Sbagliando s'impera

Lo so, è come sparare sulla Croce Rossa. Ma l’articolo di Giulio Zanella merita di essere letto.

noiseFromAmeriKa : Brunetta, una degna conclusione

Proprio mentre il ministro della PA stava facendo le valigie assieme al governo di cui ha fatto parte, la Ragioneria Generale pubblicava il Conto Annuale 2010. Come ogni anno posso quindi aggiornare il monitoraggio delle assenze dei dipendenti pubblici sulla base dei dati ufficiali di tutte le amministrazioni pubbliche (tutte le puntate precedenti della saga sono recuperabili dal post dell’anno scorso). Risultato: sul fronte della riduzione delle assenze dei dipendenti pubblici il ministro Brunetta lascia la PA esattamente come l’ha trovata, checché ne dicano le sue indagini.

Figura 1. Giorni di assenza retribuita per dipendente, Pubblica Amministrazione

noisefromamerika.org

PNAS pubblica oggi un articolo che ricostruisce le mappe della contaminazione radioattiva (fall-out) dell’incidente nucleare di Fukushima.

Radiation Maps for Japan | The Scientist

Scientists have constructed local and nation-wide maps of the radioactive particles that rained down when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failed after a massive earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan last March. The fallout maps, published today (November 14) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will help direct decontamination efforts to the worst affected areas.

L’articolo originale si scarica qui.

Flickr, M1K3Y

Pubblicata negli Stati Uniti una nuova biografia di Dante.

The layman’s guide to Dante – Biography – Salon.com

salon.com

A. N. Wilson’s new book on Dante is inspired partly by love — he’s read Dante over the past 50 years or so — and partly by the notion that people are scared away from reading Dante at all. As a novelist, popular historian, ex-theology student, former atheist, current believer and amateur Dantean, Wilson offers himself as our Virgil as we journey, again — or for the first time — into the poet’s imagination. Despite the many books on Dante he’s looked at over the years (and his bibliography is deep as well as long), Wilson feels he’s never found a satisfactory introduction written for the ordinary non-Italian-speaking reader, “the intelligent general reader of the twenty-first century — that is to say, you.”

Il New York Times di oggi pubblica 2 articoli su Mario Monti.

Mario Monti Accepts Job as Italy’s Premier – NYTimes.com

Mr. Monti, 68, a respected economist who has promised to be a steady hand in a time of market turbulence, said he expected to move ahead as soon as he secured a parliamentary majority for the new government.

* * *

Mario Monti, Italy’s New Leader, Faces Uphill Fight – NYTimes.com

The consensus in Italy is that President Giorgio Napolitano, who nominated Mr. Monti in record time on Sunday to replace departing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, had chosen judiciously, picking an economist with strong European credentials and longstanding familiarity with Europe’s power brokers.

It remains to be seen, however, whether Mr. Monti — who has no hands-on political experience at home — can convince financial markets that he can overcome Italy’s snarled domestic politics and implement the cost-saving measures that Italy has promised to whittle down a mountain of debt and boost growth.

Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

Ma l’Italia è poi così diversa dalla Grecia? Sì e no, secondo il Financial Times.

Italy: a pain in the azzurri – FT.com

Italy is like Greece in two ways. First, its political culture makes structural reforms impossible. That erodes competitiveness: witness the hollowing out of its famed textile industry. Second, Italians are addicted to tax evasion.

Un articolo del Boston Globe spiega come il crowdsourcing sta cambiando il modo di fare scienza. Trasformandola, letteralmente, in un gioco.

How crowdsourcing is changing science – Ideas – The Boston Globe

At the end of the 19th century, a team of British archeologists happened upon what is now one of the world’s most treasured trash dumps.

The site, situated west of the main course of the Nile, about five days journey south of Memphis, lay near the city of Oxyrhynchus. Garbage mounds are always a sweet target for those interested in the past, but what made the Oxyrhynchus dump special was its exceptional dryness. The water table lay deep; it never rained. And this meant that the 2,000-year-old papyrus in the mounds, and the text inscribed on it, were remarkably well preserved.

Eventually some half a million pieces of papyrus were drawn from the desert and shipped back to Oxford University, where generations of scholars have been painstakingly transcribing and translating them. The manuscripts are rich, fascinating, and varied. The texts include lost comedies by the great Athenian playwright Menander, and the controversial Gospel of Thomas, along with glimpses of daily life — personal notes, receipts for the purchase of donkeys and dates — and the occasional scrap of sex magic.

The pace, however, has been glacial. After a hundred-plus years, scholars have been able to work through only about 15 percent of the collection. The finish line appeared to lie centuries in the future.

But a few months ago, the papyrologists tried something bold. They put up a website, called Ancient Lives, with a game that allowed members of the public to help transcribe the ancient Greek at home by identifying images from the papyrus. Help began pouring in. In the short time the site has been running, people have contributed 4 million transcriptions. They have helped identify Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plutarch’s “On the Cleverness of Animals,” and more.

Ancient Lives is part of a new approach to the conduct of modern scholarship, called crowd science or citizen science. The idea is to unlock thorny research projects by tapping the time and enthusiasm of the general public.

Se volete provare anche voi (così quelli che hanno fatto il liceo classico potranno scrollarsi di dosso la spiacevole sensazione di avere buttato il sangue su una cosa perfettamente inutile)ecco il link al sito di Ancient Lives.

Su un blog del New York Times una divertita rassegna delle reazioni delle folle romane alle dimissioni di Mr B.

Breaking News – The Lede Blog – NYTimes.com

Before and after the expected resignation, people gathered in the streets in Rome and beyond, cheering Mr. Berlusconi’s departure.

La finestra di opportunità per salvare l’euro si sta rapidamente chiudendo …

Sabato la crisi ha spazzato via un altro leader: Berlusconi ha rassegnato le dimissioni, dopo aver dominato la scena politica italiana per 17 anni, tra i frizzi e i lazzi della folla romana.

For European Union and the Euro, a Moment of Truth – NYTimes.com

The window of opportunity to save the euro is rapidly closing, as the sovereign debt crisis erodes the solvency of Europe’s banks and drives up borrowing rates for even once rock-solid countries like France.

On Saturday, the crisis swept away another leader, when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned after 17 years of dominance in Italian politics to the jeers and cheers of crowds in Rome.

* * *

Il Paese spazzato dalla bufera della crisi del debito, un capoitale politico imponenete dissipato: le dimissioni di Berlusconi segnano la fine di una settimana tumultuosa ma anche di un’era. “Il momento più difficile della nostra storia recente” secondo il direttore del Corriere della sera.

Ma in tutta Europa le turbolenze dei mercati finanziari hanno di fatto sospeso i tradizionali processi democratici.

Berlusconi Resigns After Italy’s Parliament Approves Austerity Measures – NYTimes.com

With his country swept up in Europe’s debt crisis and his once-mighty political capital spent, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned on Saturday, punctuating a tumultuous week and ending an era in Italian politics.

His exit, a sudden fall after months of political stalemate, paves the way for a new government of technocrats led by Mario Monti, a former member of the European Commission. Mr. Monti is likely to be installed in the next few days, following the apparent consent of key blocs of Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition.

His resignation came just days after the fall of Prime Minister George A. Papandreou in Greece. Both men were swept away amid a larger crisis that has threatened the entire European Union, in which roiling financial markets have upended traditional democratic processes.

Though it was met by cheering crowds in Rome, the end of Mr. Berlusconi’s 17-year chapter in Italian politics, characterized by his defiance and fortitude, sets off a jarring political transition. “This is the most dramatic moment of our recent history,” Ferruccio de Bortoli, the editor of the Milan daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, said Saturday.

After borrowing rates on Italian bonds soared last week to levels that have required other euro zone countries to seek bailouts, Mr. Berlusconi pledged to step down after the Italian Parliament approved austerity measures sought by the European Union.

The lower house gave their final approval to some of the measures on Saturday afternoon, and two hours later, he officially submitted his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.

L’allarme di Stiglitz: «Mai come ora l’euro può fallire» | Linkiesta.it

Il premio Nobel per l’economia, presente a Milano a un private meeting, parla a ruota libera della moneta unica europea, considerata sull’orlo del fallimento strutturale. Con un chiaro riferimento all’Italia, al centro della pressione degli investitori che hanno ormai perso la fiducia verso Roma, spiega che non serve solo l’austerità. «I tagli indiscriminati fanno decrescere la domanda e rallentano la crescita». E avverte: «La crisi è cominciata nel 2007 e nel 2017 i suoi effetti si sentiranno ancora».

Wikipedia.org