The whole series is here and is really worth watching if you can spare the time.

These 100 people are collectively worth $2,100B (or about the whole GDP of my country). but although tech stocks like Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle or Google have propelled their founders into cosmic wealth, the single largest contributor to this ranking is low tech Wal-Mart Stores, whose value is enough to put four of the Walton heirs in the top 12, for a combined net worth of about $120B.

If you’d like to play with the infographic, click on the pic.

Ieri diversi amici mi hanno telefonato per chiedermi: ma come mai non sei schierato con l’Officina di Basiglio che – anch’essa – si oppone all’infame PGT voluto da questo signore (e chi avesse ancora dubbi sulle sue motivazioni, legga il pezzo su l’Espresso). Già, perché?

La risposta è che le passioni ambientalistiche trovate sotto l’albero di Natale mi fanno pensare (male); ecco dunque cosa secondo me sta succedendo, sottolineando che si tratta di MIE ILLAZIONI PERSONALI

LA FAVOLETTA di “X” e “O”

1. C’era una volta un signor X che voleva un a Basiglio PGT speculativo; il Sindaco in carica era ben disposto a farlo passare, (ed infatti fu in cambio nominato sottosegretario) ma ormai era a fine mandato
2. il che è un bel problema: infatti, non bastava fare ed adottare il PGT, bisognava poi dargli corso: è infatti facile prevedere che i cittadini di Basiglio si sarebbero opposti con tutte le loro forze all’ignobile manovra che nei fatti dimezzerà il valore del loro investimento a tutto vantaggio dei soliti noti; se il Sindaco forzerà la mano, sicuramente il PDL uscirà sconfitto (come è già successo in precedenza), e una amministrazione ostile potrebbe ancora far deragliare la speculazione
3. X allora pensò: “Me la faccio da solo, l’opposizione, e fin da subito. La chiamerò “O” come opposizione”
4. O farà un casino dell’accidenti, scenderà in piazza, si farà vedere attiva e decisa, per coagulare la protesta intorno a sé, anche quella di alcuni ben noti sinceri oppositori, che ne avvaloreranno la credibilità
5. quando si andrà ad elezioni, O presenterà una lista, apparentemente rappresentativa di tutte le istanze, ma che piazzerà i nomi più in vista dei sinceri oppositori nel ruolo di assessori non eletti
6. Inoltre, O rifiuterà di fare accordi con le formazioni che rappresentano l’ambientalismo “duro e puro”; meglio che stiano di là, per potergli dare dei comunisti: a Basiglio funziona sempre
7. X (che notoriamente controlla molte preferenze a Basiglio) cercherà di fare in modo che la lista O, se vincente, elegga pochi dei sinceri oppositori; inoltre uno o forse due consiglieri li piazza comunque la lista del SIndaco uscente, e ce n’è persino un altro, a capo di una lista civetta, che potrebbe passare
8. finito il polverone elettorale, quando si arriverà al dunque, se gli assessori sinceramente oppositori si metteranno di traverso, basterà sostituirli e, oplà, X potrà contare su una maggioranza ancor più forte di quella che ha adesso e fare i comodacci suoi.

Un amico che mi vuole bene davvero dopo avermi ascoltato mi ha detto che leggo troppi romanzi e forse ha ragione, ma comunque questa è la ragione per cui sono dove sono e non altrove.

I may get involved again professionally in one side’s campaign, so before that happens, I would like to offer to all politicians (who obviously read this blog BEFORE the Huffington Post or the Financial Times) some interesting advice on what the Internet wants.

Click on screen shot to go to live page

Capeesh?

(For the technically inclined, here is a nice infographic describing how it works)

I mentioned I use a Pro account of what I believe is the best cross-platform for contacts syncing out there, Soocial, and with the help of their support (thanks Bart !) I did the following to achieve contact Nirvana: first, removed all the sources except the Mac, then added them back one at the time until I found that the offending connection was the Android one, which essentially duplicates (and conflicts with) the sync that happens between my Google account and the Android phone. It should NOT, but it does.

To avoid this problem, this is the full procedure:

1. add all the sources – EXCEPT the Android phone
2. stop sync on Soocial from the Preferences screen
3. reset Sync Services  on Mac (http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1627)
4. reset Soocial for the Mac:
   • Go to the Soocial client Preferences screen
   • Make sure the client is OFF, but logged in
   • Hit the “Reset” button.
   • Turn client ON
5. enable Google Sync on phone (settings – accounts – Google – make sure “contacts” are checked)
6. clean up the set manually – easiest on the Mac Address Book
7. wait for changes to propagate

You may have to do some minor cleaning on Android as deletions do not propagate as seamlessly. Did I mention already how pissed I am at this obvious lack of control of my Digital Self?

Perhaps yes.

Just one comment: how friggin’ tall is THE CRANE ????

The working title is “#DamnClients” and is inspired by “Klotenklanten” by Egbert Jan van Bel, a longtime friend and colleague from Amsterdam.

The subject will be the many ways in which companies harass their clients in the more or less comforting knowledge that there is very little the harassed clients can do except churn away.

The book will attempt to give a voice to these disgruntled clients through a number of real life cases demonstrating how the company – while stating forcefully to “focus on the client” or to put “clients first” is instead only focused on itself.

These are the same companies who complain they can’t keep their clients, or carping about how much money they must spend just to stand still.

Do you have a good story of how your Bank, your Airline, your Government, your Telco, your Utility company hates you? I would love to hear about it, shout out on Twitter with the #DamnClients hash.

Wind: “Hello this is Wind credit management, your last invoice got unpaid.”

Gianni: “So surprised, can you check out what is the payment method I have?”

“Not sure I can, oh, wait yes, I can: it was on your MasterCard”

“That explains it; this card got stolen and I had it replaced”

“This is urgent now or we’ll cut off service. We tried contacting you before…”

“Yes, I know; you called the number for this contract which is my wife’s number, but would not tell her what the problem was, nor would leave a number to call back”

“Exactly, we can only speak with the contract’s owner”

“How do I change the payment method?”

“You must call Customer Service, dial 155 or visit 155.it”

“Is this not Customer Service I am talking to?”

“No Sir, this is credit management”

“OK, but I do not want service to be interrupted, can I pay the outstanding invoice by credit card?”

“You sure can!”

“But not here”

“Exactly”

“OK will do. Good bye”

“Good bye”

So I dial 155, press “1″ for “mobile line”, then “2″ for “information on billing”, “2″ again for “Information on payment method” but dang!:

“This service is temporarily unavailable, please call later.”

Fuckers! Now I visit 155.it, enter my credentials and get to  my “Client page”:

The simple “Pay my invoice now” button does not exist; 99% of the site real estate is dedicated to Wind’ own offering and packages. There is even a space to watch TV commercials: they must genuinely believe them to be so entertaining that people would say:

“My dear what do you want to do tonight?”

“Darling, let’s go on the Internet and watch some Wind commercials”

“Oh, you’re always so full of fun ideas!”

I cannot believe this, and spend at least an hour clicking on every damn fucking link on the page, to no avail. Log out, then log in again (two times) until I finally (for no discernible reason) get to a different page:

This makes a little more sense; still 99% for them, 1% for me, but at least I see a “Your profile” link and “Subscription” which – two levels down – hides the precious “Pay your invoice now” link.

Wind, why do you hate me?

• two Macs
• one Android phone
• one iPad
• one GMail account

A while back I started using (and paying for) Soocial, which seemed to have a good enough track record, but the solution was not so smooth: loops caused contact numbers to balloon, and despite the help of Soocial support I finally resolved to cut off the GMail account which seemed the cause of the problem.

Also the render on the Android phone was never good, with contacts splitting into multiple records and deletions failing to propagate correctly.

To top it all,  roughly a couple of weeks ago I started losing records for no apparent reason; when today I restored my Contacts from a couple of weeks ago (“Restore from date” is a feature worth its weight in gold) and checked out the “sources” which is how Soocial defines the various devices it syncs to, I saw this message:

WTF, people at Soocial? I am using on my Android phone the app you made available on the Google Play Store, if half of your development team is located eighteen months in the future, I certainly have no knowledge of it.

So I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Android client, but nothing changed as far as the version of software is concerned, so I am emailing this also to support@soocial.com, hoping they can shed some light…