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Category Archives: English

Generating all combinations of n elements taken t at a time

I don’t usually share the code I write for my research projects, unless someone asks for it. Anyway, today I had fun writing some C code, and I think it may turn out to be useful for other people. It’s written almost well enough to be acceptable, so here you are. I implemented Chase’s sequence [...]

Posted on 08 March 2012 † Matteo § FreeBSD § Nerd ‡ Comments (2) °

On Rejections

One has to learn to accept rejections. They trim down your ego, help you put things back in prospective, give you the right amount of hanger to fight back. Not everyone appreciate what we do as we think we appreciate it. Feedback is what make mankind progress, especially the negative but constructive type.Posted from Providence, [...]

Posted on 14 February 2012 † Matteo § University ‡ Comments (0) °

Drops of wisdom, food for thoughts.

I am still reading Vapnik’s The Nature of Statistical Learning Theory. I began reading it a first time in March, but then left it aside for months, so I started over in October. It’s enlightening and a pleasure to read, if one can stay focused. Every now and then, Vapnik lets drops of wit fall [...]

Posted on 15 December 2011 † Matteo § Nerd § University ‡ Comments (0) °

Why doing research?

There is so much I still do not know that I wonder what right I have to try to increase knowledge with my research instead of burying myself in a library and just read what the giants did. I am not limiting this to any specific field: I would like to read about literature, science, [...]

Posted on 19 October 2011 † Matteo § Personal ‡ Comments (0) °

Darkroom night

Tonight I went to the darkroom just to develop one roll of t-max 100 film from the Mamiya 7. Relax, fun, quiet: everything I could ask for. I’m happy that I went even if it was raining and I wasn’t feeling safe on my bike. Photo geek note: I’m in love with my Kodak Process [...]

Posted on 04 October 2011 † Matteo § Nerd § Personal § Photos ‡ Comments (0) °

Speedy update

This is the kind of post I don’t like to write, but I’m writing one now anyway. It’s just to say that I have very little time to blog about “serious” stuff, meaning “to write very/too long posts in Italian with some philosophical references“. My research is taking “away” a lot of time, I started [...]

Posted on 25 September 2011 † Matteo § Personal § University ‡ Comments (0) °

There’s a light in the dark(room)

I’m just back from a printing session in the AS220 Paul Krot Darkroom. I’m just back from four hours of fun. I stink now. I stink of chemicals. I stink of light. My last time in the darkroom was I don’t even know how far in the past, around 18 months probably. My technique is [...]

Posted on 23 August 2011 † Matteo § Photos ‡ Comments (0) °

What being nerd means, from time to time…

I was planning on posting something new about my relationship with photography, but then I got lost tweaking my WordPress installation, upgrading plugins, making sure themes don’t give errors, etc. etc….which means I spent more or less two hours on my wordpress admin panel, on FTP uploads, on editing files in VIM, etc. etc. . [...]

Posted on 21 August 2011 † Matteo § Nerd ‡ Comments (0) °

Are complex theories practical?

The end of my second year as a Ph.D. student is getting close and I must start thinking about a dissertation topic. At least, I already have some ideas about the areas of my dissertation: databases, data mining, and modern statistics and learning theory. The problem of learning drew my interest since I discovered there [...]

Posted on 26 April 2011 † Matteo § University ‡ Comments (0) °

Machine Learning and Theory

This is exactly the point and is where I want to take my research! “Machine Learning has become a very mathematical and statistical-based research area yet the theoretical computer science community hasn’t played the role in this area that we could have.” From a blog post by Lance Fortnow Posted from Providence, Rhode Island, United [...]

Posted on 14 March 2011 † Matteo § University ‡ Comments (0) °