in the previous weeks I had already written on this blog about the climatic conditions that have been experienced in Italy in recent months… in particular from May 2022 until today, January 2023: temperatures above the average by even 10 degrees, and days that seem more of spring that winter. Just today, an article came out in ANSA (National Associated Press Agency) according to which snow is completely missing in all the regions with the Apennines: a monstrous and incredible fact that I believe has never occurred in the last few seconds in the Italian peninsula. Foreigners will probably mostly know the Alps, located in the north, which are known for their snow, skiing and tourism, but generally also the Apennines, between central-northern and central-southern Italy, have mountains which have always guaranteed winter tourism… This year there isn’t a single peak or ski slope that has the necessary, and it’s not even possible to make artificial snow because the temperatures are so high that they never drop below below zero, not even at night.
On December 31, 2022, BENEDICT XVI ascended to heaven, the second Pope to renounce the Pontifical Office (after Celestine V) and the first to adopt the title of Pope Emeritus. Joseph Ratzinger dies at 9:34 on the last day of the year after days in which the media had talked about the precarious health conditions of the former pontiff. Pope Ratzinger was a fundamental Pontiff. He was the one who had to fill the legacy of the long pontificate of John Paul II. For many he was a Pontiff overshadowed by many problems that gripped and still gripped the church. In reality Ratzinger was an example of rigor and faith, although not as ostentatious as his predecessor. It was Ratzinger who dictated the first guidelines with the fundamental criteria: to inform the Holy See, to follow the provisions of civil justice and to remove suspicion from pastoral activities. Five years after the election, in July 2010, new changes were made to the norms of “De delictis gravioribus” drawn up by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, changes approved by the Pope himself.
However, there are some obscure and questionable themes: many media have written that the Pope Emeritus never expressed a word of solidarity with the family of Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of the Vatican clerk who disappeared into thin air on June 22, 1983. A complex and obscure story to which a solution has never been reached, not even with the most disparate conjectures over the course of these decades. In any case, the girl’s tragic mystery occurred when Ratzinger was not yet Pope. After about 8 years of pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI resigns to the amazement of many faithful and even lay people. The real reason for Benedict XVI’s resignation has never been fully clarified, although he has spoken of it on a few occasions. For example, he denied that he was forced to resign, or that he was influenced, always saying that he acted “in complete freedom”. And on the day of his resignation he said that «in order to steer the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, vigor of both body and soul is also necessary, vigor which, in recent months, has diminished in me to such an extent that I have to recognize my inability to properly administer the ministry entrusted to me”
The new year has arrived: 2023. Everywhere in the world we celebrate the new year but not on the same date and above all not in the same way. However the new year brings with it the hope of a better life… 2022 was a bitter year for Europe: war! In fact, the conflict in Ukraine has caused bills to rise, forcing many traders to close their businesses. The war in Ukraine obviously doesn’t affect all the countries of the world equally… the most distant countries see the conflict as something unknown… but everyone should hope that in the new year there will be peace.
The day for the custody of creation is an initiative wanted by the Italian Episcopal Conference in harmony with the other European churches which consists of an annual day dedicated to reaffirming the importance, also for faith, of environmentalism with all its ethnic implications and social. The official anniversary is September 1st, but the initiative is left to the individual dioceses to develop local activities throughout the month.
In the Christian context, the development of sensitivity to environmental issues that took place in the second half of the last century was closely intertwined with the themes of justice and peace and the term “safeguarding creation” has been used since the first official documents to indicate this vision. unitary. This awareness has historically grown in the same years in which ecumenical sensitivity was affirmed, and the theme of safeguarding creation was one of the first points of agreement in the difficult path of reconciliation between the various Christian confessions.
The official documents in this regard are innumerable. We recall three historical dates:
In 1983 in Vancouver the assembly of the Ecumenical Council of Churches made an appeal to all the Churches to commit themselves to a “conciliar process of mutual dedication to justice, peace and the protection of creation” . In 1989 in Basel the 1st European Ecumenical Assembly entitled “Peace in Justice” in which the Conference of European Churches (KEK) and the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) take part has the primary task of expressing the commitment of European Christians for peace, justice and the protection of creation . The same two bodies (KEK and CCEE) in 2001 in Strasbourg, in the document that defines the guidelines for the growth of collaboration between Christian Churches in Europe (Charta Oecumenica) write: “We recommend the establishment by the European churches of a ecumenical day of prayer for the protection of creation.” The Orthodox Church played and still plays a leading role on this path. The day is celebrated on September 1, Orthodox New Year, on the proposal made in 1989 by the then patriarch of Constantinople Dimitrios I who in the encyclical addressed to the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, saw all the danger for the deterioration of the environment, but he felt all the responsibility of the Church towards the work of God.
On Wednesday, many international newspapers reported the news that the famous Japanese camera brand Nikon will stop producing single-lens reflex cameras, the ones that for decades have made the company a vanguard in professional photography and beyond. The news was given by the reliable Japanese newspaper Nikkei, but a few hours later Nikon published a hasty denial, according to which the company “is continuing the production, sale and service of digital SLRs”. A phrase that does not contain reassurances on the development of new models, and which therefore could literally mean that the company will only produce and sell the old ones.
It is not clear what will happen, but the reasons why Nikon may have made or want to make such a choice are there and are not negligible. One of these is the spread of mirrorless camera models, that is, without the internal mirror that shows what is framed by the lens in the reflex viewfinder. They have a more practical and lighter structure and give results now comparable to those of reflex cameras, at least of the non-high-end ones, but Nikon has never managed to establish itself in this segment like other companies.
The other reason, and perhaps even more inexorable, is the sharp downsizing of the camera market due to the now widespread use of smartphones with increasingly sophisticated cameras.
Nikon began producing cameras after World War II and in 1959 released the Nikon F, which was not the first SLR in history but was considered the most sophisticated and innovative. Nikon’s first digital SLR arrived decades later, in 1999: compared to film cameras, digital ones were easier to produce and Nikon was able to intercept the potential of this technology, so much so that Nikon’s digital models had an enormous diffusion in the early 2000s. Today, the company effectively shares a large part of the digital SLR market with Canon.
In 2009 Olympus released the EP-1, the first mirrorless digital camera in history. Mirrorless cameras do not have a mirror like reflex cameras: the image is collected by the lens and shown directly on the display and, without the mirror, also in the viewfinder, which can be optical or electronic. This reduces the size of the camera and shutter speeds, and increases accuracy and durability.
In the transition from SLR to mirrorless Nikon was not as fast as it had been with the transition to digital and was anticipated by brands like Sony. Nikkei explains that the reason Nikon lagged behind was that mirrorless cameras needed an adapter to be compatible with the lenses Nikon had sold for SLRs up to that point: the company feared that this step would not be appreciated by the consumers and for this reason it took a long time to invest in this new technology.
More recently, this has been joined by a general crisis in the non-professional photography market due to the spread of smartphones with increasingly sophisticated cameras. Phones have in fact replaced compact digital cameras, products that in the early 2000s made up about 80 percent of the industry’s value. But not only: with the spread of social networks, the quality of the images has become less important in the common perception than the possibility of publishing photos instantly.
In recent years Nikon has scaled down its beginner catalog, focusing on the market for products for professionals and enthusiasts. But he still had big losses: in 2019 he had to close two factories in Japan and lay off staff in foreign branches and in 2020 he closed the fiscal year in negative.
2020 was also the year in which the sale of mirrorless cameras surpassed that of SLRs and in which Nikon unveiled its latest model of SLR, the D6 which, if what Nikkei says is true, will be the last. of its history.
World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. The first World Book Day was celebrated on 23 April in 1995, and continues to be recognized on that day. A related event in the United and Ireland is observed in March. On the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day, UNESCO along with the advisory committee from the major sectors of the book industry, select the World Book Capital for one year. Each designated World Book Capital City carries out a program of activities to celebrate and promote books and reading.
The original idea was conceived in 1922 by Spanish writer Vicente Clavel Andrés as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes. It was first celebrated on 7 October 1926, Cervantes’ birthday, before being moved to his death date, 23 April, in 1930. The celebration continued to enjoy great popularity in Spain, especially in Catalonia, where it coincides with the Diada de Sant Jordi, the patron saint of Catalonia. The Diada usually involves the exchange of gifts between loved ones and, since the 1931 Book Fair in Barcelona, the gifts are a book and a rose.In 1995, UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on 23 April, as the date is also the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, as well as that of the birth or death of several other prominent authors. (In a historical coincidence, Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same date — 23 April 1616 — but not on the same day, as at the time, Spain used the Gregorian calendar and England used the Julian calendar; Shakespeare actually died 10 days after Cervantes died, on 3 May of the Gregorian calendar.)
To ensure our privacy, sites and apps ask us to enter increasingly difficult passwords. Not to mention the hassle of having to invent new ones every 6 months because, for some sites, it’s safer that way. This is why the American multinational technology company Dell Technologies begins to look forward to a future where there are no passwords. Biometrics continues to gain popularity as a convenient and secure form of automatic user recognition.
Passwords, compared to more advanced device security features, can be easily compromised. Passwords are a string of characters validated by a website or service to allow access to a user. But even the most complex passwords can be stolen. What you are cannot be copied or stolen, so the fingerprint registered to access services such as home banking is one and only. A user’s biometric matching is difficult to duplicate but, perhaps not impossible.
There are no right or wrong methods. Even biometric data could prove unsafe in the long run. Our body is the key to accessing the digital world. And, if we think about it, once our fingerprints are stolen, we can’t change them, unlike keys, pins and passwords. It is a hypothesis, but being able to steal our fingerprints could turn out to be a mission to 007. Phantom situations aside, biometrics is destined to become dominant in the space of a few years. Most users declare themselves safe in using biometric authentication. Millennials are in charge of the situation, according to a study, 75% of young people have no problems with biometric solutions, less than half use complex passwords and 41% reuse the same passwords. It is also shown how young people have more practicality in using biometric techniques, while the so-called digital belated ones prefer the dear old passwords. Young people are less confident in passwords and are looking for alternative ways to protect their accounts. What should we expect in the future? Should we really prepare to say goodbye to passwords? Of course, this is not new. Who, for convenience, speed or even security, does not use biometric authentication for at least one site?
Every year on the first Saturday of December, falling on December 4 this year, it’s Bath & Body Works’ Candle Day. Stock up on your favorite calming scents for the lowest prices of the year. The day only comes around once annually, so make sure it’s on your calendar!
HISTORY OF CANDLE DAY
Every year since the day’s 2013 inception, candle lovers across the nation gather on the first Saturday of December to take advantage of Bath & Body Works’ annual candle sale. Three wick candles that usually retail for around $25 will only be $9.50. Some locations will extend their operating hours so that they open earlier and close later, giving their customers ample time to go to the store and sniff out their favorite candles.
From the earliest of times, candle makers added scents to produce the best smelling candles. It started in China with their candle “time clocks”. Incense sticks were often inserted into the wax to add relaxing aromas. Sometimes incense was placed sporadically throughout the candle so that the scent was constantly changing. In the 1980s and 1990s, a rebirth in candle popularity became an international phenomenon, This was due partly to their decorative value, but also their ability to allow the stressed out, modern, over-worked homeowner an opportunity to create a relaxing environment using the aromatherapy of scented candles.
Bath & Body Works, an American retailer under the L Brands umbrella, was founded in 1990 in New Albany, Ohio. The company’s first store opened in a Cambridge, Massachusetts mall in September 1990. In 1997, a secondary brand called Bath & Body Works at Home was launched. Soon it was renamed to Slatkin before settling on the name we know it as today, White Barn Candle Company. The company launched a seasonal catalog, a website, and launched its first television commercial advertisement in 2006. Net sales as of January 28, 2006, were $2.3 billion, significantly higher than all other L Brand companies other than Victoria’s Secret.
But now the more the years go by, the more anticipated black friday is, as if it were a ritual or a unique event. I still remember before 2016 when black friday was practically unknown outside the united states, while today everyone knows what it is, even if probably few know its meaning and that is the Friday after the last Thursday of the month which would be the Thanksgiving Day. When I was a boy, Christmas decorations began at the beginning of December or even after the immaculate … nowadays someone even dares to display decorations and at the end of October, and for me this is an absurd thing.
This year, however, I do not see particular offers, especially on the alien world of amazon, where in recent years there were unattainable prices for other shops, so much so as to send entire local economies of various nations into crisis. This is mainly due to the fact that this year there is a crisis in finding semiconductors due in turn to the unavailability of Silicon. All this has repercussions in the technology sector, but also on other sectors such as cars or toys. So If you want to shop with blackfriday super discounts, think carefull!
Pneumonia is a preventable and treatable disease that sickens 155 million children under 5 and kills 1.6 million each year. This makes pneumonia the number 1 killer of children under 5, claiming more lives in this age group than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Yet most people are unaware of pneumonia’s overwhelming death toll. Because of this, pneumonia has been overshadowed as a priority on the global health agenda, and rarely receives coverage in the news media. World Pneumonia Day helps to bring this health crisis to the public’s attention and encourages policy makers and grassroots organizers alike to combat the disease.
In spite of the massive death toll of this disease, affordable treatment and prevention options exist. There are effective vaccines against the two most common bacterial causes of deadly pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae type B and Streptococcus pneumoniae, and most common viral cause of pneumonia, Orthomyxoviridae. A course of antibiotics which costs less than $1(US) is capable of curing the disease if it is started early enough. The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) released by the WHO and UNICEF on World Pneumonia Day, 2009, finds that 1 million children’s lives could be saved every year if prevention and treatment interventions for pneumonia were widely introduced in the world’s poorest countries.
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. The fourth of these goals is to reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate. Because pneumonia causes such a large number of under five deaths (almost 20%), in order to achieve MDG 4, the world must do something to reduce pneumonia deaths.
° BLOG ° Gabriele Romano 