iRun

Having a good playlist is critical for my runs/tranings, I so decided to start sharing those which I prefer most.
Enjoy!

Franz Ferdinand – Take me out
Kaiser Chiefs - Oh my god
Planet Funk – Paraffin

P.S. I used last.fm as song-sharing platform, let me know if there’s something better!

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Laws of the Game: How the Principles of Nature Govern Chance

This book was promising, from the Amazon’s description:

“Using game theory and examples of actual games people play, Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler show how the elements of chance and rules underlie all that happens in the universe, from genetic behavior through economic growth to the composition of music.”

Despite the appealing introduction LotG was a delusion. I wasn’t able to find a main theme and not even a common approach in describing different arguments (sometimes games are brought as example and some time not, randomly). 
When I don’t like a book a feel (at least a little) guilty but, in my opinion, this one is very weak…

Beautiful Evidence

This is the third book of Tufte I read (check also Visual Explanations and Envisioning Information). My impression about BE is that’s a book which somewhat summarizes previous texts (also the chapter about PowerPoint is an old article recycled); in fact most significant examples of them are still reported here. The biggest innovations introduced are the chapter about the sparklines, a great tool which helps conducting quantitative analysises, and the one regarding depestalization, interesting but mostly unrelated with the rest of the book. In my opinion this is a very good book which can (at least partially) “replace” previous three ones, for this reason it will be most enjoyed by Tufte newbies while who already has them can save the money.

Graduated!

Hello everybody, I’ve finall got my master degree! Here you can see some of the pictures we took that day.

P.S. I’ve also refreshed my cv!

Machine Beauty

“Machine” and “Beauty” are two words that could sound strange together, nonetheless this is the topic of this book written by David Gelernter. Knowing some of the author previous works (like Linda and Lifestreams), I was expecting something really brilliant, but I’ve been (at least partially) disappointed. Although some ideas are interesting, I don’t like the way they’re presented; for instance the chapter regarding Apple and Microsoft is really confused and I wasn’t able to get the point (Where’s the beauty? Where’s not? Why did Microsoft win?). I also think that a professor of computer science which writes a book on beauty should, first of all, define what he means with this word (which has never been really defined).

My feeling is that “Machine Beauty” is compounded of a bunch of examples (although some of them interesting, as already said) without a well developed main theme which relates every element. In my opinion the text is (still?) rough, a missed chance.

The Lord of the Grills (or, in italian, “Il Signore dei Fornelli”)

This post is about the meals I cook here in Atlanta. I’ve purchased (for 26$) a little grill (or better, a skillet) for having the chance of cooking meal on my own without having buy it outside (-> fast food).
Here you can find what I’m able to prepare with this little thing (really great! no warm up time, cooks quicly even the meat!). At the end of post you can also find the first dinner I’ve cooked, steak with tomatoes, mushrooms and onions + grilled bread (I’m so proud of it!).

Atlanta’s first sight

Hello everybody, that’s my second day in Atlanta (I’ll spend the summer here to work on my operations research thesis). The campus it’s great and with so many facilities, I can’t say nothing about the city itself because I’ve not visited it yet, I hope I’ll get around the city this weekend, I’ll write more soon! In the meanwhile click on my very first picture (taken from my room, look at the Coca-Cola sign!) to see all pics I’ll take here during my stay.

Moving (again?!)

I hope this is the last time, but because of some issues with my previous hosting service now I’ve migrated to WordPress.com, it’s a nice and very basic free blog hosting; I hope this is the right one!

Modern Art…

… or “when reality goes beyond fantasy”! Last week-end I went to Venice and I’ve visited this city as much as I could, in particular I’ve been at the 51st Venice Biennale a very famous international modern art exhibition. I’ve shared some pics and a video of what I’ve seen there, I think the video (a performance which I’ve assisted at the Germany stand) is very interesting… Being an engineer that’s not my field but I’d really like to understand what some of this works should express; everyone who can explain to me at least a bit of modern art is welcome!

Just returned from holidays (+ pics)!

Hello everybody! Last week I’ve been to Crete island (Greece), it is a beatiful country and I’ve tried to visit all most important places like Knossos’ Palace, Santorini’s island, Samaria gorge etc… I’ve taken a lot of photos, just click here to see them!