Had a great day of riding last Saturday. Woke up at 6:30am, took the 7:39 train to Sestri Levante. Three hours or so, and then here I am in Sestri; cool breeze, warm sunshine, I started following the Superenduro signs. Here’s a few pics that sum up the day.
And PS1, 2 and 3 were gone in a second; too much fun to stop.
[Read More]How the story went first of all: the Japan Syndrome, appeared on The Economist on March 15th.
Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl by William Tucker.
Radiation dose chart by Randall Munroe, inspired by this page written by his friend Ellen.
About Godzilla then, this is a must read: Japan’s Long Nuclear Disaster Film by Peter W. Kirby.
And if you’re thinking about clean energy, look at this.
From “Secrets of a Mind-Gamer”, a fascinating article on a normal guy who becomes a memory champion:
In his 1869 book Hereditary Genius Sir Francis Galton argued that a person could improve at mental and physical activities until he hit a wall, which “he cannot by any education or exertion overpass.” In other words, the best we can do is simply the best we can do. But Ericsson and his colleagues have found over and over again that with the right kind of effort, that’s rarely the case. They believe that Galton’s wall often has much less to do with our innate limits than with what we consider an acceptable level of performance. They’ve found that top achievers typically follow the same general pattern. They develop strategies for keeping out of the autonomous stage by doing three things: focusing on their technique, staying goal-oriented and getting immediate feedback on their performance […] To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail.
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I would like to move to some place neat in the future, maybe a place where the outdoors are close and people are friendly and the quality of life is great (maybe everybody dreams about a place like this).
Vancouver seems to be that place, however it would be difficult to find a job there unless I change profession and become something else than a earth scientist.
So a collegue of mine told me about Calgary. The Rocky Mountains are close, only the weather is not temperate like in Vancouver but no problem about the jobs – plenty of opportunities to work in the oil industry.
[Read More]Interesting post on Scientific American, however this barista needs a reality check: a refractometer to make coffee ? I’d recommend a couple of place in my hometown (Bari) where baristas have no PhD but make the best coffee ever.
A great article on Slate.com: taking inspiration from “King’s speech”, a stutterer writes about stuttering.
Some great insights, worth reading if you are vaguely interested in the subject (or if you have a friend who stammers and want to know what on earth does he think when he’s stuck on a word).
I love tech bloggers such as Gruber, Brooks, Arment. Even if there really is nothing in common between me and those guys except for a generic interest in technology and nerdism, I still love their passion, the public interactions on twitter and instagram (true, sometimes their shots are not really worth much praise, but praised they are), and in some cases (e.g., Gruber) their writing craft.
But today I was reading a blog post by one of these guys and asked incredously myself: “how does somebody that has a passion for writing, and who’s a native english speaker, make these errors ?”.
[Read More]What I was looking for: an app to store my passwords
I stuck with Lockbox Lite for a long time on my iPhone. Then I got fed up about not being able to have the same data available also on my two Macs (not to mention the stupid ads). So I started looking for something that had these features:
About the first point, I know that it’s a weak point and raises the question “why using AES 256-bit encryption if you rely on a 4-digit number to secure all your confidential data”. Well, I’m not overly paranoid about this stuff – and then the alternative is to keep my passwords in a text file somewhere on my computer.
[Read More]“In 2007, when he was at the State Department, Jared Cohen wrote with tragic wrongheadedness that “the Internet is a place where Iranian youth can … say anything they want as they operate free from the grips of the police-state apparatus.” Thanks to the exciting new technology, many of those freely texting Iranian youths are in prison or dead. Cohen himself now works for Google as the director of “Google Ideas.”
[Read More]This is probably one of the worst movie I’ve ever watched. It is so bad that I actually enjoyed it. But the most incredible thing is that the three reviews that I’ve read, well they’re not so harsh on this piece of junk:
Emma Bell, in particular, really sells the terror of their predicament (…) I don’t think I’ve seen a movie this tense since The Descent.
(source: http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/02/06/frozen-review)
(…) a nifty little chiller that balances its cold terrain with an unexpectedly warm heart.
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The Russians Used a Pencil: Idea to Market in 5 Months: Making the Glif
I wish I had an iPhone 4 just to have a glif.
On July 11th, 2010, Tom Gerhardt and I had an idea for an iPhone accessory: a tripod mount that doubled as a stand. Five months later, customers began to receive our product, the Glif, in the mail. This turnaround, from idea to market in five months by two guys with no retail or manufacturing…
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I began snowboarding on the 13th of March. So far, I’ve spent a total of eight days on the board (spread on 3 weekends). In these eight days I’ve taken 8 hours of private lessons with two very skilled (and patient) instructors of the Val di Fassa Ski and Snowboarding school.
My last weekend, however, was the turning point, as I decided to buy the full kit and discovered how easy snowboarding is if you have the right tool. And the right tool is a board with this innovative shape called ‘rocker’ (as opposed to the traditional ‘camber’ shape). My friend Paolo told me about these “new geometries” which were being developed in North America where he was living last year. He told me to check Libtech’s website to see what was this ‘banana’ shape. What I ended up buying is a Burton TWC Standard, which is like an entry level board: friendly banana (or ‘rocker’) shape, very flexible, right size for my height and weight (172cm+68kg=154cm board).
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Notes taken during a work meeting (Taken with instagram).
I discovered this Withings wi-fi body scale after reading this tweet by Neven Mrgan:
My weight report for 2010: http://j.mp/eypTcB Executive summary: could be better, could be worse.
It sounds like a great tool to track your body weight: compare it to what I’ve done last year.
However, I doubt I’ll ever buy it. Too much technology around you really damages your health much more than a cappuccino and cornetto.
