Piazza Del Popolo

Full HD, HD Ready….or what?

Saturday i had a chance to see a full HD TV.

It was a Panasonic Aquos, 52 inches diagonal. Really impressive and huge,
elegant, smart….and…expensive of course! More than 4500 euros.

Connecting such monster to a normal analog source is a shame: images will be really a shit,
even worse than the normal crt tvs.
That’s why it was connected with a BluRay player, playing some new films trailers and parts…
using the 1080p resolution, the best possibile with actual technology.

I have to say i was so impressed of image quality, really incredible, even compared to a DVD source
(which was there for a comparison too)…

Sharpness, true real colors, details…never saw before like that.

But, more i was impressed, more i understood it was a so far reality for normal broadcasted tv programs.
It will use so much data bandwidth for every single channel…

And i was thinking about the “…digital tv of the future…” (as described by Italian politicians)
the DTT….it’s as old as wheels..
It’s not a marked complete break with the past, it’s just a stupid transition that will steal
money to ignorant (and not..) persons.
Too little bandwidth, ridicolous resolution, old compression algorithm…DTT has nothing really interesting.

HD is still more than a dream…of course much be refined…but basis are there at least.

Ode to the Iron Maiden

Maybe this is my first post about music…why not dedicate it to one of the hardest-to-die bands?

Yes, after loooots of years, more than twenty, they are still on the wave.

Without selling their souls to the $$ dollar evil (ok, this doesn’t mean they don’t care about money),
resisting to corruption of pop/fake-rock bands’ music, after lots of “all the best” and live albums
they are back with “A Matter of Life and Death”.

What to say…this album is a pure Iron Maiden music, their own style has just been refined and cleaned.
Three guitars produce a wonderful solo in the “Out of the shadow” and a powerful in “The Legacy”.

What else…go and buy, it’s useless to describe with further words….

A short lyrics extract:

“My sins are many, my guilt is too heavy
The question of knowing of how then what I know
I’m able to see things
Things that I don’t want to see
The lies of a thousand souls,
Weigh heavy down on me”

from “The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg”

Up the Irons!

That's a strange smell in the air…

Don’t you fell a strange smell in the Italian Air?
No? Really? Strange…I smell it from Germany…

Seems something strange happened in last italian election, last spring.

Seems the left parties were winning with a big votes gap…but after some hours…
after first exit poll results….Berlusconi’s and right parties started to rise and in the end a really small votes gap
gave the victory to Prodi and left parties.

But the victory was not so strong, and they still have to sell their soul to Berlusconi
in order to let some laws be approved….but this is another topic (of shame..).

Seems the “white votes” percentual, generally around 8-10 %, dropped to 2-3%…and
all those votes have been assigned to Berlusconi’s and friend parties.

Strange isn’t it? Destiny is strange…yeah…

But the greatest scandal is in the left men declarations.
They said something like “ok…who cares…however we won”

EHHHH?????? what what what? can you repeat, sucker?
Seems like saying…ok..maybe someone did illegal tricks…but who cares…
we are at government now…this was our goal….and we got it.

You are stupid or corrupted?
Winning with a small gap created an huge instability in italian politics.

So, if you say “that’s not important” this means or you are dumb, or you had
some hidden agreements with the men corrupting the elections integrity.

Shame on you, Shit on you. ALL.
Italians are worldwide famous for mafia and illegality, but it’s up only to few persons.
They are the bad flag of Italy, let’s kick their ass off from our beloved country.

Government changes, but with no real changes, as they are false antagonists.
For normal persons the life is harder and harder…as we must feed this traitors’ army.

So sad…99% of italian work hard for 70 years and in the end they’ll have no retirement
at all, because money is stolen every day by usual suspects.

Yes future is so black…

Status symbol (2)

After Ferrari post (link) just another status symbol post.

Yesterday i was in MediaMark (a big shop chain, in Italy we have MediaWorld i suppose it’s the same chain with different name)
and i had the chance to play with lastest iPod Nano.

The first impression is “incredibile”

They “merged” the first iPod mini with previous iPod Nano.
This means the new iPod is as light and thin as the Nano, but as resistant and hard as Mini.
Compared to Mini it seemed me just a bit longer, may next revisions will make it shorter.
Really good.
I have an iPod Mini, 1st generation. I didn’t buy it, IBM gave it to me as “present” for my
partecipation in a Linux project.

I have to say that iPod Nano, at the moment, has no rivals.
But other iPods are not fantastic.

I’m not satisfied of my iPod battery for istance.
You can listen music for less than 5 hrs, while they declare 8 maximum.
And battery is pretty new, less that 40-50 changes, should be at the top now.
Latest are declared 20 hrs, so i guess in reality they will last around 15 hrs.

And if you want to change the battery you have to send your iPod to Apple, they charges you 69 euros.
Considering the actual prices i think i’ll never change the battery, but i’ll buy a new one,
it’s cheaper.

Normal usb pen player have AAA battery you can change in a while.
You may take with you more than one and so enjoy a very long play.
when they die, you can simply trash and replace them.

…But the topic was status symbol.
Yes, because other players are, at my opinion, better and cheaper than iPod.
They have more features, such as mic recording, FM radio, and so on.
So often they have bigger disk and cost less.
Why all this success so?

I do agree with layout, so funny and elegant, but it’s not enough.
People wanna have status symbols, they all wanna be like others…
this is a primitive behaviour, like children do:
“Mum mum, i want that all my friends have it!”

so ome companies become king of the market and play with that how they want.

Slipknot say “ppl = shit”

But this is another topic again

Hip Hop, yo yo

Please someone explain these fucking new self-declared-HipHop-artists
that they’re not rap artists only cause they cry “Yo Yo”,
they do some silly rhymes and they have a big medal pending from the neck.

their videos full of wonderful cars and naked women are simply ridiculous,
just the opposite they should be, like boybands ones.

yo yo.

Kill Him, No Please Not!

Yes, i’m refering to Saddam Hussein.
Everyone knows he has been condamned to death punishment.
After USA alliance finished (…Iran times during 80s),
after the scandal in the first Iraq War when he was left to the government place
USA stated it’s time to cut his head.

Now i have nothing more to tell USA to express how disguested i am
for its politics, but i just would like him not to be killed.

Ehi that doesn’t mean to free him, but punish somehow, for istance keeping him a whole
life in jail. Maybe for him is worse. Not to be remembered dieing while crying “Allah is great”.
This is what he would like.

He’s a fucking criminal, a dictator bla bla bla…
i don’t want to defend him. His crimes were so bad.
but the point is another. don’t make him a “kamikaze” example or extremist hero.

You wanna export democracy, this is a wonderful opportunity to show the world.

You say terrorist are violent, don’t be violent you too.
Noone has the right to steal other’s life.
Nothing and no one, even the most powerful country in the world.

Bush you’re looking for the christian puritan votes, conside what they would
tell you, if hard revenge or forgive.

Save his life.
Too much blood on Iraq ground, don’t add more please.