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Recent Posts
- Reading Nov-Dec 2025 and Jan 2026
- AI as an existential threat – Kevane preliminary draft
- “What can it do?” A living list of computational problems that deep learning/AI/neural nets can or seems likely to “do” (at varying cost and efficacy)
- Reading August-September 2025
- The typical popular sci-fi version of AI posing an existential risk?
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Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Photos from Sherigu community library in Ghana
- Photos from Gowrie Kunkua community library during the night session, Ghana
- Sumbrungu Community Library nighttime reading
- Résumé du livre Une grande mère criminelle
- Organisation d’une séance de discussion autour d’un livre à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Librarians of Tuy monthly meeting January 2026, Burkina Faso
- Impressions sur la production de livres CMH au Burkina Faso
- Compte rendu de la première rencontre des gérants de la zone du Tuy
- Science fiction books for libraries in Burkina Faso and Ghana
- Animation d’une séance de lecture à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
Author Archives: mkevane
Trinity College AAUP statement on Professor Johnny Williams on Leave
However, we are still troubled that, after a tenured black professor received death threats in response to speaking out against white supremacy on a personal social media page, the administration’s default response was to lend credence to a politically motivated … Continue reading
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Burkina Faso launches 40,000 housing program for $1b
The math here… 40,000 units housing, say, 5 people each, can house 200,000 people. The population of Burkina Faso is 16 million, and growing at, say, 3% a year. So every year there are about 500,000 more people in the … Continue reading
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Great reporting on Burkina Faso singer Zougnazagmda
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Dicko Fils Feat Floby – Anani Na – Burkina Faso #lwili
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Bikes for girls really good, laptops for kids “meh”: latest economic development research in AEJ-Applied
From American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Vol. 9 No. 3 July 2017 (11) Technology and Child Development: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program Julian Cristia, Pablo Ibarrarán, Santiago Cueto, Ana Santiago and Eugenio Severín This paper presents results … Continue reading
Posted in Development thinking
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Puerto Rico fiscal board to meet Friday in San Juan – Caribbean Business
Puerto Rico’s fiscal control board will hold its eighth public meeting Friday, June 30, in the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel in San Juan, a spokesman for the board confirmed to Caribbean Business. During the meeting, the panel is expected to … Continue reading
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Puerto Rico bankruptcy rolls along
Puerto Rico, the biggest government in the U.S. to ever go bankrupt, will argue this week that it shouldn’t be treated like a broke business during the proceedings: Its residents, not creditors, should come first.Government lawyers will argue with bondholders … Continue reading
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Habibou Sawadogo – Booyé Doaga – Burkina Faso #lwili
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Andreas Eschbach, Lord of All Things
Well, it is too long. But Andreas Eschbach’s science fiction novel, Lord of All Things, is nevertheless a good read. The basic premise is pretty standard: What if someone could discover a technology that would end the need for technology. … Continue reading
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Serpentine pavilion 2017 by Francis Kéré’s
He came up with the idea of making an architectural version of a big tree in Gando, where people could gather in its perforated shade. Its structure is a festival of triangles, with curved walls beneath the orange-ish roof in … Continue reading
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Light sci-fi viewing on Netflix: The ARQ
I enjoyed it. A time-loop movie that is fairly clever about the loop and how to end the film.
Posted in Book and film reviews
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Nina Simone in Liberia by Katherina Grace Thomas in Guernica
It was a language that Simone spoke fluently. She was forty-one when she first landed at Robertsfield International Airport, her twelve-year-old daughter Lisa in tow, their belongings—clothes, books, records—packed into the belly of a Pan Am jet. Six years had … Continue reading
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Gyimah Gariba, illustrator from Ghana
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Mama, let your babies grow up listening to Kofi Kinaata… and get some empathy
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Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be fraternity brothers…
Full story in NYT. And for what? So he could do the same to other pledges in future years? A night that began with laughs and elaborate handshakes quickly devolved into dangerous drunkenness. The pledges were forced to participate in … Continue reading
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DCE William Baah now basically being blamed for death of Captain Mahama
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Past Life (film) by Avi Nesher
Went with S. to see this Israeli movie. Quite a good drama (OK verging on melodrama). But since it is about holocaust survivors and their secrets, the melodramatic is actually real. Some really awful things happened. The film is self-conscious … Continue reading
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Science fiction illuminating key ideas in social science: Two examples
I was reading The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach, and realized is is a good example of the concept of persistence in economic development. In this case, the emperor sets thousands of worlds on a persistent path of economic activity … Continue reading
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