forked from fionnbharra/nimbupani.github.com
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
/
heart-of-brightness.html
175 lines (97 loc) · 9.78 KB
/
heart-of-brightness.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
<!doctype html>
<!--[if lt IE 9]> <html class="no-js oldie" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<title>Heart of Brightness | Divya Manian</title>
<meta name="author" content="Divya Manian">
<meta name="description" content="I had long been fascinated with all things African. It is the only continent where you hear more about genocides than any actual development. It is …">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<link rel="canonical" href="http://nimbupani.github.com/heart-of-brightness.html">
<link href="/stylesheets/screen.css" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/nimbupani" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe" type="application/atom+xml">
<link href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/nimbu" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to Web Development updates" type="application/atom+xml">
</head>
<body >
<div class="container">
<div class="content">
<header role="banner"> <h1><a href="/">Divya Manian</a></h1>
<h2><a class="twitter" href="https://twitter.com/divya">twitter</a> <a class="rss" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/nimbupani">RSS Feed</a> <a class="youtube" href="http://youtube.com/nimbupani">Youtube Channel</a> <a class="github" href="https://github.com/nimbupani">Github</a></h2>
</header>
<nav class="sitenav"><a href="/">Home</a>
<a href="/archives">Archives</a>
<a href="/about.html">About</a>
</nav>
<article>
<nav class="article">
<a class="previous" href="/the-truth-about-multiverses.html" title="The Truth About Multiverses">❬</a>
<a class="next" href="/fight-climate-change-first-get-the-maths-right.html" title="Fight Climate Change, First get the Maths right!">❭</a>
</nav>
<header>
<time datetime="2008-07-17T00:00:00-07:00" pubdate><span class='month'>Jul</span> <span class='day'>17</span> <span class='year'>2008</span></time>
<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="/heart-of-brightness.html">Heart of Brightness</a></h1>
</header>
<div class="entry-content"><p>I had long been fascinated with all things African. It is the only continent where you hear more about genocides than any actual development. It is quite unfair because there are actually peaceful nations in Africa and a lot of creative development goes on there because of the poor infrastructure of many nations. </p>
<p>I set about reading books/blogs on Africa to get an understanding of why/what of the current events in Africa. The book <a href="http://www.bookjetty.com/books/067973869X/africa-biography-continent">Africa: A Biography of the Continent</a> is an excellent resource on the history of African nations since the origin of humans till the late 60s and 70s. I then read <a href="http://www.bookjetty.com/books/0375703772/emma-war">Emma’s War</a> which is about this foolhardy Aid-worker who marries a rebel commander in Sudan. That book was a good source of on-the-ground reporting of the war in Sudan and how it came to be so. Beware, none of these books are for the faint of the heart. The unspeakable atrocities committed by Africans on Africans is enough to depress you for a week at least! Another novel I read recently was <a href="http://www.bookjetty.com/books/0385474547/fall-novel">Chinue Achebe’s Things Fall Apart</a> that talks about how the society changes after the coming of the missionaries. It has an interesting descriptions of the mythological beliefs of some tribes of Nigeria. </p>
<p>Here are some of the blogs that cover great news about Africa but most of which never gets into the main stream news:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="http://mashilingi.blogspot.com/2008/07/e-commercem-commerce-which-way-for.html">E-Commerce solutions for Africa</a> is a blog post that talks about the opportunities of payment solutions using mobile telephony in Africa. Mobile phones have great reach in African countries as they skip the government entirely and rely on private operators. <a href="http://www.kiwanja.net/about.htm">Kiwanja</a> has a project called <a href="http://www.kiwanja.net/frontlinesms.htm">FrontlineSMS</a> which use SMS as a service to remind patients/farmers important information that can save time-consuming trips to the nearest doctors/markets.
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.afrigadget.com">Afrigadget</a> has a <a href="http://www.afrigadget.com/2008/04/30/afrigadget-innovator-series-simon-mwacharo-of-craftskillz/">great interview with Simon Mwacharo</a> who runs CraftSkills a small business based in Nairobi that focuses on buildign self-sustainnig renewable energy projects in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, and Rwanda. (thanks to <a href="http://friendfeed.com/thaths">Thaths</a>)</li>
<li>
<a href="http://afropop.org/">Afropop.org</a> has a great collection and features on evolving African music and its ties to South American/North American music. They have a great podcast too (again thanks to <a href="http://friendfeed.com/thaths">Thaths</a>).
</li>
<li><a href="http://wildlifedirect.org">Wildlifedirect.org</a> is a charity that gives us the opportunity to follow the day to day activities of their partner parks/wildlife conservations (located all over the world) and to donate directly to the parks/conservations you support. For example, you could donate money to help pay the salaries of the park rangers of <a href="http://maratriangle.wildlifedirect.org/">Mara Triangle</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/">Making Sense of Darfur</a> blog seems to have interesting articles on Darfur and the recent possibility of indictment of the President of Sudan (via <a href="http://chrisblattman.blogspot.com/">Chris Blattman</a> who blogs about African news and opinions that is generally not visible in mainstream media).</li>
</ol>
<p></p>
<p>That covers most of my sources of African news. Now, if only I could find a good cheap way to get there and see all these!</p>
<p></p>
</div>
<footer>
<p class="meta">This post was posted by
<a href="/about.html">Divya Manian</a>
on
<time datetime="2008-07-17T00:00:00-07:00" pubdate><span class='month'>Jul</span> <span class='day'>17</span> <span class='year'>2008</span></time> in
. If you would like to update this post, <a href="https://github.com/nimbupani/nimbupani.github.com/blob/source/source/_posts/2008-07-17-heart-of-brightness.md">please send a pull request</a>.
</p>
</footer>
</article>
<section>
<h1>Comments</h1>
<div id="disqus_thread" aria-live="polite"><noscript>Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href="http://disqus.com/?ref_noscript">comments powered by Disqus.</a></noscript>
</div>
</section>
</div>
</div>
<aside id="articles">
<p><img class="avatar" src="/assets/divya.png" height=50> <a href="http://twitter.com/divya">Divya Manian</a> is a Web Developer in Seattle. <a href="/about.html">More about me ❭</a></p>
<h2>Posts on Web Development</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/html5please.html">html5please</a></li><li><a href="/mustache.html">mustache, hogan, handlebars</a></li><li><a href="/redesign-notes.html">Redesign Notes</a></li><li><a href="/summary-of-various-exciting-css-drafts-and-proposals.html">Summary of various exciting CSS drafts and proposals</a></li><li><a href="/this-revolution-needs-new-revolutionaries.html">This revolution needs new revolutionaries</a></li><li><a href="/some-css-transition-hacks.html">Some CSS Transition hacks</a></li><li><a href="/safe-css-defaults.html">Safe CSS Defaults</a></li><li><a href="/unplugged-2011.html">Unplugged 2011</a></li><li><a href="/bokeh-with-css3-gradients.html">Bokeh with CSS3 Gradients</a></li><li><a href="/making-pure-css3-demos-better.html">Making "Pure CSS3" demos better</a></li><li><a href="/web-opener-at-opera.html">Web Opener at Opera</a></li><li><a href="/current-color-in-css.html">Current Color in CSS</a></li><li><a href="/css-vocabulary.html">CSS Vocabulary</a></li><li><a href="/active-web-development.html">Active Web Development</a></li><li><a href="/sexy-css3-buttons.html">Sexy CSS3 Buttons</a></li><li><a href="/accessible-css-barcharts.html">Accessible CSS Barcharts</a></li><li><a href="/svg-is-coming.html">SVG is coming!</a></li><li><a href="/wee-marquee.html">Wee! Marquee</a></li><li><a href="/vignettes-with-css3-box-shadows.html">Vignettes with CSS3 Box Shadows</a></li><li><a href="/drop-shadows-with-css3.html">Drop Shadows with CSS3</a></li><li><a class="btn" href="/categories/web-development/">More</a></li></ul>
</aside>
<footer role="contentinfo"><p>
Copy to your heart’s content 2012 - Divya Manian -
<span class="credit">Powered by <a href="http://octopress.org">Octopress</a></span>
</p>
</footer>
<script type="text/javascript">
var disqus_shortname = 'nimbublog';
var disqus_developer = 1;
var disqus_url = 'http://nimbupani.com/heart-of-brightness.html';
var disqus_identifier = 'http://nimbupani.com/heart-of-brightness.html';
(function () {
var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true;
dsq.src = 'http://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';
(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq);
}());
</script>
<script src="/javascripts/octopress.js"></script>
<script>
var _gaq=[['_setAccount','UA-97188-1'],['_trackPageview']];
(function(d,t){var g=d.createElement(t),s=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0];
g.src=('https:'==location.protocol?'//ssl':'//www')+'.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s)}(document,'script'));
</script>
</body>
</html>