In Google Search, autocomplete is that mechanism that tries to save your time, by making suggestions appear after the words you’ve already typed. Google itself tells us how its autocomplete works: predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities… The autocomplete data is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries. Right now, if you type “Berlusconi” in www.google.it, the result is what you see in this snapshot.
miscellanea
- [](/images/saccheggi_londra.png) The London lootings are those you’ve surely heard about these days. The Unhappiest Advertising Executives of 2011 are, almost surely, those of the italian advertising agency Armando Testa. Just a few months ago, they launched the new version of the Lancia Ypsilon compact car with a series of TV spots in which actor Vincent Cassel defiantly declares and explains that “Il Lusso e un Diritto”. The literal translation of that slogan in English is “Luxury is a Right”, that is exactly the same concept (*) firmly planted in the mind of those London looters who focused on big screen TVs, smartphones, trendy clothes and other absolutely primary, indispensable goods.
- (this is from an email I wrote to somebody around 2003. We aren’t there yet, but it’s interesting to see that lots of the pieces to make what’s described below happen are already in place, even if in ways I’d have not imagined back then) Let’s make cities with more condos, to save space and energy. With lots of city parks, locally administered. Above all, with cars out of the way.
This is the extended version, with explanation, of a question I just asked on Twitter.
Yesterday an italian journalist wrote, more or less, that the reason why Anders Behring Breivik was able to kill more than 80 people on Utoya island was that “Those youngsters in the island were selfish and incapable”.
- If [Arab] public opinion were to influence policy, the U.S. not only would not control the region, but would be expelled from it, along with its allies, undermining fundamental principles of global dominance. The U.S. and its Western allies are sure to do whatever they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. So says Noam Chomsky in a piece I just discovered and recommend as useful food for thought: Is the World Too Big to Fail?
- This is something I just found in my email backups of the 90’s, when ADSL wasn’t available as today. Replace “mailing lists” with “the Internet” and it still makes sense in these times of attacks to Net Neutrality: ...please do NOT send to public mailing lists messages with fancy GIF backgrounds, stilish business cards, etc... This practice doesn't provide any additional information, and only wastes bandwidth. Besides, if I wanted to be brainwashed by nice pictures, trendy music and off-topic animations, I'd rather turn on my TV, not my modem
- I recently read on an italian newspaper that Rome is the great favourite for the 2020 Olympics. Frankly, as an Italian living in Rome, I don’t know if Rome should be happy about this, or what I should think, in general, of the selection process. Yes, I know that hosting the Olympic Games is supposed to give great visibility to a city and create local jobs, but I’m still confused. Here’s why:
- 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.