Proud Bachelor Turned Marrying Man-Sort of

Posted on March 8, 2004 by sergioc

Helping gay couples get hitched gave me a new respect for a tradition I’ve been happy to escape

[Newsweek]
I’m a straight, single man, who, during Valentine’s weekend and for several days that followed, performed weddings as a deputized marriage commissioner for the city and county of San Francisco. “I’m surprised that you are doing it,” my mother said when I called her from my cell phone, between weddings. An ex-girlfriend expressed similar amazement, clearly alluding to my own reluctance to get hitched. I may or may not gel married some day, but that’s a decision for me-and my potential partner-to make. I have the freedom to choose, and I can’t understand why any of my fellow citizens would be denied that same freedom.

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Jumping In to Wed the Masses

Posted on February 22, 2004 by sergioc

[New York Times]
WHILE Carrie Bradshaw in ”Sex and the City” agonizes over settling down, at least 3,000 couples jumped at the chance to marry during the frenzied first eight days that San Francisco allowed gay marriages.

And I, a straight bachelor, have happily performed about 60 of the ceremonies, in the cavernous rotunda of City Hall. My unexpected role at this great moment in the struggle for gay rights is only one of the surprising, spontaneous events that took place over Valentine’s weekend and last week.
[Read the Rest of Jumping in to Wed the Masses]

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The L.C.D. Screen Wins Color-Obsessed Converts

Posted on September 25, 2003 by sergioc

[New York Times]
IN the tech world, the slender liquid crystal display monitor has become synonymous with cool, making steady inroads against its rotund predecessor, the cathode ray tube. By the fall of 2002, sales of flat-panel L.C.D. monitors in the United States had exceeded those of C.R.T.’s in terms of dollars spent, and by the end of this year L.C.D.’s should surpass C.R.T.’s in units sold, according to the research firm iSuppli/Stanford Resources.
[Read the rest of The L.C.D. Screen Wins Color-Obsessed Converts]

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Redneck Environmentalism

Posted on June 1, 2003 by sergioc

The farmers and ranchers of the Dakotas are ahead of environmentalists on preserving the prairie and fighting global warming.

The first night of my visit to North Dakota Brad Crabtree fed me a hearty steak dinner-courtesy of a steer he’d recently sent to the butcher. In later days, we feasted on hamburgers, sausage, and leg of lamb. Brad had killed and butchered the lamb himself a few weeks earlier, chopping it up on the same kitchen table where we later had dinner.

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More

Posted on January 1, 2003 by sergioc

Full-text entries coming later. Meanwhile, see below for a few sample links from:

The New York Times
Wired
Slate
Gizmodo
PC World
Real Simple
Public Radio

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The amazing keyless keyboards

Posted on April 26, 2002 by sergioc

I struggle with my keyboard and mouse every day. I’m an abysmal typist, and lousy posture has taken its toll on muscles and tendons, making input painful at times. Plus, keyboards and mice just aren’t fun.

The PC has evolved from an electronic typewriter and calculator to an entertainment system, but we still interact with it as if we were at work — seated at a desk, hands suspended over a keyboard or clutching a mouse. We’re even limited when we play: A joystick may work well with a flight simulator, but not with an adventure game.
[Read the rest of The amazing keyless keyboards]

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Will you be assimilated?

Posted on March 30, 2002 by sergioc

Future of tech will make you look like the Borg
“You look like a Borg,” people told me as I tried out head-mounted video displays for this month’s column.
Xybernaut-Poma-Wearable-PCIt wasn’t just an objective observation, like saying “You look like Tom Hanks”. It was a judgment on what I’d become, or was in danger of becoming: a real-life equivalent of the hapless victims from Star Trek lore whose bodies are taken over by machines.
[Read the rest of Will You Be Assimilated? Reprinted in PC Advisor]

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Our Common Journey

Posted on January 1, 2000 by sergioc

Towards Cooperative Environmental Monagement
[View on Amazon]
I began this book in 1996, partly as a retrospect on progress since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. By most accounts, the results of Rio have been disappointing. Though the world community pledged a huge increase in development aid for the environment, scarcely any countries have kept their promises. While we signed a convention to limit deforestation, figures show that the loss of tropical and temperate forests continues at a brisk pace. And while we pledged to integrate environmental and economic concerns under the rubric of ‘sustainable development’, we’ve seen the growth of a massive global trade and investment regime which scarcely registers environmental concerns.

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