July 23rd, 2007
Quick Hits
Posted by
Ory Okolloh in
Africa, Miscellany
- 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“.
on July 24th, 2007 at 20:46
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’.
on July 25th, 2007 at 6:57
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.”