I’ve jut been told that I’m scheduled to arrive in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Saturday 27 June. Which means I’ll leave Sydney on Thursday 25 or Friday 26, depending on the availability of flights. I’ll post further information as it comes to hand.
Thank you, Lenovo
Thank you, Lenovo, for sponsoring ActionAid Australia and Project TOTO. A few days ago I received evaluation units of the IdeaPad S10e netbook (pictured) and the ThinkPad X200 ultra-portable.
Apparently there’s more to come. Cool.
I’ve been too busy to do anything with them beyond a basic set-up, so a more detailed review will come later. However it did feel a bit weird flipping between a Windows XP Home netbook with a trackpad, a Windows Vista Business notebook with a trackpoint but no trackpad, and my usual MacBook Pro with OS X and a multi-touch trackpad and a mouse.
Interestingly, even though the X200 is more powerful and physically larger, it feels lighter than the S10e. Mind you, it’s four times the price. 😉
This ain’t no holiday!
People have been asking whether I’m excited about my trip to Africa. To be perfectly honest, I’m not.
Or at least not yet.
Project TOTO is still too abstract. There’s no firm dates, there’s no clear itinerary and, from a project management point of view, no clearly defined goals. Not because the project isn’t happening or doesn’t have support or isn’t being planned properly, but simply because that detailed conversation with ActionAid Australia about priorities has yet to take place.
That conversation is scheduled for this coming Friday 12 June.
Meanwhile, I’ve had many, many things on my mind. Most of them are completely unrelated to Project TOTO. But all of them have conspired to make the last three weeks extremely stressful indeed.
That’s one reason why my last video diary was back on 21 May. That’s a screenshot at the top of this post. I’m looking tired, eh? And I’ve been even more stressed since.
It’s time to catch up. So, even though this is the Queen’s Birthday holiday, here’s a rambling update. With some pictures.
SoGiKII: Law, Communication Technologies and Culture Conference
Next Tuesday 9 June I’ll be speaking at SoGiKII: Law, Communication Technologies and Culture Conference, hosted by the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, University of New South Wales.
Registration closes today, so be quick. My 15-minute presentation is “The Parable of the Topless Gnome: Cultural imperialism and censorship in a global world”. Well, yes…
ActionAid Australia website launched
The new ActionAid Australia website went live some time overnight. So, in this Brave New World of the Internet, that’s what makes the change from Austcare official, eh?
As part of Project TOTO we’ll be inserting a blog or blogs in there somewhere. That’s the next conversation — or at least one of them. How do we include the voices of our Tanzanian friends in there as well as the Australians?
There’s lots of other things to consider too, and I hope to post more later today.
Skipping a week, again
There will not be an episode of Stilgherrian Live tonight. I’d more or less made the decision earlier anyway, because I’m short of decent sleep thanks to unrelated insomnia. But late this morning I discovered that I’m in the 2% to 10% of people who get flu-like symptoms in reaction to the Yellow Fever vaccination, starting 3 to 9 days after the injection. It has been 8 days.