May, 2011 - Train of Thoughts

Cappotto

May 31, 2011 / mattions / 0 Comments

Yesterday the run-off of local elections has been concluded. The LeftWing managed to win Everywhere. Yes exactly Everywhere, even somewhere it was seen as impossible, it simply won, beating Berlusconi’s party and the xenophobic Lega Nord.

Think about a card game, where the other guy does not score at all, and you’re able to make all the points. Well, we call that “Cappotto” in Italian and pretty much is what happened yesterday in Italy.

The leftwing won Milan, something that was not happening from a lot of years, the main city and headquarter of Berlusconi, with a compact leftwing, made by three different parties. The rightwing has been beaten also in Naples, where the candidates has been adopted in the run-off also from the leftwing, coming from a party which was in coalition in Milan, but not in Naples. (too long to explain here.)

Turin and Bologna has been won on the first round.

Another two big cities are Triest and Cagliari, which usually has always been on the rightwing have won by the leftwing. The sweet spot is also Arcore, Berlusconi’s hometown, has been won by the Democratic Party and the leftwing, with a woman as candidate for major.

A new vibrant energy was flowing yesterday, and today everybody has re-gained the hopes that a change is possible.

We won, and in amazing good way, among all the Nation, from the small to the big cities, from South to North, from East to West in the 150th anniversary of the unification. Today is a good day. As inspired by the end of Pisapia’s campaign in Milan, let me say

Buongiorno, Italia.

Dear Europe

May 13, 2011 / mattions / 0 Comments

Please don’t do it.

Please, let’s not go back 30 years. The freedom to circulate in Europe as an European citizen is one of the most important freedom that has made our life easy.

Moving around, using the Identity Card, or the Passport, without having the necessity to apply for a visa or anything like that makes not only everything super easy and nice, but also gives a feel to be all the same, within the diversity. Together with the Euro and the flag these are the only tangible signs of an integration which has gone far, but has not yet complete..

We have to go to a more integrated system, where all Europe should be felt as our home. With the diversity of culture, language and maybe attitude, but still one big jam of people who leverage the strengths of each other and try to solve the weakness. The European Community, not only a political body, but a community of different people.

I understand this terrible wave of extreme right, with its xenophobic and racist ideas, is taking its toll on the possible decisions. But I think the other parties should make a stand. They should fight back this narrow-mind vision.

Europe has been born by the vision of people who are now long-dead (Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Paul Henri Spaak, and Alcide De Gasperi), and who built this ensemble as a way to achieve peace and better conditions for everybody.

Europe should be at the forefront of integration, leading with a peaceful and calm approach, as an old continent should do. We’ve got tons of history and we did a disaster in the last century.

Let’s take another seat on this one.

Let’s make this one worth remembering as the century in which Europe took the lead in making the world a better place, starting within its own frontiers.

Let’s not think in three weeks span. Let’s think in 30-40 years time or even more. Let’s go ahead and make the European Community more connected and let it thrive.

In varietate concordia, United in diversity, Uniti nella diversit�, (Motto of the European Union), this is what Europe is.

This is why, this a great Community. And please, leave the door open, ’cause no Community is an Island. Let’s think BIG.

Unity and accents

May 1, 2011 / mattions / 1 Comment

With the release of Unity and the (following) upgrade, I found myself with a problem that I thought to have solved long time ago: how to write accents. It turns out that the use of the compose key (Super/Meta … the one with the Windows logo) is used for the default shortcuts, which you need badly, to have a decent experience with unity..

The good thing is that I’ve discovered the layout UK – with WinKey which provides all the most classic accent like � � � which can actually do the trick.

On another note I think Unity is pretty a good idea… But I have to use it a bit more to tell the true story..

Update: Actually I found out that on the UK -with WinKey the standard � is of the less used type (there are two: e acute (�) and e grave (�).

Now the last one is very important because is the third (singular) person of the verb to be (Today is a good day, Oggi � una bella giornata), therefore is used a lot.
I found a decent compromise using a US Layout with Italian letters:

You get the accent with Alt-Gr.

HIH