Diego Giol Internet and many other things

Some people say that luck doesn’t exist, some other say that it does and you need it.

But I ask myself, does it exist or not?

Related videos:

• Luck in football
• Luck in life

First of all I have to say that I didn’t read the book but I did know what the story was about so I wasn’t expecting anything new in the film.

Overall I don’t agree with most of the critics that say that it is a really bad movie. I am not a critic myself but I do like cinema and I think that it is a quite interesting story if analyzed objectively. But of course, when there is religion in the middle things are not very objective in general.

I was raised in a Catholic family and even though I am not religious I can understand why Christians can feel offended by this story.

Now back to the movie, if you have not read the book you might want to wait until the DVD is out. There are many parts were I wanted to press the rewind button to understand better and I couldn’t! (specially when they spoke in French, here they don’t add subtitles because I live in a French-speaking region). Am I getting too DVD-holic?

In short, it is worth watching it but don’t expect to see the best movie ever.

Related link:

• The Da Vinci Code - Sony Pictures

George Bush has committed many mistakes during his presidency, probably the worst one has been to invade Iraq. It didn’t only put that country close to a civil war but it also created a huge deficit that the American economy is starting to feel and it is one of the reasons why Mr. Bush’s popularity is so low.

Now the president is about to commit another mistake with his immigration policy. Some time ago I wrote an article where I said that integration and not isolation was the answer. Yesterday, I read an excellent article called A Marshall Plan for Mexico. I really recommend it.

For me, it looks that Mr. Bush is trying to re-gain some popularity among the republicans sending troops to the border with Mexico and building a wall.

I wonder if Americans are aware that there is no way that “solutions” like this could work if no real development is achieve by the America’s neighbors.
Related link

• A Marshall plan for Mexico (they ask you to click on their ad before you can read it)
  

Many times we have heard things like “who would you take with you to a desert island?” or “what five objects would you take with you to a desert island?” Well, I asked my self the same old question but rephrased for the XXI century: “what five web sites would I like to have access to from a desert island?”

I know, what kind of person asks himself this kind of questions? Let’s just say that it is an excuse for me to list some of my favorite sites.

Anyways, here is my list:

1. Skype: If I am going to be alone in the middle of nowhere, then I will want to talk with my friends and family! And may be I can convince them that they should come and rescue me… Now talking seriously, this is an excellent software and it has very good sound quality. I have audio and video conferences almost every day with friends and relatives in Europe, USA, South America and Australia. I use it even more than my fixed phone!
2. Netvibes.com: This French site is the start page on my browser. It took me a while to understand how it works but now I just love it. I access nearly everything from it. These are some of the sites I access from it: my favorite newspapers, my Gmail e-mails, my favorite blogs, my own blogs, my favorite pictures, bookmarks, a calendar, my favorite podcasts and video feeds. How is this possible? It pulls the info from all those sites into a single page. It is excellent.
3. Google.com: Simply the best and easiest search engine out there.
4. Wordpress.org: This is the software I use for blogging. It is for free and very good. It would help me to write my experiences in the island.
5. And the last one is… Gmail.com: I have to admit that I had an account for more than a year and I never used it. But in the last months they added (or I discovered, I am not sure which one was first) some features that I found very useful: possibility to send e-mails from different addresses but using the same account, I can add the news or info I want to see when I get in, plus old features like over 2 Gb of space and I can read my emails with Outlook.

May be you find them useful as well…

Out of all the possible outcomes for the recent elections in Italy, I think that the worse option was the actual one.

In the results, both candidates obtained almost half of the votes and the tight difference in both chambers might make governability difficult.

How the new government evolves will depend on how Romano Prodi negotiates with Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s party. He will also have to gain more support from the part of the population that didn’t vote him in order to pass any difficult reform.

A priori, this will not be an easy task. Mr Silvio Berlusconi did not accept his defeat until almost two weeks after the elections. He said that he would not call Prodi to congratulate him, and that he would use all his means (let’s remember that he own almost all the private media in the country) in order to generate a strong opposition to the new government.

Some related links:

• FT: Italian elections ($)
• Court confirms Italian elections results
• When you’re done you’re done