rants

I left from Milan at 6AM and it was not a cool start: I still had lots of work to do for FSFE, so I used most of the battery during the flight (1.30hour, excluding takoff and landing time, when you can’t use compters).  I travel with my friend Mimmo: he arranged this trip. I had to give a speech later, after 3pm, so I hoped to have at least another hour to give the presentation: it is always hard to talk to public that is not the one you are used to.  I had many doubts: is it true in Serbia that the society is becoming a ‘digital’ society?  I had some hints by looking at the amount of wifi hotspots that are advertised in town, but is that only advertising?  Won’t somebody be offended if I assume that there is an e-government issue?  These are the kind of arguments that I would use if I held the speech in Italy or any other ‘north emisphere, western country’.   Well, but first I had to face another problem: I forgot to bring with me the adapter for the electrical plug, as here they use the infamous ‘shuko’ standard!  My laptop run out of juice and that made me upset: I had to give the presentation on Mimmo’s new laptop running a non-free operating system.  Mimmo just bought his new machine and he did not have the time to make the Xorg drivers work with the overhead projectors, so we had to use the operating system that came preinstalled.  Of course, having no electrical power meant that I used all his juice too during my presentation, so he could barely show two slides to the class and then was forced to revert to the blackboard… it was funny seeing him trying to remember all his presentation and drawing curves on the board 🙂 Belgrade is a very nice city, I liked it a lot.  For dinner the first night we had tartar steak … made of horse meat: those that know me are aware that I have to try to eat anything.  I only have repulsion for jelly fish, brains and nothing else (so far, at least).  During next days I tried to make the most out of the trip. I met with Ivan, Marko and Danilo of the Free Software Network Serbia and discussed with them how to bring the Free Software ideas to the young democracy of Serbia and Montenegro.  They already run a wonderful electronic magazine in Serbian, gnuzilla, so the first step to inform the other students is there.  As they are students, I suggested them also to try to find a connection with the University, asking for rooms to meet and space where to advertise small conferences and other events.  Ivan told me later that things are already moving in this direction.  Hope to hear more of this good news in next day.  I had a very nice time with Ivan, Marko and Danilo, I liked Belgrade a lot and hope to find another excuse to go there soon.