Friggin’ European handwriting

A few weeks ago we had to work in pairs in my Italian class. I ended up working with a classmate who, when confronted to my handwritten notes, remarked “friggin’ European handwriting!”.

It’s true. Have you noticed the very consistent handwriting style exhibited by people educated under an anglosaxon system? I first noticed when I first went to England, in my teens, and all the boys and (especially) girls there were writing with that oh-so-English round and neat calligraphy. I remember discussing the issue with my sister, more than 20 years ago.

I’ve continued seeing that here in Australia. I am not completely sure that it is directly related to being educated within an anglosaxon system, although I’ve seen it in England and in Australia only. I also tend to think that it occurs with people of a certain age group, more or less my age, perhaps. For a friggin’ European like me, it is amazing how such a degree of consistency, almost like cloning, can be achieved.

Do leave a comment if you have any ideas why this happens, please.

P.S. This post uses the word “European” to refer to what geographers would refer to as Europe, minus the United Kingdom. EU -= UK. As you do.

Emergent Databasing, Emergent Diversity

I have just found out that my friend from a former life, Robin Boast, is blogging too. And talking very insightful stuff.

$100 laptops

It seems that the MIT Media Lab is developing a laptop that will cost US$100. The vision, from reading their web site, is to market is massively to third-world countries.

I wonder whether the MIT, or the non-profit association One Laptop per Child (OLPC), will charge third-world countries for the laptops. If they will, this would be, once again, a case of the Western world (the USA in this case) selling stuff to the third world. I can’t help but think that giving them water, hospitals, medicines and schools would be much better than selling laptops to them. Or, putting it in a different way, does the third world need laptops so badly? Who is going to get the larger benefits here, the third-world kids or the bunch of people in the USA that are behind the initiative?

I am skeptical.

Back from Tokyo

I am back from Tokyo. Actually, I’ve been back for a few days already, but I haven’t had the time for almost anything but catching up with my email and organising the move to Spain. But I owe this one to Nick.

I enjoyed Tokyo. Last Tuesday morning, I got on the plane in Sydney and arrived in Cairns a few hours later. After 45 minutes I got on the same plane again. My assigned seat was an aisle one (as usual), and the person on the next seat was a sulky teenager sporting trendy white headphones. After they closed the plane doors and we started rolling on the tarmac, a tall and handsome male flight attendant that reminds me of Jude Law comes to my seat and says “Mr Gonzalezperez, I need to ask you a favour” (Gonzalezperez is Qantas‘ reinterpretation of my two surnames, given that their information systems do not handle spaces or hyphens for the surname field). I say “sure, how can I help you”. “I would like to ask you to move to another seat”. I say “sure, as long as it’s an aisle seat”. And he explains that he has two reasons for asking me so. The first is that Mr Wilson, the gentleman sitting next to me, has a friend who would like to sit with him for the flight. So far so good. The second reason is that (literally) Qantas regulations forbid an adult from sitting next to an unsupervised minor. I don’t flinch but think “gee, perhaps I do look like a pervert, or perhaps this guy is kidding”. Making a joke actually crossed my mind, like saying “well, Mr Wilson is not exactly my type”. But Jude’s face is straight and he looks ready to kick me out of the plane if I don’t comply with Qantas regulations, so I smile (“just smile and wave”, as Madagascar’s nasty penguins would say) and say “of course, where is that seat?” Jude points to a seat close to me, an aisle one, and I obey diligently. I hope my criminal record stays unchanged after this.