Links you may have missed (Dec 23, 2011)
Fun stuff and good news
Il giro in bici più pericoloso del mondo (la Repubblica) – video — I wouldn’t even be brave enough to walk this.
Solar-powered boat sails around the world (Aljazeera) – video
How to draw… dragons (Guardian) – absolutely brilliant! (click on thumbnail below to see photo series)
Europe
Germany in Europe: Christmas Presents from Merkozy (Social Europe Journal)
Can Italy survive the Financial Storm? (Social Europe Journal)
Egypt
Alaa al-Aswany: ‘Overthrowing Mubarak was too good to be true’ (Independent)
Underneath (Rantings of a Sandmonkey) – very discouraged local blogger. (Saw this link on Antony Loewenstein’s blog)
Planet earth
Major victory as Russia bans trade in harp seal skins (International Fund for Animal Welfare)
Odds and Ends
The Meme that Refuses to Die: Government Debt Must Be Paid Back (Angry Bear) (Saw link on Naked Capitalism)
Some Facts About Carrier IQ (Electronic Frontier Foundation) – lots of info here
And just because she’s so beautiful – my dog Amica (photo by Tarcisio Arzuffi)
Links you may have missed (Dec 17, 2011)
Some joys
Rejected Ginger Seal Pup Finds A Home, Gets Webcam (Huffington Post) – related story and photos here.
A Workplace with Dogs – Advertising Agency in Nebraska let their employees bring their dogs to work (Dogwork.com) – Awesome!
Architect Reveals The Simple Genius Behind Pasta Shapes (Fast Company’s Co.Design)
Italian style
Is There Such A Thing As ‘Pure’ Chocolate? Italy Bitter Over European Ruling (WorldCrunch) – Bravo Italy!!
The Shard’s bleeding edge: anatomy of a 21st century skyscraper (ars technica) – click on screenshot below for related video
Some politics
Why the Euro Isn’t Finished (New Yorker) – an unusual optimism from across the sea
Anarchist Anthropology (New York Times) – piece about guiding theorist for OWS movement
Serious matters
Who Knows What Youhavedownloaded.com? (KrebsonSecurity)
A New Revisionist History of Railroads in the U.S. (books&ideas.net) — more evidence that the so-called virtue of the free market is a crock!
Links you may have missed (Nov 26, 2011)
Some joys of life
Is my dog barking? (The Independent)
Born To Smile: New Evidence That Laughing And Smiling Begin In The Womb (Worldcrunch) - photo above
Some of the hard stuff
At Durban, the big emitters will no doubt fail us again on climate change (Guardian)
Why Ms Merkel will blink (Social Europe Journal)
Three examples of disaster capitalism in action (Antony Loewenstein blog)
We Speak on PBS Newshour About Why No Bank Executives Have Gone to Jail (Naked Capitalism) – Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism blog is one of the most informative there is — she speaks at 4:20 and 10:45 on the video.
Some of the heroes
Van Jones and Democratic Party Operatives: You Do Not Represent the Occupy Movement (october2011.org)
The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy (Guardian)
Some news of Italy
Italy’s women look to more equal future after fall of Berlusconi (Guardian)
Links you may have missed (Nov 14, 2011)
From the Failure of Europe to Possible Growth in the Real Economy (Social Europe Journal) – an Italian view of the state of things.
Monti seeks to build new Italian government (Aljazeera) – short news video
The Eurozone Crisis and the Silence of Social Democracy (Social Europe Journal) – excerpt below:
Throughout the 20th century social democrats across Europe had won concessions at national level for workers and citizens. It was here that they forced compromises on business and secured social gains on pensions, wages, health and welfare provisions. It was a settlement that mainstream Christian Democracy accepted after World War Two. Globalisation has broken that hinge economically, while Thatcherism and neo-liberalism more generally have led the political assault. Currently, across Europe, they have turned a crisis caused by reckless financial globalisation into a crisis of government revenues and demanded a policy of austerity. The European Left has stood open-mouthed and paralysed in response.
“Così ho regalato il web al mondo” (la Repubblica) – interview published today with Tim Berners-Lee in Rome (Italian only)
Wired releases images via Creative Commons, but reopens a debate on what “noncommercial” means (Nieman Journalism Lab)
News24: Sydney papers work round the clock (editorsweblog.org) – a newspaper decides to embrace the pace of the web
Stefanie Posavec On Her Handmade Charts Of Famous Novels (Fast Company’s CoDesign) – data visualisation by hand!?
Dogs, scientists, men: Who needs the leash? (ohmidog!)
La ricetta perfetta: Carbonara (dissapore) – buon appetito! – click on screenshot below for recipe (Italian only)
Links you may have missed (Oct 16, 2011)
Elizabeth Warren on Debt Crisis, Fair Taxation (YouTube) – precisely put! No wonder her fan base is growing.
Panic of the Plutocrats (New York Times) – Paul Krugman
The Story Of Occupy Wall Street Told Through Online Videos (Social Times)
Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story (TEDTalks) – video – from 2009 but golden.
Mike Biddle: We can recycle plastic (TEDTalks) – video – this may be some of the very best news for planet earth.
Did Van Gogh die in an unfortunate brush with fate? (The Independent)
Neo and Toxedo – Two Dogs in Paris (Dogwork.com) – fantastico!
Canzoni di 18mila giorni, il ritorno di Gianmaria Testa (la Repubblica) – music video – click on screenshot below
Links you may have missed today (Sept 21, 2011)
Guest Post: Will Tokyo Be Evacuated Due to Fukushima Radiation? (Naked Capitalism)
Little Woman Act (London Review of Books) – hilarious
Facebook wants to be the newspaper of your dreams (GigaOM)
Today’s treat: (click for full photo series)
Links you may have missed today (Sept 19, 2011)
“Imran Khan: ‘America is destroying Pakistan” (Guardian) — a top contender to be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan voices a highly critical perspective on the US – Pakistan relationship
“Microsoft paid out ‘more than £1 million’ to female executive” (Telegraph)
“THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM: Google Zooms In On Art” (Huffington Post) – extraordinary!
Today’s treat: (click on video)
Transformative power of our minds and barking dogs
Sometimes we learn something in the course of daily living that is just too good to keep to ourselves. So here’s my sharing for the day. It’s about the amazing transformative power of our mind, if we just allow ourselves to make use of it.
Years ago while trying to fall asleep — either for a nap or at bedtime, I don’t remember — some noises outside were keeping me awake. Trying to ignore them was useless. It came to me then that, perhaps, if I tried an opposite approach, it might be better.
So I began to concentrate on trying to hear all the sounds both big and small that it was possible for me to hear in those moments — including the noises. I imagined that they were all coming together to create a sound symphony. All I had to do was accept each distinctive sound/noise I heard into the orchestra.
It worked. The cacophony waned and was replaced by a sense of strange harmony. Very soon I felt asleep. This sound symphony technique continues to serve me well. Maybe it will work for you also.
What brought this to mind today was re-reading the famous poem by Billy Collins that is here below. Collins, being the poet that he is, explores the mind’s transformative power in his imaginatively amusing and insightful way.
Enjoy! (For those who can’t bear the very idea of reading a poem, there’s the video above.)
Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House
The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his batonwhile the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.(Billy Collins)
Exquisitely dog
I never give my dogs commercial pet food, but this ad is an irresistible winner.
Today’s shaggy dog story: Rocky comes home
I cannot resist clicking on any and all dog stories. So here’s last week’s saga of Rocky who trudged almost 500 miles across Italy to find the owner he was stolen from three years earlier (“German shepherd treks 700 km home” ANSA.IT, Jan 22).
Bravo, Rocky!
