Berlusconi Santo subito!

Cominciano ad esserci un po’ troppi dubbi sull’aggressione a Berlusconi…

Surrogates

What would happen if you could die playing World of Warcraft? I mean dying in the real life.
What would happen if your experience in Second Life is as real as the real life?
What would happen if you could live your Second Life without worrying about the physical consequences of your actions, since you’re at home sprawled on a comfortable armchair?

How would society change if everyone were living through a Surrogate?

These are some of the questions that are at the core of Surrogates, a movie released in September 2009 (in Italy it will arrive in January 2010), directed by Jonathan Mostow, starring Bruce Willis.  The movie is based on a comic book series, which I haven’t read and discovered right now.

The movie softly touches on the topics raised by the questions I wrote at the top, but mainly concentrates on the intricacies of the police plot and the action. There is this new weapon that can kill the real person directing a surrogate and this can pose serious threats to the society that has been built. Crime rate was almost non-existent since who would harm a surrogate if the person behind it would be left unharmed? Furthermore, in the middle of the movie, it is also made quite clear how the crime can be controlled via a backdoor into every surrogate.

Most interesting is wondering how surrogate-life changes interpersonal relationship. It seems that they become much more utilitarian, since you know you are dealing through a machine with a machine. Sexual freedom is at its maximum and everyone is beautiful and fit, indeed they can choose how to be, a man can choose to be woman and vice versa.

Can we already spot some of these issues in our society? To me it seems that reality is becoming more and more virtual and that we tend to experience it a posteriori through the representation of it, that is via photography, video and words. Add to the mix the Facebook phenomenon and I hope you understand what I am talking about.
How many of you would like to have a surrogate to use in certain situations?

Berlusconi wins again

It is easy to see why.
For one more time, the political debate in Italy is forcibly focused on something that little has to do with politics and the real problems of the country.
For one more time, the media is inundated with analyses, comments and opinions on events that distracts from the most pressing topics:  the mafia charges raised against some high-profile politicians, including Mr. Berlusconi; the status of the Italian economy, which, despite the comforting words of the government, is in reality in a very bad condition; the problems with the justice system, on one hand the bureaucratic intricacies that lead to extremely long processing times, on the other the persistent political attacks on the judges and prosecutors.

I think Mr. Berlusconi is not suited for governing for one very simple reason: he does not have the time.
He should attend his trials for corruption, bribing and illegal corporate actions. For governmental reasons he often does not go the courts, but spends an incredible amount of time, even abroad during official visits, attacking the judges and prosecutors, raising his voice to condemn the red-tunics, so called communist prosecutors.
He has his football team, Milan, to care about.
He has his media empire to care about.
And even has many women to care about.
Where can he possible find the time to care about the country?
I want a prime minister, right or left, that works full time, like many of us. A prime minister that works for the good of the country, allowing divergent perspectives of course.

Mr. Berlusconi wins again.
Because he is again in the spotlight.
Because once more all the attention of the people, of the media and of the other politicians is taken away from the real issues.

Mr. Berlusconi was hit in the face and I am sorry that someone felt such a strong urge to resort to violence, which I always condemn. It is important to say that violence comes from anger and anger, very often, is caused by some good reasons.
But one should find ways to express his anger that do not include violence, never.

Berlusconi colpito al volto

Riporto le parole scritte da Peter Gomez e Marco Travaglio sul blog de “Il Fatto Quotidiano”, ben spiegano quello che penso in questo momento.

“Deve essere chiaro che chi ha colpito questa sera al volto il presidente del consiglio Silvio Berlusconi non è uno stupido, ma un delinquente. Il nostro pensiero sul Cavaliere è noto: crediamo che sia il peggior premier della storia repubblicana. Riteniamo che sia il perfetto campione di una classe dirigente nel suo complesso mediocre che non rappresenta il Paese e che il Paese non merita. Caste di questo tipo non si abbattono però con la violenza, ma con la forza dei fatti e delle idee. L’Italia ha bisogno di verità, di giustizia, di legalità, non di pugni in faccia o di insulti. Per questo è nato il nostro giornale, per questo è nato questo blog. Quindi ci auguriamo che il solitario protagonista dell’aggressione a Berlusconi venga punito con assoluta severità. Da parte nostra, invece, assicuriamo che andremo avanti come sempre: analizzando le cose, ragionando e (quando è il caso) protestando.

Post scriptum
Mentre scriviamo, giunge notizia che l’aggressore sarebbe in cura da 10 anni per malattie mentali al Policlinico di Milano. Fermo restando quello che abbiamo detto fin qui chi già cercava improbabili mandanti morali o si preparava a lanciare l’allarme terrorismo farebbe bene a darsi una calmata anche lui.”

Peter Gomez e Marco Travaglio

“They Stole So Much More”

Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar’s best multimedia story winner, John Adkisson is a a journalism student at UNC Journalism School Chapel Hill. The story is simple, moving, sad and heartening. Life continues, must continue positively, even after tragedy.

The Best Technology Writing 2009

What’s happening right now in the technology world? What are the social implications of the digital tools now available to everyone with an internet connection? How is our thinking mind changing due to the constant use of the web? Why do people blog? How can people find the time to write Wikipedia? Who are those annoying groups that are disrupting your second life?

These are only some of the questions that are tackled by the inspiring collection of essays edited by Steven Johnson in The Best Technology Writing, 2009. As he emphasizes in the introduction, there has been a shift in technology writing in the last years. The focus is more and more the analysis of the current trends and phenomena and less and less speculations of how the future might surprise us. The digital world has become so complex and varied that it requires the most effort to be explicated. And the future? The future is now and, at the same time, we understand that it is increasingly difficult to anticipate what it will unveil. Especially if we consider that today’s most advanced and popular trends were utterly unpredictable just some years ago. Think about the Facebook phenomenon. Who could have foreseen that it would have grown to contain more people that the United States? Clive Thompson studies the new social media in his “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy”, introducing us to the concept of ambient awareness.

Like the status updates of Twitter and Facebook, the essays in the book provide us a glimpse of the present (what is happening right now?) technological realm. But how is this constant presentness and exposure to an interminable flow of information affecting our thinking? Nicholas Carr tries to answer in his “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”.

The closing essay is by Clay Shirky and well explains where people find the time to spend online socializing, uploading videos to YouTube or writing new articles in Wikipedia. There is a cognitive surplus that is slowly sobering up from decades of TV drunkenness. The Wikipedia effort consists of approximately 100 million hours of human thought. Every years in the US alone, people spend 200 billion hours in front of the TV screen. That’s the equivalent of 2,000 Wikipedias every year! If only 1 percent of that time is carved out for producing and sharing, we could have other 100 Wikipedia-like projects every year!

Stop watching TV. Read The Best Technology Writing, 2009 and contribute to the expanding knowledge world we are creating.

P.S. If you want to know why I blog, read Andrew Sullivan’s excellent essay “Why I Blog?”, also contained in the book.

Sea Resorts in Winter

Bagni Europa - Genova

Bagni Doria - Genova

Bagni 7 Nasi - Genova

Cloudy December Sunday morning walking alongside deserted sea resorts. Empty beaches, gloomy sea, looming clouds. A clear strip on the horizon where some light shines through.  Ships that look stranded offshore, waiting for summer to return.

Worth the Time: new book about time

OK, I haven’t read the book yet, but this good review in Physics World:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/41096

I plan to buy mine from Amazon and read it through the Christmas holidays, you could do the same.

In Search of Time: Journeys Along a Curious Dimension

Pretesco

pretesco /pre’tesko/ (preƒteƒsco) agg. $ [av. 1556; der. di prete con –esco] stereotipo, spregiativo, considerato tipico o proprio dei preti in quanto ipocrita, untuoso e insincero: ipocrisia pretesca, atteggiamento p.

trovato nel romanzo “Le Braci” di Sandor Marai

China 60th Anniversary: Photo & Video

Splendid fusion of photography and video about the parade in Bejing for China 60th Anniversary.