torbidoblog

music therapy.

2009-07-02T01:19:00.001+01:00

i haven't been writing in the blog for a while.
i would like to write a post on music therapy, but i don't have the time.
i started to focus more on my life than on the blog.
than on many things.

good night.

lyrics.

2009-05-18T21:17:00.003+01:00

why are lyrics on the internet almost always wrong?

and why is it that tristan is always carrying a surfboard but never uses it for surfing?
:-)

berlusconi: "we say no to a multiethnical italy".

2009-05-09T20:46:00.003+01:00

fresh news on "corriere della sera".

how long before berlusconi suggests, well... before he commands that jews are burnt in the incinerators near naples instead of rubbish?

multiethnicity is a resource for a country.
why would one oppose it?
maybe because he/she thinks his/hers ethnic group is superior to all of the others?
this sounds dreadfully familiar.

this is paradoxical at a time when different people are melting together in the european union, at whatever moment in time after the horrors of fascism and nazism.

people of europe, speak your mind before the european elections, help us (italians) get rid of berlusconi, his party and the bias that plagues almost all information in italy.

here you can read the same piece of news in english.

sons of a bitch.

2009-05-08T00:22:00.002+01:00

burglars kill 82 year old woman.
can those burglars be considered human beings?

icub on sic.

2009-04-28T19:58:00.002+01:00

sic is one of the four main portuguese tv channels. one of their guys came to our lab and watched the icub play for a while, so now we're famous all over portugal! :-)

it was fun when people told me: "i saw you on tv".
now they all seem to think that i'm quite smart.
what were they thinking before? :-)

trouble.

2009-04-22T00:46:00.001+01:00

earthquake.

2009-04-07T19:16:00.004+01:00

i can't look at the pictures taken after the earthquake in central italy.
it is so unfair what those people are going through.
i look at them and i see the faces of my grandparents, who are more or less from that area.
i can only imagine what it must be like losing relatives like this, out of the blue.
losing your hose, your city, everything that was normal.
tears come to my eyes when i think of those good people.

and there is nothing i can do. nor for the victims of this earthquake, nor for preventing this situation to happen again.
it's so frustrating.

but i know one thing: those people are tough, they're going to fight and build their lives again.

european elections.

2009-03-24T13:27:00.004Z

i need to check with the embassy how to vote for the european elections.
i can say already now that i will vote for italia dei valori, as i think they are the only ones working to make our society better.
they want a free, honest information and they're on the side of the common people, against the interests of the lobbies.

i think it's time for the other countries in europe to start and push italy to get rid of the corruption that rules the country, before that corruption spreads and fucks the whole european union up.

surfing attitude.

2009-03-23T20:31:00.002Z

i still suck at surfing, but i'm already getting some benefits out of that: the floor of my room is covered in sand, so i can barely notice the dust.

light-hearted poetry.

2009-03-22T22:43:00.003Z

i always liked sad, angry, dark poetry and music.
lately i started liking light-hearted music, so i'm wandering if i could like light-hearted poetry as well.
but i know no poetry like that.

do you have any suggestion?
should i ask google?

dualismo.

2009-03-20T02:45:00.002Z

will today be a day like nirvana or will it be like jack johnson?
will i be looking at the stars or at dog shit on the calçada portuguesa?

is this what arrigo boito had in mind when he wrote "dualismo"?

sphere tracking.

2009-03-16T20:00:00.003Z

things are happening, i just don't have the time to write them down on the blog.
one of these days i'll write them from my room's window, instead of sleeping.

for now i'll just post my latest demo:

todo list.

2009-02-28T23:23:00.003Z

(*) surf in caparica
(*) eat a healthy pasta, seasoned with the vegetable sauce

(*) submit the paper

(*) listen to elisa on youtube
(*) check weather conditions for surfing tomorrow
(*) do some breath meditation
(*) sleep tight

dorset naga.

2009-02-27T22:49:00.003Z

today i bought some seeds of dorset naga (a deadly chili pepper strain) on line.
i'm not sure if i had them sent to portugal or to italy :-(.

and i uploaded two new videos on youtube:

but i still like music videos better :-).

thom yorke.

2009-02-25T01:17:00.004Z

no one should ever have to feel like thom yorke.

fast forward.

2009-02-22T17:21:00.003Z

go crazy at the carnival parade, surf the waves of the ocean, run, listen to grunge music, flow through the metro, look at the girls.
no, not like that: one at a time.
track balls, go surfing again, eat pizza, listen to afterhours.

girls! again!
but they're fake.

time to go!

icub on the beeb!

2009-02-20T12:12:00.003Z

antonino (nello) just told me that there's a video on the bbc about chico, "our" humanoid robot!
quite cool, huh?

ubuntu 8.04.

2009-02-10T19:10:00.006Z

i gave up.
i tried for some days to sort the video-related mess, but today, out of frustration and a cold i killed ubuntu 8.10 and installed 8.04.

good old "hardy".
i missed you :-).

i really tried to sort that mess, but the evil behaviour of "intrepid" was shattering my self-confidence :-).

just when you think you're a hacker...

2009-02-06T22:03:00.004Z

this morning i had a problem with my computer: i couldn't grab images from the camera and feed them to my tracker.

i spent all my waking hours downloading stuff, compiling, linking, reading forums, writing bits and pieces of code in the hart of the libraries and compiling again.

and i fucked up my system completely!
amarok (the mp3 playing program) doesn't work any more, the videos on youtube stutter, firefox won't close...
amazing!
i didn't think i could do so much damage.

pasta.

2009-02-04T22:31:00.003Z

tonight i cooked myself a nice dish of pasta with fresh salmon and vegetables (i couldn't find courgettes, so i just used some random green vegetables, to keep the colour of the dish).

i'm quite proud of myself :-).

impermanence.

2009-01-31T20:32:00.003Z

it's a rainy day.
i just finished reading "durante", by andrea de carlo.
it made me think of how a big deal of discontent can come from trying to keep things still, under control, while everything flows.
and i thought of why i like things to be still, without being able to come up with a sensible reason.

this made me wonder on which things in life i really like, instinctively.
and i like taking a hot shower, with the room filled of balsamic steam.
i like reading a book on the side of the window, with a hot cup of herbal tea.
singing at the top of my lungs while i drive.
staying in bed in the morning and dream.

looking for inspiration.

2009-01-27T22:47:00.003Z

i'd like to download the lyrics to this song and cut them to pieces, paint them, turn them into something that looks like what the song makes me feel.
as i used to do.

why did i stop?
why does it feel like cheating if i force myself to start again?
why did it stop to come naturally?

fuck!

2009-01-20T18:09:00.004Z

opencv is not fully working under ubuntu 8.10...
what do i do now?

happy birthday e. a. poe!

2009-01-19T20:49:00.004Z

today it's e. a. poe's birthday.
well, who cares... :-)

during this last weekend my friends and i made a lot of pizzas, using 2kg of flour and natural yeast. oh, and we gulped the pizzas down with some caipirinhas.
what else, we attended "las bizarrías de belisa", a play in ancient spanish (not that i know current spanish), walked around in lisbon under a light rain and drank some beer.
not bad, really.
oh, and i slept 14 hours straight after making the pizzas. that's a hard job ;-).

rosemary.

2009-01-14T18:39:00.001Z

my rosemary just bloomed.
on the beginning of january.
is this normal?

priceless.

2009-01-11T23:14:00.004Z

run from 10pm to 11pm in bairro alto and stop at mezcal for a beer on the way home...
priceless!
:-)

veleno.

2009-01-11T19:41:00.003Z

i was wondering about my tendency to like art (music and poetry) in which sad, frustrated, twisted emotions are involved.
is this something that's coded in my genes or is this something i chose once and reinforced along time?
nature or nurture?
but, more importantly, is this something i could change?

by the way, edgar allan poe's birthday is coming soon.

new year's eve.

2009-01-02T21:13:00.003Z

i was in bormio and, well, under a lot of snow.
happy new year, everybody!

picture courtesy of elenoise.

impressive.

2008-12-28T22:48:00.000Z

madeira, dawn.

2008-12-12T19:15:00.012Z

some pictures from madeira, taken at sunrise.
i was awake so soon (actually, i've been awake for a good deal of the night) because of the heavy stuff i had for dinner the preceding evening :-).

sun rising behind the clouds.

some weird fruit growing there: chayote.

it was raining slightly, so i also got to see a wonderful rainbow

a cow. or is it a bull?

this is definitely a bull!

a nice succulent plant

the side of the hill where our house was.

japan.

2008-12-10T11:52:00.003Z

i want to go to japan!
i need to try the cucumber pepsi and grow shiitake on some wooden stuff.

well, i can grow shiitake here, i just need to get my pc a new wooden case and spread spores on top of it.
organic computing! :-)

memento.

2008-12-06T17:24:00.003Z

memento is a movie about one guy who is unable to form new memories.
guys like that exist for real: henry molaison died yesterday, after living "the same moment" over and over again, for fifty-five years.

i sometimes think of how it would be for me to live such a life.
i would behave very annoyingly with the people around me, always assuming that i am right and that all the others are wrong.

oh, wait, this makes me a pain in the ass to live with already now! :-)

madeira, rocks and waves.

2008-12-05T00:26:00.001Z

one picture for ali.

sugar.

2008-12-03T16:42:00.003Z

the trip to madeira was amazing.
i'll post you some pictures and descriptions later.
for now i just wanted to tell you that i saw plantations of sugar cane and decided that this will be my next mania: i'll try to grow some of them on my balcony in lisbon.
in madeira i drank some sugar cane juice, squeezed in front of my eyes, and then "smuggled" one cane to lisbon in my hand luggage :-).

today i stumbled upon this piece of news that combines perfectly with my new mania: sony produces an mp3 player that runs on a sugary solution!

i could grow sugar cane on my balcony and then squeeze it directly into the player! :-)

madeira.

2008-11-28T12:22:00.001Z

i'm going to madeira for the week-end.

see you all in a while!
:-)

icub.

2008-11-24T20:32:00.004Z

we're famous, guys :-).
here's a video broadcast by euronews on the icub robot, also known as chico.
(you can see it in different languages, have a look at the bar at the top of the page).

~·~

i heard it's snowing back at home (see the pictures of the players of inter training in the snow).
i'm so happy of being in lisbon: yesterday i've been surfing!
the water was quite cold (~14ºc), but at midday you could stay on the beach wearing just your trunks and catch sun.

theatre.

2008-11-20T18:08:00.004Z

in these last days i haven't been constantly connected to the internet, as the power supply of my pc broke.
twice.
i hope it will be fixed soon.

the most important news about me is that i joined a theatre course.
in portuguese, of course.
cool, huh?
friends told me that at the end of the course we will perform a play and that there's always someone naked in those plays.

i hope that won't be me :-).

unwarping.

2008-11-13T17:38:00.005Z

today i spoke with prof. gaspar, who's a guru of omnidirectional vision.
he fist clarified that the correct name for what i did is "unwarping" and then pointed out that if i projected stuff the other way around (perspective rays to the image plan through the fisheye model) i could avoid the interpolation step.
cool!

by the way the lens we used to acquire the image is a sunex dsl215.
it would be nice to use them for taking artistic photos, wouldn't it?

image rectification.

2008-11-12T21:04:00.005Z

useful?
i'm not sure.
but for sure it's cool!

kumo.

2008-11-10T11:58:00.006Z

i was using the wikipedia for translating the name of one ingredient of a particular north african sauce. the sauce is called harissa, the ingredient carvi, in french.

the interesting thing is that not only have i found the italian page for that spice, but also the venetian version of it:
"el kumo (nome sientifego carum carvi) ła xe na pianta deła fameja dełe apiaceae. in todesco se dixe kümmel, in inglexe caraway, in tałjan cumino. ła xe na piantina ke riva a 40-60 cm, con fojete divise fine fine come penete; i fioreti i xe bianchi o rosa, i fruti i xe picołi, de do miłimetri."

lovely language.

coim coim.

2008-11-05T18:59:00.003Z

patty's rabbit is doomed!
:-)

pasta and free market.

2008-11-02T17:11:00.003Z

i read in "repubblica" today that the price of one kg of pasta in italy is, on average, 1.5 euros. this is in the news because it's strange that, as the price of wheat is falling, the one of pasta is rising.
it seems as if somebody's not playing by the rules of free market.

so i went to pingo doce (a portuguese chain of supermarkets) and i checked out the prices there.
i usually buy pasta of the pingo doce brand. the envelope says it's made of durum wheat, in gragnano, near naples. and it's good (there are other portuguese brands of pasta, but i think they suck).

so one kg of spaghetti by pingo doce costs 0.78 euros.
48% cheaper than the italian average.
one kg of penne by pingo doce costs 1.18 euros, still 21% cheaper.

something's wrong. somebody's exploiting the italian customers.

by the way, you can buy italian pasta at pingo doce, but the prices are ridiculously high: one kg of spaghetti by buitoni is sold at 3.5 euros.
you can buy 4.49kg of spaghetti by pingo doce for the same price!
and both come from italy.

halloween.

2008-11-02T11:58:00.006Z

i never cared much for halloween, but this year, thanks to a chain of friends :-), we got some free tickets for the amazing fox party in lisbon. the atmosphere was great!

the fist thing you saw, in front of the the huge warehouse where the party was held, was the fake cemetery, with dracula's and frankenstein's graves.
as you entered, you'd see a fountain loaded with fake blood and all kind of monsters would creep toward you.
the warehouse was extremely big and dark, there were posters of the simpsons in a halloween mood hanging on the walls, it took me a while to spot the "nurses" handing out syringes loaded with red liquor.
cool, huh? :-)

there were also a couple of bands performing. i have no clue who those guys were, but they were good, i especially liked the hip-hop band.
after that there was a deejay set, so we were dancing and... it's at that time that freddie krueger tried to kill me! :-)

rocoto.

2008-10-30T18:44:00.003Z

this (on the left) is a yellow rocoto chili pepper, grown by jazz in como.
i never managed to get one of them to ripen. i once had a nice plant, but with small, green pods.
i don't give up, though: i'll try again next year here in lisbon.

surfing.

2008-10-25T17:35:00.003+01:00

today the weather is amazing: 26 degrees, clear sky, fresh wind.
better than this last summer.
i went with some friends to costa da caparica, on the other side of the river, for my first surfing lesson.
it was amazing!
i mean, i think i got to stand on the board for some two seconds, but still the whole experience was quite cool.
i guess i'll take another lesson next saturday.
because tomorrow i'll stay in bed all day :-).

here's a video shot at that location:

it's a pity i can't show you today's colours, the crystal clear sky and deep blue ocean.
next time i'll try to bring with me a friend with a camera.

sarah palin.

2008-10-21T20:43:00.003+01:00

i don't trust people who say "nukilar" instead of "nuclear" (see this video at -4:34).
or somebody who says: "i believe that what president bush has attempted to do is rid this world of islamic extremism [...]" (see same video at -2:22).
i think you can't get rid of extremism starting a war.
especially when you start a war lying on its causes (telling people that there are weapons of mass destruction in iraq, that saddam hussain had something to do with 9/11, that the control of oil has nothing to do with the war, etc.).

another scary thing is that palin didn't ask herself if she has the ability or the experience for being president of the us (beginning of the video).
i think a reasonable person should asks herself/himself the question and then maybe conclude that she/he has.

the worst thing is: more or less half of the citizens of the us are willing to vote for this woman!

~·~

by the way, it seems i'm not the only one who noticed that palin pronounces "nuclear" the way george bush does: have a look at this.

galois.

2008-10-21T18:16:00.006+01:00

i have some vague memories of abelian and galois groups. they remind me of the first years of university, when i was taking algebra (repeatedly) and wondering sadly what the heck all that stuff was useful for :-).
they remind me of the girls i liked at the time, of the time spent in the aula magna, etc., but of course i didn't remember much of the concepts linked to these names before i looked them up in the wikipedia.

today the professor of "dynamical systems and optimization" was talking about a particular semigroup when he decided to tell us the story of galois. the legend goes that this brilliant and turbulent mathematician scheduled a duel (it's not so clear why) and was quite sure that he was going to die because of that. so he spent the night before the duel writing all his ideas on group theory. he added, as a note: "there is something to complete in this demonstration. i do not have the time." :-).
the following day he was shot in the belly and one day later he died, at 20.

habanero chili pepper plant.

2008-10-16T00:03:00.003+01:00

this is the chili pepper plant that i used to have in my office when i worked on the football playing robots. when i went back to italy it was moved to phooi yee's office and she took good care of it, as you can see.
the other plant, the one on the left, is a coffee plant. it seems that it's going to take some years for it to bear fruits.

picture courtesy of giovanni prestige.

shame.

2008-10-13T23:13:00.005+01:00

i'm ashamed of being italian.
this stuff should not be allowed to be called "news".
this is plain propaganda.

the european union should not close its eyes on this.
i'll drop them an email, tomorrow ;-).

have a look at the second part of this video, if you want a fair (i hope) account of what happened during a civil demonstration, whose aim was to get rid of a law that is unethical and unconstitutional (granting berlusconi and some other three guys immunity from prosecution!):

i feel so helpless that i'd like to punch fede in the face.
but then again, the whole system is flawed.
corruption is endemic.
italian citizens lack the ability to critically analyse what they're fed by the media.

facebook.

2008-10-12T20:04:00.002+01:00

i was trying to make facebook read this blog and give it a bit of publicity. i set up an application, but i have no clue if it's working, so i'll just write this test post.

sensible politics?

2008-10-12T18:50:00.005+01:00

that sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? :-)

but i just saw mc cain say he respects obama, that obama is a decent family man he (mc cain) just happens to have disagreements with.
that's quite surprising.

the first thing i thought was: mc cain's analysts must have told him that saying so is part of the best strategy for being elected.
this takes a little moral merit away from mc cain, to give it to all the voters (also known as people): it seems that people consider respect and moderation important in a political campaign.

or maybe mc cain's analysts are just plain wrong.
:-)

by the way, i root for obama!

cool spam.

2008-10-12T18:11:00.002+01:00

i just received a spam message whose subject is:

"how to avoid the next economic depression".

these guys might be evil, but they're quite smart!

damn wireless cards.

2008-10-09T21:35:00.003+01:00

compile the module.
wait, before you have to get the source for the module and the patches.
then you apply the patches and...
wait, before you have to compile the dependencies for that module.
wait, before you have to patch the dependencies too.
by hand.

oh, shit, i'll just go to bed.

cern rap.

2008-10-08T20:33:00.003+01:00

sounds cool!
i should do something like that with lyrics about tracking sponges and, of course, with distorted guitars :-)

stuff i like.

2008-10-05T20:17:00.002+01:00

i was talking to patty, she wanted to convince me that playing snooker was cool, while staying at home, reading books about meditation/science/whatever was dull.

this started me thinking about what i really enjoy doing for the sake of it.
it took me a while, but i realized that i really like singing grunge songs and i'd love to go to a concert and get into the mosh pit.
but that is a thing of the past, nobody does that nowadays.
so i decided that i'll buy a guitar and learn playing it.
fuck the neighbours, fuck shame, i'm doing it!

yes, i know, i have two guitars in italy and i never learnt how to play them.
this time it's different.
why? mind your own business!
i already got the grunge attitude back :-)

deadlines.

2008-10-01T01:46:00.003+01:00

i haven't even begun my phd, formally, but i'm already fed up with deadlines and editing the papers late at night.

just joking, i quite like it, actually :-).

ford and fulkerson.

2008-09-23T20:30:00.000+01:00

i remember that when i was taking the operational research course at the ppm (powerful politecnico di milano) i especially liked the ford-fulkerson algorithm (and i disliked the simplex algorithm).
i liked the ford-fulkerson algorithm because it was easy and it was about computing how much water you can possibly pump through a network (one of my grandfathers is a plumber, so i like water pipes, etc.).
it never seemed very useful or brilliant to me, though. so i forgot about it quite fast.

then, some years later, i was attending a tutorial by phil torr at the bmvc and it turned out that solving that water distribution problem is equivalent to minimizing a cost function, so you can apply it to bayesian image restoration and image segmentation and a lot of other cool stuff!
i was amazed.

well done, ford and fulkerson! ;-)

~·~

i have some more stuff i should write about my trip to leeds, i'll write it when i have more free time, maybe on the week end.

sunset in lisbon.

2008-09-16T15:01:00.009+01:00

some pictures i took at the miradouro of são pedro de alcântara, with the moon rising behind the castle, at sunset.

leeds/2.

2008-09-11T19:33:00.009+01:00

here are some more pictures i took during the trip to leeds:

the view from a window of the train from london to leeds.
or was that from milan to como? :-)

well, ok, this really is great britain.

and this is my room in the university of leeds.
cool, huh? almost better than my room in portugal :-).

and this is the view from that room:
a lovely park with all the british shades of green!

this is the university itself.
this image in particular rings a bell to me.
i can almost smell the atmosphere out of it.

i feel like singing a song by oasis:

"i lost my faith in the summertime -

'cause it don't stop raining"

lipstick on a pig.

2008-09-10T21:02:00.005+01:00

"you can put lipstick on a pig... it's still a pig."

i like obama, because he says things other politicians don't.
other politicians just say what the masses want to hear.
obama seems to me to be saying what smart people want to hear: reasonable things!
i like him because i don't like the republicans, the lobbies and the mass media.

london.

2008-09-08T17:24:00.007+01:00

london? hadn't i been to leeds?
well, yes, but on my way to leeds i passed by london.
i took the tube at heathrow and switched to a train at king's cross station.
so i had a chance to be in london and above the ground! :-)

here are a couple of pictures i took there.

i really liked the atmosphere in london: the colour, the smell, the humidity, the way people were dressed... everything reminded me of when i was a kid and i'd go there on vacation, to learn a little english.

i'll tell you more about the trip later: these days i'm quite busy writing a paper.

leeds/1.

2008-09-04T18:35:00.003+01:00

i'm in leeds for the bmvc2008 (a machine vision conference) and i'm enjoying it very much.
the city is nice, the university campus is lovely, the guys at the conference are cool, etc. it's a great experience.
an it's cool to be back in the uk. with a fresh, wet weather.
with pale, blonde girls.
and with people speaking proper english.
it's a pleasure to talk to these guys.
well, the ones among them that i do understand :-).

i'll tell you more on leeds when i get back to lisbon.

sugar free candies.

2008-08-23T22:33:00.002+01:00

i've been trying to make sugar free candies for a while.
i wanted to make some beer candies, some rosemary candies and some campari col bianco candies, for example.
i tried to use isomalt instead of sugar, but i had no specific recipe, so i ended up making some very sticky candies, some bitter ones and some tastless ones :-).

finally laura opened up the gates of knowledge for me: the recipe is not to be looked for in a written form, but on youtube!
(and in spanish, also)

i feel that chili pepper sugar free candies are as close as ever! :-)

watercolour from mongolia.

2008-08-23T18:06:00.011+01:00

i was walking in chiado today, when i saw a guy sitting on the floor, drawing and selling some watercolour paintings.
i looked at the paintings and i happened to like one depicting a mongol guy, maybe a warrior (the painter himself looked like mongol). so I asked the artist what was the price of that painting and he replied it was just one euro.
it felt strange.
one euro?
i said that i was buying the watercolour, but i insisted to pay the guy five euros instead of one. i mean, with one euro he can barely cover the price of paper and colours. so he explained to me that he took part in some documentary (i guess: he was speaking a broken portuguese that didn't overlap much with mine) so he had enough money.
enough money? that's the sort of concept that takes me a while to fully grasp.
the guy seemed to find no use of the additional four euros i wanted to give him. "why should i take the money? i don't need it!".
then he told me that he works as a bricklayer and that he was going back to that in half an hour.
i guess i looked puzzled, as focused as i was trying to make the most out of this special encounter.
the painter/bricklayer went on telling me his story, he told me that he had spent one year in the north of portugal because he wanted to watch the leaves of the vines changing colour, in autumn. the moment he saw the exact shades of colour, they stuck with him. now he can paint with those colours anytime he wants to.
anything he wants to.

amazing.

eventually he gave me another, bigger watercolour, as a gift.
and he told me i was a good guy.

la luna es mentirosa.

2008-08-22T15:50:00.001+01:00

the moon's a liar.

this is what the spanish children are taught, so that they can deduce which phase the moon is in by looking at it.

the ancient spanish :-) thought that it would be cool to have some kind of mnemonic to do the deduction. they tried this one (forgive me for the capital letters):
when the moon looks like a D it is evolving towards new moon (it's Decreciente), while when it looks like a C it is evolving towards full moon (it's Creciente).
sounds cool, but it doesn't work.

the ancient spanish were on the verge of giving up, but then one particularly brilliant ancient spanish thought: "ehy, it's just the other way around!".

so when the moon looks like a D it's Creciente and when it looks like a C it's Dereciente -> the moon's a liar!

i especially like stories about the sky and the stars and the dreams children believe in, so when clara told me this story i instantly loved it.
then i started telling her how romantic it is when two people who are far away look at the same star and feel as if they were together and...
the engineering instinct kicked in :-).
i though: "hey, wait a second, the earth is round. what happens if i look at the moon from the other hemisphere? will it still be lying?".

suspance.

no, it won't.
if you look at the moon from argentina, for instance, the moon does not lie!

you can have a look at this blog for a confirmation of that. and for a really nice picture of the moon.

by the way, what happens to the moon if you look at it from the equator?

chemistry.

2008-08-20T21:22:00.004+01:00

love is all about chemistry.
well, no, this time it's not about love :-).

i'm translating the syllabi of the courses i took at the powerful politecnico di milano from italian to english. i need to do so for my phd candidature in lisbon.
i thought it would be boring and it is, but sometimes it's gratifying: i had no clue i knew so much about chemistry! :-)

general part.
the atom. atomic structure: nucleus and electrons, atomic spectra and energy quantization, quantic theories, ondulatory interpretation, atomic orbitals, shapes and energies of orbitals, electronic configurations.
periodic system: effective nuclear charge, atomic ray, ionization energy,electron affinity, electronegativity, correlation between the properties of the elements and their position in the periodic system.
the chemical bond. molecules: covalent and dative bond, electronegativity, valence bond, lewis' structures, shape and geometry of molecules, polarity of molecules, hybridization, resonance, delocalized orbitals, molecular orbitals. interaction between molecules: hydrogen bond, weak electrostatic bond, introduction to coordination compounds. ionic bond. metallic bond: band theory, conductors and semiconductors.
stechiometry. chemical nomenclature. mass conservation. atomic mass. molecular mass. compound mass. avogadro's number. mole and molar mass. equivalent and equivalent mass. chemical equations. oxidation number. oxido-reductions. balance of reactions. ideal and real gases:
ideal gas' state equation, gaseous mixtures, partial pressures. solution of ionic compounds and molecular compounds. concentration and ways to express it.
chemical thermodynamics. thermodynamic system: state variables and state functions, standard and reference state, energetic variations. first principle: internal energy and work, enthalpy and standard enthalpy, thermochemistry. second principle: spontaneity, reversibility and equilibrium, entropy and disorder, standard entropy and third principle.
free energy and spontaneity of the reactions. standard free energies. maximum usable work.
chemical equilibria. homogeneous equilibria: thermodynamic derivation of the expression of the law of mass action, equilibrium constants and their use, factors that influence the equilibrium (t, p and concentration). heterogeneous equilibria: phases, chemical and physical variables, degrees of freedom, phase rule and its applications.
chemical kinetics. speed of the reactions: measurement of the speed of a reaction, order of reaction and molecularity. factors influencing the speed of reaction, collisional theory and distribution of maxwell-boltzman, activation energy and arrhenius' equations. radical chain reactions.
reaction mechanisms. homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis.
aggregation states. gas state. liquid state. solid state: ionic solids, molecular solids, covalent solids, metallic solids, crystalline reticulated. state transition: vapour pressure, clausius-clapeyron equation, critical temperature and critical pressure, liquidification of gases, state diagrams of monocomponent systems. solutions: solubility, real and ideal solutions, solution energies, enthalpy, entropy, free mixing energy, raoult's law, azeotropes, distillation and related diagrams. colligative properties: lowering of the vapour pressure, ebullioscopy, crioscopy, cooling curves for solutions, eutectic state diagrams, osmotic pressure.
electrolytic solutions. electrolytic dissociation: conductibility of solutions, relation between conductibility and dissociation degree, activity and activity coefficient, colligative properties of electrolytic solutions.
solution equilibria: autodissociation of water, theories on acids and bases (arrhenius,
brönsted, and lewis), dissociation constants for acids and bases, relation between the structure and the strength of acids and bases, amphoterics, ph, ph indicators, saline hydrolysis, solubility product, acid-base titration.
electrochemistry. electrochemical cells: electrode potential, relation between dg and electromotive force, semielements,
nernst equation, scale of the standard potentials, concentration cells, use of the potential values, electrochemical measure of the concentration, cells of practical interest. electrolysis: quantitative aspects, electrolysis potential, overvoltage, applications of hydrolysis, accumulators.
metal corrosion: corrosion mechanisms, protection agains corrosion.

descriptive part
hydrogen. properties and preparation. water: structure.
alkaline metals. general properties. elements' preparation. sodium carbonate. sodic hydrate.
alkaline earth metals. general properties. elements' preparation. calcium oxide and calcium carbonate.
elements of the third group. general properties. aluminium's industrial preparation.
elements of the fourth group. general properties. carbon: allotropic forms. oxygenated compounds. silicon
and silicon dioxide.
elements of the fifth group. general properties. nitrogen. ammonia and its preparation. oxides. nitric acid. phosphorus. phosphoric acid. fertilizer.
elements of the sixth group. general properties. oxygen. sulphur. sulphur's oxides. sulphuric acid and its preparation.
halogens. general properties. chlorine: electrochemical preparation. hydrochloric acid. oxygenated acids of chlorine.
transition elements. generalities. copper: preparation and refination. iron: cast irons, steels.
organic chemistry. chemical and physical characteristics of the organic compounds. hydrocarbons. functional groups.
introduction to natural and artificial polymers.

ignorance.

2008-08-19T11:05:00.007+01:00

you can partition the world in two classes: that of the stuff you know, that is familiar to you, and that of the stuff you don't know.
so far, so good, no problems with that.

for some people the unknown is fascinating, it's a chance to explore.
for some others it something to fear and hate, in a battle to defend their own turf.

i think there are two main reasons behind xenophobia: two different kinds of ignorance.

xenophobes ignore the fact that all men are similar, all look for happiness and have to go through problems, etc.
the knowledge of this stimulates, at least in me, a sense of brotherhood with everybody. as with my classmates at the different school levels, for instance.
we're together in this, mates.
xenophobes ignore cultures different from their own. they can thus think of people belonging to other cultures as to "the others", as of someone outside their group.
as for me, i think that speaking some foreign languages helps me feel foreign people as my own kind. but it's not just the language, it's about the whole culture. for instance, when you don't know a culture and watch a guy belonging to this culture give a speech, even if you get a translation of what she/he says, you will most probably misunderstand much of the non-verbal communication going on, much of the implicit references to his way of seeing the world.

all these thoughts came to me when i read this piece of news about some italians beating up an angolan.
it seems so fucking senseless to me.
how could they?

my answer is: they are ignorant.
the solution to this is, in my opinion, to build a healthier society by teaching children that we're all men and that all cultures are as valuable as our own.

it seems to me that the italian society is going in the opposite direction, in a surge of fascism that i can hardly explain to myself.

more on portuguese marketing.

2008-08-18T12:10:00.006+01:00

"fica" is a false friend :-).

well, ok, let me elaborate a bit on that. this picture was taken in lisbon, (by alessio) so the sign is in portuguese. it is ambiguous for an italian, as "fica a €1" is a correct statement also in italian, even if it brings about a different meaning than in portuguese.
in portuguese it means ~"for just 1 euro".
in italian it means ~"pussies, 1 euro each".

not bad to catch the attention of the italian tourists now flooding lisbon :-).

proudly made in portugal.

2008-08-14T18:21:00.003+01:00

we went to a fair in barreiro, some nights ago, and we discovered this amazing liquor: "licor de merda" (=shitty liquor, liquor made of shit).
it is quite bad, i have to say. i doubt they'd be able to sell a bottle of that with a normal name.

but.
you can drink a shot of that in a copo de chocolate (=a chocolate cup), just like the famous ginja de obidos.

picture courtesy of alessio, who was also the source for the post on image-based shaving.

icub (de)constructed.

2008-08-13T15:51:00.007+01:00

i'm posting some interesting photos of the icub, that were sent to me by ricardo.

the building process: the legs.

where's my head?
(probably on a table, in lisbon)

ready to travel (on charon's boat?)

oh, god, did i turn the gas off?

image-based shaving.

2008-08-12T12:47:00.005+01:00

have you ever wondered how that uncle of yours would look like without a beard? now you don't need to tie him to the bed and shave him, to satisfy your curiosity: you can just run the these guys' software on a picture of his.

amazing, isn't it?
and if you have a look at the paper, you'll see that they're working on the removal of the glasses too.

next time somebody tries to use a picture as 'evidence' of something, think twice.

i wonder if you can use that software also on dogs :-).

feelings.

2008-08-08T00:49:00.009+01:00

sometimes you feel the urge to expose a part of your hart to your friends, so that you can have a look at that yourself.

it is difficult to understand what is going on inside you just by feeling it.

no place like home.

2008-08-04T20:50:00.004+01:00

after lisboa-sestri levante-albissola mare in less than two weeks, i'm back home, in appiano gentile.

and the heat and the moisture that annoy most people, feel to me as the famous petite madeleine to proust.
everything is so green. every sight so calm and comforting.

it's when i come back home that i really feel how much i miss things.

a meadow in front of the woods

a dragonfly on the side of the pond

the pond itself

the sunset, as seen from my porch

icub can now play tennis.

2008-08-02T20:09:00.008+01:00

well, it may work as a ball-boy, actually ;-).

in this demo you can see the result of the collaboration between the grasping and the visual attention group at the veni vidi vici summer school 2008, held in sestri levante: the icub robot locates a ball in front of it and grasps it.

this video shows you what the robot sees (after rectification), as it was shot from one of its eyes.

it was amazing to work/swim/get drunk with all those cool guys of the summer school and to obtain such a good result.

for the ones among you who are thinking "i've seen the terminator do that and then shoot the fxxxing ball with a bazooka in 1984!", stop for a second and think: was that for real or was that fiction/bullshit?

(it's also a useful exercise to practice when watching the news, lately).

~•~

this is another interesting result obtained by andrea and marco at the summer school: the dalai lama tracker.

when i asked them: "how does it work? is it a multiple object tracker?" they answered "what would you do with that? how many dalai lama do you think you can gather in one picture?" :-).

by the way, this image is not rectified. of course i'm prettier than that ;-).

~•~

with this post i changed language (to english) and blog publishing system, but you can still find the old posts at torbidoblog.splinder.com.

my philosophy stayed the same. keep it simple: no capital letters.