GUBIO, Nigeria — Unrelenting price rises and a brutal insurgency had already made it hard for Nigerians in northeastern Borno State to feed their families. When a dam collapsed in September, flooding the state capital and surrounding farmland, many people ran out of options. Now they queue for handouts in camps for those displaced by fighting between extremist Boko Haram rebels and the military. When those run out, they seek work on local farms where they risk being killed or raped by local bandits. "I can't even cry anymore. I'm too tired," said Indo Usman, who tried to start again in the state capital Maiduguri, rearing animals for the two annual Muslim holy days, after years of repeatedly fleeing rebel attacks in rural Borno. The flood washed that all away, driving her, her husband and their six children to a bare room at Gubio, an unfinished housing project about 96 km northwest of Maiduguri that has become a displacement camp. Torrential rains and floods in 29 of Nigeria's 36 states this year have destroyed more than 1.5 million hectares of cropland, affecting more than 9 million people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Climate change is a factor, as is Nigeria's poorly maintained or non-existent infrastructure as well as vulnerabilities caused by the weakening Naira currency and the scrapping of a government fuel subsidy. The cost of staples like rice and beans has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in a year, depending on location — an unmanageable shock for millions of poor families. Mass kidnappings for ransom in the northwest and conflict between farmers and pastoralists in the central belt, traditionally the nation's bread basket, have also disrupted agriculture and squeezed food supplies. 'Hungriest of the hungry' Roughly 40% of Nigeria's more than 200 million people live below the international poverty line of $2.15 per person per day, the World Bank estimates. Already, 25 million people live in acute food and nutrition insecurity - putting their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger, according to a joint analysis by the government and U.N. agencies. That number is expected to rise to 33 million by next June-August. "The food crisis in Nigeria is immense because what we are seeing is a crisis within a crisis within a crisis," said Trust Mlambo, head of program for the northeast at the World Food Program, in an interview with Reuters in Maiduguri. With international donors focused on emergencies in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Mlambo said there was not enough funding to fully meet Nigeria's growing need for food aid. "We are really prioritizing the hungriest of the hungry," he said. In Borno, the Alau dam, upriver from Maiduguri, gave way on Sept. 9, four days after state officials had told the public it was secure. Local residents and engineers had been warning that it was under strain. Hundreds of people were killed in the resulting flood, according to aid workers who did not wish to be identified for fear of offending the state government. A spokesperson for the state government did not respond to requests for comment. Zainab Abubakar, a self-employed tailor in the city who lived in relative comfort with her husband and six children in a house with a refrigerator, was awoken at midnight by water rushing into her bedroom. They ran for their lives while the flood destroyed their house and carried everything away, including her sewing machine. Now, they are sheltering at Gubio and collecting rice from aid agencies in a plastic bucket. "There is no alternative," she said. In Banki, on Nigeria's border with Cameroon about 133 km southeast of Maiduguri, Mariam Hassan lost crops of maize, pepper and then okra in repeated flooding of her subsistence farm this year, leaving her with nothing to eat or sell. "I beg the neighbors or relatives to give me food, not even for me but for my children, for us to survive," said Hassan, who has eight children. "The situation has turned me into a beggar."

Torrential rains and floods in 29 of Nigeria's 36 states this year have destroyed more than 1.5 million hectares of cropland, affecting more than nine million people

OM Greece partners with the Greek Church to help feed the hungry and share Jesus in their own community.

People who dig through landfills during the week to provide for their families find rest along with spiritual and physical nourishment at church on Sundays.

The moment Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s work first came into my life was back in 2002. That first brush, I hated it. 

In time, I came to see him for the genius and pioneer that he was, and the work that Apple did - and does - as amongst the most extraordinary in the World today.

First some context:

In 2002, I was at the European BSD conference and Jordan Hubbard, founder of FreeBSD and then newly-employed release engineer at Apple, had secured for the “terminal room” a sponsorship from Apple which meant the room was full of the 2002 iMacs. The 2002 iMac was a little “alien” in that each machine was a dome with a flexible protruding screen. Installed on them was OS X, an operating system I had beta tested before its first release on an ancient iBook, and I had very mixed feelings about.

It was pretty. But was it really a Unix? The other developers of BSD Unix in the room needed very little convincing. The command line was Unix, but the desktop and applications on there were beautiful. It was what they dreamed a Unix should be. Many of them left that conference committed to buying Apple equipment and moving to OS X within the year.

I resented this “attack” on the community, but could see where they were coming from. It was - and remains - a key part of Apple’s renaissance: build great tools for developers and alpha-geeks, and in turn the developers will build an ecosystem that users crave. Instill in the developers an aesthetic and teach them a way to do the things they struggle with (human interface guidelines, for example), and they will reward you with loyalty.

In short: empower your customers, and they’ll empower you.

No technology firm had done this as successfully before as Apple were doing between 2002 and 2004.

By 2004, I had just about had it with the drain away from the community Apple had “caused”. On one mailing list I wrote a very angry email in response to somebody else’s request for configuration advice on their latest Apple laptop:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2004-October/002684.html

“Yes, of course. My advice is that you sell your over-priced fashion-victim toy with it’s Fisher Price Unix installed, and use the money instead to buy yourself a top of the range Thinkpad. It will outperform it, run FreeBSD, not look out of fashion next season, has been built by a company that is truly committed to the open source movement and whose execs don’t patronise you by assuming you travel to work on a skateboard in cargo pants or worse, pander to your girlfriend’s idea of what a computer should be.”

Ashamed by my petulant anger, about six month later I decided to reconsider, step back and think about what they were doing in a wider scheme of the industry I was in. This was when I started to “get it”. It was when I could see what others lauded about Apple and its founders.

Within 14 months of writing that email I had acquired a 12” iBook. It was all I could afford at the time, and even then it was subsidised by the fact that I was working in a University faculty and so got a discount.

I immediately loved the fact I had a Unix machine with WiFi and Bluetooth that I didn’t need to spend a week configuring. I loved the software I could buy, and that all the open source tools I loved would work too. I loved the thought that had gone into developing that code underlying OS X. I loved the developer tools and Safari. I found myself thinking more and more about aesthetics and craftsmanship as part of what I do as a developer. Suddenly programming wasn’t just a dry science of mathematics and engineering: Steve’s ideas were getting to me through the product of his and Apple’s work.

Two things then happened like thunderbolts. 

First, I had found a copy of Steve’s commencement speech to Stanford in 2005.

Steve’s speech stuck with me. I had studied rhetoric, and was pleased by the simple construct he had used - a structure I would begin to notice he used in product announcements - but the content had hit me somewhere deep.

In it he talked about three things:

• Follow your intuition, because in hindsight the dots will join up. You can’t plan to be great, you just have to let the intuition guide you.
• Do what you love, and change things if you find yourself not enjoying life
• Death is inevitable. It’s coming. Deal with it as an agent of change, and don’t waste your life.

The second thing that happened around then, was that I discovered the Ruby programming language, a language that was designed to be beautiful and enjoyable for programmers to work with.

It astonished me.

I don’t think it would have done if by that point I had not started to “get” aestheticism in software, the Apple way. It’s no secret that the Ruby on Rails framework is developed almost entirely on Apple OS X machines. A Ruby conference is basically a hang-out of Apple fans. The two seem to go hand-in-hand together, just like how in 2002 it was Apple and the BSD guys.

Last night as I watched the speech again on YouTube (on my iPhone, natch), I realised I was connecting dots back, and in hindsight the impact this speech and this discovery had on me was immense.

Coupled with the discovery of Ruby, what happened next was perhaps inevitable, but still surprised me.

I went and started my own business.

I had always wanted to, but right there and then, something clicked, and I got rid of all the fear and doubt and realised that when I looked back on my life I wanted to be able to say that for a while at least I had been an “entrepreneur”.

I made the decision that I would not work on projects in that business I did not enjoy. I would only work on things that brought me joy: that is to say, I would only write code in Ruby. A brave choice in early 2006 when Rails had yet to reach v1.0 and Ruby was still considered a “toy” language by many.

I had no money, no client roster, and survived the first six months coding away on that tiny, slow little 12” iBook for friends who had piece work for me. I had never been happier.

I ate noodles and beans on toast, drank donated Guinness and chose to love my work. Working from home I would love waking late on a Monday morning, but I could never lie-in: I always wanted to just get started.

I spent the next few years helping other businesses, talking about development as a craft, not just a science.

I went into schools and told kids that learning how to write beautiful software was the most powerful skill you could cheaply acquire in this generation. Like me, they could come up with an idea and with a laptop and internet connection share it with the World in a weekend.

In the years since, I have helped dozens of start-ups, spoken to thousands of teenage children (and hopefully inspired a few to give programming with an artistic flair a go), and changed my life substantially.

I am not the same man I was in 2005. The depression and anxiety I had suffered prior to then have more or less gone. I have a brilliant relationship with an amazing girl who I consider to be my best friend, and I do work that makes me excited almost every day.

The decisions I made in those few months in 2005 and early 2006, looking back, are what made me who I am today.

I had to call time on my main business in 2010 partly because I was finding myself looking in the mirror and not looking forward to the day ahead any more - just like Steve had said, I decided I needed to change something. As sales had dried up I realised I was doing something I no longer enjoyed.

I then turned down one job offer for another on a quarter of the salary because it felt right, it felt like more interesting work and ultimately I knew it might lead to an exciting adventure I had dreamed about.

Today I work on an amazing product with brilliant people and finding myself learning new things every day.

Looking back I realise I have developed a new sense of intense curiosity. I will wander in my work, inquisitively poking whole areas I know little about. I read more, listen more and learn more. I teach where I can, I play, and I explore.

I realise that my time on this little rock is limited, and I try and make sure every day I do something that makes me smile.

In hindsight then, Steve’s words and work have had a substantial impact on who I am today professionally. Because that impact made my work more joyful, pleasant and fulfilling, in turn, his words and work have made my life better than it would have been without his impact.

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.”

It’s all the more impressive because according to “the rules” society is meant to work by, he should have been another liberal arts wash-up. As I said on Facebook earlier:

“I don’t think the economically right-wing anywhere - US, UK, Eurozone, China, anywhere - would be able to deal with the idea that the largest company on the planet was founded by a Buddhist counter-culturalist of complex family origins who made decisions based on intuition, aestheticism, love and curiosity.

Yet, it makes perfect sense to me.”

I never met him, never got close to knowing him the way that his friends and family did, or even his colleagues, but in my own way I learned to love him. His impact will be with me for the rest of my life, and late last night as the news broke here in the UK, despite it being on the cards for a while, the news came as a shock and I had to hold back the tears.

His critics’ words (and there are many!), sound very much like my own before I “got it”. Right now - today - though, it is petulant, angry, juvenile scribbling, and unworthy of any mature grown-up, given it is less than 24 hours since his dying.

Some call him a fascist, others a megalomaniac. In essence all he was trying to do was produce the best - and most human-friendly - technological products humanity was capable of producing right now. He did so within the rules shareholders gave him along with their money, because after being fired once, he didn’t want to mess up and be fired again. As ever, he exceeded their expectations and produced a company larger than any other on earth in terms of market capitalisation.

When you have a vision, as long as nobody gets hurt along the way, there’s no harm in following it ruthlessly. That’s what he did.

Some point to the fact that he didn’t donate much to charity in his life time, but I’m quietly confident that is because he didn’t want the ego stroking whilst he was still alive, and in coming years and months his wealth will quietly reach parts of the World that need it. He felt that shareholders’ money was their, and he shouldn’t give it away. He felt the best way he could help the World was by empowering as many people as possible. There’s no real shame in that. And in that, he was immensely successful.

He was also a subversive, and this is a point that his critics miss - or point to - the most. Biologically he was a half-Syrian Muslim, which when acknowledged in the last decade caused the conservative right in the US a huge problem: was the leader of the hottest thing on Wall Street one of them? They needn’t have worried - he’d discovered Buddhism many years ago. Adoptively he grew up to be a counter-culture Bay Area “hippie” and counter-culture type that worried some in the establishment even more.

His critics point to the consumerist message of Apple, without realising its founding principle was to go against the grain and to help people push further than the establishment wanted them to. The fact that he was able to make a living - a good living - as reward for that vision should not be seen as a fault or flaw.

Those unfamiliar with this background with questions to ask might want to start here. It might change your mind about him.

He wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. But regardless, he was an inspiration to millions who right now are working at building the next generation of technology. He showed us what we were capable of when we tried, and his death some 20-30 years “before his time” shows what a great leveller pancreatic cancer can be. So, if you are a critic: please shut the hell up and let us deal with paying tribute to him in our own way. You’ll reap the benefits as we march forward, inspired by his vision, into giving you the technology you deserve to make the World a better place.

I genuinely believe those who hate him haven’t given him - specifically what lay beneath his vision - a chance, in the same way I hadn’t.

The moment I did though and started to use the tools he and his company produced the way they were designed, my life got better and my attitude to what I wanted to do with my life improved.

I can’t think of another businessman I could say that about. I can’t think of another businessman anybody will be able to say that about when they die.

As I watched that commencement speech another time, the words were as fresh and as poignant as ever. His final few words seem particularly appropriate to me today, and so I will leave you with them. You may love him, you may hate him, but you can’t disagree that his vision was sharp, and worth sharing.

My thoughts and condolences today are of course with his family, his friends and colleagues, and all who were impacted by Steve from a distance the way I was. Steve was an amazing man, who inspired so many and has changed the World for the better, forever.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Fine Art Lending Thrives Thanks to Yield-Hungry Hedge Funds https://ift.tt/37yzTcG

Three hungry crocodiles were lying in the sun. One said, "I wish I could eat a young tender child."

In this episode, Fr. Anthony talks with Fr. Harry Linsinbigler about some lessons learned from the Nativity and Theophany season and why Royal Hours are not celebrated on weekends. In addition to being a parish priest, Fr. Harry is the Canonist for the UOC-USA and prepares its Ustav (liturgical calendar and order of services). Enjoy the show!

Bristol, England — Why do shift workers often deal with hunger pangs?

A hungry anteater named Tammy who lives at the Miller Rehabilitation Zoo in Quebec, Canada enjoyed several lovely treats.

The Russian special operation in Ukraine served as a catalyst for the confrontation formed between Moscow and the collective West, as a result of which the United States and its politico-military partners immediately activated "suspended" economic sanctions. In addition, half of Russia's foreign exchange reserves were frozen, provoking an unprecedented escalation of confrontation in the financial sphere. Price increases and shortages of certain commodity items are not only observed in Russia. The global nature of international relations has caused destructive influence of sanctions on the economies of the initiating countries as well. In the U.S. they decided to call inflation "Putin's price hike". In fact, inflation in Western countries began after the declaration of economic war by European leaders and their sovereign, U.S. President Biden.

An expert from the company outlines trends in sweeteners, and how producers can deliver.

From hippie culture to the first personal computers, Stewart Brand has been key to some of the most groundbreaking movements of the last century. This hour, he reflects on his life and career.

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Original broadcast date: September 23, 2022. From hippie culture to the first personal computers, Stewart Brand has been key to some of the most groundbreaking movements of the last century. This hour, he reflects on his life and career.

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The donation from Bradford White will help Mel Trotter Ministries meet the needs of struggling families and individuals in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area through its annual Thanksgiving Day meal and turkey distribution.

FaZe did not have a good season. #esports #blastpremierworldfinal #counterstriker

Experts warn that a frenzy of data center construction could delay California's transition away from fossil fuels, raise electric bills and increase risk of blackouts

a comic about living in space

[Written by Stephen Wright] Bermudian boxer Saundre “Dash” Simmons says he is hungry for his next opponent after defeating Marcell Sams Jr in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the weekend, insisting: “Bigger and better guys are on the menu!” He hopes to make a swift return to the ring after making quick work of Sams with […]

Four decades ago, Pablo Escobar brought to his Medellín hideaway four hippopotamuses, the centerpieces of a menagerie that included llamas, cheetahs, lions, tigers, ostriches and other exotic fauna. After Colombian police shot Escobar dead in December 1993, veterinarians removed the animals—except the hippos, which were deemed too dangerous to approach. The hippos fled to the nearby Magdalena River and multiplied.  Today, the descendants of Escobar’s hippos are believed to number nearly 200. Their uncontrolled growth threatens the region’s fragile waterways. Smithsonian contributor Joshua Hammer joins us to recount this strange history and explain why Colombian conservationists have embarked upon an unusual program to sterilize these hippos in the wild via “invasive surgical castration,” a procedure that is, as he has written (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pablo-escobar-abandoned-hippos-wreaking-havoc-colombian-jungle-180984494/) for Smithsonian magazine, “medically complicated, expensive and sometimes dangerous for hippos as well as for the people performing it.” Then, ecologist Rebecca Lewison tells us how her long-term study of hippo populations in Africa offers hints of how these creatures will continue to alter the Colombian ecosystem—and what authorities can do about it. Let us know what you think of our show, and how we can make it better, by completing our There's More to That listener survey here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfS90zjBZ2oGa9JxVa-R5affKcOHaR2-ib1_KZeWm3HDQXJIA/viewform) . Read Josh Hammer's Smithsonian story about Escobar's hippos and their descendants here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pablo-escobar-abandoned-hippos-wreaking-havoc-colombian-jungle-180984494/) . Learn more about Rebecca Lewison and her work here (https://cmi.sdsu.edu/rebecca-lewison/) . Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Rye Dorsey, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz  Music by APM Music.

Through divine appointment, an OM outreach team cross the path of two young boys who desperately need joy, hope…and food.

Bringing food parcels to people in need, OM encounters much spiritual hunger and finds Bibles are as welcome as physical food.

Since OM Panama started visiting the garbage dump, a shy old man attends the programmes faithfully. He is anxiously looking for answers in the Bible.

Foreigners in Sweden are excited when they see portions of the Bible in their mother tongue at the OM book table.

As OM teams spread out across the nation last month, bringing news of God and His love, so the stories return of people hungry and thirsty for His truth.

Blue Ribbon and Snowflake owner Premier Foods is on the prowl for acquisitions, including the likes of JSE-listed food producers like Remgro-controlled RCL Foods, Libstar and RFG, if they ever become available.

Sylvia discovers how eager believers in rural Bangladeshi villages are for fellowship.

The video begins with the chef pouring a big spoonful of cheese sauce onto a sizzling teppan griddle. Take a look:

Children in northern Syria are suffering from hunger, illness, and malnutrition as a result of poverty, poor living conditions for most families, and the collapse of purchasing power amid the soaring prices of all essential food commodities. Displacement and a lack of job opportunities make this worse. Nour al-Hammoud, a 5-year-old girl whose family was […]

Title: Health Tip: Eating When You're Not Hungry
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2014 7:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2014 12:00:00 AM

Barsana, India (AFP) Nov 8, 2024
Venerated as incarnations of Hindu deities, India's sacred cows are also being touted as agents of energy transition by a government determined to promote biogas production to cut its dependence on coal. It is an understatement to say that Nakul Kumar Sardana is proud of his new plant at Barsana, in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state. Firstly, says the vice-president of a biomass joint

India's head coach Gautam Gambhir dismisses theories that he is under pressure after India's 0-3 whitewash at home against New Zealand.

Brazilian midfielder Casemiro is looking forward to working with the Dutchman’s highly rated successor

Then, ask Storelf for help. Payal Chhabria introduces you to the brains behind the venture.

OM Greece partners with the Greek Church to help feed the hungry and share Jesus in their own community.

People who dig through landfills during the week to provide for their families find rest along with spiritual and physical nourishment at church on Sundays.

Volunteer Services Lewisham’s food delivery service is a lifeline to vulnerable people suffering under lockdown

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Brown bread. Baked beans. Tea. And would you happen to have any custard, dear?

Some things stand out in the middle of the prodigiously energetic food-parcel line being run from a community hall in south-east London.

1,078 quintals of rice collected from cardholders in 16 mandals of Karimnagar

Since the lockdown began, police inspector M Kalaiyarasan has been on double duty. After work, he has been busy doing the rounds in Kumaran Nagar area distributing food.

No one goes hungry, under this Chennai cop’s watch

White-tailed deer don’t like to eat the invasive plants Japanese stilt grass, garlic mustard or barberry. Native oak seedlings and tulip poplar, on the other […]

The post Too many hungry deer are lowering diversity of native plants in eastern U.S. forests appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Each year from summer into fall, ornamental crape myrtle trees in the southern and central U.S. lay out a visual feast of vibrant flowers in […]

The post Crape myrtle trees aren’t native to the US, but hungry native birds still find them tasty appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 'No Student Goes Hungry Program' aims to provide healthy, locally sourced meals to all students, K-through-college, who need them.

When we're hungry, our brains get more excited about high-calorie foods.

Photo of hungry sharks wins Underwater Photographer of the Year contest, which also selected winners in more than a dozen categories.

They are making the choice between paying for tuition or food.