In amsterdam’s airport. Made it to the right time zone, still have to work on the whole hemisphere thing. I bought caramel wafers as a gift for some of the people letting me stay in their homes over the next three months. My flight for Johannesburg leaves in less than an hour! Hopefully I can get some sleep, since I cut 6 hours off my night.
A quick 25 minute layover in Logan airport in Boston. Next stop Amsterdam!
In RDU. Summer, it was a good couple of weeks. Time for a South African winter.
The ThinkImpact Innovation Institute
Tomorrow I leave for South Africa! I am backpacking around the country for three weeks (A couple days in Johannesburg, a week or so in Cape Town, and 1-2 weeks working my way up the coast). Then I start ThinkImpact’s Innovation Institute (website).
During the Institute, I’ll be living in a village in the Mpumalanga region. This area has 18% employment, and HIV is 80% prevalent in certain age groups in the region. I am excited to get to know the community and it’s assets and see what social enterprise we can come up with when we put our heads together!
Unfortunately, I won’t have much internet access once the program starts. I will try and post things regularly during my three weeks of independent travel. Once the program starts and I lose access to internet, I’ll keep a good record and upload blog posts when I get back to Raleigh in August.
My first stop in South Africa will be to go to Pierre and Neil’s apartment. I met them on CouchSurfing and they have graciously offered their couch to me. I plan to go to a play with them, and I hope to also visit places like the Apartheid Museum and Nelson Mandela’s house while I’m there.
A striking mural contrasts with the harsh struggle of an immigrant collecting recyclable items in Athens. Immigrants are facing particularly troubling times due to Greece’s economic hardships often facing beatings, insults and exclusion Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images
Slate Sculpture by Stephen Kettle
Alan Turing. Father of computer science, cracker of the German enigma code, mathematician, logician. Committed suicide at 41 after undergoing chemical castration because he was gay.
(via myedol)
Source: stephenkettle.co.uk
Real Christians love everyone.
Please consider adding a personal note to this letter renouncing hate and affirming our Christian love for all. The world needs to know that while Christians may differ in our beliefs about same-sex relationships, we reject hate speech, especially if it is being preached in our churches.
And everyone, please read the notes left with this letter before thinking that Pastor Worley speaks for most Christians.
Intel has an interesting goal in its 2011 Corporate Responsibility Report: They want to make sure that none of their chips have materials from conflict zones.
To address the issue of conflict minerals, through the end of 2011, Intel had identified 98 smelter sites and visited 48 of them in 16 countries to lay the groundwork for third-party audits. Intel’s goal is to demonstrate that its microprocessors are validated as conflict-free for tantalum by the end of 2012, and to manufacture the world’s first microprocessor fully validated as conflict-free across all four minerals (gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten) by the end of 2013.
The result of this? Intel, if successful, would produce the world’s first conflict-free processor by the end of 2013. The phrase “conflict-free” generally gets used in terms of diamonds and other rare materials, but by doing this, Intel is shining a light on a problem few think about. Intel also has a number of other goals for itself that it hopes to reach by 2020 — including “zero chemical waste to landfill” and reducing water usage. We wish them luck. (ht Geek.com)
Source: newsroom.intel.com
Christians against Hate: Christians: Speak out against hate. Tell the GLBT community you love them
A pastor in Marion, NC advocated corralling ”lesbian and queers” with electrified fences and waiting for them to die out. Christians across NC and the world are responding by supporting an open letter to Pastor Worley and submitting messages of Christian love.
If you are Christian, will you …
Source: ncchristians
