tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46377231087268963972024-03-12T17:34:03.192-07:00Electromagnetic SavannahIn this blog, I'll be highlighting stories in the news about science, technology and economics that relate to Nigeria, Africa and the developing world. I'll be giving my opinion - misinformed or otherwise - but I'll try and keep it all light and accessible.Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-53428118263970336262007-11-01T20:16:00.000-07:002007-11-01T20:36:49.443-07:00Wind-up Lights for African Homes<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Before I start, I should offer a quick apology for resting this blog for so long. I'll try to be a bit more frequent on updates from now on. :)</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I'll start with this interesting story from the BBC about </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7072741.stm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">wind up lights for African homes</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. The idea of wind up lighting isn't new - the advent of white light emitting diodes (LEDs) which consume very little energy have made this a possibility, so that you can get wind up torches quite easily today. I suspect then that the lighting that is proposed is one that will function like lightbulbs so that an entire room can be illuminated (rather than just the concentrated spot that you get with torch lighting). Unfortunately, I can't find any further information on just what technology will be used for the lighting (whether a typical light will simply be a larger cluster of LEDs, or some newer technology). </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I'm not quite sure how the lights will be distributed - the story talks of a plan to get women to sell them, but at what price I have no idea. If they are sold at too cheap a price (to cater for the poverty of those who need them), then I worry that there are those who will take advantage of this to resell them on at a higher price. I hope that Freeplay can find a way of using cheap enough technology that they shouldn't need to subsidise the sale of these lights.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">One thing I like about this proposal is that there is some implicit technology transfer involved, as the women sellers will be trained to repair and maintain the lights. I think this is vital to ensure that the lights don't end up as ornaments (as happens with much technology directly imported from elsewhere). Of course, sometimes maintenance of imported technology could simply mean replacing expensive foreign parts with other expensive foreign parts. What I would like is for some home-grown whiz-kid to take the lights apart and see which bits he can source from local materials, thus making it even easier to maintain the lights.</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-14621396830481691892007-04-26T16:04:00.000-07:002007-04-26T17:04:47.115-07:00Nigerian Federal Government Organises ICT Summit for LGs<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">From ThisDay comes a news story about </span><a href="http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=76451"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">an ICT/e-governance compliance summit</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> being held next month for Nigerian local governments. The idea, according to Mrs. I. A. Akhigbe, Director of Local Government Affairs and a facilitator at this event is to enable Local Governments implement the </span><a href="http://www.servenigeria.com/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">SERVICOM</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> dictates to the fullest, SERVICOM itself being a social contract between Nigerians and their government which gives them the right to demand good service.<br /><br />Leaving aside whether SERVICOM itself is a realistic idea, my problem with this summit (as with so many summits involving technology) is that it seems about information delivered from the top rather than information requested from the bottom. Looking at the story in detail, I see the usual buzzwords about "e-governance" and "web portal" and I wonder whether the usual idea of technology as a silver bullet isn't rearing its ugly head again.<br /><br />I know that information technology is a tremendous enabler - but there are many other things that need to be in place before the benefits can be felt. First of all, the local governments have to define exactly and in great detail what they want to achieve. Then they should define with the same exactness and detail the different kinds of activities they <strong>should</strong> be performing to achieve their goal, and they should concentrate on the activities where information is passed around or stored. Then they should look at all the possible ways of handling this information (including, of course, using information technology) and determine which is the best both on cost and efficiency. And cost isn't simply about buying computers - it includes training, it includes maintenance, it includes Building Your Own Infrastructure if the government hasn't yet been kind enough to supply you one. Given all this, IT will typically only justify itself if there are such large volumes of information being shunted around that it would be impossible to achieve anything with a manual system. But that is rarely the case with most Nigerian local governments.<br /><br />But it's not just the cost of providing IT that makes me sceptical of its application in local government. I believe that the real problem is actually a management one. The staff suffer from low morale and don't really care about their work - so there's not much point in trying to improve the efficiency of an activity that nobody really cares about doing. However, when all that is weighed up against the opportunity to go a-junketing in Abuja, I think it's a no-brainer for local government bosses...</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-2986772261520534242007-04-20T10:29:00.000-07:002007-04-20T11:57:22.628-07:00Biofuel plantations fuel strife in Uganda<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I think it's great that people are waking up to the fact that it's unwise to rely excessively on non-renewable sources of energy, especially when we truly don't know exactly how much of these non-renewable sources are still left to be tapped. That's why more interest is being taken in biofuels - cleanly combusting fuel that is produced from biological matter such as dead plant material.<br /><br />So you can be forgiven for thinking that on reading </span><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11671-biofuel-plantations-fuel-strife-in-uganda.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">this story</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> from the New Scientist about the controversy surrounding the conversion of forests into sugar plantations for biofuels, I'd be taking the side of the plantation owners. In fact, I have a problem with the idea of converting a commodity like sugar that is already useful in other ways into raw fuel. I'm also not entirely convinced that converting sugar into ethanol will be commercially viable in Uganda - in Brazil, where ethanol is widely used, there has had to be </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4581955.stm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">a massive amount of government support</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> (including subsidies and taxes) to get the ethanol production industry off ground so that it could become competitive. I don't know whether the knowledge on how to produce sugar and alcohol cheaply and efficiently will be available to the Sugar Corporation of Uganda which plans to run the Ugandan plantations.<br /><br />I <strong>do</strong> know that there is </span><a href="http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/enews/enews_0505/enews_0505_Cellulosic_Ethanol.htm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">research going on on how to convert dead plant matter (such as stems and leaves after a harvest) into ethanol</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. I believe that it would be much better to use this technology once it matures, especially because it will not require any extra expansion of cultivated land and the destruction of forests with their ecosystems. And another good thing is that alcohol produced using this technology won't be susceptible to shortages of raw material due to the increase in the demand for refined sugar (which will divert some raw sugar cane away from alcohol production).</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-52874795939761694232007-04-19T17:03:00.000-07:002007-04-19T17:45:43.876-07:00Wikipedia offers access offline<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Here's another news story from the BBC about </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6566749.stm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">plans to provide offline access to Wikipedia content</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> by putting selected articles on a CD. The idea would benefit those not connected to the web access to knowledge in the online encyclopaedia, says Wikimedia, the organisation behind the the plans.<br /><br />I'm not really sure at who precisely these plans are aimed at. There's talk of it benefitting people who don't have web access, so perhaps it's targetted towards places like Africa where web access is patchy, to say the least. And perhaps it would be useful as an introductory medium, for example in schools. But beyond that, I can't really see how useful it would be - even in internet-starved countries, people still want to do serious research, not dip in and out of a selection of articles. And at £7 a disc, I think the appeal would fall even further.<br /><br />But I do like the idea of an offline Wikipedia being provided for schools in Africa. The thing is, it wouldn't make much sense to provide all the content of Wikipedia at once - let's be honest, very few African children are likely to be interested in subjects such as </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphus_purpurascens"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">the Philadelphus purpurascens plant</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. So what would be a good idea is to provide a kind of proxy Wikipedia site that held content on a local hard disk and was updated with content periodically, depending on what search requests were made or links were clicked.<br /><br />So if a student searched for a subject or if a link was clicked and the corresponding article wasn't found on the local hard disk, then the request for the page would be queued to a file on the disk, and periodically, this file would be taken another location where there <strong>was</strong> internet connectivity to get the articles that had been requested.<br /><br />Yes, I know this would mean long waits at first - but the hope is that most students would tend to want to visit the same pages and after a while, the number of unsatisfied requests would get smaller and smaller. In fact, at such a point, the material collected could be used as a template for offline Wikipedia material for other schools (whose students might make similar requests). I also think that periodic wholesale refreshes of the information on the disc will be necessary because the articles may have been updated since. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Trebuchet MS;">Of course all this is just a stop-gap measure - the ultimate destination should not just be online access for all schools, but the proper training on how to use online media for maximum productivity.</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-62534653635066544832007-04-12T14:54:00.000-07:002007-04-12T16:41:37.894-07:00The BBC Reith Lectures 2007 with Jeffrey Sachs<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Every year, the BBC organises a series of lectures to be given by someone who has distinguished themselves in a particular field. This year, the <strong>Reith Lectures</strong> (as they are known) are being delivered by Jeffrey Sachs (who some may know as an economist who crusades against world poverty). </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I listened into </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture1.shtml"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">the first of his five lectures</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, and his theme was the danger that faces the world if it does not co-operate to deal with the various crises that have been brought about by man's activities. He stressed that more than ever, the world is interconnected to the extent that it is impossible to carry out unilateral solutions to global problems, and that if there were problems in one part of the world they would inevitably affect other parts - and this was why it was necessary for nations to set aside their differences and come together to deal with these problems.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Several of the audience who questioned him were sceptical about whether humans with their very different cultures and agendas could actually change their selfish behaviour and instead co-operate and work together in the way he envisioned. I have to say I'm similarly sceptical. Professor Sachs sought to counter such criticism of his optimism by pointing out the many instances where change had come about even when it seemed unlikely (like female enfranchisement and the ending of apartheid), but I believe these changes pale into comparison with the changes and sacrifice needed to tackle global problems like climate change and poverty.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">At any rate, Professor Sachs is right that you has to believe that you can fix a problem before you go on to fix it... but I'll be listening out to what solutions he proposes and how they should be implemented in the rest of his lectures.</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-63860535996518993482007-04-11T11:28:00.000-07:002008-12-10T15:06:02.944-08:00Google Earth turns spotlight on Darfur<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Here's a news story reported by the BBC about </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6543185.stm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Google Earth teaming up with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to highlight the killings in the Darfur region in Sudan</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. The idea is to draw people's attention to the issue by not only providing high resolution maps that show burnt homes and villages in detail but to also provide annotations with personal stories behind the violence.<br /><br />So, being the curious nosey parker that I am, I thought to take a look and see what exactly Google Earth were offering. I downloaded the software </span><a href="http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">here</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">, then installed it and ran it. The first thing I noticed on rotating the globe round to Africa was that Darfur was highlighted.<br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysvZw5GBiW901UzQKnJkFcc9s_mLXiBFliyMyNEvcpi2bsHDwzTo1NAhQUuxAZoujuC9MS9YIA5EpAIGAu10qunpSipNLFa9SgWQpukYguSwXD-1iFKrEHQj4Ndg_nWr0KmFiXyhKCaO4/s1600-h/darfur-highlight.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5052255080554049346" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysvZw5GBiW901UzQKnJkFcc9s_mLXiBFliyMyNEvcpi2bsHDwzTo1NAhQUuxAZoujuC9MS9YIA5EpAIGAu10qunpSipNLFa9SgWQpukYguSwXD-1iFKrEHQj4Ndg_nWr0KmFiXyhKCaO4/s320/darfur-highlight.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I zoomed in on the highlighted area, and I must say that there was a <strong>lot</strong> of detail provided on the killings there... which villages had been destroyed, how many structures there had been there, camps that had been set up for refugees, testimony from victims and photos and videos of the affected areas. There had even been high resolution satellite photos taken to show villages with structures that had been burnt down.</span><br /><p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE70mRM9uVm1GChJyOJ8WhxDcgi5ShBwn0AbTQO4QbJW-M8LDr_Vtzx7H7VdOhly6q_xqD1bbz94tYuyAe3Suo8JpFoIVtMdpkZlGpLtsfEiF_e7lc145gIuYYezougkhX_6iEXU-5YPZQ/s1600-h/darfur-kudumi.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5052257082008809298" style="CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE70mRM9uVm1GChJyOJ8WhxDcgi5ShBwn0AbTQO4QbJW-M8LDr_Vtzx7H7VdOhly6q_xqD1bbz94tYuyAe3Suo8JpFoIVtMdpkZlGpLtsfEiF_e7lc145gIuYYezougkhX_6iEXU-5YPZQ/s320/darfur-kudumi.jpg" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span></p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Certainly there was enough information for the issue of whether there was a crisis to be beyond dispute. The critical question is whether the information will reach beyond the logical part of the viewers and touch their emotional part to move them to help, or whether it will embarrass the Sudanese government into getting serious about ending the conflict there.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The idea of remote satellite imagery works here because the result of the violence is very visible. I wish there was an analogous idea that worked for other acts that weren't so visible but were just as injurious to African citizens. For example, it would be great if there was a satellite that could take pictures not just of buildings but of what was going on inside buildings... then perhaps corrupt government officials would be shamed by seeing pictures of them taking kickbacks and bribes on Google Earth. Of course, I can't see such satellites being allowed anywhere in the airspace of such governments "for security reasons", you understand. ;)</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-58355632010486150132007-04-03T11:31:00.000-07:002007-04-03T11:56:30.471-07:00Money transfer by mobile phone<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There's this news story on the BBC about a service in Kenya which </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6510165.stm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">allows subscribers to transfer money by mobile phone</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. The company running the service, Safaricom, is based in Kenya and they say that </span><a href="http://www.safaricom.co.ke/m-pesa/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">their service</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> (M-Pesa) allows you to send money to someone else, even if they aren't a subscriber to the service. They say that it also functions as a kind of bank - at least, that's what I assume, since it allows you to deposit and withdraw sums. The service relies on agents who subscribers deposit and withdraw money from.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Apparently, the service only started a month ago, but I can imagine how dramatic a change in people's lives it must be making. It means that e-commerce (at least on a small scale) becomes a more viable option - set up your website and list your phone number for people to transfer money to. It also means that you don't have to risk life and limb carrying sums of money around when you can simply transfer it to your recipient. And since (according to the company) you need a PIN to send/receive cash, it means that there's no point in stealing someone's phone in order to steal their cash too. (There's the slight worry that would-be muggers will now turn their attentions to the agents, but hey - one problem at a time. :) )</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I'm pretty sure that the technology is sound enough for the purpose it's being used for. The idea of mobile phones for money transfer isn't exactly new - </span><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2004-07-22-wallet-phone_x.htm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">they've been used in Japan as far back as 2004</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. However, I think the impact of mobile phones as a means of payment will be bigger in Africa because unlike in Japan, in most countries there aren't the same means of reliably and easily transferring sums of money electronically. So I hope that the success of M-Pesa gives other mobile service providers the confidence to move into this potentially lucrative market!</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-79314640537659508242007-03-29T14:22:00.000-07:002007-03-29T16:25:55.825-07:00Green buildings to "slow global warming"<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There's this story I just saw today which reports the result of a UN study which says that </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL2818318720070329"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">"better building design could have an important role to play in slowing down global warming"</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. The two main areas in which there's heat usage is by <strong>heating</strong> and <strong>lighting</strong>, it says. Well, the good old energy-wasting incandescent light bulb is being seriously challenged by the energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulb in terms of usage - the latter has come down quite a bit in price over the last few years from about </span><a href="http://groups.google.co.uk/group/misc.consumers.house/browse_thread/thread/1c2c6d26a5bb4b0/a96e4ffb55196776?lnk=st&q=bulbs+fluorescent+price&rnum=1#a96e4ffb55196776"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">13 dollars in 1990</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> to under 3 dollars today. But reducing energy wasted on heating is another matter... it costs quite a bit to insulate houses, so it's not as easy to adopt measures to 'greenify' your house heatwise as it is lightwise.<br /><br />But surely, Nigerians don't have the same problem of needing insulate their houses to conserve heat? If anything, they have damned too much of the stuff - I'm sure more than one person has wished they could package the excess heat, export it to colder climes and make a goodly amount of cash the process. Well, insulation works both ways - it keeps the warmth inside from escaping into the cold outside, and it keeps the heat outside from getting into the coolness inside. Except that in the kind of tropical temperatures you find in Nigeria, it's more a case of keeping the searing heat outside from getting into the blazing heat inside. In other words, insulation may help to lower the ambient temperature inside, but it doesn't lower it enough.<br /><br />There is of course the option of using air-conditioning, but that is <strong>extremely</strong> energy-hungry. Of course, there's always the option of using the less energy expensive </span><a href="http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/evaporative.html"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">evaporative cooling option</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> - but even this only works well in dry regions where water evaporates quickly enough to provide a cooling effect. So, if you can't keep the heat out, and it's too costly to keep the heat down through air-conditioning, you can always opt for <strong>natural cross-ventilation</strong>. Unlike the temperate regions in Europe where the direction of the wind is unpredictable from day to day, most of Africa is swept by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_wind"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">trade winds</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> which tend to blow in a fairly consistent direction - they're either north-easterly or south-westerly (above the Equator). This means that buildings can be designed so that their windows open to these directions so that the winds blow through the buildings and help to cool the interior.<br /><br />Of course, you can have too much of a good green thing - witness the following dialogue:<br /><br /><strong>Stinkingly Rich Big Man</strong>: Yes, so Mr. Architect, you say you've finished the design of my grand mansion?<br /><br /><strong>Environmentally Conscious Architect</strong>: Indeed, Chief. You'll be glad to know that I've incorporated the very latest eco-principles in this design so that your house is truly green!<br /><br /><strong>SRBM</strong>: Hm... I don't know about that. I want my house painted pink and purple like the house of my friend, Chief Kanganka O. Kanganka.<br /><br /><strong>ECA</strong>: No, what I mean is that it will have a minimal footprint on the environment.<br /><br /><strong>SRBM</strong> <em>(getting perturbed)</em>: I'm getting confused at your talk of green footprints. I haven't asked for a walking house. All I want is a big mansion.<br /><br /><strong>ECA</strong> <em>(flustered)</em>: All right... well, let me take you through the design. As you can see, this is the living room - notice how there are large windows on opposite walls and how room is oriented to take maximum advantage of the natural ventilation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong>: OK...</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA</strong>: And next to the living room, we have the dining room which also has large windows and is oriented to take advantage of the natural ventilation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong>: Yes...</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA</strong>: And next to the dining room, we have the kitchen which also has large windows and is oriented to take advantage of the natural ventilation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong>: Wait... so I have to walk through the dining room from the living room to get to the kitchen?</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA</strong>: Yes... but it's necessary in order to maximise the natural ventilation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong> <em>(somewhat disgruntled)</em>: OK, carry on...</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA</strong>: And next to the kitchen, we have the master bedroom which also has large windows and is oriented to take advantage of the natural ventilation.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong> <em>(annoyed)</em>: Wait! What are you telling me? That I have to walk through the kitchen to get to my master bedroom?</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA </strong><em>(stammering)</em>: Y-yes... but that's a small price to pay for a comfortable environment. Think of the cool breeze you'll be enjoying every night in your bedroom.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>SRBM</strong> <em>(still annoyed)</em>: Well, I think it's a high price! I can't be stumbling through pots and pans to get to my bedroom. In fact, the only thing more annoying than that would be to have people stumbling through <strong>my</strong> bedroom to get to somewhere else.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><strong>ECA</strong> <em>(hesitantly)</em>: Er... well, actually, I was just going to talk about the other bedrooms which will be next to yours and which will oriented to take advantage of the natural ventilation... but perhaps we've already got too much natural ventilation in the house as it is. Maybe I need to think some more about this. <em>(Gathers papers hastily and departs.)</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Perhaps what would really be cool is if we had smart buildings which were like valves - they supported a unidirectional flow of heat so that heat was allowed to flow <strong>out</strong> of the building, but wasn't allowed to flow <strong>in</strong>. Somehow, I suspect we're still some way away from that kind of technology...</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-28784731948792791812007-03-28T02:32:00.000-07:002007-03-28T02:54:25.966-07:00Yahoo offer unlimited storage for e-mail<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There's this news item in about Yahoo saying that it will now offer </span><a href="http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=media&storyID=nN27206040"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">unlimited storage space for e-mail</span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">. That looks like a bit of a tall order - does it mean that Yahoo will have to buy an unlimited amount of storage medium space? I don't think so - more likely, Yahoo has decided that based on what it knows about people's mail storage habits, it's confident that it can grow its storage space just enough to keep ahead of its users' demand for storage.<br /><br />So does this mean an end to deleting e-mail? That would definitely be a plus in cybercafes in countries without fast internet access - who wants to spend valuable time deleting e-mails when the clock is ticking? But I think that the downside of not deleting your e-mail means that there'll be more clutter and more time spent looking for that e-mail that you sent/received ages ago. Perhaps Yahoo are also about to launch a more intelligent search feature as well?</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4637723108726896397.post-51268311551535288892007-03-27T16:18:00.000-07:002007-03-27T16:26:52.960-07:00By way of intro...<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Hi,<br /><br />If you're reading this, then you're probably wondering what this is all about, since this is the first post on this blog. Well, I've always been interested in science and technology (and more recently economics) - but since there are more than enough people blogging about those, I thought I'd turn my searchlight on to how these fields affect Africa and specifically Nigeria which is where I hail from.<br /><br />I'll be following the time-honoured blogging tradition of scouring the 'Net for news stories that I think would be a good fit for this blog and stamping them with my commentary, insight and opinion. I'll be giving reasons why I think what I think - but I hope this can also be a two-way channel where you show up and tell me I'm wrong. Above all, I'll try to keep the posts clear and straightforward to read, because it's not just what you say - it's how you say it that matters.<br /><br />Anyway, that's enough for now. I'm not sure about a schedule yet - I reckon I'll be posting about every two or three days as time permits - but we'll see.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />AWW</span>Atala Wala Walahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16114929068065201283noreply@blogger.com5