The first question you should ask yourself during traffic bans
On January 31st, 2010, Milan and a few neighbor areas declared a total traffic ban to reduce air pollution. Since such measures are already used in other countries or may be adopted in the coming years, the protests and questions raised in that occasion are useful to think about the real usefulness of traffic bans in general.
A family's experience with Free Software, the Internet and autism
Ubuntu is a computer operating system alternative to Windows, but free of license costs and well suited to families and schools. When I read this message on the mailing list for Ubuntu Italian users:
When and how can Free Software really save public money?
A few days ago, during an email conversation about efficient public services and waste of money in Public Administrations, I had to answer a couple of questions. Since those answers may interest many other people, here they are.
Disappointed (so far) by Italian Open Legislation experiment
In may 2009 I announced on the P2P Foundation blog what I believe is the first collaborative law writing experiment in Italy:
Mr Label's nightmare: what really, really scares him
Author’s note: I wrote the short “novel” below in… June 2004. For several reasons I didn’t immediately publish it online, then it went lost on my hard drive. I found it again only some weeks ago, and I think the basic idea is still valid, so here it is.