April 2007

Fixing the “iPod Won’t Unlock” Problem

April 30, 2007

I belong to the “don’t have anything to lose” school of electronics repairs. Six months ago I was profoundly irritated that my new-batteried iPod suddenly wouldn’t respond to its buttons. It could still play if attached to a computer, but that didn’t do me much good, so I had to replace it with a new [...]

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Falconry Over Lake Como

April 28, 2007

For more information, see the website of the Castello di Vezio. photo gallery Castello di Vezio

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Learn Italian in Song: Tanti Auguri

April 26, 2007

Tanti Auguri*        Best Wishes/Happy Birthday Se per caso cadesse il mondo io mi sposto un pò più in la           If by chance the world should fall, I would move a little over there sono un cuore vagabondo che di regole non ne ha           I’m a vagabond heart who [...]

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Long-Distance Working – A Tale of Two Companies

April 25, 2007

Old Days, Old Ways: Adaptec When I began working for Adaptec in 1995 (as a result of their acquisition of Incat Systems, the company which created Easy CD), I was already a remote worker. Fabrizio Caffarelli, who had founded Incat in Milan, had moved himself and the engineering staff to California in late 1993 with [...]

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Design Week Milan 2007

April 22, 2007

^ “Wrongwood” Apr 22, 2007 Today I went to Milan to visit, with fellow Woodstock School alumna Ringae Nuek (herself a designer), some of this year’s Design Week sites. ^ Established & Sons: The Font Clock, by Sebastian Wrong – soon to be a fixture in every graphic studio in the world, no doubt. ^ furniture by Zaha Hadid, reflected [...]

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Italian Idiom and Sayings

April 20, 2007

Note: See the Italian slang section for stronger language (if you’re not easily offended…). Note: Some of the new phrases added here are rude! Alla Come Viene, Viene [To do something] sloppily, literally “it comes out as it comes out.” Alla Meglio [To do something] as best one can, in a hurry or under constraint, [...]

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Six Degrees from Disaster

April 17, 2007

Massacre at VA Tech – Malaysian Students Safe read a headline I spotted via Google News this morning. Naturally, it came from Malaysia’s Straits Times newspaper. It’s facile to say that the global is local and the local is global. But there’s more to this particular phenomenon. When we hear about horror anywhere in the [...]

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Shut Up or Go Home – No Culture Likes a Kibitzer

April 17, 2007

I was recently interviewed for an article about third-culture kids, to be published in the Christian Science Monitor. In an hour’s taped phone conversation, Erik Olsen asked many questions, including: “Being an outsider in all cultures, how does that make you feel?” I thought for a moment, and said: “Superior.” No doubt that statement will [...]

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Il Popolo della Rete – Italy’s Internet People

April 15, 2007

Four years ago, I wrote about the difficulties of making friends with Italians. I already had online (and offline) friends in Italy, but most of them were expats. I have Italian colleagues with whom I get along well at the office, but we don’t socialize outside (quite the opposite of my experience in American companies). [...]

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Italian Garden 2007: April

April 8, 2007

Yes, Italians love their gardens, and so do I. I just wish it loved me back. Oh, it’s doing just fine, but it keeps attacking me with nasty pollens, so I’m a sleepy, red-eyed, sneezing, drippy mess. Perhaps I should spend next spring in a desert. In spite of the confused weather, the garden looks [...]

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Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines 6

April 5, 2007

Alarm INAIL [Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro - National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work] SOS [Emergency] Accidents at work 15 per day With whom and how to go to Rome to the “Family Day”* *Italy’s political right is organizing this demonstration “in support of the family” – that is, [...]

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Non Ci Sono Piu’ Le Mezze Stagioni: Talking About the Weather in Italy

April 5, 2007

“There are no more middle seasons” is the Italian equivalent of “Things ain’t what they used to be” – more than a truism, it’s a cliché of people complaining about the modern world, and resistance to change in general. Taking it at face value, I don’t think the “middle seasons” have disappeared: I’ve rarely seen [...]

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Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines 5

April 4, 2007

Trash in Lecco: New Collection And More Expensive Tax Lecco like the USA: the 24 hour store is coming [To which I say: yay!] Left: Hangs himself under the railway bridge at only 24 years because he’s gay. [Yes, it happens here, too, sadly.] Colombo trial: Gilardi names Lecco’s leading citizens. Right: Loan-sharking: Half of [...]

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Ross Got Into Woodstock School

April 4, 2007

A week or so ago I ran across this on the blog of one of my new colleagues at Sun: To A Daughter Leaving Home When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you [...]

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Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines 4

April 3, 2007

Mar, 2007 – (handwritten) Sunday [we're] always open [formal complaint to the police] – Too lively: the janitor insults and threatens the children Writing and drawings defame the principal of Grassi high school Mar, 2007 – Exhibitionist terrorizes [female] cyclists – denounced [formal complaint made to police] Fines “Auxiliary [traffic police] [should be] more tolerant [...]

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Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines 3

April 2, 2007

Reader Stefano Tonti sent me this photo. The headline says “Doctor beaten with a shovel”. ata is a suffix you can add to many nouns to create a word meaning “an application of [noun]“. Badile = shovel or spade, so someone applied a shovel to this poor doctor (unfortunately, we didn’t buy the newspaper so [...]

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Earning from Advertising Online: Thoughts, Experiments, and Conclusions

April 2, 2007

As a quick glance around any page will show you, I’ve been fiddling with ad placement on my site since I wrote the above. I was inspired by meeting Robin Good at barCamp Roma in January, where he reported that he earns 200,000 euros a year from advertising on his site. He has been remarkably generous with advice to [...]

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Girl Geeks Dinner Italia

April 1, 2007

Some years ago Silvia, who had been one of our tech support team (of two) at Incat, paid me the enormous compliment of saying that she considered me a role model. This from a woman with a laurea in physics who holds a managerial position in a team supporting HP servers, and certainly never needed [...]

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beginningwithi.com: Why the Name?

April 1, 2007

Oct 15, 2005 - My dad once said that, if he ever gets around to writing an autobiography (and I wish he would), he would use rivers as a theme, because many important parts of his life have been spent near major rivers (from the Mississippi to the Mekong). I thought about this, and decided that my own [...]

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