September 10, 2009
Derren Brown, Derren Brown
Feels a bit strange posting something laugh-out-loud funny straight after all that flood stuff, but as the Fulani say, life is sparks and droplets, suffering and joy - the sparks of the fire that jump out of the fire and burn you (suffering) and the droplets of milk that jump out of the calabash and wet your skin (joy). So here's a droplet of milk - a funny song for those of you who (like me) watched Derren Brown predict the National Lottery results last night.
Posted by sahelsteve at 02:59 PM
June 30, 2009
Lifehacker
There aren't many blogs on my daily news-feed. When you're on dodgy 14.4k dialup you can't subscribe to everything. The following are my 'regular reads': Under the Acacias, Life in Niger, Achuka (children's book news), Greenhouse Blog (literary agent Sarah Davies – I'm a great fan of hers and hope one day to write something good enough for her to take on), and of course Charlie (whose June newsletter is up today). There are many other blogs which I really like and visit when I can, including lucy, simon, dad, laurie, dave, richard and boingboing.
And if you haven't yet come across it, may I bring to your attention another worthy blog: Lifehacker. I found it via some blog awards site or other, and have been a regular reader ever since. Lifehacker is all about enhancing and streamlining your life – living efficiently and healthily and using technology well.
A few of the articles are quite US-centric, but most are applicable wherever you are. This post about suncream is useful for us paleskins in Africa, for example.
The backbone of Lifehacker is productivity, and here are their top ten productivity basics
I've been putting into practice the organize more efficiently by staying put advice and finding it worthwhile.
There are also good articles on food (e.g. Twist and press for better grilled chicken) and fitness (e.g. Ditch crunches for press-ups and save your back
There's some great stuff on sleep and a good article about how to keep cats from destroying your furniture.
Then there's the computer stuff – very practical and easy to digest. I appreciate that Lifehacker is not just another hey-buy-this-cool-gadget blog, but rather a pool of practical (and cost-conscious) wisdom. Try this for starters – Lifehacker 2009 essential free windows downloads. I also liked this article about the new version of Opera – I've been using Opera for years and prefer it even to Firefox – apparently the new version has a 'turbo mode' for those of us on slow dialup; bring it on!
If you're a geek like me you'll love Lifehacker and add it to your blog feed straight away. If you're not a geek, I believe you'll still relish the occasional nugget of Lifehacker wisdom, not least this marvellous video on how to slice an onion like a pro.
Posted by sahelsteve at 08:56 AM
June 02, 2008
African chicken coop plan
We have four French hens in our yard. Yes I know, how very 'Fourth Day of Christmas' of us.
My design was based on the common Fulani grass hut. (If you need to know, here is how to build a Fulani grass hut).
Here is the chicken coop being built:
Here is the finished coop. As you can see, there's an openair roosting/scratching/dining bit (left) and a covered laying bit (right):
And here are the girls clucking away inside:
And drinking water outside...
Each hen lays an egg a day, except when stressed or moody. This is how a French hen looks when she is stressed or moody:
And this is how a French hen looks when they're absolutely fine:
Any chicken lovers out there?
Posted by sahelsteve at 10:36 PM
May 30, 2008
God's Call new content
Inspiring new content over at God's Call