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Due donne

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C’erano due donne che non si erano mai conosciute
una non la ricordi
l’altra la chiami mamma.
La prima ti ha dato la vita
la seconda ti ha insegnato a viverla.
La prima ti ha creato il bisogno d’amore
la seconda era lì per soddisfarlo.
Una ti ha dato la nazionalità
l’altra il nome.
Una il seme della crescita
l’altra uno scopo.
Una ti ha creato emozioni
l’altra ha calmato le tue paure.
Una ha visto il tuo primo sorriso
l’altra ha asciugato le tue lacrime.
Una ti ha lasciato,
era tutto quello che poteva fare.
L’altra pregava per un bambino
e il Signore l’ha condotta a te.
E ora mi chiedi la perenne domanda:
eredità o ambiente,
da chi sono plasmato?
Da nessuno dei due.
Solo da due diversi amori.
(Madre Teresa di Calcutta – trovato su In Attesa)

Time doesn’t Age the Soul of the Dreamer

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I found this though somewhat inspiring…
(English follows)
La vita non è fatta per guardare indietro la strada percorsa, ma per sognare la strada ancora da fare. Non chiederti chi sei davanti allo specchio, non avrai risposta alcuna, semmai guardati dentro e scoprirai di non essere cambiato mai. Il tempo non invecchia l’anima di chi sogna.
(Giovanni Di Battista)

In English, it may sound something like:
“Life is not intended for looking backward to the road you went through, life is intended for dreaming the road ahead. Don’t ask who you are in front of a mirror – you won’t have any answer, rather look into yourself and you will find you never changed. Time doesn’t age the soul of the dreamer.”

(or maybe it’s just me getting old and liking suggestions that I’m not).

So long Doctor

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Soon or later it was bound to happen. No one can escape the general trend. Magazines are fading away, giving space to on-line contents, be that blogs or knowledge collector sites. The good Doctor, the one that started back in the seventies, when BASIC was considered the technological frontier and 8 bit with single-digit k of RAM was cutting edge technology, the Journal of Calisthenics & Orthodontia that I read since the late eighties and thus have been with more longer than my wife herself; the running light without overbyte that has been the base for my continuous learning over two decades, well this magazine will be no longer.
Like the C/C++ User Journal that ceased to print a couple of years ago, DDJ is going to change name to “DDJ Report” and be a few page inlet of another magazine (Information Week).
It is plain sad because this was The Programmer’s Magazine, the one that stood out of the crowd. With an unique taste for practical and pragmatic approach, with an open eye both to new and current technologies.
As in “the king is dead, long life to the king”, also DDJ is not really dead – in fact it is going to continue its existence in on-line form. The website will continue to host quality articles as well as forum and blogs.
What I will miss for sure is the package (you can actually read magazines really everywhere) and the chance to peek (just to remain with BASIC idiom) stuff I am not working on. In fact, it is true that you can find everything on Internet, but it is true that it is not delivered monthly at your door and it is unlikely you want to spend time to search stuff you don’t even know about.

Il primo giorno di scuola… materna

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Così come è arrivato il primo giorno di scuola per Juan, eccoci al “debutto in società” anche per Mariana: il primo giorno di scuola materna. Pronta di tutto punto e un po’ tesa per l’evento!
La mattina poi è andata bene, Mariana è uscita, contenta di rivedere la mamma, dopo un paio d’ore.
Ci ha raccontato che c’è una cucina blu e un carrello della spesa con la bandiera. Ha giocato con la cuginetta ed un altro bambino a preparare la colazione (“cos’hai fatto il latte?” “no, la salsiccia”). C’erano poi tre bambine che si chiamano Alice … come il nostro gatto. Ha anche smontato il presepe.
Infatti oggi pomeriggio era stanchissima per l’energia investita in questa nuova esperienza.

Natale e dintorni

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Ecco Juan alla festa di Le Radici e le Ali, quando, dopo innumerevoli tentativi di farsi scegliere come aiutante del mago-giocoliere, finalmente è salito sul palco per un gioco di equilibrio.
Natale! “Apro piano perchè è una sorpresa!” (I croccantini per gatto in primo piano, sono il regalo di Juan e Mariana per la nostra gattina Alice
Il bue, l’asinello e … il gatto
Tra i primi regali scartati, quello del cuginetto Andrea.
Natale, tra influenza e mal di denti: Mariana non era proprio in formissima.
Tanti Auguri a te! Tanti Auguri a te! Per giunta sulla carta di Hello Kitty!!! Non so se mi spiego?! Oggi (26/12) Mariana compie 4 anni.
A casa degli zii, la scritta “Auguri” illuminava il soggiorno… e, visti i mal di denti e la febbre, questa è l’unica foto presentabile della giornata.
E finalmente le agognate vacanze invernali, sull’Alpe di Siusi. Ecco una delle prime discese in bob di Juan.
Mariana nella neve dopo aver bobbato.
Juan con il bob, mentre ci apprestiamo a raggiungere il rifugio Molignon (o Malchnechthutte).
“Scusate, ma dov’è la spiaggia?”
Puoi cercare di convincere tuo figlio a farsi fotografare insieme a te, ma non c’è modo di convincerlo a tenere gli occhi aperti se non vuole.
Come testimonia questa foto, Mariana ha veramente provato a sciare. E ha pure percorso un kilometro (in due ore) prima che noi ci arrendessimo alle sue rimostranze e proseguissimo a piedi con gli sci in mano… Sarà per l’anno prossimo.
Juan invece non ha tradito la sua inclinazione sportiva ed è riuscito (quasi) subito a dominare il nuovo mezzo di trasporto.
Mostri terrificanti all’ultimo dell’anno!!
Con i cuginetti verso il rifugio Zallinger
Si può dormire in questa posizione? Mariana si è fatta una mezz’ora di sonno così.

So long XML, welcome Json!

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There was a time, some years ago, when, thanks to the then-young HTML, the markup idea with angular parenthesis was considered cool. It wasn’t infrequent to <humor> abuse it </humor> everywhere. Then, as every trend does, it went out of fashion and markup is no longer considered trendy. For bad or good we have some legacies from those days, the most notable is XML.
Xml originated from a good idea – standardize a way to describe complex data. Also Xml has a great plus, if you do everything right, you may be able to validate that an Xml description is compliant with your definition. In other words you may check if that 3d scene you are loading is really a 3d scene and not something else or something garbled up.
Beside of these good intentions I never felt at ease with Xml. First I found it very verbose, although you can write it by hand, you surely don’t want to – it’s too easy to lose some closing statement and you are likely to continuously lookup the specification to check whether that data is data or attribute.
Moreover it’s not straightforward to parse an XML file. Likely you have to employ an existing library (there are dozens for each language) and learn it.
When confronted with Xml I always thought there should be a better way to store something in a structured way. Someway it could be more readable, more writable and that doesn’t require too much brain power to write parser and interprets.
In some occasions I figured out a sort of pseudo C with braces to group values and so on.
Some time ago a coworker pointed me to json which, in fact, is a simple standard for structured data that comes from Javascript notation. Json files are easy to write and read for a human being, and writing a C parser for this format requires a couple of evenings (but if you prefer, you can use a ready made parser).
Btw, as we are in this time of the year, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Space 1999

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When I was a kid, Space 1999, was not only my favorite Tv-series, but the synonym for future. I was so in love with Moonbase alpha, eagles and the adventures of Commander Koenig and his crew, that I started hating soccer because my dad and grandad had to watch soccer matches on a channel, while on the other Space 1999 was transmitted (of course we had just one black and white TV, with lot of tubes that took several minutes to warm up). Recently I discovered that all but one episodes of the first season are available on line for free. So I decided to watch, some 2^5 years later the show.
It is somewhat a strange sensation, to watch all those episodes. Before my critical 40-years-old eyes, characters and deadly-wrong-science take a very different taste. Today I find characters very underdeveloped and mostly uncharacterized. Koenig – the commander – talks in upper case and mostly doesn’t show any feelings, Helen – the doctor – is just a dull side, Bergman – the scientist -, despite being one of the most interesting character, is a scientist only by name revealing more than once an accommodating nature, Alan – the pilot – is an action man without dept.
Science in the serie is mostly risible. Even if you succeed in forgetting for a minute that the Moon, even if propelled by giant nuclear explosions, can’t cover interplanetary distance in tv-times, there are a lot of problems in all the causes and effects explained by scientific means.
What stroke me on the plus side is the special effects and the future architecture. Special effects of moon exteriors and spaceships are really good, even by today standards. This is from a pre-digital era, so do not expect many wow-effects, but what you see with eagle spaceships and launch pods, they give you a solid, credible look.
What is really credible is the MoonBase itself (well maybe travel tubes are a little exaggerated), with the modular architecture, the info-columns around, docks, airlocks, power plants, and so on. The commlock is also plausible (even if somewhat surpassed technology) – with the small display and the numeric keypad for personal video communication and door opening. It shouldn’t be hard to mod a real cell-phone into one of this gadget.