Category: Informazione

Novembre rivoluzionare

E’ con grande interesse che seguirò gli sviluppi del’iniziativa portata avanti da Civati e Renzi a Firenze, dal 5 al 7 Novembre.

La cosa interessante è che il focus sarà sui contenuti e l’intervista di Renzi all’unità fa ben sperare.

Un argomento che mi piacerebbe venisse affrontato è la proposta di un Piano Energetico Nazionale, quali strategie e quali tecnologie. Le centrali nucleari proposte dal governo Berlusconi sono costose, controproducenti e non risolvono nulla. Questa è la storia di quello costruito in Finlandia, per giusto dare un esempio.

Nel frattempo Bersani ha chiesto le dimissioni del presidente del consiglio, in maniera diretta. Non si può tenere sotto sequestro il parlamento per sempre solo per cercare di salvare B. dal costante flusso di guai, comportamenti inaccettabili ed adirittura crimini, quando il paese versa in situazioni catastrofiche e serve un governo forte e saldo capace di guidare il paese fuori dalla crisi..

Il civismo e ed il rispetto delle regole, che traspaiono in maniera evidente da questa intervista ad Onida, uno dei candidati alle primarie come sindaco per il PD di Milano, fanno capire immediatamente la voragine abissale tra due modi di interpretare un impegno di tipo pubblico e di come rispettare gli altri.

Un’affermazione non banale nel paese che si è classificato come 67 nella classifica dei paesi più trasparenti.. Subito dopo il Ruanda.. cioè per dare un’idea.

E’ ora di staccare la spina e iniziare a muoversi ed in fretta. Forse Novembre sarà caldo, e questa volta non è il cambiamento climatico. Il resto, lo ha scritto Concita De Gregorio sull’unità.

Nucleare a tempo perso

Sembra che Veronesi ha deciso di accettere di dirigere l’Agenzia per il Nucleare in Italia.

Veronesi ha 85 anni (85!) ed è oncologo. E’ stato eletto col PD a Senatore e ha detto che faceva il Senatore solo se questo non gli portava via tempo dai suoi pazienti…

Adesso vuole fare il direttore dell’Agenzia per il Nucleare, che ricordo è stato bandito dall’Italia con un referendum un pò di anni fa, sempre se non porta via tempo ai suoi pazienti.

Perchè è stato scelto Veronesi? Su quale merito? Sembra che Veronesi sia appassionato di Fisica, e questo sia stato il criterio..

Quindi per riassumere:

i soldi per la scuola pubblica e l’Università non ci sono, ma invece ci sono i soldi per mettere in piedi un’Agenzia per il Nucleare e farla dirigere da un oncologo di 85 anni che è appassionato di Fisica.

Sgomento.

Research as a way to advance society

This morning I had a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine on the bus to work.
Then I read this post from Luca De Biase about the Japanes law of Science and Technology which was in good agreement with my position.

Sometimes Science and Research is seen as a tool to achieve a better handling of technology. That’s a really narrow way to look at it and it’s not the main point.

I think Research regarding both humanistic and scientific topics, is a way to improve society. The better we understand the world and ourself, the better we can live on this planet and have a better society.

Japan has passed in 1995 a law called: “Science and Technology basic law“, this is the first article

Article 1
The objective of this law is to achieve a higher standard of science and technology (hereinafter referred to as “S&T”), to contribute to the development of the economy and society in Japan and to the improvement of the welfare of the nation, as well as to contribute to the progress of S&T in the world and the sustainable development of human society, through prescribing the basic policy requirements for the promotion of S&T (excluding those relevant only to the humanities in this law) and comprehensively and systematically promoting policies for the progress of S&T.

The real deal is to improve society and to create a sustainable way to do it. It is not about the money, is about the vision of the society and about building a better one for the future.

This is way, I signed the petition on science is vital, and I’m going to the rally on Saturday.

People should not be mistaken, this is not scientists calling for more money because they are fearing to loose the job, they can always do another job.

This is scientists calling the whole society to understand that research is a way to build a better society and to build a better future. The rally is happening in UK, but this is a worldwide issue.

Cambiamento di tono

Mentre Bossi fa un’altra delle sue uscite (per fortuna il PD ha presentato una mozione di sfiducia. Una botta di reattività), mentre Berlusconi fa campagna acquisti tra i senatori per ottenere la maggioranza sulla fiducia (che sfiora la corruzione, parole di Bersani) in UK è stato eletto il nuovo segretario del Labour, Ed Milliband.

Su Iplayer c’è uno spezzone del suo discorso, dove parla di come una nuova generazione deve imbracciare la politica e cambiarla. Parla anche dei soprannomi che gli hanno affibiato durante l’elezione, ed in 12 secondi distrugge questi mezzucci a quelli che sono, chiudendo il pezzo con l’enfasi sul futuro e sull’esigenza di un dibattito da persone cresciute.

Il pezzo è il seguente:

Our generation must find a new way of conducting politics.

And that brings me to some of the names I’ve been called in this election:
Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit. I’ve got some people can see the resemblance..

Forrest Gump, not so much I think.

And what about Red Ed. Come off there!

Let’s start to have a grown up debate in this country about who we are, what we believe and what kind of country we want to build.

Ecco io vorrei far notarare l’abisso che separa la politica italiana da quella inglese. En passant, Ed Milliband (40 anni) Cameron (prime minister corrente 43 anni)
La classe dirigente italiana deve essere ricambiata. Stiamo ancora ancorati al secondo millenio ed il terzo è iniziato da 10 anni..

Diaspora in the wild

Today Diaspora is releasing its code. In short diaspora is a social network which takes the privacy of the users really seriously, given the possibility to control the information, the hosting and the way is delivered.

On top of that, contents created with Diapsora remains with the user and it’s not property of Diaspora.

The software is in still alpha mode, however I really like the idea and the vision of the developers.

As already noted several time, digital personal identity is something which should be taken more seriously and people should be more aware what that means, how to use it  and what they can do with that.

This is a moving target field, where things change rather quickly, so the dust is not yet set to understand what are the big innovations taking place.

I hope diaspora will make it big, and I hope it would be one of the gateway to make the net-citizen aware that their digital personal identity is important and should be protected.

The opt-in policy of Facebook

So Facebook is introduced Places (a service for Geolocalization like foursquare) which you can use to tell where you are and your friends can use to tag you in a particular place, like with the pictures.

I have mixed feelings about this idea of geolocalization. Of course can be a cool way to share really cool place which you have dug out, but constantly revealing where are you in the world can be used badly by other people.

What however this post is all about is the classic applied-to-everybody-on-release-day policy which Facebook adopt each time they introduce a new feature. A normal user, who is not aware of this new feature, will find herself using it (or people using it, like tagging her in place) while she didn’t decide in the first place.

I signed me off. For your info you’ve got to:

  • click policy settings
  • search for places and choose “make visible only to myself
  • search for “let your friend tag you in places” and choose disabled.

An opt-in policy, where the user accept to use the new feature from Facebook would be not only a polite way to deal with the user, but also a professional approach to introducing new feature.

People protesting against Google-Verizon legal framework proposal

From the BBC News

Around 100 people have rallied outside Google’s California offices to protest against controversial proposals to alter how data is treated over the web.

Pay to play. This the kind of format which is been prioritize on the wireless network. The creation of high-priority web channel on wireless network to transmit the data can really disrupt the internet as we know. Internet must remain Open with no differentiation on speed within two contents should be delivered.

If this is not the case, the innovation will be harmed badly and both consumers and producers will suffer from the smaller possibilities, because big players can instantiate a sort of monopoly.

Google is still defending its own position. Which is very sad and make them evil…

Google is becoming evil?

It seems that this proposal from Google-Verizon addresses the net-neutrality (basically, evey content has the same priority on the others, without any kind of classification). I had mixed feelings when I read that blog post, however I’m not an expert so I refrain to judge it good or bad.

The idea to differentiate the network in two sub system with different priority (wireless and landline) it seems odd to me. We are accessing to the same internet and the same content, the only difference is how we connnect to it.

A really well done and thought-through analysis has been done by the EFF guys, which are quite expert of this things. I highly suggest to stop by and read it to have a more clear view about it.

Via Luca De Biase

One or two things you should know about the desire

Htc Desire - a Droid with power. A lot of power.

It works.

It works very well.

After upgrading to the latest Android system (2.2) and resetting the phone with a data connection (I’m on O2 bolts on for internet, 7.50 £ per monthe for 500 Mb) the phone works very well.

This morning I just transferred a Pdf file from my computer (which runs ubuntu 10.04.. I mean GNU/Linux …) to the phone using bluetooth.

Just start the service, making the pc and the phone discorevable and then it was done. No black magic.

Now I’m back home, one of my job failed at the cluster. (Read my mail on HDSPA.) My internet is down ’cause virgin is having troubles for two days, right now.

So I’ve just shared the connection from my phone and I’m using it to go online, submit the failed job after correcting the problem and writing this post.

I don’t know what do you think, but I think this is sweet 🙂