un giorno [forse!] mi passerà, ma poi… perché dovrebbe?
è sempre un’ incredibile sensazione

[je toast à nous,
à ce qui a était]

[We're born, alone we live alone, we die alone.
Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.]

Orson Welles

Lunghi capelli rossi, occhiali vintage e camicia bianca di rigore, un mese fa Caroline Drucker, manager della piattaforma musicale Soundcloud, ha incendiato con la sue parole l’evento «Ignite» di New York, un format di mini-conferenze sulle idee che cambiano il mondo. In 5 minuti e 20 slideshow la trentenne canadese ha illustrato al pubblico di innovatori una proposta per ridurre la discriminazione delle donne nel mondo hi-tech.

Quello che si crede giusto e futuribile è in realtà un settore in cui — al di là di casi più che altro mediatici come Ginni Rometty, ceo di Imb, il presidente di eBay Meg Whitman, Sheryl Sandberg, direttrice operativa di Facebook — secondo il Center for Women’s Business Research solo l’8% delle start-up sono varate da donne.

«Si potrebbe cominciare a non usare la parola “girls”, ragazze, quando parliamo del nostro lavoro e chiamarci per quello che siamo: “women”, donne», ha detto Drucker suscitando reazioni rumorose in sala.

[...]

Ghazzawi is a US-born Syrian blogger and avid Twitter user, who has contributed to both Global Voices Online and Global Voices Advocacy. She is also one of the few bloggers in Syria who writes under her real name, advocating for the rights of bloggers and activists arrested by the Syrian regime, as well as the rights of gays and minorities.

Her last post, on December 1, celebrates the release of Syrian blogger Hussein Ghrer, who was held by the Syrian authorities for 37 days. She blogs:

Hussein is going to be home tonight, where he will be holding his wife tight, and never let go of his two precious sons again. It’s all going to be alright, and it will all be over very soon.

The irony is not lost among netizens who raised the alarm after her arrest on social media platforms.

[...  http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/12/05/syria-free-razan-ghazzawi/]

se ti guardi dall’esterno cosa vedi?
vuoto

11/11/09
nota a margine

comunque:
a) fermarsi fa schifo
b) quando ti fermi, non puoi riprendere impunemente la corsa. screw up

Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder and former chief executive of the technology company Apple Inc., died on Oct. 5, 2011. He was 56.

Apple said in a press release that it was “deeply saddened” to announce that Mr. Jobs had passed away. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives,” the company said. “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

In August, the company announced that Mr. Jobs, who had battled cancer for several years, was stepping down as chief executive but would serve as chairman. Apple named Timothy D. Cook, its chief operating officer, to succeed Mr. Jobs as chief executive. Mr. Jobs became chairman, a position that did not exist previously.

In January, Mr. Jobs took a medical leave of absence from Apple, his third. Mr. Jobs had seemed to recover from pancreatic cancer after surgery in 2004, and received a liver transplant in 2009.

Mr. Jobs made a surprise appearance in March to introduce the company’s new version of the iPad. After he was greeted by a standing ovation, Mr. Jobs alluded to his leave but did not say whether he was planning to return to the company. “We’ve been working on this product for a while and I didn’t want to miss today,” he said.

In June, in his last public appearance before stepping down, Mr. Jobs presented the company’s new online storace and syncing service, iCloud.

Perhaps more than any other chief executive, Mr. Jobs was seen as inseparable from his company’s success. The company has outflanked most of its rivals in the technology industry with the iPhone and the iPad, which have been blockbuster hits with consumers.

At Apple, a creativity factory, there was a strong link between the ultimate design-team leader, Mr. Jobs, and the products. From computers to smartphones, Apple products are known for being stylish, powerful and pleasing to use. They are edited products that cut through complexity, by consciously leaving things out — not cramming every feature that came into an engineer’s head, an affliction known as “featuritis” that burdens so many technology products.

That restraint was evident in Mr. Jobs’s personal taste. His black turtleneck, beltless blue jeans and running shoes gave him a signature look. In his Palo Alto home years ago, he said that he preferred uncluttered, spare interiors and explained the elegant craftsmanship of the simple wooden chairs in his living room, made by George Nakashima, the 20th-century furniture designer and father of the American craft movement.

Great products, said Mr. Jobs, are triumphs of “taste.” And taste, he said, is a byproduct of study, observation and being steeped in the culture of the past and present, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then bring those things into what you are doing.”

His product-design philosophy was not steered by committee or determined by market research. The Jobs formula, according to colleagues, relied heavily on tenacity, patience, belief and instinct. He became deeply involved in hardware and software design choices, which awaited his personal nod or veto.

Mr. Jobs, of course, was one member of a large team at Apple, even if he was the leader. Indeed, he often described his role as a team leader. In choosing key members of his team, he looked for the multiplier factor of excellence. Truly outstanding designers, engineers and managers, he said, are not just 10 percent, 20 percent or 30 percent better than merely very good ones, but 10 times better. Their contributions, he added, are the raw material of “aha” products, which make users rethink their notions of, say, a music player or cellphone.

Mr. Jobs undeniably proved himself a gifted marketer and showman, but also a skilled listener to the technology. He called this “tracking vectors in technology over time,” to judge when an intriguing innovation is ready for the marketplace. Technical progress, affordable pricing and consumer demand all must jell to produce a blockbuster product.
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mi perdo nel tuo sguardo colossale
la stella polare sei tu
mi sfiori e ridi no cosi’ non vale
non parlo e se non parlo poi sto male

 

Roma, 28 luglio 1981. L’intervista rilasciata da Enrico Berlinguer a Eugenio Scalfari contiene una scudisciata che il giorno dopo farà sobbalzare i lettori di La Repubblica e metà della classe politica italiana: “I partiti di oggi sono soprattutto macchine di potere e di clientela”. Nessun leader, nel tempo della prima repubblica, con l’esclusione dell’antisistema Marco Pannella – aveva mai osato tanto. Sono passati trent’anni da quel giorno. Trent’anni di questione morale. Trent’anni di rabbia e di oblio. È stato esattamente trent’anni fa, che in una estate calda come questa Enrico Berlinguer ha coniato – in una intervista che sarebbe entrata in tutti gli archivi – una locuzione destinata a raccontare l’Italia di allora, quella di Mani pulite (che sarebbe arrivata undici anni più tardi) e – purtroppo – anche quella che stiamo vivendo, nel tempo dei pizzini, degli appalti facili, delle p3 e della P4, dei contributi spontanei alle fondazioni “amiche”.

[...]