mercoledì 20 maggio 2009

let's end it with a bang!

When I listen to music I always try to understand the words, to get and to learn the pronunciation, but I don't care much about the meaning.

The meaning, I believe, is something more personal, something that is subjective, a feature of the song that is not immediately clear, but needs time to take some kind of form . If an artist explains the meaning of their lyrics, they ruin that touch of magic present in it.
Sometimes excerpts of a song without any kind of meaning have a great potential. Interpretative potential, I mean! Everybody may give a personal interpretation to it, and that's amazing.
It is clear that this doesn't happen with every song, and that's even more amazing!

Let's start talking about "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. I like it, but with some kind of reserve. I'll explain later.
What does this song talk about? Well, at first sight... ops, listening... this song talks about kings, castles, Jerusalem...
I may over-generalize a bit, but basically almost all songs talks about love and/or drug! Both are addictive and make one feel better. Pay attention! I'm not talking about the consequences...

I think that this song talks about a love story finished in a bad way. Everything was fine, going right. Then something happened, in a blink of an eye and apparently without a clear reason. He (I'm almost sure that the song is about a man. It's women that tend to leave men without clear reasons! :-P ) discovers that everything he believed in, such as faithfulness, was just an illusion and that nobody around him wanted to tell him.

Well, the part about Jerusalem is not so clear!

As the song goes on, he tries to find some kind of relief in someone who will have to be for him a sort of shelter (be my sword and shield), but at the same time also an advisor (be my mirror).
In the second part he admits in a certain way that he, too, may have made some mistake, but it is not so clear.

The song finishes with the refrain repeated many times and a lot of ooh ooh, too!

Oh, if you have some more minutes to waste, take a look at these videos! Listen carefully, because the first one regards plagiarism! :-)



The second one is about misheard lyrics... Well, sometimes it is very hard to catch every word of the lyrics, but the author of this video did a great job! ^_^



That's the last, but not the least. I love this song so much! I'm really curious to see how an English speaker would interpret this song! :-)

martedì 19 maggio 2009

mercoledì 6 maggio 2009

how can I protect myself from web hazards?

Ignorance is bliss! Definitely... It is true for so many things, unfortunately! One's life goes on so peacefully until they realize that the World is evil and everyone around them is bad... Am I too pessimistic? Well, I strongly believe that too many times we are so powerless against the events that gets in our road.

Sometimes I think about what happens to the information I put on the Internet, but after awhile I rather stop my mind from wondering. The only solution is assume good faith from the Entity who rules over the Web. It is clear that if one surfs over peaceful waters, maybe staying away from "nasty" sites [oh, yes... the sirens of the Web! ;-) ] they can consider themselves quite safe. I want to underline the word "quite". There are sites more reliable than others, sites that we can trust, always assuming good faith on their part anyway.

What's the solution? To self exile myself in my beautiful (and full accessorized) ivory tower? Mmmh... I really think this action is completely useless. The fact that one avoid the Internet doesn't prevent them from being victim of it! A friend of mine doesn't use the computer at all, but he is a celebrity on the Web (and I'm the reason for his success!).

The only good solution (that is not really a solution, after all) is to surf the Web carefully, maybe with the help of a good anti-virus, a good anti-spyware, a good anti-malaware... a lot of anti-something, to sum up!
I pointed out that this is not a real solution, since I myself became victim of the evil web... Right one hour ago a technician called to tell me my PC didn't work properly because of a virus...

What shall I say? Surf safe... and may God guide your mouse! ;-)

domenica 3 maggio 2009

reference corrections and google docs

Bibliography is a recurrent nightmare for me! Well, I'm joking (for real?), but I have to say that this week the task wasn't effortless. We had to correct a list of references according to the APA. It is not a matter of confusion, rather a matter of details: APA style is so precise and detailed! There are so many different ways to write an entry in a reference list!

I had some problems correcting my references. I tried to google the name of one of the authors of the list, a certain Karain, but the search engine gave me no results! Well, except the name of a cave in Turkey (or somewhere in the Middle East, God knows!), but I guess it's not what I was looking for! :-(

Google Docs seems to me quite useful. I still have not tried it properly, since I just started clicking here and there trying to discover more about this tool. Up to now, anyway, I consider it better than Wiki, for it is "private" (you can access it only by logging in) and for you have not to wait for someone to finish their work before starting editing the document. Uhm... I guess I could explain better the second reason! I meant that it is better because the shared document can be edited by more than a person at the same time! Ok. Now it sounds better!

See you soon!