On Saturday, Amy and I celebrated the 13-year anniversary of our “first date” by going to Kodaikanal for the day. Pretty fun, but nothing much to report, except for a few silly pictures:
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Font experiments
Google just launched the Google Font Directory (beta, of course) and the Google Font API which provides web-designers with an easy way to extend the font options that tend to limit many websites. Using the service is pretty simple: go to the font directory, find the font you want to use, and follow the simple instructions under the “Get the code” tab.
The font list seems a bit limited at the moment, but to experiment with the feature, I’ve changed all of the post headings at this site to be displayed in IM Fell English SC and the body text to Molengo. It would be great to see fonts like Gentium and Linux Libertine on there too.
Posted in (all categories), CSS, Geekiness, Website Tagged experiments, fonts, Google Leave a comment
The ODF Campaign
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about poop in my “community”. Amy had given me a book to read called “The Big Necessity” and I found it really interesting and applicable to what the students at the Tata-Dhan Academy have been studying. I, in turn, lent the book to one of my colleagues, who also seemed to love it. We (faculty and students) have even had mock “role plays” (during lunch, of all times) where we pretended to be villagers who like to poop in the field and students who are trying to convince them to change their behavior. We brainstorm on trying to find different ways to communicate the message of creating an “open defecation free” India.
I was feeling a little bored, so I decided to use the zimmertwins site to give an example of the kinds of charming lunchtime discussions we occasionally have.
The text moves by a bit too quickly, and I couldn’t get better sound. Maybe I’ll get around to uploading a different version with some rockin’ DWAB background music.
Posted in (all categories), (non) fiction, Humor, India, Videos Tagged animation, Humor, silliness, Tata-Dhan Academy Leave a comment
A Primer on Linking Disaster Risk Reduction with Development Efforts
Here’s the abstract:
When one surveys news reports today, mention of disasters seem to be commonplace. And, quite often, there is a lot of response to disasters. Aid agencies channel money or other forms of relief directly to communities who need it or to organizations who are better prepared to implement response work. Governments create plans to offer rehabilitation support, or find some other way to compensate those who are affected by disasters. Academicians write reports comparing one disaster to similar disasters, and theorize about what could have been done to minimize the impact of the disaster.
But where is the community in this post-disaster scenario? And what about the communities who have not suffered catastrophes? Are they safe? Is that enough? Is it appropriate to merely respond to disasters, or is there a better way to approach disaster risk reduction? And what does this mean for a development organization?
ACEDRR believes that there is simultaneously a positive and negative relationship between development and disasters. However, development efforts have incredible potential to contribute to disaster risk reduction and to help create a “culture of preparedness”. Development practitioners have a responsibility to be aware of this continuum and use it to guide their work and to build knowledge about disaster preparedness and prevention.
This primer is by no means a complete account of the relationship between disasters and development. However, it is hoped that this primer can serve as an introduction for practitioners to become more sensitized to the relationship, and that they use this awareness to change from working in what is mostly a reactive manner, to working in a proactive one. It is also hoped that this primer can lay a foundation for further discussions and research—not discussions and research designed around communities, but ones which include the community as an integral partner and as a stakeholder whose traditional wisdom might be able to help us with some of the more complicated issues we face in our rapidly modernizing world.
And, here’s the report itself.
[Cross-posted at ananda.mahto.info. Spread the link around!]