Vortexmind: free your mind » Blogging

I costi della Chiesa Cattolica – Esenzioni fiscali

Vortexmind — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:51:43 +0000

Cogliendo l'occasione per augurare Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo a tutti i miei lettori, cliccando sul logo sottostante sarete indirizzati a un interessante spaccato delle varie esenzioni / agevolazioni e/o riduzioni fiscali di che la Chiesa Cattolica può vantare nei confronti dello stato Italiano.

In questi tempi di crisi, è importante essere informati e conoscere a cosa vengono destinate rilevanti porzioni derivanti dal prelievo fiscale. Fortunatamente, visto le cifre desolanti, non si tratta di soldi miei. No, non evado nulla, semplicemente non sono più residente italiano e pago quello che devo nello stato (decisamente più laico di questo) in cui produco reddito, come da normative europee.

Last but not least, potete dare un'occhiata alla campagna lanciata dagli amici di Mentecritica che pone l'accento sulle esenzioni ICI / IMU di cui godono numerose attività gestite dalla Chiesa Cattolica, che di fatto violano i principi della libera concorrenza specialmente per tutte quelle attività direttamente assimilabili a vere e proprie iniziative commerciali.

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Post tags: cattolica, chiesa, esenzione, evasione, fiscale, ici, imu, religione, riduzione, soldi, tasse, uaar, vaticano

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Will Google+ beat Facebook?

Vortexmind — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 07:14:45 +0000

So a week ago I have managed to get hold of a Google+ invite, and I managed to play with it for a while now. I am also a quite "greedy" Facebook user so it was a good occasion to find out if and why I would like to move to the new service:

Thumbs up for Google Plus

Seamlessly integrates with phone: so yes, I own an Android phone (HTC Desire HD) and of course I love the fact that Google+ is working perfectly with my phone, with push updates and all the goodies
Straightforward privacy approach: although the actual functionality is not "revolutionary" (as in, you can pretty much achieve the same level of privacy / re sharing with Facebook), the usability of the Circles interface is far more simple and straightforward than the dungeon of privacy ticks, groups etc... which you can find in Facebook
Interface: apart from the "Circles" feature, the interface in general seems to me less bulky and quite user-friendly. Main reason being probably the opportunity for Google to redesign it from scratch and attempt to get it right from the start, trying to address what are regarded as basic "flaws" in Facebook (such as, for example, the complex settings / privacy flags in it)

Thumbs up for Facebook

It's already there everyone knows it, it's part of mass culture already and even my dog has signed up for it and is showcasing a Facebook profile
More features altough Google Plus is still in beta and you would expect them to integrate quickly a lot of features (for example, they could integrate the Calendar as an "Events" function, which is missing ATM), Facebook takes the lead at the moment with the number of features offered. However, sometimes it could also be a drawback (for instance, do you really need Farmville and all the annoying updates coming from it)

So, in short:

Google Plus it's the novelty, it's cool because "it's from Google" and just integrates seamlessly with your Android phone (a strong plus for Android users such as me)
Facebook it's the mainstream option, everyone has a profile already and everyone is used to it. Will it be enough to keep the lead?

What do you think? Have you tried Google Plus? Do you hate it already or are you planning to move across to it?

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Post tags: Android, application, facebook, google, mobile, network, plus, social

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Per una volta

Vortexmind — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:29:07 +0000

Per una volta, per quante ne abbia dette sull'Italia e per quanto io sia fermamente convinto di non ritornare, viste le condizioni e il clima generale ... per una volta, sebbene qui stia andando tutto a gonfie vele ... è proprio mentre sfreccio su un treno (nuovo, pulito e in orario come di consueto) in Nottinghamshire che all'improvviso mi viene in mente il treno rotto, freddo e perennemente in ritardo che mi portava avanti e indietro tra Piacenza e Milano ogni giorno. Sarà il tempo un po'nuvoloso e umido, anche se l'unica similitudine è il cielo...perché in basso è un susseguirsi di case a tetti spioventi, campi verdi e folti d'erba, punteggiati ogni tanto da cavalli e pecore che nel Lodigiano non si vedono... ma del resto credo sia comprensibile avere ogni tanto la mancanza del tuo paese...

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Post tags: kingdom, train, uk, united

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Hi there sun

Vortexmind — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:06:12 +0000

Lovely Sunday in Turnham Green, for once a splendid weather in London

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Post tags: green, kingdom, london, turnham, united

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Arnie in London

Vortexmind — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:30:53 +0000

Goddamnit, where was I while the once Governator was cycling around London with Boris? Shouldn't they get to the choppa instead? It looks like today it's more civilized with the Barclays Cycle Hire ...

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Post tags: arnold, Barclays, Boris, Cycle, Hire, london, schwarzenegger

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Nuclear plants in Italy – why not?

Vortexmind — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:25:21 +0000

So well, after the recent disaster in Japan, I felt like an urge of putting down some notes on the nuclear choice. In the past, I already wrote (in italian) on Chernobyl disaster and the permanent (i.e. thousands of years worth) damage that occurred in that area, along with the looming threat of a new disaster should the containment structure there fail.

So yeah, while the events are unfolding in the far east, in Italy the debate over building new reactors in my country is still ongoing. The government is is planning to build new, expensive reactors in Italy, and the news from Japan are not putting down the politicians in their intents. Now, if you are not Italian you have to know that my country actually built four reactors in the eighties. Those were shut down after a ballot question following Chernobyl's 1986 nuclear disaster. One of them (Caorso plant) is actually built very close to my hometown (around ~ 20 Km).
(...)
Read the rest of Nuclear plants in Italy – why not? (290 words)

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Post tags: disaster, italy, nuclear, power

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11 March 2011 – Tsunami in Japan

Vortexmind — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 17:00:56 +0000

Terrifying images from Japan which has been struck by a massive earthquake and flooded by a tsunami moments after.

Kesennuma city is invaded by the water

Ground shifts, water seeps during quake

Reminds so badly of the 2004 tsunami ... really scary images! I hope that people in Japan will be able of recovering soon from this disaster.

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Post tags: 2011, disaster, earthquake, japan, march, tsunami

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Skeletonics – exoskeleton from Japan

Vortexmind — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:13:51 +0000

Surely it's not as powerful and advanced as Raytheon's SARCOS exoskeleton, but neither would be so expensive I would imagine! Kudos to those Japanese students...they surely could have put some more translations in their video lol

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Post tags: exoskeleton, japan, Raytheon, sarcos, skeletonics, students

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Bring the blog up to date – useful plugins

Vortexmind — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 16:03:06 +0000

Ok so after leaving these pages in disarray for a while, as previously communicated I decided to refresh this place a bit. So, the 1st sensible thing to do was to look around and see what others were up to while I was minding my own business. Well, everyone seems kinda integrated with Facebook now so that's the 1st thing I've been looking at:

Created a page on Facebook so that I can publish my activity there too. There is also a nice sidebar widget to display whoever liked the page
To actually publish content, I used a nice plugin: Wordbooker. It's pretty good and comes with a lot of configurable options (such as syncing to the page and/or to your profile too etc)
In order to allow easy commenting, I used the Facebook Comments plugin to allow people commenting using their account as an alternative.
Other useful tools : WordTwit to push activity on your Twitter feed, and QR code tag to embed a nice QR code with each post. Just in case someone decides to waste some rainforest and print something.

Well ... that's pretty much it for now. I should get a decent template at some point but I ain't a designer ...

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Post tags: facebook, plugin, wordpress

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… and going forward …

Vortexmind — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 12:29:58 +0000

Lately I was looking at the contents of this blog ... it's really amazing how much I've written up here, also considering that the very first version was "home baked" in PHP and contents were lost once I migrated to WordPress a while ago. You basically lost the ability of reading some weird Italian poetry attempts of mine and some pics where I had very long hair. Maybe it's not too bad ain't it ;-)

Still, in between a load of junk, I like seeing some of my old posts and consider now how much I changed since then. I'm even writing in another language lol.

Sometimes I ask myself "is there a reason to keep it open?" And well the answer is yes, apart from the few bucks I get from the ads (which cover for the hosting so we are at the magic break even point) I still need sometimes to write things down. Surely Facebook activity (which has increased dramatically since I live in the UK) has taken its toll on the frequency and payload size of when/what I drop in here. But things may change a bit... I am more relaxed now after settling down and I have a phone to write on at ease. It may be that in between the random babe post and the LOL YouTube video post, there will be still some actual content of mine. But sadly for my Italian readers, I will stick to English... it is a bit of a practice for me, so that at some point, maybe, I will be able of avoiding silly mistakes at work

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Post tags: blog, personal

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