Dust on your iPhone

dust

Dust is a comic book that features stories from the Bible.

The Seven Sons story featured in Dust #3 and on the iPhone and iPod is based on the seven sons of a Jewish Priest who start casting out spirits in Jesus’ name. Their story is told in Acts.

Bill Gates is leaving MicroSoft

Bill Gates,52,  just decided to leave MicroSoft. He is cleaning out his desk this Friday.  He is worth $58 billion and has decided to become a philanthropist. Previously he has founded and led a company that made $51 billion last year and employs 78,000 people.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bill-gates-cleans-out-his-desk

 

 

 

Farm Party!

Gretchen had larengitis this weekend so she couldn’t come to a party celebrating the Lisa and Ike Kirschner’s new farm! Ben and I went and had a great time – there was a lot of homemade food and drink and a band. The Kirschner’s sell fruits and vegetables at farmer’s markets – such as the West Chester Farmer Market that just re-opened last Saturday morning. The Kirschners have employed Gretchen and Sam and Josh at various times, and we joined their club where you pay them a lump sum in January and they provide their fantastic fruits and vegetables for you every week from June 1 to November! I am looking forward to that!

Lisa is also a talented writer and she wrote a My Turn column for Newsweek that you must read here – Farming as a Labor of Love. They also have a very organized son – Jay, who is a good friend of Ben’s. Jay and Ben used to be in a homeschool co-op together. He had the cleanest bedroom ever for a thirteen year old! Jay was the photographer for the party. Being on a farm reminded me of Kansas.

The African Green Revolution

Food yields in Africa are about the same as they were 50 years ago – one metric ton of grain per hectare. Almost everywhere else in the world, farmers are getting three metric tons per hectare. India experienced a Green Revolution when poor farmers started using modern farming techniques – but this has not happened yet in Africa. By using high-yield seeds, fertilizer, and small scale irrigation, crop production could be increased and farmers could go from subsistance farming to commercial farming.

Jeffery Sachs, in an editorial in the Scientific American, (May 2008, p 42) says that poverty could be greatly reduced if farmers had the capital and the know-how to increase their agricultural production. It would be very possible to double grain production in Africa by 2012,  make 3/4 of the subsistance farmers into commercial farmers in a decade, and cut the ranks of the hungry by at least half  by 2015. It would only cost 10 billion dollars a year from the rich countries of the world – which amounts to only $10 per person in donor countries.

 

 

A request for materials from Zimbabwe

I just got an interesting request from the Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute for materials to build a complete solar community in Zimbabwe as a comment here. Here is what is says:

Hi

We are implementing a solar project in Zimbabwe funded by GEF SGP in Ward 23 Chipinge. We want to set up a complete Solar Community. We have built a solar charge centre. For sustainability we want the community to set up a revolving solar materials. We urgenytly require trhe forllowing items
ITEM            QTY
Lamp holders, screw type                7
DC energy saver bulbs           7
Switch 4 gang 2 way             1
Switch 1 gang 2 way             2
Switch 1 gang 1 way             4
DSO 13 Amp              6
19 mm conduit PVC               50
Nipples         50
Round Box               45
Gaddles         80
2.5 mm sq red           300
2.5 mm sq black         200
15 Amp MCB              3
5 Amp MCB               2
4 way DB                25
Cable from Battery Station/m            25
6 x 3 surface box               6
Couplings               60
Bulk head light         5
Fisher plugs            2
Insulation tape         3
Cable glands            5
Wood screws box         1
Solvent cement/litre            1
5000W pure sine wave inverter
1400W inverter for Clinic
Fridge

Thanks…

 

 

Itunes U: A treasure trove of free knowledge

If you go to the Itunes store (included in the free download of itunes that works on Windows and Mac computers) and click on the last store listed – itunes U. – there is a treasure trove of free college lectures that can be watched or listened to on your computer and/or ipod. The cost for all these classes is *FREE*. This includes classes from MIT, University of Penn, UC Berkeley, and Yale. Lectures by Thomas Friedman (“The World is Flat”), Steve Jobs, Noam Chomsky, and Martin Luther King Jr., and Lauren Winner are available. 

Museum of Poverty

Some people build arks – others build museums to demonstrate how poverty came to an end in Africa.

Imagine a museum of poverty. There’s the last mosquito carrying malaria, the last foot-powered irrigation pump, the last home without electricity.It’s the building Parker Mitchell, co-CEO of Engineers Without Borders, hopes to one day construct, marking the end of poverty in Africa.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2008/02/04/4824615-sun.html

The World’s Cheapest New Car ($2500) to be introduced Thursday

Thursday Update: A picture of the Tata Nano from the Delhi car show here.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2235975,00.html

 After years of secret preparation, the world’s cheapest car will be unveiled in Delhi this week – delighting millions of Indians as much as it is horrifying environmentalists.

At 100,000 rupees (£1,290), the People’s Car, designed and manufactured by Tata Motors, is being marketed as a safer way of travelling for those who until now have had to transport their families balanced on the back of their motorbikes.

There has never been a new car that has been as inexpensive as the new Tata people’s car! It is aimed at the growing Asian and Indian middle class, and the cheapest model does not have air conditioning or power steering. It has only one windshield wiper to save on cost. It is bare bones but “cute”. It arrives 100 years after the Model-T was introduced in 1908. 

Sign Language products for children

At my family reunion in San Antonio – my cousin Amantha showed me her web store site on the web – Signing for Little Hands. It is quite nice!

World Bank Report on progress to wipe out Malaria in Africa

Currently 500 million people get Malaria around the world. More than one million die of it in Africa, most of these being children under 5 years old. There has been a major push by the World Bank Group to cut Malaria deaths in Africa by 75% by the year 2015, by distributing nets, medicine, and strengthening health care systems. They are on target to reach their goals.

“We’re seeing that success is possible,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “A number of sub-Saharan African countries are beginning to significantly reduce deaths and illness from malaria. With an additional US$3 billion per year over the next three to five years, elimination of one of Africa leading killers of children may soon be within reach.”

Read more about the booster programs here. People dying of Malaria is not new – but what is new is that effective interventions of the disease exist, but must be made available on a scale to benefit everyone who needs them.