Quick Hits

- Challenges of getting Africa connected. What about an alternative (be sure to read the comments as well)? I’m just curious why I don’t see much attention on efforts to bring electricity to all African homes….well first, are there even focused efforts? If not, what’s the hold up?

- Nice gem from Benn Loxo du Taccu on Congolese musicians in Kenya during the 70s.

- Interesting New Yorker review of a book I’d like to read sometime (I really miss Borders!) especially as someone who is working hard to provide information to the Kenyan voter, the “Myth of the Rational Voter“.

2 comments to Quick Hits

  • Great point on Elec to African homes – Grids and power generation – not as ‘sexy’ as the internet. (http://www.parkparadigm.com/?p=252) like Sean points out in that post, how do we make infrastructure sexy? I am reminded of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo iweala saying that what Africa needs is Infrastructure X3. I am not aware of any specific concerted effort to ‘light up the continent’ apart from the current growth of the grid – including micro grids in Kenya, will look into it more. If my offline life would quit interrupting, this is a convo i would love to continue to have…I had a post awhile ago about this very thing, i should have titled it ‘Electricity powers the sexy’. :)

  • check out this article on the power outage that hit San Francisco and Om’s comments:

    http://gigaom.com/2007/07/25/webs-weakest-link-the-power-grid

    “The seemingly invincible web services (not to mention the notional wealth they signify) vanish with a blink of the eye. It was also a reminder, that all the hoopla around web services is just noise – for in the end the hardware, the plumbing, the pipes and more importantly, the power grid is the real show.”

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