Via Afropop.
Link to the story.
Youssou N’Dour, Angelique Kidjo, the United Nations Foundation, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and other project partners premiered the powerful film “Africa Live: The Roll Back Malaria Concert” at the United Nations Wednesday evening March 29th. The film features rousing performances a year ago in Dakar Senegal by an all star Afropop lineup–Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Seun Kuti (son of Fela) with Egypt 80 and guest artists Tony Allen and Manu Dibango, Tinariwen, Corneille, Tiken Jah Fakoly with fearless Senegalese rapper Didier Awadi.
PBS will air the film on thursday April 6th at 8pm. check out www.pbs.org for information.
Watch/listen to the segment ‘Fighting Malaria in Africa’, there is also a transcipt from the show that aired in January.
Here is some great information on how to set up your own solar water pump from a shallow spring. Link to The Other Power. very handy…and look ma! no batteries!
Solar–Solar technology is very well suited to pumping water, even more so than the traditional windmill. A typical system includes one or more solar panels, an efficient 12 volt DC pump, a controller (with float switches), and a “linear current booster” (more about this later). As long as it’s daytime and the float switches show that the water source is not empty and the cistern in the house is not overflowing, the pump will run. The linear current booster allows the pump to run even if it’s cloudy out.
Image from The other Power
Its been awhile since there was a new episode of Fosters, today’s was new and stupendous! ‘Coco for Coco Cards’, you can catch a repeat at 10pm EST tonight, and probably tomorrow afternoon. (US) for Kenya and other countries please check your local listings (gee i sound like a commercial..
Bloo’s trader name? Master P 23. ROFL!
The cartoon is just a riot. (dont want to ruin it for you by telling all the jokes.)
You can listen the theme song for fosters here.
You can watch a short clip of the episode on the CN site.
AOB: I am a huge fan of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine, and i like Baby Blues. Well rat from pearls is baby sitting the kids over at Baby blues, and it is just too funny…start here...then follow the calendar to see the progressing strips. Stephen Pastis rocks! His new book is out, The Ratvolution will not be televised.
(PS This is a blatant hint to a pal, i have 3 of Pastis’s books and i want the 2 i am missing to complete my collection!)
Read the nonist’s take on annoying tag lines. Very entertaining.
sprint: yes you can
judgement: can what? bend spoons with my mind? meaningless
am-ex: my life. my card.
judgement: my nausea.
alka seitzer: i can’t believe i ate the whole thing.
judgement: i can’t believe this tagline is so retardedly ill-conceived.
expedia: enjoy your trip
judgement: or how about- “a website.” seriously, why bother?
saab: born from jets
judgement: this is your selling point? comically stupid.
Oh and since the rap group 3-6 mafia won the oscar for the song “Its hard out here for a pimp”, well corporate America cant resist. First up? Business week,
with “Its hard out there for a lobbyist” [subscription only, sorry if if you wanted to read that, you can sign up for free, if you really really want to]
I wonder which company/publication is next. Oh god forbid we read ‘Its hard out here for a chimp’?! Its a matter of time you know…just a matter of time, till Ben Bernanke ‘leans wit it, then rocks wit it’ yeah he might pronounce it as ‘with’ but hey, he’ll be snapping them fingers! I am just playing…oh oh, and *condi/scott mcclellan/al sharpton? ’shaking them dreads’ ala’ E-40’s hyphy movement ‘tell me when to go’
*yeah i know they dont have dreads, come to think of it, what would Barack Obama look like if he had dreads? o.k…iam stepping away …now! 
Mshairi and Sokari were interviewed by the BBC!
Check Kenya Unlimitedlater for the audio.
Thanks MA.
Via Slashdot,
Oregon State University researchers have developed completely transparent Integrated circuits.
OSU also believes that the technology might result in more efficient solar cells and improvements to LCD displays (liquid crystal displays), it said.
I am not sure i understand how this works, some of you physicists/nerds could help me understand how the IC would result in more efficient solar cells.
PS:I will update the blog when i get more info from Explan about the solo project.
I was saddened to read about the arrest of Hao Wu. Click here for Ethan’s Post about Hao Wu, a global voices contributor who was arrested by the Chinese government feb 22nd.
…He was detained by the Beijing department of the State Security Bureau - no charges have been filed, and we don’t know why he’s being detained. We believe his detention is connected to a documentary he had been filming about underground churches in China… but it also may have been connected to his personal blog, or to his work with Global Voices.
The president of China Hu Jintao will be visiting America in April. The little you can do to add to the voice in the blogosphere and perhaps to the mainstream might help free this man.
Get a badge for your blog…
take this one
there are more on the site Freehaowu.org
Image and link to the site Explan
Via Maitha.
The image really says it all. It melds some of the ideas in white African’s post on the $100 laptop October last year. Its wonderful how these things come into existence, and offer a solution to a problem (i.e reliable power source for the computer).
I also liked the line in this pdf document that explains the project.
“Solo is a facilitating technology rather than one that controls or restricts possibilities.”
There has been the argument bandied about that Africans are starving and do not need computers.(see the comments in this post) I think the argument is a fallacy. Specifically, i think it is a correlative based fallacy.
In discussing the mocking of the $100 laptop with a pal, the point about the money perhaps being better spent on other priorities (not sure which coffers we are talking about - govt or donor funds oh well… here’s abit of the exchange)
B: so do you agree or disagree with this post?
A: I disagree with mocking the $100 laptop. It excludes the possibilities that it presents
B: true. But I see the point that the money could be better spent
while I am against the digital divide, passing out laptop does not seem like a solution, granted computer education is necessary in schools. You need to build a foundation of knowledge
A: good point, i need to check on how the laptops are to be distributed, I think i understand it as something that would be an initiative with the govt in question, and would be implemented using the school framework, which would make sense. At least in the case of brazil. I think the UN also signed on and had a similar idea of distribution..i doubt that it would be willy nilly.
B: The one laptop per child is a noble Ideal, but if they could have like enough computers in a school to teach computer knowledge, that would be good.
A:i think such noble ideals get the ball rolling into implementing just what u are describing.
B:true
I added a banner from the well known/regarded web cartoonist Hugh. To get yours, and also to check out his funny cartoons, go to Gaping Void.
in a time wasting, nice easy going kind of way.
Click here. Enjoy! I did.
**Get to rocking with the alien, doing the robot with a…robot, watch out so the guy doesnt get electroshocked by the eel, and all this only in the bit that happens in space! lol.
Via Table of Malcontents
