Disqus - Latest Comments for Joe T.

Re: They Don’t Make Amazon Women Like They Used To

Joe T. — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:51:00 -0000

I think they have casted this incarnation of Wonder Woman as a petite, young, pretty female mainly to appeal to the teenage and early-20s male crowd, who are always the prime targets for blockbuster action movies.

I think the thinking is probably that a tall, Amazonsque superhero woman would intimidate and frighten off a significant segment of that market, and that might hurt the film at the box office.

Movie studios create movies by committee these days, and always with a view to maximizing profits. Even a slight "intimidation" factor in the star might dent box office numbers just enough to label the movie a failure.

Re: Are you an accomplished woman vying for a place in President Obama’s Cabinet?

Joe T. — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:56:06 -0000

Alex --

There is (or was) also a very posh seafood restaurant in New York City called "Squid Roe", just fyi. The name doesn't sound too appealing, though!

Sean --

Very impressed with your website and blog.

Yes, I think that, once the dust of the primaries settles, women voters will naturally "flock to Barack".

If Obama can maximize the impact of (1) youth; (2) minorities; and (3) women, his path to the White House will be, if not a cake-walk, then at least a good bet.

Joe T.

Re: Too Young, too good

Joe T. — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:29:37 -0000

Reminds me of an ex-girlfriend of mine, who emigrated from Greece to the US at 19. By 22, she had graduated with a B.A. in English from the same university where I got my law degree, and went on to work for a huge global web consulting firm, earning in the top 1% of US university graduates. It helped that she spoke almost flawless English, having benefited from English immersion schooling in Greece, and teachers from the UK and Ireland. I taught her to drive and within weeks she was driving great distances, from LA to San Francisco, like it was nothing. The got into the real estate market and her career took a nosedive. Don't know where she is now... Funny because her older brother spoke no English, and was almost frightened to leave Greece.

Re: My Guest Post at Volette.com

Joe T. — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:45:17 -0000

Thanks for a fantastic look at one of Milan's best events, Alex! Hope this will be the first of many more posts you do for Volette!

Re: Summer Holiday Thoughts

Joe T. — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:05:23 -0000

Would make for a great piece on a certain travel website!!!

Re: Moby Soundtrack for Gianpietro Carlesso YouTube Presentation

Joe T. — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:52:16 -0000

Moby is awesome!

Re: The curious case of BlogBabel

Joe T. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:27:22 -0000

I would say they're more than finicky, Alex. I would say they're "touched in the head", to use an old US hillbilly phrase.

Is this typical of the internet scene in Italy? Seems as soon as someone wants to provide a service that may actually help a few people, along comes a bunch of naysayers who proceed to go ballistic and torpedo the whole idea.

There is something weirdly self-defeating about Italian attitudes. On the one hand, this is a country that produces such great creativity and beauty... on the other hand, it seems almost impossible to organize anything new -- except maybe a new political party.

I wonder if Beppe Grillo himself was one of the complainers who scuttled this service on IP grounds.

Re: The curious case of BlogBabel

Joe T. — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:22:02 -0000

Alex - wonder if someone's thought of setting up a blog network in Italian, on servers outside the country? Would that enable them to bypass Italian jurisdiction and threats from the political class?

Re: Will Berlusconi Initiate Change in Italy?

Joe T. — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:23:37 -0000

The centralized government where all big decisions have to be made in Rome, combined with the atomised political parties, are a recipe for stagnation and immobility. Berlusconi's style seems to be to talk a lot but do nothing, and then pat himself on the back, while the Italian Left seems to have only one recipe for everything: across-the-board tax increases. No one ever offers any kind of overarching vision about where to steer the ship of state, and politicians don't propose imaginative solutions because the Italian system, with its bureacracies of "important" people who don't want their toes stwpped on, won't allow it. So, did you ask about change? Ha... Not too likely.

Re: Buzz Lightyear!

Joe T. — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:58:15 -0000

I think Silvio has all of the chin and the ego, and none of the high-tech thinking.

Kind of like what the late Texas columnist Molly Ivins used to say about Dubya -- "All hat, no cowboy".

Re: Italy - A Power Crazed Nation? Part 1

Joe T. — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:22:35 -0000

Yes, much of what you say is dead on, Alex. However, you haven't seen a status-oriented society until you've been to Latin America... but that's another story for another time.

I think in addition to "status", there is a big emphasis on "respect" in the Italian mindset. There is the concept of "uomini di rispetto". Men of respect. Hence all the titles and honorifics, e.g., dottore, cavaliere, etc.

This may differ from the UK's system of peerage, with all its titles and perks, in form and emphasis, but not necessarily in function. After all, the UK is a society where a full-blown aristocracy not only still exists, but is fully and firmly recognized by the State and is in many ways intertwined with the State.

Not so in Italy. So, in its transition from monarchy to republic, Italy had to replace many of those royal and aristocratic forms with republican ones. Still, the aura of a stratified, status-obsessed society persists in many quarters.

I actually dig many of the bows to respect, which we don't have in the US. Here in the US, there is only one thing that counts: Money. You can be the most vulgar, slovenly, ignorant person, but if you're "bucks up", then you get the red carpet treatment everywhere and Corporate America and all of its minions will curtsy.

Yes, in America we have fully democratized vulgarity.

Re: Rajab, the SEO Gladiator

Joe T. — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:17:41 -0000

Alex, I'm needing some serious SEO help for Volette, so I'd appreciate the chance to meet with all your SEO friends next time I'm in Milan (which will probably be 1st week in June)... What I need is "key words" such as the various cities and countries, and topics, that Volette posts have covered.

Do you do this with your blog?

Re: Rajab, the SEO Gladiator

Joe T. — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:36:15 -0000

Hi Rajab, better yet I will see you when I'm in Milan in June!

Re: It’s a Teca Thing

Joe T. — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:54:38 -0000

Hi Alex!

I think this Italian suffix "teca" comes from the same Greek root that also shows up in French as "theque". For instance, like in "discotheque".

Re: It’s a Teca Thing

Joe T. — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:46:10 -0000

Thanks, Cristian.

Re: Italy’s Next Pope? Not.

Joe T. — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:09:26 -0000

Just call him the "papa di tutti papi".

Re: It never rains but it pours.

Joe T. — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:29:27 -0000

Alex - please give Cristina my thoughts and tell her I`m praying for her Mom. I hope she gets past this ordeal soon...

Re: A Neat Idea for A Horror Movie?

Joe T. — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:04:53 -0000

Believe it or not, I saw a movie with a similar plot... it was not really a horror movie but more of a crime mystery, and took place in London... I am trying to remember the name. A French actress played a young Turkish immigrant living illegally in London. She got caught up in some kind of scheme where people were being killed at a hospital, but thats all I can remember of the movie. It was a good film, but most of it slips my mind now... Funny how drink will do that!

Re: Did You Know?

Joe T. — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:26:10 -0000

Alex - when you consider that the French is "chat", and the English word comes from the French word, which in turn is a corruption of the Latin word, then it's not all that surprising.

English is not directly descended from Latin the way French and Italian are, but English has the distinction of having 60% of its vocabulary based on Latin, mostly through French.

So all these similarities are not that surprising. Nevertheless, they are interesting.

Not that any of this has helped me speak Italian better, I might add.

I actually find that my knowledge of French (learned in elementary school) and Spanish (learned in high school and college), hinders my attempts to improve my conversational Italian.

By contrast, my cousin, a native Italian speaker, now speaks Spanish fluently, having spent a only few months living in Spain.

So my guess is that if one is an adult and already speaks a Romance language (or two) as a second language, learning yet another one can be difficult, precisely because of the similarities between the languages.

Whereas if one is an adult native speaker of one of these languages, then adding a second or a third is much easier.

Re: I’m Not Going to Complain

Joe T. — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:53:30 -0000

Classic!

I shudder to think of what you wouldn't compalin about if you spent a summer here in Vegas!

Re: The UK is Sicker than Italy

Joe T. — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:51:17 -0000

Alex -

Great post, great topic.

I have spent enough time in the US, UK, and Italy to discern that without any doubt, the US is in a greater state of decline, paralysis, and overall social, economic and cultural degeneration than Italy or the UK.

The UK comes in second. It is like the US in a lot of ways, and many of the social contagions that afflict the US are also affecting Britain.

Italy has problems that are uniquely its own. The US economy is, in certain areas (like high tech and the internet) buttressed by a highly entrepreneurial culture, and a very business-friendly environment. We also have an excellent (if expensive) system of university education.

On the downside, the quality of primary and secondary schools in the US, is, in the main, VASTLY lower than anything on the European continent.

To fully understand how bad most US schools are, you must actually live in the United States for a while, and send your kids there.

I don't have kids, but I have vowed to myself that if and when I do, I will never send them to US primary schools or high schools, unless I am living in one of the very few enclaves where good quality schools exist in the US (and those places are ONLY on the east coast of the US).

The US is in such an advanced state of social decline that to fully appreciate it, you must actually come here and spend time here looking around -- and not in Midtown Manhattan, Beverly Hills, or the Las Vegas Strip -- but where average citizens actually live with their families.

Re: The UK is Sicker than Italy

Joe T. — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:37:13 -0000

Alex - the US approach to primary and secondary schools is increasingly the "warehousing" of students.

So much time is devoted to (mostly failing) attempts to control and discipline students, as well as administrative and bureaucratic issues, that very little learning actually takes place in the typical American classroom.

Lessons are so watered down as to be ludicrous. There is an endless vicious cycle of poor pupil performance, lowering expectations, and the further dumbing down of the curriculum.

Contrarily, the emphasis on organized team sports in US public schools has always been immense, and this is one thing that has not changed.

The typical US high school, for example, will spend a very significant amount of its budget on these organized sports, such as American football and basketball (baseball is typically regarded as an "after school" or weekend sport to be pursued in private leagues).

Every school has its football and basketball teams, with a "mascot" (team name, like the Eagles, the Bears, the Cougars, etc.) "School spirit" is incessantly promoted and there are cheerleading squads, innumerable "pep rallies" (mandatory attendance for all students), and other activities which bleed away time that would otherwise be used on academic pursuits.

Every US high school has its social "pecking order" where the "jocks" (i.e., student athletes) are invariably on the top of the heap. They get all the dates with the pretty girls (like the cheerleaders). Kids who are academically gifted, interested in things like science or math, or who actually read something outside of the watered-down curriculum are socially suspect and branded "nerds" or "geeks", and are, needless to say, at or near the bottom of the pecking order, sometimes actually below the drug dealers and "gang bangers".

Even with the current precipitous decline of US schools, the "jock" system of spending millions on organized sports teams continues unabated, with the force of a locomotive, and is the only thing that really holds most US high schools together, in terms of identity or parent or community interest.

Re: The UK is Sicker than Italy

Joe T. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:18:20 -0000

Hi Lisa -

First, surely every country has social pecking orders in their schools, but my main point was about the millions spent on organized sports in US high schools.

Europeans have no concept of this. They may associate sport with school, but don't realize that in America, organized sports teams virtually define the existence and identity of a school, and take up a huge part of a school's budget. They are officially treated on equal par with academics, and unofficially, sports are often valued more than academics, in terms of how a school defines itself.

This leads not just to a "pecking order", but to a particularly American type of pecking order which values physical aggression and a "might makes right" attitude.

I think the 100+ year tradition of organized sports in American schools goes a long way in explaining, for instance, the aggressive nature of US foreign policy.

Something to think about, anyway.

With regard to whether Italy is worse off than other countries, as a native-born Italian who grew up in the USA, I can say that the number one attribute that characterizes the Italian race (at least in Italy) is COMPLAINING.

It's part of the Italian national character to complain, and if there's little to complain about, by God they will find something, and then magnify it so out of proportion that you'd think the sky was falling.

The second national characteristic of Italians is naivete'.

If Italians think the sky is falling and civilization is ending in Italy, then they are truly naive, because they must not have stepped foot in the USA.

Italians don't know what true social disintegration, out-of-control greed, rampant and senseless violence, and societal/family/community breakdown is.

Let them live in the USA for a year or two and that will set them straight.

I could regale you with stories of daily, hideous violent crime from right here in Las Vegas (a community of 1 million people and not just a tourist/gambling mecca), that would make most Italians' eyeballs pop out, if they could even believe it wasn't just some Hollywood movie plot.

Re: The UK is Sicker than Italy

Joe T. — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:10:44 -0000

Lisa and Alex -

I found this really good 'primer' on the American school system, which discusses the role of sports at length:

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AmericanSchoolSystem

Joe

Re: New Look!

Joe T. — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:27:01 -0000

Alex --

Love the new look! The arrangement of items is much cleaner, more organized and easier to follow. Massive improvement!

Joe

Re: Milano Jazzin’ Festival

Joe T. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:30:51 -0000

Damn -- will miss Lenny Kravitz again, by a few days. Missed him last month in Kiev, Ukraine by about 3 days. Did catch a Kravitz gig in DC in 2000, and it was one of the best performances I've ever seen. Hope you can see him.

Wouldn't mind seeing REM, either. I should be around Milan for that.

Re: An Unhealthy Italian Brand

Joe T. — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:40:44 -0000

Yes, I heard that being fitted with iron weights and dumped in the Hudson River can be somewhat unhealthy...

Re: iPhone Availability in Italy for iPhone Hunters

Joe T. — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:47:10 -0000

Hi Alex - You might want to contact Emanuele about this, his brother was getting into this iPhone thing...

Re: Speeding, and other traffic fines in Italy

Joe T. — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:10:40 -0000

Alex - are there blatant "speed traps" in Italy?

Just FYI, here in Las Vegas, the local police conduct all kinds of speed traps and set-ups in various parts of the city.

They do this heavily in the older, more crime-ridden parts of town, presumably the thinking here is that if they catch a random speeder in those areas, he's more likely to be a criminal violating a court warrant for something much bigger, like a drug rap.

But even in the newer, more upscale parts of Las Vegas and environs (e.g., where I live in Henderson), I'm starting to see police speed traps... usually police cars or motorcycle cops "hidden" on a side street, alley, or in a shopping center parking lot, poised to pounce on a speeder on some quiet street as the unwitting driver passes by.

Just wondered if this kind of stuff happens in Italy. I haven't seen any of this there, as it doesn't seem a very "European" thing to do... but knowing how much Europeans love to copy American tactics, I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't happen soon.

Re: Macro-economic gloom and startups

Joe T. — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:14:45 -0000

Nic, to what degree do concerns about the performance of existing investments, during rough economic times, influence a VC's decision to invest going forward?

Re: Future of the music industry

Joe T. — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:10:45 -0000

Good post, Nic. I think there's something else going on with the music industry, and it's very sad. It's the passing of a very long era that has existed since the beginning of recorded music. Whether we continue with the present "file-based" system, or evolve to a system where "music is like water" pouring endlessly out of the pipes of the internet -- universal access to every track ever recorded -- something much more fundamental is happening. It used to be that the music industry "found" the best music and "pushed" it out to the public. Promoters would actually find the most talented and interesting artists and labels would promote those artists. Think of all the cool artists Malcolm McLaren found in the 70s and 80s, for example. Who would have known about them if it weren't for someone like Malcolm?

Today, by contrast, all the work of finding great new artists is on the individual listener. True, it's a much more "libertarian" and "decentralized" system, but it's also much harder for the average music consumer these days to sift through millions of tracks and new artists, and locate the best.

The only artists who have any real promotional money spent on them these days are the ones who don't need it -- like Britney Spears. The truly talented gems get little or no promotional investments now, and are never heard from.

Re: Social network traffic declining

Joe T. — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:03:34 -0000

I`ve seen some reports that "niche" sites may be growing audiences at a faster rate, but I think the big news recently is that ad-clicks are underwhelming on all social network sites. This was shown by poor numbers from Google`s SN deals. Ad-clicks on more targeted sites might be worth more CPM wise, but I think the jury is still out on this.