Gianni Comoretto

my personal interests

Say NO to war

The peace flag on the Arcetri Observatory rooftop. Provided by the fair trade shop of Florence.

Aside from the (not so) hard work, I spend my time in several activities.

Activism

Pacifism in all its forms. I have been involved in most of the activities of the many pacifist movements in Florence. I have been promoter for the Florence area of the war tax resistants movement
Italian Consortium for Solidarity (to former ex Yugoslavia) home page
and gruppo locale ICS Firenze-Bagno a Ripoli. Now this group is associated to Assieme, a NGO based in Calenzano, well represented in the Observatory.
Banca Etica I am coordinator of the local comittee of the first Italian Ethical Bank.
Commercio Equo (Fair Trade) I use and promote goods produced in conditions that guarantee the livelihoods and well-being of producers in economically less developed countries. In Florence I use the shop Il villaggio dei Popoli of the CTM network.
A list of my paranormal/skeptic links.
Astrology . I contributed to the CICAP Astrology working group. If you firmy believe in astrology, and want to explain me how to test that it works, I am very interested.
Electromagnetic fields from power lines and microwaves: Are they dangerous? A collection of links and net resources on the subject (in Italian). I wrote a FAQ on radiofrequency fields (also in Italian, and held a couple of conferences on this subject, and I am available for questions, doubts, etc.
Cystic fibrosis. Resources and informations about this genetic disease

Fun related topics

Well, the things quoted above have their share of fun. Fair trade shops surely are fun, and their chocolate is the best available. Discussing about extraterrestrial life, or debunking some kind of cranks, have their light side, too. Travelling to war plagued lands is not exactly what most (sane) people would call "touring", it takes several day back home to reaccostumate yourself to "normality", but even there you can meet really interesting people. But I like more mundane ways of spending my time (in the rare moments when I have some spare).

Music. Basically all form of good musics, from classic to hard rock.
Trekking. I like very much walking around in the Alps. Being an astronomer helps a lot, since observatories usually are on mountaintops.
Biking. Bike is my favourite way for moving in town. I have a car, but my average mileage is 2 Km/day. Biking is also a good way to spend my holidays (when not trekking).
Scuba diving. This is unfortunately rather expensive, and must be done in groups. For these reasons, I have few opportunities to practise, but I like it very much.
Sailing. Still more expensive, and still more difficult to find a friend with a boat.
Computer hacking. No, I do not crack passwords or similar things. I put together old broken computers, making working units. It is an hobby much appreciated by my sons, that use these "recycled" computers. Obviously, with Linux. I lend a hand to the Florece Trashware group, because even a 166 MHz Pentium is too good a thing to waste.

Some useful links

Peacelink News Agenzia telematica pacifista
Greenpeace Italia
CICAP Italian Committe for the control of paranormal claims
Delos Italian science fiction E-zine. In the Oct 2000 issue, it hosts a talk about extraterrestrial life and space travels.

I can be reached also at the E-mail address gcomoretto at tiscali . it (preferable for non-work topics). This provider hosts also my "private" home page (basically a copy of this one, but in Italian).

Last but not least, Pietro e Davide represent my most important, rewarding (and time consuming) activity. The picture has been shot several years ago on the Dolomiti mountains. It should be updated, since Davide is now twice that size. Pietro likes football (is a hard fan of the Fiorentina soccer team), hiking and trekking, music. Davide likes drawing, computer games, D&D and science fiction.