There’s a Malawi cycle tour being organized by a British charity organization next Sept 2006:
Cycle Malawi for Transaid
Registration costs £299 and you need to raise a minimum of £2,750 in sponsorship.
The itinerary is very scenic along the shores of Lake Malawi.
Sounds like a lot of fun and something I would love to do. I wonder how hard it is to raise the above sum of money…
Bei der Ciba Spezialitätenchemie im deutschen Grenzach ist am Dienstagmittag ein Grossbrand ausgebrochen. Die Bevölkerung in der umliegenden Region und auch in der Stadt Basel wurde aufgefordert, Türen und Fenster zu schliessen, da zunächst nicht feststand, ob giftiger Rauch entwich.
source: Basler Zeitung Online
It’s absolutely crucial for anybody in communication — and that could be journalists, TV, media, all of it, or marketing people — if you want to appeal to people, it’s absolutely crucial to understand what I call the reptilian hot button. If you don’t have a reptilian hot button, then you have to deal with the cortex; you have to work on price issues and stuff like that.
source: PBS
To get rid of some ripe and mushy bananas*, I decided to bake some banana bread today.
What I usually do is mix up a basic cake butter and then add 2-3 bananas to the batter. Today has been one big experiment ‘cos I didn’t have some of the ingredients. And I still don’t have a proper measurement jar. But that’s no reason to stop this bucket chemist.
I’m still waiting to see what the results are like….
[update] Banana bread tastes great… not sweet, lots of natural banana aroma, beautiful and moist. Experiment was a huge success!
The Recipe:
400 g flour
150 g sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar (or some drops of vanilla essence)
3 bananas
2 teaspoons baking powder
80 ml oil
120 ml milk
Mix everything together starting with the sugar and oil.
Bake the whole thing very slowly at 150 degrees…
I added water instead of milk, some cocoa powder, and lots more baking powder (i’m a bucket chemist, i believe in chemical reaction).
__
*i hate eating ripe and mushy bananas. I’d rather throw them away. I used to feed my dogs the ripe bananas. But that was in Malawi where bananas are plentiful and cheaper.
for future reference:
One of the key reasons for Google’s success is a belief that good ideas can, and should, come from anywhere. Page and Brin insist that all engineers in the company have one day a week to work on their own pet projects. An ideas mailing list is open to anyone at Google who wants to post a proposal. What Mayer does is help figure out how to make sure good ideas bubble to the surface and get the attention they need. The task is becoming more complex as Google grows, with a workforce of 4,200 now and revenues on track to hit $3.7 billion this year.
Business Week article on Marisa Mayer
Rick Segal’s advice: Avoid Web 2.0 categorization. And it’s not just an easy way to find funding. You still need the business to go with it.
if you are working on solving a problem and looking to make money from the solution, focus on the customer and take advantage of what your ancestors, those Web 1.0 old farts, have done for you.
Lots of Bandwidth = You can do it on the web as a service
Lots of Storage = You can give people rich content because they can get it quickly
Lots of users = “Everybody” can get to an Internet connection
Free is good = You can do a lot, code a lot, market a lot, without spending tons of money
By the way:
Web 2.0 2005 is sold out, and registration is closed.
Brief overview of themes in WordPress 1.5
Hat tip: weblogger.ch
(update 21.03.2008) both of the above links no longer work 🙁
The Malawi entry in Wikipedia has grown considerably over the past year.
For example, there’s an entry on Malawian music:
Music of Malawi
and Malawian English.
If you’re from Malawi or doing research on a topic related to Malawi… check the pages to see if you can contribute any useful facts and references.
What would computing be without progress bars?
I spent this weekend re-configuring my Ubuntu installation. It’s been about 6 months since I moved from Windows and I’m more than happy with Ubuntu and the Gnome desktop. I may try out Kubuntu sometime. Or try setting up an Ubuntu server.
I’m still a newbie user but I’m slowly getting the hang of things as I go along.
workaround for Firefox 1.0.7 upgrade:
execute sudo apt-get remove firefox firefox-gnome-support mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support. Then, once that’s finished, run sudo apt-get install mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support.
source:
The Firefox 1.0.7 upgrade in Ubuntu Hoary
The toy museum in Riehen is showing African toys made from tin and wire:
Museen Basel
Riehen Info
According to a newspaper article, the above show focuses on toys from West Africa.
A couple of years ago, a friend and I were discussing an idea to import these very original, handmade toys. I have seen some great toys in Blantyre.
It also explains why some wire fences disappear so fast… kids finding new uses.
a random bottle shot…
found this so-called meme map on Web 2.0 via Read/Write Web.
Web Design Cheat Sheets for Illustrator, Photoshop, and co.
via Swissmiss
Some useful tips to keep in mind if you’re moving Powerpoint slides from
Mac to PC and back:
the numbers say it all:
source: Om Malik’s Broadband Blog » SkypeBay done for $4.1 Billion.
My comment:
i hope Skype won’t change for the worse. Cos I like the tool and use it often.
I’ve finally downloaded and installed Drupal to get an idea if this would be a possible CMS for a small web project I’m planning to start.
Installing the basic modules and setting up the MySQL database was straightforward. No problems here.
What I’m finding more daunting is the CMS interface itself. There are a lot of modules and settings. And it takes some time to grasp the concept and terminology.
For example, it took me a while to figure out how to create a simple menu. I found this posting that suggested using the so-called Menu on-the-fly module. I guess, I would have expected this to be part of the basic install. Or maybe there’s another simple way that I’m missing.
I haven’t had a look at how to change the design of a theme or how to build my own theme.
Drupal offers a lot of options and additional modules. But at this point I’m worried that the CMS interface is too complex for the end users I’m planning for. And probably too much effort to customize for a small web project.
get a printed version of your Flickr photos at:
Qoop*
This might be useful for friends and relatives that live very *offline*.
via kottke.org
(* what a company name! I wonder how it is pronounced… I think you should always consider what the name sounds like over the phone, or in an international context, or when the press decides to write negative headlines and makes use of word plays …)
Shop window in Basel.
Note for non-German speakers: Erfolg is German for success.
The editor is pleased to announce:
After a forced pause due to a traffic accident, blogging will resume very soon at chiperoni.ch.
A useful Basel address if you need help and advice with insurance, legal and other issues following an accident:
Opferhilfe beider Basel
Steinenring 53
4051 Basel
Tel. 061 693 44 40
Fax 061 693 44 34
info (at) triangel-basel.ch
opferhilfe-basel (at) gmx.chAddresses for other Kantons are available here
Saw this at BBC Africa:
The Ugandan film industry has been given a great boost by the decision to make the film of Giles Foden’s book The Last King of Scotland in the country, its actors have said.
The film, which centres on the life of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, is currently in production in Kampala.
source:
Uganda boosted by Amin film
Quite ironic that Uganda’s film industry is now benefiting from such a brutal dictator.
zapped into this TV report on microfinancing:
Mikro-Kredite
Basically, microfinance provides loans and insurance to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
An alternative and maybe more effective way to fight poverty…
These two institutions were mentioned in the report:
OikoCredit
Procredit Holding
[update] Another similar institution is:
Opportunity International Bank of Malawi
see also Mike’s blog entry