symbol Archivi - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

RETURN TO TIFFANY

Nov 5, 2022 | FASHION, WHO CARES, WORLD

Return to Tiffany is Maison Tiffany’s iconic collection.

Its origins date back to 1966, when Tiffany first began selling key chains with the now famous phrase “Please Return to Tiffany & Co. New York.”

The key chains were assigned a unique registration number, which ensured that Tiffany & Co could trace the keys back to the owner if they were lost.

That’s why Return to Tiffany: because the prestigious Fifth Avenue store would be able to reunite the data through a precise and confidential serial number.

In the fifty years that have passed, the Return to Tiffany collection has made its mark as a symbol of the tradition of craftsmanship, a fundamental pillar of Tiffany.

A Tiffany advertisement showed the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day: a heart-shaped Return to Tiffany tag in 14-karat yellow gold, priced at $11 …

Over time, there have been several evolutions: in 1980, Tiffany debuted the first piece of jewelry incorporating the Return to Tiffany tag, a heart-shaped yellow gold pendant on a necklace.

The collection expanded to an assortment of rings, bracelets and earrings, each with its own personality, all engraved with the emblem reminiscent of Tiffany‘s unparalleled style.

Have you ever happened to lose something?

I’d like you to tell me that you found it or that it was returned to you by some good soul.

According to Article 928 of the Civil Code the delivery of the object found must be made known by publication for two successive Sundays and must remain posted for three days each time.

These seem like archaic concepts now that all kinds of information is disseminated online.

In Japan have a special name for lost or forgotten items: WASUREMONO 忘れ物.

Don’t you find it cute?

For them then, return is a very important issue; they are extremely precise and accurate.

The most commonly forgotten items are:

. cell phone

. bag

. train, bus, metro pass

. wallet

. umbrella

. keys

. electronic cigarette

Keys therefore come long after an object that did not exist in 1966: the cell phone, yet Tiffany’s continues to represent somewhat “the heart of New York.” Or not?

SMART CITY

Sep 3, 2022 | ITALY, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, TECHNOLOGY

Smart City is a definition that recurs more and more often now.

Smart City is one of the main themes of civics hours in school.

But specifically how do you experience what smart offers in your city?

In your experience, can you tell of an actual improvement in the quality of your life, or is it all still ephemeral in your neck of the woods for now?

In the image I wanted to finally “offer” you a coffee in Piazza Ducale.

But the city of Vigevano offers many other experiences, including virtual ones.

On the City’s website you can check out a Vigevano Smart City dashboard with some options among which I would like to point out the live webcam.

And when you decide to come and visit our ducal living room, you will have at your disposal these directions that offer the possibility of more information via QR code.

In the same vein, a “digital” bench was inaugurated.

Red, as red is the symbolic color against violence against women.

The problem is that hand in hand should also be converted the education of citizens, who too often prove to be the exact opposite of smart.

A marker mark was enough to make the QR code illegible.

This tiny stroke actually emblematically represents a great trait that sets us apart, and likewise reveals the weakness on which what should be the future rests ….

TRIESTE COFFEE ASSOCIATION

Jan 28, 2022 | ITALY

Trieste Coffee Association is one of the few associations still active and is third in Europe.

Staying on the trend of coffee in Trieste it was really very interesting to learn more about the supply chain.

For this I must say THANK YOU to Fabrizio Polojaz President of AssoCaffè Trieste for the availability and courtesy with which he illustrated every single aspect that connects Trieste to coffee in a total way.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS HISTORY

Trieste has always been a harbor city, as we know it is not remembered as particularly influential: we rather know the magnificence and power of Venice. But between 1710 and 1720 Trieste found “a protector:” Vienna. The Austrian Empire has become a continental empire and decides to create its own merchant port in Trieste.

At the end of 1700, with the sunset of the Serenissima the second important step: the competition was interrupted.

Third crucial point: the construction of a “southern” railway (with respect to Austria), to allow goods unloaded from ships to leave by train to arrive in Vienna within a day.

The fourth important progress takes place with the construction of the Suez Canal: the entrance into the Mediterranean no longer requires the passage through the Pillars of Hercules, and, directly from the Aegean, the way to Trieste is short, as well as favorable.

Even today Trieste is the northernmost harbor in the Mediterranean.

Here you will find an original print from the Dino Cafagna collection illustrating Triste in 1719 before the free port.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS A PRODUCTION CHAIN

As we all know, coffee is not grown in Europe, but grows in the tropical belt: equatorial Africa, Asia, India, Central America and South America.

I quote the words of the President Fabrizio Polojaz:

these goods create knowledge, knowledge creates profession and profession creates supply chain.

This chain begins with the financial part: that is, banking institutions for the purchase, and insurance companies with very specific policies.

Logistics plays an essential role starting with the forwarding agents because obviously we are talking about long-distance transport, but it also includes warehouses for conservation, processing for the improvement of the raw material, and phytosanitary management.

A first transformation is carried out by the roasting companies, which are about fifteen in Trieste.

There is also an industry for decaffeination (there are only nine in all of Europe).

And also chemical laboratories, tasting, experts, training schools and various equipment sector.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS A MEETING POINT

Three European language families:

Latin
Slavs
Germans

three preparations:

for Italians moka and espresso
for Nordic filter coffees
for the Balkans, Turkish and Greek coffee

again, I quote the words of President Fabrizio Polojaz verbatim

People from Trieste are spoiled consumers, and lovers of good coffee.

And again, paraphrasing Nino Manfredi’s historic and unforgettable commercial

coffee is recharging, even spiritual and if the coffee is not good … what pleasure is it?

How can we disagree?

Among other things, it must be said that Trieste consumers are not only “spoiled:” compared to a national average per capita consumption of about 5 kilos per year, the Trieste average reaches almost 10!

Not bad really.

But what’s even more fantastic is theirs… how can we call it?

Nomenclature? I would say no: it’s not exactly technical terminology.

Code? Nor, code is too “mathematical.”

Peculiarities? But it sounds not very poetic to me.

In short, they have their special habit, of asking for a NERO when they want to order an espresso at the bar, just as Nick also told us in the comments about his professor.

When I asked the President Fabrizio Polojaz if there is a particular reason for “nero” he replied simply: to fondle.

However, it is not just a question of nero, apparently the bartenders in Trieste have something more to learn than the others: are you ready?

The typical cappuccino does not exist in Trieste.

For the milk and coffee drink we are used to thinking about, we order caffellatte.

CAPO, is also shortened in size: small cup or glass.

But if it were a glass, then it would be CAPO IN B, obviously, right!?

Don’t you immediately feel like trying, even considering what Luciana told us here?

Finding ourselves “at the cafe,” it is natural to ask for an opinion also regarding the increase in the price of coffee, so much criticized almost everywhere.

In this regard, the President of Assocaffè Trieste invites us to take a look behind the scenes.

The cup represents a series of very long steps: after cultivation, the coffee is stripped, processed, kept in silos, treated in parchment, bagged and shipped.

At its destination, further selections are made, it is roasted and blended, because the coffee is the result of the composition of different qualities, before reaching the barista who grinds and presses it.

All these are the items that make up the bill.

The last two years, so difficult for everyone and everything, have been problematic from the point of view of cultivation, which has suffered production drops caused by the difficulty of harvesting the coffee at the right time.

And there is not only a shortage of good quality products, there is also logistical difficulty, both in terms of traffic: after the long period of inactivity everyone wants to ship, and in terms of costs that have literally increased tenfold.

But the considerable decreases in consumption and, last but not least, the organizational and managerial burdens that the barista had to adopt to fulfill the requests of the various DPCMs were also affected.

So it is worth defending quality and work, do you agree?

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS ALSO TOURISM

In addition to the historical cafes already mentioned that offer a unique experience to visitors, Trieste is organizing a coffee festival: the Trieste Coffee Festival, in addition to the professional Triestespresso Expo exhibition, and in particular the Coffee Trieste Association is working with tour operators.

The goal is to ensure that the knowledge they have gained, so deeply rooted in the territory, and characterized in full, can also be enjoyed by tourists.

Among other things, it is already possible to organize visits to coffee roasters to discover this important stage in coffee processing, for example.

What do you say at this point?

They can truly say they are the capital of coffee.

Although, rightly, Minister Centinaio in response to the tweet wrote that the dossier presented to Unesco involves the symbolic cities of coffee in Italy, including Trieste.

IN LOMELLINA FIELDS

Jun 11, 2021 | ENVIRONMENT, ITALY

Poppies are nice, they are simple, they are spontaneous, they are impressionists they are light, they are cheerful, they are summer, they are color, they are warmth.

But they also become sad, when they represent the symbol that John Mc Crae chose to remember the victims of war.

At the beginning of the First World War, John McCrae was asked to join 1^st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery as the Medical Officer. In May 1915 during the heaviest fighting of Second Battle of Ypres, McCrae and his dressing station were within site of the Essex Field cemetery. After 17 exhausting days and the death of a comrade, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, her wrote his immortal poem “In Flanders Fields.”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Here recited by Leonard Cohen

This made me think of Lomellina, its poppies and its victims of a silent massacre, which is not even a war, because basically nobody or almost no one cares.

I have already spoken of silent deaths, of herbicides, of glyphosate, of PM 2.5 and of liveability that are open wounds for me.

So we should not be surprised if once in a while some newspaper launches a news that is a little more taken up, but which in the meantime has already been forgotten in favor of other arguments, including aliens.

And we should not be surprised if an interception only confirms what we already know, that is, that unscrupulous people do not care in the least about the damage caused by the poisons that spill into our territories in the form of “sludge” in order to earn, indeed, they joke about it. .

It is not true that “hurting the environment and the territory is equivalent to not having hurt any physical person.”

Many people will get sick and will have to fight with all their might.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

May 9, 2020 | BOOKS, ITALY, MEDIA, MOVIES, SCIENCE, WORLD

“It is sometimes said that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe.”
This quote comes from the 2004 film The Butterfly Effect and is inspired by a theory taken up and debated in numerous areas.
Once again, as happened for the War of the Worlds: the inspiration comes from a science fiction novel, it is in fact Ray Bradbury who in his Sound of thunder attributes to the proper death of a butterfly during a journey through time, a variation of future events:

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling,
“No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!”
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.

Another coincidence, also in this case the story was broadcast by the BBC in 2011: here if you want to find the podcast (butterfly from about 35 minutes but I would advise you to listen to it all if you have time).
The butterfly symbol was taken up by Edward Lorenz, mathematician and meteorologist professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Science and later in a 1979 lecture that went down in history.
In general, the butterfly effect belongs to quantum physics and more precisely to the basis of chaos theory.
Chaos is the most congenial aspect to me, but actually I didn’t want to talk about this … not this time, at least.
Antonietta Gatti is perhaps known to most as “the wife of” despite her respectable curriculum. Her skills add up over time, and I would list, almost a bit to summarize, this recognition: she has been awarded the title of Fellow of the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering for her contribution to the progress of science. The various national societies of biomaterials and bioengineering have tens of thousands of members worldwide and the union of the various companies has elected Dr. Gatti to be part of the elite of scientists that consists of 32 members, and she was part of a parliamentary commission of inquiry as a responsible consultant. I know, difficult to read, but I found her report very interesting, perhaps because I live in a highly polluted area: here the mortality rate from tumors is terrible:
She deals with nanopathology or pathologies induced by micro and nano-sized particulate exposures, i.e. powders with dimensions less than 100nm (0.1 microns) but her research has become difficult due to the reduced availability of a suitable microscope.
Her flapping wings has not changed the world yet, but she has been able to reach the hearts of people who have made it possible to buy a new electron microscope with their donations.
Let us not stop at the fact that individually we cannot make a difference, let us not stop flying lightly on the difficulties, each of us can be the butterfly of change, let’s believe it, and do not let ourselves be crushed in the mud.