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The road to Bugat, site of Aliocha and Capucine’s 2nd library project.

capucha:

shbaldwin:

tiresome:

One day, Simba, all of this will be yours.

Caption takes the prize… hilarious. Squinty cub is awesome too…

Launched. →

http://blog.edurelief.org

I wish all books were designed with this much heart…

** Warning, this video is a heart wrencher… **

The winter in Mongolia just got upgraded from “worst in 30 years” to “worst in anyone’s living memories.” (Hey, at least we’re not talking in terms of threat level color right?) I could go on and on about how bad it is but I’ll just let you read it (link, link) and watch.

Two points that are standing out to me most:

1) The fact that 1.7 million livestock have died and the Red Cross is predicting that up to 20 million could die. Just for perspectives sake that’s half of Mongolia’s livestock population. The last time a winter like this happened the capital city’s population doubled with all the immigrating herder families who lost their animals.

2) That there are isolated rural communities that the government hasn’t heard from since November. What that means in Mongolia is that small towns, connected to other towns and the capital only by dirt roads and telephone lines have lost these fragile connections due to the weather and not even the government knows if they are ok. I heard the military is sending out big helicopters on search and rescue missions to deliver supplies and evacuate people. Problem is that there’s a lot of families living out on their own with no one else for miles around. The fear is that some of these people will just not make it.

I can’t even really give you a way to do something, to help. Some big NGOs like the Red Cross and CAMDA are trying to deliver fodder for animals and food and nutritional items for people, but it’s not an easy job. Russia and China are sending emergency supplies by train. All we can do is pray it arrives soon and gets to the right people.

Personal note: It’s so cold here. But other than that we are in no danger except from possible skyrocketing meat prices due to no more animals. Don’t worry about us, it’s just cold.

Mongolia’s badboy sumo grand champion Asashoryu is retiring from the sumo wrestling world. I can tell you that 90% of Mongolia is mourning right now. This guy was a machine. Won nearly every title placed in front of him while badmouthing reporters and brawling. A legend. His only match at sumo, another Mongolian, Hakuho, cried at the announcement. The pair has dominated Japanese and worldwide sumo wrestling tournaments for the past few years. Asashoryu is 29 years old.

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Great infographics based off of “If the world were a village of 100 people.”

See more.

Mongolia’s experiencing what may be the worst winter in 30 years. There’s a massive “dzud” going on. What’s a dzud? It’s when a harsh summer draught (not enough grass for grazing or for setting aside for winter feed) is followed with no relief by heavy winter snows which makes it impossible for animals to forage for grass. It’s supposed to be warmer where we are in Erdenet and yet even here we’ve experienced weeks on end of -25F/-35F day/night temperatures. I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the southern and western provinces where snow is thick and impenetrable to the animals and temperatures dip below -40F. According to recent reports, nearly 1.5 million animals have already died and herder families have started migrating to the capital, Ulaanbaatar to be able to find wood and coal to heat their gers. The last bad dzud was over the 2000/01 winter and the migration of herder families caused the capital to double in population to its now 1 million+ inhabitants, greatly straining the cities already inadequate infrastructure. This year’s dzud is even worse.

Here are two link to pages with more info if you’re interested in learning more.
ReliefWeb’s Dzud Situation Report
Mongolia: A Disaster Slowly Uncoiling

PS - This is also why it’s REALLY hard to deliver books to rural locations in the winter.

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Think the iPad is too expensive? Think again.

Via TUAW

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I’d take a personally website like this…

matthewb:

Jarred Bishop:

Ed’s portfolio scrolls in all the right places.

After the iPad event... (loose translation)

Walt Mossberg:	So Steve, can you comment on the 10 hour battery life of the new iPad compared to the Amazon Kindle?
Steve Jobs:	You see Walty, you're just not going to be reading for 10 hours straight, you're just going to end up pluggin' it in...

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If Steve Jobs pulls this out of his back pocket on the 27th I may find myself with an empty bank account…