I am Free...
Wednesday, 11 December 2019
Why everyone is called nguyen- go with VIETNAM (14) - CLAUDIO'S TRIP
Just arrived in the ancient capital of Vietnam that is called Huè, I buy a T-shirt for my friend Elena who, being from Naples, and being a frequent user of the exclamation uè, will certainly appreciate. Vietnamese is a strange language. It used to use Chinese ideograms, a legacy of Chinese domination. But little by little, thanks to the work of a Jesuit missionary, Alexander de Rhodes, during the French domination, switched to Latin letters that had the advantage of representing the actual pronunciation. The Vietnamese added a series of accents, apostrophes, coupons and various markers to vary the tones. The result is that we Italians listen to words that we do not understand but sometimes we believe to understand. The forbidden words are monosyllabic. So there are no accents like ours that make words slippery, squishy, truncated and flat. So for Vietnamese it is difficult, when they learn Italian, do not miss it. Luna, our guide, speaks Italian well but does not get an accent. Dice “ètnia” e “andàvamo” e “passeggiàno” e noi, che siamo ipocriti ma cafoni, facciamo finta di non ridere ma ridiamo dentro.
Huè, I was just saying. The Nguyen dynasty, thirteen emperors who ruled Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, chose it as the capital and fortified it with walls and moats. Because, let’s face it, the Vietnamese were fighting hard, and all they did was beat the crap out of each other, as well as fighting the enemies outside. The emperors of the various dynasties also changed the names of those who called themselves like the previous kings and renamed them with their own. The Nguyens were no less: they killed more Ho who could and gave many privileges to those who called themselves Nguyen or who decided to take their last name. So if at that time you met a friend named Ho and said hello to him, “Good morning Mr Ho”, he replied, “Mr Ho tell your sister, my name is Mr Nguyen”. Then the French added that, wanting to make a census, they decided that they called themselves Nguyen all those who were so poor that they did not even have the surname. That’s how the Nguyens grew out of all proportion and today they are about 40 million and represent the fourth most common surname in the world. How do they distinguish one from the other? Simple. They give themselves another name, called middle name, which stands between the surname and the first name. Something like this has happened in my original village, in Luserna, where all are called nicolussi, but they have also given themselves another name. One year the town council of luserna was composed of twenty nicolussi. And think of the casino of the class appeal: “nicolussi”“Presente”“nicolussi”; “Presente”; “nicolussi”; “””; ”Presente””“”””“”””””” “nicolussi is absent lady teacher” And think of the radio chronicle of a game if the Luserna was a football team. “nicolussi passes the nicolussi ball
But weren’t we talking about Huè? So, we visit the beautiful citadel. An hour and a half between temples and pagodas and buddha and monuments. And then the afternoon visit of the tomb of the Emperor Tu Duc. To see it written so seems easy. But our guide, Luna, pronounces it td and every time it seems to have hiccups with that accent on“d”. Tu Duc built the tomb before he died. And it was so beautiful that he decided to live there. It was practically a royal palace. We now know where Berlusconi was inspired. Tu Duc broke relations with European countries and being devoted to Confucius persecuted Christians killing many missionaries. It was his mistake that gave impetus to French colonization. On the stele of his tomb Tu Duc made the Vietnamese people write his apologies for not being able to defend him.
But there’s a mystery. Where’s his body? Moon shows us a vast area where he might be. But not the exact spot. Because a vice that the dynasties had, Luna tells us, was to desecrate the tombs and make the bodies of those who had preceded them disappear. So Tu Duc ordered to hire 50 diggers, bury the body in a place known only to them, and then eventually kill them all 50. What people these Vietnamese.
Tuesday, 10 December 2019
The Golden Bough
Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture.[2] His thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.[2]
Frazer's thesis was developed in relation to J. M. W. Turner's painting of The Golden Bough, a sacred grove where a certain tree grew day and night. It was a transfigured landscape in a dream-like vision of the woodland lake of Nemi, "Diana's Mirror", where religious ceremonies and the "fulfillment of vows" of priests and kings were held.[3]
The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend of rebirth is central to almost all of the world's mythologies.
Frazer based his thesis on the pre-Roman priest-king at the fane of Nemi, who was ritually murdered by his successor:
When I first put pen to paper to write The Golden Bough I had no conception of the magnitude of the voyage on which I was embarking; I thought only to explain a single rule of an ancient Italian priesthood. (Aftermath, p. vi)
Mind Blowing 😲 pic.twitter.com/jbGxZ364kK— Physics & Astronomy Zone🔭 (@ZonePhysics) December 10, 2019
dead of plastic ship (LOL)
Students Invent Bacteria That Eat Plastic From The Oceans And Turn It Into Waterhttps://t.co/u7zm743KqS— Physics & Astronomy Zone🔭 (@ZonePhysics) December 9, 2019
Monday, 9 December 2019
#ICYMI The rare bloom you've never seen and may never see again 🌸 pic.twitter.com/IuJzeLo7Gg— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) December 9, 2019
Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It contains approximately 28 species
Saving the Harvest😍 pic.twitter.com/hXGNK9GjI9— Physics & Astronomy Zone🔭 (@ZonePhysics) December 9, 2019
To laugh at himself - LUCA SOFRI - Wittgenstein
December 9th, 2019
Luca Sofri
WITTGENSTEIN
Yesterday I saw a lot of this video, of people who show that they support slogans and opinions of the LEGA and of Salvini without having the slightest idea of what they mean, those slogans and opinions. It goes around much and with satisfaction among the detractors of Salvini, of course, that perhaps with reason they could tell of knowing it longer than their opponents, and they laughed at their pretentious indecency.
italian
But to me it seems that the video suggests conclusions much less comforting, for those who think themselves progressive, or anti-Salvinian.
Little or no informed voters have always existed, and what the video shows is that today they vote for Salvini and support what he says regardless: Having the consensus of those who do not know what they are talking about and those who do not follow the political issues carefully is a decisive element of success in politics, and has always counted for everyone. The video tells that today leaders can make this thing like Salvini and Meloni, and they don’t know how to do it anymore. And when I say others naturally I think of the leaders of other parties (some of whom even lash out at their own failure), and especially the leaders of the PD: But we must not feel absolved and complacent, all of us supporters of progressive ideas that we are not able to convey, pass, tell, even to our neighbours on the landing. Those people show not a right-wing limit, but a success. On the left there is a total disarmament of ideas and projects, in these years: good times when at least fossil, aged and anachronistic leaders in left-wing parties opposed renewal projects, good or bad. At least there were renewal projects, inside and outside parties. Now nobody knows what fish to catch (yes, the allusion is wanted), not even among those who blame the PD, and you end up laughing at the people who once knew how to convince and now convince them someone else. Uninformed people are majorities, if you do not work on information: this is the first failure– manageable– of a progressive democracy and culture. The second is in that video: of which Salvini will be rejoicing, he with good reasons.
https://www.wittgenstein.it/2019/12/09/ridere-di-se/
translated with http://www.reverso.net/
Yesterday I saw a lot of this video, of people who show that they support slogans and opinions of the LEGA and of Salvini without having the slightest idea of what they mean, those slogans and opinions. It goes around much and with satisfaction among the detractors of Salvini, of course, that perhaps with reason they could tell of knowing it longer than their opponents, and they laughed at their pretentious indecency.
italian
But to me it seems that the video suggests conclusions much less comforting, for those who think themselves progressive, or anti-Salvinian.
Little or no informed voters have always existed, and what the video shows is that today they vote for Salvini and support what he says regardless: Having the consensus of those who do not know what they are talking about and those who do not follow the political issues carefully is a decisive element of success in politics, and has always counted for everyone. The video tells that today leaders can make this thing like Salvini and Meloni, and they don’t know how to do it anymore. And when I say others naturally I think of the leaders of other parties (some of whom even lash out at their own failure), and especially the leaders of the PD: But we must not feel absolved and complacent, all of us supporters of progressive ideas that we are not able to convey, pass, tell, even to our neighbours on the landing. Those people show not a right-wing limit, but a success. On the left there is a total disarmament of ideas and projects, in these years: good times when at least fossil, aged and anachronistic leaders in left-wing parties opposed renewal projects, good or bad. At least there were renewal projects, inside and outside parties. Now nobody knows what fish to catch (yes, the allusion is wanted), not even among those who blame the PD, and you end up laughing at the people who once knew how to convince and now convince them someone else. Uninformed people are majorities, if you do not work on information: this is the first failure– manageable– of a progressive democracy and culture. The second is in that video: of which Salvini will be rejoicing, he with good reasons.
https://www.wittgenstein.it/2019/12/09/ridere-di-se/
translated with http://www.reverso.net/
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Sunday, 8 December 2019
CLAUDIO'S TRIP - go with the vietnam (13)
The Vietcong were ghosts, shadows. When they ran away they disappeared into thin air. Suddenly. When they attacked they suddenly appeared. Out of nowhere, materializing without the Americans understanding how they did it. Technique bite and flee. The Americans knew that their shelters were underground, but they never imagined that the tunnels would extend for hundreds of kilometers. Real underground cities, with hospitals, canteens, kitchens, tailors, mechanical workshops, air vents, water wells, armories, often dug just under the enemy barracks, at eight ten meters of depth. Near Saigon, in Cu Chi, the Vietcong had dug 280 kilometers of tunnels but the Americans could not find the entrances and, when they found them, they were trapped in terrible and cruel pitfalls. They started using dogs. But the Vietcong scattered pieces of American soldiers' uniforms, and the dogs got disoriented and went back to look for their masters. The Vietcong engineers were really ingenious and clever. The chimneys to let out the kitchen smoke were long enough to dissipate it and make it look like fog. The vents were hidden in old termite mounds. The network of the tunnels was immense, the Vietcong themselves needed guides to move and not get lost, crawling along stairs and underground paths without missing a fork.
In Cu Chi we were there and we saw and even visited the galleries, with some difficulty due to the fact that they were adapted to the measurements of the Vietnamese. Cu Chi is a kind of open-air museum. Traps, hiding places, galleries, weapons, cannons, enemy tanks are available. Tourists are invited to do Viet Cong, to descend into the wells, to crawl into the tunnels, and, in the end, also to shoot with the rifles of the time in a polygon where the targets, fortunately, are not human silhouettes but of animals. There is also a souvenir photo, posing among statues of Vietcong on a human scale, as if taking part in a council of war. Of course, there is also a restaurant, a bar and a shopping center where you can buy small carrarmatini turned into snow balls like the tower of Pisa and even real bullets turned into a key chain. This is of course interesting from the point of view of documentation. But a little bit of dubious taste if we think we’re remembering a war that has killed millions. And how six visitors of Dachau were invited to simulate the gas chambers or to lie down in the bunk beds of the poor inmates. Or in Dresden they made a show of sounds and lights simulating a bombing. Cu Chi is practically Disneywar.
previous posts:
Measuring the "Filter Bubble": How Google is influencing what you click
Over the years, there has been considerable discussion of Google's "filter bubble" problem. Put simply, it's the manipulation of your search results based on your personal data. In practice this means links are moved up or down or added to your Google search results, necessitating the filtering of other search results altogether. These editorialized results are informed by the personal information Google has on you (like your search, browsing, and purchase history), and puts you in a bubble based on what Google's algorithms think you're most likely to click on.
The filter bubble is particularly pernicious when searching for political topics. That's because undecided and inquisitive voters turn to search engines to conduct basic research on candidates and issues in the critical time when they are forming their opinions on them. If they’re getting information that is swayed to one side because of their personal filter bubbles, then this can have a significant effect on political outcomes in aggregate.
Back in 2012 we ran a study showing Google's filter bubble may have significantly influenced the 2012 U.S.... KEEP READING ON THE ORIGINAL SITE
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