By the power of Mussolini!

When I first came to Bloomington, we had Ethiopian food. The lunch food wasn't as good as my memories of San Francisco, but it was decent, and the spicy butter-soaked injera was heart-stoppingly good. But then it turned into our third Thai restaurant, and I was sad.

But it's back! I heard last night we had Ethiopian now as part of Puccini's, the Italian restaurant at 4th and Dunn. I confirmed its presence tonight, by the name of Ashenga's. Dinner only I think, with $13 entrees, but hey. My Secret Waitress Contact told me the owner of Puccini's was actually the owner of Red Sea, having started with that, moved up to Italian, and now moved up to both.

Haven't eaten there yet, since I'd just had pasta and clams at home, but I anticipate doing so soon...

As a side note, my IUCU ATM card seems to have been deactivated, which I found out by trying to use it. WTF? And it's a Friday.

Transhumanism without implants, and other links

March 2007 Wired article. Starts with a guy who wore a feelSpace belt of vibrating pads, the pad closest to north vibrating. He got to the point of even dreaming with a constant sense of direction. Then talks about older news (to me), of vision for the blind -- first rods on someone's back, then electrodes on the tongue. Use of electrodes or vibrators to give a better sense of balance, for those with vertigo, or for pilots, where visual cues aren't all that good. What would be really impressive is if anyone conveyed a sense of color through tactile interfaces...

* Essay on how training affects thinking, and lawyer/politician thinking vs. scientist/engineer thinking. Habit of modeling the world with numbers, vs. habit of suspicion of flexible numbers and concern with manipulating poeple's perception of and reactions to the world.

* Someone walked out with a communion wafer; some Catholic outraged, calling it a hate crime, or holding the body Christ hostage, or death threats.

* Berlusconi wants a wafer despite being divorced and remarried.
* Disco dwarves
* Calls in Israel to punish the families of terrorists.
* Really expensive day care at Google
* Chris Hitchens experiences waterboarding, agrees that it constitutes torture.
* How we stand up for our torture pals in Eastern Europe.