All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

I honestly did not get anything done in the fall or even late summer other than some reading and thinking. Now i’m getting into writing again, i have tons of things to do, but i’m laying strong odds that i’ll be finished this spring. I’ll not let the blog go for a whole year.

I’m in Milan this week doing some research and things. this time i’m in the starhotel splendido. it has been raining all day, so even though i arrived in town around 10am, i only took a short walk, and got some lunch. Tomorrow, if it isn’t raining, i’m going to walk corso buenos aires if it isn’t raining and then do the golden quadrangle. I don’t know how long that will take, but we’ll see. If it raining I’m going to figure out the metro and go to some museums or churches or whatever is open.

Malpensa Airport was pretty bad this time. There were huge lines in the international terminal for both transfers, and I mean it looked like several hundred, perhaps as many as a thousand people waiting in two huge groups. Luckily I figured out that i was in those groups and went to passport control, which had 7 lines and took about 45 minutes to get through.

after that it was the malpensa shuttle to central station. it is quick and fast. i mobblogged some of it.

I gave up on orkut.com today. they are formally merging things into the broader google system. they are requiring people to have a google acct. i don’t want to have a google acct. anymore than i want a msn acct., which is in fact a negative relation. I do not want one, nor do I want someone to require me to have one to fit into their business model.

According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #3 belief match is Liberal Quakers. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION

but it said i was:

According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is Unitarian Universalism. What do you believe? Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION

House restores public broadcast funds – Yahoo! News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on
Thursday voted to restore $100 million for public television
and radio broadcasting next year, reversing a Republican-led
plan to cut spending deeply.

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good

Trivia for Serenity (2005):

According to an interview with Alan Tudyk, this is the first movie in a three-picture Firefly contract with Universal.

goal goal goal goal goal goal goal goal goal

ScriptCenter: ATM for Drugs:

New ATM-like prescription machines are being rolled out in California and Virginia, where new changes in states’ laws allow medicines to be dispensed without a pharmacist. This new machine, called the ‘ScriptCenter,’ has been installed at a Longs Drug in Del Mar, California, and coughs up as much Furosemide and Metformin as your pharmacist has loaded into it..

A New Way to Get Refills [MedGadget]

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this is not good. not good at all

bridges.org:

Comparison
Study of Free/Open Source and Proprietary Software in an African
Context: Implementation and Policy-making to Optimise Community Access
to ICT
The Software
Comparison research project provides
the needed background information and advice to
people who want to make
sound software choices for public computer labs in Africa.
The
final report represents the first comprehensive analysis of software
choices
in the African public-access context. The study looked at 121 computer
labs in Namibia, South Africa and Uganda, examining the range of
factors that affect software choices; the realities of the current
situation in Africa; and the long-term implications of software choices
for Africa. This
research was led by bridges.org and supported by Collaborating Partners
SchoolNet Africa, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
and the Open Society Institute (OSI). In addition, a number of
field-study partners provided access to computer labs for the study. A
high-level
Advisory Group, comprised of experts in the field from both sides of
the debate, was actively involved in the study on a regular
basis: reviewing project documents (methodology, report drafts etc.),
providing feedback and additional resources.

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interesting study

The Chronicle: 6/24/2005: Teachers’ Pets:

Students who visit the turtles “light up like Christmas trees” when they see them, says Mr. Witz.