Author: mattions

Situation point. And I mean today.

September 12, 2008 / / 0 Comments

So it looks like there is a lot of stuff going on. We have a possible Vice Prime Minister Sarah Paulin that has answered to the possibility to engage a war with the Russia in the case Georgia is in the NATO:

“Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a Nato ally, if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”

The best one is when she said going in Iraq was a mission of God. Now tell me, what is the difference between this kind of idea and the one from the terrorism that is doing an “holy war” as a justification?

If the bombs is in on a backpack or is dropping from the sky who is going to die is always a human being.

It looks like the Venezuelan President Chavez, the prime minister of the Venezuela is really happy to have two airplains from Russia in his country when he said the us ambassador has to leave the country.

The Yankee ambassador to Caracas has 72 hours to leave Venezuela, in solidarity with Bolivia, with the Bolivian people, and with the Bolivian government

Putin has said that he was a right reaction to fight back the Geogiarn. On the other end there is the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev asking for a reinforcement of the alley to fight terrorism with the US.

If it looks like a big mess also to you, I think we have an agreement…

Of course all of this are just technicals tests for the very big important new piece of land, full of petrol that nobody can claim. Yet.

And Europe what is doing in the meantime?

Shutting down flying companies. Neither the train looks good today…

Mendeley: manage your papers and sync them

September 9, 2008 / / 0 Comments

If you are in research you read a huge amount of papers, which you would like to retrieve later according to a keyword, author name, or any other method that works for you.

Right now it’s plenty of this tool around, starting from Papers, to Referencer which is my choice right now. However having your papers available when you don’t have your laptop and having them from an on-line resources is also a good idea and CiteUlike is my solution for now.

One thing that I am really keen to have is a synchronized way to manage this two worlds. Right now SyncUThink is a tool developed to do just that. We even have interviewed the developer some time ago.

mendeley logo

Today a new guy is coming up and it’s called Mendeley. One of the innovative features that this software is able to offer is the automatic synchronization between the offline and the online world.

The software consist of two part, the desktop client and the website. On the website you can have the classical social soul and on the desktop you can use the software to search your papers and find that piece of information that you are looking for.

The Desktop client (Qt based in my case) has a pretty neat interface and the search for authors is one of my favourite tool to search the articles. And the synchronization is only one click away. Pretty slick, isn’t it?

It’s worth to give a shoot.

Note: I discovered this software directly from an e-mail sent to me by Victor. He found this blog when he googled for open science. This made me quite happy :).

Science is way too cool

September 8, 2008 / / 1 Comment

So what is going to happen in Geneva when they are going to switch on the LHC?

Check out this video!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM]

That’s the way we should communicate our science. Science is too cool. Science rocks! (well.. in this case.. raps! ) Science and art. The way to go.

via Network Games

Economia della Felicità

September 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Economia della Felicità
è un libro molto interessante scritto da Luca de Biase.

Il libro mette in discussione il raporto tra i soldi e la felicità, che nella società consumistica di oggi sembra quasi un assunto. Sia chiaro, niente che non era stato capito dalla saggezza popolare “i soldi non fanno la felicità” ma che viene snocciolato ed analizzato in maniera competente e molto interessante.

Quello che mi ha colpito di questo libro è la chiara analisi di un mondo che sta cambiando ogni giorno in cui i media e le relazioni interpersonali stanno esplodendo. Grazie alla possibilità della rete tantissime persone riescono a mettersi in comunicazione ed a creare rapporti di amicizia/collaborazione prima impensabili.

Un’idea di quello che potete trovare nel libro può essere data da questa ottima applicazione worldle che Luca ha utilizzato per generare la cloud world del libro.
tag felicità

Google e i dati personali

September 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Interessantissimo questo post di stormy riguarda alla EULA di chrome e alla cosidetta bontà di google ed il loro motto “don’t be evil”

Riassumendo le compagnie sono compagnie, non hanno volontà o altro. Hanno semplicemente un possessore e possono cambiare la loro idea di come condurre gli affari a seconda del management.

La EULA di chrome gli permette di fare tutto quello che vogliono con quei dati dato il lassissismo del linguaggio usato che la apra a qualsivoglia interpretazione..

Quindi pensateci un attimo. Un attimino solo….

E allora Chrome ma non per linux

September 3, 2008 / / 1 Comment
chrome logo

chrome logo

Se non vivete sotto ad un sasso oramai sapete che google ha rilasciato chrome. Per linux ancora non c’è la release e questo non mi permette di provarlo.

Le considerazioni di TechCrunch sul vero scopo del browser mi sembrano chiare e lucide e ritengo che sia un ottima idea dare un occhio a questo bell’articolo di wired.

Io penso che qualcuno riesca a trovare il modo di renderlo funzionale su linux per stasera tardi (orario del Pacifico.)

Per ora s’attende fiduciosi con firefox che, con i suoi onesti 20 tabs sempre aperti, continua a fare il suo sporco lavoro.

Se gears prende piede (nota che è embedded in chrome) sarebbe paragonabile al salto che c’è stato quando si è passati da browser testuali come lynx a qualcosa come mosaic.

Da notare che è opensource. C’è da dire che usano Webkit per reinderizzare le pagine, quindi erano in qualche modo forzati.