It’s the end of an era. Let’s make it clear: I’m just talking about technology, software, phones, companies… nothing worth shedding tears or being in big pain, but what has happened in these weeks, and still is happening, has a bitter taste.
More than at a general level, it has a bitter taste also – and mainly, being me the main subject of this site! – at my personal level. I’ve owned only Nokia phones for decades, beginning with the 5110, then the 6310, 6150,7210, 6600, N80, N82 and the latest N85. I’ve always been faithful to a brand being considered by me – and many others – as the absolute top. An european product, built in total independence and autonomy, drawing the lines to which all others had to come up to, even those who were leaders in other markets.
Yes, a brand that has also made mistakes, that rested on its own laurels in the latest years, letting other newcomes to start barking loud, partly for too much self confidence, and partly for a sort of philosophical idea, which is the one that I also support, stating that phones are for phoning. It’s nice and cool if they can do also other stuff, but it’s not that much important. Browsing the internet, reading mail, talking with this or that, they are all nice, interesting, useful and sometimes comfy features, but in the end the main tool for such things is another one, the PC, and what truly matters in a phone device is good phoning audio quality, good signal reception, a good addressbook, and simple menus.
This philosophy has been widely abandoned during the latest years, with phones doing everything and more, and with a lot of people using them to do things you’d normally do with a PC. But Nokia was doing something on this field, they were working on a new operating system, actually a full Linux distribution – after all Nokia is finnish and Linux was born in Finland – which was going to be something really new, with the ability to run KDE applications, with an open environment that would have been able to compile and install free software packages beyond the AppStore logics of Apple and Android – even if this would have been available too. A real dream OS. A dream in which a lot of people, including me and all those who had not wanted to switch to Blackberry or iPhone or Android, were believing and were patiently waiting for, with no hurry – because phones are for phoning, and my current Symbian based phone still does this very well – and we were honestly sure that the Nokia giant was there ready about to wake up and bash all these newcomers with just the power of his finger. breaking their illusiong of making him worried.
But Nokia made all us wake up, and the dream is over. The new system, MeeGo, is late. It’s always been late since when it’s being conceived, and a deal has been striked with Microsoft to use Windows Phone 7 as main platform. A full and total capitulation of all was being done, and of all what Nokia has been meaning until now!
This decision may even bring positive market results in the long term – it’s not bringing them right now -, but it leaves all faithfull supporters stupified, disappointed and angry. They had not left yet also because they definitively didn’t want any Windows on our phones. And they still don’t want any. And thus they’re not going to buy a Nokia phone anymore. Just like me, I am now forced to take into consideration something not being a Nokia as my next phone, after no less than 15 years. And obviously this will be an Android, since the only apples that will ever enter my house are those coming from trees.
(All the technical and political considerations, the theory of US and Microsoft’s plot, the role of Elop as Ballmer’s trojan horse, the talks on what actually good might have comed from Meego, and on the goods and bads of WP7, on what’s happening in Finland, on Nokia workers’ strikes, on the finnish government being worried, on the European Union financing projects that Nokia has now implicitly declared dead, and all such I leave it to articles, blog posts and comments that are only second to those discussing our Prime Minister’s judiciary issues.)
My heart greeds for frozen stars
Deep black universe upon me
I’m enchanted by this warm light
Yet nothing can melt my cold soul
The lakes, my silent lovers
Whispers from the deep black waters
Ice would keep the ghost’s silent
Their mournful song freezes my heart
Come down where the embers burn
Let the night embrace you
And just before the morning haze
You will disappear without a trace
Seasongs change but the sorrow stays
Symphony is getting louder day by day
When the fog raises the dead again
Disharmony of crushing bones
Will take away my pain
Here are some photos I took this afternoon in Donnalucata, after 5 days off I took for Epiphany, taking advantage of the holiday being on thursday Jan 7 and adding two days on Jan 5 and 8:
The last three days we’ve had full sun and a temperature around 20C° during the morning… while in other places around Italy it was snowing and people were fighting with ice! It’s not anything new anyway, generally weather in this corner of Sicily is almost always mild, and we are used to consider temperature around 8-10C° as “cold“, since during most part of winter it keeps around 12-15C°, especially on the coast.
Previous Christmas’ weekend has not been very cold too. I take the chance to say something about local Christmas’ tradition:
In Ragusa’s province the Christmas’ Eve dinner mainly consists of scacce. But in Scicli and Donnalucata’s area at Christmas those scacce take a different name and become pastizzi. Pastizzi are a sort of quiches, and they are baked in round baking pans, without the typical focaccia shape. They have no relationship with maltese pastizzi, of which I have recently discovered. There are many kinds of pastizzi with different stuffing, and again the tradition says to bake them all, so that each guest can taste many slices of the various kinds. The most popular ones are those with broccoli, with ricotta spinach and raisins, with meat and topinambur, with dogfish and spaghetti, with eggplant onions and tomato, and so on.
The existence of many variants of pastizzi and the habit to bake them all every time has given origin to many ironic family jokes on leftovers in the past, since they lasted for weeks and weeks and became a sort of family food torture between relatives. Nowadays generally families bake only few kinds of them, only those that are likely to be eaten in a short time without compromising appetite for following days’ meals. Furtherly, in the past they were the only holiday food on eves, while now many other typical dishes have entered sicilian holiday habits, dishes from other regions of Italy that are commonly considered holiday food, like cotechino with lentils, panettone and pandoro, chocolate turron (here the traditional turron is made of almonds or sesame, and it’s called cubaita or giuggiulena).
