I found this table on the web and I think its the missing lesson on any English course: the meaning of a sentence is hidden somewhere in the tone and the colture, rather than in its words…

The two ad are identical. Same soundtrack, almost the same text. They are both beautiful, yet so difficult to analyze from the Italian’s perspective. Fiat is the brand we paid well in the past thanks to Agnelli’s influence on the Parliament… and now is the infamous brand that want to eradicate workers rights, at least according to labor unions.

Fiat Panda

Jeep Grand Cherokee

Unfortunately it’s a Lion-only app, and I currently have Lion only on the MacBook pro, but the PhD thesis I’m writing trying to write it’s the perfect test set for this amazing app!

Yes, this screenshot is a piece of my thesis

Just open the Registry Editor (Start -> Run… -> “regedit.exe” -> OK) and navigate to

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
Software\
Microsoft\
Windows\
CurrentVersion\
Policies\
ComDlg32]

Within this folder (actually a registry entry) you’ll find a NoFileMru item. Double click and edit its value from 1 to 0 (hexadecimal).

"NoFileMru"=dword:00000000

This is a system-wide setting that according to Microsoft hides the dropdown list of recent files.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

On religion…

“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

“On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”

“If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? … Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.”

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

“Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.”

On Taxes…

“If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses. And the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they do now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow sufferers. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on ’til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automations of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.” Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Third President of the United States 1801 -1809, Drafter of the Declaration of Independence, Founder of the University of Virginia

È pronto il primo numero della nuova serie di Corte d’Onore. Nel sito si trovano un po’ di articoli della prima serie (in costante aumento), e informazioni per abbonarsi…

Photoshop alert with banknotes

A very cool feature in Photoshop CS I never heard about: if you try to open a scanned banknote you’ll get a warning telling you are likely doing something nasty!
Is this another reason to prefere open source software? GIMP is available for download