The project of BenettonTalk - a blog reporting about a wide range of topics of social inerest - begun in 2006. I wrote for the blog and managed the writing team from february 2006 until october 2006. Here a selection of my posts, for more you can get get the pdf.
You've got mail
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
According to a recent research made by Symantech, there's a new form of addiction that affects Italians (and, I would say, people all over the world): it's e-mail addiction.
The results of the research made by Symantec say that the 75% of Italian web users need to check the mailbox every day, and that around the 20% of them has a compulsive approach in checking the email.
Here some parameters that make the difference between a normal mail user and an addicted one:
1. hours of internet connection (even if not needed for working reasons): 2,6 hours;
2. first mailbox checking: around 9 am;
3. number of mailbox checking during the day: uncountable;
4. reaction when thay can't connect their computer: PANIC.
The advices to solve your addiction problem are:
a. decide when and where cheking the email during the day;
b. work offline (if you can) for a while;
c. keep in your inbox folder only the mail you have to reply to (to do list);
d. avoid sending email and speak if possible.
Now I go check my mail (addicted without regrets), but here's a link if you are looking for further informations.
Check the garbage
Thursday, 9 February 2006
Let's assume I live in New York City. That would be great in any case, so let's assume that. Then let's assume I need a bike. I have many ways to get it: buying a new one, an old one, buying it online, get a stolen one. Or... Or check on garbagescout . This is a clever new service: here's how it works.
There's a team (whoever can join) that walks around the city with cameraphones and takes pictures of everything interesting that finds in the garbage. The pictures are posted on the website and on the map which is on the mainpage. Some small trashbins indicate the place where the items has been found. Clicking on them you find the picture of the object, the address where it can be found and the hour of the first time it has been seen.
It's such an eco-friendly new idea, I love it!
Almost expired means EDIBLE
Friday, 3 March 2006
Let's imagine you're going to a supermarket, and it's the 3rd of March. You need fresh milk. There are some cartons that expire on the 4th of March, and some that expire on the 5th of March. Without any doubt, you'r going to buy one of the second ones. But what happens to the other cartons of expiring milk which actually are still edible and good?
Well, in Italy some researcher from Bologna University, about 8 years ago, found a brilliant solution called Last Minute Market. Basically the food chain is structured like this: the shops donate food and get advantages in tems of image, plus they have less expenses in throwing away food; the local administration saves money in garbage and the homeless and poor people in cities gets free meals!
Since his foundation in 1998 this association has grown very much, and now there are nine Last Minute Market's groups all over the center and the north of Italy, in Sicily and in Sardinia. Lately the same principle has been applied to book and second hand stuff, and there are some school programs to teach how important is avoiding wasting showing this good and working example.
This association only exists in Italy, so please COPY THOSE GUYS WORLDWIDE...
Are you looking for a miracle?
Tuesday, 21 March 2006
We had E.R.
We had Nip and Tuc.
We even had Scrubs.
But it wasn't enough.
Now we have Miracle Workers. When a person's life is on the line and doctors insist that nothing more can be done, it's time to turn to the Miracle Workers.
This TV show, producted by DreamWorks Television and Renegade 83 Entertainment and sponsored by CVS Pharmacy (an Online Pharmacy), is part of that reality programming that makes impossible dreams come true.
Each episode will host the story of two people who couldn't afford or have access to the medical cares they needed. The whole story will be shown, from the first consultation to the medical procedure and the positive effects. The TV show staff is composed by REAL PROFESSIONALS, famous in their own medical fields.
So, basically... TV brings you back to life with a perfectly working body... And there's still people criticizing it?!? (to be clear... I'm being sarcastic).
The TV show will be on Monday. Enjoy.
Return tickets but no return
Wednesday, 5 April 2006
A few days ago I was in Latina (Italy) in a telephone point looking for an Internet connection. As usual, that places was full of immigrants calling their countries, posters in different languages and advertisement for foreigners' service.
While I was waiting for my turn, I read some of them. One, more than the others, really caught my attention. It was about a coach bus service from Latina to Romania. Here are the prices:
Italy - Romania: 60 euros.
Romania – Italy: 120 euros.
When I asked the guy in the reception why the ticket from Romania was twice the price of the opposite one, he answered me that it's because those bus generally leave Romania full and come back empty. Therefore the bus company protects itself from the risk of having an empty bus travelling to Romania making people paying a return ticket that they won't use.
I still don't know what to think about this... discrimination, exploitment, or just a sign that says a lot about immigrants conditions and experiences?
Teledildo for tele-love
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
There's place in Indiana USA, called The Kinsey Institute. It's a research center focused on sex. A great job for some lucky one, I know. Of course everyone can be jealous of people whose mission is to "promote interdisciplinary researches in the field of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction."
Sounds pretty serious, expecially when they speak about toys. Dildos are old, they say.
The new thing is the teledildo. It is basically a virtual partner that you can program in order to make it behave exactly how you want.
Proposed as the non plus ultra of sex, this toy reminds to me a little of the Orgasmatron in Woody Allen's Sleeper.
I wonder if this sex robot will for eliminate, as the institute seems to think, "old-fashioned sex" made out of natural, unprogrammable and sometimes uncontrollable, flash...
I guess that the only way to know it for sure is give it a try...
Correct rules for religion in space
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Malay astronauts coming soon! All the controls and checks are being done. All plus one.
According to the religious composition of the state, the lucky one to leave the Earth for space will most likely be Muslim. Which means, besides everything, praying in the direction of Mecca: not easy to tell while you're floating in space.
But no fear: a whole group of experts is working to establish the correct rules of religion in space.
And they better do it well, from that close, God is going to check...
Just a bottle of water
Thursday, 4 May 2006
Once, while I was travelling on the train and chatting with an old lady, I took my 0,5l plastic bottle of water out of my bag. Before i could open it, the lady asked me Why do you youngsters ALWAYS drink? I have never thought about the fact that this never-stop-drinking-water is really a kind of new habit. I don't know, it's healthy, I answered to the lady, thinking about all those purification stories that adverstising tells us.
But I was wrong.
Plastic bottled water seems to be not that healthy.
Not healthy for our body, because the controls are actually lower than the ones made for tap water.
Not healhy for the environment, because of all the plastic bottles that we spread everywhere.
Not healthy, finally, for the economy.
Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nestlè and Danone are monopolizing the bottled water market and people are helping them grow because they'd rather drink bottled water than the tap one.
And this is just one step to global privatized water...
We should go back to tap water, expecially because sometimes the one we buy in bottles is nothing else than that (Coca-Cola's Dasani and Pepsi's Aquafina, are nothing more than tap water, drawn from municipal supplies, filtered, and sold). I think I should give up going around with small plastic bottles, as I always do.
Just one problem. Does tap water have the same weight benefits of bottle water?!?
Non-vanishing languages
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Finally, it's online: the international animal noise dictionary. Knowing people from all over the world, I have always tought that how we make animal noises were one of the funniest differences between the languages, and going through this list I have my idea confirmed.
If it's hard for an Italian person and an English one to understand each other if they don't speak the other's languge, let's imagine the discussion between an Italian and English rooster:
- chicchirichí
- cock-a-doodle-doo
Doctors treating teddy bears
Thursday, 18 May 2006
When I was a child, less than 3 years old, there was this good friend of my parents who used to play a lot with me. I had fun with him. But he had a secret
And finally, one day, I discovered the truth: he was a DOCTOR.
I refused to talk to him for years.
And my extreme behavor would be understood by many children. Here it is: children are scared of doctors, because of vaccinations, medicines, punctures and so on.
In Tor Vergata University, Rome, the students know this and have decided to experiment in a brilliant way to solve the problem: they would go around in primary schools looking after toys' health. So if a baby has a sick teddy bear they can give it some Abbassafebbre (fever down) that looks really similar to a pain killer...
This project, successful in UK, Sweden, Norway and Germany, seems to me a sweet and smart way of educating kids not to be scared of the health system (or doctors). I think I would have appreciated them...
But thinking well about that: my dolls' hospital has never been so professional. I'm jealous.
Understanding manga sounds
Friday, 26 May 2006
Continuing with my researches about non-conventional languages, I have found something pretty interesting.
Being a kid, not speaking English and reading comics, I've had an hard time trying to understand all that clap, bang, slam. it took me a while to figure it out what all those sounds were about.
But when I started dedicating myself to long Japanese manga reading sessions, the times became harder.
I have never had a clue of the meaning of expressions such as agu agu, gussuri, pero, pero pero.
Now, thanks to a brilliant on-line dictionary, I can translate the whole manga sounds.
Whoever made it, deserves a thank you.
Internet+work = no friends
Monday, 26 June 2006
I was quite shy as a kid. I remember going on the seaside and trying to stay by myself, while my mum would try to force me making friends. I had to spend time with other children, otherwise people would ask my mum what was wrong with me, why was I always on my own. So I had to make friends on holiday, and I collected their address to keep in touch during the year. This would be quite nice, because that way I could avoid making new friends during the winter: too busy keeping contacts with the summer friends. Distance relationship instead of close ones.
It began with letters.
Then it was email time.
And, finally, any kind of instant messaging service entered my life.
Now I don't even have to know the person i'm chatting to. Can I call all my "buddies" friends?
I don't think so.
And I'm not alone: indirect communication has quickly overtaken the face to face one, and we spend so much time in front of a screen or working that we don't have chances of staying with people anymore.
According to a research from American Sociological Reviewone person up on four doesn't have any friend. Zero real friend, that's even worse than my friends average as a shy kid.
Scary.
I'm closing all the ichat and msn windows that I have opened on my computer right now and going out drinking a coffee at the bar.
With my invisible friend.
Is the English for Spaghetti "No Spaghetti"?
Friday, 14 July 2006
During the 30s, one of the most famous showgirl in Italy was a lady called Wanda Osiris. After a few years of Mussolini's government, her name was made to change in Wanda Osiri. No "s" in the end, because Italian names end with vocals and all Italy had to be Italian.
That sounds insane, doesn't it?
Well, over sixty years after, in Pennsylvania, a brilliant law is to defend English. Stop using foreign word for foreign things. Or stop having them.
So: no English word for sushi? No sushi. What's the English for vodka? I guess it's no vodka. And so on.
Looks like the "melting pot" nation is tired of being a melting pot.
The act's called "Official Language" bill , and says English is this land's official language.
No matter if a recent Bush law invite students to learn their ethnical language aside from English at school, no other languages than English will be any longer welcome.
So if you happen to be in Pennsylvania, and you want some pasta... I guess you'd better go for hot dogs.
Thinking in Moscow
Thursday, 24 August 2006
In 1923, when the Soviet Union was at its sunrise and Lenin was running the country, a nice place called Sokol, 6 miles from the center of Moscow. It was reserved to 113 Russian intellectuals and artists (not many but, hey, it was Moscow, not St. Petersburg). Lenin had the times' best architects design and build it with the intention of creating a "thinking park". I love the term, sounds so Sovietish: Western countries have amusement parks? Well we have thinking parks.
Time has passed by. Now Moscow is not the capital of Sovietic Union anymore. It's only the capital of Russia. And Russia is a free country with luxury goods shops in the biggest towns. Communism has lost. Despite this, there are still intellectuals that want thinkparks, but the plan is to destroy the old Sokol to buy something new that might fit some investor's needigs. Some new concrete blocks instead of the pretty dachas, that is what will apparently happen. Of course, protests are started, also because there's a third generation of residents there that don't want their area to be dramatically changed. They have written to Putin, who hopefully will listen to their request. In the world there ins't new place for thinkers, they should at least save the old ones. Just in case someone wants to use his brain.