The Adventures of Curious George

A conversation with Anca earlier this month led to an idea for making a line of removable covers for casts (arm casts, leg casts, etc. for broken bones). They might be: - softer - washable (casts get dirty over time) - better looking - add your feature here Some disadvantages of a "store-bought" cast-cover: - likely a one-time-use item (not sustainable-minded) - costs money - not personalized - maybe I think it looks cool, but you don't As a result of this nomad conference, and being infected with the culture of sharing and doing things ourselves, I thought about a cast cover that solves those problems while maintaining the benefits listed above. My solution (I will post a picture if I ever find my camera) involves a handkerchief (or any other piece of cloth you have around that you like the color of) and two safety pins. It looks pretty sweet.

To the folks at Bike Friday: I bought a Bike Friday folding bicycle, not knowing anything about the wealth of cultural experience that comes along with multi-modal cycle/train/plane touring, because a Pocket Sport seemed *useful* and *practical*. Since then, my life has been given more meaning, new direction, and a ton of new friends all over Europe because I had the means to continue to travel in an inexpensive, personal way. I had no idea just how *useful* my Bike Friday would be. Thanks, guys.

This conference is off the hook. I showed up 2 hours late and no one else was here yet. Chairs still upside down, two guys in the kitchen cooking, most attendees still asleep, some upstairs at the conference location (an open-space / tea house that organizes skill sharing workshops, free language classes, open dinners with a 2-euro suggested donation, etc.), and a few attendees on-line but not yet in attendance. The open format and the four rules and one law all serve to contribute to a perception of disorganization (if you've had a generally American, traditional university- and industry-conference experience). The four rules: - Whenever it starts is the right time - It is over when it is over - Whoever comes is the right people - Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened The law (heavily paraphrased) if you aren't currently learning/contributing, move to a different space or group. However, things are getting done and content is getting generated, perhaps ...

Did you know that children in many communist countries have been made to sing songs, often daily, about how great communism is? Indoctrinated from birth, like mafia children to violence and drug-lords' children to the drug trade, these children grow up truly believing that communism and whatever country they come from are the best system and country in the world. Irrational, culturally-ingrained nationalism is pretty scary, eh? That reminds me of another country, where children, from the age of 5 or so, are made every day to stare at the national symbol, promise to always be loyal to the country, invoke the superiority of god, and state belief that their country will never disband and never allow injustice to be visited upon its citizens. The United States of America, I think it's called... It's all just irrational, culturally-ingrained nationalism... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism So my suggestion? Let's make a wor...