harmonic convergence

stavolta, tempestivamente.

qui il link a tutti gli interventi sul tema "cattivo umore".

qui il link al mio.

like a koi in a frozen pond

would facebook tell me if a friend was dead?
or would I have to tell facebook?
would facebook presume someone's death after a certain period of inactivity?
would I have to write on obituary on his/her wall, and his/her friends would do the rest by sharing the element?
is posthumous tagging of videos and photos ethically correct?
is there an application to help manage one's profile upon departure - or can you at least set up an auto-reply for people posting stuff or sending messages?
would it be appropriate to list it as a past event, and would somebody invite me to the funeral by creating a new one?
would there be a random number of usual suspects liking the element?

does real death exist in one's digital life?

doomed (we'd better be)/36

Never lose your way back to planet Earth. No matter if you are abducted by hostile extraterrestrials or recovered by friendly aliens, the Location Earth Dog Tag will always guarantee they know how to bring you back home. Here.

sledding for beginners

before

during

after

doomed (we'd better be)/35

Uncover the secret life of your pet. And for just 40 US$. Here.

another game?

Last friday a friend of mine told me the word "posh" derives from the sentence "Port Out, Starboard Home" that identified the best berths on the P&O vessels traveling between UK and India, those that stayed mostly in the shade during the trip, that were therefore cooler and more pricey. The word then started being used as a synonym of rich/elegant.

Sadly, there is no evidence to confirm this story - P&O tickets of this kind have never been found, maybe never issued, and have turned into a sort of etymological Holy Grail's.

Quite a few fake etymologies like this one are widespread enough to have turned into popular beliefs (among others: FUCK - Fornication Under Consent of the King, or GOLF - Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden). Wouldn't it be nice to make a game out of such words? Explain a bizarre one with an acronym, find out a reasonably realistic story, maybe win a trip to India in a POSH berth?

doomed (we'd better be)/34

Nothing like the solid, clunky things we used to make in the good old times. Most of all in such a liquid, uncertain age like this present of ours. A retro cell phone handset is really a necessity. Here.

definitely maybe carmen immortale

I hate and I love. Why do I do it, perchance you might ask?

I don't know, but I feel it happening to me and I'm burning up.

logorama

One of the best things I've seen in a while. Full stop.

nausea

In Val di Susa, close by Torino, a social movement has been protesting for the last years against the construction of a high-speed train corridor, which should dig its way under the Alps to connect Italy and France. The protestors are mainly concerned by the presence in the rocks of the valley of asbestos and uranium, the cost/benefit ratio of the works, and the possible presence of criminal interests in such a big undertaking.

Here is their latest press release, concerning what happened yesterday (in Italian).

devils in red

I really couldn't care less about AC Milan going out of the Champions' League. I can rationally try and be sorry for the implications it can have on italian football on the international scene, I realize it is a symbol of how weak our teams (and our system) are if compared to other ones.

But Milan is probably THE équipe to hate if you are from Naples, and the fact that it is Berlusconi's team adds some not-too-subtle pleasure when it loses anything - even if one of Berlusconi's best tricks is to turn into the one who shall be praised, when he wins, and the one who's blaming someone else, when he loses. Plus, Manchester United has some kind of undeniable, totally contradictory working-class charme.

Still, ManU also has a 800.000.000 € debt. With that amount of money you could buy a whole team of Cristiano Ronaldo's. Still, football players in Spain only pay 25% of their revenue in taxes, which means that their teams have to pay them salaries about 25% lower than in the rest of Europe - a top team in Italy would save around 30.000.000 € every year. While this summer AC Milan had to sell Kaka to keep its financial situation acceptable.

I'm glad the italian system seems more strict than the others. I don't get why football should be treated differently from any other economic activity, where you pay salaries and taxes, and go into bankruptcy when you run out of money. It just doesn't seem fair to me to have a match where competitors are in so different legal and financial conditions. How is that different from buying the referee, playing with a 12th man on the pitch, or having your players doped?

doomed (we'd better be)/33

A laser umbrella! You definitely want one of those if your neighborhoods are packed with Replicants or Siths (even if I'm sure it also works with wild animals, common criminals, and to attract fishes for rainy-night fishermen). Both in blueish and red. Here.

(Grazie MiKo)

cantava un usignol

È morto Peter van Wood. Tra le altre cose, ha scritto Clocks.

“palloni aerostatici” + “cloruro di calcio”

In ritardo su quelli degli altri, un post per quella che era una cosa nuova, e invece adesso è una cosa che sta già là (in italiano).
Qui la pagina con tutti gli interventi sul tema (internet).
Qui il mio.

dicks in a box always strike back

women of the world, take over

en touto nika