How a small company can do great things

Most of what was once individual work has turned into a team work.
Individualism is not dead, but a new way of cooperation is born.
I do a part and you do the other part, so that together we will be able to do what we wouldn't be able to do by ourselves.
This is the secret behind small companies that do great things.
The other secret is that now a days it is much easier to work in a group, while working individually.
For that you need just the right project management software.
A software that can integrate data from all parts of your business and making it available to everyone who touches your projects.
It is like all for one and one for all.
This is valid since the early stage till the final point.
In order to fulfil all requirements a web-based software must include integrated time sheets, that allow you a real-time awareness of resource investment in every project, and which deliver status reports automatically updated.
And the multi tasking project can begin in the early stages of project, managing task assignments, resource availability, roles and rates, and later monitoring due dates, tracking performance while precisely estimating time and hours per employee in order to maximize resource utilization.

Future goes faster

"Ray Kurzweil sees a radical evolution of the human species in the next 40 years. The merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in gene research and nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality."

Computer will be the natural elongation of our brains.
There will be a moment in which biological and technological will be so close that it won't matter what is what.
Not only, it won't be possible survival without the combination of both.
At the same way virtual and real will be so interconneted that life will be both.

"World hunger and poverty will be solved, and pollution will vanish. Human existence will undergo a quantum leap in evolution. We will be able to live as long as we choose. "
"The nanotechnology revolution will enable us to redesign and rebuild—molecule by molecule—our bodies and brains and the world with which we interact, going far beyond the limitations of biology."

"By the year 2020, the full effects of the genetic revolution will be felt across society. We are rapidly gaining the knowledge and the tools to drastically extend the usability of the “house” each of us calls his body and brain."

"In the next 25 years, we will learn how to augment our 100 trillion very slow interneuronal connections with high-speed virtual connections via nanorobotics. This will allow us to greatly boost our pattern-recognition abilities, memories, and overall thinking capacity, as well as to directly interface with powerful forms of computer intelligence. The technology will also provide wireless communication from one brain to another."

My ultimate question is: what happens if somebody unplugs the machines for lack of energy?

The terrible monsters our society produces

"How could anyone do those unimaginably cruel, inhuman things?
That is the question that, to most people, immediately flows from hearing the ghastly details of both the Sheffield man who fathered nine children by raping his two daughters and, of course, the tragic story of Baby P."

Those are the monsters that our society creates.
First the lack of education.
Children very often are brought up in the belief that they are entitled to all or almost, that every wish is a get.
Since we have less children or none, the few that are born look so special that they deserve everything.
While it is wrong to maltreat children it is equally wrong non putting limits, better, not teaching that nothing comes free and life is getting AND giving.

Selfishness and overrating oneself is the common trait of today's children and tomorrow's individuals.
Being human is being humble, seeing one own limits and others' rights.
The feelings for the others is not something we are born with.
We are utmost selfish in our first years of life.
The only things which interest us is having food for growing and a shelter to live in.
It is education that makes a good individual, somebody who knows how and cares to live with others, in mutual respect.

Sex with a teen boy

"Syracuse police have arrested a woman accused of engaging in an ongoing sexual relationship with three teenage boys.
Police said their investigation began Nov. 19 when detectives began looking into rumors that a woman had been sending nude pictures of herself to a teenage boy."

Comment of an Italian teen ager:
It is a real pity those things do not happen in Italy too...

No further comment.

Christianity and Islamism

Medioeval Christianity and Islamism are much closer than one could think, since in one way they preach the same.
The terrible truth that pain and death are a mode through which man may realise himself and reach Heaven exercises a wonderful fascination over both worlds.
But the contemporary Western world is not Christian anymore.
In the contemporary Western world with the new ideals of the beauty of life and the joy of living (sometimes the exasperation of both) man is going away from the traditiona Christian Religion.
In Mediaeval times to control the society it was necessary that pain should be put forward as a mode of self-realisation. Even now, in some places in the world, the message of Christ is necessary.
The message that life is nothing but the mean to reach the "real life" or the next "reincarnation" is killing the natural man's aim to a more comfortable life.
An Islamist who lives happily under the present system of government in Middle East must either believe that man has no soul, or that, if he has, it is not worth developing.
Exactly like the real Christian, who does not revolt against authority.
But the modern world has other goals.
It proposes to do away with poverty and the suffering that it entails. It desires to get rid of pain, and the suffering that pain entails.
What we see today IS not the clash between two religions, it is the clash between the old view of society and the modern one.
The problem to be solved is how to bring forward a world that is centuries behind, how to pass from Mediaevalism to Renaissance in the shortest possible time.

For people who know the value AND the price

Are you one of those skilled buyers who know when and where and what to buy?
You will certainly be interested in finding the best Black Friday Coupons.
You surely know that when you are looking for good bargains on computers and tech devices you will, without any possible doubt, find what you're looking for at Dell website.
They usually have good prices and good bargains, but just imagine you could buy a Sharp 42” LC42SB45U 1080p LCD HDTV at the fabulous price of $799 instead of $1399 (which would already be a good price)!
Or what about a Nikon CoolPix L18 Navy 8.0MP 3X Zoom Digital Camera at $99.99 instead of $129.99!
Just to explain how good a bargain that is, imagine I bought a used, old one on eBay for $300! That was really NOT a good buy.

If you are not in the mood to buy any tech device, what about Book a flight or flight + hotel and get a $200 coupon for use on a flight + hotel stay of 5 or more nights.?
Well you have the excuse and the chance to make a longer (and surely cheaper)vacation than planed!
But if you are really looking for REAL bargains what about an additional 50% off already discounted items?
Those items are both girls' and guys' dream items.
Just think a further 50% on the already 50%...you pay nothing...or almost...

Being creative is the first step to success

Since Online is becoming the only way for a company to "BE" its website is its Business Card.
Remember: Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great websites are absolutely detestable.
That means it is worth trying to make it the best you can.
That also means as much different as possible from all other websites.
Of course you shouldn't forget that your website should be very usable and have great content, but it is actually the look that will make it successful or not.
Don't forget that our is the "visual society", a society where we are daily bombed by millions of images, so that we only see a few of them.
You should make your website one of them...
First you have to find your style.
Your own, unique style.
Just like an artist would do.
Are you an impressionist, or expressionist, or a minimalist?
Your website should reflect that.
They say Web design isn’t art, I do not agree.
What is art?
Art is writing, painting reality as we see it.
While reality or a story can be dull, writing or painting it can mean making something poetic or artistic.
Living a story can be ordinary, telling it can be poetry.
So, your content can express what one thousand other websites say and show.
The way you do it, could be Art.

Go green also with your car insurance

If a Car insurance is something you need, why not making the best out of it?
And the best could mean saving up to £182, money that could help you to pay for a "greener" car and a "greener" world.
Green car insurance could be the right answer to it.
Or if you prefer: Eco friendly car insurance.
If the must of today's economy is energy independence, the must of energy independency means also green energy to help against polluting the air we breath.
But what does it really mean to go "carbon neutral"?
While the best way would be going by foot or bicycle, since in certain situations it is unavoidable to use the car, we could start with reducing CO2 emissions.
You should first keeping the right pressure on your tires, then maintaining the good performance of your car with frequent services, reduce your speed.
And that is the easy way with your car.
You can also save buying the right low consuming light bulbs, saving water, reusing plastic bags, reuse your waste and so on...
But now you can also contribute to avoid the world's pollution buying carbon credits from a portfolio of projects, all done for reducing the waste and saving energy.
ibuyeco insurance will purchase them in your behalf.
Isn't it nice the feeling we are actually doing something about pollution instead of just TALKING?

Drudge Report

In spite of my so called "pessimism", which I define as pure "realism", I cannot agree to the realistic overview of Professor Igor Panarin, since it misses a few crucial points and looks at the actual situation in a unilateral way (of course, he IS a Russian).
Since we usually see things as we like them, it is consequential for him predicting that: "Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal centre. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."
Nobody believes in miracles, but nobody should forget that whatever the situation can be, America has still very strong reasons to be able to overcome this crisis.
First: in a Land not so much smaller than China live a little more than 250 million people.
China has 1 milliard, 2 hundred million people.
That means that when it comes to food the part of food producing land is much more for an American than for a Chinese.
Regarding infrastructures and technology, I think that, in spite of a huge progress, China is still far away.
Regarding lifestyle, when it comes to lower it, America has much more space than the average Chinese or Russian.
In Russia the State has great possibilities, but most of the population is almost at starving point, not enough houses, schools, infrastructures.
Russia has energy supply and China has a great number of workers.
Besides he forgets that if America won't produce, it won't consume energy and won't import goods from China.
How can you be a World power if you do not have power?

The Miracle America can do is: Becoming energy independent (or almost), changing a lifestyle from a comfortable one in which it mainly consumes to one in which it again produces.
And America will, for the simple reason that it MUST do it for surviving...

The Game of the trillions

Lately on the World's news the most interesting was the game the Nations are fighting with numbers.
They began with hundreds of millions, then somebody suggested that billions would have produced a better effect.
Now we are at the trillions, let's hope they will stop at least for lack of words. ( I still belong to the generation where one million looked like a huge sum of money)

Changeling

Good story, in the right moment.
It gives hope that something can change also in America and Justice in the end prevails, even though leaving a sour taste in the heart of a mother.
The main character in the whole movie is hope.
Hope never dies, hope is what you are looking for when everything else is lost.
Hope to have justice, hope to find back your way in life, hope to find forgiveness in the next life and hope to find your loved ones one day in the future.
Hope that helps you to live everyday life, and to go into death.

2009: what's in store in the technology field

1) Pico technology. After micro, nano, pico (one trillionth of a meter) comes into the picture.
The Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope is expected for 2009.

2) T-rays. Following x-rays, but different since no ionizing, not producing cancer risk, they can be used for security screening or medical applications.

3) Hydrogel Tissues.
They will replace bones, vessels and organs supporting the growth of new tissue.
They are currently undergoing clinical trial.

4) Hale UAVs
Planes that fly without a pilot for as long as five years without landing.
Could replace satellites.

5) Fuel economy.
It will come with low-rolling resistance tires.

6) Best energy usage
Just one third of the energy consumed by your automobile is used to move you forward, the rest is wasted.
Thermoelectric energy scavenging is the way to the optimal use of energy.
This is going to be applied also on home gas heating systems.

7) Energy storage
This is the answer to intelligent use of alternative energy produced for example with the wind.

Blogger versus journalist

A blogger could be a better journalist, because he doesn't belong to any newspaper and he could be more objective.
Even though it doesn't really work this way.
Everybody has his own ideas and sees reality through his mind and of course reports it the way he sees it.
What makes the difference is the fact that, being the work of a blogger not chained to money (unless he writes a paid review of course), but generally the expression of his point of view, it is in one sense more genuine and very often, while may be not perfectly and grammatically perfect, reflects feelings that a paid journalist cannot express.
"Freedom of the press requires money, and entails ownership, thus serving money at the end."
"Through the media, money is turned into force--the more spent, the more intense its influence."
All revolves around money, because money is what we need to survive, what we need to buy our food, what we need to reproduce ourselves.
Blogging is fun as long as you get the money to survive from something else.
When blogging or writing is the mean to survive it is easy your writing is in one way or another following a different road than your brain...

Where have all the fowers' generations gone?

In the seventy a poetic view of life assumed love as the force that drove every human's action.
Almost forty years later, with less hypocrisy, I would say that the culprit is mostly money and I wouldn't call it culprit, I would just define it as "exasperation of survival instinct".
When there was no money people used to hunt and dig their prey (or something better) in order to preserve them for "worse days".
When money was assumed as substitute of food, the whole procedure became easier, because it was (or looked) easier to keep money then a prey.
I won't go on analysing history, let's say that money should not be seen as the devil, but the natural aspiration of every human being.
"Through the media, money is turned into force--the more spent, the more intense its influence. "
That is not the natural use of money, that is the natural exasperation of the use of money.
Money is very often connected to power or a mean to rich power and power is the further assurance to be able to fulfil the "survival instinct".
It is the old "mors tua vita mea".
"The ideologies espoused by candidates, whether Socialism or Liberalism, are set in motion by, and ultimately serve, only money. "Free" press does not spread free opinion--it generates opinion."

So, who and what to believe?

If America cries, China doesn't laugh

And Europe is not so happy too.
The oil producers will reduce production on hopes they will still earn the same selling less.
That won't help us, but mostly won't help them.
We are ALL in the same boat.
What we can do is fighting a new war searching to see what the winner is.
But that won't solve the problem that for surviving we need to sell in order to be able to buy.
Unless we go back to live in a cave (but I fear there are not enough caves around) and grow our food without fertilizers (and we will mostly die for scarcity of food) and may be beginning new wars to get more land to cultivate and so on...

We, citizens of this world have come a long way, let's hope it was not ALL for nothing.

What wlll happen to our money?

Nothing, exactly that.
It will still be what it is now: valueless paper.
What will change (and is already changing) will be the pretence to believe that it is worth more than the paper it is printed on.
No credit, because the credit must be insured with something valuable and since houses, companies, money showed to be valueless, there is nothing we can give in exchange of credit.
The debt, credit economy is dead.
And with it also the way we master the economy is dead.
The solution is beginning from scratch, with credit based on trust, or on "we have nothing to loose more than what we lost" and work based on our resources.
The problem will be we won't get oil in this way, unless the bottom is reached and also the oil producers "have nothing more to loose and mostly nothing more to earn or better nobody who is going to pay with something different from paper money".
Will Globalisation be that strong?
I mean, when everybody (and with this I really mean ALL) will be on the bottom and oil producers will have full unsold tanks and Nations will have empty tills, and factory will be full of unsold items, may be we can begin again to "pretend" that paper is worth more than nothing and food is something you cannot survive without...

Single since long, or since little, or going to be, or aiming to be, or thinking to be?

Single since long, or since little, or going to be, or aiming to be, or thinking to be?
If any of these, this post is for you.
And it is a post written by somebody who is happily married since ten years with someone she met on the Internet, which is not the proof that a matchmaking service will do your happiness, but it is a proof that it can, so, why not try?
And you are not supposed to be looking for a husband or wife, may be just make friends or find people to date and who knows? The rest may or will come.
Marriage is a hard task, hard in the sense that the perfect match doesn’t exist, but the perfect adaptation to a match does.
When you learn that simple principle you are ready to get married.
But, of course, you have to be able to chose.
That is where a date site comes into the picture.
Of course you cannot spend your entire time writing to a million women or men and keeping a good conversation with all.
So, first you have to ask yourself what kind of person you are looking for.
Second where can you find him or her, or, better, where can you find that somebody who looks like the one you would eventually like to meet?
There are sites where you can meet a certain type of person (if you are 50 of course you won't go in a teen agers site).
Or others where you can have online matchmaking option, "which uses a scientific method for helping singles find happiness in permanent alliances".
Technology comes to rescue people's loneliness...
Or in case you are just looking to expand your social life, you can post your profile and just wait... and wait...
If your waiting is too long, you'd better reshape your profile, because there is something wrong with it...
The Internet is a powerful tool to reach your goals, but you need to help it a little bit...
This is my advice:

1) Post a very nice picture of you.
2) Talk only about the nice things of you
3) Avoid mentioning the bad part

Don't worry. When you'll come to the point, you will probably find he or she did the same too...and you will probably be too involved to stop the relationship.
But if you or she or he does?
Don't worry, online there are million of singles (and the number grows everyday) and you will find the right match!!!

“Say No to Designer Vaginas!”

“Say No to Designer Vaginas!” read a sign at the event, which included a protester dressed as a vulva before undergoing a labiaplasty (surgical reduction of the inner vaginal lips) and another who personified after. The number of labiaplasties in the U.K. apparently doubled from 2002–2007.
How many women choose this surgery and regret it later..."

What a terrible waste of money!
If you do it for yourself, well, it is not worth.
If you do it as a marketing tool, keep in mind that 99% of men doesn't care if it is a designer or not, as long as they can reach one...

Carbon dioxide

"Carbon dioxide, one of the telltale signs that a planet may be able to support life, has been spotted in the atmosphere of a gas giant orbiting a star 63 light years from Earth."

We finally come to know where Berlusconi got rid of the garbage of Napoli!

A never fading memory: the Eldorado of every student...

"The Californian, who has an almost perfect memory, is trying to describe how it feels. She starts with a small demonstration of her ability. "When were you born?" she asks.

She hears the date and says: "Oh, that was a Wednesday. There was a cold snap in Los Angeles two days later, and my mother and I made soup."


"She says the restaurant has been one her favorites for the past 23 years -- since Sept. 20, 1985, to be exact. It was a Friday. "And I was sitting with my father at that table over there, eating garlic chicken. I was wearing a big hat.

Price can rattle off, without hesitation, what she saw and heard on almost any given date. She remembers many early childhood experiences and most of the days between the ages of 9 and 15. After that, there are virtually no gaps in her memory. "Starting on Feb. 5, 1980, I remember everything. That was a Tuesday.
She can also date events that were reported in the media, provided she heard about them at the time. When and where did the Concorde crash? When was O.J. Simpson arrested? When did the second Gulf war begin? Price doesn't even have to stop and think. She can effortlessly recite the dates, numbers and entire stories."

"It's difficult for her to memorize poems or series of numbers -- which helps explain why she never stood out in school. Her semantic memory, the ability to remember facts not directly related to everyday life, is only average."

What a delusion! I was hoping to know they invented something that helped memory to remember what YOU wanted to.

"Mission accomplished"

"Once you own an iPhone, you discover that it’s more than a phone. It’s a way of life."

This is the best example of what I wrote a few minutes ago.
If somebody arrives to think and even say and write that the iPhone is a way of life that means "Mission accomplished".
(I wrote: You have to create stupid people in order to have a healthy economy)

Twilight is the clear example of what Media shouldn't do

"I basically feel that if you are over the age of 20 and are getting excited about seeing Twilight you are an idiot."

We have witnessed big changes in our society the last 50 years.
Before we had a restricted class of cultured people with certain tastes who were the main group accessing the media (Movies, TV, Newspaper) and a lower class who couldn't afford to access them.
Then Media grew with the number of customers and of course changed in order to let the number of customers grow.
Now we have a still restricted class of high level cultured people, a restricted class of completely ignorant people and a middle class who has grown in education but not reached the top yet.
What media fail to do is upgrading the level of their programs so that they are a little less pleasing the taste of the mass and a little bit more educative.
We have to create stupid people in order to have a healthy economy.

"Sir, you have to take your turban off. This is America."

"Sir, you have to take your turban off. This is America."
Or you have to take your turban off, today is not Halloween!

I think in a few words there is the full question mark about our future.
Italians and other Europeans emigrated to America long ago.
As Mexicans and South Americans do.
They ALL become Americans.

But if you go in a foreign country and want to behave as if it still was YOUR country you will never become an American. (or Italian or Whatever)

"Don't let newspapers die"

I do not think it is a matter of wanting or letting or not.
I guess the newspapers (the ones on paper I mean) will die the moment they will put on the market (at a decent price) a reader (not too heavy) which will allow you to:

1) Have a decent size where to be able to read without scrolling every line.
2) Have nice colours, so that the printing paper will look much more expensive.
3) Allowing interaction if the paper is read online
4) May be having music in the background if desired.
5) Will have the possibility to be charged wirelessly.
6) You will be able to read them ALSO in the toilet.

Often Tales have more wisdom than men

Today I am going to write a tale.
There were two teams, both of 7 members, who had a rowing boat contest.
One of them won for one mile even though they both were in the best shape.
The losers decided to dig the reasons of failure and elected a committee to do so.
They found out that while the winning team had six people on the rows and one captain, the losers had one man on the rows and six captains.
So, to dig further they hired a company specialized in "failure analysis".
The result was the following: they decided to have 3 captains, two supervisors, one managing the supervisors and one man to the rows.
They didn't neglect to give incentives to the man on the rows.
Next year they lost for two miles.
First move of course was to fire the man on the rows, since he was clearly unable to do his job.
The managers got good bonuses because, in spite of the defeat, they proved to be good in their managing job.
They ordered a further enquire and came to the conclusion they had to change the boat.
I let you imagine the results.
Doesn't it look a little bit like reality?

The oil Trap

You should be quite astonished to realize oil's price has come to one third (even less) in less then six months.
And for no tangible reason.
What do I read:
In July: Oil resources are limited while the demand is unlimited.
In November: Oil resources are limited, but that doesn't mean the World will stop.
It just means the world will consume less and the ones who sell will earn less.
It means that a high price makes alternative energy so much cheaper.
It is what happened in the 70s.
We all talked about alternative energy, then the price went down and we just went on consuming the "cheaper" energy.
Now is our turn civilized world.
Will we fall again in the trap?
Being dependent on the production of a kind of energy which is out of our hands?
Or will we go on the new road of producing fuel we can and will ALWAYS afford? Or will we just think: let's think of today, tomorrow something will happen...

The New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future

Sometimes what we do not see is right there, in front of our eyes.
I wouldn't talk about depopulation I would talk of other populations’ chance.
We, in the western world, will soon be a few.
After the Baby Boomers' generation will die (and it won't take centuries) another Baby Boomers’ generation will come.
They will have a new colour of skin, a different religion, a different way of thinking.
It's their turn.
If you can read and understand you will acknowledge the fact that after the Roman Empire's decline History didn't stop.
It just changed actors.
May be that is the lesson of life: giving everybody on this globe its chance.
We already had it, we probably wasted it or we didn't.
We did what we could, trying to make the best out of life, not always morally or ethically.
But there is no moral or ethic in life there is just life and death.
And we lived.

Schadenfreude:something I am immune of

It takes a great humanity not to feel happiness in the losses or defeat of one's rivals or enemies.
That is what Schadenfreude is.
It looks it is quite common among Germans, they have this specific word for it, while we Italian do not.
As I said it takes a great humanity or just a lot of argute well thinking and willing.
I am definitely NOT happy if my friends or enemies are ot lucky or happy.
The reason is very simple, if you're not happy soon I won't too.
I am thoroughly happy knowing some of my relatives got suddenly rich.
He won't need me and I would look much more welcome for what is it worth to be rich and lucky if you do not have anybody to shout it to?

Nostalgia is a universal word for sadness

Nostalgia is bitter because reveals to us that, while we are able to remember the past, we cannot live it again.
And it is a perverse feeling since it brings to memory only the good part of the past, intentionally avoiding the bad side of it.
Nostalgia can come in many flavours and many colours, but only one taste.
The sour test of a past that won’t come anymore.

Money is corrupting also ideologies:Piracy reaches a modern milestone

Traditional guerrilla movements based their existence on ideologies or political agendas.
But the advent of Global Markets hit their beliefs substituting market values for ideological or political values.
A modern guerrilla movement doesn't put ideology or politics first, but economic and its intrinsic value is directly dependent o the group's ability to produce wealth.
This can lead to greater results, since greater wealth means better opportunities of operational success.
This makes modern guerrillas much more dangerous than in the past.

There is nowhere to hide from the collapse of 2008: that is Globalisation

A few European stocks are up this year and it looks like there are almost no stocks showing gains.
And they say Globalisation doesn't work.
What it surely fails to do is producing profits, but this is another story.
Many asset prices were pumped up in years past by excessive debt, and are now falling while investors reduced their borrowing.
Bubble after bubble we have (finally) come to the biggest bubble of all: the Economy bubble.
But it is not the Economy problem, as it is not the Globalisation problem.
What very few say and the others won't see is what is lacking from the picture: the swindlers' list.
And to put a stop to this catastrophe the only thing they are able to do is shovelling cash into any enterprise that declares suffering (nice word for bankruptcy) and the only effect they reach is killing the value of that cash.
The World has changed faster than forecasted and may be in a different direction, what hasn't changed is the way to solve the problems.
It is like beginning to drink to forget your problems, at the end you finish much worse than you began, you are in the same shit, but you are additionally addicted to alcohol.

Crude Oil Tumbles to Lowest Since May 2005 as Consumption

Crude Oil Tumbles to Lowest Since May 2005 as Consumption
bloomberg.com — Crude oil fell below $49 a barrel in New York for the first time since May 2005 as a recession in the U.S., Europe and Japan cut global energy.

Well Globalisation means exactly that: Global disaster...

Whose fault is it?

Does it really matter to know whose fault it is or it would matter more to know: how will we come out of the recession?
Globalisation came and hit us all alluring us in the beginning, letting us hope that you didn't really need to produce when there was somebody else who produced for us and so much cheaper.
Why not just buying there and reselling here?
So, what went wrong?
It went on as long as Americans could pay swapping debts and selling them as gold.
Paying with money that was worth much less than what it looked, not because the dollar itself looses value, but because if you print too much of it, there magically comes the moment in which there are too many dollars and people begin to think they do not want to be paid in dollars, just to be safe, they want something that looks safer.
The prices of the houses went up and up as long as there was a buyer for them.
But when the request is smaller than the offer, it is a market rule that prices go down.
What partially saved Europe (and my country) is that first we do not have so much land pro capite, so that you cannot build more than a certain amount, and that makes prices more stable, second, and this is valid especially for my country, we have a lot of legal and ILLEGAL immigration.
That certainly means that the offer of houses is not (at this moment at least)superior to the demand.
Whose fault is it?
First of the people who just do not care. They go to vote, they delegate and they get angry if the delegates do not do what they were supposed to.
But we all know that when there is nobody who controls, well it is easy to go in the wrong direction...
So, let's put all faults together, because in the end it really doesn't matter who or what, it matters how we all come out.

Michael Moore: What We're Seeing is the End of Capitalism

We are witnessing the end of Capitalism as a few years ago we witnessed the end of the Socialism or Communism.
But what really is and was, is just the end of that perverse form of Capitalism or Communism that was nothing more than a lie and a big distortion of reality.
Communism meant just that the mass worked to make a few richer and richer.
Exactly what Capitalism meant.
I was very impressed some years ago with a documentary showing a huge fire in a forest.
Everything looked lost and finished, but among the ashes in a few days you could see millions of new born plants, much stronger and vital than the big old trees that were destroyed.
New life against old decay.
That is what we need.
Let the big go bankruptcy, new lives will grow, healthier and stronger than the old decaying bunch of crooks.

The fuel of the future is going to be water

An MIT chemist succeeded in creating hydrogen from water using sun as catalyst.
In this way Solar power could be the main source of energy.
He was able to generate oxygen from water just as green plants do during photosynthesis.
This is an achievement that could have profound implications in the energy debate.
Besides solar power can generate a huge amount of clean energy, and this way solves also the problem of storage to use it later.
Hydrogen fuel could be easily stored and be burned later.
And in a second step, it could also be possible to use sea water, which could result in the production of energy and drinkable water.

Will Windows 7 be free?

Giving Windows 7 for free would be a strategical move that could lead Microsoft to have ads on a billion machines versus the twelve people that currently use MSN ( infact Microsoft’s operating systems are on 90% of the world’s computers).
Besides, free is a magic, seductive word to IT departments.
That could make Microsoft the winner against Google which made $4 billion and has been developing an ad-centric operating system that will not only compete, but dominate if Microsoft doesn’t market software differently than they have in the past.

Well will it or won't?
Dreaming is nice and costs nothing...

A new look deserves the right frame...

This Christmas I am going to have a new look.
Something you can remember for long.
I will try that new "lifting" lotion that promises miracles, a new short dress, may be a red dress, and new special Holiday frames for my glasses.
There is nothing that can change a face more than a new pair of glasses.
Especially if they are "star shaped" like the ones I have in mind.
They are green, which goes perfectly with a red dress (but also with a nice navy blue coat), green cashmere shawl ( I already saw the right one on eBay and I am just waiting the last minute to bid).
They are 100% plastic and of course they are not too expensive, on the contrary they are really cheap, but they have the quality I mostly like: to be cheap and look tremendously expensive.
Some years ago, before the Internet arrived on the scene you only had a few shops to go to buy what you liked and the prices were much higher than today.
And besides you had to spend a lot of time shopping, looking and buying.
Today you go in the right website, where they have the best frames and also prescription glasses and you can spend even less than what I am going to spend: just $8!
But mine are something special and I am happy to spend something more...

How could an America device understand English spoken by English?

A new voice-recognition search tool for the iPhone has problems understanding British accents, leading to some bizarre answers to spoken queries, a newspaper report and users said Wednesday.

The free application, which allows iPhone owners to use the Google search engine with their voice, mistook the word "iPhone" variously for "sex," "Einstein" and "kitchen sink," said the Daily Telegraph.

Comments left by users on the application's website seemed to confirm the problem. "Awesome job google. only problem is every time I say the word 'fish' it registers as 'sex'," wrote one, identified as Kevin.

A video demonstration of the Google Mobile App on the online giant's website shows an American engineer successfully asking for pictures of the Golden Gate as well as cinema timetables and temperature conversions. More

iPnone is American, and has its limits...

We just do not care...

Too many bad and cruelty news can make you numb to them.
What happened to us?
As for suicide bombings and the smorgasbord of tragedy that occurs every day in the East, many of us don’t want to hear about it anymore.
Many of us just turn and switch, as if what we do not see or hear doesn't exist anymore.
All what we come to is to make an offer at Christmas for this or that cause and we feel so human, so much better.
I did something...
Four killed, 10 killed, 20 killed. Pakistan, Israel, Iraq.
They are somebody else...

So why are we having a recession?

"So why are we having a recession? At least partially because we were talked into it.
We're somewhere between the end of the last bubble and the beginning of the next one. More fortunes’will be made by investing now and waiting patiently for returns than waiting for a safe time to invest."

Well, I guess we are at the end of the road.
We have reached the bottom. And I see no way out of it than trying to find a new road.
Unless you want to try to dig a little further; since the World is round there is no real bottom.
If you are good enough may be in a few centuries you could reach the other Hemisphere.
But no one of us is going to live that long and we have to eat now and NOT in a couple of centuries ( I at least do not have enough reserve of fat and breath...)
Why are we having a recession?
I know, as the saying goes, the last thing you see is the one you have in front of your eyes..., but it is so clear.
When All bubbles have exploded, when the exchange of debts and worthless paper money has reached the end, when nobody wants to work for making the others living a comfortable life, the others have to decide: are they willing to work to make their own food or are they going to die waiting for food that will not come anymore?
Miracles are good and dreams are even better, but many died dreaming, and the ones who survived were usually the ones who didn't dream...
What about producing? What about doing real work?
Not sitting on a chair in front of a computer selling and buying, hoping to sell high and buy low, so that the people who really work to make the money they play with get poorer and poorer while they get richer and richer...
What about opening their eyes and realizing the good times are definitely gone...

I read some time ago something that in a few words explained the actual situation:

Islam does not hate freedom, democracy or even the "American way of life". It is the price other people have to pay for America to have that way of life - that is what has everybody so pissed off.

What if that is true?

Of course you can go on fighting against hatred and anger, against terrorism and terroristic actions.
But if you want to stop it, may be you should buy a good mirror and begin to look into it.
If you want to solve the problem of weeds it pays to go to the roots...

What is teaching, learning, communication?

To know is to know the story.
To teach is to be able to tell the story.
To learn is to be able to listen to a story and to extract the meaning of it.
Teaching and learning is communicating.
The moment you are able to understand a story you are able to learn and the moment you are able to explain a story you can be a teacher.
Communication is exchanging the stories of our life.

When it comes to long lasting...

What would everybody want his or her marriage to be like?

1) Long lasting, if possible forever.
2) Trustworthy
3) Relationship resistant to any turmoil
4) The ability to be a forever shining communion
5) A partner who is available wherever and whenever needed.

That is why you should choose titanium wedding rings.

Because Titanium is the best element to represent all that.
It is as strong as the steel,(but 45% lighter), just like your relationship should be, strong, but leaving to both the feeling of being "light", two individuals who live together because they want to and not because they have to.
Titanium is shining, lustrous, just like your marriage should be.
It has a silver colour, but it doesn't oxidize. It is always shining and corrosion resistant (including to salt and chlorine), just like your marriage should be, time resistant and habit resistant.
But if you are looking for something really "stylish" and special why not black tungsten rings?
If you are looking for a ring that will always look perfect (because it is one of the best as scratch and wear proof substance) you should buy a Tungsten ring with ceramic inlays.
Zirconium ceramic has a black colour mixed with a metallic appearance.
In the meantime it is lightweight, very hard and resistant, and a perfect choice for a contemporary look.
These rings come with a lifetime warranty (there is no need in principle, because it is almost impossible to scratch or ruin them) and with the possibility of having your name or your partner's name or a date, engraved on the inside.
You can easily order them online, providing the right size.
And if you do not know the right size?
You can ask for a sizing set and be 100% sure.
And in case you are not at the point of needing a ring, or you want something additional to wear with your ring, you can have also titanium bracelets, which are fabulous and add that small touch of class to any style.
You can choose among many designs or even create your own.
Every item is individually hand crafted after receiving the order and that makes it almost unique.
The production time is usually up to 10 days after the confirmation of the size.
The cost of shipping is quite low and the shipment is via FedEx.
And last, but not least important:
Avant-garde Titanium offers you a 14 day money-back guarantee period to ensure your complete satisfaction!

Good bye copper POTS

"I can easily counter predict that there will be plenty of landlines left in the country by the end of Obama's term, and if he goes eight years, there will still be plenty of good old copper dial tone…" Ted Wallingford

"The reason copper-POTS will disappear is simple. Use of POTS landlines are declining. Worse, the most lucrative voice customers are the first to drop their landlines in favour of VoIP" Tom Evslin

I am with you Tom.
As I, in spite of the fact that my only IT background is my husband, am with everything which is new (and is worth of course).
But I am with Ted Wallingford too.
It is a general perception that product development and consumer acceptance are now occurring in a fraction of the traditional time as if anything could change in the blink of an eye...
While product development cycles have become noticeably shorter, consumers do not operate on Internet time. New technologies do not diffuse notably more rapidly than they used to.
Because technology doesn't really go with the mass.
There is always a restricted number of people "New lovers" and the mass of the people "Habit lovers".
And the Habit lovers are usually people of the old generation, the one that goes under the name of "boom generation" which includes the bigger number of individuals.
Internet telephony (VoIP) already in 1995 it was predicted to bring imminent doom for the established phone companies, but it is barely noticeable today.
In spite of Skype's success, the "Habits lovers" still prefer the traditional phone, no, they prefer the cell phone.
It is like a traditional phone and you can use it everywhere.
I would say that Skype in one way did more harm than good.
It spread the VoIP, but since its quality is not always good, its availability not always available, its security very low, it gave the false idea that all VoIP is like Skype.
While it is not.
If you introduce on the market a competitor which is worse than the service you compete with, you will loose the chance to show consumers the real alternative.
The Internet is a potent communication tool, offering unprecedented volume, speed, and reach of information. It does change everything, just like the telegraph, the telephone, and electricity did.
It is just that people do not operate on Internet time, and so change is slower than the enthusiasts predicted.

A peaceful change

"The relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio.
In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a pay check.
That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old.
Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.

Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the post-war era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent.
Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future.
In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them.
India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead."

That could partially explain the economic strength of the West world in the age of the "Baby Boomers".
As strange and hideous as it can look, a war is sometimes what helps the economy.
Like a big fire in a Forest allows the birth of new and stronger plants (and the death of the old) so, usually a war produces a radical change in a society.
On the other end, aren't we cultured enough to understand that what we need IS NOT a war, but just a peaceful change in leaders?

The "American Dream"

Consumerism is the American dream
Consumerism is not only the American dream, is what made America (and the West world) what they are.
It is the basement of our economy, of our society, of our life.
If we stop consuming the whole society goes bust.
We have to consume and always consume more, because we have to produce and always produce more.
The answer is not suddendly change our habits, our mentality.
The answer is finding what will allow us to go on this way for some time more, as long as we need to have a gradual change.
Because oil or not oil we cannot go on forever consuming more and more.
The media cannot go on controlling more and more. Sooner or later people will wake up, let it be a gradual waking up.
Revolutions feed on sudden changes, progress feeds in gradual improvement.
Let us change our mentality, consuming less and caring more for the real values of life.
But let's not make it a conditio sine qua non.

The Internet's Future

"The bursting of the high-tech bubble is moving the prevailing social mood from Internet worship to cynicism.
Yet just as the early attitude was overoptimistic, the new one could easily become unjustifiably overpessimistic."
In both cases the reason IS not an overreaction, but a misunderstanding of what the Internet means and can produce.
In most cases the genious who discovered or invented something innovative and revolutionary usually was not the one who made the biggest profit out of it.
Usually it was the one who understood or incidentally found out how to use it for a "killing Application".

The Internet is the Network of networks and its big value is in its ubiquity more than in its technological structure.
It worked when the connection was very lousy and the bandwidth very low.
It worked because people liked it and liked to use it.
100% of them.
It grew because thanks to its ubiquity it could offer possibilities to everybody, no matter where and how.

But the Internet has still a lot of unveiled possibilities to offer.
The first applications in a new invention are usually a better copy of the existing ones.
The Internet is nothing else that "dumb pipes"....with intelligence at the edges, the opposite of the pre-existing networks.
The dumb network in a world of intelligent networks.
But the Internet is much more than that.
It is a "universal content delivery", but even though the "universal" would make it already the winning application, most do not see that its innovative feature is not only in the widespread footprint but in the fact that it is the first network that can afford the delivery of "moving content" besides the usual "static content" to which we are used.

Radio, TV, Satellite, they all were means of distribution of "static content" or "one way network".
The Internet is the first "two way network", in the sense that the customer can be in the same time consumer and producer.
I can download, but I can also upload.
This small detail changes dramatichally the full picture.
And this is something the young teenager understood since long, while the big companies still do not see.
The future killer applications will probably be the one of the unknown John or Mohamed or Giovanni...

Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam

It is sometimes refreshing to know that there are still people who trust and believe.
If you find somebody (like me) who doesn't trust anybody or anything, who sees the catch everywhere and in everything you can be sure he (or she) is

Fist: Italian
Second: Middle Class
Third: Somebody who has already been cheated in any possible way.

What saved me is that I dislike so much to spend my money that I usually invest very little.
Sometimes that helps.
At least you loose that little and not all.

But being so stubborn to be cheated, that is something I cannot understand.
When you begin to loose, you should just stop.
Get what you can and even if that is nothing, just flee away.

Looking for website hosting?

This post is for people who are looking for a good website hosting and people who already have their site hosted somewhere and are looking for a better website hosting.
You can browse following my link and carefully read about the major hosting places.
Then you can really understand and decide which one is the best for your needs.
You can chose depending on the price (it can be as low as $3.95 a month) or the amount of traffic and space, or the OS they have (Unix or Microsoft), or the reliability, or easily depending on their ratings.
But if you really want to go deeper, you just lick on the name of the Hosting and you can easily access all the details.
Since the competition is hard, the advantages you can get are unlimited...
For example Hostmonster ( I particularly like this name, a real monster in hosting) "specializes in customer satisfaction. "
And you can really try them, just call the Toll Free number and check...
Once in a while it feels good knowing that somebody really cares...
The features a web hosting company can offer are not limited to that.
They can offer the Best Forum (it is not bad for a company to have a forum where customers can explain their needs)or the best ecommerce hosting (this is for the ones who have online sales) or best dedicated Web Hosting.
This in case you need more than just a website on the Internet.
They offer good support, only good Servers, excellent uptime, technical expertise, easy of use and last, but not least, a very good price.
The only way to get what you pay for is knowing all the smallest details and ...then decide.

"The promiscuous swapping around of risk and rewards is over."

Mr Obama is a great orator, a great example of that common rhetoric that goes under the name of "political Jargon".
Promise everything, even a bright future, deny all efforts, don't put limits to individual will, just do not say tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, just say in the future or, may be , to be more credible, in the near future.
Say everything and say nothing, so that nobody will be able to say "He didn't fulfil".
"The fiasco of medical care is certainly a product of connivance between greedy and heartless insurance companies, profit-driven hospitals, and avaricious drug-makers. But the public itself is responsible for its own suicidal diet of double cheez burritos and Dr. Pepper."
People will say: he is right, because the fault is not here or there is somewhere in the middle.
"The promiscuous swapping around of risk and rewards is over."(JK)
But it is over also the car industry.
Because people will soon realize that going by foot is not only much cheaper, but it is the only way they can still afford.
As they will soon realize that wind and water are not only nice to see, but useful to our life, more useful than oil.(and more affordable too)

They will realize (if they haven't yet) that the word "globalism" has a different meaning.
It is not only importing at cheap prices, so that the others work and we enjoy, but import-export.
That means I work too...otherwise, how can I make the money to pay for the imports?
In History everything goes in cycles and the current cycle is obviously ending with a thundering crash of economies, because of the previous imbalance.
The industrial revolution in the 19th century caused a huge unemployment resulting in people reduced to starving in the beginning, but it lasted the time the owner of the factories realized that without consumers the machines worked for nothing.
We are in a similar situation.
Once every trick of consuming without producing is gone (the fantasy economy, made in a pseudo virtual world, made with paper and bonds and money worth less and less) we are left wit the sad reality that if you want to consume you HAVE TO produce.
If you want to eat, somebody has to produce the food and that somebody is not willing to work for a piece of worthless paper...

The Intelligent Designer

“Modern evolutionary biology is mostly wrong. Life arose through multiple creation events by an intelligent designer, although evolution by natural selection played a limited role.”

The answer to all is in the DNA.
This secret (no more so) code which tells the cells how to reproduce and what to build.
A human will be a human because his DNA tells the cells how to create a human, a dog will be a dog for the same reason.
Yes I agree, there must be a big brain behind all this.
And of course the DNA changes and "evolves" because it is programmed to do so.
You must adapt to the conditions of the environment in which you have to live and to reproduce.
This explains the evolution and most of the illnesses of today.
Our DNA is trying to "evolve" because the environment is changing.
But since its changing is not following the usual patterns, so the DNA makes mistakes or what we see as mistakes.

We have to stop thinking that what we do not understand and cannot explain doesn't exist...

About Marijuana

"Violent crime ebbs and flows, often depending on locale, but someone please explain to me why people who favour smoking pot, which is arguably much less dangerous than excessive consumption of alcohol, are the prey of police officers across the country? "

Marijuana is a subject I am quite fond of, because my Laurea Thesis was about it (the pharmacological use of).
I personally am not against its legalisation, but I understand who is against.
The danger is not in IT (even though it has dangerous side effects when it is used regularly)but in the fact that often it is the door to heavy addictions.
Tolerance to it can occur quite soon and, since the ones who use it not for a pharmacological use,(at this point I can assure everybody that Morphine, when required, is much more effective)are very likely people who are in search of "emotions" they won't stop to it.

Alcohol is a very dangerous addiction too, I would say one of the most dangerous addictions.
Because you can find alcohol everywhere and at cheap prices.

What we should fight is not the use of this or that, it is the conditions which bring people to use this or that.
Beginning with young people.
The use of drugs is very often just a way to prove to be "somebody" to be able to belong to a "group".
It is the false meaning of it that we should fight.
In principle it is a lack of education, a lack of "presence" of the parents.
We (and I include myself in it) are the generation of the "self made career woman" or "self made man" which very often resulted in neglecting the role we are made for: reproducing ourselves and caring for our offspring’s.

It is a general degeneration in ideals and the victory of the ideal of money.
Profit comes first, the rest is just sentiments.
We very often created monsters whose main ambition is to reach this or that position, to earn more to possess more, to be able to be more.

Thus we live in a world where we do not understand what is happening, where not to increase the PIL every year means to go backward, where if a company doesn't make millions is not worth to exist, where the one who counts is at the top and the "American Dream" is to be able to reach the top...

How to make (easy) money

First and unavoidable: YOU MUST BE a Telecom.

Second: You must have it in your blood (the instinct how to cheat your customers)

Third: you must squeeze your customers in order to pay huge salaries to your managers.
(Which in principle should sound like this: The Managers suck the customers in order to pay huge salaries to themselves)

Fourth: Try to "involve" as many politicians as you can.

One clear example of the written and stated above:

They got rich and still get rich doing what many did in another fields.
They are like Art and Antique dealers.

The firsts (Art and Antique dealers) buy Junk and sell Art and Antiques, the seconds (Telecoms) buy VoIP and sell normal telephone calls...

That is where the profit comes...

High Risk Auto Insurance doesn't always mean High Price Insurance

Are you what they call a "risk driver"?
Did your Insurance tell you, between the lines, that if you chose them is good, but if you chose somebody else is better?
My saying is: who doesn't want me doesn't deserve my money.
Luckily there is a Sr22 Insurance which has been providing Insurance for High Risk Drivers for over 20 years.
They have several options you can chose, and among them you will certainly find the tailored High Risk Auto Insurance that fits your needs.

At this point you could think that yes they insure you, but it certainly would cost you more.
My answer is no.
They even can make you saving money.
If you are not a risk driver, but you think you are paying too much for your insurance you should try Car Insurance Quote California and you could have a nice surprise!
Well, before deciding it pays to see what's on the market.

Kids

The problem of yeasterday was that there were too many children.
So that we were "just children..."
The problem of today is that there are too few children, so that "the children are the most important thing: they are our future..."

I think that the right, is, as usual in the middle.
Children are important, as it is important education and environment, but people have their rights too...

What I think about Google

"Google should be presumed virtuous until proven evil. Just because it could be evil does not mean it is. Just being big and powerful does not make it evil. In this country, we tend to value success until one becomes too successful, and then we become suspicious. How much success is too much?" Jeff Jarvis

Do morality and profit go together?
They could, and somebody must say they should, but they usually do not need to.
Usually profit comes first.
Because morality doesn't fill your stomach as well as profit.
Sometimes it doesn't at all.

Do performance and profit go together?
Usually they do. If you are successful you must be good, it is not always true the other way around, if you are good you are not necessarily successful.
Success depends on many variables.
First you must be known and to be known you must be widespread.
Google was there at the right moment, at the right time and was as good as nobody else.
You tried it, you were satisfied and you were addicted.
So addicted that when you search, automatically you type Google.com.
"In China and in other nations where free speech is attacked, Google should use its power and influence - which are greater than even it seems to know - to refuse to issue censored search results."

I do not see how Google could.
Once you are out, what can you do to improve free speech?

" I also wish that Google were more transparent about the business arrangement in its ad networks. Google demands transparency from the rest of us - if we want Google juice - but it is too often opaque itself. But opaqueness has long been standard procedure in business."

Well the usual saying goes: We all have the same rights, as long as Google has its own rights...When you have power you also have privileges...

"Our world is a better place because of Google"

I wouldn't say better.
More people are on the Internet. More people are connected and can easily communicate.
Google has a more effective and "independent" PR, where more or less everybody has his "right"(more or less) placement on the Internet.
Google gave the chance to companies to create products, jobs, value, and wealth.

All this existed before Google and will exist after Google, but Google gave a voice to it, created hierarchies so that more or less everybody is entitled to shout when his turn comes and if he has something interesting to say.

And if he doesn't (or Google thinks he doesn't), he will be after the 10 pages of the search...relegated to eternal anonymity...

Addicted to bargains...

If you are an addicted to bargains like me THIS is your season.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Shopping, without talking about Winter's sales and similar...
The good thing is that my son was born in July, so that I can afford a little bargains spree before beginning the long uneventful Summer season in which you can only think of vacations and things like these...
Christmas is definitely my season.
And a website where they offer savings on Shipping is MY website.
If you have a small grandchild (grandmothers are the best buyers) you can chose among 12 toys for Christmas at a very good (discounted) price.
In case your grandchild is older you have the best selection of discount offers at Computer stores.
For example you can buy a Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor for only $699!
But what about yourself? Or myself of course?
At Top quality Stores you can find that "something extra" (it means something you really do not need, but you terribly want and like) at the Something Extra Sale – Extra 15-20% off...
After you bought most of your presents (and spent most of your money) it is not bad to find an offer of low prices on ink cartridges without promotional code requirements.
You always need a card to go with your presents, and you can print the most wonderful Greetings cards without spending a fortune!

Knowledge is a need

Before 1492 Columbus idea of the roundness of the Globe was rejected and some (Galileo) even went into prison for sponsoring it.
Most of the existing countries believed it was a waste of money to send Columbus on a wild chase to reach the East going West.
Yet the discovery of the New World made a big difference to the Old one (and may be that was one of the reasons nobody wanted to reach the East going West, because that meant what actually happened, that the Mediterranean world lost its commercial and financial power).
We are at the same crossing now: spreading out into space will have an even greater effect; it will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.
It won't have an immediate change in our lifestyle on earth, but it will give us a new perspective of our problems and may be solve them.
It is going to be a long term dicovery, meaning we will reach the goal of a base into space in nothing less than 50 years and it won't be cheap of course.
Many would object that money would be better spent in solving the problems of our earth, but in my opinion it would cause great advances in technology, as it did in the past, like the first large-scale integrated circuits which are the basis of all modern computers.
It would also mean a change in interest in Science and technology.
We live in a society that is increasingly governed by science and technology, yet fewer and fewer know anything about science.
Since Ulisse's times there was and will always be the need for humans to know where we live and where we came from.

About remodelling...

I think I have reached the age in which if I decide to remodel it is worth a lot thinking of remodelling my home.
I have given up remodelling myself, just looking around at the women of my age with new noses, new chins and terrible new lips.
But how refreshing and satisfying sitting in a brand new living room and working in a brand new kitchen!
One of the thing I always envied to the Americans is how most of them can make a house looking like a real home.
I guess the main secret is that they have a good choice and great ideas from companies like Dallas Remodeling.
In principle for them it is a need and a good investment.
A need because they have to change home quite often and a good investment because a nice looking home is much easier to sell.
Remodeling in Dallas is a good return of investment.
First you enjoy upgrading your kitchen and bathroom (without forgetting the bedroom of course), then you can save on energy consummation investing in better windows and doors and in an isolated roof of course.
Second adding a garage or new space to the existing besides giving you more room for living, gives also a better value to your home.
Third, you can also add new mirrors which think twice before reflecting what they see.
I personally love those who make you looking much taller and thinner...I know it is a trick, but my day begins in a much better way when I see a good looking woman in the mirror.
Well, I just "remodelled" myself in the easiest way...

What I learned from...movies

When I was a child (long time ago) I attended a Religious school.
Very often we were showed movies which had the purpose to be "Educational helper".
If a picture is worth 1K words, a movie (we called it film) is worth 1 million.
Usually it was the story of a family where the grandmother was a crippled, chained to a wheelchair, the mother a widow since long, with many children, a lousy job and more work than life.
The main character was one of the sons, usually born with some physical handicap, who thanks to his work, his faith in God, was able to help himself and his family no matter how many problems and troubles happened in his life.
That was done to remind you that, no matter how bad your life was, there is always somebody who is in a worse situation, whose life is more difficult, but Religion and Faith will help you no matter what.

Later, as a grown up, my taste in films changed.
I saw Blow up, Easy Rider, all the Spaghetti Western and so on.
I realized that life was different, that no matter how rich you were, there was always somebody wealthier than you, that life was full of fucking bastards and criminals, that dying was much easier than what you could believe, that nothing could really help you, that the criminals were always a step ahead of you and so on...

What did I learn?
That Movies, as much as they can resemble life, are always something else.
That there is no good or bad, no good way of living, no bad way of living.
There is you and there is one life.
And you live it as you can, with mistakes and good and bad.
Nothing can really prepare or teach you for life.
Movies are worth 1 million words, but you still need the 1 million and one.
Religion and faith can help you, if you really believe in them, the problem is believing.
Movies tell you the life of somebody else, which you can like or dislike.
But he is still somebody else.
Just like a book you enjoy reading.
When you arrive to the end, you read the last page, you close the book and you see YOUR WORLD and YOUR LIFE.
The show, too bad, has an end...

How to be a (happy) alien

Yes, I and whoever has the joy to know me, consider myself something like an alien.
And I am happy about being something like this.
First I heavily, drastically, definitely dislike things like cream, high calories food like pasta and lasagne and fatty snacks.
I love salads and fruit and fish.
Second I have a peculiar dislike of all cars.
I love trains and buses, even though I live in a country where infrastructures are so old and non functional that to cover fifty kilometres it takes half a day.
Third I hate cell phones and hardly tolerate telephones.
I dislike talking to somebody I cannot look in the eyes and I hate small talks.
I love to work in my garden to lie in the sun, to listen to music, to read.
I like to live and life for me is just that.
I wasn't this way.
I used to be somebody who thought to have a "high standard of living" till I realized how poorly I lived.
I am an alien, my only regret is thinking how much better life would be if people understood how nice is to be an alien.

Yes we want and may be we can...

"The objective is not to assure that no auto company goes bankrupt; the objective IS to keep Americans working on making America a better place. The manufacturers and their suppliers that win the bids to supply the US government with a green, fuel-efficient fleet, will then be well-positioned and retooled so that they can sell these products to the rest of us and the rest of the world once we start buying cars again. " Tom Evslin

Yes we can. I am using we because I include the rest of the World. Since we are Global and since a butterfly in one Hemisphere can change the weather in the other, I like to talk about WE.
Since nothing is impossible when you really want it, the only variable is what and how.
"If people don't buy cars, there is no amount of bailout that will save the millions of US jobs in and related to car manufacturing."
People do not buy cars because oil is too expensive, but they shouldn't buy cars because traffic is getting impossible and the air is so polluted people die either for a car accident or for cancer.
There is no green fuel that can provide us with a safe environment like the no fuel at all.
We are at the verge of a new Era.
We have to decide: either going on this way (OK with the alternative, not cheap and not so easy, of green fuel) or change our habits, investing in public transportations, allowing people to go working in trains and saving them from stress, illnesses and traffic jams, saving our cities planting more trees, letting the roads to pedestrians, teaching our children that we got two legs for walking and two arms for doing intelligent things (not just pushing buttons of a cell phone) or going on in this mad way of ruining the place we live, condemning ourselves to a never ending stress, to consuming more and more, to communicate (real communication) less and less, to delegate the grocery store for our meals, the commercials for our needs.

"Some commenter’s point out that it takes more than three years just to plan a new car and retool the factories. They're certainly right that's how long it USUALLY takes."
Who cares how long it takes?
We want to change. Don't we? Yes we want and may be we can...

A healthy economy made by healthy people

Americans have fallen again.
No matter how and when and why, as we say, one Pope dead, another one is elected, so one dream gone the next one comes into the scene.
They talk about the "American dream" I would talk of the "American dreamers".
But of course it applies also to Italians and Europeans...
We still haven't stopped to believe in miracles and we also are very good in believing the cause of all our troubles is this or that politician, this or that Bank and so on.
We like to believe it, because it makes it easier to believe we will be able to change our situation just changing this or that.
I never believed in miracles, even though I liked to dream that something could happen just having the right magic wand.
One day I woke up and the age of the magic wand was gone, it had left the reality of a hard life where I had to work to get what I wanted.
But that was the interesting side of it.
What comes easy has no value, what you have to fight for is the only thing worth something.
I do not think Obama or anybody else can change this society or this economy.
I believe we can change our life giving the right priorities to the right ideals, having one phone that lasts several years and investing our time and resources to more interesting past times.
Sometimes what looks terrible has great surprises.
A different economy is waiting to be born, but it is nothing like the one that has died. The economy-to-come is one of rigor and austerity.
From the valueless people economy to the world where individuals count and produce.
A healthy economy made by healthy people.

How to sleep and have nice dreams

The secret of sleeping well is very often having no burdens and no worries.
That is also the secret of living well.
There are things we cannot avoid like illnesses and accidents, but what we can avoid is the bad consequences of them.
Last May I had a very unpleasant visit during the night.
I had thieves who were so good that stole my car and several nice things from my home without even waking me up!
That is something very common in my country and it happens so often that I do not know a single person who didn't have thieves at least once in his home...
Well, theft is something you cannot avoid, what you can avoid is, like in my case, to have troubles depending on it.
I was luckily insured and in a very little time I had a new car (which I even like better than the other) and new paintings.
What I didn't buy was new jewellery, because now a day you can find fake rings and necklaces that look like real and cost nothing.
So, what is the lesson?
Never stay without a good Car Insurance or a home insurance.
But how to choose the best?
Just letting the others choose for you.
Smart people trust Budget, which is going to do the hard work for them.
They are UK's leading insurance intermediaries and can get you the good cheap and reliable insurance you need.
You just need to choose one of the special deals they have already negotiated with the 20 leading car insurance providers and you're done!
But not only.
What I find interesting is the Frequently Asked Questions page.
You can really find out what you should ask and need from an insurance. I really think it pays to know before deciding.
As it pays to know how much that is going to cost you.
Get a quote and compare it with your actual insurance.
You will be surprised to find out how much you can save!

How to do a lot doing nothing (or almost)

1) Do it the right way.
It takes a little bit longer, but you won't have to redo it, saving money and time...

2) Spend time and plan before doing it (remember: "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe.")

3) Do not under evaluate connections. You can reach high goals helping others and mostly being helped.

4) Avoid too many words. I dislike people who talk a lot. Talking is losing time and money.

5) Dream doing the impossible. Everybody can do what is possible, just dreamers can do the rest...

6) And never forget: what is urgent today, tomorrow will certainly be very urgent

Freedom of disconnection

In New Zealand a new copyright act went into effect on 1st November. The most controversial clause has been delayed until 28th February. This clause says that an ISP must have a policy of disconnecting anyone repeatedly accused of copyright infringment. ...

That means if you download too much and for too long they have the right to cut you out.
There's no oppourtunity to defend yourself, no recourse for reconnection, and there's no penalty for false accusations. If you want someone off the internet you need only repeatedly accuse them of copyright infringement ("repeatedly" has legal precidents to mean 3 times). Aparently file sharing is so bad you don't even get a trial (can they not see where that logic leads?).

If that is in New Zealand, I shouldn't bother, but I do.
The Internet was the "Land of Freedom" and it is slowly getting exactly like the rest of the world. Not even virtual reality belongs to you.
I want a place where I can at least dream to be free...

Last week

That was a historical week!
USA got a new President, I got a new home and became a grandmother.
I still do not know which one is the best news, future will tell.
For now I am back in Italy, hoping to go soon to Germany and live there.
Then, may be when I will be in Germany I will miss Italy and hope to come back, who knows?
For now life looks nice and full of surprises.

Back to Caos

Yes, I am finally back.
From a country where not only trains and planes are in time, now they even are earlier...
After arriving in Milano 40 minutes earlier on the plane, we managed to lose all the time with the usual Italian strike.
After a delay of 5 hours on a trip of 2 hours, we were even happy that we got a train and could be home at 1.30 in the morning.
The site was quite depressing, old dirty trains (the few we could see).
Most trips were cancelled, and the few remaining had up to 24 hours delay...
But, as I said, we were really lucky.
Had we chosen the next day we wouldn't even had been able to touch the Italian soil...with the airport strike...
Well Italy is definitely not the place to be, at least right now.
You would think that when people reach the bottom the only thing they have to do is beginning to rise.
That is not true for Italy.
Italians, as usual, know better, they are trying to dig further, hoping to come up in the opposite Hemisphere.
Well, dreaming costs nothing and helps to survive... Good Luck!

Quedlinburg, my future home

Yes, this is going to be my house near soon...
It looks a little bit decadent, but that is what I like of it.
Going back into the past, 1500...
My furniture is already on the way and I will be there soon.
At least for a week, next week...
East Germany lost the DDR, but got me...
I guess it was all for good. (at least for me)

How to lose the chance to get votes...

"Kids in this suburban Detroit neighborhood cried foul after a McCain supporter refused to give them candy because they were the children of Obama supporters. Whatever your politics, I think we can all agree it's beyond the pale to deny children candy on Halloween."

If this is true, which I still can't believe, they missed a good chance.
The road to the heart of a child goes by his mouth, just like the road to his parents' heart goes by their children...

You want to fuck me? Well you just WON'T.

Don't download movies illegally. That is like ripping out a human heart.
I bet most of people who download illegally do not think the same.
Downloading is not stealing, is just having for free something which costs too much.
Seeing the copyrights holders as criminals who are too greedy to release the products at the price they would be worth, makes the action of downloading not only far from a theft, almost a sign of Freedom and Justice.

You want to fuck me?
Well you just WON'T...

Are they brave or they just do not know what they are doing?

There is a main difference between a young person and an old one.
The first doesn't care about risks, very often drives at full speed, climbs hard mountains, and does the most weird actions risking his life.
An old person tends to over evaluate risks, sometimes limiting his own actions for fear of dying.
It is not a matter of bravery or cowardice, it is matter of being closer to the moment.
The closer you get, the more you try to avoid it.
That is life and survival instinct.
But it is also a matter of realizing what you do and thinking before doing.

The same in my opinion applies to the fact that many more teenagers are getting pregnant and want to keep the child.
Which is much better than once, when girls (and boys of course) had sex and didn't want the consequence of it, mostly for a hypocrite view of the society, where you used to be an outsider, if you didn't follow certain rules, one of them being the one which required to be married to have a child.

“Like so many other American families who are in the same situation, I think it’s great that she instilled in her daughter the values to have the child and not to sneak off someplace and have an abortion.”
“even though young children are making that decision to become pregnant, they’ve also decided to take responsibility for their actions and decided to follow up with that and get married and raise this child.”

But I still think we are far away from the right decision.
The society accepts new rules, but what about the child?
We often see children raised by old people, who tend to spoil them, making them children who have less and less of the child first and of a responsible person later.
Education makes tomorrow's citizens, and tomorrow's citizens make tomorrow's society.

I see in this a sign of the Chaos we are living in.
You take away rules and you do not make a free society, you just make disoriented people.
I am far away from proposing a dictatorial state, but very close to a country where people are free to chose, but are also able to chose.
Freedom is a precious goal, and a difficult one too.
Being able to chose makes you responsible for what you do, but are you ready for the consequences of your actions?
Is a teenager ready to be a mother at fifteen, sixteen?
Or is it just the way to give a second (often unwanted) chance to old people to be parents?
Or worse, is it the desire to have a second chance?