tools. Goal… Continue reading LIFT conf ( Day 1 )

LIFT conf ( Day 0.5 )

My first workshop at LIFT 07 was great. Enjoyed it. I attended Glenn O’Neil’s D.I.Y. Monitoring and Evaluation…. I’m feeling kind of feverish and I’ve got a bad headache, which is ignoring the Aspirin I’ve already taken.

LIFT conf ( Day 0 )

Bungled reservation, seedy area of town, my Lift conf is off to a flying start from an accomodation point of view….now testing the hotel wifi.

when in doubt…

Found this quote in my inbox today: There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. by Cynthia Heimel

Tour de Quälix

Summary of this evening’s sporting activities: Bike home cos I forgot my takkies Bike back into town to meet up with jogging friends Run along the River Rhine 2 bridges down and 3 bridges up Add a few a stretching exercises, and then bike back home to document sporting activities meticulously in blog A jogging… Continue reading Tour de Quälix

Category: General