hacking? the united nations.
<- ->

three days home - including a weekend - and it was an ordinary time in italy.

we had a minister of our republic putting a 25'000 euro reward on the killer of a gas pump owner in lecco, stating "no one should dare to touch a padanian", and complaining publicly because the law prevented him from adding "dead or alive" to the communication.

we also had a guy in piacenza who had sued a hospital for half a million euros for making him sterile. unfortunately, he then got his girlfriend pregnant, and decided to solve the problem by killing her and then burning her body. police got suspicions and eventually framed him after discovering that, before the news had gone public, he used his pc to google for "donna bruciata piacenza".

but who cares, the real piece of news is that torino lost 0-3 at home with modena. i feel like crying.

[0D]
(((home and away)))
14.12.1.12.2004@cape-town.za

anyway, eleven hours of flight to cape town can only be defined as devastating - but the place is definitely worth it. the climate is warm and windy, and is not very different from the italian seaside in late spring - only, you have skyscrapers here. the convention centre is new, architecturally impressive, and even a bit dispersive - there are three conferences going on at the same time, and i know of people who accidentally showed up at the wrong registration desk and ended up being a participant in the african disability conference.

i just had time to land, catch the shuttle bus from the airport, drop my stuff at the hotel - which, since as usual there were some problems with icann's bookings, is not the one attached to the venue - and go to registration to then enter the first meeting.

everything here happens really slowly - it took me fifteen minutes to get registered, even if i had pre-registered, and if there was just one person in line ahead of me. people are nice, but move their arms and body with slow, ample, majestic gestures, taking thirty seconds just to serve a cup of coffee. the first impact is of course irritating, but after a while you realize that it's us from the hurried crazy towns of the first world that have a wrong perception of time, and of what is important in time. in a certain sense, i am glad to acknowledge that the person who is serving me coffee is a person, not a machine, and that i can share thirty seconds of my life with him/her.

(i will post news about the first meetings as soon as i can - it's hard to keep up with schedule, let alone post reports in almost real time...)