#K®ea'ti:v
[e-card]
12/21/21
Me & Tess
My home Christmas tree, I bought it some years ago from a Chinese emporium. It's a kind of pop object. A little thing, just 60 cm high pedestal included, but as curious as a pop object can be. It shows both the counterfeit of being a mock tree and its peculiarity. Indeed the needles contain led-lighted wires that change their colours any time.
It is now Tuesday evening and I look thoughtfully at those lights in the room's darkness. The elegant ear-of-wheat-patterned hard cover of the book, laid under the tree, is taking on different shades of colours for a while.
I'm reading Tom Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' a fortnight now and shall end before Christmas.
(Cit.)It was Christmas Eve, with its loads of holly and misteltoe, and the town was very full of strangers who had come in from all parts of the country on account of the day.
Find out more at www.penguinclassics.com
P.S. Christmas e-card.
#Apple
[fruit]
12/15/21
Autumn Ends
I would never give up eating one apple all days. How fine are apples in autumn? Red or yellow don't matter, they are the best Italian fruit for me. One #Melinda —apple in its most presentable marketing aspect—costs €0.50 on average by the retail price on my latest ticket. Outdoor I prefer eating the pulp with the peel and even the core is edible at the end.
Eve knew well what she was doing when she bit first an apple. And we need more female leaders in the fight against climate change. They have better knowledge of the nature that is far beyond laws, profits, and social conventions. Get your apple before the autumn ends!
PS. While there's life there's hope...
#Journals
[stories]
12/08/21
On Paper (pt.III)
The journals have proved to be the fortress of freedom—especially where speech freedom is fucked up. If some journalists have influenced the way I keep on considering the society, others have been writing opinions which I had already processed on my own.
First and last the reading of La Repubblica. For nearly a decade of the past century, that newspaper basically became the bastion against the TV-mediated politics and the uncritical clearing customs of certain neoconservative values, process led not even in disguise by the private TV networks. The rude reality? Newspapers were obsolete and TV was the public opinion now. Then it seemed just a conflict of media superpowers; now, twenty years later, even a half-blind would be perceiving clearly the consequences.
In a few years the Italian press had been fooled and dethroned by the unstoppable chemistry of TV presenters, anchormen, news speakers. And, finally, comedians and singers. Many of them would be on the rise and become Members of Parliament!
If I go into a reminiscence it makes me smile how, like migrants from the printed media to the TV programs, the politicians totally lost their appeal and confidence. But the whole process was going on and every time still the half-embarassed journalists confidently entered that battleground, getting down to talk shows, their beliefs fell through and the medium prejudiced their chances to be listenend for real. Shouted opinions, slaps in the face, insulting questions and answers, all has helped make the information mislaid by players arranged on the incessant ring.
Just an unbiased publicist, stopping all that fracas before launching the crucial advertising segment, could feel a pang of sympathy for and present the ticket to a scornful audience.
Those years all turned to junk. 2002 had definetely lived the paramount act of the media wishful thinking, for the removal of famous journalists from the public television (e.g. #Enzo Biagi ). Nobody but one—named "Big Brother"—could give the punters what they wanted!
PS. Freedom to share. To be continued...
#Meteo
[24h]
12/04/21
A Climate of Italy
Local unsettled weather. Very cloudy with fogs from morning. Rain during the night. Maximum temperature slightly falling (1º-6ºC).
As for ultralight particles of dust (PM2.5) and their impact on inhabitants living in the Pianura Padana, it has not yet come.
PS. City and Three Noughts!
#Commuter
[faq]
11/29/21
Train of Thought
What do I think while I stand for the commuter train at the station platform? The messages are delivered by the speaker who keeps regular times... the train is coming up at track three, ...it's late by ten minutes, ...the rules to observe before getting on and off trains.
I don't ponder over the aloofness towards other passengers because it has became an automatic physical posture such as breathing through the mask. Maybe I do have the time to travel very closely through the future until the scheduled departure moment. I would be establishing the order of my ordinary #FAQs as follows:
- the pros and the cons of this augmented economy absolutely based on the digital trading—will it rest under the GAFAM hegemony?
- climate resilience is a personal development challenge, but which scenario will occur to us, out of two conceived as possible by IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
- baby boomers already turn 65-year-old and one out of six will suffer from Alzheimer's disease, so will our care housing system for the elderly sustain that huge impact?
PS. Visit www.ipcc.ch.
#COP26
[crisis]
11/20/21
Blah blah Friday!
Black Friday hardly turned Green. The COP26 summit has left a bitter aftertaste in most climate activists if they compare promised actions to needed facts. Maybe we as consumers have to give credit to the leading brands while they promise their best comittments to climate change. Don't we? For example, on unrefined box my shoes' maker is declaring it by a new slogan, "Move To Zero" manifesto by #Nike . Major pasta brands have already abandoned the usual plastic packaging for some softer paper holders. Their product communication explains that choice means awareness of better preserving the nature. But you may find a cooking battery presented as environmentally-friendly, even though it usually takes iron and carbon to forge in pots and pans! All is relative.
When I'm cooking pasta #LaMolisana , I might as well read on the package about how to make it easily recycled. Then I pour out pasta into the drainer and see one symbol of the 1960s plastic era just before me: rigid and colourful, resistant to heat and abrasion, easy to clean. Polypropylene. That stuff resulted from the most successful joint venture between Italian scientific research and big industry. Thirty years after its first commercialization that material was produced for 6,000,000 tons per year. Now, after a further thirty years, we keep on asking where all the plastic matters went to.
It's always here, among us and within of us.
PS. The DMLR project can be recycled. Let's celebrate 25 YEARS ONLINE!
#Linkedin
[resume]
11/16/21
C.V. (updates)
I founded Direct Marketing Linked Resources in 1997, then registering its web domain as #www.dmlr.org four years later. Of this web site I am responsible for the contents, GIF or JPEG images, and HTML functions. I graduated summa cum laude from Modena University with a degree of Business Economy. Since 2003 I am active in the health care for the elderly. In the spare time I enjoy writing poetry in the form of little haiku (as posted on Twitter). Residual physical attitudes of biking and swimming. And... I've got the covid booster this November.
PS. Resume of other events HERE!
#Journals
[stories]
11/14/21
On Paper (pt.II)
Now I would like to pay homage to the newspapers I have been reading during my years of student since I could spend the allowance I received from my parents—thus choosing the journal I liked to read...
As student of the scentific lycée I was reading each Monday the football reports by Gianni Brera, who excelled at telling the 'beautiful game'. A chronicle of the match was the occasion for him to write about football tactics, of course, but I was amused for his diversion telling about ethnic groups and their different attitude to play football. Or his careful digression into an athlete's nourishment led with culture or social class. Brera was used to get ahead in his career passing through different publishers as the first signature of their sport section. Meanwhile I used to take from the newsagent that he wrote on to—I would remember suchlike newspaper I bought just under his influence, Il Giorno, for the man made many sport journalists second-rate.
Later at the university I went closer to different kind of publishers, for example Il Manifesto and a satirical rag called Il Male, both representative of the alternative, juvenile press. They were collective papers and thus I can't honor a single journalist.
To balance that irregular reading, I looked through influencing newspapers on the public library where I was an habitué for long. There I liked to read between the lines of leading articles, often stimulated by a single columnist or special corrispondent—cit. Il Corriere Della Sera. Of another mainstream journal, La Repubblica, where Eugenio Scalfari coached the chief editors, I had become a regular reader with the working age, yet an overt proof of a flashback into the mid 1980s.
Then the social influence of the baby-boom generation was coming on and provoking troubles. Marketing experts will respond to its wealthy middle-class demand by supplying colourful magazines, packed with advertising, and above all they set about delivering those supplements within the nationwide newspapers!
(Financially speaking, a newspaper could cost Lit. 300, while since 1983 my biggest outlay went through La Gola, a broadsheet monthly on food culture and culinary matters at Lit. 3.000!)
I'm sorry, now I should cook dinner.
PS. To be continued...
#Web
[site]
11/11/21
It's almost got 25!
Sounds like it.
I'm going to celebrate 25 years online of this website!
DMLR's Web Guide is certainly the most enduring page on #www.dmlr.org .
Here I would be welcoming some few web sites entering the monthly list.
One could be labeled as the portfolio of Natalia Berglund, visual artist (kosmonatka.com). The second belongs to the wide range of P&G-owned brands (oralb.com)—it recalls "give the gift of wow" of electric toothbrushes' advertising. With the Ideo project I have long acquaintance, always surprising me (ideo.org). Despite Brexit some UK sites lead the way on environmental issues (ukcop26.org) and lifestyle (yardleylondon.co.uk). But the benefits of a truly natural way of living are actual on other assorted new entries by this round...
PS. The complete list is on DMLR's Guide!
#Magazine
[spoiler]
11/02/21
Cuba Libre (pt.III)
#EnContraDelBloqueo : I keep my promise to write this story on Cuba and for Cuba against the bloc established by a superpower willing to ruin the daily life of people all across this 777-mile-long island.
PS. Read on the new magazine Cuba Libre.
#Index
[2018-21]
10/20/21
B-side, the series (EN)
This blog is growing ever longer or deeper. Indeed it's formed by several parts arranged in layers along the years from 2018 until now. To get a summary this is the complete B-side series available on Dmlr.org :
B-SIDE 2018
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptI.htm
B-SIDE 2019
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptII.htm
B-SIDE 2020
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptIII.htm
B-SIDE 2020
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptIV.htm
B-SIDE 2020
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptV.htm
B-SIDE 2021
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptVI.htm
B-SIDE 2021
http://www.dmlr.org/blog/B-side_ptVII.htm.
The original articles are distributed on-line just on this website, otherwise presented by a simple post via Linkedin.com .
Direct Marketing Linked Resources by Roberto Dondi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
(Based on this work at www.dmlr.org)
#Journals
[stories]
10/18/21
On Paper (pt.I)
The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to two journalists, M. Ressa and D. Muratov, "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace".
We define #Journal a printed paper published every day, bringing out news on politics, economy, literature, arts, chronicle etc., put up for sale to the reading audience. The invention of printing was crucial to the propagation of news reports and the journal was resulting an output since 1609—I favour this historical version (Avisa - Relation oder Zeitung).
Many journals I've had on my hands, I mean types of newspapers, by casual circumstances or personal choice. First memory? It goes down to La Stampa since my family had been living in Turin (1955-1970). My father bought that newspaper, I guess on Sunday above all: I don't believe he had been reading a journal during the working dayweeks. In exchange he rewarded me with the Corriere dei Piccoli, later Corriere dei Ragazzi, a weekly comic strip publication I did read and judge so interesting.
The very first feeling of "journalism", I have got that before the television at the 1970s end. On the one Rai channel there were one evening prime time with a film, one with a theatre event, one with the musical show and so on. A weekday (Friday?) went to 'Special Services', that program should be named TV Sette and it was that kind of investigative journalism. The services, never dull, were resulting truly special and some journalists of great importance assigned to that job. If the storyteller got the voice of Sergio Zavoli, the chronicle was even more intriguing to be followed.
Let's go back to the printed papers. For the next years Il Resto del Carlino came in rather homely, always as occasional purchase, and some second-hand magazines passed from a aunt to my parents. From the weekly Oggi, I had read an article written by Indro Montanelli about the Seven Sisters of the petroleum industry, that was inspirational for writing a schoolwork—after all that 1973 energy crisis won't be forgotten and I did attend the lycée first form. When they were meeting at school, the Italian language teacher made known to my mother her surprise at my quoting 'that' journalist, but I've always respected my sources!
PS. To be continued...
#Duopoly
[TV]
10/12/21
Digital Television
The pessimism of my previous post is going to dissolve. However I shouldn't blame myself for being so backward-looking about the coming phase of the HD television. The nitty-gritty details hereafter!
Maybe this is the right time to settle accounts with the TV, with its public buisiness and its private owners, with the programs they are offering too. Today's TV quality is very good as for the images digitally received. Less and less if I consider the contents included in it—often productions replied or copied from former films, shows and formats. The information get distributed via many television news with no shame at showing the real facts as though they were short suspensions of the ruling advertising.
Now my secrets...
I'm not looking at any of the channels 4-5-6, formerly known as The Evil's Empire. Or most of the channels over the 10 until the deep end of the TV programming range that would be wholly made of one hundred visible signals. This output has been generated by the television industry and legalized by governments often conditioned, if not headed, by the commercial TV tycoon.
Digital technology was the first step to change the mind of the viewers in order to make them more appropriate for paying by subscription to watch a thematic channel. My reaction against pay TV was extreme, for I blackened the screen during the 2000s when I had desisted from watching TV programs, except some great sporting events—obviously, fewer still free. My first television set, a marble-size #Blaupunkt -branded tube, went clearly outdated with the coming up of the thin screens and the digital transmission as said before. Meanwhile the Italian TV duopoly was menaced by a new global competitor. So they invented the terrestrial technology used by people keeping their feet on the ground; the opposite of the satellite television, simply named after #Sky , used by more affluent viewers. Years later the versatile offering of the digital TV brought me in watching the Rai channels, and down on the couch, on a daily basis. That honeymoon period is going to cease now, due to the constraint of the HD system, that is a new set or a provisional decoder to buy. In any case the current screen will rest to adorn my kitchen wall as a vintage object.
Tablet and smart phone take definetely the lead as personal information and communication devices (ICT in short). And I will probably resume another old-time way of receiving news and entertainment. One FM radio!
PS. Get information at nuovatvdigitale.mise.gov.it
#Channels
[Rai]
10/10/21
HD Television
The alerts upset me. In a ten days' time the television broadcasts will upgrade to HD format. Soon in October I will be sent off or (temporary) allowed for detecting four signals through my 12-year-old 32" #Inno-Hit television set. For the time being it works well and I wouldn't scrap that flat screen just because it's obsolete after a technology integration: TV box actually becoming like home computer to be supplemented or changed every now and again.
I should complain about losing some Rai channels that tomorrow will result not visible—for instance, RaiSport and RaiStoria were keeping me good company. Moreover I don't need to watch the private TV networks since the most of them result completely useless to me. I feel like going back to the 1960s when the sole public channel was the standard of our TV system. My viewing rules are going to get into a harsher remote control and in the ensuing days I will better turn the TV off!
#Cinema
[theater]
10/03/21
Drive My Car
The day before I would come back to the cinema, I have to choose the righteous film that's worth going out. I draw attention to a movie title in English, but directed by the Japanese Hamaguchi, #DriveMyCar . In truth something else is catching my eye, its considerable length of time: 179 minutes. I know the theater, Cinema Europa, even though I have missed that city's entertainment for many years.
Let's go for... 'Drive My Car', approved!
PS. The history of cinema in my personal mood just at Big Picture!
#AlleFürsKlima
[slogan]
09/24/21
Green Movement
#UprootTheSystem ! The slogan comes out from today's AlleFürsKlima demonstrations in Germany, an uppermost message before the federal election.
I'm worried about the climate. This trouble derives from the daily observations.
The cycling tracks are usually empty places in my small town as well as in the close chief town. Those lanes are snubbed by most of the people because they don't like to espouse such an old form of transport. On the commuter trains you may bump into passengers with their electric scooters and folding bikes, but they represent a minority of all the movers. A whole generation (or two, maybe three?) is not accustomed to moving on bicycle because it's considered too tiring and hazardous in front of the perpetual stream of cars directed from the suburban streets to the city centre and back. A vehicle for all seasons and distances. Meanwhile the Jeep fascination has conquered their parents' feeling, and every parking spot is chocked by cars, the youngsters strike for climate and ask to "uproot the system".
PS. Green marketing? HERE!
#NewMedia
[art]
09/20/21
Cyber Talks!
The DMLR Guide has been updated as usual. The list is now hosting a renewed group of websites according to the importance of some viral trends.
First the crypto-currency precisely represented by Socios.com, the Fan Token distributor. In the second place, to balance that not tangible business, SadiePlant.com a long-time researcher of the cyberspace has entered the People/Gurus/Stars catalogue.
Beside her I would like to introduce another person who is deeply engaged in the new media environment: Neïl Beloufa, artist. He's not included in the new entry list because of a formal motive—he doesn't get a personal website but you might visit one of his projects at www.screen-talk.com.
Screen-Talk is a mini-series of films, games, quiz shows, and other great surprises the user interacts directly with. Enjoy production and contents!
P.S. The complete review of websites is available at DMLR Guide.
#Magazine
[spoiler]
09/10/21
Cuba Libre (pt.II)
I have not been a photographer at all. Just one time I bought a cardboard camera with a ready-to-use spool, in order to take pictures on my own. I was leaving to Cuba for an all alone journey. Cuba? That country, largely forgotten, was undoubtedly on my mind that time. I was acting like a typical tourist when he wants to bring home the evidences of getting along in a remote place. Now I'm going to browse through these 10x15 photos, collected on the printer's free album, that are not shots of Elliott Erwitt but are essential to look back on Cuba. My photos deliver anonymous uncultivated landscapes, palms and pink flamingos, sky and sea of intense colors exposed to the Gulf (1st week); old houses devoured by the age, groups of students met in the street, tired promenade of the capital, sedans from another epoch (2nd week). On a single picture I had taken a rare advertising billboard that reads
#HAVANA CLUB - EL RON DE CUBA (havana-club.com).
Another reproduces a socialist message: Los Azucareros Cumplirán.
Beyond the images I recall the U.S. trade blockage that was normally active. From the shop windows everything was more than in short supply. And the slight possibility to give up with all the rest of a life and become a defender of the Cuban revolution...
PS. Segunda reflexión sobre un nuevo magazín. El titulo? Cuba Libre.
#Ceremony
[EA7]
09/04/21
We The 15
People with a disability are 15% of our world. They are part of human diversity. And inside the willpower of every paralympian there are right tips for mental training to all people doing sport.
Today at #Paralympics , Mr. Luca Pancalli (www.comitatoparalimpico.it) has proudly awarded Monica, Marina and Ambra by the three medals on the all-Italian women's 100m podium. For a while hearing Volare, oh oh... and dressing EA7 track suits to kill.
Before them it was medalled Zakariae of Morocco as winner of men's shot put. Because—it's useful to remember—even muslims (or chinese) have their own paralympic athletes.
P.S. My small diversity consists in seeing from one eye: so I have become a diversely able cyclist and swimmer.
#Voyage
[spoiler]
09/02/21
Cuba Libre (pt.I)
A few days ago the #HurricaneIda was approaching western Cuba.
Cuba? That country, largely forgotten, was surprisingly on the radars of the (social) media. I landed in Cuba when I was thirty-four-old and, being born in 1959, I share with Cuba the year of that revolution!
I have never told about the trip by now. Many consider Cuba a joke of geopolitics, a classless society wittingly standing before the coasts of the capitalism, a reminiscence of earlier nuclear threats. The moment I got off the plane and inspired from the Cuban air, I was hit by a smell of tropical fruits mixed to Carribean breeze and human sweat: for the very first time I had arrived to the Americas! After two weeks on the island my back flight would have taken off with a long delay due to a hurricane moving around Cuba. But that time nobody frightened it.
PS. This is a spoiler about an upcoming magazine. Maybe not.
#Certificate
[EU]
08/26/21
Green Pass
What is actually most familiar than a digital certificate today? And what is really written up on the so-called #GreenPass ? First and last it is a vaccination certificate. In Italy that digital certificate is issued by the Ministry of Health. It contains some personal information, as yet... i) Disease or agent targeted: Covis-19. ii) Vaccine product: Comirnaty (in my case). iii) Vaccine marketing authorization holder: Biontech Manufacturing GmbH. iv) Number in a series of vaccination/doses: 2/2. v) Data of vaccination: 2021-01-25. vi) Member state of vaccination: IT.
This certificate is not a travel document. Relevant information can be found here: reopen.europa.eu/en. Folding instructions follow.
PS. How long valid? For 270 days from the first vaccination!
Where? Inside the European Union (EU)!
#Blog
[B-side]
08/20/21
To be continued...
I like to express some thoughts from this long-run blog. Don't fritter away the previous B-side vol.VII to recover articles, stories and posts, all available in Italian too. Otherwise just type in the search-box down here any keyword terms or phrases to optimize your own time on www.dmlr.org!
| ||
| by freefind |
#B-SIDE A BLOG BY DMLR.ORG
©2021 Roberto Dondi -- dmlr.org(sm)