kazzuya.com

eheh.. I guess I'm not a big soccer fan 8P

I don't think that history matters. Actually, it does, history is Italy's problem. Because one can go on forever remembering the great minds that were.. but now there really is nothing left.

What matters now is what countries are great now..

The argument about Japan not inventing anything: while it's true that American universities and English speaking countries tend to gather a big portion of great minds, it's also true that Japan is famous for creativity as well.
If Japanese were only good at copying and perfecting, then Japanese videogames would be more famous for technical realization rather than creativity.
Instead it seems that Japan game dev is lagging behind technologically while excelling on the creativity level.. Nintendo being the obvious example, but on a more artistic level, companies like the one I work for ;)
I see how people other countries that take inspiration form Japanese games.. and decide to become programmers, learn Japanese, or whatever else..
Japanese = copycat robots is a rather old view of things. Japanese are certainly more willing to embrace things from outside.. I wish Italy would do the same.. become humble for once, forget history and learn from other countries, change as it becomes necessary.

Not one country is best in everything.. Japan needs to learn form the USA and USA needs to learn from Japan... but as things are right now, nobody needs to learn from Italy.. or maybe learn how not to do things.

To end this comment, here is a nice video with English subtitles.. A Telecom Italia's manager pseudo-motivational monologue in which he suggests that the company will do well (currently a 35 billion Euro debt created by predatory management).
He tries to make an historical point, but ends up really just swearing and demonstrating profound ignorance by claiming that Napoleon won in Waterloo (I'm no history fan myself, but at least I don't go around trying to teach it on public TV ;)