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Probably the best quote I read tonight is from Mr President Barack Obama. He said “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented!”

I am one of these people: I learned of his passing checking my Facebook page on my iPhone!

Apple really changed the IT part of my life! I still remember when I was struggling with my last pc many years ago before I decided to give up on craziness and to switch!

At the beginning it has not been simple! It was not like now! Having a Mac was really another life and even if I switched to MacOs X 10.2, it was not simple at all to find programs and solutions for my needs!

But my first Mac taught me one of the most important things about a computer: it has to help your life, not complicate it!

I’m happy with what Apple has done in these years… Happy with most of the choices they have taken… Less happy with the latest direction they took.

And I like to think that Steve Jobs has contributed to make my technological life better with all the devices he and his company has created!

Goodbye!

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I just read an article in the New York Times (you can find it here) where the ideas of some Republican Candidates to the next year presidencial elections are described.

In particular one of these politicians says that the evolution is only a theory (what?!?!) and the global warming is a conspiration organized worldwide by scientist to receive founds for their researches (I swear it’s true! Read the article).

Now I don’t want to judge these candidates: as I always say, I am only a guest in the US and I have to accept the rules and the ideas that the US Citizens have even if I think that are crazy!

What I want to do is making some considerations about the period we are living now, inspired by a comment of a friend of mine on Facebook: “mala tempora currunt” (latin for “bad times are approaching”).

My question is: Are we living in a period that is the beginning of a new Middle Ages?

Ok, I’m not an expert in history but only someone that likes to read some books, so maybe all I’m going to say are only a pile of nonsense.

To answer this question first of all I want to say that the transaction from one age to another is not immediate… I mean when Columbus arrived in America, he didn’t find a poster with the sentence “Goodbye Middle Ages, Welcome Modern Era”. It was a very long process that led to that transaction. In the same way the process that I think is going on in this period will not be complete before hundreds of years!

But where do I see these affinities between the period before the Middle Ages and now?

Well… I have the sensation that many things are similar!

For example the big Roman empire that collapsed after reaching a huge (for that time) dimension reminds me the economical difficulties that big countries are facing now!

Another similarity is the increasing number of people that want the religion deeply connected to choices that must be completely secular!

What else? The corruption and the increasing lack of honesty of politicians in all the world (remember the corruption of the Roman senators?) or the “great leaders” that resemble too much the emperors that had the senate only to subscribe their choices…

I repeat… maybe it’s only nonsense (and please forgive me for this), but every time I read something like the article of the NYT I’m scared of the direction that the world seems to take.