my browser's on fire

applause please

with these multi-billionaires, you never know if you should laugh or what

gimme my money

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

the flood from their point of view

The central part of the UK has been lately flooded and under so much rain.

That also means that swans in the Brayford pool, in Lincoln, cannot cross underneath the bridge, but instead wait for the level to go down...

Some meters away, people are waiting for the train to pass, and the rail-bar to go up...

computing and nutters

I knew there was something mental in what computing teachers do

eureka

There are days where life spins you around and doesn't make sense at all

Other days when you only have to go back to sleep, because figuring out what's going on is impossible

Others when you start drawing connections among the events, believing that where you are is actually a result of a relatively logical sequence of related events

...like Bono sings: "some days are better than others"

-----

But I am sure that I am not only one who...

...somedays believes that life makes a perfect sense, the (in)famous "meaning of life" becomes obvious, even too much and too soon, left with the feeling that you get the whole picture of what you are supposed to do

I have this recurrent feeling these days

that life is somehow a check-list of proverbs
you swim through events
and you check-in the proverb that you experienced on that event

for instance

today I checked-in (and fully understood) the saying

"Still waters run deep"

what have I done?

Despite living in UK for a while now, the drinking attitude never made it for me.
Happy, yes. Euphoric, yes. But I have to admit never loosing the control completely.

Just once in my life I experienced the "dark side" of alcohol: pretty awful state, and not just laughing or being depressed or such. What I do remember is that the morning after I didn't remember anything. I was up and working as usual. When I saw Ilaria, who reminded me about my performance, small pieces of a memory puzzle started fitting together, and I clearly remember thinking: "Oh gosh, what have I done?"

The movie Hidden from Michael Haneke gave me this type of feeling: for once, the director is not imposing his or her visions, or finale, on the story. In the end, you are left rummaging on the scenes just seen, with a vague sense of "that's useless cinema".

But then all the pieces start falling into place and you're left with a:


" oh my"


"what have I just...."


...


"seen?"

ongoing quest

Everyone with an uncommon name and/or surname knows this: when you're young, naive pupils make horrible jokes about assonances (i remember myself in the first grade making fun of a friend called maffiotto, of course associating it with the infamous southern italian respected families), and parents sometimes do not help in the choice (having a surname "Impalato", Empaled, the choice of "Crocifisso", Crucifixed, is not ideal: all true...)

I remember in the past being called many many different surnames, the best being Scialuppi, or the more updated Cappuccino, but I wasn't that pissed with my first name. That fitted quite ok, overall.

This before coming to the UK. Andrea is lately a joke to me: when i claim this as a male name, people giggle and look somewhere else; still it is one of the most common names in Italy!

Today I just found out that I'm not alone in this misunderstanding. Ordes of very italian, very masculine "Michele", stay put: your name here is meant to be for a Miss, a Mrs, or more gently a Ms.

my 2 cents

Global warming is an issue. Big issue. Both if you're considering it from a positivistic side ("yes! let's save our planet!") and if you're deemed by your worst pessimistic nature ("i didn't use my car in the last 3 years, what has changed in the world since then?")

here's my two cents for what is's worth:



1) cars, plane, trains, buses and all the vehicles should have a dynamo converter, using the pedals of passengers to gather energy and saving fuel. A discount should be applied to the fastest cyclers, who are contributing more to the accumulation of energy. Just imagining work commuters panting in the metro makes me eager to patent this idea. And no more hitch-hikers left behind!




2) differentiating rubbish here is (nearly) useless: you separate paper from glass from cans from plastics from all the rest, put it outside, and later the collectors throw everything in the same bin (they say "we will differentiate later"). There are tools available to make you own "homemade paper", based on recycled paper. PaperChase sells is, still at some astonishing price. I'd say: diffuse a converter per each family, and let them use their newspapers to create recycled toilet paper. Extra-fun when it comes to your most hated politician... And no more wasted paper pulp!


3) where we live I can "see" some 15 wireless networks, of course all of them encrypted and secure. A better approach would be: I use it when I use it, you can use it when I don't use it. Very similar to the SETI@home project (have you got extra CPU cycles on your pc? donate them to track extra-terrestrial radio messages!)

we will never be f**ing rock stars, but you know what? we don't give a f**ing sh*t

the wrens @ ULU, london

translation lost

when you speak in italian and you add some english words is like showing off:
"guarda, sono appena stato a un briefing"

sometimes it is simply, plain stupid:
"arrivo or ora da una sessione di inside trading"

If I had to show off in italian, I'd say: "L'altra sera ho visto i tool", and I'd get some appreciation for the ultra-metal band. But saying "yesterday i went to see the tool" is making sense only for a subset of people here, the others maybe thinking about some naughty erotic show.
Only when you're in an english-speaking country, you get to realise how silly some band-names are:

- city names: Berlin, Boston, Turin Brakes, Chicago, ... If i called my group "poirino" nobody would come and see me

- animal related: Animals, Bug, Cows, Cranes, Eels (what about "The Passero Solitario"?)

- my favourite category, objects: Cake, Can, Tool, Helmet, Alarm, Coil, Cream, Doors, Elbow, Shoes, Sky, Smile, Smog (wjat about "saracinesca" or the already existing "cerchi in lega"?)

- the out-of-context category: A House, All, The Band, Cleaners From Venus, Dinner Is Ruined, Handsome

any others?

i'm going down down down...

The latest italian elections were a real treat for ilaria and me.
We went off to Turin for voting properly, and we had the time of our lives following the exit poll projections with bated breathe.. personally I stayed up to 3 in the morning to have an idea of what was going on

Lately, a dvd is raising new questions, and they are heavy questions: what if the "sacred" right to vote, this taboo, was violated? What if my ballot was just a fake? What if the "almost draw" of Berlusconi and Prodi was driven by some external force?

For italian-speakers, this is the link

There are theories.
There are believers.
There are faiths and assumptions.
There are parties, political convictions.

I am an engineer, first and foremost, and I like data, as a matter of fact. And when I see something like this (projections of the votes for the Parliament through exit polls, during the day):



or, better, something like this (votes for the Senate):



i would love to be a statistician and claim that these curves were never seen in any elections. Never.

Pity I'm not a statistician

Five years on the run

my first academic paper has been accepted at the 2nd workshop on open source software in 2002. I remember vividly the sensations of flying to Florida and meet the legendary people I knew from their papers, the astonishment of hearing his presentation and thinking "oh gawd... THAT is sound...", and especially a long talk with Donald K. Rosenberg. The idea of speaking with him, his involvement in the discussion, and his book as a gift are among the best momories of that conference.

Five years later.

Another life.

During ICSE 2007, Grex and I will take over the workshop and run it ourselves.

Ok, it's only a workshop. But we will run it.

inevitable transition

Some lecturers believe this.

"Students represent the lecturer's greatest reward and heaviest burden. Some students can be both at the same time. There can be few more gratifying experiences than to instill a life-long love of learning into another human soul, or to hone a blunt, dull-edged mind into an analytical instrument of surgical precision. Most lecturers experience this once or twice in their careers. For the rest of the time, we take averagely bright individuals with modest critical faculties, and do what we can to turn them into averagely bright, but well-educated, individuals with some notion of independent thought"

"We all knew that students were incapable of mature judgement, and were as likely to rate a lecturer highly because he had an interesting haircut as by the quality of his teaching. So, clearly, students' opinions were irrelevant. "

"A lecturer's recognition by his students is irrelevant because students' opinions are held to be worthless. What matters is recognition by other lecturers. This means that status is tied to research activity above all else, as it is something that other lecturers can relate to. No lecturer increases his status by being a renowned teacher."

I believe that the biggest challenge for lecturers is not to forget how they felt like when they were students.

socialism without frontiers

living in england without being english is not easy.
As it's not easy to live anywhere away from your homeland.
Communication problems lead to a lack of socialisation, and you typically end up in composite groups of international friends (if you're lucky), or within people of JUST your own nation (if you're lazy - or unlucky - but mostly lazy).

Yesterday a colleague told me "mate, i feel so much better since we play football".
Take any children, give them a ball, and they will start kicking it. Communication is not an issue (apart from "meeeee! meeeeeeee! passsss meeee the baaaaaalllll!").

Corporate football sucks. Amateur football joins nations (especially when your nation wins the world cup)

in-between

Cheap flights come with cheap magazines which drive your attention away from the perception that you're some kilometers up in the sky inside a tin cilinder.

Cheap magazines contain useless stories, cheap humour and barbershop-like gossip. These days, cheap flights come with small biographies of famous enterpreneurs, to make you feel like a negligent piece of crap who is still flying on a 43cm long seat instead of any luxurious business class seats.

Cheap magazines tell you ambivalent stories. And they stay in-between like many other things in our recent culture. Nothing is black, nothing is white. Only countless shades of grey. This behaviour is cool; but its opposite is cool too. Felix Dennis is the founder of the man magazine Maxim and other needful ones. He founded a magazine of Kung-Fu in the 70's to cash out from the death of Bruce Lee. And he claimed in the cheap magazine that he spent some hundred thousands pounds in drugs, parties and whores in a year. That team work is for losers. Only tigers survive. And the predictable amount of "my dick is bigger than yours".

Everybody should be responsible for his/her own actions. I don't want to stay in-between anymore. Felix Dennis attitude revolts me. The attitude of sitting back silently revolts me more. Someone in the world is scaring people with the winner ideology for the masses. Scared people must reject this ideology: cheap magazines journalists should stand up and say to Felix Dennis: "what you just said will be with you always, when you will be sick and old and alone"

love and hate

three moments when teaching is frustrating
- you enter in a classroom where the air is hot and thick, and you are sure everyone will be sleeping
- you see someone really sleeping
- your mouth is dry and you forgot to take water with you and the words come out like small bricks

three moments when teaching is gorgeous:
- you think "now it would be nice someone took notes" and they actually take notes of what you say
- you are approached by students after the lecture, explain once again, and they tell you "smashing"
- you see someone in the audience with a TOOL t-shirt (this single reason is stronger than the three weak points)

sabbatical

recent heard conversation
"He was a great man"
"Indeed"
"But I think I would have not survived the experience"
"What do you mean?"
"I would have killed myself instead"


Not only they did a remake of the first superman movie.
Not only they chose a similar actor.
Not only they painted his face to make his look more resemblant.

In the movie, which i didn't see, he's supposed to justify himself for not being around on the Twin Towers airplane crash.

He was having a sabbatical 5 years on the Krypton planet.

Now it's clear why Zidane could do the headbutt.

sleepy songs

if you could choose to hear - live - one specific, whole record of a band you have liked a lot in the past, which one would you pick?
Personally, I would like to listen to "achtung baby" from U2, "born to run" by springsteen, "daydream nation" from sonic youth, "oK computer" from radiohead, ... and so many others

But I didn't understand why, at the barbican, in London, Tindersticks played the [untitled 2] album entirely, having released better records before ("untitled I") and after ("curtains") that one

The tone was slow and dense, and the audience responded quite well (people sitting below and beside us were only awakened by the overloaded applauses after each song) and I couldn't understand why and if U2 could ever play all together the zooropa record

But then I thought of how difficult is to have on stage all the instruments to reproduce live a whole record. Still on other records they use pretty much the same stuff

But then I thought that they may have liked that record more than others. Still after playing it all, they started playing something more cheerful from other records

But then I thought whatever, they are tindersticks!. Still i paid 28 quid for it

But then I thought the venue was fantastic. Still we were sitting, probably in the farmost chairs from the stage.

This series of concerts is called "don't look back".
So tindersticks, please, follow this rule because maybe it's me running after you, claiming my money back

missing genes - 2

I think that I miss the genes for getting into the Fabric of London

probably I would need some weeks to understand how I should get dressed