A character in Carl Hiaasen's new novel, Skinny Dip, refers to Alzheimer's as old-timer's disease. This got me thinking about short-timer's disease, the phenomenon of people taking stupid shortcuts because they don't expect to be around long enough to suffer the consequences.


In Adu Dhabi, Mario Garcia, ceo of Garcia Media, described a machine in the Frankfurt Airport where, for €3, you can print out the daily newspaper of your choice. He also countered the charge that kids don't read by pointing out that 14-year olds are reading 700-page Harry Potter books.

John Hedberg talks of getting from passive learning to engaging learning by fostering initiative, self-motivation, experimentation, spontaneous collaboration, and peer coaching. Transer...translate...transcend.

Do you want to live dangerously? My main computer, a SONY VAIO running XP, has developed a habit that's jangling my nerves. Several times a day, with no warning, it totally freezes up. I tried to do a System Restore to a happier time, but something had cut off the Restore feature. I fear I'll have to take the hard disk down to bare metal. God knows how long reloading zillions of patches and shareware programs will take. Perhaps you'd like to trade?

Intel's Martin Curley has some great, alliterative metaphors: from Digital Divide to Digital Dividends. From Bland to Blend.