Ewan's Corner

Archive for the ‘Local’ Category

Quotes from three Google Africa interns (currently getting work experience at Google in Zurich) struck me this weekend as a striking contrast to the attitude displayed by some of the strikers currently damaging South Africa’s international image and local economy (not to mention the lives of innocent students and hospital patients).

On the one hand you have a wonderful self-help self-motivated attitude displayed by Kobla (Ghana), Derick (Kenya) and Doug (Democratic Republic of Congo):

Caitlin (University Programs, Google): Finally, I was hoping you could share a few words of wisdom from your home countries with our readers?

Derick: Sure!  Mtaka cha mvunguni sharti ainame.  In Swahili, this means ‘If you need something that’s on the floor, you’ll have to bend to pick it up.’  In other words: ‘there’s nothing free in life, you have to work for it!’

Kobla: Here’s one from Ghana in the Akan language: Nyansa nnyƐ sika na woakyikyir wodze esie.  This means ‘Wisdom is not like money to be tied up and hidden’ or, more simply: ‘wisdom is to be shared.’

Doug: I like this one, in Lingala: Nguba bakalingaka yango na soni te.  Literally: ‘Don’t pretend to toast a peanut if you don’t know how to do it.’  Basically, this means that you shouldn’t pretend you know how to do something when you really don’t.  If you’re stuck, ask for help!

(via the Google Africa blog)

Contrast that with the attitude of entitlement displayed by some strikers, and this unnamed nurse in particular who clearly has a low external locus of control:

“Why should we care when someone dies, because we are not at work while the government doesn’t care about our lives,” said one nurse, who refused to give her name.

We are coming here every day to stand vigil and see bodies being removed from the hospital.

This is what the government wants. If they didn’t, then we would not have been here in the first place. Patients’ lives have been put at risk by our government.”

I’m all for people’s freedom of expression and right to demand a fair wage, but in this case the demands seem totally unrealistic, and the methods barbaric.

My wonderful children getting into the Soccer World Cup spirit with the help of mom’s face painting skills.

8 days to go!

http://fifaworldcup.durban.gov.za/

South Africa’s second satellite – Sumbandila (“lead the way” in Tshivenda) – has produced its first official images from orbit (see left).

Launched on 17th September 2009 from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket, Sumbandila is a small 81kg low orbit (500 km) solar-powered satellite with a Butane propulsion system successfully fired in January. It carries a 6 spectral band imager (6,25 m × 6,25 m resolution) for ground photography and video (agriculture, mapping of infrastructure and land use, population measurement and the monitoring of dam levels etc), as well as an amateur radio transponder (SA-AMSAT) among other experiments.

See the Sumbandila mission blog for details, as well as the Wikipedia article – there is also a Facebook group.

A video taken of Earth from orbit (13th October 2009, moving over Namibia).

From Ionian Enchantment – the latest version of the African science and skepticism blog-roll, or a list of “those dedicated to science and reason on the African continent”. I am proud to be included. Definitely something thought-provoking for everyone – and quite a few reasons to get vocal and involved, no matter what your viewpoint is on science, pseudo-science, skepticism, religion, homeopathy, maths, vaccines, general woo-woo etc.

The latest Carnival of Africans – the Phoenix Edition – is well worth a read.

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
• Amanuensis
• Ambient Normality
• ASSAf Blog
• Botswana Skeptic
• Bomoko and other nonsense words
• Communicating Science, the African Way **new**
• Defollyant’s AntiBlog
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan’s Corner
• Geekery
• Grumpy Old Man
• Hello Universe, This is Nessie
• Ionian Enchantment
• Limbic Nutrition
• Lenny Says
• McBrolloks **new**
  
• Nathan Bond’s TART Remarks
  
• Orion Spur
  
• Other Things Amanzi
• Pickled Bushman
• Psychohistorian
  
• Reason Check
• Retroid Raving
• Scorched
• Shadows Hide
  
• Stop Danie Krügel
• Subtle Shift in Emphasis
• Synapses
• Tauriq Moosa
  
• The Science Of Sport
• The Skeptic Black Sheep
• The Skeptic Detective
• Turn 2 Reason
• Word of the Blog