minux.it

But if I had to choose a number,
I'd want it to be number one.
I don't want to be number two.
Yeah, I don't want to be number four.
[Cake - Jesus Wrote a Blank Check Lyrics]


Tradition is important, so I've just bet 2€ on the Six Nations' match between Ireland and Italy, without considering the ratings at all: "12-1" for Italy and "50-1" for Ireland.

It'll be fun anyway!

Lapit mga kaibigan at makinig kayo
[Black Eyed Peas - The Apl Song]

I haven't blogged ("blogged"?) anything at all in the last three days, apologies to all my readers :)

The picture of today is a powerpoint slide taken from my final dissertation: I'm working on MPTCP, the Meeting Places Transmission Control Protocol.

If you are a nerd and you're wondering what is this protocol for, well... basically it's a layer-3 connection-oriented protocol that allows completely disconnected operations. Imagine to ask a webserver "give me that http page but store the data on that remote host, I'll collect it later on" or "starting from 10:00, get 12 readings from that remote sensor and retain the data, I'll get it later". MPTCP also features transparent asymmetric encryption, adaptive gzip compression, accounting and quota, flow control, and it works over unmodified IPv4/IPv6. Sooner or later it will support also load-balancing, failover of storage nodes, and a specific multicast routing procotol.

If you are not a nerd, well... it's a nice picture anyway, isn't it?

La neve coprirà tutte le cose
e forse un pò di pace tornerà
[Vinicio Campossela - Estate]



This is how I feel after I read the blogs of the friends in Varese.
Everyone speaks about the heaviest snowfall since 1985...

E poi cos'è successo
aspettami oppure dimenticami
ci rivediamo adesso
dopo quasi cinque anni
[Tiromancino - La descrizione di un attimo]














Zio Al, can I cry even if I'm a guy?
This morning I logged in the SifaOnline, the online service of the Milan University, to check a few things about my previous studies. For the sake of curiosity, I clicked on "Enrolment Details" and the page in this picture popped up.

29/08/2000.
This is the day when everything began.
31/05/2006.
This is the day when everything will finish.

Or maybe not.

Hard to know which
way to go.
Will I ever save this day?
Will it ever change?
[Alter Bridge - Open
your eyes]












Something is burning inside you.
You feel a fire inside you can't explain.
You don't feel the cold. Nor you are scared by anything.
There's a war in you, but you just found the peace for the senses.
Your concentration is at the top.
You just want to survive, the instinct of conservation still works.
You fell sick, even if you are told that everything is ok.

Tim, a professional Thai cook, has been for a night our chef in our kitchen.
As in a "take away" restaurant, but we took away the cook instead of the food.
Thanks Tim and Why, it was great!

ps: never believe Thai people when they say "try this soup (see picture), it's not spicy at all..."

Certe vorte me pare che
er monno gira alla rovescia...
[Radici nel Cemento - Alla rovescia]











Unreasonable.
Absurd.
Senseless.
Irrational.
Useless.
No other words.
Just your number.
#999456.

I
Saw things
Clearer
Once you, were in my
Rearview mirror.
[Pearl Jam - Rear view mirror]











If I were five,
I would have rented a whole Trinity Hall flat just for me, and I would have a party every night cause all the flatmates would agree.
I would go around by car alone with no empty seats.
I would buy my clothes only in the Penneys "family pack" offers.
I would vote just once in referendums, since 5 is odd.
I would start a boyband, the fairest ever, since all the fans would cheer everyone in particular.
I would speak with myself a lot more.
I would play volley in a team with myself only.
I would even climb the highest mountains as a group of roped climbers.
I would have five blogs, each one linking to each other.
I would have the same name and surname, together with a serial number to identify myself.
I would ask Vodafone if I can text and call myself for free.
I would start a company called "Mino & Mino & Mino & Mino & Mino".
I would be worth less than five times myself.
I would be probably too much.

----
(Ok, I know that the multiple-exposition photo of today is not perfect, but I was in a hurry, it's just for the blog and, actually, I like it).

"All smoke and no roast". It's the literal translation of "Tutto fumo e niente arrosto".

On a Saturday night without pints but with the U2's Slane Castle DVD, I've even tried to translate it as "well, let's imagine that I put a chicken in the oven and there's smoke coming out but actually there's no chicken inside the oven. So, the smoke is a metaphor of something that is said to happen but it doesn't exist in the reality. Got it? Uh... why are you all looking at me?".

I've some "thank you" to say for my last 48 hours:
1) To Lisa for feeding me with every type of music and mp3s. She's an extremist about The Frames, be aware!
2) To Why for asking me to write his biography and because he made me install Windows XP in the back-shop of a Thai restaurant in Dublin. Strange enough, uh?
3) Three nice mails received from unknown and unrelated people, all starting with "I was reading your blog...". WOW!
4) To you, for listening and suggesting me what to write on my pink (!) copybook.
5) To Claire for explaining me the kind of "virtual trips" that girls make in their minds. Keep it simple, life is easy, i've never even thought to be angry!
6) To Mr. Muscle for having repaired our oven without intoxicating anyone!
7) To myself (egocentric?), for having found the time to read again my rulez.doc Word document. Marconik, you know of what I'm talking about, don't you? Do you remember that night in Sant'Ambrogio?
8) To Alberto for lending me his eye for the picture of today!

"You'll never shine if you don't glow"
[Smash Mouth - All Star]

To shine. To glitter.
To sparkle. To glisten.
To gleam. To spark.
I can't find on the dictionary the correct translation for brillare, referring to the following things:
1) The color of Nichaoimh's slippers (see photo).
2) The ordinary people that were at Mountjoy prison.
3) The humor of the functionary at the Italian embassy.
4) The RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1), 793 (the old sweet TCP) and those drafts. Ok, few people will understand this point. :)
5) Ryanair, for allowing me to go to the CeBIT another time with other 9 nerds.
6) The websites that I'm checking daily: 1 2 3 4 5 6
7) Giulia's TOEFL score!

You speak of signs and wonders, I need something other.
I would believe if I was able.
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table.
[U2 - Crumbs from your table]



It's a surprise to see the streets of seven people intersecting in a specific point.
A kitchen table, in our case.
Probably, one year ago, we would never have thought to be around it together.
And now we're here, clicking on the image and playing with the mouse.

If you believe there's nothing up my sleeve, then nothing is cool.
[R.E.M. - Man on the moon]


And before going to bed it's nice to see her. Up there. Lassù.
It's not poetry, it's not astronomy. Just something in between.
Moving and revolving behind those sliding clouds. Chronic. Unavoidable.
Following her path. Imprisoned by her mass.
Here she is. In the Rathmines sky.

This is a true story, unfortunately.
And, if you're in Dublin right now, I'm asking your help.

A friend of a friend has been arrested because she went underground following a deportation order. She is being deported because the Irish government cannot find a valid reason to give her asylum.

Her reason for coming here from Nigeria was that her eldest child died from female genital mutilation, and she did not want her other daughters to meet a similar fate. The Irish government, like most EU countries, do not recognise the risk of female genital mutilation as a reason to grant asylum - although it's clear that lives can be at risk from the process - be it during the surgery itself, afterwards, or simply the refusal to have the procedeure carried out can make an entire nigerian family a target for murder.

So, some friends are organising a protest to draw the media, and send the message that Female Genital Mutilation is life threatening and is grounds for asylum in Ireland to the Minister for Justice.
There will surely be other protests, the media have more or less picked up on the story, but we need to act fast as Pamela is facing deportation, to a fate we cannot know, in only one week...

If you are in Dublin and you'd like to help, please join at Trinity at 5pm on Tuesday, we'll then go together to Mountjoy Prison at 6pm. Please forward this to whoever you think can be involved.
For other info, contact me.

Update - The news from the newspapers and websites:

• Irish Times - 30/12 (PDF format)
• Irish Times - 13/1 (PDF format)
• Irish Times - 13/1 (PDF format)
• Irish Times - 14/1 (PDF format)
• Irish Indipendent (PDF format)
• RTE News (PDF format)
  
• Ocean FM (PDF format)
• Ireland On Line (PDF format)
  
• Indymedia.ie
• Labour.ie (PDF format)
• UTV (PDF format)

Fabio just published on the blog his version of the "Deejay a parole" game!
He used 26 songs, adding very few words and quoting mainly the "Pooh", and "Elio e le Storie Tese"... some great groups of the past and the present!


Congratulations Fabio and welcome to the club, that is now composed by me, you, Vale and Stefano...


As usual, I'm not going to translate the results in English if provided in Italian (come on, it'd be so booooring!).

PS: who can guess what's in the picture of today?

"Mi rifiuto di (...) rimandare progetti al futuro
stare lì con lo sguardo al passato
ma ho troppe cose da dire"
[Otto ohm - Angeli Franki]


What's the worst way to begin a new day?
A camomile and Windows checking the harddisk, that has already been replaced two times in two years.

And three is definitely not my favourite number.

"It's been a bad day.
Please don't take a picture.
It's been a bad day.
Please."
[REM - Bad Day]

The short flight of today was one of the worst I've ever done.
I sat beside two naughty few-months-old children that just cried out all the time.

Also, in the seat behind mine there was a 3-years-old child that just kicked my back since the take-off till the landing.
Probably I've never hated more than today. I can't stand anymore anything/anyone younger than 16 or 18 years old.

Home sweet home, nothing changed in you.
Even if there was a guest in my room. But not a guest of mine.
I don't even know his name. Anyway, this is another story...

Ah, tonight i've been hunting for food in Dundrum Tesco, when suddently I remembered to have my new KD D5 in my ugly red backpack (see the picture in the post of yesterday). I took it off and shot this panorama with its 18mm lens.

Ok, it's not an original concept at all, I was in a hurry, I didn't have a tripod, etc etc... but at least you can see the crowd in the irish shops at 7pm! :)

Click the photo for a bigger version or here for a huge version...

"I know in the past I've found it hard to say
Tellin' you things, but not tellin' straight"
[The Streets - Dry your eyes - video]

Leaving.
Again, like before and hopefully like in the future.
Fitting wine bottles inside the hand luggage or Parmesan cheese between the clothes, as I always used to do.

Thanks to the people I saw during this Italian break. Those who came from a city far away just to eat Polenta in my house, those who were waiting to tell me about "changes" in their lifes, those who gave me tips about a new camera, those who are always there.

I hope that the too many kilometers (should I write miles?) I drove and the never enough appetizers and pints I had were useful to exchange ideas about next trips and past experiences...

Thanks again italian people, i'll see you soon!

Yesterday night I asked Stefano G. to try to partecipate to our game "Deejay a parole".
We went back home at around 1.30am and I gave him time untill today at noon to write a meaningful page, as the rules of the game require. He bet an apetizer that he would be able to do that.
Today at 11.05am he come at me with this text (click for the full image), a monograph using only songs from Fabrizio De Andre':


Congratulation Stefano for your mix, it looks great, especially the final!

Sorry, I'm not going to translate that in English... I don't think I'd be able.
But everyone is invited to challenge our Club, that is now composed by me, Valentina and Stefano!

Sunday we had a plentiful lunch in my house with:
- our neighbours
- their 2 German guests
- my parents and me
- our 3 Polish guests

But we committed a terrible mistake: we forgot that between all these people there was a journalist!

So today, on the Prealpina (the local newspaper of my city) there was this short but funny article about the farewell speech of our guests...

And its gone... gone... going... Gone... everything gone... give a damn...
[Black Eyed Peas - Gone Going]

It's over.
They've gone.
Like seven years ago everything is done.
Every room is now quiet and empty.
You go back speaking in your language only.
You think you don't care.


For the first time, you go to a Taizé meeting by car. And this is strange enough.
You park 50 steps far away from the entrance. The parking signs are in your language this time.
You run back on the highway, hoping that the snow won't be falling too hard.
You reach a friend for the huge New Year's Eve dinner he prepared and you finish everything in half an hour, eating as fast as you can. It's not polite, but you're out of time and you can be sure that he understands.
You rush to the train station because some Portuguese girls lost the last train, then you look for some sixteen-years-old Serbian guys that drank a bit too much and are lost somewhere.
You enjoy the atmosphere of a bonfire on the snow.
Everything can melt, now.

Marco, yesterday I told you that this story was palindromic. Actually, it's not!
Instead, all this make me think about the Möbius strip (see the picture above) : a surface with only one side and only one boundary that you can endless run through...

"A mathematician confided
That a Möbius band is one-sided,
And you'll get quite a laugh,
If you cut one in half,
For it stays in one piece when divided"