A discussion on Slashdot about the cost of broadband in rural areas contains an interesting explanation of the difference between USA and most European states (well, one of the important differences anyway): the meaning of “right”. Nothing new, but worded in a synthetic way that, in my opinion, shows well, apart from the USA Constitution, how many USA citizens see the issue. Here it is (the user names link to their comments in the original discussion, bold markup is mine):
- Whenever we find interesting Web pages via Rss or aggregators like Google Reader, our natural reaction is to signal them to all our friends and colleagues who may be interested. Sometimes we do this by sending the same links to those pages that we found in the aggregator or Rss reader via email. Other popular options are pasting the links on our Facebook wall or feed them to some URL shortener for Twitter.
- There are moments in which certain news seem to arrive only to give better context, explanation and motivation for others. This feels like one of those moments. According to the New York Times: paychecks for top American executives were growing again in 2010 some top executives are already making more than they were before the economy soured median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.
- Since this hasn’t probably got outside of Italy all the attention it deserves, here’s the story: ten days ago Unione Nazionale Consumatori (UNC) that is one of the biggest consumers associations of Italy, announced that YouTube has shutdown their official channel on YouTube.com (unioneconsumatori) for copyright violation. As you can see from the snapshot here, as of July 2, 2011, 1520 GMT, that account is still blocked. From what UNC says, the only “violation” is that they had put on YouTube (among many completely original videos) short excerpts of… interviews to UNC representatives aired from the Mediaset and R.
- In general, I agree that humans aren’t ready for total transparency yet and that what is called the “space to think” in the article I quote below is necessary. But I also think we need an equilibrium betwen that and the de-facto total lack of transparency we have today, and I’m pretty sure that many average EU citizens think the same. However, if we are to judge from some recent news, EU governments seem to think that they’ll take such demands seriously… and then just merrily walk around them.
- Cement, the powderized mix that is a basic ingredient of concrete, is devouring Italy, said a report published in April by italian green organization Legambiente. That statement summarizes the fact that 10.000 hectares of italian surface are covered by buildings every year: it’s like we built a new Milan every four months. Were that cement used to restructure and make safe existing buildings it wouldn’t be bad, but it mostly isn’t.
- A few weeks ago Catharine Smith published her weekly Top Tweets list at Huffington Post. Personally, I found the first one, shown here, a bit depressing: “first tweet from the top of the world, thanks to the awesome XYZ handset!”. I know perfectly well that to practice mountaineering (or any other activity, really) at that level, full time, you need sponsors and you need (within certain limits) to make them happy.
- The Free Technology Academy (FTA) is an advanced virtual campus with various course modules, which can be followed entirely on-line and seeks to educate and promote the adoption of Free Software and other Free Technologies. I explained in detail what the FTA is last year. This week the Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free/Open Source Software has joined the FTA’s International Associate Partner Network. Constantine Mousafiris, Special Registar of GREEKLUG, explained that:
- I just found by chance an article about JPII Beatification Controversy that says something interesting, I think, about a general, huge problem. Just like the author of that article (a USA Catholic Priest), I have to say “priest abuse scandal… is such a huge topic that I cannot handle it all here”. I just want to quote one paragraph: I am now a young priest who is not allowed to ever be alone with a minor, must have a window on every door that I sit behind, and know that if anybody ever got angry at me for any reason, all that they would have to do is make and allegation and I would be removed.
- I just found (2011/05/01 09:20am italian time zone) in my RSS reader these two titles from the two biggest Italian newspapers: Corriere della Sera: one million people in Rome for Wojtyla beatification Repubblica: 200 thousands people for Wojtyla, Rome invaded by pilgrims [](/images/wojtyla_cifre.png) they link at the articles you see in this screenshot. Reading them, it seems that Repubblica refers to the people who participated in the all-night prayer vigil and then moved to S.