Status-Q

I’m in Johannesburg, setting up a couple of Ndiyo trial sites. It’s great to be back in Africa, though this is unlike any part I’ve visited before. A land of amazing contrasts. I was watching the rush hour traffic; the Mercedes S-class convertible with one guy on a cellphone reminded me of L.A, and, just behind it, the little elderly minibus packed to overflowing was much more reminiscent of Kenya.

My first few days here have been somewhat strange too… I’ve been working all day in the gleaming air-conditioned MTN headquarters and returning at night to a budget backpackers’ hostel. I have the tail-end of a nasty ‘flu and so spend my evenings drinking Benolyn and my nights hoping that my cough isn’t waking everyone in the hostel.

Today, however, things took a definite turn for the better. Deciding that the hostel might be good for my soul, but had little else to commend it, I have now moved to the thoroughly delightful but still very affordable Guest House Oaktree. That’s my room on the right:.

It even has a nice ethernet connection. All of a sudden, this month of business travel seems much less of a burden…

Some pretty amazing images from China.

Found on the City of Sound blog.

I was in Toronto at the weekend, meeting up with the good folks from DirectLeap. It was exceedingly cold on Sat night when I arrived, as I had expected at this time of the year, but on Sunday the sun shone, and all was bright and clear, and we sat outside enjoying the weather.

Thanks to my jetlag, I was up and about earlier than usual yesterday morning, as evidenced by the shadows on this section of a BART platform.

I was in San Francisco for a meeting and did some clothes shopping at the same time. I’ll be sure to wear some flowers in my hair, I thought, but it would be nice to wear something else as well.

I walked out of the store clutching my bag, crossed Market St in glorious sunshine, and my mobile rang. It was BA telling me they’d found my suitcase…

I’ve landed at San Francisco, but my suitcase hasn’t. I am both combatting my jetlag, and postponing the laundry I’m going to have to do in the bathroom of my hotel room, by playing with the Ixus 750 that I bought in Duty Free on the way out. Lovely.

A couple of days ago.

Yesterday evening.

Swiss trains not only run on time, they also have clean enough windows that you can take photos through them!

I was visiting my old friends Pierre & Linda, who live in a little village high up in the hills. Here’s a view from Pierre’s commute in to work:

Pierre works in Martigny at IDIAP which doesn’t look quite like your typical research lab:

More photos of the area here.

Another lovely photo on John’s blog.

Chris DiBona uploaded this rather nice picture of Ward Cunningham (creator of the original Wiki) holding a half-exploded balloon.

The high-speed photography session was a fun one at Foo Camp, but I got there at the end and didn’t get anything as good as those in Chris’s collection.