Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2012
In my not-so-humble opinion, one of the best books ever written about (mis)management is William Bouffard's Puttin’ Cologne on the Rickshaw (July 2012). http://puttincologneontherickshaw.com Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Good God!
Does anyone else think that this is both hilarious and scary? My perception, fwiw, is that it's depressing rather than hilarious. There are also several other matters in which prejudice and unfounded or warped perceptions stand in the way of science, knowledge and understanding . One of the three questions in the Gallup survey is ambiguous - i.e. some people may believe that there is some sort of god behind the whole development of the universe, including the evolution of life. As a matter of faith, that's unquestionable - and it can coexist with a scientifically meaningful perception of evolution. But, even so, the overall picture is distressing. Is anyone aware of any such studies in other parts of the world? Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Ford Figo (was sociolinguistic query)
Suresh Ramasubramanian [today] This thread seems to say figo - the masculine - is cool while the feminine, figa is vagina, and by extension, hot, sexy etc? No, it doesn't work that way (though someone in Ford seems to think so). It starts with the fact figa is jargon for vagina - therefore sexy. From what used to be a rude male expression it has (strangely) extended to a broader meaning, such as attractive or nice - even in a non-sexual context. A quaint result is that figo (though the word never existed in the language, not even in jargon) can be said of a male - or of anything called with a masculine word. Anyhow, everyone in Italy, even when using the word freely in extended ways, is well aware of its original meaning. It would be ridiculous for a car, or any other product, to be branded figa or figo in Italian. Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
Indrajit Gupta wrote: Aargh! Think of those driving around in Ford Figos! That's remarkable. Silly me, I didn't know. As far as I can tell nobody in Italy, so far, has discovered that such a car actually exists. And apparently nobody in India knows that there is a place where its name has a peculiar meaning. Maybe a few Figos could be sold here as a collector's item. There are, of course, several other examples of words and names having different meanings in different places. Such as escort being used in Italy (sometimes also elsewhere) as an euphemism for hooker. Ignoring the fact that it has other meanings in English - including a Ford car. It goes to show how unglobalized we are. Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
At this point... I have a question. What is Figo supposed to mean in Indian-automotive English? I shall be grateful for an explanation. Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
A correction, fwiw, on swearing in Italian. Italian, for example is primarily blasphemous. Actually it isn't. Probably because religiosity is declining, blasphemous swearing has become rare, practically disappearing. While scatological, and even more so sex-related, expressions are widely used - to the point of some becoming normal language. Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
ashok listmans...@gmail.com wrote (about blasphemy declining in Italy): Are you sure? A couple of years ago i was fishing in the north east .. and everyone of the men (without exception) used a variation of 'dio cane' or 'dio porco' or 'dio maiale'... the creative ones would mix some bizarre toilet or sexual allegory with blasphemy e.g. 'la stronza della madonna'. I also noticed that these expressions were generally the monopoly of men ...and when the women were around it would change to a disguised form ... I didn't mean to say that traditional blasphemies have totally disappeared - but they are definitely declining. It isn't surprising that fishermen in the north east are continuing with some oldfashioned jargon, especially when they are disappointed. Also... some disguised forms have a way of surviving, such as Maremma maiala (instead of Madonna being called pig) used mainly by people who live (or used to live) in Maremma. One of the peculiarities of the current trend is that women are frequently using male-oriented sexual expressions. For instance, while cunt in English or con in French means stupid, figa in Italian means attractive - now used by women as often as men and even turned into figo to define a good-looking male. And there are lots of other such examples. Giancarlo
Re: [silk] The subaltern studies collective?
Of course I don't understand the specific Indian implications of this thread, but worldwide I find overintellectualised BS particularly unpalatable. Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] FSM-janmabhoomi
Biju Chacko wrote: Who's with me? I must be, as a devoted pastafarian. It's painful for me to admit my guilty ignorance of your wonderful branch of the True Church - the Moderately Mobile Shavige Baath. g
Re: [silk] Wikimath?
Pranesh Prakash wrote: Could someone who follows this more closely explain how big a leap wikimath is from having these discussions on Usenet and mailing lists? As far as I can see, none at all. And facebook is definitely worse. It isn't even a good bbs. Cheers, Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Eco on Mac v. PC in 1994
Udhay wrote: Interesting metaphor. I wonder, though, what place Linux has in this theology. I had some fun, sixteen years ago, reading Umberto Eco's comments (they were meant to be more humorous than philosophical). In addition to explaining why Makintosh is Catholic and DOS is Protestant, he suggested that Unix is Talmudic. I prefer, for both a more fully realised metaphor as well as historical detail, Neal Stephenson's 1999 essay _In the Beginning was the Command Line_ So do I. There is some even more interesting work on metaphors in Neal Stephenson's 1990 Snow Crash. (I don't think that Eco was, or is, aware of any of Stephenson's books). Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Tough act to beat?
I have never been particularly interested in Oscars (or other awards) and I have some doubts about the criteria. But Sandra Bullock deserves some praise for her sense of humour in accepting the worst actress judgement (before she won the best actress award - though she knew that she had a nomination). On a selfish side... there could be a commercial motive. Viewers may be actually encouraged to see both movies. But what's wrong with being smart as well as having a sense of humour? Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] a big step for linux?
Thank you all. :) I am intrigued (sometimes confused) by the debate on this subject. I trust that there will be more. But, in the meantime, fwiw let me define a few perspectives as I see them. Some of the technical language is obscure for me. But the basic fact, from my angle, is that I am looking at this from the point of view of the end user. Who isn't, and shouldn't be, interested in the depth of the technologies behind the manageability of what he or she wants to do. Most people around the world believe that everything is microsoft. They don't know what system they are using. What they have is it. They are not aware of any other system and they don't care. Much to their own trouble and disadvantage. (Some are with apple-mac and they are not interested in any alternatives - if they are deeply into graphics, or other special applications, maybe they are right). Operating systems (especially some applications, such as word processors and office suites) are *not* mutually compatible (or not as much as they should). Basic Unix systems have been around for forty years. Specifically Debian - it's no coincidence that comparatively recent Linux releases, such as Ubuntu, are Debian-based. Good Linux releases have been relatively easy to *use* for several years. But very difficult (for anyone not good at Unix, like most technical services today) to upgrade, install, manage software etc. There *has* been a major change in 2009. More needs to be done, but it's a big step in the right direction. If a specific machine doesn't support a good opensource release, the blame is on the machine and its nearsighted manufacturer. It's less expensive to replace it than to bear the cost of a proprietary os and it's messy upgrades. With windows getting worse all the time, good linux releases are *easier* (as well as better) than the crap that 90 % of users worldwide are uncomfortably living with. Are there new operating systems that may be even better? Maybe, we shall see. As long as they are opensource (and compatible) the more the merrier - though we don't really need too many confusing options, especially those that are still in a beta-testing stage. (Google is getting into almost everything - e.g. the Chrome browser is working nicely, though I am not ready to give up Firefox - but I am not sure that we need a new bicycle or toothbrush generated by a diversification orgy). I am not particularly interested in the appearance of the desktop. Unfortunately I am in the habit, like most people - and occasionally I have a bit of fun messing around with icons etc. But sometimes I dream of going back to the command line - and damn the mouse. That is unrealistic (for some uses the mouse actually works better) but I am really doing my best to re-learn how to use the keyboard more often. As I see it, metaphoric guis are not the issue. Well working operating systems with easily manageable interfaces are what matters. Has the time come, at last, to bury windows, the microsoft monopoly and the whole idea of proprietary systems? As far as I can see, the answer is yes. But very few people around the world are aware of this opportunity. Where am I wrong? Cheers Giancarlo P.S. That the solution is often to reboot has been true, as far as I can tell, for a long time and with all sorts of machines. Now that a variety of appliances have become computers (including telephones, mobile or otherwise, and television sets) it happens that the way of correcting a misfunction is to turn off the electricity for a few minutes.
Re: [silk] a big step for linux?
And, after all, when did we see the last Renaissance man? (And whatever happened to the Renaissance women?) They are alive an kicking. Though invisible in the overwhelming flow of commonplace idiocy. One called me by phone, out of the blue, a few minutes ago. She read some things in my website (as well as my book on the power of stupidity) and wanted my support to her views - which I gave her wholeheartedly. She is Romanian and working in a small company in Vicenza (Italy). Ganging up with a younger colleague (also a woman - with a different cultural background) to try to inject some good sense into their management about how to develop a website. I wish them both the best of luck. Not everybody is stupid - or careless. Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] a big step for linux?
I have deliberately waited some months before raising this subject because I wanted to be reasonably sure to know what I am talking about. But I am more and more convinced that something quite relevant has happened. I have been using linux for only five years (currently ubuntu 9.10). Quite happy with it, except for the difficulties in managing the software for people (like me) who are not familiar enough with unix codes. (And a few bugs in openoffice that aren't yet completely solved). I leave it to technology experts to decide if the big change was in April 2009 with Ubuntu release 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope or in October with 9.10 Karmic Koala (we shall see what will happen with 10.04 Lucid Lynx in April 2010). And how much of this is due to specific releases or a more general improvement of linux (or broadly opensource) as a whole. The fact, as I understand it, is that unix has existed for forty years, linux for twenty, but they were for the experts. Now it's easy for everybody. And that is a *big* change. Strangely enough, nobody (including penguin advocates) seems to have noticed how important this can be. Any comments? (Irony is well accepted, and of course I stand to be corrected. But no flames, please). Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Obscene iPad madness
Am I [Andrew Thomas] the only person who finds this obscene? Counting me, it's two. And there are more. It's also stupid. And what are Steve Jobs and the iPad doing on the front cover of The Economist? (Thank you, Pranesh and Udhay, for the answers on Thunderbird). Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Help needed with Thunderbird 3
Two not-so-silly questions. I have Thunderbird 2.0.0.23. Should I upgrade or wait for some debugging? How can I have more than one language spellchecking in Thunderbird? (Please don't answer rtfm aka look it up). (If it's necessary to know... os linux - ubuntu 9.10). Thanks Giancarlo
Re: [silk] of snoozing and retirement
Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: I have been rather taken of late with the idea of leading a nomadic existence at some point in my life. It almost feels like that's what humans were meant to do. This is a very interesting thought. In the early days of the internet, some of us believed that it would make it possible to be nomadic without gong back to a not very comfortable pre-agricultural age. And, of course, it's true. But it isn't happening even remotely as much as it could. The monstrous growth of gigantic cities in many parts of the world (especially those with severe poverty) remains a tragically strong trend. It's sad - and dangerous. Also rather stupid. Giancarlo
[silk] only one alternative? (was has the time come to move away from google?)
If I may... one more question. If bing is microsoft (out of the frying pan into the fire) is ask the only worthwhile alternative to google? (I am doing my best to stay away from yahoo.) I haven't quite figured out, so far, what ask is and how it works. It seems to be related to excite... some sort of revival of an old pre-google search engine? Any words of wisdom? Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Has the time come to move away from google?
I am grateful for the helpful answers. Quick replies to two questions. Thaths wrote: They are beginning to be corrupted Do you have any specific examples that makes you reach this conclusion? No. And this is why I am *not* dropping Google, though I am beginning to break the habit and to try with other search engines. Some friends of mine have doubts. But they tend to be over-suspicious and they haven't come up with any meaningful examples. (Anyhow that was a hypothesis, not a conclusion). There are some rather silly mistakes in ranking, but there is no indication that they are mischievous. Probably faults in the software. But coping with the intricacies of the net isn't easy - and nobody is perfect. The problem is that Google is branching out with so many things that (in spite of their enormous resources) they are having problems making them work properly. Some are still, after years, in a beta stage and don't produce good results. In any case I never feel very comfortable with monopolies. Even when - as in this case - they are (or at least were) well deserved. Deepak wrote: Maybe you have become so used to the quality of the results that you have raised the bar in terms of the kind of search results that make you happy. Maybe. But I (we) have every right to do so. And a worldwide quality leader should raise the bar before its customers do. True leadership isn't resting on one's laurels. It's being committed to improvement - or, at least, reduction of glitches. Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] Has the time come to move away from google?
When I started to use Google (ten years ago or thereabouts) I was fed up with other search engines working badly by trying to pilot finds. I said to myself, at the time: as long as Google stays with its promise not to be warped by commercial interests or other selfish influences, this is it. But if they ever fail me... there are alternatives. So far, so good. But I am beginning to have some doubts. Of course with any search engine, including Google, it takes some tweaking with keywords to get anywhere that isn't immediately straightforward. And many messy problems are caused by poorly organised websites (especially the big ones) not by the search engine. But that is the way it is, the only solution is for us to learn how to search better. (Sometimes I feel nostalgic of the old boolean operators - but that's another story). My perception is that Google isn't as good as it was. As far as I can see, there are three possible reasons (or maybe a combination of more than one). 1. The net has become so big that the mess is unavoidable. 2. They are trying to be intelligent and to guess our priorities - and of course that creates more problems than it can possibly solve (though I deliberately never use the I am feeling lucky option). 3. They are beginning to be corrupted - and in that case the time has come to drop them. So far, the problems aren't big enough to make me break the habit. But for the sake, maybe, of a bit of experimenting... which alternatives do you wizards think are the best? Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] maybe it isn't a scam
Pranesh Prakash wrote: Have you checked about:config for browser.search.defaultenginename? Thank you for the suggestion. But I never set any default engine (had I done so, it wouldn't have been yahoo) and I can't find any such config. Also, the code error causes the same problem with other browsers, pointing to other unrelated files (that aren't yahoo). From what I have been learning so far, I don't think this is due to any configuration at my end. (I don't know if operating system matters, but - in case it does - maybe it's worth considering that I am using linux). I am not getting any reply from the associatedcontent.com webmaster - and I shall probably give up on the specific case (that, as such, isn't an overwhelming problem, because the other links in the same page are working properly) but I am still interested in the general concept of why such things happen. Udhay Shankar wrote: Another example (a recursive one) of the power of stupidity, perhaps? Yes, I think it is. And this leads us back to the fact that software trying to be intelligent can be awfully stupid. Thanks Giancarlo
[silk] another scam (yahoo)
If I remember well, one of the threads in silk a while ago was about yahoo being up to some mischief. Here is another example. In a recent review of one of my books (in case anyone is interested... it's The Power of Stupidity) there are links to my website. But one of them doesn't work - it goes to a totally unrelated yahoo page. I've checked the code in the original htlm file and, as far as I can see, it's correct. I've seen, here and there, over he years, other cases of such things happening, leading to all sorts of silly places. My ignoramus question to tech wizards is: how do they do it? Thanks Giancarlo
Re: [silk] another scam (yahoo)
Udhay Shankar wrote: Can you post the URL? I can't comment without looking at it. Here it is http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2186713/book_review_the_power_of_stupidity.html?cat=9 The link that gets de-routed is in the third (and last) line of the first paragraph of the review, where it says: I must recommend Giancarlo Livraghi's The Power of Stupidity. Maybe from where you are it works properly? What happens when I click on it is that (instead of http://gandalf.it/stupid/book.htm) it goes to http://it.yahoo.com/?p=us I hope you can figure out how this scam works. Or is it a coding error? In that case, why doesn't it just say file not found? (I wrote to the associatedcontent.com webmaster - but, so far, no reply) Thanks Giancarlo
Re: [silk] another scam (yahoo)
Kiran wrote: Do you have yahoo toolbar or any other addon/plugin supplied by yahoo installed on your browser? and also: The yahoo redirect is due to addon/plugin/toolbar you have installed. Either that or your default search engine is yahoo. No. I use Firefox and I don't have any yahoo addon, plugin, toolbar or whatever. I dont' have any default search engine set as such - and I generally use google. I very rarely use yahoo... but (strange as that may be) I shall check if something has installed itself without my knowing. I see what the problem is. The url is malformed. It redirects to http://www/gandalf.it/stupid/book.htm instead of http://www.gandalf.it/stupid/book.htm Yes, I had noticed that. But faulty code should lead to file not found, not to an unrelated page. I have tried with another browser. It still redirects to an unrelated page, but it's a different one (and it isn't yahoo). So, after all, it doesn't seem to be a yahoo scam, only malfunction caused by bad code. But it's irritating that the key link is the one that doesn't work. I guess I shall have to give up... or keep chasing the associatedcontent.com webmaster. Anyhow... thank you. :) Giancarlo
[silk] maybe it is't a scam (was another scam yahoo)
Thaths wrote: FWIW, Searching for [www] in Google shows Yahoo as the first hit (i.e.the I'm Feeling Lucky hit). This may not be the yahoo toolbar in action, but the browser trying to be intelligent. Strange as it sounds, I guess that may, indeed, be the answer. I wish software didn't try to be intelligent and do all sorts of stupid things that aren't always easy to tweak or override. This is becoming interesting, thank you, because I am learning things that I didn't know. (Anyhow I have checked, I have no yahoo settings in my browser, or other such plugins etc. The bug must be somewhere else. Probably this nonsense would have never started if they hadn't unnecessarily added www to the url). Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] A long time ago...
... actually ten months ago. In September 2008. I wonder if anyone remembers. I asked a silly question. And I got lots of not-at-all-silly answers. :) It was about cases in (Indian or other) folklore or fiction where things come alive. At the time Nishant Shah wrote: Would like to have a look at the finished page if it is for free distribution/circulation :) As several other people were involved, I guess it's just as well if I answer also to the whole list. It's online. http://gandalf.it/stupid/idols.htm And yes, it is for free distribution/circulation. :) What took me so long? The answer is that I had much more material than could fit into the page. So I put it in a supplement - to be published after I had finished the rest of the book. Comments will be welcome (of course including criticism or correction). I am not sure that this is the finished page. It may be still work in progress - though obviously I don't intend to turn it into an encyclopedia (that could fill a thousand pages and take a hundred years of never-really-finished searching and writing). Anyhow, warm thanks again to all that helped me - and said that they had fun doing it. :) Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] re-introduction (sort of)
A while ago Udhay suggested that some of us should re-introduce ourselves. Here I go - though this isn't an introduction. It's a bit of a history of how I got involved with Silk in the first place - and a a bit of news on a recent development. There are many ways of things happening online. In this case, it started thirteen years ago. In June, 1996 I wrote a short note on the power of stupidity that was published by Entropy Gradient Reversals the US, picked up in all sorts of places, including a site called Serendipia in Israel - that somehow led to Silk. I've been lurking, occasionally writing, in silklist ever since. In the meantime my work on stupidity expanded in several ways, including a book in Italian in 2004. The latest development is that now The Power of Stupidity is a book also in English. It's all online in Google Books - and also in http://stupidity.it A story of how it happened is in http://gandalf.it/stupid/intro.htm Cheers Giancarlo Livraghi
[silk] More on India in Illiad cartoons
I hope it isn't boring to go back to the subject of a series of cartoons on Canadians opening an office in India. (The thread was many a true word is spoken in jest?) In case anyone is interested... the sequence is becoming quite long, with more peculiar developments. It's continuing in http://userfriendly.org - where it had started on April 27 (after an antefact on where they got the money from April 14 to 25.) I am still curious about how all this is perceived as seen from India. Cheers, Giancarlo
[silk] many a true word is spoken in jest?
In http://userfriendly.org there is a sequence of cartoons that has been going on for over two weeks. It started on April 27 and it will continue I don't know how long. It's about a bunch of Canadians opening an office in India. Any comments or opinions? Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] many a true word is spoken in jest?
Udhay, ... if anybody knows Illiad, please ask him where he got the impression that there are lots of food delivery options in Chennai at 2 AM. I don' know J.D. Frazer Illiad - though sometimes I enjoy his cartoons. And I don't know if the has any first-hand knowledge of India - or spent any time researching what he is talking about. (Though imho we need to consider that his story in mainly about people setting up an office abroad and not understanding the culture and the environment). Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] many a true word is spoken in jest?
Have you got to where they get the money to go to Chennai? ROTFL. Yes, that was the antefact. A fairly long sequence - April 14 to 25. Weren't we talking about home delivery options at 2 am? Not from my point of view. Unless they provide teleportation, it would take quite a while to deliver from Chennai to where I am. Cheers, g
[silk] stupidity (was disenfranchised minorities)
Of course I am not trying to be stupidly meticulous (quite often quotations are attributed to different people - and sometimes it isn't easy to tell who said what). But I have always been fascinated with human stupidity (and I've written a book about it). It may help to place some comments in historical perspective. As someone once said, do not attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently attributed to stupidity. That's known an Hanlon's Razor (Robert Heinlein, 1941) It's reported that Napoleon Bonaparte (French spelling) said: In politics stupidity is not a handicap. Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Any Desmond Morris fans/critics here ?
Mayank Dhingra wrote: I am reading a book by Desmond Morris called The Human Zoo and am finding it pretty intriguing. I read his books many years ago and I remember only a general impression. I quite enjoyed The Naked Ape (somewhat less The Human Zoo). I am *not* suggesting that Desmond Morris is superficial, but he hasn't the depth of a Konrad Lorenz - and of course there has been relevant progress in ethology, zoology and anthropology in later years. Desmond Morris isn't the greatest scientific authority on these subjects, but his books are pleasantly readable and interesting. (Probably the best narrative description of a human zoo I have ever read is Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.) Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Speed - The Movie
The people who make those movies never factor in the IQ levels of the target audience. They think we are fools/dumb anyway. In 98% of all cases, they're correct. True. But does it really matter if it's physically possible? It's fiction, anyway. The real problem is that most of those movies are quite boring - and the imagination is unimaginative.
[silk] ask a silly question...
This isn't really a silly question. I am working on a book and there is a page where I am quoting examples of myth, legend, folklore, fairy tales, fiction or whatever where a picture or a statue or an idol or an icon turns into a living person or some sort of real thing. Obviously Pygmalion. Also the picture of Dorian Gray, the Golem, Don Juan's “stone guest”, the legend of Slappy Hooper ... (Also movies, such as Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo or Federico Fellini's episode in Boccaccio 70. Maybe I could also add the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, but I'm not sure). Any other examples? Also from different cultures? Silly or mocking answers will be welcome. But I wouldn't mind getting a few real suggestions. Thanks Giancarlo
Re: [silk] ask a silly question... (thanks)
Gosh... I'm overwhelmed. I am getting many more suggestions than I can fit into one or two paragraphs, but if anyone has any other ideas please keep going. It's all very interesting and maybe I can write something separately, getting more specifically into the subject. Deepa wrote: Giancarlo, I have been of no help whatsoever, but I am having a lot of fun! All the suggestions are helpful, in one way or another, regardless of whether I shall actually use them in this book. And, in any case, I am having a lot of fun too. :) Suresh wrote: There's random stuff like you describe in the Arabian Nights, and in various other eastern folklore. I am sure there is, though I don't seem to remember anything that fits. But I can't really re-read a thousand and one stories... any examples coming to mind? Thank you all. And I hope this thread can go one for a while. Giancarlo
[silk] of fiddles and fires
The Economist's latest comment on the situation in Italy is sadly accurate (maybe slanted on the mild side). http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751325 But they are wrong about history. It is most unlikely that Nero burnt Rome. He was a cruel bastard (but not more so than most rulers at his time - and quite a few in several places nowadays). But he had no reason to set Rome on fire. Though he did, after the fact, reconstruct (quite beautifully) part of the city. Also... Italy's current prime minister likes to think of himself as a musician (specifically a singer) but to the best of my knowledge he doesn't play the violin. Mussolini did. Is that a coincidence or a hint? Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] of fiddles and fires
ashok [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: the funny thing i notice about italians (and i meet many of them...) is that nobody admits voting for berlusconi's party, yet he keeps coming back. Maybe the people you meet are the ones who didn't. (Quite definitely I *never* did, though I am not enthusiastic about the alternatives). About 70 percent of Italians (including those who didn't vote at all... though they are only 20 percent of the total) did not vote for that party. The (coalition) majority in parliament is influenced by a fiddled election law. But yes... as shown by the mistakes in election polls, there are people who voted for the now ruling party, but they are ashamed. And it could be quite complicated to try to understand why. the other thing is there is a massive disparity between what common people actually earn and things like cost of buying and owning property or even renting a flat... Yes, that is a serious problem - and it's getting worse. Luckily about 70 percent of Italian families own a home, but it's very difficult for those who don't, including new families, such as people getting married or anyhow deciding to live together. All governments have promised to do something abut it, none have actually done anything that works. Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] Are you a different person when you speak a different language?
Suresh, Not just languages, dialects. Yes, of course. Do you find yourself talking say regionally accented Italian with someone who has a strong regional accent ... No. But sometimes it's fun to drop into dialect if and when there is one that someone else and I can share. (People from some regions, e.g. notoriously Sardinia, have a stronger accent that others. But that doesn't change the language. It would be an unpleasant mockery to try to imitate them). and a more BBC Italian (or is it RAI Italian) ... Unfortunately Italian television (including RAI) isn't the BBC. It tends to drop too often into poor Italian, frequently with an uneducated Roman accent, but also with other distortions that aren't necessarily regional. There is more fashionese in television (including mock English) than there is in the language that ordinary people speak. with someone who has that kind of educated upper class accent? I don't think I have an accent, though sometimes people in the South tell me that I sound northern. Most of the time I find that there can be a dialogue with people from any part of the country without any perceivable regional problem - though some words, sometimes, *can* have a different meaning depending on local custom. Fifty years ago educated Italian may have been upper class, but nowadays it's shared by most people with the obligatory minimum of basic education. Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Are you a different person when you speak a different language?
Charles, ... a distinction between bi-lingual and bi-cultural. ... people who speak two languages but only identify with a single culture, versus people who speak two languages and identify with two cultures. I don't want to clutter the list... but I think this is a relevant point. Bi-lingualism, per se, helps even when it seems that it isn't bi-culturalism. The sheer fact of using different languages widens perspective, even if people aren't aware of it, or it isn't immediately obvious in their cultural attitudes. But yes, bi-cultural is something else. People can be multi-cultural even when they don't understand that many languages. For instance: I don't understand more than a few dozen words in German, but a relevant part of my education (and culture) is based on German writers. And that can be said of several other languages - non only in Europe. Cheers, Giancarlo
Re: [silk] the new nostradamus
John Naisbitt wrote in Megatrends (1982): The gee-whiz futurists are always wrong because they believe technological innovation travels in a straight line. It doesn't. It weaves and bobs and lurches and sputters. Scott Adams in The Dilbert Future (1997): Luckily for me, most of my predicitions are long term, so I'll be taking a dirt nap long before anyone notices the quality of my work. More briefly Niels Bohr: Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. ... provided the basic input is accurate ... When the input is accurate common sense can often be enough for a reasonable forecast of the output. And it can work better than complex unscrutable elaboration, in which even a small not very accurate detail can fubar the whole process. What's happened to the concept that was well known in the early days of computing? Shit in, shit out. (Or maybe garbage if we want a more polite version). Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] statistics
On 9/27/07, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: one of the most read papers in Plos medicine recently was a study showing that over 70% of medical studies were bogus, simply due to poor statistics. Can someone please give me the url of that paper? Thanks gl
Re: [silk] Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal
Wow, after another three years a decision. How many companies have since then gone out of business because of Microsoft's marketing tricks? And how much does this ruling do, as new methods are being pulled out of the head by Microsoft? It show again: the one with the money rules the world... This isn't more than a pinprick. And it's only about a detail. I wonder how anyone can call it a landmark decision. The one (maybe) redeeming quality is that (perhaps) the major lobbies don't win *every* time. But that's very far from being enough. Cheers Giancarlo Livraghi
Re: [silk] Reputation for Wikipedia
Udhay, http://trust.cse.ucsc.edu/ I'd be especially interested in comments from Vip and Rishab. Do you mind if I chip in? I think any automated device to measure reputation, reliabilty or trust is dangerously stupid. It would be so anyhow. To make things worse, the criteria in this case are such as to reward behaviors that are unrelated to quality (they could easily do the opposite.) Another messy mistake in Wikipedia is somethig called a GDFL licence which is based on software concepts unfit for writing, art etcetera. It's causing a number of ridiculous problems. I am generally on the side of opensource, I like Wikipedia and I often find it quite useful. I understand that an open encyclopedia can contain nonsense, but it happens with all sorts of sources (Sturgeon's Law?) That is *not*, imho, the problem that we are discussing. The issue here, as I see it, is that technobureaucrats can mess things up by enforcing stupid rules and automatic nonsensical definitions. Cheers, Giancarlo
Re: [silk] firework physics
I'd always thought that fireworks (and rockets) were invented in China. But apparenty they were developed much earlier in Magna Graecia i.e. by Greeks in southern Italy. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blrockethistory.htm (Fireworks - and all sorts of noisy explosive gimmicks - are still very popular in Naples, especially at midnight on new year's eve.) Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] Douglas Adams
Does anyone know why a book by Douglas Adams is called The salmon of doubt? I feel rather stupid, but I haven't been able to understand the meaning. Irony, I would guess... but about what? Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Indian HRD hopes to make $10 laptops a reality
Having rejected Nicholas Negroponte's offer of $100 laptops for schoolchildren ... Does anyone know why India rejected the offer? Is there any news on actual development of the MIT-sponsored project anywhere - and-or any other alternative developments? The concept makes sense, though it's about thirty years late. But so far there seem to be, worldwide, more words than facts. And more bovine excrement than reliable information... Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] Indian HRD hopes to make $10 laptops a reality
Eugen Leitl wrote: I can see the utility of ebook versions of books and an occasional Internet use, but without pedagogic straightjackets notebooks would make teaching worse, not better. Yes. I don't mean notebooks instead of schoolbooks or computers instead of teachers. That's bovine excrement. I mean sturdy, reliable, simple, easily reachargeable low-price computers that don't get screwed up every day and don't need an upgrade every week. And I don't see why they should be only for schoolchildren. Cheers Giancarlo
Re: [silk] What is all this ??
Could some of this stuff be the the product of some splog device?
Re: [silk] most important science stories of 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6191462.stm It says: The delicate workings at the heart of a 2,000-year-old analogue computer... ... the new studies ... suggest it would have been constructed around 100-150 BC... So: The Antikythera findings are the same sort of thing that was reported a few years earlier in other archeological studies. As it was a device for computing, it seems appropriate to call it a computer. It was much closer to 2000 than to 3000 year ago. While these recent studies are interesting, it has been pretty obvious for a long time that fairly sophisticated equipment was used in the hellenistic period, in an area extending from Greece to Sicily (e.g. Archimedes) and, of course, including ptolemaic Egypt. So there isn't any new discovery dating the whole thing 800 or 900 years earlier... simply a reporter or editor made a gross mistake in arithmetic? There is a lot of such nonsense around, but it's peculiar to see it happen when discussing science and computing... Giancarlo (Giancarlo Livraghi [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://gandalf.it)
Re: [silk] most important science stories of 2006
... cracked the mystery of a 3,000-year-old computer... I am interested in the 3000-year-old computer story, but I can't find any explanation in that Scientific American page - nor any link to a specific article. I tried with Google, but all I found was more of the same. (There were reports, in 2004, on complex mechanical computing machines in the hellenistic period - but that was less than 3000 year ago). Does anyone know here there may be more information on this subject? Thanks Giancarlo (Giancarlo Livraghi) (gian @ gandalf.it) (http://gandalf.it).
Re: [silk] Linux - a terrorist tool
Udhay Shankar wrote: It is setting off all my bullshit alarms. I think we should keep our bullshit alarms non constant alert. Maybe it's a hoax. Pretty elaborate, with all sorts of other material on the site, links, etc. But even if it *is* a hoax, it's quite close to a lot of dangerous nonsense that really exists. This isn't just a matter of obtuse neocons in the US. There are equally idiotic opinions and attitudes in many other places around the world. And that includes a variety of politicians and legislators... Cheers Giancarlo
[silk] what sort of hoax?
Udhay and all: I am still trying to figure out if Linux a terrorist tool (and shelleytherepublican as a whole) is a hoax or not. Could it be a mixture? Setting up traps where some of the postings are by real idiots? That would be pretty clever. And . linking to sites . some of which are other hoaxes, while some are real? I wonder... Giancarlo Livraghi
