The Library in Sempione Park, Milan
This is not a bad place to end up if you need a little peace and quiet. It’s right in the middle of Milan’s main Sempione park, and you should be able to get free Wi-Fi there too. Don’t let the 70s reject architecture put you off.
The photo is the result of my playing around with my Tokina 12-24 lens.
Has Google Italy been Got At?
What an interesting question. I mean, would it be possible for someone working within Google Italy to manipulate the Googleplex’s search engine systems to the extent that the ranking of certain sites could be manipulated?
As I understand it, Google’s systems are based on cold and complex algorithms. Although these sophisticated formulae perhaps could not be tweaked, one who knows how the algorithims do their stuff could, I suppose, pass information on to certain parties. Certain parties could then use this information to make their sites more Google friendly. What a naughty thought.
Why am I on about this? Good question. Actually, it’s because I was speaking to someone involved in the running of a major Italian website, and this site’s page ranking in Google had fallen. The fall was such that this person intimated that someone somewhere was possibly exerting influence on someone in Google Italy.
Could this really be the case? Well, this is Italy…. And Italians are ‘furbo‘. This post, of course, is pure speculation.
Italy - A Power Crazed Nation? Part 1
I’ve been in Italy for a good few years now, and my psychoanalysis of the place and its people continues.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m starting to grasp how the Italian mind works. In fact I have written quite a bit on this subject several times including, oddly enough, after I came back from my last summer holiday down in Tuscany and wrote ‘Why Italy is the Way it is.‘
My post entitled ‘Furbo‘ also looks at another aspect of Italian mentality.
When you think about it, Italians do seem to display a strong desire for status, superiority, and that most addictive of drugs, power. Once the desired level of power has been reached, Italians will then jealously guard their positions by any and all means in an attempt to enable them to retain the status, superiority, and power they believe they have managed to attain.
Why is this attraction to power noticeable to me? Well, I guess it’s because the same fixation with power and status is just not as overt back in the UK as it is here.
In Italy, manifestations of Italians’ lust for status are everywhere. From the preponderance of almost garishly uniformed police forces, to use of the ‘Lei’ form, and all the titles which Italians go by - dottore, ingegnere, architetto, and avvocato. Age is also a great indicator of status for Italians, and grey hair commands respect, and the inevitable ‘Lei’ or ‘Voi’ form.
However, there is more, much more.
Part 2 is coming soon.
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