Misc

[Click here for italian version.]

This is a short post just to let the readers know that I am ready to be back on track with some brand new content – and apologies for not being very active these past few months here or on my other channels like twitter or Google+.

I have been busy with moving to the new house, stay with my family, work and all this sort of things that simply takes your time away; I have to say, some of these things are exhausting mentally (e.g., the moving!), others are quite different, you simply enjoy having your time taken away (and that’s why I’ve put those two photographs of my daughter Valentina).

In other words: good reasons to avoid using “Ph.D” and other titles appended to your email.

From an article on the New York Times about the latest Spider-Man movie (the one filmed by Marc Webb):

Gwen Stacy asks Peter Parker if he likes branzino: you know, “Like, the fish?”.
Then she invites him to dinner, where everyone is saying “branzino”: Denis Leary (playing Gwen’s dad), Peter, Gwen again. We see a full branzino at the dinner table, neatly plated.
Why branzino? The film never says — it just offers up this delightful serving of unexpected weirdness.

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Somewhere, behind the sad story of Lance Armstrong and his team mates doing EPO and other shit to dominate professional cycling, lies the reason behind my personal preference of a certain kind of sport.

Ask a MotoGP rider do drugs; or a mountain biker doing an downhill or enduro race; or a climber on a vertical wall in the Dolomites: none of these athletes will do drugs. That’s because the core of their activity more technique than physique.

Click and Drag, the amazing xkcd cartoon that went online a few days ago, was fascinating and threw me back to the worlds I used to explore when I was a kid (through videogames obviously).

I selected a few places and made 1920x1080 captures to use as wallpapers for my 24" monitor. They’re clean, not distracting, and inspirationals (the one I use as a backdrop for my writing is The Cave).

I moved my tumblr log to calepin.

The reasons for doing it ? I like the idea of having finally all my posts under control and not having to resort to a web interface. It’s faster and cleaner. I might do the same with my other blog, aadm.wordpress.com, where I keep longer and more articulated posts.

I also like the interface, simple and pure; you can’t mess with so little nor you have the tentation to do so. You are kind of forced to stick to words and photos. What I don’t like: that all Calepin blogs look the same (but hey, also books look the same, all black words on white paper); that there’s no possibility to put photos into the abstracts; that there’s no next/previous buttons to navigate between posts.

NPR’s top 100 science fiction books

And if you prefer a flowchart to guide you through this list:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/09/flowchart-for-navigating-nprs-top-100-sff-books/

Last Thursday I arrived in the States, and I went through the usual US border immigration procedure. The agent, after careful examination of my passport with lots of Egyptian visa stamps, says:

• Been to Egypt a lot, ah ?

• Yes, a few times but it’s been more than a year since my last time.

• So you haven’t been there after the TERRORIST TAKEOVER ?

Aways enjoyed Google’s doodles. This one is dedicated to my beloved/hated country, so I thought to hold on to it and put it here.

Randall is one of my favourite authors. This comic here sums up perfectly my current feelings about tech bloggers (also read this rant that I wrote some time ago).

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.

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.

Making a really good coffee

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.

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 ?”.

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).