More Spiderman 3 reviews

Uh, it seems like my post on spiderman 3 and the kinda lukewarm review it got from the NY Times generated quite a number of hits.

So, here I am to cater to the interest opf my readers. I've gone out looking for more info.

On the IMDB, spidey gets a decent 7.1. That's the people's vote, but keep in mind that this is people who bothers to vote for a movie after seeing it, so it's likely to be composed of a higher than usual percentage of fanboys, both pros and cons. Hopefully, they cancel out.

If you look at RottenTomatoes, instead, critics average on a somewhat lower score: 61%. Tomatoers do score it more or less like IMDBers, at 66%. Are they harsher? uhm,. judging by the average age of the top 100 movies in the two databases, I'd say they're older, less Matrix-generation and more Casablanca: may be less fanboyish, or just more classic oriented. I do tend to agree on them, meaning that a movie can only be called a classic when a audience born 25 years later than the movie itself still likes it.

Back to spiderman, I guess I'll have to see it, but for the moment only CAMs are available for download. may be in a couple of weeks some decent DVD rip will hit the pirate bay. Until then, I'll wait.

here's the trailer anyway. (update for a better trailer)

Bellezza in bicicletta

Quando, a primavera, per le strade
passa il "Giro" gridan tutti ai corridor:
Dai, dai, dai, dai, dai, dai!
Dai, dai, dai, dai, dai, dai!
Ma se una maschietta in bicicletta
passerà vedrai che ognuno, là per là
la testa girerà e allegro canterà



Ma dove vai bellezza in bicicletta,
così di fretta pedalando con ardor?
Le gambe snelle tornite e belle
m'hanno già messo la passione dentro al cuor!

Ma dove vai con i capelli al vento
col cuor contento e col sorriso incantator?
Se tu lo vuoi o prima o poi
arriveremo sul traguardo dell'amor!



Se incontriamo una salita
io ti sospingerò
e stringendoti alla vita,
d'amor ti parlerò.

Ma dove vai bellezza in bicicletta,
non aver fretta resta un poco sul mio cuor
lascia la bici dammi i tuoi baci
è tanto bello far l'amor!



Ma dove vai bellezza in bicicletta,
così di fretta pedalando con ardor?
Le gambe snelle tornite e belle
m'hanno già messo la passione dentro al cuor!

Ma dove vai con i capelli al vento
col cuor contento e col sorriso incantator?
Se tu lo vuoi o prima o poi
arriveremo sul traguardo dell'amor!



Se incontriamo una salita
io ti sospingerò
e stringendoti alla vita,
d'amor ti parlerò.

Ma dove vai bellezza in bicicletta,
non aver fretta resta un poco sul mio cuor
lascia la bici dammi i tuoi baci
è tanto bello far l'amor!

mp3 here

Kite!!!

Lazy day today...

having lost my mobile phone, I am off to the provider shop to get at least a sim card replacement. may be buy the same model of phone too (SAGEM), if nothing else better has come up. I doubt it. This way, I'll also have duplicate of all the accessories, which can't hurt when living in two distant places as I do. Even when I move with my GF, I'll keep one at work. or in the car, just in case.
the other option would be to grab a mor eknown brand, like NOKIA, so that i can grab third party accessories more easily.

Before,though, I want to explore around by bike using the GPS as tracking device... If I can get it to work that way.

And then once I get to BXL, I'll buy a traction kite (the one shaped like parachutes)
since I left my delta kite in the mountain's house of my GF's mother.


In the evening, I'll meet up with freidns and possibly my lady to go and see an italian representation at the theatre, "I promessi sposi" by A. Manzoni in the parodical version made by the Trio "marchesini-Lopez-Solenghi", a two-man+one-woman comic actors group from Italy.

That's it for me. Have a nice weekend.

Where's the number everybody is talking about?

Is it here? Nope. But I found it here yesterday. Today isn't there anymore.

may be here?



Dear AACS, You can't stop the signal!!!

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Where do you come from?

here's a screenshot showing where the visitors of this blog come from. Curtesy of google Analytics. Apparently, american and british love me, italians and belgian tolerate me, the rest of the world is mostly indifferent. Well, it could be worst.

Apparently, spiderman 3 sucks

At least this is the conclusion of the people at the NY Times who just saw it.

Well, I will wait for aXXo to release it on the torrent.

Allo Allo

Hi, Just a quick post on a new (actually, vintage) TV series I discovered recently.



In the word of the BBC comedy guide,

'Allo 'Allo! was a direct-hit domestic sitcom and huge international success that made a star out of its lead, the funny and talented actor Gorden Kaye. At first sight, frolics in Nazi-occupied France may have seemed a dubious subject for humour, but the show's premise was not to make fun of the war but to spoof war-based film and TV dramas.

In my words, it's an incredibly funny and well built sitcom, with plenty of crazy characters. It manages to give the nazis a human face, I absolutely love it! All characters are involved in a network of (half-assed) intrigues, who binds them one another. Every single one of them is sucked into this maelstrom as soon as it enters the little cafe`/restaurant that Rene`, the main character, runs.

I am currently viewing the second half of the first series, and enjoying every single moment of it! 9/10!!!

here's the first part of the pilot episode, from youtube

Synchronicity

I read a post about Prototherian mammals, today. Prototherian, the only clade within Monotremes, are mammals ('cause they make milk) but do still lay eggs, like reptiles. The post is up here at fish feet. There it is!!! There's a nice piccie of a Playtipus, one of the two protherians still living today.



And hungry for new things to read/post, I went to see today's featured picture on Wikipedia, and surprise, it's the other prototherian!!!



Synchronicity, as Carl Jung would have called it: ...the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally inexplicable to the person or persons experiencing them. The events would also have to suggest some underlying pattern in order to satisfy the definition of synchronicity...

So, do plants fart, or not?

a paper came out some time ago revealing that plants do seemingly emit large quantities of CH4, a powerful greenhouse gas. Conservative people and newspaper in the whole world (weel, ok, just in the US) souped it up concluding not only that human weren't causing global warming and plants were, but even that to save the planet, we had to burn down as many plants as they could, and deforestation and such were morally justified. I don't know how this would justify driving a big ass SUV though, or squandering water and other limited resources. pah.

Anyway, a new paper refutes the first one, showing no significant emission from living plants. Carl Zimmer has more details about all this. With a vengeance. Go and check it out. I'm going home now, and will try to cycle without farting. You never know.

Creationists attack Chemistry!!!

thanks to Interrogatin' Nature, which I just discovered (thanks to Sarda, whose blogroll post inspired my previous)

Blog Rolling

I've been too busy in these days to keep up with the bio-blogging scene.

Only the usual suspects made it to my attention:

Darren Naishm, over at Tet Zoo, talks about tortoises' penises, but also present his (yet) unpublished field guide to British Ostrich Dinosaurs (first part here).

Carl Zimmer, as usual, plugs his own pieces on the NY Times, about duck penises. I spot a pattern here. Oh an important thing I had missed at first: he is pointing us to significative articles he wrote, one per year, stored in his own repository. (I still have to finish Parasite Rex, damn. Too many good book I am juggling right now)

Laelaps it's always nice to read, but haven't checked him out properly yet. this afternoon.

Last, but not least, Sarda at Fish Feet explores the real estate market of stone age britain. Apparently, the Lake district were a favorite at those times too. Oh, she also writes about the deatmatch to end them all: Shark vs Dinosaur!!!

Did I leave anyone out? Oh yes, the newly discovered Secret Sex Lives of Animals, a blog whose name says it all, written by a beautiful evolutionary biologist. I mean it. Actually, now that I've seen some pictures of Olivia Judson on the net, I wonder whether this isn't her blog? Judson, Hudson...

that's it for the day, I hope you'll enjoy!

You are here, in the lower left corner

thanks to the BBC for this (pdf) map of the last 180 Million years of animal evolution:

I didn't know we were so close to rabbits (lagomorpha)


below a piccie of the complete version. Hopefully, I'll manage to dump it as hi-res jpeg and post it (update: I can not. even if I could, the font size the species names are written with is tiny tiny tiny).

I have been freaking scooped :-(

I am a PostDoc. No, wait, haven't defended the thesis yet, but am on my second year of PostDoc. One of my bosses (I happen to have many of them at every single stage of my carrer) defines me a PreDoc. I initially had a thesis writing block, then my (ex?) PhD supervisor caught the terrible thesis-correcting intestinal block.
Awful disease which causes him to pass me only one chapter of thesis per month, duly commented.
Gawk. To add on this, I felt it was rather pointless to start writing up the paper summarising my whole work, while corrections were not yet crystallised. A general statement about not wanting to re-write the same things twice, coupled with my indolence to actually sit up and write after work, when the bad belgian weather pushes me to eat lots of high-calories food and watch desperate Housewives and other corner stones of human knowledge. So, to make it short (ah!) I still haven't published my work. And some months ago have come to know that someone else has published a similar one, although I am still ahead of them. What's worst, these people don't care to reference the previous PhD work that mine stemmed from. This pissed the hell out of one of my industrial supervisors, who's a hell's hound under the travesty of a nice guy - kind of cool, indeed. I wish I was cool and clever half of what he is. May be I'll get there. Anyway, let's not get out of track: they freaking scooped me. Actually, it did happen once already, during my first year, but back then I didn't complain too much, the group who did it was much more powerful than me on my own, so quite frankly theiy did a much better job than I could have done myself, inexperienced as I was. But not this time. I usually think of me as a mediocre scientist, but people keep telling me that I sell myself too short. Mah... I just don't feel like I'm getting close to the Nobel anytime soon, and certainly I lack the drive and the focus. Unlike many other colleagues, may be less smart, but certainly more devoted to their work. I am still the curious ten year old, tinkering and playing with cool things. And getting off track. Again.

I have been scooped. Not really, but some other people are using techniques very similar to what I have been developing. I better get my act together and write down that damn paper (or two) - And bang on my boss' door to have back my final chapter. I'm pissed too. Thouroughly so. Royally so. Do not get close to me, oh sinner, for thou shall repente thy choices.

It's hot up there...

It's been two, no three weeks without rain, a very unusual thing for spring, here in belgium. It's so dry, that I need to water my rucola, and it's so sunny that it's growing large, and bitter like hell. So, I have been sitting in my GF's garden, basking in the sun and eating a nice mediterranean salad.
Yet, something feel wrong, with this weather. A friend told me that the Azorres' anticyclon, tha high pressure area which usually hovers over the mediterranean, has moved up north, while the souht of europe is blessed by sub-tropical rains. I don't know if this is true, but it certainly is worrying, and I believe I am not the only one worried. not that I see many people tearing apart their clothes and stopping using their cars, yet. Well, tearing apart their clothes yes, but only to sun-bake themselves to death. The average belgian has now a color which makes them look a bit more of an arab, and a bit more of melanoma too, in the near future.


And there you are, the NY TImes as usual reports that the artic sea ice cap is melting faster than previously thought. Woah! Here's the link. And here's some text:

Climate scientists may have significantly underestimated the power of global warming from human-generated heat-trapping gases to shrink the cap of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean, according to a new study of polar trends.

The intergovernmental panel concluded that if emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide were not significantly reduced, the region could end up bereft of floating ice in summers sometime between 2050 and the early decades of the next century.

For the new study, Dr. Stroeve and others at the ice center reviewed nearly six decades of measurements by ships, airplanes and satellites estimating the maximum and minimum area of Arctic sea ice, which typically expands most in March and shrinks most in September.

Dr. Stroeve’s team found that since 1953 the area of sea ice in September has declined at an average rate of 7.8 percent per decade. Computer climate simulations of the same period had an average rate of ice loss of 2.5 percent per decade.

Yes, its just computer simulations, some may say. No! the opposite! computer suimulations were optimistic, and showed less ice loss than observed. I wish I had used my bike this morning to come here (although it would have taken the best part of the day to cycle a hundred km)

Finally, the End is Near for Pharma Reps

The NY Times reports on the malsane (for me) habit of big and small pharma to give away free samples to doctors. These samples are then passed to patients, often against suggested first line treatments. now, that's bad. It's also bad that pharma reps invite out for expensive dinner/lunches
doctors, with the pretext of talking them about the latest drug from their companies. I don't say this because my lady is a doctor and I am jaealous of the pharma shills knocking at her door. Well, that doesn't make them wellcome to me, for sure. I am an italian boy, after all. What really pisses me off is seeing all that money being spent in marketing ploys of doubtful effect on doctors. Money which the patients end up paying, at the end, with higher medicines costs, and therefore higher taxes. It's a lose-lose situation, excluded may be for pharma shills which, after all, have to eke out a living (and were more interested in driving a powerful free car than in doing actual science - stab!).

In the great scheme of things, probably, free samples do the least arm, I would say. As a child of a poor family, I have often been treated with free sample coming from my family doctor's cabinet. And, I am also OK with big pharma paying out conferences to doctors (and scientist, although the numbers involved aren't nearly the same - even as orders of magnitude) - but is it really necessary to run every single shitty medical conference at the Sheraton or Plaza? Isn't it enough to talk in the auditorium of some University, equally well equipped and certainly less expensive? I can't tell for sure, but hey, here's my two cents. If that is, doctors really are interested in hearing about the latest treatment, and not merely in getting a free paid holiday in a luxury hotel, all in.

Back To Work!!!

It has been a nice weekend. And, surprise, people have kept coming along to read this blog, apparently, even if I didn't post anything at all in the last four days. Too busy having fun, eh eh... It seems like there's a critical mass for blogging, once a certain number of bloggers link to you people will keep coming. I wonder if anybody has done any serious study on this?

Anyway, I was planning to go to Liege on friday, but I did not. too much hassle and my GF wasn't free. So, I held off and went looking for my lost mobile. Which I did not find. pants! just what I needed, another 200 euros down the drain... Pah!

However, the rest of the weekend worked out as well as planned, or even better. Enjoyed a half day shopping on saturday, then on sunday, while Marie was on call at the hospital, I went away with some friends, cycling 40-odd km from BXL to Tervuren, running round there and then back. Pictures below:

Tervuren-29Apr07

As you will be able to see, I did enjoy having some duck families close-by. Yes, I said duck, not dutch. Duck! As in Donald Duck. Although the exact species was unknown to me, and most likely different from our cartoon hero.



Here shown in his typical emotion, rage.

And moving on, the following day was BBQ day in Liege, finally, with some italian friends and their arab boyfriends. It looks like all italians abroad are going for mixed couples. Good. We definitely more italian attitude in the world.
The following morning, once the fumes of portuguese and french wine (and the sardinian traditional fruit-spirit, Mirto Rosso) cleared away, Marie and me jumped on our bike for a short up-and-down hilly road, whose surrounding grassy slopes were dotted with herds of cows. Again, pictures follow, no comments on these ones:

1stMay07

After that, a quick lunch and back to Bruxelles, with stopover in the characteristic university city of Leuven, aka Louvain in this crazy, two-and-a-half-lingual country.

Here you can see his gothic-delyrium city-council palace (Hotel de Ville).

That was it. Now, I am back to work, with tons of mails to wade through, my soon-to-happen move to Mechelen to organise, a series of dutch lessons to plan, a post-doc lunch to take part and a Physiologically-based PharmacoKinetics seminar to follow immediately after. not a lot uh? I better check Gastroplus manual.At least I'll know what Stefan is talking about...

Oh, and I also have to set straight my pKa assessment, and find out exactly where half of my acidic pKas went down the drain of forgotten compounds instead of being carried on properly. And will have to subdivide the sets in mono-acidic, mono-basic and so on. Sounds like a plan.

God helps me. Or, the FSM helps me. I haven't done much progress in readuing his bible, my attention was stolen by the latest book I bought "The Wisdom of the Crowds", a fascinating and assertive book on the virtues of letting people (as in plural) make up their mind, aiming to show how this kind of unsupervised free market of ideas, and any other thing usually comes up with the right solution over time, whereas the experts in ay given field do get it wrong more often than not. I blogged about it in my previous post. Interesting, I've always been opposed to popular referendum and this kind of direct democracy, based on the assumption that people mostly don't know what they're doing themselves, let alone are able to decide on complicated matters such as "is nuclear power an economically sound way of generating electricity for our industrial base?". But if, as it seems,. the author backs up his assertions with solid data and numbers, not only with andoctal evidence, we may be onto something. Also, it comes to my mind a paper in the field of my PhD, Docking and scoring function, where it is shown that consensus scoring (that is, merging the suggestions given by different programs on deciding whether a molecule is going to stick or not to a protein) works better when it is applied 'by-number', and not 'by-vote'. It would make sense, in the view of this crowd wisedom thingy. If I get the time, I'll try to explain it later. Now, let's work. See you soon.

Yawn...

No work today. yet, I couldn't avoid waking up well before 7AM. Too much light around, I guess.

No cycling in the Ardennes either. My girlfriend had other plans, so I will tour this area, and stop-by the workplace to look for my mobile phone, who disappeared. last chance before going off to buy a new one. If I were to do, I'd try and get a smart one, with things such as real synchronising capabilities, and possibly a GPS, although this may make it quite heavy on the pocket. We'll see...

Since I'm free today, I'll try to finish off a post I started long time ago, on the reasons why I feel we need fundamental research. I don't even remember how and why it started, just came off some musing after reading something else.

On a side note, I may also try to read up the latest changes suggested by my supervisor to the never-ending thesis. And cntinue on reading my latest book, "The Wisdom of the Crowds" - may be I'll post about this one too, later on. Ciao!

I am GOOD!!! (well, I feel so)

Yeay, I've just finished attending/giving my six-monthly update to the interested people in the company about my work. It went easier than I thought, I surprised myself for my confidence with a laser pointer in my hand. I guess the tireless fortnightly exercises paid off, at the end.

Now, it's mainly matter to finish off the ongoing studies, write up final conclusions (especially on the evaluations of pKa predictors), and possibly make the merry round of consociate companies, showing off my skills and fishing for opportunities.

But from tomorrow, and for the next five days, it's holiday time! If I can manage to, tonight itself I'll head off to Anthisnes, tomorrow I'll wake up later than usual, and possibly cycle around the place. I am gonna love it. Then, Saturday I don't know, just relax with my lady, sunday back to bxl possibly for some more sunny cycling with allochtonous friends, then monday and tuesday of rest before starting again.

What would I want more from life?

And one day, those corals will be up in the sky...

I wonder what Disney's Nemo may think of it. The fish, not the vernian pirate-submariners.

So, Chris Rowan reports that a recent earthquake in the solomon islands caused the whole island to rise, some 3m in certain points so that now some corals are exposed at the top of small reefs. I mean, elevated reefs. Duh!



the picture above is quite telling uh?

Seeing this and following Chris words':

I wonder if you can find the remnants of reefs stranded by earlier earthquakes on Ranongga? By dating them and measuring how far they've been raised above sea-level, you could have a go at reconstructing the past seismic history of the subduction thrust.

I wonder of my own: Is it possible that one day these corals will be embedded in some mountain side? I mean, I don't know much of geology, but do the Himalayas contain fish fossils and such? Or they're heavily metamorphosed beyond recognition? Mah?

Presentation is done. Now, learn it by heart...

Ok, I am done writing the presentation. Unfortunately, owing to proprietary structures being shown in it, I can't post it around the globe, so you'll have to wait for when I'll be bored enough to actually start writing papers about my work. Ouch!

Now, the only thing is to learn it properly, difficult to do in the few hours left before the presentation, especially when the sun is shining like now and you've been closed in a room for a full week, fighting viruses and unruly data.

Unfortunately, I am not a natural like one of my colleagues, who just jump in front of the blackboard and can discuss coherently his own thoughts and work without stumbling and such. May be it depends from the fact that he actually reads his literature (and eats his veggies too), but hey, nobody is perfect! He didn't know of the existence of Antactica... So how's that, is the choice really between being a slacker in Pharmacokinetics or missing a whole continent? Can't there be a middle way? why do I find so much of scientific literature boring and uninspiring? may be I am just not cut for science. Notwithstanding the fact that I am one of the best person I know at presenting data in a graphical, novel and understandable way. Just, not good with words. As you can see for this boring blog...

Time to go now... See you soon! Keep reading me - if, I mean, you really don't have anything better to do - that is - talking with friends - or walking the dog. washing the dishes - or the clothes - hanging them - ironing them - including your pants - and your socks... and so on and on and on...

So, I have been volunteered...

So, I'm just back from the Tiger Mosquito's Weekly PostDoc Lunch, the self-organising open initiative for postdoc (buit also not) here at J&J Beerse, and I discover that I have been volunteered not once, but twice, for the third PostDoc Carnival, a run-around of (many, if not all) blogs written by postdocs...

Featured twice, in one of my romantic moods, then in one of my searches for aesthetics in science...

Anyway, I'm not a real post-doc, as I have to defend my thesis. yet. Actually, I have to complete writing first.

May be in the next four days of holidays. If it ain't sunny, and windy, in which case trying the new 1.80m wide kite takes priority. Kind of like this one. prettier (I hope, haven't broken the bag's seal yet).



Watch and learn, kids, this is how you do NOT become a real scientist!!!

And now, I'll chain myself back to the table, I fixed some new data and must find a way to finish off a powerpoint presentation detailing what I have done in the last six months, before I head off to present it tomorrow. Ow!

And oh, thanks to whoever inserted me in the loop ;-)

YES!!! I have made it!!!

I have beaten the flu!!! (well, ok, the cold and a sore throat) One day without shivering!!! And at the same time, I've managed to almost complete my assessment of pKa prediction softwares. Getting the results I was hoping for too ;-).

Not only, thanks to a fortuitus encounter in the loo I may go on and present my work in a small, but up and coming pharma which I already put my eyes onto.

Isn't this the second best day of my life? (second 'cause I hope the next one still has to come!)

Ciao from an euphoric Owl!!!

My Most Favorite Comics (II)

Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind, a post-apocalyptic novel set in a far-away future, (some) thousands of years after humans devastated the planet, and a toxic jungle of fungi and moulds has taken over most of the dry land. A princess finds herself and her own valley in the middle of the struggle between the two largest empire-states over the control of the last invincible soldier, one of the bio-engineered robots who battled in the ten days of fire.

quite simply, one of the best ecological tale I've ever read.

My most favorite comics (I)

here's a comics that has a special place in my heart:

Ushio & Tora, la storia di un ragazzo (Ushio) e del suo rapporto nemici/amici con un demone a forma di tigre (Tora) che lui stesso libera dai sotterranei del tempio buddista di cui il padre sacerdote si occupa. Questo e' stato il primo manga che acquistai con l'intenzione di seguire, quasi x sbaglio. O forse no, e spiego dopo perche'. Ero in viaggio coi Boy Scouts x il campo estivo, e annoiato decisi di comprare uno di questi manghi di cui i miei colleghi all'uni parlavano. ken il Guerriero usciva al tempo su Z Compact, e il caso volle che proprio quel mese finisse x lasciare il posto a questa nuova serie di mostri, combattimenti, umorismo. Nello spazio di quei dieci giorni di campest lessi e rilessi il volumetto almeno tre o quattro volte. E non appena rientrato a casa, compresi che ero stato infettato dal virus. Un mese dopo l'altro, questo fu uno dei miei fumetti preferiti, ma il sogno fu interrotto bruscamente dal fallimento di Granata Press, pioniere del manga in Italia, al numero 14. Di cui io fui uno dei fortunati possessori, insieme al trasognato numero 23 (l'ultimo) di Nausicaa, ma questa e' un'altra storia).

Ritornando a Ushio & Tora, avrei dovuto aspettare varii anni affinche' i Kappa Boys, transfughi di Granata, riportassero il fumetto in Italia, anche se le nuove traduzioni, non piu' basate sull'adattamento americano, persero buona parte della verve che me le faceva adorare. Una traduzione letterale dal giapponese non sempre e' la scelta migliore. Vorrei scrivere molto di piu' su questo fumetto, ma ora non ho rpoprio il tempo. magari piu' avanti. ciao.

Yahii!!!

Jackie Chan plays StreetFighter (from the movie City Hunter, inspired by the comics by the same name)

A Masterpiece of Asian Advertisement

If it weren't for the subtitles I wouldn't understand a jota, and even like this I don't know where they are from - Somewhere between India and Armenia, I'd say.



But Oh they're funny!!!

Is google in the hands of creationists?

I was cleaning up my inbox, when I noticed a very weird "sponsored link" on my gmail:

the line says: "Intelligent Design - www.RealTruth.org - Controversy is Intensifying. Why is this issue so Divisive?"

you follow it, and find out that the piece is a somewhat ambiguous article about the Dover trial and a certain Behe. Nothing to worry about if it weren't for the undertones of the word, things such as:

"Why has this seemingly objective, measured disclaimer caused such a firestorm?" (referred to the Dover obligatory reading before teaching on evolution.

there's more:

"Predictably, some prominent media outlets are already framing this debate with a pro-evolution slant."

"Dr. Behe believes that he has faced considerable bias against his theory."

What a load of crud...

I tried to get rid of the websites in the settings of my webclips, but can't find it. Apparently Google, let me customise only my own addition, and the rest is for them to choose. depending on who shell out the money to be read, I guess. Well, as long as they don't start doing it on Google News. Not that I visit there very often. It's already rare that I finish what's to read for free on The NY Times.

Farm Bill is coming...

and Coturnix beat me to it. For those of you that, like me, didn't know how this US legal document influences the state of the whole world, have a read at the latest piece from Michael Pollan.

Must force my GF to stop night watches

Apparently, people who do night shifts live shorter than day-workers.

I caught the news from Coturnix.

Original is from an indian newspaper.

I am already pissed by the fact that Marie has to work during the weekend sometimes. On a very selfish basis, it completely ruins it for me too. 'cause I am fusional as she says, so I don't want to go out on my own. And even if I do so, I try to fit to her times, and this makes life very complicated. Without counting the fact that the following days are often sub-optimal too, since she's tired or else.

Aww, life sucks! Stop ranting and back to work now.

Bloody fever won't go down.

So, here I am, forced to work under the effect of paracetamol and stuff... my head feel stuffed, and I am envious of everybody else breathing freely and dressing liberally, whereas I am forced to wear wool, a scarf and still feel midly uncomfortable...

Yesterday fever spiked in the early afternoon, after some four hours spent in the office trying to advance this impossible pKa study.

Went home and ate some fruit salad and ice cream, all the while watching movies until my neck was to painful to stand there. Only then i relaised my fever was far too high, and had to force myself to the bed.

I finished watching "Deja Vu", which was quite OK for me. Excessively moral may be, with the whole "If you could change awful things that happened in the past, what would you do?" that Denzel washington hammer down the (sore) throat of the spectators. Whether they like it or not. The scientists, as usual, are portrayed as whimp, thnk god there's the good ol' cop to save the world and show them the right way to use the tools they created.

Other than that, the action is pretty solid. although why every american movie must end with a fist fight between the good and the bad guy is beyond me. pah.

I've also seen Lyrics and Musics, or the other way around, with hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore: Nice and warm, just right for a feverish guy watching movies on saturday night with his lady.

Wii would like to play...

Wii vs PS3

The GREAT cinema, as seen from Luna&Sole

So rude, yet so brilliantly comical...

I was afraid to post it for fear of being labeled as 'racist', but then I said, what the hell, I work every day with people from all over the world, my best colleague/friend is an indian, and I am pretty sure that if he could understand our dialect he would luagh at this too. Therefore, enjoy the mystical figure of the indian guru as seen from the low-thinking people of my city, Sassari.

I am in PAIN!!!

Two days spent fighting this awful sore throat, coughing congealed blood and whatever it is that clog my aerial ways, under blanket bombing of paracetamol and ibuprofene by Lt. Marie. Still, my neck pain hasn't gone away, and it's stopping me from working... well, not really, but it is making it more difficult, and it already is hard knowing that everybody in Belgium is out in the gorgeous sun... and I am stuck here, at work.

pants! hate it!!! Hopefully it will be gone by tomorrow... yeah, hopefully.

In the most powerful nation on Earth...

there's places where 11 out of a thousand babies die. And if you restrict to blacks, it's 17 out of 1000. This is to be compared with an US average of 6.9. Still, markedly higher than in Western Europe or the developed chunks of Asia.

check the table at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html to get an idea.

I am sorry, but have nothing else meaningful to say.

YouTube anch'io!!!

I subscribed too.

username is gufodotto, as usual. will start voting, and uploading if I find anything interesting. see you there.

Li sindaci di sassari

Wonderful voice-over of my city council, where the phrases uttered have been modified to include previous mayors' names. It quickly escalates in a reenactment of a famous local song about the mayors of sassari and surrounding communes and their misfits.

So, who do I look like?

I've gone to http://www.myheritage.com/ to see whether I look like any known person. I guess I do look like a bald action movie hero. something like, uhm, Bruce Willis?

http://www.myheritage.com

Or do you like more these people?

http://www.myheritage.com

sick sick sick...

Very bad sore throat, haven't slept for most of the night. Drugged in paracetamol to the limit of hepatic poisoning, I truddle through the day, mainly occupied by a seminar by Geoff Tucker (+ Steve Toon, + Elena IDontRemember), founding fathers (and daughter) of SimCyp, a, In Vitro In Vivo Extrapolation (IVIVE) software. Pretty interesting stuff, mind you.

I also joined them for lunch, which got me a grilled lobster, pity that it wasn't cooked enough, and anyway I did not appreciate since my sense of smell has been blown to smithereens by the goddamn viruses.

Now I try to get some work done. Isn't it fascinating how I always fall sick when I can't afford it? Yuck!

Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?

No, I haven't gone POP (or whatever style this timberland sings into).

I just want to point out for you this very interesting piece about sociology and the study of human behaviour, particularly of phenomenon such as fads, or the success of a rock band, or movie, and such.

Why do the experts in the field, e.g. movie producers and such, get it wrong so often? Why so many flops get financing, and so many future hits struggle to even get published? The answer, it seems, is in random choices and most people being sheeps. That is, following the herd.

the author, DUNCAN J. WATTS, is also the author of a book covering the same and many more example on similar subjects. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age

Want to abort? Ok, as long as you shred it first.

Silly decision of the US supreme court to ban a method of abortion. Not even particularly cruent.

The banned procedure, known medically as “intact dilation and extraction,” involves removing the fetus in an intact condition rather than dismembering it in the uterus.

so, what's wrong with this? I mean, I am no expert but may be those fetuses would have been 'useful' at least. don't know how, but asking for shredding them before extracting doesn't seem to me to expresses respect for the dignity of human life,” as Justice Kennedy said.

most likely, as someone else has put it:

"Those who support this law are trying to outlaw all abortions, one step at a time."

Aspirina!!!

only about one-hundred and thousand people in the world will appreciate this, but who cares.

Famous movies dubbed in my home dialect! They have been a years-long cult in my place.

Ulisse:

Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter

I strongly feel about chimpanzees.

I believe they should be awarded almost-human rights, if not fully human altogether. They may not look exactly like us, but (starting from Jane Goodall onward) they have shown in many occasions to have an elaborate culture, tool-making and surprising cognitive abilities.

The latest discovery that made the news was the recent report of adult, mostly female chimpanzees fabricating and using spears to hunt bushbabies.

I've now come to know, reading this very nice piece in the NY Times, that chimps can actually outperform humans in some immediate memory-related tasks, computer version of the Kim's game we would play at the boyscouts.

Also, I read of the sad fact that in fifty years their number has gone from an already low million to 150 thousands, may be some more. By comparison, the very same continent contains 800 millions people. All this makes me sad.

If we humans were just able to get our act together forget the source of all diversity (also known as 'religion'), we would be better steward of this planet. And make sure that our siblings (and not only) survive.

anyway, just go, read the article and make up your mind by yourself.

Silly parodies

GSM killed Bees GPS...

Or so say scientists in Germany, Jochen Kuhn of Landau University.

I did already blog about Honeybees' Colony Collapsing Disorder. It seems like it's extending to other countries than the US, now.

GrrlScientist reports on this.

Dinosaurs!!! Yeay!!!

Dinobase has been launched, Sarda reports from Bristol!!!

I love dinosaurs. So I'll be definitely having a look.

And in a seemingly related subject, I have been looking for a good introductory book about the angiosperms' evolution, and more in general plants' evolution, but haven't found one yet.

Also, a book extensively detailing past climates of the Earth would be wellcome. Or both in one, a sort of Annals of Natural History of Planet Earth. Passers-by, any suggestions?

Blogs of note

Have a look: Healing Iraq

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is waiting for me...

Haven't had the time to even open the book. I just skim-read the back cover. It looks nice though, it's a pity that my nun aunts doesn't read english, or I'd give her one to keep side by side with her bible. I mean, I'm just returning a favour, right?

Update: Have a look at how the ITS DEITY THE FSM created the WORLD!!!



Edit II: an introductory video to pastafarianism:

Virginia Tech

Everybody must be aware of it right now.

Yet another shooting in an education institute in the US. I don't want to enter any discussion about gun control or else, tghis is my blog, not a newspaper. So, it better be personal. And in fact, I remember pondering on whether to apply to Virginia Tech, some years ago, when my PhD was nearing its end and I was looking around. The place did seem nice, and they had just received a 1000-G5 Apple cluster... So lots of cpus to crunch my numbers on...

Today, i found myself secretly thanking the decision to never apply there. Founded in part on my disliking of living and may be growing my (future) children in a place where guns are, like it or not, too easily available, and things like this do not seem to cause any reaction -be it because of de-sensitivisation of the people, be it because some lobbies instill a misplaced sense of security in those same people. as if having a gun were a deterrent for anybody to break in and enter your house. Quite the opposite, I'd say. The criminal will make sure he has superiori firepower, so that you'll be shot dead instead of punched in your face. Well, whatever you prefer.

I'm just sorry for those poor students, and their families.

See you later.

Six months to hit 1000 visitors...

Then, the following thousand went through in just two weeks! I am impressed. If the exponential progression continues, in less than one months the whole Erat population will be visiting my blog daily. May be I'll be able to leave work and blog full time - about science and movies and crap...

Well, here's to the 2000th visitor, expected today. :-)

To celebrate, I've added Google Analytics to the webpage :-)

I'll mostly be away from the PC today, heavy meeting and planning day, guys... and girls of course.

I'll post about a weird dream I've had today, if I get the chance.

See you in the af'noon.

Gundam, Gundam, Ho Ho!!!

a serious one...



and now a funny one!!!



no, two funny ones!!!

Another piece SPOT-ON, Mr Clarkson!!!

Jeremy tackles the nonsense meeting-people blurb out when they're... well, in a meeting.

His definition perfectly matches mine:

“places where nothing happens and nothing gets done”

corollary:

Later on in the day, you ring the person who called the meeting and in less than a minute decide on a course of action.

and what about the meetingese spoken:

“Well, we’re outside the box here with a new kind of hybrid venture and we can’t know what the result will be until we’ve run the flag up the flagpole and seen which way the wind’s blowing.”

and

“It’s mission critical that we use blue sky thinking and that we’re proactive, not reactive, if we’re to come up with a ballpark figure that we can bring to the table.”

to end up with:

“We must maintain a client focus so that we can incentivise the team and monetise the deliverables, and only then can we take it to the next level.”

Mr Clarkson, as usual, you're spot-on.

And yes, I'm sorry dear Boss, but sometimes you do it, too.

Mamma Mia!!!

Water Balloon, Popping

and

Shrivelling Tomato

Time-Lapse are a Youtube Favourite.


I plan on taking one too. As soon as I move into the new house, I'll put up my webcam somewhere. May be to observe a small plant growing.

Convert, or face extinction!!!

I've just had a revelation. Not, like San Paul (then Saulus) on the way to Damascus, but rather on my mailbox - the real one, not the electronical one.


I was walking by the corridor, and an indefinable light was shining through my pigeon hole. A padded envelope was inside, translucent with this divine light. Like in trance, I took it up, tore the seal apart, and a blast of light surrounded me, impressing an indelebile shadow of my silhouette (internal organs included) on my boss' closed door.

I should have been dead, instantly vapourised by the holy radiation emanating from the envelope, instead I felt like blessed, and reached with my hand inside it, extracting an orange hardcover but easily pocketable book, whose title read: "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster".

Now, I am not the religious type of guy, but very much like Alessandro Manzoni after his onw late conversion, I feel compelled to drink from this wisedom fountain, to discover what the ONE I now accept as the real creator of the universe has to tell me.

I'll keep you posted ;-)

Welcome Back, to The Stage of History!!!

All together now!!!

Super deformed!!!

Friedman on Green America

Here's the guy who wrote "The World is Flat", columnist of the NY Times, writing on how the USofA should change their face (and hearts) to regain the position of leading nation of the world, morally, technologically and environmentally.



The article is quite long, so I'll print it out to read it, may be at my bedside. Cheers

Original Jap Macross Opening Theme

Beyond

Otherworldly Photos by Galileo, Voyager & Co.

from the NY Times, I've come to know that “Beyond,” a one-year exhibition of more than 30 large-format photographs of Earth’s planetary neighbors, opens this weekend in the museum’s Imax Gallery, a corridor by the theater that is also a pathway to the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

I can only incite you who can to go and visit it, and hope that'll come across the pond at sometime.

Study Identifies Dinosaur Protein

from the Science section of the NY Times, a piece by John Noble Wilford.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/science/13dino.html?ref=science

Global Warming Called Security Threat

from the NY Times: A report, scheduled to be published on Monday but distributed to some reporters yesterday, said issues usually associated with the environment — like rising ocean levels, droughts and violent weather caused by global warming — were also national security concerns.

--

The effects of global warming, the study said, could lead to large-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water. All could lead to direct involvement by the United States military.

--

“Just look at Somalia in the early 1990s,” Mr. Schwartz said. “You had disruption driven by drought, leading to the collapse of a society, humanitarian relief efforts, and then disastrous U.S. military intervention. That event is prototypical of the future.”

“Picture that in Central America or the Caribbean, which are just as likely,” he said. “This is not distant, this is now. And we need to be preparing.”

Other recent studies have shown that drought and scant water have already fueled civil conflicts in global hot spots like Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan, according to several recent studies.



follow the link to know more. registration required.

Why God killed the dinosaurs?

Hylarious Lyrics:

God sent the dinosaurs to protect Jesus
from the Jews
Sodomites, and black people too

Dinosaurs and people used to chill all day
When dinosaurs felt bad they'd call up people
And know everything was gonna be O.K.

But then a bunch of people were really really bad
And this made God really really mad

So he made a flood to kill all he could
And Noah couldn't help the dinosaurs
Because his boat was made of wood

And as the waters rose
The dinosaurs climbed Mr. T-Rex's nose

And everybody watched on deck
As the dinosaurs broke Mr. T-Rex's neck

And all the animals started to cry
As they watched all their
Dinosaurs friends die

God why'd you kill Mr. Dinosaur
I wanted him to live you wanted him to die more
And now Jesus is nailed to the cross
He can't get saved by Mr. Triceratops
And the Jews are gonna eat him
Because the Romans didn't feed them

And their claws are out and their teeth are bare and Mr. T-Rex would save him if he was there

God why'd you kill Mr. Dinosaur he was my best friend why couldn't you ignore

The fact he had big teeth
Or was it 'cos he was green?
Was it because he ate people?
Or because he was mean?
Was it because he had no soul?
Or that he lacked a heart?
Was it because it'd smell so bad everytime he'd fart?

Is that why you killed Mr. Dinosaur?
Is that why you killed Mr. Dinosaur?
Is that why you killed Mr. Dinosaur?
God why'd you kill Mr. Dinosaur?

Macross!!!

One of my all-time favourites

Planet Smasher

I feel rather destructive today...

Little blogging today

I'm in the middle of a work crisis, with just a few days left to complete a big work (pKa prediction assessment), and write it up in a decent form for an internal meeting. At the same time, I should also prepare my future work to be discussed at the very same meeting.

So, a big cut to my networks frequentations. Can't afford to mess up right now, especially not after the less-than-lacklustre brainstorming of last wednesday, which i completely forgot and to which I went completely unprepared - well, not completely. I did prepare myself to bullshit my way through it. Thankfully, I managed to introduce the subjects then left the conversation and sci-thinking to my supervirsors.

And now, I do have a vague idea of what I'll be spending my next months on.

Not killing rats, apparently, since the one needed to overcome my surgical inexperience are way too expensive... well, I don't know whether to be happy or sad for this. I would have loved to learn something completely new, it would have given me the kick... but at the same time... Would I be up to it? I don't sincerely know. That's it. Have a nice weekend.

Luca's out of the net.

What am I?

Or, gufo's fifteen days of desperation and self-pity.

I'm noI don't understand whether I at working properly these days. Not at all, in fact. I don't understand whether this may mean that I am an underachiever, i.e. a person which for some reason (mine would be laziness I guess) is not using all of his skills. Or an overachiever, which by the definition sounds to me like an educated way to tell you that your son is dumb. In my case, it may mean that my education is gone beyond my ability to understand it. Yep, dumb dumb dumb.

Else I am neither of them and am just bored and lazy. May be I should just get the ball rolling, and let inertia drive me away...

will try tomorrow/

see you then.

did I tell you I bought Clerks?

Worth all its 3 euros.

Two hours of my life wasted

Because Belgian government wants me to complete my tax return form. Which would be fine by me, if it were not that our glorious company affords us the help of DeLoitte, apparently the best people around the planet when it comes to filling these things. So everything, is OK, you'd guess? Nopt really, since these damn people are so picky they want to count you tiniest pubic hair. At this point, I wionder, wouldn't I be better off simply having to fill in the form myself? pah!

Rolling on the floor laughing.

At easter, I was relegated to sit with the boys, which was fine by me, since I get along better with them. We did talk about videogames, and all other things that matters in life, universe, and everything.

After lunch, we also kicked an air-filled pig gallbladder, in the old posrt once known as football.

And when we were too tired and it was too cold to stay outside, we went exploring youtube, and they introduced me to this:



and this:



and again, this:



there's more on the net, just check out the related of these three. enjoy.

New piccies

New piccies are online:

Pasqua07-Pranzo

I found back my digicam

so may be am not going to buy a new one. or may be I am. the one I already have I can keep for rugged experiences, like biking, diving (have the underwater shell) and so on. The new one I will use for serious things, like parties, but also photographically worth subjects. Woah, I know I'll end up using the new one most of the times. Mostly 'cause I'm interested in nature photography, and it's when I am in trekking or other kind of hiking that I can get nice shots. No?

Anyway, I'll have to buy a new compact flash since the old one got lost God knows where.

See? what did I tell you?

I went to the science tab of the NYTimes and was graced by this interesting article about speed-dating. And how picky people spend more time actually discarding people, than looking for the right one, just because there's so much choice.

I've experienced this myself, not with girls (ah!) but whenever I've had to buy a piece of electronic equipment online. The easy availability of informations online pushes you to consider things in a digicam which you would never, in a more normal state of mind. I mean, does it really matter if it does have that feature that you'll use may be once or twice in five years? and even so, since you never have, you will forget about? Better to focus, spend a minimum time to have an overview, and then go with what's good enough for you. The same thing is, I guess, true for dating. Certainly, there may be someone perfect waiting for you. But is it likely that you'll meet him? And if so, is it likely to come home with you? Are you really the right person for him? If he's so good, what are the chances that he'll be free?

Funny that, when scientist analysed speed dating, they saw that people were less picky then than online. Part because the choice was limited, 20 people instead of 20 Millions: and part because they could see the competition right there, so they had a spur to settle for someone good enough and compatible, rather than buying time and wait for better offers at the next round. I wonder what would happen if a (pretty) actress was mixed in the bunch. Would the other girls be less picky? and would the males be more picky, seeing a nicer-than-average example?

and on the same topic, I did buy my car in a rush, when I saw that the one I was eyeing out were quickly disappearing. To avoid having to wait for the next round, I got one which I liked, enough, not in a supreme way, and got it. I am happy with it, apart for minor gripes.

Like Sex? Move to a western country - not Italy though.

It looks like that from the Survey on enjoying sex published by the NY Times (click on it to get a higher resolution)

The other thing I noticed was that Italians gave very low scores to either physical and emotional pleasure, yet the perceived importance of sex is on the same level of France and South Africa, were satisfaction scores are much higher.

So, are italian lousy lovers, or more demanding ones? And how this vouches for our reputation abroad? Ahi ahi ahi...

It must also be noted, though, that the survey include only people aged 40-80. So, may be, italians view sex as something athletic, that younger people can get the most out of.

Top News of the week (for me)

The NY Times gracefully sends me the top ten news f the list - I don't know how they select them, I know that in their web page they have tabs for the most e-mailed, the most blogged, and so on. Anyway, here's my take on their selection:

It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment.

Birds Do It. Bees Do It. People Seek the Keys to It.

Lessons of Heart Disease, Learned and Ignored.

A Great Year for Ivy League Schools, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them.

That's it. Enjoy. Once you're done with them, don't close the tab. Click on the parent directory link, i.e., Science, or Home & Garden, and discover other nice pieces. Well, Ok, you DON'T HAVE to click on Home & Garden :-| - unless you like ko. :-)

And now, for something completely different...

No, I am not going to post about the Monthy Pithon. Some of you may be shocked at the news, but I don't think too much of them actually. there's funnier things around, frankly. At least, in my personal opinion. Let's give some examples: I have been reading "Silent Bob Speaks", a collection of short assays and columns written by "Indie Filmaker Kevin Smith", as he's erroneously defined (by his own admission) by the movie press the world around. He's the guy between Clerks (both one and two), Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Oh, and Chasing Amy and Jersey Girl too - haven't seen the last two though.



Anyway, the book is funny, as are the movies. I mean, funny. Real funny, although not as funny as the movies are in some parts. I am not particularly fond of fart and dick jokes, but Kevin Smith doesn't overdo them. And he's wehther you like it or not, a clever guy. He just happens to drop oily stools. Yuk!

Anyway, check the book out. better yet, check the movies out, I found clerks on sale for 3 Euros yesterday, which is more or less how much is worth it - especially considering that I could DL'd it from the net for almost free. It's less than the rental price, yet you get to keep the thingy. Nifty uh? But really, check it out, you will not regret it.

And check out his website too. View Askew. Free reads and nice bits.

I know I should not

blog and read around, with all the things I've got to do today. But will just steal three minutes to pint you to an interesting bit:

Kerala Articles

It will end up in my blogroll as soon as I can. Cheers.

Tracking a meme as it multiplies.

Here's something I always wanted to do. You have an idea, write about it, or talk to your friends, then they write or talk to others, and your idea spread, at the same time changing, becoming more complex - this is the essence of memetics, as envisioned by Richard Dawkins. Until now, tracking a meme was a very hard thing to do, but not anymore. in the age of blog, memes can be tracked back to their origins, as long as persons who propagate it link back to the place wehere they first read. It would be nice to have an easy, automated way of checking the path of a meme. Well, it is possible. Here.

So, since Laelaps asked, "Why do I blog?"

Well, a mix of many things in fact. Down somewhere in my mind there's the dream of earning my bread (and butter) by writing about science, rather than helping it grow from within. I did realise my writing skills weren't up to scratch, yet, so I decided to try myself at a blog. Also, the blog works as a place where I can point out interesting ideas to my old friends, with whom I share many intellectual interests - also, it makes for an easy searchable virtual memory. Finally, there's the diary part. I do have good memory, but I believe that putting things down in writings will help me to better re-live those events, once some years have passed. I plan on blogging for my whole life, possibly changing ways with the evolving technology. May be some of my future children or nephew will enjoy reading my blurbs. who knows?

so, it's my time to help the meme spread now:

Darren, Ilalice, Gupy, Pac, Paolo?

Easter is gone.

And it was a nice one. I spent it up in Anthisnes, with my fiancee family, eating and talking and having fun in general. Yes ok sometimes I'd get crossed at the different way they do things compared to what I am used to, but all in all it has been a positive experience. I've met plenty of interesting people, like Desiree's sons, and desiree himself, who I hope I'll be able to talk to sometime soon. And the gorgeous tiny Adeline, who gave new colors to my "Dr Tatiana's" book. Literally, since during lunch she was put to sleep in my bedroom and took some pens from my gf's purse and started scribbling not only the book, but the floor and the walls too!!! but she's so cute...

And I also enjoyed riding by bike the countryside around, I went on saturday for a two-hour long tour in the small dusty and rocky roads (pictures to follow). Incredibly funny, I thought I'd be out of breath after a couple km but no, I kept going and having fun like I did not since... I don't know, many years - on a bike.

The food was good too, the dinner with Marie's friends and relatives wasn't exactly african-themed, except for the "Lake Victoria's capitain" fish she roasted in the oven - and oh, the rwandese-grown avocados. A bit of Sardinia was present in the shape of deep-fried aubergibne with tomato sauce and dried ricotta cheese. I think they liked them.

That's it, for the moment, I have to go back to work and today is going to be heavy, with a brainstorm supposed to decide what the hell I am going to spend my bext few months on. Meeting for which I feel (I am) terribly unprepared. Gosh!

See you soon, and thanks for stopping by.