jra's thoughts

Category: Relief Work

  • Dealing with a clogged link

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    jra
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    A friend asked me a question that reminded me of some great resources I want to mention here (in case I ever need to find them again…) They are: How to Accelerate Your Internet Wireless Networking in the Developing World Wireless U In my response to my friend, I also touched on something interesting I…

  • La promesse grippe – The Flu Code

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    Vinay Gupta published something called the flu code. Here it is in French: La promesse grippe 0.1Beta, version français – Une service dans l’intérêt publique de L’institute pour efrondnomiques Si j’ai des signes d’une grippe éventuel, je vais rester chez moi. Je vais rester à distance des foules quand c’est possible, et je vais toujours…

  • The Economics of being a Hostage

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    Wow. Here’s an incredible inside view of the piracy business. What’s incredible is that NPR’s Channa Jaffe Walt managed to get a CEO of a shipping company on the phone and hear the inside story of the negotiations. Here’s what’s really interesting. The first thing the CEO says is, “I never thought for a moment…

  • A long trip in Afghanistan

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    This is an interesting story by a BBC correspondent, which pulls no punches. Easy to see why he was left feeling bitter. There are two sides to every story of course, and I’m sure the military folks would tell you about security rules, zero tolerance for violation of force protection imperatives, risk asessments, etc, etc,…

  • My favorite things, all at once!

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    Yay for old friends, economics, and technology! All at once! kc wrote a blog posting with her humble ideas on how to use IP address space tax. Wait… there’s a tax on address space? Yes, because it has become a scare quantity, because people are too lazy to move to IPv6, IPv4 address space is…

  • The New Yorker on Aid Work

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    There is a really excellent article on aid work in The New Yorker. Though this is pretty much a write-only blog at this point, and I don’t really know if anyone cares, here are my reactions to the article: It is remarkably candid, but… it is too hopeless… because it focuses too much on the…

  • Malaria Medicine Advice

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    A friend sent me this question: Speaking of healthy, when you’re in Africa, do you take malaria medication the whole time you’re there? Is 45 days too long to take it? First, taking it 45 days is no big deal. It’s taking it for months on end (9, 18, 60) that is not recommended —…

  • HQ folks: Don’t Do This

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    Hopping on the meme-wagon for a second here… if you care enough, read these three posts about paper pushing in the NGO world: This Job Is Not Always Fun De-escalating the paperwork in development Kill Your Reports In the last one, Paul considers what happens after the reports make it to HQ, from the point…

  • In Search of Deviants

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    jra
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    Positive Deviance is a somewhat unnecessarily complicated name for something deeply humane and useful: In every village, there is at least one woman (usually a few) whose children are healthier than the rest. For whatever reason, that woman is better at navigating the complexities of village life and child nutrition. That woman has knowledge and…

  • With all due respect Mr Holmes…

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    You can kiss my ass. Talking about the risks faced by humanitarian workers, you said: People in this business have always accepted the risks, there have always been losses, there have always been horrific incidents There is NO SUCH THING as acceptable losses for humanitarian aid. Period. PS: I noticed that, according to your bio,…